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paralleljulieverse · 6 years

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It is common knowledge that Star! –– the spectacular 1968 Julie Andrews musical currently celebrating its 50th anniversary –– underwent substantial editing in the wake of its ill-fated US release. Dismayed by the film’s poor box-office and panicked by the rapid downturn in the domestic movie market, Fox executives ordered a series of increasingly drastic cuts to Star!, culminating in the film’s ignominious withdrawal from distribution in June 1969 and subsequent re-release four months later in a radically shortened, re-titled version as Those Were The Happy Times (formerly known as Star!) (Edwards 1993; Holston: 220-21). This sorry tale of post-release hatcheting is part of the historical legend of Star! and also part of its unjust reputation as “the H-bomb of musicals” (Kanfer: 78).

What is possibly less well-known is that Star! underwent select trimming before its release, as well. At the end of the film’s post-production in April 1968, director Robert Wise had assembled a working rough cut that was shown to studio personnel and test-screened with two preview audiences in Cleveland and Denver in early-May. The response was overwhelmingly positive. Of the 814 preview cards received, 633 rated the film “excellent”, 146 “good” and only 3 marked it “bad” (Edwards). Nevertheless, Wise and editor, William Reynolds, went back to make a number of further adjustments to the film ahead of its global premiere in London in July 1968. Much of this late-stage editing work was relatively minor –– pruning a shot here and there in order to tighten pacing –– but several short narrative scenes were also cut in their entirety.

None of this material was particularly significant and, given that the final roadshow release of Star! ended up with a marathon running time of 176 minutes –– enough to “test the patience of even those of us enamored with Andrews, musicals, and showbiz dramas” (Betancourt, 2014) –– the cuts were possibly all-to-the-good. Still, it is not difficult to see what these excised scenes were designed to achieve and, in some respects, their loss exacerbated problematic aspects of the film’s narrative complexion.

What follows is a brief catalogue of the major scenes dropped from Star! They are presented in order of where they originally occurred in narrative sequence. For the most part, details are taken from the final shooting version of the screenplay by William Fairchild, dated 25 January 1967, and augmented where possible with archival material.

A further sense of where and how these “lost scenes” functioned narratively is provided by the paperback novelization of Star! by Bob Thomas (1968). As discussed in a previous post, novelizations were a popular feature of film culture in the 1960s and 70s. Because they had to be written well in advance of a film’s release, novelizations were typically adapted from shooting scripts and rough cuts and, as with Bob Thomas’s adaptation of Star!, they frequently include narrative material that didn’t always make the final cut.

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Lost Scene 1: Gertie and the Singing Doughboys

Screenplay Scenes 35-36, 38 (filmed 19 September 1967, Stage 22, 20th Century-Fox Studios) This short sequence occurred immediately after Gertie makes her stagedoor flight from the disastrous Daffodil Girls music-hall performance in Swansea (“In My Garden of Joy”). In it, Gertie is shown hitching a ride with a military supplies lorry back to London in search of better opportunities. An establishing external shot (35) shows the lorry rumbling down a country road past a “London 34 miles” signpost, followed by an internal shot (36) of the driver’s cabin with Gertie sandwiched between two young soldiers in uniform, all singing a lively chorus of “Oh, It’s a Lovely War” (Fairchild: 25; Thomas: 26). In earlier versions of the screenplay, this short sequence was preceded by a number of additional scenes (33-34) showing Gertie working odd jobs and sleeping in a train station but these were dropped prior to production and never filmed. A further shot (38) that was filmed but subsequently cut during postproduction occurred in the ensuing scene where Gertie arrives in London and sneaks her way into the Lumley Court Theatre in the hope of auditioning for André Charlot. As she stops in the theatre alleyway, Gertie looks up at the poster advertising the new Charlot revue and whispers to herself “quietly but with complete confidence, ’…With Gertrude Lawrence!’” (Fairchild: 28).

While minor, this cut material clearly worked to underscore Gertie’s driving ambition and her determination to do whatever it takes to realise her dreams of stardom.

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Lost Scene 2: Gertie and Billie Carleton

Screenplay Scene 53 (filmed 29 April 1967, Stage 14, 20th Century-Fox Studios) This scene followed Gertie’s triumphant ‘understudy’ performance of “Burlington Bertie”. After the narrational newsreel footage detailing Armistice Day celebrations and the return of star Billie Carleton to the theatre, Billie is seen backstage surrounded by well-wishers from the troupe. Gertie appears from one of the dressing rooms and comes up to greet Billie with ‘star’ and ‘understudy’ indulging in affectionately bitchy repartee. Played with camp theatricality and lashings of “dahhhlings” and air kisses, the scene highlighted Gertie’s growing sense of hauteur and theatrical confidence, while emphasising her thwarted ambitions. It thus helped preface the later confrontation scene (55) between Gertie and first husband, Jack Roper where he complains, “ever since you’ve been put back in the chorus, it’s been nothing but belly-aching!” (Fairchild: 52).

Interestingly, this sequence between Gertie and Billie was the only sustained dialogue scene to feature Lynley Laurence, the actress who plays Billie Carleton in Star!. With its excision, Laurence’s role was reduced to a handful of mostly non-speaking scenes, though she would still receive a special featured screen credit in the final film.

As another interesting aside, the dialogue for the cut scene has Billie Carleton joke that Gertie likely wishes “I’d broken my neck”. The real-life Carleton did in fact die not long after the events depicted here. Following a gala ball at the Albert Hall to celebrate Armistice on 27 November 1918, Carleton returned to her suite at the Savoy Hotel where she was found dead the next day from a cocaine overdose. It was a huge scandal at the time that subsequently formed the basis for Noël Coward’s first hit play, The Vortex (1924) about drug abuse and sexual impropriety in English high society (Hoare: 37-39).

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Lost Scene 3: Gertie and Sir Anthony Go Boating

Screenplay Scene 61 (filmed 29 June, Regent’s Park, London; and 23-24 August 1967, Stage 21, and 8 September, Stage 22, 20th Century-Fox Studios) This was the first of several cut scenes detailing Gertie’s blossoming romance with Sir Anthony ‘Tony’ Spencer (Michael Craig) and, with it, her rise in social status. Immediately following their first dinner date where Gertie alternately titillates and shocks the assembled society guests with ribald theatre stories, Gertie and Tony go on a ‘date’ to the boating lake at Regent’s Park (Fairchild: 60-61). As the pair sit in the rowboat, Tony explains the history of the Park in florid detail as Gertie looks glum and distracted. “Words!”, she says dejectedly, “I look at things and all I can say is –– they’re nice!…You’ve got to teach me more words”, thus highlighting her recognition of the need for increased social sophistication. After a further exchange, Gertie moves in to give Tony a kiss when the rocking of the boat throws her into his arms.

The allusion in this scene to linguistic training sets up a marked Pygamalion / My Fair Lady dynamic with Tony cast as a Professor Higgins-type figure –– albeit, more “patient and kind and wonderful” –– who helps mentor Gertie in the ways of aristocratic high society. There is even a pointed reference in the dialogue to Gertie’s background as a Cockney. Traces of this dynamic remain in the final film, notably in the scene where Gertie arrives at Cesare’s in her new gown and, responding to a compliment about the dress, starts to say “It is rather nice…” when she catches Tony’s eye and quickly corrects herself, “…er…divine, isn’t it?” (Fairchild: 64).

This scene on the lake involved considerable strategic planning during filming. At the end of a one week period of location shooting in the south of France in June 1967, the production crew proceeded to London for the next stage of filming. Julie, however, flew back to Hollywood, ostensibly to start rehearsals for the big musical numbers, though there is some suggestion she needed to avoid entering the UK for tax purposes (Craig: 151; Land: 296). As a result, location shots on the lake at Regent’s Park had to be filmed using a double to stand in for Julie who sat in the boat with actor Michael Craig. London’s notoriously capricious weather added to the woes with the crew having to wait hours on the day of shooting till 5:00pm when “the sun burst forth long enough to permit the photographing of a brilliant scene”. All the while, “property master, Dennis Parrish, had to toss bread to ducks…to keep them within camera range ready when the time came” (Land: 334-35; also Heffernan: 30). This location footage was then intercut with later process shots of Julie and Michael Craig filmed in front of a blue-screen at Fox studios. Production accounts detail that studio filming for the scene occupied two full days on August 23 and 24 on Stage 21 (Edwards). Despite the work and effort, the dialogue component of the sequence was cut in its entirety and all that remained in the final release print is a few brief insert shots of Gertie and Tony in the rowboat.

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Lost Scene 4: Gertie Gets a Make-Over

Screenplay Scene 63 (filmed 11-13 and 18 September 1967, Stage 16, 20th Century-Fox Studios) Continuing the Pygmalion theme from the previous cut scene, this sequence detailed Gertie’s ongoing social metamorphosis as Tony takes her to the salon of couturier, Julian Brooke-Taylor (Fairchild: 63-64). Of all the cut scenes, this one was possibly the longest with an estimated running time of several minutes.

Here Gertie is introduced to the grand world of haute couture and the even grander character of Julian Brooke-Taylor. Described in the screenplay as “[t]hin, fortyish…not a homosexual, but rather asexual, always appearing elegantly weary but in fact full of creative energy” (Fairchild: 63), Brooke-Taylor was played by Scottish-born character actor, Monty (Monte) Landis. Today, Landis is best remembered for his cavalcade of cameo villains in the cult TV series The Monkees (1968) but he had a long career as a comic actor in theatre and film in both the UK and the US. Prior to Star!, Landis had a string of minor but memorable character cameos in films such as The Mouse That Roared (1959), Charade (1963) and Double Trouble (1967), as well as several popular TV series of the era including The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. (1966), Get Smart (1967) and Batman (1967). The latter series was filmed at 20th Century Fox studios at more or less the same time as Star! which is possibly how Landis secured his brief role in the film.

As detailed in the Fairchild screenplay (63-64) and Thomas novelization (50-51), the lengthy sequence starts with a mid-shot of Brooke-Taylor sitting on a Louis Quinze settee, “an expression of well-bred resignation on his face” (Fairchild: 63). As he spouts a humorously imperious monologue about being “the best couturier in London..many would say the whole of Europe”, the film cuts to a long shot of Gertie and Tony combing through hundreds of glamorous gowns in the gilt and marble salon, “dresses are everywhere –– in a large open wardrobe, draped on chairs and settees” (Fairchild: 63). Gertie picks up dress after dress, “considering it and then, as Tony shakes his head, rejecting it and adding it to the growing discard pile beside Julian” (ibid). All the while, Brooke-Taylor continues his waspish spiel:

“So who am I to complain, my dear Tony, when you invade my salon two hours after it is officially closed in order not to buy but merely to borrow. Please, please, do not for a moment imagine that you are imposing –– just feel completely free to treat me as you would any small, overworked dressmaker around the corner who runs up clever little numbers in her spare time after high tea…” (Fairchild: 63-64).

Finally, Tony finds the perfect dress –– the brilliant black and ruby beaded décolleté gown that Gertie wears to Cesare’s in the next scene. As he holds it up to Gertie, Brooke-Taylor stops mid-breath, “[h]is face lightens, [t]he artist in him beams whole-hearted approval and admiration,” “Ah!,” he purrs, “Yes!” (Fairchild: 64; Thomas: 51).

Other than highlighting Gertie’s continued social transformation, this scene also served to establish the context for Gertie’s subsequent employment as a salon model for Brooke-Taylor in the later fashion show sequence. Its omission from the final print of the film doesn’t cause a major logical inconsistency but it does weaken some of the backstory. From the way it is written, and given Landis’s theatrical comic style, one imagines that the scene would likely have had a ‘comic relief’ tenor not unlike that of the later fashion show where Cathleen Cordell provides such wonderfully humorous flourish as the affected salon vendeuse.

It’s unclear why the Brooke-Taylor sequence was dropped in its entirety. Production accounts show that more than two full days were spent shooting material for it from 11-13 September 1967 on Stage 16 at Fox Studios, with the fashion show filmed immediately after on the same set from 13-14 September (Edwards). Further retakes were ordered for 18 September which possibly suggests that Wise was unhappy with aspects of the scene as originally filmed/played. Maybe he remained unhappy, maybe the sequence felt out of keeping with surrounding material, or maybe Wise just wanted to reduce an already overlong first half? Either way, the visit to Julian Brooke-Taylor was consigned to the cutting room floor.

Monte Landis, the actor playing Brooke-Taylor, had a bit of an unfortunate run in 1967. At about the same time he filmed his dropped cameo for Star!, Landis also appeared as part of the original line-up for the TV pilot of Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In, but when the series was subsequently picked up by NBC for what would prove to be a six season run, Landis was let go and replaced by another British comedian (Erickson:108). There was some compensation for the actor when he secured his semi-recurring role as the resident villain in the second season of The Monkees (1968), which as suggested earlier remains his most famous work to this day. As detailed in his iMDB profile, Landis continued to secure intermittent TV work throughout the 70s with cameos in shows such as Hawaii Five-O (1971), Columbo (1971) and Police Woman (1973), as well as the odd big screen film like Myra Breckinridge (1970) and Young Frankenstein (1974). As late as the 80s and early 90s, Landis could still be seen popping up in the occasional episode of The Golden Girls (1987) or comedy film like Pee-wee’s Big Adventure (1985) and Heart Condition (1990).

In between these screen assignments, Landis seems to have done a good deal of live theatre. In an interesting “six degrees” moment, just a few months prior to his work on Star!, Landis appeared in a revival of Lady in the Dark at the Pasadena Playhouse –––– opposite Marni Nixon in the Gertrude Lawrence role, what’s more –– where he reportedly stopped the show with the comic “Tchaikovsky” number (“Monty Landis Draws”: 35). Landis also found something of a second career as a spiritualist in the 1970s hosting a weekly programme on a Southern California radio station devoted to the occult (Martin: S8). This interest in all things spiritual must have continued as the last press mention we’ve been able to find about Landis reports that, in 2007, he had retired to Palm Springs where he was teaching Kabbalah (Salkin: E1).

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Lost Scene 5: Gertie at St James Palace

Screenplay Scene 69 (filmed 29 May 1967, Lotos Club, New York City; and 1 July 1967, Westminster School, London ) This brief scene was the third of the excised episodes depicting Gertie’s social metamorphosis courtesy of Sir Anthony Spencer. Immediately following the newsreel insert profiling Gertie’s embrace of “the fads and the fashions of crazy postwar England of the early 20′s” –– doing the Charleston, hot air ballooning, awarding the prize at an auto car race –– and her ascent to royal social circles, this scene showed Gertie and Tony arriving at St James Palace. Resplendent in a fur-trimmed gold brocade cape, Gertie enters the Palace on the arm of Sir Tony looking every inch the princess when, falling back into mock Cockney, she whispers: “D’you think his Royal Highness would mind if I loosened me stays? They’re killing me” (Fairchild: 71).

The scene was clearly designed to highlight Gertie’s triumph in her new “role” as “the glittering darling of society” while remaining true to her irreverent working-class spirit. This theme –– along with the whole Pygmalion-esque subtext –– is explicit in Bob Thomas’s novelization:

“Under Tony’s tutelage, the girl from Clapham was becoming a lady. The metamorphosis was not always easy. Sometimes in the middle of a formal dinner Gertie uttered a cockneyism that sent the table into a roar of laughter. But she always laughed with the other guests –– Gertie never pretended to be anything she wasn’t. And she always listened carefully to Tony’s coaching afterward. He would point out where she said the wrong thing or used the wrong fork. As in the theatre, she learned her cues quickly and never repeated an error” (Thomas: 56).

Like the earlier rowboat scene, this one required a strategic blend of location and studio shooting. The bulk of the interior was filmed with Julie and Michael Craig on 29 May 1967 at the Lotos Club in New York City. Craig was still appearing on Broadway at the time in Pinter’s The Homecoming and this shoot was his very first piece of work for Star!. Additional footage of Gertie and Tony arriving at St James was filmed a few weeks later on 1 July at the Westminster School in London with Craig and a double to stand in for Julie (Edwards).

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Lost Scene 6: Cavalry to the Rescue

Screenplay Scene 86-88 (filmed 3 July 1967, Guards’ Parade, Whitehall, London) This bridging sequence occurred when Sir Anthony Spencer arrives to visit Gertie with his surprise proposal of marriage. Following a series of establishing shots of Tony riding with the Guards on ceremonial parade –– shots which remain in the final release print of the film –– the original sequence continued to show Tony arriving at Gertie’s London mews house. He dismounts from his horse and passes the bridle to his personal equerry, Corporal of Horse Cooper (Max Faulkner). As he walks towards the rear of the house, still in full regalia “his accoutrements clanking”, Tony passes Gertie’s maid Mary (Barbara Ogilvie) who is carrying a tray of tea and sugar to the guardsmen. The camera stays on Mary as she goes to the guardsmen and chats amicably with Cooper, telling him to feed sugar to the horses “[t]hen you can have your tea” (Fairchild: 82).

Other than the opportunity to further showcase the colourful pomp of the Royal Life Guards –– which, as detailed in an earlier post, had been strategically selected by Wise for the visual impact of their uniforms –– this scene also helped underscore the established intimacy of Gertie and Tony’s relationship. That Gertie’s maid should greet Sir Tony and his Corporal by name and come out prepared with a tray of tea for the brigade indicates that this not-so clandestine morning visit to Gertie via her back door was a routine arrangement for the two lovers.

The actor who appears as Corporal Cooper, Max Faulkner had a long career as a character player and stuntman in British film and TV, possibly best remembered for his work on the cult TV show, Doctor Who. The cutting of the sequence meant that Faulkner lost what little dialogue he had in the film, though he can still be seen riding alongside Michael Craig in the opening shot and reacting to Tony’s sneeze. He can also be seen later in the film in reprise footage of the Life Guards on parade, immediately prior to Gertie and Tony’s visit to the Lord Chamberlain. In this scene, which was filmed on location at the same time as the earlier sequence, Faulkner’s character is front and centre on screen bellowing a series of commands to the mounted Guardsmen. In the original screenplay this establishing shot is followed by an additional brief dialogue scene where Gertie passes the Guards on her way into the Lord Chamberlain’s office and greets Cooper by name (Scene 118). “Good morning Miss Lawrence. Nice to see you back,” the corporal says (Fairchild: 123). When Noel shoots Gertie a questioning look, she explains, “Well, I have been to St James Palace before.” “For heaven’s sake,” gasps Noel, “don’t mention that!” (Fairchild: 123).

While Max Faulkner at least made it into the final release print of Star!, Barbara Ogilvie in the part of Mary was less fortunate. With the excision of the dialogue portion of Sir Tony’s arrival at Gertie’s house, her role disappeared completely. A native Londoner, Ogilvie carved out a solid career playing character parts on UK TV, including a regular stint in the mid-70s on the long-running soap opera, Emmerdale. Possibly due to production logistics or possibly to help denote the passage of time, Gertie is given a different maid later in the film, Dorothy who is played by Matilda Canan.

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As stated at the outset, it is not difficult to understand why these various scenes were cut from Star! Their excision reduced an already over-long running time and arguably helped tighten pacing. Nevertheless, one can equally appreciate the intent behind these scenes and their role in furthering character and plot.

One of the most common criticisms made of Star! is that its episodic revue format works against optimal narrative development and, with it, audience identification. Squeezed into brief segments between the film’s mammoth musical performances, Gertie’s life is rendered via a series of epigrammatic highlights with a surfeit of information and dazzle, but not a lot of emotional depth. As Richard Schickel (1968) writes in a characteristic example of this critical complaint:

“William Fairchild’s Star! script, ranging over a [long] period of Gertrude Lawrence’s career, deals in types rather than people, romances rather than loves. It is always at a documentary distance from its subject and her world. Maybe she was unknowable, in the full biographical sense, but we must have the illusion of knowledge, a sense of motives more subtle and complex than we receive” (10).

Moreover, the fact that Star! is a theatrical revue style musical where the numbers are staged as semi-realist replications of Gertie’s theatrical performances, and not as organic expressions of character and narrative as is the case in an integrated ‘book’ musical, means that whatever sense we get of Gertie and her story can only really come from the bridging moments in-between. As director Robert Wise reflected in later years:

“People often ask me why [Star!] didn’t work…It’s hard to find answers. Maybe [audiences] just weren’t prepared to like Julie in the kind of character Gertie Lawrence was. Maybe we spent too much time on musical numbers and didn’t spend enough time digging into her character, getting the kind of contact of the audience with what made her tick. With The Sound of Music, we certainly made contact with the audience in terms of the relationship between Maria and the children and the Captain. The audience knew where everybody was coming from basically” (Leeman, 195).

It’s doubtful that the excised material profiled here would have made much of an appreciable difference in this regard. Like applying a band-aid to a gaping wound, the film’s narrative deficiencies required more substantial revisions than the inclusion of a couple of minor book scenes. Still, these scenes do at least gesture towards expanded character development and suggest several lines that might have been profitably mined in a more carefully structured narrative treatment.

Finally, it is not known if any of this edited material from Star! still exists. If it does, the chance of it seeing light of day is sadly remote. Cut footage from the Fox-Wise-Andrews megahit, The Sound of Music has never surfaced, suggesting a studio history of either outright junking or public embargo. Moreover, if the material were available, it would surely have been included as part of the comprehensively packaged laserdisc release that accompanied the film’s 25th anniversary in 1993. Still, hope springs eternal and maybe the ‘lost scenes of Star!’ will finally appear as part of that deluxe 50th Anniversary Blu-Ray release that we know just has to be round the corner!

Sources:

Betancourt, Manuel. “Robert Wise Centenary: Star! (1968).” The Film Experience. <http://thefilmexperience.net/blog/2014/9/9/robert-wise-centenary-star-1968.html>. 2014.

Craig, Michael. The Smallest Giant: An Actor’s Life. Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 2005.

Edwards, T.J. “The Saga of ‘Star!’”. Star! Special Edition LaserDisc. Beverley Hills, CA: Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, 1993.

Erickson, Hal. ‘From Beautiful Downtown Burbank’: A Critical History of Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In. Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Co, 2000.

Fairchild, William. Star! Screenplay. Final version. 25 January, 1967.

Heffernan, Harold. “Squeaky Sound Stage Troubles ‘Star’.” Philadelphia Daily News. 18 August 1967: 30.

Hoare, Philip. Oscar Wilde’s Last Stand: Decadence, Conspiracy, and the Most Outrageous Trial of the Century. New York: Arcade Publishing, 1997.

Holston, Kim R. Movie Roadshows: A History and Filmography of Reserved-Seat Limited Showing, 1911-1973. Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Co, 2013.

Kanfer, Stefan. “Cinema: Quarter Chance.” Time. 96: 4. 27 July 1970: 78.

Land, Kevin. “Recreating Four Decades of Modern History for Star!”. American Cinematographer. 50: 3, March 1969: 294-266, 332-336.

Leeman, Sergio. Robert Wise on His Films: From Editing Room to Director’s Chair. Los Angeles: Silman-James Press, 1995.

Martin, Bob. “TeleVues: They Have the Spirit, It Says.” Independent Press-Telegram. 5 August 1973: S8.

“Monty Landis Draws Many Laughs in ‘Lady’”. Independent Star News. 15 January 1967: 35.

Salkin, Judith. “Building One’s Character.” The Desert Sun. 18 November 2007: E1.

Schickel, Richard. “Two Stars: One Glowing One Dim.” Life. 65: 19. 8 November 1968: 19.

Thomas, Bob. Star! New York: Bantam, 1968.

Images:

“70 mm cinema film strip” by Zigmej, CC BY-SA 3.0 [Adapted].

STAR!, 1968 [Laserdisc], R. Wise, Fox Video, 1993.

St Hilaire, Al. Photographic Contact Sheets for STAR! [Unpublished], 1967.

Twentieth Century Fox, STAR! Press Kit and Publicity Materials, 1968.

Special thanks to Hanne.

#julie andrews #Star!#star!50 #Robert Wise #gertrude lawrence #classic film #musical #lost scenes #film history #old hollywood #lynley laurence #monte landis #Twentieth Century Fox #William Fairchild #michael craig #max faulkner #barbara ogilvie

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brookstonalmanac · 3 years

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Events 6.30

296 – Pope Marcellinus begins his papacy. 763 – The Byzantine army of emperor Constantine V defeats the Bulgarian forces in the Battle of Anchialus. 1422 – Battle of Arbedo between the duke of Milan and the Swiss cantons. 1521 – Spanish forces defeat a combined French and Navarrese army at the Battle of Noáin during the Spanish conquest of Iberian Navarre. 1559 – King Henry II of France is mortally wounded in a jousting match against Gabriel, comte de Montgomery. 1632 – The University of Tartu was founded. 1651 – The Deluge: Khmelnytsky Uprising: The Battle of Berestechko ends with a Polish victory. 1688 – The Immortal Seven issue the Invitation to William, which would culminate in the Glorious Revolution. 1758 – Seven Years' War: Habsburg Austrian forces destroy a Prussian reinforcement and supply convoy in the Battle of Domstadtl, helping to expel Prussian King Frederick the Great from Moravia. 1794 – Northwest Indian War: Native American forces under Blue Jacket attack Fort Recovery. 1805 – Under An act to divide the Indiana Territory into two separate governments, adopted by the U.S. Congress on January 11, 1805, the Michigan Territory is organized. 1859 – French acrobat Charles Blondin crosses Niagara Falls on a tightrope. 1860 – The 1860 Oxford evolution debate at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History takes place. 1864 – U.S. President Abraham Lincoln grants Yosemite Valley to California for "public use, resort and recreation". 1882 – Charles J. Guiteau is hanged in Washington, D.C. for the assassination of U.S. President James Garfield. 1886 – The first transcontinental train trip across Canada departs from Montreal, Quebec. It arrives in Port Moody, British Columbia on July 4. 1892 – The Homestead Strike begins near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 1905 – Albert Einstein sends the article On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies, in which he introduces special relativity, for publication in Annalen der Physik. 1906 – The United States Congress passes the Meat Inspection Act and Pure Food and Drug Act. 1908 – The Tunguska Event, the largest impact event on Earth in human recorded history, resulting in a massive explosion over Eastern Siberia. 1912 – The Regina Cyclone, Canada's deadliest tornado event, kills 28 people in Regina, Saskatchewan. 1916 – World War I: In "the day Sussex died", elements of the Royal Sussex Regiment take heavy casualties in the Battle of the Boar's Head at Richebourg-l'Avoué in France. 1921 – U.S. President Warren G. Harding appoints former President William Howard Taft as Chief Justice of the United States. 1922 – In Washington D.C., U.S. Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes and Dominican Ambassador Francisco J. Peynado sign the Hughes��Peynado agreement, which ends the United States occupation of the Dominican Republic. 1934 – The Night of the Long Knives, Adolf Hitler's violent purge of his political rivals in Germany, takes place. 1936 – Emperor Haile Selassie of Abyssinia appeals for aid to the League of Nations against Italy's invasion of his country. 1937 – The world's first emergency telephone number, 999, is introduced in London. 1944 – World War II: The Battle of Cherbourg ends with the fall of the strategically valuable port to American forces. 1953 – The first Chevrolet Corvette rolls off the assembly line in Flint, Michigan. 1956 – A TWA Super Constellation and a United Airlines DC-7 collide above the Grand Canyon in Arizona and crash, killing all 128 on board both airliners. 1959 – A United States Air Force F-100 Super Sabre from Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, crashes into a nearby elementary school, killing 11 students plus six residents from the local neighborhood. 1960 – Belgian Congo gains independence as Republic of the Congo (Léopoldville). 1963 – Ciaculli bombing: a car bomb, intended for Mafia boss Salvatore Greco, kills seven police officers and military personnel near Palermo. 1966 – The National Organization for Women, the United States' largest feminist organization, is founded. 1968 – Pope Paul VI issues the Credo of the People of God. 1971 – The crew of the Soviet Soyuz 11 spacecraft are killed when their air supply escapes through a faulty valve. 1972 – The first leap second is added to the UTC time system. 1974 – The Baltimore municipal strike of 1974 begins. 1977 – The Southeast Asia Treaty Organization disbands. 1985 – Thirty-nine American hostages from the hijacked TWA Flight 847 are freed in Beirut after being held for 17 days. 1986 – The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Bowers v. Hardwick that states can outlaw homosexual acts between consenting adults. 1990 – East Germany and West Germany merge their economies. 1994 – During a test flight of an Airbus A330-300 at Toulouse–Blagnac Airport, the aircraft crashes killing all seven people on board. 1997 – The United Kingdom transfers sovereignty over Hong Kong to China. 2005 – MTV Canada is rebranded as Razer 2007 – A Jeep Cherokee filled with propane canisters drives into the entrance of Glasgow Airport, Scotland in a failed terrorist attack. This was linked to the 2007 London car bombs that had taken place the day before. 2009 – Yemenia Flight 626, an Airbus A310-300, crashes into the Indian Ocean near Comoros, killing 152 of the 153 people on board. A 14-year-old girl named Bahia Bakari survives the crash. 2013 – Nineteen firefighters die controlling a wildfire in Yarnell, Arizona. 2013 – Protests begin around Egypt against President Mohamed Morsi and the ruling Freedom and Justice Party, leading to their overthrow during the 2013 Egyptian coup d'état. 2015 – A Hercules C-130 military aircraft with 113 people on board crashes in a residential area in Medan, Indonesia, resulting in at least 116 deaths. 2019 – Donald Trump becomes the first sitting US President to visit the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea).

#Events

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jacewilliams1 · 5 years

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Manual override and Occam’s razor

Occam’s razor: the simplest explanation is usually the correct one.

I heard a National Public Radio story the other day about a paper that had come out regarding the Boeing 737 Max accidents. The crux of the interview was the quality of training, or lack thereof, pilots receive and the thought that maybe cockpits and cockpit procedures could be made easier, so recognition of problems would therefore be easier.

My initial reaction was one of defensiveness. I believe pilots as a whole are a fairly robust group. We’re conscientious. We’re obsessive in matters of safety, convention, and procedure. We’re intrinsically averse to the notion of tombstone technology. We’re… competent. It’s not an ego thing. Not even necessarily a confidence thing. It just is. If you endeavor to take to the skies, to leave terra firma behind, you commit to a level of competence and focus necessary to complete the task safely. All the time. Every time.

Those avionics are great – really great – when they work. Then what?

But then I took a mental fork in the road, defenses down, and followed another branch on the tree of possibility. Could there perhaps be something to the notion of making what we do, dare I say, easier? And let’s not confuse easier with easy. We’re not talking couch-potato easier here. We’re talking easier in a safety sense, an efficiency sense. What if there were an easier way to revert to manual control? To remove the so-called “envelope protection” algorithms built into modern flight control systems.

We’ve all heard the adage: Aviate, Navigate, Communicate. But can you really aviate when control inputs are analyzed thousands of times a second and then spit out to the control surfaces? (Yes, I know, aviate is an all-encompassing word that means more than just flight control manipulation.) But when an aircraft is doing something you didn’t expect, and doing it relatively fast, especially at low altitude, you need to act NOW. Unlike some emergencies, this type rarely gives you the time to sleuth out a solution. When everything seems to be going awry and nothing makes sense, aviate means FLY THE PLANE. If a cargo door opens on one of our smaller GA aircraft, no big deal. Fly the plane. I think I heard Rod Machado once say, “Don’t drop the airplane to fly the cargo door.” Exactly! FLY THE PLANE.

What if there were a “Manual Override” button? Not a procedure. Not a checklist. A button. This button wouldn’t be a get-out-of-jail-free card or a save-me-now button. In fact, quite the contrary. It would return control – full control – to the pilots, giving them the authority needed to fly the aircraft, sans auto throttle, electric trim, augmentation, envelope “protection,” etc. The button wouldn’t be a solution in and of itself. It would simply provide the pilots with a chance to take desperate measures in a desperate time. I can think of several incidents/accidents that could possibly have been averted had such an option been available. (Air France 296 comes to mind.)

The pilot is still the most important safety feature on any aircraft. So, there needs to be a way he/she can actually pilot the aircraft when circumstances call for it. Barring some gross mechanical malfunction (e.g., Alaska Airlines Flight 261), if the aircraft remains flyable (e.g., United 232 and US Airways 1549), pilots will revert to their own internal autopilot mode. Their intuition as it were. The computer that is his/her brain will kick in.

Their innate flying sense, training, experience, and muscle memory will all coalesce in subconscious harmony to create a desired result; a state athletes refer to as the “zone.” Great NFL wide receivers don’t think about catching the ball. They just do. It’s almost like an out-of-body experience (see the book The Inner Game of Tennis by W. Timothy Gallwey). Instead of being dumbfounded by incongruent aircraft behavior which only feeds the fear/panic cycle, the pilot will instinctively do what is necessary to right the ship.

This state of selfless awareness is not something mystical. We’ve all felt it, if only briefly in the fleeting few seconds during the flare. It’s almost Zen-like. The temporary meditative state we feel when total concentration and focus push everything else away. It’s when we’re operating at our highest level, and a place where we can find the wherewithal necessary to calculate a way out of extreme danger.

Obviously, fly-by-wire is integrated in most, if not all, modern airliner flight control systems. The pilot/computer interface can’t necessarily be separated nor eliminated entirely. Aircraft use computational “laws” (automation, augmentation, protection modes), thus true raw-input control is virtually impossible. As it turns out, though, the computer seemingly doesn’t always know best in extreme cases.

Would better pilot training and aircraft manufacturer transparency help? Absolutely. But under certain conditions, the laws meant to protect and serve simply run interference. It is in these extremely rare instances a new sheriff needs to be instated. That sheriff is the pilot. The pilot must be given the opportunity to drop the computer and fly the plane.

Single-engine turboprops have a manual override lever – do fly-by-wire airliners need one too?

We’re so caught up in the marvel and complexity of modern aircraft we may think it couldn’t possibly be that easy. There’s got to be more to it. Of course, the fly-by-wire/pilot control discussion is nothing new. Perhaps that is why we have such a hard time accepting accidents that seem to be so clearly avoidable. Sometimes we just want a plane to be a plane. There are indeed procedures in place to revert to some semblance of basic aircraft control. And Cirrus has their “LVL” button which is similar (though not the same) as what’s being proposed here. But still, when an aircraft’s flying qualities deteriorate and pilots find themselves in a Twilight Zone of altered perception and unfamiliar territory, there’s got to be a better out.

I used to work for a company that had an issue with a specific product from one of our third-party manufacturers. We were getting an inordinate number of returns due to component failure. When I approached the manufacturer about it, they took it personally: immediately dismissing the issue, stating their design and materials were not the problem. They insisted that customers were not using the product correctly and applying too much pressure, causing the failures. We went back and forth on these points to no avail.

In the end, my final word on the matter was that this was not personal. Whether you think your product is designed and built properly doesn’t really matter. The failures are occurring, the product is being returned, customers are unsatisfied and inconvenienced, and we can no longer sell the product unless it is redesigned and/or beefed up.

We can deliberate the deficiencies of pilots and pilot training ad infinitum. But that would deflect from the fact that these accidents did happen, and accidents like them can still happen. Up until the first Space Shuttle accident, the assumption of safety was misconstrued from the fact that nothing catastrophic had occurred in the previous flights to question it. But there is a clear demarcation between the absence of trouble on one side, and safety on the other. Though safety is unquestionably paramount in the minds of all involved, they are not equivalent. This could be an opportunity for change. Aviation, like everything else in life, is a progression.

Is the Manual Override button a gross oversimplification? Total naivety?

Sometimes the simplest explanation is usually the correct one. And sometimes, the simplest solution can save lives.

Occam’s razor.

The post Manual override and Occam’s razor appeared first on Air Facts Journal.

from Engineering Blog https://airfactsjournal.com/2019/10/manual-override-and-occams-razor/

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nacht-koenigin · 7 years

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I’m watching Air Disasters right now and I’ve got a hot take: the captain of Air France Flight 296 was framed by Airbus and the French authorities to preserve the reputation of their new plane. pilot error just doesn’t make sense!!!

#bet you weren't expecting to see some plane discourse up in here #natalie's ramblings

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aviationhistory · 7 years

Photo

Air France Flight 296, an Airbus A320, makes a low pass over Mulhouse-Habsheim Airport in landing configuration during an air show and crashes into trees at the end of the runway. Of 130 passengers aboard, 3 die.

#aviation #history #aircraft #aerospace

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giftrash · 7 years

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Air France Flight 296 flying into a forest, crashing

submitted by /u/Reacher_Said_Nothing [link] [comments]

#giftrash #lol #gif #animation #гифка #гиф #анимация #приколы #прикольные картинки

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giforium · 7 years

Photo

Air France Flight 296 flying into a forest, crashing

#gif

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art-van-delay420 · 4 years

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The most amazing thing about the crash of air france flight 296 is not just that it was entirely the fault of the pilot and first officer, but because of the nature of the new technology in the A320 the plane itself could prove that definitively in a way that prior planes could not.

DO NOT tell me about the Lockheed Tristar although its short version is objectively one of the funniest planes of all time:

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brookstonalmanac · 4 years

Text

Events 2.27

380 – Edict of Thessalonica: Emperor Theodosius I and his co-emperors Gratian and Valentinian II declare their wish that all Roman citizens convert to Nicene Christianity. 425 – The University of Constantinople is founded by Emperor Theodosius II at the urging of his wife Aelia Eudocia. 907 – Abaoji, a Khitan chieftain, is enthroned as Emperor Taizu, establishing the Liao dynasty in northern China. 1560 – The Treaty of Berwick, which would expel the French from Scotland, is signed by England and the Lords of the Congregation of Scotland. 1594 – Henry IV is crowned King of France. 1617 – Sweden and Russia sign the Treaty of Stolbovo, ending the Ingrian War and shutting Russia out of the Baltic Sea. 1626 – Yuan Chonghuan is appointed Governor of Liaodong, after leading the Chinese into a great victory against the Manchurians under Nurhaci. 1700 – The island of New Britain is discovered by Europeans. 1776 – American Revolutionary War: The Battle of Moore's Creek Bridge in North Carolina breaks up a Loyalist militia. 1782 – American Revolutionary War: The House of Commons of Great Britain votes against further war in America. 1801 – Pursuant to the District of Columbia Organic Act of 1801, Washington, D.C. is placed under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Congress. 1809 – Action of 27 February 1809: Captain Bernard Dubourdieu captures HMS Proserpine. 1812 – Argentine War of Independence: Manuel Belgrano raises the Flag of Argentina in the city of Rosario for the first time. 1812 – Poet Lord Byron gives his first address as a member of the House of Lords, in defense of Luddite violence against Industrialism in his home county of Nottinghamshire. 1844 – The Dominican Republic gains independence from Haiti. 1860 – Abraham Lincoln makes a speech at Cooper Union in the city of New York that is largely responsible for his election to the Presidency. 1864 – American Civil War: The first Northern prisoners arrive at the Confederate prison at Andersonville, Georgia. 1870 – The current flag of Japan is first adopted as the national flag for Japanese merchant ships. 1881 – First Boer War: The Battle of Majuba Hill takes place. 1898 – King George I of Greece survives an assassination attempt. 1900 – Second Boer War: In South Africa, British military leaders receive an unconditional notice of surrender from Boer General Piet Cronjé at the Battle of Paardeberg. 1900 – The British Labour Party is founded. 1900 – Fußball-Club Bayern München is founded. 1902 – Second Boer War: Australian soldiers Harry "Breaker" Morant and Peter Handcock are executed in Pretoria after being convicted of war crimes. 1916 – Ocean liner SS Maloja strikes a mine near Dover and sinks with the loss of 155 lives. 1921 – The International Working Union of Socialist Parties is founded in Vienna. 1922 – A challenge to the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, allowing women the right to vote, is rebuffed by the Supreme Court of the United States in Leser v. Garnett. 1933 – Reichstag fire: Germany's parliament building in Berlin, the Reichstag, is set on fire; Marinus van der Lubbe, a young Dutch Communist claims responsibility. 1939 – United States labor law: The U.S. Supreme Court rules in NLRB v. Fansteel Metallurgical Corp. that the National Labor Relations Board has no authority to force an employer to rehire workers who engage in sit-down strikes. 1940 – Martin Kamen and Sam Ruben discover carbon-14. 1942 – World War II: During the Battle of the Java Sea, an Allied strike force is defeated by a Japanese task force in the Java Sea in the Dutch East Indies. 1943 – The Smith Mine #3 in Bearcreek, Montana, explodes, killing 74 men. 1943 – In Berlin, the Gestapo arrest 1,800 Jewish men with German wives, leading to the Rosenstrasse protest. 1951 – The Twenty-second Amendment to the United States Constitution, limiting Presidents to two terms, is ratified. 1961 – The first congress of the Spanish Trade Union Organisation is inaugurated. 1962 – Two dissident Republic of Vietnam Air Force pilots bomb the Independence Palace in Saigon in a failed attempt to assassinate South Vietnam President Ngô Đình Diệm. 1963 – The Dominican Republic receives its first democratically elected president, Juan Bosch, since the end of the dictatorship led by Rafael Trujillo. 1964 – The Government of Italy asks for help to keep the Leaning Tower of Pisa from toppling over. 1971 – Doctors in the first Dutch abortion clinic (the Mildredhuis in Arnhem) start performing artificially-induced abortions. 1973 – The American Indian Movement occupies Wounded Knee in protest of the federal government. 1976 – The formerly Spanish territory of Western Sahara, under the auspices of the Polisario Front declares independence as the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic. 1988 – Sumgait pogrom: The Armenian community in Sumgait, Azerbaijan is targeted in a violent pogrom. 1991 – Gulf War: U.S. President George H. W. Bush announces that "Kuwait is liberated". 2001 – Loganair Flight 670A crashes while attempting to make a water landing in the Firth of Forth in Scotland. 2002 – Ryanair Flight 296 catches fire at London Stansted Airport. Subsequent investigations criticize Ryanair's handling of the evacuation. 2002 – Godhra train burning: A Muslim mob torches a train returning from Ayodhya, killing 59 Hindu pilgrims. 2004 – A bombing of a Superferry by Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines' worst terrorist attack kills 116. 2004 – Shoko Asahara, the leader of the Japanese doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo, is sentenced to death for masterminding the 1995 Tokyo subway sarin attack. 2007 – The Chinese Correction: The Shanghai Stock Exchange falls 9%, the largest drop in ten years. 2010 – An earthquake measuring 8.8 on the moment magnitude scale strikes central parts of Chile leaving over 500 victims, and thousands injured. The quake triggers a tsunami which strikes Hawaii shortly after. 2013 – A shooting takes place at a factory in Menznau, Switzerland, in which five people (including the perpetrator) are killed and five others injured. 2015 – Russian politician Boris Nemtsov is assassinated.

#Events

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brookstonalmanac · 4 years

Text

Events 6.30

296 – Pope Marcellinus begins his papacy. 763 – The Byzantine army of emperor Constantine V defeats the Bulgarian forces in the Battle of Anchialus. 1422 – Battle of Arbedo between the duke of Milan and the Swiss cantons. 1521 – Spanish forces defeat a combined French and Navarrese army at the Battle of Noáin during the Spanish conquest of Iberian Navarre. 1559 – King Henry II of France is mortally wounded in a jousting match against Gabriel, comte de Montgomery. 1651 – The Deluge: Khmelnytsky Uprising: The Battle of Berestechko ends with a Polish victory. 1688 – The Immortal Seven issue the Invitation to William, which would culminate in the Glorious Revolution. 1758 – Seven Years' War: The Battle of Domstadtl takes place. 1794 – Northwest Indian War: Native American forces under Blue Jacket attack Fort Recovery. 1805 – The U.S. Congress organizes the Michigan Territory. 1859 – French acrobat Charles Blondin crosses Niagara Falls on a tightrope. 1860 – The 1860 Oxford evolution debate at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History takes place. 1864 – U.S. President Abraham Lincoln grants Yosemite Valley to California for "public use, resort and recreation". 1882 – Charles J. Guiteau is hanged in Washington, D.C. for the assassination of U.S. President James Garfield. 1886 – The first transcontinental train trip across Canada departs from Montreal, Quebec. It arrives in Port Moody, British Columbia on July 4. 1892 – The Homestead Strike begins near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 1905 – Albert Einstein sends the article On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies, in which he introduces special relativity, for publication in Annalen der Physik. 1906 – The United States Congress passes the Meat Inspection Act and Pure Food and Drug Act. 1908 – The Tunguska Event, the largest impact event on Earth in human recorded history, resulting in a massive explosion over Eastern Siberia. 1912 – The Regina Cyclone, Canada's deadliest tornado event, kills 28 people in Regina, Saskatchewan. 1916 – The Battle of the Boar's Head takes place in Richebourg-l'Avoué . It is known as 'The Day Sussex Died' 1921 – U.S. President Warren G. Harding appoints former President William Howard Taft as Chief Justice of the United States. 1922 – In Washington D.C., U.S. Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes and Dominican Ambassador Francisco J. Peynado sign the Hughes–Peynado agreement, which ends the United States occupation of the Dominican Republic. 1934 – The Night of the Long Knives, Adolf Hitler's violent purge of his political rivals in Germany, takes place. 1936 – Emperor Haile Selassie of Abyssinia appeals for aid to the League of Nations against Italy's invasion of his country. 1937 – The world's first emergency telephone number, 999, is introduced in London. 1944 – World War II: The Battle of Cherbourg ends with the fall of the strategically valuable port to American forces. 1953 – The first Chevrolet Corvette rolls off the assembly line in Flint, Michigan. 1956 – A TWA Super Constellation and a United Airlines DC-7 collide above the Grand Canyon in Arizona and crash, killing all 128 on board both airliners. 1959 – A United States Air Force F-100 Super Sabre from Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, crashes into a nearby elementary school, killing 11 students plus six residents from the local neighborhood. 1960 – Belgian Congo gains independence as Republic of the Congo (Léopoldville). 1963 – Ciaculli bombing: a car bomb, intended for Mafia boss Salvatore Greco, kills seven police officers and military personnel near Palermo. 1966 – The National Organization for Women, the United States' largest feminist organization, is founded. 1968 – Pope Paul VI issues the Credo of the People of God. 1971 – The crew of the Soviet Soyuz 11 spacecraft are killed when their air supply escapes through a faulty valve. 1972 – The first leap second is added to the UTC time system. 1974 – The Baltimore municipal strike of 1974 begins. 1977 – The Southeast Asia Treaty Organization disbands. 1985 – Thirty-nine American hostages from the hijacked TWA Flight 847 are freed in Beirut after being held for 17 days. 1986 – The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Bowers v. Hardwick that states can outlaw homosexual acts between consenting adults. 1990 – East Germany and West Germany merge their economies. 1994 – During a test flight of an Airbus A330-300 at Toulouse–Blagnac Airport, the aircraft crashes killing all seven people on board. 1997 – The United Kingdom transfers sovereignty over Hong Kong to China. 2005 – MTV Canada is rebranded as Razer 2007 – A Jeep Cherokee filled with propane canisters drives into the entrance at Glasgow Airport, Scotland in a failed terrorist attack. This was linked to the 2007 London car bombs that had taken place the day before. 2009 – Yemenia Flight 626, an Airbus A310-300, crashes into the Indian Ocean near Comoros, killing 152 of the 153 people on board. A 14-year-old girl named Bahia Bakari survives the crash. 2013 – Nineteen firefighters die controlling a wildfire in Yarnell, Arizona. 2013 – Protests begin around Egypt against President Mohamed Morsi and the ruling Freedom and Justice Party, leading to their overthrow during the 2013 Egyptian coup d'état. 2015 – A Hercules C-130 military aircraft with 113 people on board crashes in a residential area in Medan, Indonesia, resulting in at least 116 deaths.

#Events

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brookstonalmanac · 5 years

Text

Events 2.27

380 – Edict of Thessalonica: Emperor Theodosius I and his co-emperors Gratian and Valentinian II declare their wish that all Roman citizens convert to Nicene Christianity. 425 – The University of Constantinople is founded by Emperor Theodosius II at the urging of his wife Aelia Eudocia. 907 – Abaoji, a Khitan chieftain, is enthroned as Emperor Taizu, establishing the Liao dynasty in northern China. 1560 – The Treaty of Berwick, which would expel the French from Scotland, is signed by England and the Lords of the Congregation of Scotland. 1594 – Henry IV is crowned King of France. 1617 – Sweden and Russia sign the Treaty of Stolbovo, ending the Ingrian War and shutting Russia out of the Baltic Sea. 1626 – Yuan Chonghuan is appointed Governor of Liaodong, after he led the Chinese into a great victory against the Manchurians under Nurhaci. 1700 – The island of New Britain is discovered by Europeans. 1776 – American Revolutionary War: The Battle of Moore's Creek Bridge in North Carolina breaks up a Loyalist militia. 1782 – American Revolutionary War: The House of Commons of Great Britain votes against further war in America. 1801 – Pursuant to the District of Columbia Organic Act of 1801, Washington, D.C. is placed under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Congress. 1809 – Action of 27 February 1809: Captain Bernard Dubourdieu captures HMS Proserpine. 1812 – Argentine War of Independence: Manuel Belgrano raises the Flag of Argentina in the city of Rosario for the first time. 1812 – Poet Lord Byron gives his first address as a member of the House of Lords, in defense of Luddite violence against Industrialism in his home county of Nottinghamshire. 1844 – The Dominican Republic gains independence from Haiti. 1860 – Abraham Lincoln makes a speech at Cooper Union in the city of New York that is largely responsible for his election to the Presidency. 1864 – American Civil War: The first Northern prisoners arrive at the Confederate prison at Andersonville, Georgia. 1870 – The current flag of Japan is first adopted as the national flag for Japanese merchant ships. 1881 – First Boer War: The Battle of Majuba Hill takes place. 1898 – King George I of Greece survives an assassination attempt. 1900 – Second Boer War: In South Africa, British military leaders receive an unconditional notice of surrender from Boer General Piet Cronjé at the Battle of Paardeberg. 1900 – The British Labour Party is founded. 1900 – Fußball-Club Bayern München is founded. 1902 – Second Boer War: Australian soldiers Harry "Breaker" Morant and Peter Handcock are executed in Pretoria after being convicted of war crimes. 1916 – Ocean liner SS Maloja struck a mine near Dover and sank with the loss of 155 lives. 1921 – The International Working Union of Socialist Parties is founded in Vienna. 1922 – A challenge to the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, allowing women the right to vote, is rebuffed by the Supreme Court of the United States in Leser v. Garnett. 1933 – Reichstag fire: Germany's parliament building in Berlin, the Reichstag, is set on fire; Marinus van der Lubbe, a young Dutch Communist claims responsibility. The Nazis used the fire to solidify their power and eliminate the communists as political rivals. 1939 – United States labor law: The U.S. Supreme Court rules that sit-down strikes violate property owners' rights and are therefore illegal. 1940 – Martin Kamen and Sam Ruben discover carbon-14. 1942 – World War II: During the Battle of the Java Sea, an Allied strike force is defeated by a Japanese task force in the Java Sea in the Dutch East Indies. 1943 – The Smith Mine #3 in Bearcreek, Montana, explodes, killing 74 men. 1943 – In Berlin, the Gestapo arrest 1,800 Jewish men with German wives, leading to the Rosenstrasse protest. 1951 – The Twenty-second Amendment to the United States Constitution, limiting Presidents to two terms, is ratified. 1961 – The first congress of the Spanish Trade Union Organisation is inaugurated. 1962 – Two dissident Republic of Vietnam Air Force pilots bomb the Independence Palace in Saigon in a failed attempt to assassinate South Vietnam President Ngô Đình Diệm. 1963 – The Dominican Republic receives its first democratically elected president, Juan Bosch, since the end of the dictatorship led by Rafael Trujillo. 1964 – The Government of Italy asks for help to keep the Leaning Tower of Pisa from toppling over. 1971 – Doctors in the first Dutch abortion clinic (the Mildredhuis in Arnhem) start performing artificially-induced abortions. 1973 – The American Indian Movement occupies Wounded Knee in protest of the federal government. 1976 – The formerly Spanish territory of Western Sahara, under the auspices of the Polisario Front declares independence as the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic. 1988 – Sumgait pogrom: The Armenian community in Sumgait, Azerbaijan is targeted in a violent pogrom. 1991 – Gulf War: U.S. President George H. W. Bush announces that "Kuwait is liberated". 2002 – Ryanair Flight 296 catches fire at London Stansted Airport. Subsequent investigations criticize Ryanair's handling of the evacuation. 2002 – Godhra train burning: A Muslim mob torches a train returning from Ayodhya, killing 59 Hindu pilgrims. 2004 – A bombing of a Superferry by Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines' worst terrorist attack kills 116. 2004 – Shoko Asahara, the leader of the Japanese doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo, is sentenced to death for masterminding the 1995 Tokyo subway sarin attack 2007 – The Chinese Correction: The Shanghai Stock Exchange falls 9%, the largest drop in ten years. 2010 – An earthquake measuring 8.8 on the moment magnitude scale strikes central parts of Chile leaving over 500 victims, and thousands injured. The quake triggered a tsunami which struck Hawaii shortly after. 2013 – Five people (including the perpetrator) are killed and five others injured in a shooting at a factory in Menznau, Switzerland. 2015 – Assassination of Boris Nemtsov occurs.

#Events

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