August 14

1457 –The Mainz Psalter – a volume containing the Book of Psalms – the second book to be printed on movable type, is published by Johann Fust and Peter Schoeffer

1480 – After falling to a siege by an invading moslem Ottoman army on the 11th of the month, the people of Otranto, Italy who refuse to convert to islam are slaughtered.

1720 – The Spanish military Villasur Expedition is nearly wiped out by Pawnee and Otoe warriors near present day Columbus, Nebraska.

1842 – The Second Seminole War ends, with the Seminoles removed from Florida to the Indian Territory, modern Oklahoma.

1848 – The Oregon Territory is organized by act of Congress.

1851 – John Henry ‘Doc’ Holliday is born in Griffin, Georgia.

1880 – Construction of the Cathedral Church of Saint Peter in Cologne, Germany, begun almost to the day in 1248, is officially completed.

1914 – A French army offensive to recover the province of Moselle from Germany begins

1916 – Romania declares war on Austria-Hungary.

1935 – Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Social Security Act

1936 – Rainey Bethea is hanged in Owensboro, Kentucky in the last known public execution in the United States.

1945 – Emperor Hirohito records the Imperial Rescript on the Termination of the Greater East Asia War and instructs the government to transmit to the Allies the full acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration and surrender of Japan. 
A group of Imperial Army officers begin an attempt at a coup d’état to stop the surrender, confiscate the recording and occupy the Imperial Palace.

1959 – The first official meeting of the American Football League is held in Chicago.

1980 – Lech Wałęsa forms the “Solidarność” – Solidarity – trade union and orders a strike at the shipyards in Gdańsk, Poland.

2003 – A widescale power blackout affects the northeast United States and Canada.

2013 – UPS Airlines cargo flight 1354, an Airbus A300, crashes short of the runway at Birmingham–Shuttlesworth International Airport in Alabama, killing both crew members on board.

2015 – The US Embassy in Havana, Cuba reopens after 54 years of being closed when Cuba–United States relations were broken off.

2021 –  President Biden’s plan to quickly withdraw U.S forces from Afghanistan collapses into chaos, as troops are ordered to abandon large quantities materiel, equipment, arms and numerous U.S. citizens and allied Afghans as they retreat to within the perimeter of the Hamid Karzai airport and are surrounded by Taliban forces entering Kabul.

Economic Expert: ‘Transitory’ Inflation Enters 31st Month, and It’s Not Going Away.

“Our income is falling even as the thieves who took away our prosperity continue to masquerade as people we can trust to solve the problems that they created,” Jeffrey Tucker observes soberly about America’s economic and monetary situation.

Tucker, Brownstone Institute founder and president, wrote an op-ed that was published Friday in The Epoch Times. He noted that the inflation problem continues and the dollar is likely to lose half its value by the 2030s. Basically, Biden’s economic policies and the Federal Reserve created a crisis, and it’s not getting any better.

“The Consumer Price Index came out this morning and it showed no improvement over last month,” Tucker wrote. “It is still rocking at 3.2 percent with new strength in food and medicine. The sticky index is frustratingly high too at 5.4 percent.”

As we face the 31st month of “transitory” inflation, we’ve also have almost that long a period in the Federal Reserve’s “war on inflation by raising rates higher and faster than in the whole history of the institution,” Tucker continued. “That said, in real terms, federal funds rates are still barely above zero. That’s because inflation is still rocking and eating away the dollar’s purchasing power.”

The purchasing power of the U.S. dollar is declining at a somewhat less rapid rate than it was as of a year ago, Tucker noted. But the dollar is still declining, not hitting the Fed’s target. “Prices are nowhere near going back to 2019 levels but instead it all keeps getting worse,” he wrote. “We have now lost 16 cents from its value at the start of Trump’s last year of his presidency. The mad money printing has taken a terrible toll. All of the value of the transfer payments from 2020 and 2021 have completely vanished.”

According to Tucker, “the Fed has done everything it knows to do in order to bring this under control,” although the Fed also created the problem to begin with by “enabling” a Congressionally-authorized spending spree. And the “clean-up” after the “fire” didn’t go particularly well; we all know that from our own experience. Tucker gave a technical explanation of velocity, or “a measure of the pace at which money is spent,” and how the pace of spending now is fueling inflation and is not likely to improve soon. But velocity isn’t under the Fed’s control, either.

Tucker insisted, “If velocity continues to increase like this, we are looking at years of price increases at 3 percent and higher. And that is presuming no sudden surprises.” Unfortunately, he noted, Americans seem to be getting used to the inflation pain. It hurts, but we’re starting to accept it as normal. That’s how “transitory inflation” turns into a permanent state of affairs, Tucker stated:

At the current pace of decline, we can expect the 2020 dollar to keep falling in value, so that it will be worth half its value by the time we reach the 2030s. Keep in mind that this is a tax that wrecks the standard of living of the middle class and the poor while enriching the people and institutions that can afford to endure the storm…

This is exactly what has happened to gas prices. In the long sweep, it has only increased in price but right now it feels not so bad. This is entirely in your head. The reality is that you are being pillaged.

Gas prices could eventually reach their old highs but by this time, you will have been so bruised and bloodied that you will be no longer screaming in pain. In short, our masters are trying to acculturate us to suffering so that we will no longer have the strength to protest.

One thing Tucker does not address is how the dollar is weakening internationally even as the Chinese yuan rises, and multiple countries start to turn from the U.S. dollar as standard world reserve currency. Could that “de-dollarization” pushed by Communist China also spell serious trouble for the future value of the dollar? Probably.

Ultimately, however, the conclusion is the same: it’s ordinary Americans who suffer most from inflation and the dollar’s loss of value.

 Lilly and Scowcroft Were Wrong in 1989. Let’s Not Be Wrong in 2023
A Lifeline to China is a Mistake.

Brent Scowcroft was a great American, as was Lawrence Eagleburger. Both served our country well throughout their lives. Except once.

June 4th, 1989, the Communist Party of China unleashed a slaughter and then round-up of activists and students who had bravely demanded a more democratic China. Less than 6 weeks later, while bodies of students were still in Beijing morgues, Scowcroft and Eagleburger, encouraged by James Lilly, and of course with the full backing of then President George H. Bush, undertook a secret mission to Beijing to let the butchers know, “we’ve got your back”.

Alternative historical timelines are somewhat useless, however, judgments about the actions of government officials are open to scrutiny, and I am more than willing to argue that the olive branch along with the tarp, to cover the bodies of the Tiananmen students, delivered by Mr. Eagleburger and Mr. Scowcroft, was a mistake. China was on the ropes, the Soviet Union was going down fast, and what could have been the end of the Communist Party, or at least a serious shake-up, was an opportunity missed for reasons that really don’t add up, other than then President Bush, and policy hands like Ambassador James Lilly, thought stability in China was preferred over change. A move where the only recorded beneficiary was the Carlyle Group.

We are now at that crossroads again, and once again, we have the engagement crowd telling us that it’s much better for us for to let the Party of Xi escape, with our assistance, rather than face the music of the last nine years of economic mismanagement.

Whether it’s slithering Hank Greenberg, Kissinger, or even our newest US China policy maker, Australian Ambassador to the US Kevin Rudd, the bail out China brigade is out in full force.

I disagree.

Unless the engagement fellows have figured out a way to increase the Chinese birth rate, solve the problems of communism, and found some path for the Communist Party to allow an investment that is not a gift, then we are wasting our time.

Xi put them in this mess, and it’s his mess to sort. The idea that we need some type of Marshall Plan to help the Communist Party save itself, so they don’t turn into bad guys and invade the rest of Asia is sadly lacking an understanding of exactly what totalitarians have done throughout history.

I’m not advocating to isolate, or to even cut off trade with China, but if they want to trade, then they can trade like adults, and not always based on the premise that the United States and the European Union are their supplicants.

It’s been the common thread from the China hands for the last 30 years that China is a place that only changes on its own, and we, the West, can only watch and encourage them to go in the better direction. Sounds right to me. Xi made the mud, let him, on his own, clean it up.

There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals.
Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them.
– Ayn Rand

Oh England…………

Girl arrested over ‘lesbian nana’ comment will face no further action, police say

Police officer to whom the ‘lesbian nana’ comment was directed by teenager arrested for homophobic public order offence - TikTok/@nikitasnow84

Police officer to whom the ‘lesbian nana’ comment was directed by teenager arrested for homophobic public order offence – TikTok/@nikitasnow84© Provided by The Telegraph

A16-year-old girl arrested in Leeds after being accused of making a homophobic remark to a police officer will face no further action, West Yorkshire Police said.

A video uploaded to TikTok by her mother showed the autistic teenager being detained by seven officers outside her home in Leeds in the early hours of Monday Aug 7.

The force also said it will “take on board any lessons to be learned” after the footage of the arrest sparked criticism on social media.

The mother posted on TikTok: “This is what police do when dealing with autistic children. My daughter told me the police officer looked like her nana, who is a lesbian.

“The officer took it the wrong way and said it was a homophobic comment [it wasn’t].

“The officer then entered my home. My daughter was having panic attacks from being touched by them and they still continued to manhandle her.”

‘Releases girl from her bail’

A statement released by police on Friday said: “In relation to an incident in Leeds on Monday, where a 16-year-old girl was arrested on suspicion of a homophobic public order offence, West Yorkshire Police has now reviewed the evidence and made the decision to take no further action.

“This concludes the criminal investigation and immediately releases the girl from her bail. Her family has been updated.

“West Yorkshire Police’s Professional Standards Directorate is continuing to carry out a review of the circumstances after receiving a complaint in relation to the incident.”

Assistant Chief Constable Oz Khan said: “We recognise the significant level of public concern that this incident has generated, and we have moved swiftly to fully review the evidence in the criminal investigation which has led to the decision to take no further action.

“Without pre-empting the outcome of the ongoing review of the circumstances by our Professional Standards Directorate, we would like to reassure people that we will take on board any lessons to be learned from this incident.

“We do appreciate the understandable sensitivities around incidents involving young people and neurodiversity and we are genuinely committed to developing how we respond to these often very challenging situations.”

August 13

1521 – Spanish troops led by conquistador Hernán Cortés capture Emperor Tlatoani Cuauhtémoc and conquer the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan.

1553 – Michael Servetus is arrested by John Calvin in Geneva on charges of heresy.

1624 – Louis XIII appoints Cardinal Armand Jean du Plessis, Duke de Richelieu as prime minister.

1779 – The Royal Navy defeats the Penobscot Expedition in the Penobscot Bay near Castine, Maine, resulting in the most significant loss of United States naval forces prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor.

1806 – Serbian Revolutionary forces under ‘Karađorđe’ Petrović engage and defeat an invading Ottoman army near Mišar, Serbia

1860 – Phoebe ‘Annie Oakley’ Mosey is born at home in Woodland, Ohio

1889 – William Gray of Hartford, Connecticut is granted United States Patent Number 408,709 for a “Coin-controlled apparatus for telephones”

1898 – Spanish and American forces engage in a mock battle for Manila, after which the Spanish commander surrendered in order to keep the city out of Filipino rebel hands.

1918 – Opha May Johnson is the first woman to enlist in the United States Marine Corps

1942 – Major General Eugene Reybold of the Corps of Engineers authorizes the construction of facilities for the “Development of Substitute Materials” (U-235) later named the Manhattan Project.

1945 – American forces resume conventional air raids target in Japan and also drop leaflets describing the Japanese offer of surrender and the Allied response.

1961 – East Germany closes the border between the eastern and western sectors of Berlin and starts construction of the Berlin Wall

1967 – Two park employees, Julie Helgeson and Michele Koons, become the first fatal victims of grizzly bear attacks at Montana’s Glacier National Park since its founding in 1910.

1969 – The Apollo 11 astronauts enjoy a ticker tape parade in New York City and are later awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom

2020 – As part of the Abraham Accords,  mediated by President Trump, for the first time, formal diplomatic relations are established between Israel and the United Arab Emirates.

Orthodox Jewish camp in Schoharie County sues to keep its guns in place
Administrators at TheZone summer camp have concealed-carry permits and are requesting an injunction to a new state law

GILBOA — New York’s gun rights activists are a diverse lot, ranging from rural hunters and Second Amendment supporters to Black pastors in urban churches who say they want to protect their flocks from armed white supremacists.

Now, the operators of an Orthodox Jewish summer camp have joined the gun rights debate, with a lawsuit seeking an injunction that, despite a contested state law, would let them continue to be armed for self-defense.

Eliyohu Mintz, CEO of TheZone summer camp, and camp Administrator Eric Schwartz cited numerous anti-Semitic threats as a reason they should be allowed to continue to carry concealed weapons despite a recent tightening of state gun control laws.

“New York State’s fabrication of ‘gun free’ zones through the enactment of the Concealed Carry Improvement Act in 2022 calculatedly leaves our most vulnerable people — children — defenseless and at the mercy of violent and predatory evildoers,” reads a legal action seeking an injunction against the new rule.

Mintz and Schwartz, who both have concealed-carry gun licenses, have gone to Federal Northern District Court seeking permission to keep carrying their guns at the summer camp.

In their injunction request, they name Schoharie County District Attorney Susan Mallery; Sheriff Ronald Stevens and Steven Nigrelli, the acting State Police superintendent, as defendants.

Oorah Gun Case by rkarlin on Scribd

Milwaukee teen shot, killed 16-year-old who attempted to rob him at gunpoint

MILWAUKEE — In what’s been reported as an act of self-defense, an 18-year-old allegedly shot and killed a 16-year-old who was trying to rob him and at least one other person at gunpoint near N 87th St & W Silver Spring Dr on Friday morning.

As reported by the Milwaukee Police Department and our news partners at TMJ4, authorities were alerted to a double-shooting near Valhalla Memorial Park around 10:40 a.m. on Friday, August 11. Investigators found that the suspect, an armed 16-year-old, attempted to rob at least two people at gunpoint.

However, one of the victims — an 18-year-old — was also armed at the time. The two individuals allegedly exchanged gunfire, leaving the 16-year-old robbery suspect with a fatal wound that eventually claimed his life.

The robbery victim was also hurt in the exchange, though the extent of his injuries were never deemed life-threatening. He was transported to the nearest hospital for emergency treatment and evaluation. No further details on his current condition have been revealed.

Milwaukee police officials say they are also looking for another suspect. However, none of the people involved — the late suspect, the suspect at large, or the victim — have been identified at this stage of the process.

Phoenix man shoots home invader in self-defense

PHOENIX — A Phoenix homeowner shot a man accused of breaking into his home early Thursday morning, the city’s police department said.

Officers were called to a home near 45th Avenue and Shaw Butte Drive shortly before 1 a.m., where they found a man suffering from a serious but non-life-threatening gunshot wound.

Investigators learned that he was “shot after he entered into the house of the victim.” Authorities said they believe the shooting was self-defense, and did not arrest the homeowner.

Police have not identified the suspect.

August 12

30BC – Cleopatra Philopator Antoninus commits suicide purportedly by being bit by an asp.

1099 – The last battle of the First Crusade near Ascalon is a victory for Crusaders under the command of Godfrey of Bouillon over the army of Al-Afdal Shahanshah

1121 – The last battle of the Georgian Crusade near Didgori is a victory for the Georgian army of King David IV over the Seljuk army of Najm ad-Din Ilghazi

1164 – Near Harim Syria, the army of Nur ad-Din Zangi defeats the combined Crusader armies of the County of Tripoli, the Principality of Antioch, the Byzantine Empire, and Armenia.

1492 – Christopher Columbus arrives in the Canary Islands to rest and restock supplies before continuing on his first voyage to the new world.

1499 – The first naval engagement of the Battle of Zanchio begins between Venetian and Ottoman fleets.

1687 – The army of the Holy Roman empire, commanded by Charles of Lorraine defeats the Ottoman army of Sultan Mehmed IV commanded by Sari Süleyman Paşa near Nagyharsány Hill between Mohács and Siklós castle, Hungary.

1851 – Isaac Singer is granted a patent for his sewing machine.

1861 – Eliphalet Remington dies at home in Ilion New York.

1865 – Joseph Lister performs the first surgery under his antiseptic protocols

1881 – Cecil B. DeMille is born in Ashfield, Massachusetts

1898 – The Republic of Hawaii is formally annexed by the United States

1914 – The United Kingdom, and the rest of the British Empire, declares war on Austria-Hungary

1944 – In retaliation for Italian Resistance operations, Waffen SS troops massacre 560 people in Sant’Anna di Stazzema, Italy

1945 – Several officers of the Japanese Imperial Army meet with War Minister Korechika Anami requesting he do whatever he can to prevent acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration. Refusing to confirm he would do so, the officers decide they have no choice but to attempt a coup d’état.
The U.S. announces that it would accept the Japanese surrender, making clear that Hirohito could remain emperor only in a purely ceremonial capacity.

1950 – North Korean Army troops massacre 75 American POWs west of Masan, South Korea

1960 – Echo 1A, manufactured by Bell Labs, NASA’s first successful communications satellite, is launched from Cape Canaveral.

1977 –  Shuttle Enterprise, an unpowered test version, piloted by former astronaut Fred Haise and future astronaut Gordon Fullerton, is separated in flight from the 747 jet carrying it aloft, and is flown on its own for the first time.

1981 – The IBM Personal Computer is released.

1990 –  Air Force SSG John Campisi of the 55th Organizational Maintenance Squadron is struck and killed by a vehicle, becoming the first U.S. service member to die in Operation Desert Shield.

1992 – Canada, Mexico and the United States announce completion of negotiations for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

1994 – Major League Baseball players go on strike, forcing the cancellation of the 1994 World Series.

2014 – American actress Betty “Lauren Bacall” Bogart, dies at her apartment in New York City, age 89

‘Man-made climate change’ is ‘manufactured nonsense’ driven by profit motive: climate change scientist

A once darling of the climate alarmism community-turned skeptic climate scientist Judith Curry told John Stossel that the “man-made climate change” narrative is a “manufactured consensus” because researchers found that they could make money pushing it.

The video released on Tuesday pointed out how some scientists take aggressive attempts to hide data that shows that climate change isn’t a crisis. She said they do “Ugly things” such as “Avoiding Freedom of Information Act requests. Trying to get journal editors fired.”

“The origins go back to the…U.N. environmental program,” Curry said about the “climate changed industry.” She noted that some UN officials were motivated by “anti-capitalism. They hated the oil companies and seized on the climate change issue to move their policies along.”

She pointed to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which was set up “to look for dangerous human-caused climate change” and “not focus on any benefits of warming.”

Curry discussed how science journals aided in promoting one side of the narrative. She pointed to an instance of an editor of the journal “Science” who once wrote, “The time for debate has ended” in a political rant.

“What kind of message does that give?” she asked. Then said it promotes “the alarming papers! Don’t even send the other ones out for review. If you wanted to advance in your career, like be at a prestigious university and get a big salary, have big laboratory space, get lots of grant funding, be director of an institute, there was clearly one path to go.”

Curry was highly promoted after she published a study that showed an increase in hurricane intensity. She said, “We found that the percent of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes had doubled.”

“This was picked up by the media, alarmists said ‘Oh, here is the way to do it.’ Tie extreme weather events to global warming!” she added.

Curry said after that she was “treated like a rockstar.” She added that she was “Flown all over the place to meet with politicians.”

However, it was after seeing critics of her work point to other periods with lower levels of hurricanes that she went back to investigate. She said it turns out “Part of it was bad data. Part of it is natural climate variability.”

The man-made climate change narrative has shifted public policy on a global level. The Biden administration has a goal to reduce greenhouse admissions by 50 percent by 2030. A goal that has cost taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars to meet it. The administration gave the Environmental protection agency $576 billion in the 2022 omnibus spending bill.

Climate czar John Kerry recently claimed that their climate policies were not rooted in ideology but “math, mathematics, and science, about physics.” In June, Multnomah County in Oregon filed a lawsuit against oil companies, alleging that they caused a heat wave in 2021.

To the Knife

Not exactly sure of where I read this distillation of Walter Russell Meade’s definition of the Jacksonian attitude to conflict – possibly at Ace of Spates HQ, or maybe Bayou Renaissance Man, but the phrase stuck with me as soon as I read it. Basically, the average middle-to-working class Jacksonian American who just wants seriously to be left alone has only two settings when it comes to threatened conflict: “Can’t we just work out a way to settle this?” and “War to the knife and no quarter.”

There is no dial setting, which can be moved up or down; there is only “off” and “on.” And it takes a hell of a lot of provocation to flip that switch from ‘off’ to ‘on’. I cannot help wondering of late how close that flip is, with regard to racial aggression – what with feral black hoodlums making certain cities and neighborhoods basically unlivable for all – black, white, Asian, whatever. Making public transportation a thing to avoid unless totally desperate – you know, like the New York City subway system. With teachers of color feeling free to display their vicious racism on social media. With the crushing hand of DEI in the corporate and academic worlds, with the blatant twisting of American history by the never-to-be-sufficiently-condemned 1619 Project, the national establishment media (and local affiliates) turning themselves into triple-pretzel knots trying to paper over the stats of which race is actually committing the out-of-proportion to their representation in the overall population numbers of robbery, rape and murder… even just all-hands brawls in fast-food restaurants and amusement venues. Read in the media headlines of a senseless shooting, a mass looting of a neighborhood corner store or a punch-out in a Waffle House or McDonalds? Yeah, we know with a high degree of accuracy the color of those involved, once we scroll past the headline, and say to ourselves, “Yep – about what I thought.”

I should add, for the benefit of progressives snorkeling through the pool of conservative bloggers and commentors in this corner of the internet searching for risible tidbits which can be construed as ‘the-most-raaaaacist-evah!’ to tantalize the woke mob with fresh meat; this soon-to-be-end-of-patience does most definitely not apply to those friends, co-workers, fellow parishioners, and neighbors who happen to be of that year-round dark tan color, but are alike in devotion to the principles of fair play, good manners, rewards based on ability, and the guiding precepts of our Constitution. Such fellow good citizens are not the problem. Trust me – we know the difference. It is that unholy and dysfunctional unity that we are close to being out of all toleration for; black urban criminality, the community leaders who give them cover and space, and the intellectuals who spin all kinds of airy justification for it in the media, in college lecture halls and in mandatory corporate and government DIE classes.

I don’t know where or when the precipitating incident will come, or even if there will be just one single event that galvanizes a response. In my opinion, it will be a cluster of independently-occurring events or small incidents: the pair of Sikh employee/owners beating the snot out of a serial robber in Stockton, California, the dentist who got internet-mobbed for allegedly hosting a back yard party mocking Juneteenth and has since filed a defamation lawsuit … small feathers in the wind.

August 11

480BC – Ephialtes betrays his countrymen and guides Persian forces led by Hydarnes over a mountain track to the rear of the Greeks defending Thermopylae from invasion.

106 – The southwestern part of Dacia -modern Romania -becomes a Roman province.

1315 – After the end of the Medieval Warm Period in the previous century, and following bad spring weather, crop failures cause a general famine across Europe lasting for 7 years.

1813 – In what is now modern day Columbia, Juan del Corral declares the independence of Antioquia province from Spain.

1898 – During the Puerto Rico campaign of the Spanish–American War, U.S. troops occupy the city of Mayagüez.

1929 – Babe Ruth becomes the first baseball player to hit 500 home runs in his career with a home run at League Park in Cleveland, Ohio.

1934 – The first civilian prisoners arrive at the Federal prison on Alcatraz Island.

1942 – Actress Hedy Lamarr and composer George Antheil receive a patent for a frequency-hopping spread spectrum radio “Secret Communications System” to be used for secure communications.

1945 – U.S. Secretary of State James F. Byrnes replies to Japan’s offer of a conditional surrender with a refusal to compromise on the demand that the surrender be unconditional. The Soviets also invade South Sakhalin island.

1965 – Race riots begin in the Watts area of Los Angeles, California.

1969 – The Apollo 11 astronauts are released from a 3 week quarantine following their return from the moon.

1972 – The last personnel of the United States Army’s 3rd Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment leaves South Vietnam

1982 – A bomb explodes on Pan Am Flight 830, a Boeing 747, en route from Tokyo, Japan to Honolulu, Hawaii, killing 1 passenger and injuring 16 others.

1984 – While preparing to make his weekly Saturday address on National Public Radio, President Ronald Reagan jokes: “My fellow Americans, I’m pleased to tell you today that I’ve signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.”

1992 – The last personnel of the United States Army’s 19th Maintenance Battalion leaves Germany, enroute to their new station at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, in support of the 214th Field Artillery Brigade.

2003 – NATO takes over command of the peacekeeping force in Afghanistan, marking its first major operation outside Europe at the time.

2014 – Actor Robin Williams commits suicide at his home in Paradise Cay, California