Today In History

December 10, 1941


Three days after Pearl Harbor, the sinking of Prince of Wales and Repulse by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service decisively redefines the rules of combat at sea. Naval warfare will be won or loss in the air, the era of battleships is over, the aircraft carrier becomes dominant.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          
I was opening my boxes,” Churchill wrote in his war memoirs, “when the telephone at my bedside rang. It was the First Sea Lord [Admiral Sir Dudley Pound]. His voice sounded odd. He gave a sort of cough and gulp, and at first I could not hear quite clearly. ‘Prime Minister, I have to report to you that the Prince of Wales and the Repulse have both been sunk by the Japanese—we think by aircraft. [Vice Admiral] Tom Phillips is drowned.’ ‘Are you sure it’s true?’ ‘There is no doubt at all.’ So I put the telephone down. I was thankful to be alone. In all the war I never received a more direct shock. The reader of these pages will realise how many efforts, hopes, and plans foundered with these two ships. As I turned over and twisted in bed the full horror of the news sank in upon me. There were no British or American capital ships in the Indian Ocean or the Pacific except the American survivors of Pearl Harbour, who were hastening back to California. Over all this vast expanse of waters Japan was supreme, and we everywhere were weak and naked.”   Barry Gough - International Churchill Society

December 15, 1948


After more than two years of research directed by Frédéric Joliot-Curie assisted by the best French atomist scientists of the time, including Lew Kowarski, Bertrand Goldschmidt, Jules Guéron, Francis Perrin, Raoul Dautry and Irène Joliot-Curie, the first French atomic reactor, baptized ZOE  for Zéro de puissance Oxyde d'uranium Eau lourde,  enters service at Fort de Châtillon , south of Paris.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

December 16, 1989


After the decision by the regime of Nicolae Ceaușescu to expel the pastor and politician László Tőkés, spontaneous demonstrations take place in Timisoara. It's the beginning of the Romanian Revolution .