Operation Rösselsprung was a combined airborne and ground assault by
the German XV Mountain Corps on the Supreme Headquarters of the
Yugoslav Partisans during World War II. Launched on 25 May 1944, the
operation was aimed at the Partisan leader Marshal Josip Broz Tito
(pictured) and his headquarters. It is associated with the Seventh Enemy
Offensive. The operation involved direct action via an airborne assault
by the 500th SS Parachute Battalion and a planned subsequent link-up
with ground forces, including Home Guard forces of the Independent State
of Croatia and collaborationist Chetniks. Tito, his principal staff and
Allied military personnel escaped. The operation failed due to fierce
Partisan resistance, the failure of the various German intelligence
agencies to share the limited intelligence available on Tito's exact
location, and the lack of contingency planning by the commander of the
German airborne force.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_R%C3%B6sselsprung_%281944%29>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1816:
The English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge published one of his
most famous poems, Kubla Khan.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kubla_Khan>
1878:
Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera H.M.S. Pinafore premiered
at the Opera Comique in London.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.M.S._Pinafore>
1961:
In an address to Congress, U.S. president John F. Kennedy
announced his support for the Apollo program, with "the goal, before
this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him
safely to the Earth".
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_program>
2011:
The final episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show, the highest-rated
daytime talk show in U.S. television history, was broadcast.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Oprah_Winfrey_Show>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
overt:
Open and not concealed or secret.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/overt>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
The real and lasting victories are those of peace, and not of
war.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ralph_Waldo_Emerson>