Hostage John McCarthy is free after more than five years in captivity August 8, 1991

On this day in 1991, the journalist John McCarthy – Britain’s longest-held hostage in Lebanon – was released after more than five years in captivity.

The then 29-year-old McCarthy was on his first foreign assignment for United Press International Television News in Beirut when he was taken hostage by the militant group Islamic Jihad.

 

A week earlier, Brian Keenan – an Irishman teaching at the American University of Beirut – had also been kidnapped. After spending two months in isolation, the blindfolded, dishevelled, bearded Keenan was thrown into a cell with McCarthy – whose first words to him were: "F*** me, it's Ben Gunn". The two shared a tiny cell for several years and Keenan would later say of the man who became his closest friend: “He was my strength and my soul mate. Without him I don't think I would have made it."

 

McCarthy’s friends and family – led by his girlfriend, journalist Jill Morrell – campaigned tirelessly for his release under the banner Friends of John McCarthy. In 1987, Church of England envoy Terry Waite travelled to Lebanon to try to secure the release of McCarthy and three other hostages but was himself kidnapped. He would not be freed until November 1991; Keenan would be released in 1990.

 

 

 

In August 1991, following negotiations led by the United Nations’ Giandomenico Picco, Islamic Jihad announced that John McCarthy was being freed in a statement which described him as an "envoy". He had been incarcerated for 1,943 days.

McCarthy was taken under army escort to the Syrian capital of Damascus, where he was reunited with his father and brother and gave a statement to the press.

He reported on the “good health and good spirits” of his fellow hostages – Terry Waite and the Americans Terry Anderson and Tom Sutherland – noting: “Whatever strength I’ve had to endure the past five years has really come from those men, and before them, Brian Keenan and Frank Reed.”

After thanking all those who had supported and campaigned for him, McCarthy urged: “I appeal to all these kind people to keep up their efforts to end the ordeal of my fellow hostages and all those who are held in similar conditions in the region.”

Among the thousands of well-wishers waiting for him back in Britain was his girlfriend Jill Morrell.

"There were times when it seemed like it would take forever and there were times when it seemed like it had been going on for an eternity,” she said.

“But we all always knew that John would be released one day."

 

 

Firefighters die in Arizona blaze June 30 2013

Firefighters die in Arizona blaze June 30,2013
-------------
On this day in 2013, 19 firefighters perish while battling a wildfire near Yarnell, Arizona. All were members of the Granite Mountain Interagency Hotshot Crew, an elite group of wildland firefighters that was part of the Prescott (Arizona) Fire Department. It was the deadliest day for U.S. firefighters since the 9/11 terrorist attacks.


What became known as the Yarnell Hill Fire was ignited by a lightning strike at around 5:30 p.m. on June 28 near Yarnell, a former gold-mining town about 35 miles south of Prescott and 80 miles northwest of Phoenix. Two days later, on June 30, the blaze intensified and rapidly spread. That afternoon, the Granite Mountain Hotshots, who had been building a fire line (an area in which all vegetation has been removed to prevent a blaze from spreading) along a ridge top, headed down into a basin and were caught off guard when a sudden change in wind direction sent huge flames straight toward them. With nowhere to escape, the 19 members of the all-male crew deployed small emergency shelters shortly after 4:45 p.m. These shelters, last-ditch safety devices resembling sleeping bags covered in aluminum, can protect against heat but melt at extreme temperatures. The men deployed the shelters as they’d been trained, with the least experienced hotshots going first and the most experienced going last. However, the temperature of the fire reached more than 2,000 degrees, and the shelters only were designed to withstand up to 1,200 degrees.

The fallen firefighters were almost all in their 20s or 30s. The lone survivor of the 20-person Granite Mountain crew had been assigned to act as a lookout that day and wasn’t with his fellow hotshots when they were overtaken by the blaze.

The Yarnell Hill Fire finally was contained on July 10, after burning some 8,400 acres and destroying more than 100 structures. In September 2013, the Arizona State Forestry Division, which oversaw the firefighting efforts, released the results of an investigation that concluded there was no evidence of negligence or recklessness in the firefighters’ deaths. However, later that year, the Arizona Division of Occupational Safety and Health criticized the Forestry Division’s management of the Yarnell Hill fire-suppression operations and charged the agency with, among other things, prioritizing the protection of “non-defensible structures and pastureland” ahead of firefighter safety.

“Hotshot” crews of elite firefighters got their start in Southern California in the 1940s. Today, there are approximately 110 crews across the United States.

Link: https://youtu.be/vh13lWh47E8

Truman orders U.S. forces to Korea June 30,1950

Just three days after the United Nations Security Council voted to provide military assistance to South Korea, President Harry S. Truman orders U.S. armed forces to assist in defending that nation from invading North Korean armies. Truman’s dramatic step marked the official entry of the United States into the Korean War.

On June 25, 1950, military forces from communist North Korea invaded South Korea. South Korean forces and the small number of U.S. troops stationed in the nation reeled under the surprise attack. On June 27, the United States asked the Security Council in the United Nations to pass a resolution calling on member states of the United Nations to assist South Korea. With the Soviets boycotting the meeting for other reasons, the resolution passed. Three days later, President Truman ordered U.S. ground forces into South Korea and the troops entered South Korea that same day. At the same time, Truman ordered the U.S. Air Force to bomb military targets in North Korea and directed the U.S. Navy to blockade the North Korean coast.

Truman’s action signaled the beginning of official and large-scale U.S. participation in the Korean War. Over the next three years, the United States provided at least half of the U.N. ground forces in Korea and the vast majority of the air and sea forces used in the conflict against North Korea and, later, against communist China, which entered the war on the side of North Korea in late 1950. Nearly 55,000 Americans were killed in the war and over 100,000 were wounded. Cost estimates for the war ranged as high as $20 billion. In July 1953, an armistice was signed that ended the fighting and left Korea a divided nation.

Two big quakes rock California

Two of the strongest earthquakes ever to hit California strike the desert area east of Los Angeles on this day in 1992. Although the state sits upon the immense San Andreas fault line, relatively few major earthquakes have hit California in modern times. Two of the strongest, but not the deadliest, hit southern California on a single morning in the summer of 1992.

Just before 5 a.m. on a Sunday morning, a 7.3-magnitude quake struck in Landers, 100 miles east of Los Angeles. Because the Landers area is sparsely populated, damage was relatively minor given the intensity of the jolt. In Los Angeles, residents experienced rolling and shaking for nearly a minute. The tremors were also felt in Arizona, Las Vegas and as far away as Boise, Idaho.

Just over three hours later, a second 6.3-magnitude tremor hit in Big Bear, not too far from the original epicenter. This quake caused fires to break out and cost three people their lives. A chimney fell on a 3-year-old child and two people suffered fatal heart attacks. Between the two quakes, 400 people were injured and $92 million in damages were suffered. The physical damage was also significant. The quakes triggered landslides that wiped out roads and opened a 44-mile-long rupture in the earth, the biggest in California since the 1906 San Francisco quake.

Two big quakes rock California

Two of the strongest earthquakes ever to hit California strike the desert area east of Los Angeles on this day in 1992. Although the state sits upon the immense San Andreas fault line, relatively few major earthquakes have hit California in modern times. Two of the strongest, but not the deadliest, hit southern California on a single morning in the summer of 1992.

Just before 5 a.m. on a Sunday morning, a 7.3-magnitude quake struck in Landers, 100 miles east of Los Angeles. Because the Landers area is sparsely populated, damage was relatively minor given the intensity of the jolt. In Los Angeles, residents experienced rolling and shaking for nearly a minute. The tremors were also felt in Arizona, Las Vegas and as far away as Boise, Idaho.

Just over three hours later, a second 6.3-magnitude tremor hit in Big Bear, not too far from the original epicenter. This quake caused fires to break out and cost three people their lives. A chimney fell on a 3-year-old child and two people suffered fatal heart attacks. Between the two quakes, 400 people were injured and $92 million in damages were suffered. The physical damage was also significant. The quakes triggered landslides that wiped out roads and opened a 44-mile-long rupture in the earth, the biggest in California since the 1906 San Francisco quake.

Two big quakes rock California

Two of the strongest earthquakes ever to hit California strike the desert area east of Los Angeles on this day in 1992. Although the state sits upon the immense San Andreas fault line, relatively few major earthquakes have hit California in modern times. Two of the strongest, but not the deadliest, hit southern California on a single morning in the summer of 1992.

Just before 5 a.m. on a Sunday morning, a 7.3-magnitude quake struck in Landers, 100 miles east of Los Angeles. Because the Landers area is sparsely populated, damage was relatively minor given the intensity of the jolt. In Los Angeles, residents experienced rolling and shaking for nearly a minute. The tremors were also felt in Arizona, Las Vegas and as far away as Boise, Idaho.

Just over three hours later, a second 6.3-magnitude tremor hit in Big Bear, not too far from the original epicenter. This quake caused fires to break out and cost three people their lives. A chimney fell on a 3-year-old child and two people suffered fatal heart attacks. Between the two quakes, 400 people were injured and $92 million in damages were suffered. The physical damage was also significant. The quakes triggered landslides that wiped out roads and opened a 44-mile-long rupture in the earth, the biggest in California since the 1906 San Francisco quake.

Two big quakes rock California

Two of the strongest earthquakes ever to hit California strike the desert area east of Los Angeles on this day in 1992. Although the state sits upon the immense San Andreas fault line, relatively few major earthquakes have hit California in modern times. Two of the strongest, but not the deadliest, hit southern California on a single morning in the summer of 1992.

Just before 5 a.m. on a Sunday morning, a 7.3-magnitude quake struck in Landers, 100 miles east of Los Angeles. Because the Landers area is sparsely populated, damage was relatively minor given the intensity of the jolt. In Los Angeles, residents experienced rolling and shaking for nearly a minute. The tremors were also felt in Arizona, Las Vegas and as far away as Boise, Idaho.

Just over three hours later, a second 6.3-magnitude tremor hit in Big Bear, not too far from the original epicenter. This quake caused fires to break out and cost three people their lives. A chimney fell on a 3-year-old child and two people suffered fatal heart attacks. Between the two quakes, 400 people were injured and $92 million in damages were suffered. The physical damage was also significant. The quakes triggered landslides that wiped out roads and opened a 44-mile-long rupture in the earth, the biggest in California since the 1906 San Francisco quake.