The "Morotai Mutiny" was an incident in April 1945 involving members of
the Australian First Tactical Air Force based on the island of Morotai,
in the Dutch East Indies. Eight senior pilots, including Australia's
leading flying ace, Group Captain Clive Caldwell, tendered their
resignations to protest what they perceived as the relegation of Royal
Australian Air Force (RAAF) fighter squadrons to strategically
unimportant ground attack missions. A government investigation
vindicated the "mutineers", and three high-ranking officers at First
Tactical Air Force Headquarters including the commander, Air Commodore
Harry Cobby, were relieved of their posts. George Odgers summed up the
cause of the incident in the official history of the RAAF in World
War II as "the conviction of a group of young leaders that they were
engaging in operations that were not militarily justifiable—a
conviction widely shared also by many Australian soldiers and political
leaders." Odgers concluded that the ensuing inquiry "made it clear that
almost everyone concerned acted from the highest motives, and was
convinced that, in the crisis, he acted wisely".
Read the rest of this article:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morotai_Mutiny>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1653:
Oliver Cromwell dissolved the Rump Parliament of the Commonwealth of
England by force, eventually replacing it with the Barebone's
Parliament.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rump_Parliament>
1884:
Pope Leo XIII published the encyclical Humanum Genus, denouncing
Freemasonry as well as a number of beliefs and practices purportedly
associated with it such as popular sovereignty and the separation of
church and state.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanum_Genus>
1968:
British Member of Parliament Enoch Powell made his controversial
"Rivers of Blood" speech in opposition to immigration and
anti-discrimination legislation, resulting in his removal from the
Shadow Cabinet.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rivers_of_Blood_speech>
1999:
Students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold embarked on a massacre, killing
13 people and wounding over 20 others before committing suicide at
Columbine High School in Columbine, Colorado, US.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbine_High_School_massacre>
2008:
Fernando Lugo became the first non-Colorado Party candidate to be
elected President of Paraguay in 61 years.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraguayan_general_election%2C_2008>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
jerkwater (adj):
(US, colloquial, pejorative) Of an inhabited place, small,
insignificant, backward
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/jerkwater>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
Let every one of us cultivate, in every word that issues from our
mouth, absolute truth. I say cultivate, because to very few people — as
may be noticed of most young children — does truth, this rigid, literal
veracity, come by nature. To many, even who love it and prize it dearly
in others, it comes only after the self-control, watchfulness, and
bitter experience of years.
--Dinah Craik
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Dinah_Craik>