Queen Elizabeth preparing to knight subjects in Aden, Yemen on the 27th of April, 1954. Prince Philip stands to the side.
Eight years later civil war broke out in Yemen. The conflict lasted more than eight years, from 1962 to 1970.
Monthly Archives: April 2018
On this day…
The funeral procession of US President Abraham Lincoln arrives in Albany, New York on the 25th of April, 1865.
Lincoln had been assassinated ten days earlier, and his body was taken by train to a number of locations in the United States to lay in state.
The train actually arrived in Albany at 10:55pm, and left the next day, following a public viewing. His final resting place was Springfield, Illinois.
Anzac Day
Today is Anzac Day, Australia and New Zealand’s major day to recognise the military. Australia’s national service takes place at the War Memorial here in Canberra, and we often go to visit the museum afterwards (my father is a veteran).
Of course, this year is a significant one, as it is a hundred years since the First World War ended.
This year is also significant in Australia, as in Canberra and a number of other cities women veterans will be marching together. Why? Because in recent years they have been suffering abuse from strangers who accuse them of wearing their father’s medals – apparently many people still refuse to believe women can serve!
Anzac Day in 1937
On this day: Cologne in Ruins
The German city of Cologne is seen in ruins on the 24th of April, 1945, as the Second World War drew to an end. Though is was hit by Allied bombs a number of times, Cologne Cathedral still stands.
The city suffered heavy damage over the course of the war, and had come under Allied control in early March.
On this day: the Australian Women’s Army Service
Minister for the Australian Army, the Honourable F.M. Forde, is photographed inspecting members of the Australian Women’s Army Service in Northam, Western Australia on the 20th of April, 1943.
The AWAS was formed in August of 1941, two years into Australia’s participation in the Second World War. Tens of thousands of women served in various positions in the Australian Army, including several hundred who were sent to New Guinea.
April 1906: the aftermath of a disaster
A massive earthquake hit San Francisco, USA on the 18th of April, 1906. The fires that it sparked lasted days and devastated the city.
This image shows the community rallying together in the middle of the destruction.
5 Times San Francisco Was Almost Destroyed
On this day: a Kamikaze Attack
Near Okinawa on the 11th of April, 1945, the USS Missouri was hit by a Japanese kamikaze attack – a suicide mission in the style used by the Japanese military during the Second World War.
The battleship only sustained minor, superficial damage, but the pilot was killed. The ship’s American captain insisted on giving him a funeral with full military honours.
It is estimated nearly four-thousand Japanese pilots died this way in the war’s Pacific Theatre.
The Missouri is now famous for being the site of the surrender of the Empire of Japan later that year, the event that ended the war.
On this day: Arthur Conan Doyle
British writer Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, is photographed here in New York City on the 10th of April, 1922.
Also in the picture are his second wife, Jean, and the children he had by her. Doyle, who was almost sixty-three at the time, married for the second time almost immediately after the death of his first wife.
On this day: the German invasion of Denmark
This photograph of Danish soldiers was taken on the 9th of April, 1940, the date of the German invasion of Denmark.
Two of these seven soldiers were killed later that day.
During the occupation King Christian X became a prominent figure of defiance, seen riding unaccompanied through the streets of Copenhagen.
The Nazis occupied the country until the Allied victory on the 5th of May, 1945.
In Times Gone By... 
.jpg){kind=link}
