Donald Hardman (21 February 1899 – 2 March 1982) was a senior Royal
Air Force (RAF) commander. He joined the Royal Flying Corps in 1917 and
flew fighters over the Western Front, achieving nine victories to become
a decorated ace. Between the wars he saw service with RAF squadrons in
India and Egypt. At the outbreak of World War II, Hardman was a wing
commander, attached to the Air Ministry. In 1944 he commanded No. 232
(Transport) Group during the Burma campaign. He served successively as
Assistant Chief of the Air Staff, Commandant of RAF Staff College,
Bracknell, and Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief of RAF Home Command. He
was knighted in 1952. Hardman was Chief of the Air Staff of the Royal
Australian Air Force from 1952 to 1954, and was responsible for
reorganising its geographically based command-and-control system into a
functional structure. After returning to Britain, he joined the Air
Council in May 1954, and was promoted to air chief marshal the following
year. He retired from the RAF in 1958.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Hardman>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1862:
American Civil War: The Confederate Army began an attempt to
gain control of the Southwest with a major victory in the Battle of
Valverde.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Valverde>
1952:
A number of student protesters demanding the establishment of
Bengali as an official language were killed by police in Dhaka, East
Pakistan.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengali_language_movement>
1965:
American Black nationalist Malcolm X was assassinated while
giving a speech in New York City's Audubon Ballroom.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_X>
1973:
After accidentally straying into Israeli-occupied airspace,
Libyan Arab Airlines Flight 114 was shot down by two fighter aircraft,
killing 108 of the 113 people on board.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libyan_Arab_Airlines_Flight_114>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
phonology:
1. (uncountable) The study of the way sounds function in languages,
including accent, intonation, phonemes, stress, and syllable structure,
and which sounds are distinctive units within a language; (countable)
the way sounds function within a given language; a phonological system.
2. (by extension, uncountable) The study of the way components of signs
function in a sign language, and which components are distinctive units
within the language; (countable) the way components of signs function
within a given sign language.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/phonology>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
The basic stimulus to the intelligence is doubt, a feeling that
the meaning of an experience is not self-evident.
--W. H. Auden
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/W._H._Auden>