The Alsos Mission was an Allied unit formed to investigate Axis scientific developments, especially nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, as part of the Manhattan Project during World War II. Colonel Boris Pash, a former Manhattan Project security officer, was the mission's commander, and Samuel Goudsmit was its scientific leader. They joined the advancing Allied units, and occasionally operated behind enemy lines, first in Italy, and later in France and Germany. Gathering information on the German nuclear project, mission personnel captured and dismantled the German experimental nuclear reactor at Haigerloch (pictured) in a daring raid behind German lines in April 1945. They took senior German researchers into custody, including Otto Hahn, Max von Laue, Werner Heisenberg and Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker. They searched for personnel, records, and materials that might be useful, to make them available for Allied research and to keep them out of Soviet hands. Over 1,000 tons of uranium ore was recovered by the mission, along with stocks of heavy water.
Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alsos_Mission
_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:
1867:
U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward negotiated the purchase of Alaska for US$7.2 million from Russia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Purchase
1899:
A committee of the German Society of Chemistry invited other national scientific organizations to appoint delegates to form the International Committee on Atomic Weights. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commission_on_Isotopic_Abundances_and_Atomic_Weights
1918:
Bolshevik and Dashnak forces suppressed a Muslim revolt in Baku, Azerbaijan, resulting in up to 12,000 deaths. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_Days
1940:
Second Sino-Japanese War: Wang Jingwei was officially installed by Japan as head of a puppet state in China. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_Jingwei
1981:
Trying to impress actress Jodie Foster, obsessed fan John Hinckley, Jr. shot and wounded U.S. President Ronald Reagan and three others outside the Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attempted_assassination_of_Ronald_Reagan
_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:
eat crow: (chiefly US, idiomatic) To recognize that one has been shown to be mistaken or outdone, especially by admitting that one has made a humiliating error. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/eat_crow
___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:
The more I think it over, the more I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people. --Vincent van Gogh https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Vincent_van_Gogh