Random News and Notes 28 September

On this date:

• 48 BC – On landing in Egypt, Pompey is murdered on the orders of Ptolemy.
• 855 – Carolingian Emperor Lothair dies in Gaul, and his kingdom is divided between his three sons.
• 1066 – William, Duke of Normandy, soon to be known as William the Conqueror invades England.
• 1106 – King Henry of England defeats his brother Robert at the Battle of Tinchebrai and reunites England and Normandy.
• 1238 – James of Aragon retakes Valencia, Spain, from the Arabs.
• 1607 – Samuel de Champlain and his colonists return to France from Port Royal Nova Scotia.
• 1781 – General George Washington, commanding a force of 17,000 French and Continental troops, begins the siege known as the Battle of Yorktown against British General Lord Charles Cornwallis and a contingent of 9,000 British troops.
• 1794 – The Anglo-Russian-Austrian Alliance of St. Petersburg, which is directed against France, is signed.
• 1864 – Union General William Rosecrans blames his defeat at Chickamauga on two of his subordinate generals. They are later exonerated by a court of inquiry.
• 1874 – Colonel Ronald Mackenzie raids a war camp of Comanche and Kiowa at the Battle of Palo Duro Canyon, Texas, slaughtering 2,000 of their horses.
• 1918 – A Liberty Loan parade in Philadelphia prompts a huge outbreak of Spanish flu in the city. By the time the pandemic ended, an estimated 20 million to 50 million people were dead worldwide.
• 1924 – Three U.S. Army aircraft arrive in Seattle, Washington after completing a 22-day round-the-world flight.
• 1941 – On the last day of Major League Baseball’s regular season, the Boston Red Sox’s Ted Williams gets six hits in eight at-bats during a doubleheader in Philadelphia, boosting his average to .406. He becomes the first player since 1930 to hit .400. In addition to his .406 batting average—no major league player since Williams has hit .400—the left fielder led the big leagues with 37 homers, 135 runs and a slugging average of .735.
• 1960 – At Boston’s Fenway Park, Red Sox star Ted Williams hits a home run in the last at-bat of his 21-year career. Williams lost parts of 5 seasons during WWII and the Korean War flying combat sorties first with the Navy and then with the Marine Corps.
• 1961 – Military coup in Damascus ends the Egypt-Syria union known as the United Arab Republic that was formed Feb. 1, 1958.
• 1994 – 852 people die in one of the worst maritime disasters of the century when the Estonia, a large car-and-passenger ferry, sinks in the Baltic Sea.
• 1995 – Israel’s Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) leader Yasser Arafat sign an interim agreement concerning settlement on the Gaza Strip.
• 2008 – SpaceX launches the first private spacecraft, Falcon 1.

We start the news with an update on the attempted terror attack at RAF Fairford. The police have stated that the 5 men arrested were UK nationals. While their nationality and borough of residence has been released, no word on names. Coulter’s law perhaps?

It also seems that the woman who initially called 999 (UK 911) says there were 8 – 10 men, not 5 and the bobbies have not talked to her about the incident. Meanwhile, the chief of the local police says they aren’t looking for anyone else.

The images that popped up yesterday alleging to be of the suspects seem to indicate that they are not of Anglo-Saxon descent. I expect we’ll find out more in the coming days.

President Trump is about to announce a new steel mill. The $15 billion project by Minnesota-based Mesabi Metallics will create the largest steel plant in American history, with initial output of 7.5 million tons per year and potential to reach 10 million tons by 2030.

Now we just need some processing plants for rare earths, bauxite, lead and copper.

Fat Bear Week is heading into the final four. Adult female 910 faces off with Bear 132 and her 3 cubs. On the other side of the bracket, Adult male bear 89 – Backpack will face adult male bear 164 – Bucky Dent. Voting opens at noon EDT.

The finals will be tomorrow.

SpaceX had a successful-ish launch of Starship earlier today. The launch was a qualified success due to the loss of thrust from one of the Raptor engines driving the rocket. Starship successfully completed an orbital burn with just a single Raptor engine to reach the Earth’s orbit about 26 minutes after liftoff.

Starship was carrying – and successfully deployed – 26 Starlink V3 satellites. Splashdown is scheduled for later this afternoon.