Military History
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The Seven Years War begins May 15, 1756
May 15, 1756: The Seven Years War, a global conflict known in America as the French and Indian War, officially begins when England declares war on France. However, fighting and skirmishes between England and France had been going on in North America for years. In the early 1750s, French expansion into the Ohio River valley repeatedly brought France into armed conflict with the British colonies. In 1756–the first official year of fighting in the Seven Years War–the British suffered a series of defeats against the French and their broad network of Native American alliances. However, in 1757, British Prime Minister William Pitt (the older) recognized the potential of imperial expansion that would…
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Apr 28, 1945: Benito Mussolini executed
Apr 28, 1945: Benito Mussolini executed On this day in 1945, “Il Duce,” Benito Mussolini, and his mistress, Clara Petacci, are shot by Italian partisans who had captured the couple as they attempted to flee to Switzerland. The 61-year-old deposed former dictator of Italy was established by his German allies as the figurehead of a puppet government in northern Italy during the German occupation toward the close of the war. As the Allies fought their way up the Italian peninsula, defeat of the Axis powers all but certain, Mussolini considered his options. Not wanting to fall into the hands of either the British or the Americans, and knowing that the…
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The War Symphonies: Shostakovich Against Stalin
The War Symphonies: Shostakovich Against Stalin. Rhombus Media/Bullfrog Films, 1997. Director, Larry Weinstein. Music by the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic and the Mariinsky Theater Orchestra; conductor Valery Gergiev. 82-minute VHS video. Shostakovich angers Stalin with his opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District. From The War Symphonies. 28.8 | 56k “Music illuminates a person and provides him with his last hope; even Stalin, a butcher, knew that, and that was why he hated music”: so wrote Soviet composer Dmitrii Shostakovich (1906-1975), the subject of The War Symphonies. The central argument of this excellent documentary is that Shostakovich was “the voice of his time.” Living under and occasionally cooperating with a dictatorial…