On this date in 1941, the Ustaše began their genocidal campaign against Serbs in the so-called Independent State of Croatia. They were quite as bad as the NAZIs, with death camps and all but get very little attention in the mainstream histories of WW II. This is very likely because of their close ties and what one might call interlocking "management" with one of the world's major religious factions which would really cast said religious faction in a bad light were everything and its broader implications known

On this date in 1945, Benito Mussolini and his mistress were killed. That was probably all for the better, because they were clearly candidates to get rat-lined into any of the several countries that leading NAZIs wound up in (including many just average NAZIs as well).

On this date in 1965, US Troops invaded the Dominican Republic in support of a right wing junta. This was allegedly done to prevent the installation of a communist dictatorship, meaning a democratically elected government arguably to the left of Benito Mussolini. Said elected government had enacted a few mild social reforms that pissed off a handful of wealthy business magnates, thereby proving it to be communist, or worse, in the eyes of the US government. Roughly 3,000 Domicans and 31 Americans died. but the world was made safe from the Red Meance of social reform, so it was worth it

On this day in 1987, Benjamin Ernest Linder, an American engineer working on a small hydroelectric dam in rural northern Nicaragua,was brutally tortured and killed by the US backed terrorists known as the Contras. At least two co-workers were killed with him. The autopsy report stated that Linder had gunshot wounds to the back of the legs and while on the ground he suffered multiple wounds to his face as from an ice pick and died from a close range gunshot to the head. The other two men were also executed in the same way. It is unknown if they were similarly tortured first. There was no mention in Linder’s autopsy report of grenade fragments though some sources later blamed a greenade for his injuries.

At the time, the Sandinistas had undertaken several programs to improve the lives of the people such as education and literacy campaigns, health care improvements, rural electrification and the like. As US president, Ronald Reagan was obligated to attempt to cripple and, if possible, destroy the Sandinista government and all of its projects aimed at improving the quality of life for Nicaragua's ordinary citizens . If a country, especially a less wealthy one, expends significant resources on improving the lives of its citizens, instead of increasing the power and wealth of the already powerful and wealthy, the politicians, millionaires. billionaires, and corporations, and does so successfully for an extended period of time, US citizens might get the idea that this is what a government is supposed to do. Accordingly, it is incumbent on any administration confronted with such a foreign government to destroy it lest the US citizenry should come to believe that there are viable alternatives to what goes on here.

Reagan, like others before and after him turned to the CIA to deal with this threat to the stability of the US style of governance. The CIA, as is standard procedure, trained, armed, supplied and funded a group of terrorist insurgents, in this case, the Contras. The Contras then proceeded to attack government cooperatives, health clinics, schools, and power stations, things that represented improvements perpetrated by the government, as well as the persons working on, building, staffing, and utilizing such infrastructure. Benjamin Linder was working on a small rural hydroelectric damn and was accordingly tortured and killed by the Contras. There was a fuss about it at the time, but it died down. They always do.

The song "Fragile" on Sting's 1987 album, ...Nothing Like the Sun, is a tribute to Ben Linder

On this day in history:

1503 – The Battle of Cerignola; one of the first European battles won by small arms fire using gunpowder.

1789 – Lieutenant William Bligh and 18 sailors were set adrift, the rest of the Bounty's crew beat feet

1792 – France invaded the Austrian Netherlands, beginning the French Revolutionary Wars.

1869 – Laborers for the Central Pacific Railroad laid ten miles of track in one day, a feat never since matched.

1937 – Medical researcher Max Theiler developed the yellow fever vaccine

1941 – The Ustaše massacred nearly 200 Serbs in Gudovac, starting their genocidal campaign against Serbs in Croatia.

1944 – Nine German E-boats attack US and UK units during the rehearsal for the Normandy landings, killing 946.

1945 – Benito Mussolini and his mistress Clara Petacci were shot dead by Walter Audisio

1947 – Thor Heyerdahl and five crew mates set out from Peru for Polynesia on the Kon-Tiki t

1948 – Igor Stravinsky conducted the premiere of his American ballet, Orpheus

1952 – The Treaty of San Francisco took effect, restoring Japanese sovereignty and ending its state of war

1952 – The Sino-Japanese Peace Treaty (Treaty of Taipei) is signed in Taipei, Taiwan between Japan and ROC

1965 – US troops landed in the Dominican Republic to support a coup d'etat

1967 – Muhammad Ali refused his induction into the US Army

1970 – President Nixon formally authorized US combat troops to take part in the Cambodian campaign.

1973 – Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon hit number one on the US Billboard chart, starting a record-breaking 741-week chart run.

1987 – Ben Linder, US, engineer and activist, was tortured and murdered by Contras

2004 – CBS News released evidence of the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse.

Some people who were born on this day:

“Any consistent formal system F within which a certain amount of elementary arithmetic can be carried out is incomplete; i.e., there are statements of the language of F which can neither be proved nor disproved in F.”

~~ Kurt Gödel

1545 – Yi Sun-sin, brilliant Korean admiral and general of Imjin War
1715 – Franz Sparry,composer and educator
1761 – Marie Harel, cheese maker, co-invented Camembert
1838 – Tobias Asser, lawyer and scholar, helped establish the Hague
1848 – Ludvig Schytte, pianist, composer, and educator
1854 – Hertha Marks Ayrton, engineer, mathematician, and physicist.
1868 – Georgy Voronoy, mathematician and academic, designed the Voronoy diagram
1876 – Nicola Romeo, engineer and businessman (as in Alfa Romeo)
1900 – Jan Oort, astronomer and academic ( as in Oort cloud)
1906 – Kurt Gödel, mathematician, philosopher, and academic
1908 – Oskar Schindler, businessman (as in Schindler's List)
1913 – Rose Murphy, singer
1916 – Ferruccio Lamborghini, businessman, created Lamborghini
1924 – Blossom Dearie, singer and pianist
1926 – Harper Lee, novelist
1928 – Eugene Merle Shoemaker, geologist and astronomer
1937 – Jean Redpath, singer and songwriter
1944 – Alice Waters, chef and author
1947 – Steve Khan, jazz guitarist
1948 – Terry Pratchett, journalist, author, and screenwriter
1950 – Willie Colón, trombonist and producer
1952 – Chuck Leavell, singer, songwriter, and keyboard player
1953 – Kim Gordon, singer, songwriter, guitarist, and producer
1955 – Eddie Jobson, keyboard player and violinist
1956 – Jimmy Barnes, singer, songwriter, and guitarist
1960 – Phil King, bass player
1964 – Noriyuki Iwadare, composer
1968 – Howard Donald, singer, songwriter, and producer

Some people who died on this day:

It's a wonderful feeling to work in a country where the government's first concern is for its people, for all its people.

~~ Ben Linder

1858 – Johannes Peter Müller, physiologist, anatomist, ichthyologist, and herpetolofist
1903 – Josiah Willard Gibbs, scientist and mechanical engineer
1928 – May Jordan McConnel, trade unionist and suffragist
1939 – Anne Walter Fearn, physician
1945 – Benito Mussolini, journalist and politician
1946 – Louis Bachelier, mathematician and academic, first to model brownian motion
1980 – Tommy Caldwell, bass player
1987 – Ben Linder, engineer and activist brutally tortured and murdered by Contras
1994 – Berton Roueché, journalist and author
1999 – Rolf Landauer, physicist and engineer
1999 – Arthur Leonard Schawlow, physicist and academic
2005 – Percy Heath, bassist
2013 – Paulo Vanzolini, singer, songwriter, and zoologist. Hmmmmmm

2014 – Dennis Kamakahi, guitarist and composer
2014 – Idris Sardi, violinist and composer

Some Holidays, Holy Days, Festivals, Feast Days, Days of Recognition, and such:

National Day of Mourning (Canada)
World Day for Safety and Health at Work
Workers' Memorial Day
National Blueberry Pie Day
Great Poetry Reading Day
International Pay it Forward Day

Today's Tunes

Dominican Republic

Benjamin Ernest Lindor

Ludvig Schytte

Blossom Dearie

Harper Lee

Jean Redpath,

Steve Khan

Willie Colón

Chuck Leavell

Eddie Jobson

Jimmy Barnes,

Noriyuki Iwadare

Percy Heath

Paulo Vanzolini

Dennis Kamakahi

Idris Sardi

Ok, it's an open thread, so it's up to you folks now. What's on your mind?

Cross posted from http://caucus99percent.com

open thread, Ustase, Mussoline, Dominican Republic, Ben Linder, Blossom Dearie, Harper Lee, Willie Colon, Dennis Kamakahi