Category: July

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Belarus – Independence Day

July 3

“After 60 years of peaceful life, Chernobyl, dismantling of the USSR, 14 years of sovereignty, still WWII remains a major emotional rift in the Belarusian soul.”
http://www.belarusguide.com/history1/WWII_partisan_resistance_in_Belarus.htm
“We want the peaceful sky not to know the fire of war” — My Dear Motherland, station designator of Belarusian Radio
Belarus as we know it today declared its independence from the Soviet Union on July 27, 1990, and became the Republic of Belarus the following year.
But the country celebrates Independence Day on July 3, in memory of the liberation of its capital city Minsk from Nazi forces in 1944.
We know all about D-Day on June 6th and the liberation of Paris on August 25th that year, but at that same time, the Soviet Union was conducting an equally pivotal advance against German forces.
The Belorussian Strategic Offensive Operation (Operation Bagration, named for a 19th century Georgian general) was “the most calamitous defeat of all the German armed forces in World War II” according to Bagration 1944 author Steven Zaloga. (http://books.google.com/books?id=1DAYmRrJTDAC&dq=operation+bagration&as_brr=3&client=safari&source=gbs_navlinks_s)
Operation Bagration began on June 22, 1944, exactly three years after the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. The Soviets successfully used a bevy of ploys to confuse the Germans about their plan of attack, and borrowed a page from the Nazi military playbook…
“A Soviet force of one and quarter million men punched a two-hundred-mile hole in the German front between Ostrov and Kovel…ironically having mastered enveloping tactics once used by the Germans themselves.”
In just over a week, the Red Army crossed the Berezina River. Three days later, on July 3, 1944, they liberated the Belorussian capitol of Minsk.
“…as the Russians crossed Belorussia, they encountered a ‘desert zone’ with a million houses burned, crops deliberately ploughed under, and no evidence of livestock.”
According to Pravda…
Every fourth citizen of Belarus was killed in the war.
http://english.pravda.ru/world/ussr/03-07-2009/107933-belarus-0

Our Bloody History –

belarusguide.com

http://www.belarusguide.com/as/history/history.htmJuly 3

 

 

 

“After 60 years of peaceful life, Chernobyl, dismantling of the USSR, 14 years of sovereignty, still WWII remains a major emotional rift in the Belarusian soul.”

— Partisan Resistance in Belarus During World War II

Belarus declared its independence from Russia on March 25, 1918 (an independence which lasted about 10 months) and again from the Soviet Union on July 27, 1990. But Belarus celebrates neither of those dates as its official independence day. Instead, the festivities of July 3rd commemorate the liberation of Belarus’s capital city of Minsk from Nazi forces in 1944.

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We know all about D-Day on June 6th, 1944 and the liberation of Paris that summer, but simultaneously the Soviet Union’s Red Army conducted an equally pivotal advance against German forces.

The Belorussian Strategic Offensive Operation (Operation Bagration, named for a 19th century Georgian general) was “the most calamitous defeat of all the German armed forces in World War II” according to Bagration 1944 author Steven Zaloga.

Operation Bagration began on June 22, 1944, exactly three years after the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. The Soviets successfully used a bevy of ploys to confuse the Germans about their plan of attack, and borrowed a page from the Nazi military playbook…

“A Soviet force of one and quarter million men punched a two-hundred-mile hole in the German front between Ostrov and Kovel…ironically having mastered enveloping tactics once used by the Germans themselves.” — Michael Burleigh, The Third Reich

In just over a week, the Red Army crossed the Berezina River. Three days later, on July 3, 1944, they liberated the Belorussian capitol of Minsk.

“…as the Russians crossed Belorussia, they encountered a ‘desert zone’ with a million houses burned, crops deliberately ploughed under, and no evidence of livestock.” (Burleigh)

According to Pravda, “Every fourth citizen of Belarus was killed in the war.”

The division among Belorussians referred to in the opening quote stems from the notion that World War II was merely one occupation replaced by another. Prior to the Nazi invasion in 1941, the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin conducted mass executions in Belarus—the mass graves from which were uncovered in the 1980s. In 1986 the Chernobyl Disaster and the Soviet Union’s initial denial of the nuclear accident fueled the flame of nationalism and independence once more.

Our Bloody History – belarusguide.com

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World UFO Day

July 2

No, July 2 is not Uterus Falling Out Day (occurs up to twelve times yearly depending on one’s menstrual cycle). It’s Unidentified Flying Object Day.

Ovni

Some celebrate UFO Day on June 24, recalling the day in 1947 that pilot Ken Arnold witnessed several UFOs hovering over Mt. Rainier, Washington. But most aficionados observe UFO Day on July 2, the accepted date of the 1947 discovery by ranch foreman Mac Brazel of the wreckage of an unusual aircraft on Foster ranch, just outside Roswell, New Mexico. Brazel later heard reports of “flying discs” and put 2 and 2 together. After Brazel reported his findings to the Roswell Daily Record, the U.S. Army tried to cover up the find with claims of a “weather balloon” experiment gone wrong.

But we know better.

The public didn’t buy it either. Or maybe they did, but only for like 30 years. Since the 1970s a slew of books, articles, and tv specials have come out detailing the Roswell incident and the holes in the army’s stories, and have turned Roswell into the holy grail of UFO lore.

Brazel’s disc plays a vital role in the motion picture Independence Day, in which the heroes learn that alien corpses from said vessels have been kept in storage since 1947. In homage to Brazel’s discovery, the movie begins on July 2.

Roswell_article

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Happy Moving Day! I mean Canada Day

July 1

C’mon Jessica, C’mon Tori,
let’s go to the mall you won’t be sorry.
Dad says I’m too young to date.
But baby I don’t wanna wait…
That’s okay…
I’m gonna rock your body till Canada Day.

“Let’s Go To the Mall,” Canadian National Anthem

Canada Day isn’t an anniversary of independence but of unity. On July 1, 1867 the colonies of Upper Canada, Lower Canada, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia united to form “one dominion under the name of Canada”. The day was known as Dominion Day until 1982 when it was officially changed to Canada Day–although the populace had long since taken to calling it Canada Day.

On this, the 142th anniversary of the first Canada Day, we ask: “Where did Canada get its name?”

According to answerbag.com, “Canada” means:

  1. An Indian word meaning ‘Suburb of Detroit’.
  2. George St. Pierre, the UFC Welterweight Champion of the World. Yea baby!!!
  3. Place where Americans come to ask stupid questions.

Another theory of the origin of Canada’ is that it is an Wendat (Huron/Iroquois) word meaning ‘village’ or ‘collection of huts’. The Wendat were a confederacy of four tribes who spoke the same language in what is now Ontario and Quebec.

According to the Department of Canadian Heritage, in 1535 explorer Jacques Cartier was mapping the area north of the present-day St. Lawrence River when…

“two Indian Youths told Jacques Cartier about the route to ‘kanata.’ They were referring to the village of Stadacona…but for want of another name, Cartier used “Canada” to refer not only to Stadacona (the site of present day Quebec City), but also to the entire area subject to its chief, Donnacona.”

Cartier named the St. Lawrence River the ‘riviere de Canada’, and by 1547, maps of the area labeled the land north of that river “Canada”.

Though this theory is widely accepted, some dispute its accuracy, suggesting that the Hurons didn’t occupy the area at the time of Cartier’s exploration.

Another theory is that Spanish explorers wrote “aca nada” on their maps, meaning ‘nothing here’.

The arguments are moot in Quebec, where most of the populace doesn’t celebrate Canada Day at all. Rather, in Quebec, July 1 is better known as “Moving Day.” Since 1971, apartment leases there have begun and ended on Canada’s national holiday.