Deaths in August 2022-- Part 9: Scully, Newton-John, Dozier, Heche and Gorbachev

AUGUST

VIN SCULLY, 94

**  A Hall of Fame broadcaster who called thousands of games involving the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers during his 67 years in the booth.  Died August 2.

OLIVIA NEWTON-JOHN, 73

**  Grammy-winning superstar who reigned on pop, country, adult contemporary and dance charts with such hits as "Physical" and "You're the One That I Want" and won countless hearts as everyone's favorite Sandy in the blockbuster film version of "Grease."  Died August 8.

Next to Linda Ronstadt, my second female singer heart throb.

LAMONT DOZIER, 81

**  He was the middle name of the celebrated Holland-Dozier-Holland team that wrote or produced "You Can't Hurry Love,"  "Heat Wave" and dozens of other hits, making Motown an essential record company of the 1960s and beyond.  Died August 8.

I'm a huge Motown fan.

ANNE HECHE, 53

**  Emmy-winning film and television actor whose dramatic Hollywood rise in the 1990s and accomplished career contrasted with chapters of personal turmoil.  Died August14.

MIKHAIL GORBACHEV, 91 

**  As the last leader of the Soviet Union, he set out to revitalize it but ended up unleashing forces that led to the collapse of communism, the breakup of the state and the end of the Cold War,  Died August 30.

I wish he was the Russian leader now and not the current person.

10 Years That Made the Modern World-- Part 2: 1990, 1789, 1905, 1945, 1979

5.  1990

Reunification of Germany,  eventual dissolution of Soviet Union, collapse of Communism across much of globe.  World Wide Web.  Gulf War  Growth of private military.

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4.  1789

French Revolution, political divisions such as left and right,  George Washington wins first presidential election.

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3.  1905

Albert Einstein's Theory of Relativity.  It makes GPS and clocks accurate.  The first Russian Revolution took place.  Russo-Japanese War.

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2.  1945

End of World War II, atom bombs,   beginning U.S.-Soviet Union Cold War.

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1.  1979

Soviet Union invasion of Afghanistan.  Contributed to downfall of Soviet Union and Communism.  The Iranian Revolution.

Things to Think About.  --DaCoot

Deaths in 2019: Soviet Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov

ALEXEI LEONOV, 85

Died October 11, 2019, in Moscow.

In 1965, he became the first person to walk in space and was scheduled to walk on the moon before the Soviet Union abandoned its efforts for a manned lunar landing.

He was a Soviet air force officer chosen in 1959 as part of the first inaugural class of cosmonauts.  At the time, the Soviet Union was leading in the Race to Space.  In 1957, they launched Sputnik, the first satellite to orbit the earth.  In April 1961, Yuri Gagarin, a close friend of Leonov, became the first person in space.

On March 18, 1965, Leonov took that first spacewalk outside his capsule.  His spacewalk lasted just 12 minutes and he came close to dying, but survived.

Man on the Moon-- Part 1: 11 Things You Might Not Know

From the Latest Breaking News "11 Things You Never Knew About Apollo 11."

1.  Did Neil Armstrong put his dead daughter's bracelet on the Moon?  He was out of sight and communication for three minutes while on the moon.

2.  President Kennedy didn't really care that much about the Moon.  In the public he was all gung-ho about it, but wanted to get there before the Soviet Union.

3.  The Apollo 11 team had to sell their autographs to secure insurance for the mission.  Sitting on a flaming rocket propelling into space was not a safe insurance for providers.  To cover insurance, they signed a lot of envelopes and would have their buddies postmark them for July 20, 1969.

These envelopes have sold for as much as $28,500.

--Cooter

10 Bizarre Cold War Tales-- Part 2: Tricking Castro

7.  The Zambian schoolteacher's strange space program.  Zambia sort of had our space program.

6.  The U.S. built an underground nuclear ice fortress in Greenland called Project Iceworm in 1960.

5.  The British annexed a single rock islet called Rockall as a security measure.   It was 70 feet tall near the Falkland Islands.

4.  The Soviet Union tricked Castro into giving up his nuclear missiles during the Cuban Missile Crisis.  It did not end when the Soviets agreed to remove the missiles in October 1962.  The true ending was November 22, 1962, when the Soviet Union tricked Castro.

--DaCootIce

Warning Signs On the Road to Pearl Harbor-- Part 2: Interim Years and Japanese Expansion

1931:  September 18:  Japan invades Manchuria and sets up a puppet regime.

1936, February 26:  Military extremists fail to overthrow the Japanese government, which had struggled with the country's failing economy since the implosion of world markets.

Military officers and conservatives press for aggressive expansion in Asia as a Japanese right.

November 25:  Japan and Germany sign Anti-Comintern Pact as an alliance against the Soviet Union.

This will be continued on today's Not So Forgotten War of 1812 blog.  All of my blogs today will be about Pearl Harbor.

--DaCoot

Deaths in 2013: Mikhail Kalashnikov, Rifle Designer, AK-47

Age 94.  Wanted to make farm equipment, but ended up harvesting a lot of blood with his AK-47 assault rifle, the world's most popular firearm.

Mr. Kalashnikov felt personally untroubled by his contribution to history and blamed wars on politicians.

The AK-47, Avtomat Kalashikov went into production, though not especially accurate, it was extremely rugged and simple.  It was favored by guerrillas, terrorists and soldiers.  There are an estimated 100 million in the world.

During the Vietnam War, American soldiers would throw away their M-16s and grab AK-47s and bullets from dead Vietnamese soldiers.

These guns were suitable for jungle or desert warfare.

Born in Siberia and joined the Red Army in 1930 and showed mechanical skills in inventing modifications to Soviet tanks.  In 1941, at the Battle of Bryansk, a shell hit his tank.  While recovering from his wounds in a hospital he began brooding about the superior German automatic weapons and began tinkering.

Thus, the world had his namesake rifle.

Here's a Bit of Space History You Can Own

From the March 20th Detroit Free Press.

Alright, it was something from space from the other side, but still a real piece of history.

Soviet Space History on the Block.

In April, Sotheby's is putting the Soviet Union's VOSTOK 3KA2 up for auction and expecting to get $10 million for it. It orbited earth once back on March 25, 1961, hey, just over 30 years ago.

A life-sized cosmonaut mannequin and a live dog spent two hours in space, then landed in a field 700 miles from Moscow.

Three weeks later, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin went up in an identical space ship and became the first human to go into outer space.

By the way, in case you're wondering what happened to the dog, named Zvezdocha, it survived.

I would bid on it, but my extra funds are tied up filling my gas tank.

Besides, I Bet My Subdivison Organization Wouldn't Let Me Put It Out on My Lawn Anyway. --Cooter

German World War II Ammunition Barge Found

The June 3rd BBC reports that Russia has found a German World War II barge loaded with over 10,000 shells in the Baltic Sea less than a mile off the port of Baltiysk, Russia, located in the small part of Russia located between Poland and Lithuania.

These shells contain explosives but lack detonators. It is expected to take 2 years to remove them. The ship has been fully surveyed and is not in a shipping lane so doesn't pose much of a threat.

The shells will be taken ashore and exploded.

Intense fighting occurred in the area during World War II. Before the war it was part of Germany, but was captured by the advancing Red Army near the end of it.

Don't Go Swimming in That Water. --DaCoot