Topic: Military history (Page 18)

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πŸ”— Sovereign Military Order of Malta

πŸ”— Military history πŸ”— Heraldry and vexillology πŸ”— Catholicism πŸ”— Military history/Crusades πŸ”— Military history/Medieval warfare πŸ”— Countries πŸ”— Former countries πŸ”— Military history/National militaries πŸ”— Malta πŸ”— Orders, decorations, and medals

The Sovereign Military Order of Malta (SMOM), officially the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes and of Malta (Italian: Sovrano Militare Ordine Ospedaliero di San Giovanni di Gerusalemme di Rodi e di Malta; Latin: Supremus Militaris Ordo Hospitalarius Sancti Ioannis Hierosolymitani Rhodiensis et Melitensis), commonly known as the Order of Malta, Malta Order or Knights of Malta, is a Catholic lay religious order, traditionally of military, chivalric and noble nature. Though it possesses no territory, the order is a sovereign entity of international law and maintains diplomatic relations with many countries.

SMOM claims continuity with the Knights Hospitaller, a chivalric order that was founded c. 1099 by the Blessed Gerard in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. The order is led by an elected Prince and Grand Master. Its motto is Tuitio fidei et obsequium pauperum ('defence of the faith and assistance to the poor'). The order venerates the Virgin Mary as its patroness, under the title of Our Lady of Philermos. Its modern-day role is largely focused on providing humanitarian assistance and assisting with international humanitarian relations, for which purpose it has had permanent observer status at the United Nations General Assembly since 1994.

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πŸ”— Jewel Voice Broadcast

πŸ”— Military history πŸ”— Military history/World War II πŸ”— Japan πŸ”— Japan/Japanese military history πŸ”— Military history/Asian military history πŸ”— Military history/Japanese military history πŸ”— Japan/History πŸ”— Japan/Royalty and nobility

The Jewel Voice Broadcast (ηŽ‰ιŸ³ζ”Ύι€, Gyokuon-hōsō) was the radio broadcast in which Japanese Emperor Hirohito (Emperor Shōwa ζ˜­ε’Œε€©ηš‡ Shōwa-tennō) read out the Imperial Rescript on the Termination of the Greater East Asia War (ε€§ζ±δΊœζˆ¦δΊ‰η΅‚η΅γƒŽθ©”ζ›Έ, Daitōa-sensō-shΕ«ketsu-no-shōsho), announcing to the Japanese people that the Japanese Government had accepted the Potsdam Declaration demanding the unconditional surrender of the Japanese military at the end of World WarΒ II. This speech was broadcast at noon Japan Standard Time on August 15, 1945.

The speech was probably the first time that an Emperor of Japan had spoken (albeit via a phonograph record) to the common people. It was delivered in the formal, Classical Japanese that few ordinary people could easily understand. It made no direct reference to a surrender of Japan, instead stating that the government had been instructed to accept the terms of the Potsdam Declaration fully. This created confusion in the minds of many listeners who were not sure whether Japan had surrendered. The poor audio quality of the radio broadcast, as well as the formal courtly language in which the speech was composed, worsened the confusion. A digitally remastered version of the broadcast was released on 30 June 2015.

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πŸ”— Blohm and Voss BV 141

πŸ”— Aviation πŸ”— Germany πŸ”— Military history πŸ”— Military history/Military aviation πŸ”— Aviation/aircraft πŸ”— Military history/World War II πŸ”— Military history/German military history πŸ”— Military history/European military history

The Blohm & Voss BV 141 was a World War II German tactical reconnaissance aircraft. It is notable for its uncommon structural asymmetry. Although the Blohm & Voss BV 141 performed well, it was never ordered into full-scale production, for reasons that included the unavailability of the preferred engine and competition from another tactical reconnaissance aircraft, the Focke-Wulf Fw 189.

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πŸ”— Project Habakkuk, Britain's plan to build an aircraft carrier from ice

πŸ”— Technology πŸ”— Military history πŸ”— Military history/Military aviation πŸ”— Military history/North American military history πŸ”— Military history/Military science, technology, and theory πŸ”— Military history/Weaponry πŸ”— Canada πŸ”— Architecture πŸ”— United Kingdom πŸ”— Military history/Maritime warfare πŸ”— Military history/World War II πŸ”— Engineering πŸ”— Ships πŸ”— Military history/Canadian military history πŸ”— Military history/European military history πŸ”— Military history/British military history

Project Habakkuk or Habbakuk (spelling varies) was a plan by the British during the Second World War to construct an aircraft carrier out of pykrete (a mixture of wood pulp and ice) for use against German U-boats in the mid-Atlantic, which were beyond the flight range of land-based planes at that time. The idea came from Geoffrey Pyke, who worked for Combined Operations Headquarters. After promising scale tests and the creation of a prototype on a lake (Patricia Lake, Jasper National Park) in Alberta, Canada, the project was shelved due to rising costs, added requirements, and the availability of longer-range aircraft and escort carriers which closed the Mid-Atlantic gap the project was intended to address.

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πŸ”— Midget submarine

πŸ”— Military history πŸ”— Military history/Maritime warfare πŸ”— Ships

A midget submarine (also called a mini submarine) is any submarine under 150 tons, typically operated by a crew of one or two but sometimes up to 6 or 9, with little or no on-board living accommodation. They normally work with mother ships, from which they are launched and recovered and which provide living accommodation for the crew and support staff.

Both military and civilian midget submarines have been built. Military types work with surface ships and other submarines as mother ships. Civilian and non-combatant military types are generally called submersibles and normally work with surface ships.

Most early submarines would now be considered midget submarines, such as the United States Navy's USSΒ HollandΒ (SS-1) and the British Royal Navy's HMSΒ Holland 1.

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πŸ”— Hafnium Controversy

πŸ”— Military history πŸ”— Military history/North American military history πŸ”— Military history/United States military history πŸ”— Military history/Military science, technology, and theory πŸ”— Military history/Weaponry πŸ”— Physics

The hafnium controversy is a debate over the possibility of 'triggering' rapid energy releases, via gamma ray emission, from a nuclear isomer of hafnium, 178m2Hf. The energy release is potentially 5 orders of magnitude (100,000 times) more energetic than a chemical reaction, but 2 orders of magnitude less than a nuclear fission reaction. In 1998, a group led by Carl Collins of the University of Texas at Dallas reported having successfully initiated such a trigger. Signal-to-noise ratios were small in those first experiments, and to date no other group has been able to duplicate these results. Peter Zimmerman described claims of weaponization potential as having been based on "very bad science".

πŸ”— Kilroy Was Here

πŸ”— Military history πŸ”— Military history/North American military history πŸ”— Military history/United States military history πŸ”— Military history/World War II πŸ”— Graffiti

Kilroy was here is a meme that became popular during World War II, typically seen in graffiti. Its origin is debated, but the phrase and the distinctive accompanying doodle became associated with GIs in the 1940s: a bald-headed man (sometimes depicted as having a few hairs) with a prominent nose peeking over a wall with his fingers clutching the wall.

"Mr Chad" or just "Chad" was the version that became popular in the United Kingdom. The character of Chad may have been derived from a British cartoonist in 1938, possibly pre-dating "Kilroy was here". According to Dave Wilton, "Some time during the war, Chad and Kilroy met, and in the spirit of Allied unity merged, with the British drawing appearing over the American phrase." Other names for the character include Smoe, Clem, Flywheel, Private Snoops, Overby, Eugene the Jeep, Scabooch, and Sapo.

According to Charles Panati, "The outrageousness of the graffiti was not so much what it said, but where it turned up." It is not known if there was an actual person named Kilroy who inspired the graffiti, although there have been claims over the years.

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πŸ”— Western Oil: the US/UK-Backed Iranian Coup D'Γ©tat of 1953

πŸ”— United States/U.S. Government πŸ”— United States πŸ”— Military history πŸ”— Military history/North American military history πŸ”— Military history/United States military history πŸ”— Iran πŸ”— Military history/Intelligence πŸ”— Military history/Middle Eastern military history πŸ”— Project-independent assessment

The 1953 Iranian coup d'Γ©tat, known in Iran as the 28 Mordad coup d'Γ©tat (Persian: کودΨͺای Ϋ²ΫΈ Ω…Ψ±Ψ―Ψ§Ψ―), was the overthrow of Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh on 19 August 1953. Led by the Iranian army and supported by the United States and the United Kingdom, the coup aimed at strengthening the autocratic rule of the shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. A key motive was to protect British oil interests in Iran after its government refused to concede to western oil demands. It was instigated by the United States (under the name TP-AJAX Project or Operation Ajax) and the United Kingdom (under the name Operation Boot). This began a period of dissolution for Iranian democracy and society.

Mosaddegh had sought to audit the documents of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC), a British corporation (now part of BP), to verify that AIOC was paying the contracted royalties to Iran, and to limit the company's control over Iranian oil reserves. Upon the AIOC's refusal to cooperate with the Iranian government, the parliament (Majlis) voted to nationalize Iran's oil industry and to expel foreign corporate representatives from the country. After this vote, Britain instigated a worldwide boycott of Iranian oil to pressure Iran economically. Initially, Britain mobilized its military to seize control of the British-built Abadan oil refinery, then the world's largest, but Prime Minister Clement Attlee (in power until 1951) opted instead to tighten the economic boycott while using Iranian agents to undermine Mosaddegh's government.:β€Š3β€Š Judging Mosaddegh to be unamenable and fearing the growing influence of the communist Tudeh, UK prime minister Winston Churchill and the Eisenhower administration decided in early 1953 to overthrow Iran's government. The preceding Truman administration had opposed a coup, fearing the precedent that Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) involvement would set,:β€Š3β€Š and the U.S. government had been considering unilateral action (without UK support) to assist the Mosaddegh government as late as 1952. British intelligence officials' conclusions and the UK government's solicitations to the US were instrumental in initiating and planning the coup.

Following the coup, a government under General Fazlollah Zahedi was formed which allowed Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the shah of Iran (Persian for 'king'), to rule more firmly as monarch. He relied heavily on United States support to hold on to power. According to the CIA's declassified documents and records, some of the most feared mobsters in Tehran were hired by the CIA to stage pro-shah riots on 19 August. Other men paid by the CIA were brought into Tehran in buses and trucks and took over the streets of the city. Between 200 and 300 people were killed because of the conflict. Mosaddegh was arrested, tried and convicted of treason by the Shah's military court. On 21 December 1953, he was sentenced to three years in jail, then placed under house arrest for the remainder of his life.:β€Š280β€Š Other Mosaddegh supporters were imprisoned, and several received the death penalty. The coup strengthened the Shah's authority, and he continued to rule Iran for the next 26 years as a pro-Western monarch until he was overthrown in the Iranian Revolution in 1979.

In August 2013, the U.S. government formally acknowledged the U.S. role in the coup by releasing a bulk of previously classified government documents that show it was in charge of both the planning and the execution of the coup. According to American journalist Stephen Kinzer, the operation included false flag attacks, paid protesters, provocations, the bribing of Iranian politicians and high-ranking security and army officials, as well as pro-coup propaganda. The CIA is quoted as acknowledging the coup was carried out "under CIA direction" and "as an act of U.S. foreign policy, conceived and approved at the highest levels of government". In 2023, the CIA took credit for the coup, contradicting a previous scholarly assessment that the CIA had botched the operation, though other assessments agreed that America and Britain had engineered the coup.

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πŸ”— Corona reconnaissance satellites

πŸ”— Mass surveillance πŸ”— Spaceflight πŸ”— Military history πŸ”— Military history/North American military history πŸ”— Military history/United States military history πŸ”— Military history/Military science, technology, and theory πŸ”— Military history/Intelligence πŸ”— Cold War

The Corona program was a series of American strategic reconnaissance satellites produced and operated by the Central Intelligence Agency Directorate of Science & Technology with substantial assistance from the U.S. Air Force. The Corona satellites were used for photographic surveillance of the Soviet Union (USSR), the People's Republic of China, and other areas beginning in June 1959 and ending in May 1972.

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πŸ”— Kee Bird

πŸ”— Aviation πŸ”— Military history πŸ”— Military history/Military aviation πŸ”— Military history/North American military history πŸ”— Military history/United States military history πŸ”— Aviation/Aviation accident πŸ”— Aviation/aircraft πŸ”— Military history/Cold War πŸ”— Greenland

The Kee Bird was a United States Army Air Forces Boeing B-29 Superfortress, serial 45-21768, of the 46th Reconnaissance Squadron, that became marooned after making an emergency landing in northwest Greenland during a secret Cold War spying mission on 21 February 1947. While the entire crew was safely evacuated after spending three days in the isolated Arctic tundra, the aircraft itself was left at the landing site. It lay there undisturbed until 1994, when a privately funded mission was launched to repair and return it. During the attempted recovery, a fire broke out, resulting in the destruction and loss of the airframe on the ground.

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