The King’s Speech: The Gate of the Year 1939

George VI (Albert Frederick Arthur George; 14 December 1895 – 6 February 1952) was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 until his death. He was the last Emperor of India, and the first Head of the Commonwealth.

It was Christmas, 1939, and Great Britain was at war with Nazi Germany. Like his father before him, King George VI would continue the holiday tradition of addressing the British Empire in a live radio message. That year, he would broadcast from the royal country house at Sandringham, where he and his family would spend Christmas.

The Royal Residence at Sandringham, England

King George VI and his family leave Buckingham Palace, 1939, to spend Christmas at their country house at Sandringham. Pictured are the King and his wife Queen Elizabeth, daughters Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret Rose. Princess Elizabeth would become Queen Elizabeth upon the death of her father in 1952.

You will remember that King George VI was not a man comfortable with public speaking. His struggle to overcome a debilitating speech impediment – a stutter – was immortalized in the 2011 American Academy Award-winning film for Best Picture, “The King’s Speech.” A shy, nervous man, a heavy smoker and drinker (it would kill him at 56), King George VI would have preferred to have remained the Duke of York, living a quiet, out-of-the-public eye life with his sturdy wife and two rosy-cheeked daughters.

British Royal Princesses Elizabeth (l.) and Margaret Rose. This photo was taken in February 1939, seven months before the outbreak of WWII.

King George VI – born Albert, called Bertie - never wanted to be king. He wasn’t supposed to be king. He was only king because his brother David had abdicated the throne in 1936 and he, Bertie, was next in line. Nevertheless, unwillingness aside, this unlikely monarch would rise to the occasion and be the very king the British people so sorely needed in a time of great trouble.

It was December 25, 1939, the day of the broadcast. Dressed in the uniform of the Admiral of the Fleet, the tall and too thin sovereign approached the table where two radio microphones were set up, taking his seat.

King George VI addresses his people on September 19, 1939, at the outbreak of WWII.

Taking a few deep breaths, he began to speak, slowly yet solidly. Measuring his words carefully, he spoke from the heart:

“A new year is at hand. We cannot tell what it will bring. If it brings peace, how thankful we shall all be. If it brings us continued struggle we shall remain undaunted.”

Toward the end of his nine-minute broadcast, he said:

“I feel that we may all find a message of encouragement in the lines which, in my closing words, I would like to say to you:”

He then read from a poem given to him by his 13-year-old daughter, Princess Elizabeth,

“I said to the man who stood at the Gate of the Year,
‘Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.’
And he replied, ‘Go out into the darkness, and put your hand into the Hand of God.
That shall be better than light, and safer than a known way.’”*

He finished by saying,

“May that Almighty Hand guide and uphold us all.”

For a king not known for compelling speeches, this one would be a landmark. It united King and Country in common cause and inspired the people to hold fast. After all, at this point in history, no one knew that the Allies would triumph. Britain was to face five more years of war and brutal bombing by Hitler before the day of liberation would arrive. The end of 1939 was a shaky time and great leadership by King, Queen, and Prime Minister Winston Churchill would hold Britain steady against the Nazi aggressors.

Queen Elizabeth and King George VI of Great Britain stop at Vallence Road, Stepney, in the East End, London, to examine the debris following an air raid in the Second World War. October 4, 1945

King George VI pins a Distinguished Service Medal on Chief Petty Officer C.L.Baldwin in December 1939.

Listen to the last four minutes of the King’s Christmas 1939 message here:

For more about the British Royal Family on this blog, click here.

Click here for the full text of the King’s 1939 Christmas Message plus The REAL austerity Christmas: How a nation gripped by fear kept calm and carried  on three months after outbreak of war in 1939

*“The Gate of the Year,” by Minnie Haskins (1908)

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Jackie Kennedy & the Gold Cigarette Lighter

Jackie Kennedy

In 1966, multimillionaire Robert David Lion Gardiner invited Jackie Kennedy to visit him on to his private islet, Gardiners Island, off the coast of Long Island. Gardiners Island had been in Gardiner’s family for four centuries and was one of the largest privately-owned islands in the world.

Eunice Bailey Oakes Gardiner and Robert David Lion Gardiner

Gardiner arranged a dinner party for Jackie which was attended by both Gardiner and wife, the former British model Eunice Bailey Oakes, and several others.

After dinner, the guests retired to the lavish wood-paneled den, where coffee and cognac were served. According to Gardiner, he watched as Jackie took out a cigarette and looked around for a light. A gold cigarette lighter belonging to Eunice lay on a  nearby table. Jackie picked it up and used it to light her cigarette. Then, inexplicably, she slipped the lighter into her evening bag.

Gardiner was aghast. Jackie Kennedy had deliberately stolen his wife’s lighter.

Gardiner didn’t know what to do. Several uncomfortable minutes later, he went over to his humidor and took out a cigar. Turning to the roomful of guests, he asked:

Have any of you seen my wife’s gold cigarette lighter?” 

Getting no response, he addressed his most distinguished guest:

Did you, Mrs. Kennedy? I believe you were the last one to use it.”

Jackie shrugged, replying in her little girl voice:  

I have no idea where it went. ”

The lighter was never returned to its owner. Gardiner was furious and retaliated by spreading stories accusing Jackie of kleptomania.

Jackie Kennedy and Aristotle Onassis, June 5, 1969, at Kennedy Airport, New York. The couple had been married less than a year.

The gossip reached the Greek ears of Aristotle Onassis, Jackie’s husband from 1968-75, who sent Gardiner a check for $5,000, along with a note threatening legal action for slander. Jackie had admitted to Ari that she had accidentally placed the lighter in her purse that evening at Gardiner’s but had, since then, simply lost track of it.

At some point, though, the missing lighter “resurfaced.” After Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis’s death in 1994, the lighter was auctioned off at Sotheby’s in New York as part of her multi-million-dollar estate.

Source: Bobby and Jackie: A Love Story. New York: Atria, 2009.

Readers, for more posts on Jackie Kennedy on this blog, click here.

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Prince Albert of Monaco: A THIRD Love Child? Really?

Center, Prince Albert of Monaco and his fiancé Charlene Wittstock pose with the band The Eagles, performing in Monaco to celebrate the wedding of Albert and Charlene. June 30, 2011.

Prince Albert of Monaco and Charlene Wittstock of South Africa are scheduled to wed today in Monte Carlo despite revelations in the French Press earlier in the week that the never-before-married Prince Albert, 53, may have fathered a third love child. Upon learning of the Le Monde article, Miss Wittstock, 20 years Albert’s junior, reportedly tried to flee the tiny Riviera principality.

As reported in The Daily Mail, “the couple’s lawyers have furiously denied a rift, while police have claimed that Miss Wittstock even

had her passport confiscated at the Nice airport to stop her getting on a flight.” 

Despite this hiccup, the wedding is going ahead as planned. The engaged couple put on a happy show of unity last night as they attended a concert by The Eagles. The free show was held at Monaco’s stadium and attracted thousands of fans from the principality and neighboring areas.

The wedding nuptials include a civil ceremony today and a Catholic Church ceremony tomorrow. 

In this June 2011 photo for Vogue magazine, Charlene Wittstock shows off her impressive physique. She was a South African Olympic swimmer who will become Princess Charlene of Monaco on Friday, July 1, 2011, when she weds Prince Albert of Monaco. Prince Albert is the son of the late Grace Kelly, American film actress, and Prince Rainier III of Monaco.

Charlene Wittstock stands on a precipice in Monaco.

To see a gallery of Charlene Wittstock photos at the Daily Beast, click here.  

The nuptials at Monte Carlo may rival the British royal wedding in lavishness and excess. While newlyweds William and Kate, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, are unable to attend the festivities because they are currently in Canada on a North American tour, the guest list is still expected to be impressive. Shrouded in secrecy, it is rumored to include crowned heads of Europe, politicians, and glitterati such as international supermodel Naomi Campbell, German haute couture designer Karl Lagerfeld, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife, First Lady Carla Bruni.

Musician and former model Carla Bruni is expecting her second child, her first with Sarkozy.

The June 2011 issue of French magazine Elle features First Lady of France Carla Bruni Sarkozy with her growing pregnancy bump. Carla Bruni is a former model, and has graced the cover of Elle many times.

Before she was the First Lady of France: Carla Bruni models a designer bikini and pearl-rimmed sunglasses.

READERS: For more on Lisa’s History Room about Carla Bruni, click here.   

 

In the photo above, Prince Albert’s mother, Princess Grace of Monaco, is shown climbing the stairs of the Princely Palace in Monaco, ca. 1960. Princess Grace is the Hollywood actress Grace Kelly who gave up her film career to marry Rainier III, Prince of Monaco, in 1956. Together they raised three children: Caroline, Princess of Hanover, Albert II, Prince of Monaco, and Princess Stéphanie of Monaco.

Readers: For more on Lisa’s History Room about Princess Grace, click here.

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Nicholas & Alexandra: Khodynka Field

The Crowned Romanovs, Nicholas II and Alexandra Feodorovna, 1896 image

On May 26, 1896, the coronation of Tsar Nicholas II was held in Moscow. Four days later, the traditional public festival was to be held at a field five miles north of the city. At the invitation of the new tsar, every Russian was welcome.  As Tsar Nicholas II was the absolute ruler of 1/6 of the earth and more than 120 million people, many people were expected. (3) All were promised free food, beer, gifts, and entertainment.  The tsar himself was to appear at the central pavillion to watch the parade and greet his people.

The Khodynka Program of Events

Khodynka Field was the site selected for the popular celebration because it was the only place large enough to contain the expected crowd. However, Khodynka Field was not a natural fairground; it was a training ground for troops of the Moscow garrison. The field was crisscrossed by a network of shallow trenches used for moving troops and artillery and pitted with holes. Therefore, in preparation for the festival, wooden stalls, reviewing stands, and entertainment stages had to be built as well as bridges to span the enormous ditches. Barricades – really just skimpy wooden railings – protected the site from the crowds.

Khodynka Field is being prepared for the May 26, 1896, post coronation celebration for Russian Tsar Nicholas II.

Thrilled by the coronation and excited by the prospect of the carnival to be held at Khodynka Field, the people were “stirred up and restive.” (1) The night before, thousands thronged to the area and camped out in the open, waiting for dawn, when the turnstiles would open and they could enter the fairgrounds. As the group waited, a rumor began to spread

that there would not be enough gifts or food to go around. They had been promised sausage, bread rolls, sweets, nuts, gingerbread and a precious keepsake – a pink enamel mug bearing the arms of the city of Moscow and the words “In memory of the Holy Coronation,” all wrapped together in a colored kerchief stamped with the tsar and tsarina’s pictures.” (1)

More and more people came. There was much jostling and crowding. “The crush was so great a bullet could not have slipped through.” (2) Over the course of the night, made anxious by rumors of shortages, people pushed toward the barricades that guarded the entrance to the fairground in order to be the first in line when the gates opened.

It was sometime just before dawn when the barricades fell. The crowd surged forward, stampeding onto the meadow, rushing toward the food stalls. The patrol of 100 mounted Cossacks could not even begin to control the “mass of people half a million strong.” Khodynka Field, with its open trenches, became a deathtrap:

People by the thousands fell in a ditch and ended standing literally on their heads at the bottom. Others fell straight after them and more, and more….” (1)

Others, knocked down in the pandemonium, were trampled to death or mutilated by the incessant forward motion of the crowd. In minutes, Khodynka Field resembled a  battlefield, strewn with carnage. People were fainting,  gasping for air, vomiting, writhing, screaming, bleeding, lying dead or dying. Thousands were wounded, over 1300 were dead.

Trampled bodies cover Khodynka Field prior to the post-coronation celebration of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, May 30, 1896.

Russians standing in the Khodynka Field in the aftermath of the riot that killed over 1300 Russians, May 30, 1896.

By 10:30 a.m., Tsar Nicholas II was told of the Khodynka catastrophe. He was shocked and sorrowful. Out of respect to the victims, his first inclination was to cancel the day’s activities which included not only his appearance at the Khodynka Field but a ball at the French embassy. But he gave into his advisors, his uncles, and kept to the official schedule.  After all, France was Russia’s only European ally, he was reminded, and Russia could not afford to offend France. Besides, to adorn the ball, the French government had gone to great lengths, sending priceless tapestries and treasures of silver plate from Paris and Versaillles, along with 100,000 roses from the south of France. (3)

So the day went forward as planned. Bodies were carted off from the Khodynka Field where the tsar made his traditional appearance as if nothing had happened.

The celebration at Khodynka Field, parades and all, went on, despite the morning's carnage.

The French “ball was opened by the Majesties dancing a quadrille,” said the Minister of Finance.

The "Coronation Cup" given away at the Khodynka Field post-coronation celebration for Tsar Nicholas II. It has come to be known as the "Cup of Sorrows," commemorating the tragedy of 1300 people trampled to death that day in May of 1896.

Outward appearances aside, both the tsar and tsarina were deeply affected by the events at Khodynka. They visited the wounded in the hospitals. They paid for the burial of the dead. From the Tsar’s private purse, each victim’s family was remunerated. But no act of kindness could erase the terrible event from the Russian national consciousness. Many felt that the Khodynka Field Massacre was an omen that the reign of Tsar Nicholas II would not be a happy one. The tsar earned the nickname “Bloody Nicholas.”

Russian Empress Alexandra with her firstborn, daughter Olga, in 1896.

Secretly, throughout those long and difficult days, Empress Alexandra, the tsarina,  had been expecting a child, her second after Olga. After the Khodynka tragedy, the Empress was greatly distressed and suffered a miscarriage.  The lost baby was a boy, who, had he lived, would have become the male heir in line for the Russian throne, the boy everyone was clamoring for Alexandra to give birth to.

1897 photo of Russian Revolutionary Leon Trotsky, born Lew Dawidowich Bronstein

Shortly after Khodynka, Leon Trotsky began his Marxist political activity against Imperial Russia.  Bread and circuses would not longer pacify the tsar’s people. The revolution had begun.

 (1) Erickson, Carolly. Alexandra: The Last Tsarina. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2001.

(2) Radzinsky, Edward. The Last Tsar: The Life and Death of Nicholas II. New York: Doubleday, 1992.

(3) Massie, Robert K. Nicholas and Alexandra. New York: Dell Publishing Co., 1967.

Readers: For more on the Russian Royal Family, click here.

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Arnold’s MiniMe: Schwarzenegger’s Lookalike Son

(See previous post, “Arnold Schwarzenegger: I Have a Love Child.”)

ABC News has reported that Mildred Patricia Baena — who the network says worked as a housekeeper for the family of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver — is the mother of the former California governor’s fifth child, a son. The boy, Joseph, who is 14, is the spitting image of Schwarzenegger, down to his signature grin.

Former Schwarzenegger housekeeper Mildred Baena, 47, poses with her son in a photo from her MySpace page. The son is purported to be Arnold Schwarzenegger's out-of wedlock child who was born on Oct. 2, 1997, five days after Arnold's wife, Maria Shriver, gave birth to his son, Christopher.

Compare the two faces of Arnold and his son.

Arnold Schwarzenegger as a young bodybuilder

Mildred "Patty" Baena's son, fathered by Arnold Schwarzenegger

See TMZ for the latest on this developing story.

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Carla Bruni Sarkosy IS Pregnant

Carla Bruni proudly parades her growing bump as she makes her way into the launch event for her foundation to combat illiteracy at Centre Pompidou modern art museum, also known as Beaubourg, in Paris (May 17, 2011)

It was confirmed today that France‘s First Lady Carla Bruni Sarkozy is pregnant, possibly with twins due in October. Speaking to German newspaper Bild, her father-in-law, Pal Sarkozy, 82, said, ‘I’m glad to be having a grandchild.’ He went on to say that neither his son, French President Nicolas Sarkozy nor his daughter-in-law Bruni

 ’want to know the sex the child, but I’m sure it’s a girl who’ll be as beautiful as Carla’.”

French President Nicolas Sarkozy poses with then girlfriend Carla Bruni at the Giza pyramids in Cairo, Egypt, Dec. 30, 2007. They would wed on Feb. 2, 2008, having known one another for only 9 weeks.

President Sarkozy, 55, – ‘Sarko’ – has three sons, Pierre, 26, and Jean, 24, from his first marriage to Marie-Dominique Culioli, and Louis, 14, with his second wife, Cecilia Ciganer-Albeniz. Bruni, 43, is already a mother to Aurelien, born in 2001. His father was her then lover, the Paris philosopher Raphael Enthoven.

The announcement ends weeks of speculation that Bruni is expecting.

Source: The Daily Mail

Read more about Carla Bruni here.

 

 

 

 

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Arnold Schwarzenegger: I Have a Love Child

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, 63, admits fathering a child with a member of his household staff. For over 20 years, the unnamed woman worked for Arnold and his wife, Maria Shriver, and just recently left her job.  

Maria Shriver and Arnold Schwarzenegger during happier times.

Although the event happened over 10 years ago, Arnold just revealed it to Maria, 55, earlier this year, leading to the couple’s split. The couple have four children together, ages 14, 18, 20 and 21.

Read more at The Daily Mail. 

Readers, read more about Arnold on this blog: “Arnold Schwarzenegger: Master of All He Surveys.”

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Bin Laden’s Fatwa Against America

The Statue of Liberty still stands in New York Harbor as the Twin Towers at the World Trade Center burn on September 11, 2001. Lest we forget. We were attacked.

"The Falling Man": A man jumps from one of the Twin Towers attacked in New York City on 9/11 by al Qaeda terrorists under the leadership of Osama bin Laden. Although the jumper's identity is uncertain, he is believed to be Jonathan Briley. Briley worked on the top floor of the north tower of the World Trade Center. It was there, in the restaurant, that he decided to jump. He was an asthmatic and knew he would not survive when smoke began to pour into the restaurant. Approximately 200 jumped or fell to their deaths that fateful September morning.

For those who gave their lives then, on Sept. 11, 2011, and for those who fight against terrorism we weep and pray and thank God for America.

It bears repeating, for those who have forgotten and for those who never knew: Bin Laden called for his followers and for all Muslims in the world to kill Americans. Here a translated excerpt of bin Laden’s 1998 fatwa:

On that basis, and in compliance with God’s order, we issue the following fatwa to all Muslims:

The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies — civilians and military — is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque [Mecca] from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim. This is in accordance with the words of Almighty God, “and fight the pagans all together as they fight you all together,” and “fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in God.”

This is in addition to the words of Almighty God: “And why should ye not fight in the cause of God and of those who, being weak, are ill-treated (and oppressed)? — women and children, whose cry is: ‘Our Lord, rescue us from this town, whose people are oppressors; and raise for us from thee one who will help!’”

We — with God’s help — call on every Muslim who believes in God and wishes to be rewarded to comply with God’s order to kill the Americans and plunder their money wherever and whenever they find it. We also call on Muslim ulema, leaders, youths, and soldiers to launch the raid on Satan’s U.S. troops and the devil’s supporters allying with them, and to displace those who are behind them so that they may learn a lesson.”

Source: PBS

Readers: For more on the death of bin Laden, click here.

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Bin Laden’s Fifth Wife Identified

(L.) Bin Laden's Fifth Wife, 29 year old Amal Ahmed bin Laden shown with picture of husband, Osama bin Laden

By the time Osama bin Laden was killed, he was down to only one of his five wives: Amal Ahmed Abdul Fatah, the youngest and his rumored favorite. By the time he moved into his Pakistan mansion, bin Laden had divorced one of his wives and three others had moved to Syria, according to ABC News, but 29 year-old Amal had remained with him. She had been given to him as a gift when she was still a teenager, and eventually had three children with bin Laden—a daughter and two sons, who lived with them in the compound.

On the night of the raid, Amal was in the bedroom with bin Laden, and apparently reacted with fury to the Navy SEALs who had come to kill her husband. “She rushed one of the U.S. assaulters and was shot in the leg, but not killed,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said.

Fatah was treated for her wounds and is in custody in Pakistan, officials said.

Sources: ABC News, The Daily Beast

Readers: For more coverage of the killing of bin Laden, click here.

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FBI: Usama Bin Laden – Deceased

“Most Wanted Terrorist Dead

Bin Laden Killed in U.S. ‘Targeted Operation’”

05/02/11

U.S. President Barack announces that the enemy of the American people, al Qaeda terrorist Osama bin Laden, has been killed. May 1, 2011

The mastermind of the attacks on September 11, 2001 that killed thousands of innocent men, women, and children has been killed.

President Barack Obama made the announcement late Sunday evening, May 1, in a televised address to the world. He said he had been briefed by the intelligence community last August that bin Laden was in hiding “within a compound deep inside of Pakistan.” Over the intervening months, intelligence agencies worked to confirm the intelligence. Then last week, President Obama determined there was enough intelligence to take action.

Bin Laden was on the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list as well as the State Department’s Most Wanted Terrorists list.

Osama Bin Laden, murderer of innocents (1957-2011), issued a fatwa against America and Americans in 1997.

“Today, at my direction, the United States launched a targeted operation against that compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan,” the President said from the East Room of the White House:

A small team of Americans carried out the operation with extraordinary courage and capability. No Americans were harmed. They took care to avoid civilian casualties. After a firefight, they killed Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body.”

Well before the events of 9/11, bin Laden had openly declared war on the U.S. and was committed to killing innocents. His al-Qaeda group was responsible for the 1998 bombings of the U.S. Embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya. The attacks killed over 200 people. Bin Laden was indicted for his role in planning the attacks and added to the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list in 1999.

Intelligence agencies quickly learned that the 9/11 attacks were carried out by bin Laden’s terrorist organization, and in October 2001, his name was added to the U.S. Department of State’s Most Wanted Terrorists List.

“Tonight, we give thanks to the countless intelligence and counterterrorism professionals who’ve worked tirelessly to achieve this outcome,” President Obama said. “The American people do not see their work, nor know their names. But tonight, they feel the satisfaction of their work and the result of their pursuit of justice.”

The FBI updated its files to show that Public Enemy No. 1, Osama bin Laden, is dead. The White House used the code name "Geronimo" for bin Laden.

Source: FBI

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How Bin Laden Was Killed

Shortly before the U.S. presidential election on October 29, 2004, Arab television network Al Jazeera broadcast an 18-minute video tape of Osama bin Laden, addressed to citizens of the United States. According to the English translation distributed by the BBC and other media outlets, he tells viewers he personally directed the 19 hijackers behind the 9/11 attack on the U.S. Bin Laden claimed he was inspired to destroy the World Trade Center after watching the destruction of towers in Lebanon by Israel during the 1982 Lebanon War.

 

Al Qaeda terrorist Osama bin Laden, 2001, responsible for countless deaths of innocents, is now dead. (1957-2011)

 

Provided by the Dept of Defense, this map shows the location of the compound in Abbottabad where Osama Bin Laden was killed. (U.S. Department of Defense)

 

With heavy cloud rolling in over the town of Abbottabad, Pakistan, conditions were perfect for the raid to take out Osama bin Laden after ten years on the run. The previous night, the operation had been cancelled because the weather was clear and the U.S. aircraft would have been spotted from a distance. 

But at approximately 3:30 p.m. EDT on Monday, May 2, 2011,  the sleeping citizens were awoken by the clatter of four military helicopters thought to be two Black Hawks and two Chinooks. 

Task Force 1-508th members on Chinook helicopter, Afghanistan

 

Black Hawk helicopter

 

They contained more than 100 elite commandos who had been training intensively for days at their airbase, Bagram in Afghanistan, using a detailed mock-up of Bin Laden’s hideaway constructed by the CIA. After dummy runs on April 7 and April 13, they flew to the Tarbela Ghazi airbase in north-west Pakistan, which the CIA has permission to use. 

From there they swooped into Abbottabad, skimming over the tops of houses in the darkness with their lights off. 

Bin Laden's Hideout in Pakistan

 

As soon as they realised what was happening, Bin Laden’s guards opened fire from the rooftop with rocket-propelled grenades and apparently managed to shoot down one of the Black Hawks. 

Torn off tail section of destroyed Black Hawk next to wall of bin Laden's Pakistan compound

 

Burned-out wreckage of what remains of the downed American Black Hawk helicopter in bin Laden's Pakistan compound

 

As terrified townsfolk emerged from their homes to see what was going on, Pashto-speaking CIA agents told them to go back in and shut the doors. 

Two dozen U.S. Navy Seals – special forces – wearing night-vision goggles dropped into the high-walled compound by sliding down ropes from Chinooks. 

Chinook helicopter

 

See a detailed map of the ambush and read more at the Daily Mail (UK).

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Osama bin Laden’s body buried at sea

(CBS/AP) Updated at 8:05 a.m. Eastern, May 2, 2011

Osama bin Laden, the long-time figurehead of the al Qaeda terrorist network, has been buried at sea after being killed in a U.S. raid in Pakistan.

U.S. officials told CBS News that bin Laden’s body would be handled in accordance with Muslim traditions, which include strict rules on burial taking place within 24 hours after death.

Sources confirmed to CBS News national security correspondent David Martin that his body was released into the sea from a U.S. Navy vessel on Monday, likely into the Indian Ocean.

Bin Laden was a Saudi national, but officials tell CBS News that the Kingdom was unwilling to have his remains repatriated.

He was killed in a U.S. raid launched early Monday in the relatively-well-heeled town of Abbottabad, near the Pakistani capital of Islamabad.

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Osama Bin Laden is Dead!

Readers: Here is the FBI wanted poster for the mastermind of the 9/11/2001 attack on the United States of America, resulting in over 3,000 deaths. Today Osama/Usama Bin Laden is dead, killed in Islamabad, Pakistan. Note his height estimate: 6 ft. 4 – 6ft. 6 - a man so tall he wouldn’t be easy to hide among the citizens of Pakistan.  

Murder of U.S. Nationals Outside the United States; Conspiracy to Murder U.S. Nationals Outside the United States; Attack on a Federal Facility Resulting in Death

FBI TEN MOST WANTED FUGITIVES

 

USAMA BIN LADEN

		Date of Photograph Unknown

Aliases:

Usama Bin Muhammad Bin Ladin, Shaykh Usama Bin Ladin, the Prince, the Emir, Abu Abdallah, Mujahid Shaykh, Hajj, the Director

DESCRIPTION

Date(s) of Birth Used: 1957 Place of Birth: Saudi Arabia Height: 6′ 4″ to 6′ 6″ Weight: Approximately 160 pounds Build: Thin Occupation: Unknown	Hair: Brown Eyes: Brown Complexion: Olive Sex: Male Nationality: Saudi Arabian

Scars and Marks:	None known
Remarks:	Bin Laden is the leader of a terrorist organization known as Al-Qaeda, “The Base”. He is left-handed and walks with a cane.

CAUTION

Usama Bin Laden is wanted in connection with the August 7, 1998, bombings of the United States Embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya. These attacks killed over 200 people. In addition, Bin Laden is a suspect in other terrorist attacks throughout the world.

REWARD

The Rewards For Justice Program, United States Department of State, is offering a reward of up to $25 million for information leading directly to the apprehension or conviction of Usama Bin Laden. An additional $2 million is being offered through a program developed and funded by the Airline Pilots Association and the Air Transport Association.

CONSIDERED ARMED AND EXTREMELY DANGEROUS

If you have any information concerning this person, please contact your local FBI office or the nearest American Embassy or Consulate.

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Jackie Kennedy’s Pink Suit

Jackie Kennedy wears the famous pink suit in this 1962 photo. She is looking at plans for Lafayette Square.

President John F. Kennedy looked out the window of his Fort Worth, Texas, hotel suite. The November sky was dark and threatening. It looked like rain. Forecasters predicted cool weather. The president advised his wife Jackie to dress warmly for the long and demanding day and personally selected her oufit. He chose a pink wool suit with three-quarter-length sleeves and a blue underblouse. To it, Jackie added a pink pillbox hat and white gloves.   

Jackie, 34,  had worn the suit before – she called its color “raspberry” – and it was one of the president’s favorites.  He had told mutual friend Susan Mary Alsop that Jackie, his wife of ten years, looked “ravishing in it.” (1)   

President and Mrs. Kennedy at the White House, October 1962. Jackie Kennedy is wearing the pink wool Chez Ninon she wore in Dallas, November 22, 1963

Jacqueline Kennedy‘s pink suit was made in 1961 by the New York dress salon, Chez Ninon. It was a copy of a Chanel pink boucle wool suit trimmed with a navy blue collar. (1)   

   

Jackie Kennedy was a style icon. People noticed what she wore. Kennedy critics were quick to pounce when Jackie wore Paris fashions. Jack urged his wife to buy American and she did. Such a move was both financially and politically savvy. The Chez Ninon knockoff cost between $800 and $1,000 compared to over $10,000 for a custom-made Chanel suit.  Plus, he and Jackie were in Texas with Vice President Lyndon Johnson and wife Lady Bird to officially kick off their 1964 presidential campaign. They had to minimize the fallout from Jackie’s expensive French taste.   

Jackie’s pink suit was a hit at the Fort Worth breakfast that morning. The president beamed at the attention she drew, noting that “nobody notices what Lyndon and I wear.” A short plane ride later, they were disembarking at Dallas Love Field to a promising reception. Jackie was presented red roses.   

President John F. Kennedy and First Lady Jackie Kennedy arrive at Love Field in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963.

The sun had come out and the day had become unseasonably warm. The Kennedys climbed into the back seat of the presidential limousine to begin the winding 11-mile route through downtown Dallas where the president was to speak at a Trade Mart luncheon. Texas Governor John Connally and wife Nellie got into the jumpseat in front of the Kennedys and behind the driver and two Secret Service agents.   

The presidential limo was a midnight blue 1961 Lincoln that had been flown in from Washington, D.C. Because the weather was so nice, the plastic bubble top had been removed and the bullet-proof side windows were rolled down. This is how President Kennedy preferred to ride. At 11:50 a.m., the 12-car motorcade with its motorcycle escort and Secret Service attendants left the airport “on its rendevous with fate.” It was November 22, 1963. (2)   

The crowds lined the parade route so thickly that the motorcade moved at a crawl of only 6-7 miles an hour. The president clearly loved the warm Texas welcome, smiling and waving at all the friendly faces.   

JFK and Jackie ride in the presidential limo through the streets of Dallas, November 22, 1963. Texas Governor John Connally sits up front.

The temperature was 76 degrees. The sun was blindingly hot. Jackie was wearing wool.  She shielded her eyes from the big Texas sun with her trademark sunglasses.   

The people shouted, “Jack, Jackie!” recalled Nellie Connally. “They seemed to want her as much as they wanted him.” She could hear Jack say to Jackie,” Take your glasses off….When you’re riding in a car like this, in a parade, if you have your dark glasses on, you might as well have stayed at home.”

November 22, 1963: Up front, Texas Governor John Connally and wife Nellie ride with the President and Mrs. Kennedy through downtown Dallas.

Nellie Connally smiled to know that Texans were treating their president with such courtesy. She turned to him and said,   

Mr. President, you can’t say that Dallas doesn’t love you.” (3)

Thirty seconds later, at 12:30 p.m., three shots rang out. The 35th President of the United States was shot. As the car sped toward Parkland Hospital, Kennedy slumped in his wife’s lap, his blood and brain fragments staining her pink wool suit, gloves, stockings.  Jackie crawled out the back of the limo for help from the Secret Service riding in the car behind them.

In an image from the Zapruder film, a fatally-wounded President Kennedy slumps over as Secret Service agent Clint Hill leaps onto the president’s car and pushes Jacqueline Kennedy back.

At the hospital, the doctors worked feverishly to save the president but it was futile. President Kennedy was declared dead, his once vital body loaded limply into a coffin. Jackie accompanied his body to Dallas Love Field where it was loaded onto Air Force One to be flown to Washington.

In her bedroom on board the plane, Jackie’s personal assistant had laid out a fresh outfit for the First Lady. Despite urging from staffers and handlers to “clean up her appearance,” Jackie  refused to get out of her bloodied clothes. She shook her head hard:

No, let them see what they’ve done.”  

Just hours after her husband's assassination, widow Jackie Kennedy stands next to Lyndon Johnson on Air Force One as he is sworn in as the 36th President of the United States. Although her personal assistant laid out a fresh change of clothes on her bed aboard the plane, Jackie refused to change out of her blood-spattered clothing. Also aboard Air Force One was the casket carrying the body of President John F. Kennedy, age 46.

Somehow, that was one of the most poignant sights,” Mrs. Johnson later wrote, “that immaculate woman exquisitely dressed, and caked in blood.”  

At Andrews Air Force Base in Washington, D.C., JFK's brother Attorney General Bobby Kennedy meets Jackie Kennedy when she arrives on Air Force One with the coffin carrying her slain husband's body. Note Jackie's bloodstained suit. Her left leg is caked in blood.

It was not until 5 a.m. the next morning at the White House that Jackie took off the bloodied suit, bathed, and changed outfits. Her mother put the suit in a plastic bag and stored it in her house for many years.   

The suit was never cleaned and never will be. It sits today, unfolded and shielded from light, in an acid-free container in a windowless room somewhere inside the National Archives and Records Administration’s complex in Maryland; the precise location is kept secret. The temperature hovers between 65 and 68 degrees; the humidity is 40 percent; the air is changed six times an hour. (4)  

Meanwhile, the whereabouts of the pink pillbox hat remain a mystery. It has never been found.  Somewhere inside Parkland Hospital, the hat came off.  Jackie’s personal secretary, Mary Gallagher recalls:

While standing there I was handed Jackie’s pillbox hat and couldn’t help noticing the strands of her hair beneath the hat pin. I could almost visualize her yanking it from her head.”

What happened to the hat after that is unknown. Mary Gallagher lost track of it.

(1) Source   

(2) Source   

(3) Source   

(4) Source: The Los Angeles Times, Jan. 30, 2011. 

Readers: For more on Jackie Kennedy, click here.

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The Secret Service Code Names

The U.S. Secret Service provided security for Pope Benedict XVI at the Papal Mass in Washington, D.C., on April 17, 2008. Although the agents have no official uniform and can be seen wearing anything from tuxedos to blue jeans, they are often identified by their dark sunglasses, listening devices, and lapel pins bearing the agency's gold star logo.

The United States Secret Service uses code names to refer to the President of the United States, his family, other officials, and places. Originally, these code names were designed to protect sensitive communications, back in the day before restricted communications were routinely encrypted. Nowadays, there is no need to keep these names secret. Nevertheless, The Secret Service who guards the First Family and other U.S. officials continues to use the code names for clarity, brevity, and tradition. (1)

The U.S. Secret Service Star Logo. The U.S. Secret Service protects the President and First Family, other officials of the U.S. government, and visiting dignitaries.

General Code Names

President of the United States:  POTUS

First Lady of the United States:  FLOTUS

Vice President of the United States:  VPOTUS

The Obamas

Barack:  Renegade

Michelle:  Renaissance

Malia:  Radiance

Sasha:  Rosebud

The Bushes

George W.:  Tumbler

Laura:  Tempo

Barbara:  Turquoise

Jenna:  Twinkle

The Clintons

Bill:  Eagle

Hillary:  Evergreen

Chelsea:  Energy

The Bushes

George H.:  Timberwolf

Barbara:  Tranquility

The Carters

Jimmy:  Deacon

Rosalynn:  Dancer

Amy:  Dynamo

Secret Service agents respond to the assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan by John Hinckley Jr. on March 30, 1981. President Reagan took a bullet in the abdomen but made a full recovery.

The Reagans

Ronald:  Rawhide

Nancy:  Rainbow

The Fords

Gerald:  Passkey

Betty:  Pinafore

The Nixons

Richard:  Searchlight

Pat:  Starlight

The Johnsons

Lyndon:  Volunteer

Lady Bird:  Victoria

Lynda Bird:  Velvet

Luci Baines:  Venus

 

A motorcade carries President John F. Kennedy and First Lady Jackie Kennedy through the streets of Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. Texas Governor John Connally and wife Nellie ride in front of the Kennedys.

Secret Service agent Clint Hill stood on the running board of the car behind the Kennedy’s limo.

Agent Hill heard the first shot that hit President Kennedy. Mr Hill is the figure in the famous Zapruder film of the killing which shows him climbing onto the back of the president’s limousine. “I heard the first shot, saw the president grab his throat, lurch left, and I knew something was wrong,” recalled Hill in the book, The Kennedy Detail. Jackie Kennedy can be seen crawling out the back of the car onto the trunk to get help for her slain husband, slumped in the seat.

Agent Hill got in the back seat with Mrs. Kennedy and the president and shielded them with his body on the way to Parkland Hospital.

The Kennedys

John F.:  Lancer

Jackie:  Lace

Caroline:  Lyric

John Jr.:  Lark

Other Individuals

Queen Elizabeth II:  Kittyhawk, Redfern

Prince Charles:  Unicorn

Frank Sinatra:  Napoleon

Pope John Paul II:  Halo

Sarah Palin:  Denali

John McCain:  Phoenix

Places

The White House:  Castle

The Capitol:  Punchbowl

 

(1)  Source: Wiki “Secret Service Codename”

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