Happy Birthday today to:

Henry IV of England, 655 years young and Leonardo da Vinci, 570 years young

R.I.P.:

Madame de Pompadour, 1764 and Abraham Lincoln, 1865

In other news:

1450:  Battle of Formigny which ended English domination in Northern France.  Too bad for France I say.

1912:  The Titanic struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic and sank.

The Captain of the Titanic, Edward Smith, was born a few miles north of where I live, as were the Fourth Senior Engineer and an Assistant Butcher. 

A few miles south lies Little Onn Hall where Tyrell Cavendish and his American wife Julia lived. They sailed First Class on the Titanic with Mrs Cavendish's maid Ellen Barber on a visit to Julia's family in the USA. The two ladies survived but Mr Cavendish died. His body was recovered weeks later and after cremation in the USA his ashes now lie in a London cemetery. Both ladies died within months of one another in 1963. 

16 April 1922 - The Treaty of Rapallo. 100 years ago today.

One unexpected and early outcome of the Genoa Conference (see 10 April) was a unilateral agreement signed between Germany and Russia negotiated at a separate meeting at Rapallo 20 miles from Genoa. 

The two countries restored diplomatic relations, renounced any financial claims on the other stemming from the war and pledged future co-operation. 

It was a blow for the prestige of the two major European powers, GB and France who had hoped to impose their own terms on the weakened states of Germany and Russia. It marked the return of both nations to the diplomatic scene and indicated to the world that they were no longer to be treated as international outcasts.   

17 April 1922 - Operation Nemesis. 100 years ago today.

Founded in 1890 the Armenian Revolutionary Foundation (ARF) was an organization dedicated to advancing Armenian nationalism in both the Russian and Ottoman Empires. 

Following the 1915-16 Armenian Genocide carried out by the Turks a clandestine cell of ARF revolutionaries was created with the sole aim of hunting down and assassinating leading Ottoman figures involved in the massacres. From 1920, under the title Operation Nemesis, seven targeted assassinations were carried out, including a double killing in April 1922. 

Cemal Azmi, former Governor of Trebizond Province and Bahattin Şakir, a politician who advocated the Genocide, were among a group of prominent officials accused of genocide and who had been transferred to Malta for trial under British auspices. However with the political situation in Turkey rapidly deteriorating all were released in 1921 in exchange for British prisoners held by the Turks. 

Seeking sanctuary the two men settled in Berlin where two ARF assassins, Aram Yerganian and Arshavir Shirakian, tracked them down. As the two men with their families were walking along Uhlandstrasse the assassins opened fire. Shirakian killed Azmi on the spot but only wounded Şakir who ran away. Yerganian followed him and killed him. 

Both assassins escaped Germany and were never brought to trial. Yerganian died in his 30s in Argentina while Shirakian eventually settled in the USA where he died in his 70s in Englewood NJ. 

18 April 1922 - Explosion at Monastir. 100 years ago today.

A major disaster that's barely covered anywhere on the internet, hence the sparse details.

Over 400 killed in the explosion of a trainload of explosives stockpiled at Monastir railway station in Yugoslavia. Many of the dead were soldiers at a nearby barracks. 

19 April 1922 - Sinking of the CGS Lambton. 100 years ago today.

The Lambton was a 323 ton coastguard cutter operated by the Canadian government on Lake Superior. On 18 April 1922 she sailed from Sault Ste Marie with a crew of 16 and five passengers, lighthousemen being ferried over to three lighthouses on islands on the Lake. She sailed in company with two other smaller vessels, but overnight a storm broke forcing the two to seek shelter while the Lambton pressed on. She was never seen again. By the time the storm subsided the Lambton was overdue, a search was made and it transpired that she had not made it to any of the three islands she was heading for. Wreckage was discovered but no trace of the 21 men was ever found.

Storms on the Great Lakes are unforgiving & the lakes are littered with wrecks of ships. "Old Salts" from the blue water navy will admit that Great Lakes storms brew suddenly & can be a vicious as those on the oceans. The wave patterns are different & deadly. 

April 18, 1906

San Francisco earthquake devastates the city at 5:13 a.m. Estimated at close to 8.0 on the Richter scale it toppled 30,000 buildings & killed 3,000 people. Fires raged until April 23rd.  

Same can be said for New Orleans which is built below sea level & in the path of hurricane alley. 

20 April 1922 - Collision between the SS Aeolus and the SS Zero. 100 years ago today.

The Aeolus was originally a German liner the Grosser Kurfürst launched in 1899 which at the outbreak of war in 1914 found itself in New York with the crew unwilling to risk the voyage across the Atlantic. When the USA entered the war in 1917 it was seized and renamed the Aeolus and converted into a troopship. 

After the war it remained under US control and served with the Munson Steamship Co on the New York-South America route. It was on one such voyage in April 1922 that it collided with the British steamer Zero off the coast of Uruguay. The Zero sank but all her 18 crew were rescued. 

The Queen celebrates her 95th birthday posing for a photo-op with her horsies. 

And it's Art's birthday today too, his official photograph has yet to be released, I've heard he couldn't stand still long enough before running for the toilet. The Queen is 96 today, not 95.

Have you read any Alastair MacLean? He wrote many best selling action novels some of which were made into highly popular films - The Guns of Navarone, Ice Station Zebra, Where Eagles Dare, Force 10 From Navarone, Bear Island, Caravan to Vaccarès etc. He was born 100 years ago today in Glasgow. He died in 1987. 

22 April 1622 - An Anglo-Persian army captured Hormuz. 400 years ago today.

The strategic island of Hormuz off the Persian coast had been in Portuguese hands since 1507. They used it as a staging post on the route to India and the Far East. As British interest, in the shape of the British East India Company, in the area grew so did rivalry with Portugal. In 1621 the Persians, who had tried many times to take the island, came to an arrangement with the English. In return for trade concessions the Company would join forces with the Persians in a combined attack on the island. In 1622 sailing on Company ships a Persian army disembarked on the island under cover of a naval bombardment and stormed the Portuguese fortress. It quickly surrendered and the surviving Portuguese fled to Muscat on the southern shore of the Persian Gulf where they held out for a further 28 years.    

Storms on the Great Lakes are unforgiving & the lakes are littered with wrecks of ships. "Old Salts" from the blue water navy will admit that Great Lakes storms brew suddenly & can be a vicious as those on the oceans. The wave patterns are different & deadly. 

Georgian Bay and Lake Huron are no better and have many wreaks especially around Tobermory which is at the tip of the Bruce Peninsula which divides Lake Huron and Georgian Bay. The wrecks there are in crystal clear water which has turned it into a divers paradise.