The Battle of Sio, fought between December 1943 and March 1944, was the break-out and pursuit phase of GeneralDouglas MacArthur's Huon Peninsula campaign, part of the New Guinea campaign of World War II. Following the defeat of the Japanese in the Battle of Sattelberg, Australian Army forces broke through positions around Finschhafen. Constant pressure from US NavyPT boats, Australian land forces and Allied aircraft brought the Japanese logistical system to the brink of collapse, resulting in disease, malnutrition and privation for the Japanese soldiers. Australian and Papuan troops advanced along the coast, employing infantry, tanks, and air strikes against the Japanese positions, which were generally sited at creek crossings in the jungle. The Australian and Papuan troops inflicted heavy and disproportionate casualties on the Japanese as they advanced, ultimately linking up with the American forces at Saidor. Australian troops were also able to capture important Japanese cryptographic materials. Hundreds of Japanese soldiers were killed; thousands more died from disease, malnutrition, exhaustion and suicide. (Full article...)
... that Henning Mankell preferred the African storytelling style used in his novel Chronicler of the Winds to European storytelling because of its ability to "jump between realities"?
... that Jackie Gleason called his orchestra leader Ray Bloch "the flower of the music world"?
... that the Eurasian bittern may visit reedbeds, rice fields, watercress beds, fish farms, gravel pits, sewage works, ditches, flooded areas and marshes?
1965 – The "Glasnost Meeting" became the first demonstration in the Soviet Union after the Second World War and marked the beginning of a civil rights movement in the country.
Two Jet Propulsion Laboratory engineers stand with three vehicles, providing a size comparison of three generations of Mars rovers. Front and center is the flight spare for the first Mars rover, Sojourner, which landed on Mars in 1997 as part of the Mars Pathfinder Project. On the left is a Mars Exploration Rover test vehicle, a working sibling to Spirit and Opportunity, which landed on Mars in 2004. On the right is a test rover for the Mars Science Laboratory, which landed Curiosity on Mars in 2012.
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