https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Phenol_Plot


The August 15, 1915, edition of the New York World broke the news of the Great Phenol plot and other clandestine pro-German activities that were organized by Johann Heinrich von Bernstorff and Heinrich Albert.

The Great Phenol Plot was a conspiracy by the German Government during the early years of World War I to divert American-produced phenol away from the manufacture of high explosives that supported the British war effort, to the production of aspirin by the German-owned Bayer company, who could no longer import phenol from Britain.

Background
At the outbreak of World War I in 1914, most phenol used by American manufacturers was imported from the United Kingdom. It was used to produce, among other things, Thomas Edison's "Diamond Disc" phonograph records (which were not made from shellac like other disc records of the time), the salicylic acid used to make aspirin, and the high explosive trinitrophenol. British phenol was soon being used almost exclusively for making explosives for the war effort, leaving little for export. By 1915, the price of phenol rose to the point that Bayer's aspirin plant was forced to drastically cut production; this was especially problematic because Bayer was instituting a new branding strategy in anticipation of the expiry of the aspirin patent in the United States. Counterfeiters and Canadian importers and smugglers were stepping up to meet demand for aspirin, and the war had disrupted the links between the American Bayer plant (in Rensselaer, New York) and the central Bayer headquarters in Germany. Thomas Edison was also facing phenol supply problems; in response, he built a factory near Johnstown, Pennsylvania capable of manufacturing 12 short tons (11 t) of phenol per day. Edison's excess phenol seemed destined for American trinitrophenol production, which would be used to support the British.

Plot
Although the United States remained officially neutral until April 1917, it was increasingly throwing its support to the Allies through trade, especially after the May 1915 sinking of the British ocean liner Lusitania (which conveyed American passengers as well as munitions) by a German U-boat. While many Americans, including President Woodrow Wilson, supported the British, there was also considerable pro-German sentiment (though considerably less after the Lusitania's sinking). German ambassador Johann Heinrich von Bernstorff and Interior Ministry official Heinrich Albert were tasked with undermining American industry and maintaining public support for Germany. One of their agents was a former Bayer employee, Hugo Schweitzer.

Schweitzer, with money funneled from Germany through Albert, set up a contract for a front company called the Chemical Exchange Association to buy all of Edison's excess phenol. Much of the phenol would go to the German-owned Chemische Fabrik von Heyden's American subsidiary; Heyden was the supplier of Bayer's salicylic acid for aspirin manufacture. By July 1915, Edison's plants were selling about three tons of phenol per day to Schweitzer; Heyden's salicylic acid production was soon back on line, and in turn Bayer's aspirin plant was running as well. Schweitzer sold the remainder of the phenol at a considerable profit, being careful to distribute it to only non-war-related industries.

Albert, however, was under investigation by the Secret Service because of his propaganda activities. On July 24, 1915, he accidentally left his briefcase on a train; it was recovered by a Secret Service agent who had been following him. The briefcase contained details about the phenol plot and other covert activities to indirectly aid the German war effort. Although it was not incriminating enough to bring charges against Albert or the other conspirators (since the United States was still officially neutral and trade with Germany was legal), the documents were soon leaked to the New York World, an anti-German newspaper. The World published an exposé on August 15, 1915, and the publicity soon forced Albert to stop funding the phenol purchases.

Schweitzer quickly sought other financial backers. By September, he had signed a deal (backdated to June to hide Albert's involvement) with Richard Kny, a relative of the Heyden plant's manager. This allowed the phenol plot to continue for a short while longer. By the time the plot was discontinued, it had succeeded in diverting enough phenol, according to Albert, to make about 4.5 million pounds of explosives. Schweitzer defended his actions, arguing that making medicine and disinfectants was a better use of the phenol than making weapons. The public pressure soon forced Schweitzer and Edison to end the phenol deal, with the embarrassed Edison subsequently sending his excess phenol to the U.S. military, but by that time the deal had netted the plotters over $2 million (equivalent to $36.5 million in 2018) and there was already enough phenol to keep Bayer's aspirin plant running. Bayer's reputation took a large hit, however, just as the company was preparing to launch an advertising campaign to secure the connection between aspirin and the Bayer brand.

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https://auburnpub.com/news/local/state-flags-at-half-staff-in-honor-of-deceased-state/article_8e088ac7-c358-5240-ac5e-9243c2a7bd56.html#tracking-source=home-the-latest




Gov. Andrew Cuomo directed flags on state government buildings be flown at half-staff Tuesday in honor of a retired state police sergeant who aided rescue efforts following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and is set to be laid to rest this week.

Auburn native Sgt. Jeffrey M. Cicora, who resided in Baldwinsville, died Saturday after an illness related to his search and rescue work at the World Trade Center site following the attacks, prompting Cuomo to order for flags to be lowered in Cicora's honor, according to a release.

"Sgt. Cicora is a hero who risked his health and ultimately sacrificed his life to help others following one of our country's darkest days," Cuomo said in the release. "His death is a reminder of the selfless actions so many brave first responders took that day and in the weeks that followed. He represents the very best of New York and we will never forget him.

Cicora retired from the state police following a 24-year career that began in 1992, a Saturday release from the state police said.

After passing away in the Thousand Islands area, a law enforcement escort returned his body to central New York on Sunday, and was greeted by tributes from local police and fire departments along Interstates 81 and 481.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_2003


This image shows states and provinces that experienced power outages. Not all areas within these political boundaries were affected.

The Northeast blackout of 2003 was a widespread power outage throughout parts of the Northeastern and Midwestern United States, and the Canadian province of Ontario on August 14–28, 2003, beginning just after 4:10 p.m. EDT.

Some power was restored by 11 p.m. Most did not get their power back until two days later. In other areas, it took nearly a week or two for power to be restored. At the time, it was the world's second most widespread blackout in history, after the 1999 Southern Brazil blackout. The outage, which was much more widespread than the Northeast blackout of 1965, affected an estimated 10 million people in southern and central Ontario, and 45 million people in eight U.S. states.

The blackout's primary cause was a software bug in the alarm system at the control room of FirstEnergy, an Akron, Ohio–based company, which rendered operators unaware of the need to redistribute load after overloaded transmission lines drooped into foliage. What should have been a manageable local blackout cascaded into collapse of the entire Northeast region.

Immediate impact
According to the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) – the ISO responsible for managing the New York state power grid – a 3,500 megawatt power surge (towards Ontario) affected the transmission grid at 4:10:39 p.m. EDT.

For the next 30 minutes, to 4:40 p.m. EDT, outages were reported in parts of Ohio, New York, Michigan, and New Jersey: Cleveland, Akron, Toledo, New York City, Westchester, Orange and Rockland counties, Baltimore, Rochester, Syracuse, Binghamton, Albany, Detroit, and parts of New Jersey, including the city of Newark.

This was followed by outages in other areas initially unaffected, including all of New York City, portions of southern New York state, New Jersey, Vermont, Connecticut, as well as most of the province of Ontario, including Toronto. Eventually, a large, somewhat triangular area bounded by Lansing, Michigan, Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, the shore of James Bay, Ottawa, New York, and Toledo was left without power.

According to the official analysis of the blackout prepared by the US and Canadian governments, more than 508 generating units at 265 power plants shut down during the outage. In the minutes before the event, the NYISO-managed power system was carrying 28,700 MW of load. At the height of the outage, the load had dropped to 5,716 MW, a loss of 80%.

Essential services remained in operation in some of these areas. In others, backup generation systems failed. Telephone networks generally remained operational, but the increased demand triggered by the blackout left many circuits overloaded. Water systems in several cities lost pressure, forcing boil-water advisories to be put into effect. Cellular service was interrupted as mobile networks were overloaded with the increase in volume of calls. Major cellular network providers lost service until power was restored.[citation needed] Television and radio stations remained on the air, with the help of backup generators, although some stations were knocked off the air for periods ranging from several hours to the length of the entire blackout.

It was a hot day (over 31 °C, or 88 °F) in much of the affected region, and the heat played a role in the initial event that triggered the wider power outage. The high ambient temperature increased energy demand, as people across the region turned on fans and air conditioning. This caused the power lines to sag as higher currents heated the lines.

In areas where power remained off after nightfall, the Milky Way and orbiting artificial satellites became visible to the naked eye in metropolitan areas where they cannot ordinarily be seen due to the effects of particulate air and light pollution.

Most of the Amtrak Northeast Corridor service was interrupted, as it uses electric locomotives; electrified commuter railways also shut down. Via Rail in Canada was able to continue most of its service. All airports in the affected area closed immediately, so there were no take-offs, and incoming flights had to be diverted to airports with power. U.S. financial markets, which are completely power-dependent, were also shut down. The reliability of the electrical grid was called into question, meaning it was deficient, of less value, and required substantial investment to repair its shortcomings.

<snip>

Causes

Satellite imagery of the Northeastern United States taken before and during the blackout

Background
The load on any power network must be immediately matched by its supply and its ability to transmit that power. Any overload of a power line or generator can cause costly damage, so the affected device is disconnected from the network if an overload is detected.

The electrical resistance of a power line causes it to produce more heat as the current it carries increases. If this heat is not sufficiently dissipated, the metal conductor in the line will expand and lengthen, so that it sags between supporting structures. If the line sags too low, a flash over to nearby objects (such as trees) may occur, causing a transient increase in current. Automatic protective relays detect the excessively high current and quickly disconnect the line, with the load previously carried by the line transferred to other lines. If the other lines do not have enough spare capacity to accommodate the extra current, their overload protection will react as well, causing a cascading failure.

System operators are responsible for ensuring that power supply and loads remain balanced, and for keeping the system within safe operational limits such that no single fault can cause the system to fail. After a failure affecting their system, operators must obtain more power from generators or other regions or "shed load" (meaning to intentionally cut power or reduce voltage to a given area) until they can be sure that the worst remaining possible failure anywhere in the system will not cause a system collapse. In an emergency, they are expected to immediately shed load as required to bring the system into balance.

To assist the operators there are computer systems, with backups, which issue alarms when there are faults in the transmission or generation system. Power flow modeling tools let them analyze the state of their network, predict whether any parts of it may be overloaded, and predict the worst possible failure remaining, so that they can change the distribution of generation or reconfigure the transmission system to prevent a failure should this situation occur. If the computer systems and their backups fail, the operators are required to monitor the grid manually, instead of relying on computer alerts. If they cannot interpret the state of the power grid in such an event, they follow a contingency plan, contacting other plant and grid operators by telephone if necessary. If there is a failure, they are also required to notify adjacent areas which may be affected, so those can predict the possible effects on their own systems.

Investigation efforts
A joint federal task force was formed by the governments of Canada and the U.S. to oversee the investigation and report directly to Ottawa and Washington. The task force was led by then-Canadian Natural Resource Minister Herb Dhaliwal and U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham.

In addition to determining the initial cause of the cascading failure, the investigation of the incident also included an examination of the failure of safeguards designed to prevent a repetition of the Northeast blackout of 1965. The North American Electric Reliability Corporation, a joint Canada-U.S. council, is responsible for dealing with these issues.

On November 19, 2003, Abraham said his department would not seek to punish FirstEnergy Corp for its role in the blackout because current U.S. law does not require electric reliability standards. Abraham stated, "The absence of enforceable reliability standards creates a situation in which there are limits in terms of federal level punishment."

Findings
In February 2004, the U.S.-Canada Power System Outage Task Force released their final report, placing the causes of the blackout into four groups:

FirstEnergy (FE) and its reliability council "failed to assess and understand the inadequacies of FE's system, particularly with respect to voltage instability and the vulnerability of the Cleveland-Akron area, and FE did not operate its system with appropriate voltage criteria."
FirstEnergy "did not recognize or understand the deteriorating condition of its system."
FirstEnergy "failed to manage adequately tree growth in its transmission rights-of-way."
Finally, the "failure of the interconnected grid's reliability organizations to provide effective real-time diagnostic support."
The report states that a generating plant in Eastlake, Ohio, a suburb northeast of Cleveland, went offline amid high electrical demand, putting a strain on high-voltage power lines (located in Walton Hills, Ohio, a southeast suburb of Cleveland) which later went out of service when they came in contact with "overgrown trees". This trip caused load to transfer to other transmission lines, which were not able to bear the load, tripping their breakers. Once these multiple trips occurred, many generators suddenly lost parts of their loads, so they accelerated out of phase with the grid at different rates, and tripped out to prevent damage. The cascading effect that resulted ultimately forced the shutdown of more than 100 power plants.

Computer failure
A software bug known as a race condition existed in General Electric Energy's Unix-based XA/21 energy management system. Once triggered, the bug stalled FirstEnergy's control room alarm system for over an hour. System operators were unaware of the malfunction. The failure deprived them of both audio and visual alerts for important changes in system state.[9][10]

Unprocessed events queued up after the alarm system failure and the primary server failed within 30 minutes. Then all applications (including the stalled alarm system) were automatically transferred to the backup server, which itself failed at 14:54. The server failures slowed the screen refresh rate of the operators' computer consoles from 1–3 seconds to 59 seconds per screen. The lack of alarms led operators to dismiss a call from American Electric Power about the tripping and reclosure of a 345 kV shared line in northeast Ohio. But by 15:42, after the control room itself lost power, control room operators informed technical support (who were already troubleshooting the issue) of the alarm system problem.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rocky_Horror_Picture_Show



The Rocky Horror Picture Show is a 1975 musical horror comedy film by 20th Century Fox, produced by Lou Adler and Michael White and directed by Jim Sharman. The screenplay was written by Sharman and actor Richard O'Brien, who is also a member of the cast. The film is based on the 1973 musical stage production The Rocky Horror Show, with music, book, and lyrics by O'Brien. The production is a parody tribute to the science fiction and horror B movies of the 1930s through to the early 1960s. Along with O'Brien, the film stars Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon, and Barry Bostwick and is narrated by Charles Gray with cast members from the original Royal Court Theatre, Roxy Theatre, and Belasco Theatre productions including Nell Campbell and Patricia Quinn.

The story centres on a young engaged couple whose car breaks down in the rain near a castle where they seek a telephone to call for help. The castle or country home is occupied by strangers in elaborate costumes celebrating an annual convention. They discover the head of the house is Dr. Frank N. Furter, an apparently mad scientist who actually is an alien transvestite who creates a living muscle man in his laboratory. The couple are seduced separately by the mad scientist and eventually released by the servants who take control.

The film was shot in the United Kingdom at Bray Studios and on location at an old country estate named Oakley Court, best known for its earlier use by Hammer Film Productions. A number of props and set pieces were reused from the Hammer horror films. Although the film is both a parody of and tribute to many kitsch science fiction and horror films, costume designer Sue Blane conducted no research for her designs. Blane stated that costumes from the film have directly affected the development of punk rock fashion trends such as ripped fishnets and dyed hair.

Although largely critically panned on initial release, it soon became known as a midnight movie when audiences began participating with the film at the Waverly Theater in New York City in 1976. Audience members returned to the cinemas frequently and talked back to the screen and began dressing as the characters, spawning similar performance groups across the United States. At almost the same time, fans in costume at the King's Court Theater in Pittsburgh began performing alongside the film. This "shadow cast" mimed the actions on screen above and behind them, while lip-synching their character's lines. Still in limited release four decades after its premiere, it is the longest-running theatrical release in film history. It is often shown close to Halloween. Today, the film has a large international cult following. It was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in 2005.

<snip>

Reception, reaction and legacy
Critical reception
Chicago Sun-Times critic Roger Ebert noted that when first released, The Rocky Horror Picture Show was "ignored by pretty much everyone, including the future fanatics who would eventually count the hundreds of times they'd seen it". He considered it more a "long-running social phenomenon" than a movie, rating it 2.5 out of 4 stars. Bill Henkin noted that Variety thought that the "campy hijinks" of the film seemed labored, and also mentioned that the San Francisco Chronicle's John Wasserman, who had liked the stage play in London, found the film "lacking both charm and dramatic impact". Newsweek called the film "tasteless, plotless and pointless" in 1978.

Review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a rating of 80% based on 41 reviews, and an average grade of 6.9/10, with the critical consensus reading "Rocky Horror Picture Show brings its quirky characters in tight, but it's the narrative thrust that really drives audiences insane and keeps 'em doing the time warp again". A number of contemporary critics find it compelling and enjoyable because of its offbeat and bizarre qualities; the BBC summarised: "for those willing to experiment with something a little bit different, a little bit outré, The Rocky Horror Picture Show has a lot to offer". The New York Times called it a "low-budget freak show/cult classic/cultural institution" with "catchy" songs. Geoff Andrew of Time Out noted that the "string of hummable songs gives it momentum, Gray's admirably straight-faced narrator holds it together, and a run on black lingerie takes care of almost everything else", rating it 4 out of 5 stars. Dave Kehr of the Chicago Reader on the other hand considered the wit to be "too weak to sustain a film" and thought that the "songs all sound the same".

In 2005, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant"

</snip>

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_Act


President Roosevelt signs the Social Security Act into law on August 14, 1935.

The Social Security Act of 1935 is a law enacted by the 74th United States Congress and signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The law created the Social Security program as well as insurance against unemployment. The law was part of Roosevelt's New Deal domestic program.

By the 1930s, the United States was the lone modern industrial country without any national system of social security. In the midst of the Great Depression, physician Francis Townsend galvanized support behind a proposal to issue direct payments to the elderly. Responding to this movement, Roosevelt organized a committee led by Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins to develop a major social welfare program proposal. Roosevelt presented the plan in early 1935, and he signed the Social Security Act into law on August 14, 1935. The act was upheld by the Supreme Court in two major cases decided in 1937.

The law established the Social Security program, an old-age program funded by payroll taxes. Over the ensuing decades, Social Security program contributed to a dramatic decline in poverty among the elderly, while spending on Social Security became a major part of the federal budget. The Social Security Act also established an unemployment insurance program administered by the states, as well as the Aid to Dependent Children program, which provided aid to families headed by single mothers. The law was later amended by acts such as the Social Security Amendments of 1965, which established two major healthcare programs, Medicare and Medicaid.

Background and history
Industrialization and the urbanization in the 20th Century created many new social problems, and transformed ideas of how society and the government should function together because of them. As industry expanded, cities grew quickly to keep up with demand for labor. Tenement houses were built quickly and poorly, cramming new migrants from farms and Southern and Eastern European immigrants into tight and unhealthy spaces. Work spaces were even more unsafe.

By the 1930s, the United States was the lone modern industrial country where people faced the Depression without any national system of social security, though a handful of states had poorly-funded old-age insurance programs. The federal government had provided pensions to veterans in the aftermath of the Civil War and other wars, and some states had established voluntary old-age pension systems, but otherwise the United States had little experience with social insurance programs. For most American workers, retirement due to old age was not a realistic option. In the 1930s, physician Francis Townsend galvanized support for his pension proposal, which called for the federal government to issue direct $200-a-month payments to the elderly. Roosevelt was attracted to the general thinking behind Townsend's plan because it would provide for those no longer capable of working while at the same time stimulating demand in the economy and decreasing the supply of labor. In 1934, Roosevelt charged the Committee on Economic Security, chaired by Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, with developing an old-age pension program, an unemployment insurance system, and a national health care program. The proposal for a national health care system was dropped, but the committee developed an unemployment insurance program largely administered by the states. The committee also developed an old-age plan that, at Roosevelt's insistence, would be funded by individual contributions from workers.

In January 1935, Roosevelt proposed the Social Security Act, which he presented as a more practical alternative to the Townsend Plan. After a series of congressional hearings, the Social Security Act became law in August 1935. During the congressional debate over Social Security, the program was expanded to provide payments to widows and dependents of Social Security recipients. Job categories that were not covered by the act included workers in agricultural labor, domestic service, government employees, and many teachers, nurses, hospital employees, librarians, and social workers. The program was funded through a newly established a payroll tax which later became known as the Federal Insurance Contributions Act tax. Social Security taxes would be collected from employers by the states, with employers and employees contributing equally to the tax. Because the Social Security tax was regressive, and Social Security benefits were based on how much each individual had paid into the system, the program would not contribute to income redistribution in the way that some reformers, including Perkins, had hoped. In addition to creating the Social Security program, the Social Security Act also established a state-administered unemployment insurance system and the Aid to Dependent Children program, which provided aid to families headed by single mothers. Compared with the social security systems in western European countries, the Social Security Act of 1935 was rather conservative. But for the first time the federal government took responsibility for the economic security of the aged, the temporarily unemployed, dependent children and the handicapped.

Titles
The Social Security Act has been amended significantly over time, but contains ten major titles.

Title I—old age
Title I is designed to give money to states to provide assistance to aged individuals

Title III—unemployment
Title III concerns unemployment insurance

Title IV—child aid
Title IV concerns Aid to Families with Dependent Children.

Title V—child welfare
Title V concerns Maternal and Child Welfare.

Title VI—public health
Title VI concerns public health services (investigation of disease and problems of sanitation)

Title X—blindness
Title X concerns support for blind people.

Title XI—General Provisions, Peer Review, and Administrative Simplification
Title XII—Advances to State Unemployment Funds
Title XIII—Reconversion Unemployment Benefits for Seamen
Title XIV—Grants to States for Aid to the Permanently and Totally Disabled
Title XV—Unemployment Compensation for Federal Employees
Title XVI—Grants to States for Aid to the Aged, Blind, or Disabled
Title XVI—Supplemental Security Income for the Aged, Blind, and Disabled
Title XVII—Grants for Planning Comprehensive Action to Combat Mental Retardation
Title XVIII—Health Insurance for the Aged and Disabled
Title XIX—Grants to States for Medical Assistance Programs
Title XX—Block Grants to States for Social Services
Title XXI—State Children's Health Insurance Program

<snip>

Impact
In 1940, Social Security benefits paid totaled $35 million. These rose to $961 million in 1950, $11.2 billion in 1960, $31.9 billion in 1970, $120.5 billion in 1980, and $247.8 billion in 1990 (all figures in nominal dollars, not adjusted for inflation). In 2004, $492 billion of benefits were paid to 47.5 million beneficiaries. In 2009, nearly 51 million Americans received $650 billion in Social Security benefits.

During the 1950s, over-65s continued to have the highest poverty rate of any age group in the US with the largest percentage of the nation's wealth concentrated in the hands of Americans under 35. By 2010, this figure had dramatically reversed itself with the largest percentage of wealth being in the hands of Americans aged 55–75 and those under 45 being among the poorest. Elder poverty, once a normal sight, had thus become rare by the 21st century.

Reflecting the continuing importance of the Social Security Act, biographer Kenneth S. Davis described the Social Security Act "the most important single piece of social legislation in all American history."

</snip>

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Wall


East German Combat Groups of the Working Class close the border on 13 August 1961 in preparation for the Berlin Wall construction.

The Berlin Wall (German: Berliner Mauer, pronounced [bɛʁˈliːnɐ ˈmaʊ̯ɐ] ) was a guarded concrete barrier that physically and ideologically divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989. Construction of the Wall was commenced by the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) on 13 August 1961. The Wall cut off (by land) West Berlin from surrounding East Germany, including East Berlin. The barrier included guard towers placed along large concrete walls, accompanied by a wide area (later known as the "death strip" ) that contained anti-vehicle trenches, "fakir beds" and other defenses. The Eastern Bloc portrayed the Wall as protecting its population from fascist elements conspiring to prevent the "will of the people" in building a socialist state in East Germany.

GDR authorities officially referred to the Berlin Wall as the Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart (German: Antifaschistischer Schutzwall). The West Berlin city government sometimes referred to it as the "Wall of Shame", a term coined by mayor Willy Brandt in reference to the Wall's restriction on freedom of movement. Along with the separate and much longer Inner German border (IGB), which demarcated the border between East and West Germany, it came to symbolize physically the "Iron Curtain" that separated Western Europe and the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War.

Before the Wall's erection, 3.5 million East Germans circumvented Eastern Bloc emigration restrictions and defected from the GDR, many by crossing over the border from East Berlin into West Berlin; from there they could then travel to West Germany and to other Western European countries. Between 1961 and 1989 the Wall prevented almost all such emigration. During this period over 100,000 people attempted to escape and over 5,000 people succeeded in escaping over the Wall, with an estimated death toll ranging from 136 to more than 200 in and around Berlin.

In 1989, a series of revolutions in nearby Eastern Bloc countries—Poland and Hungary in particular—caused a chain reaction in East Germany that ultimately resulted in the demise of the Wall. After several weeks of civil unrest, the East German government announced on 9 November 1989 that all GDR citizens could visit West Germany and West Berlin. Crowds of East Germans crossed and climbed onto the Wall, joined by West Germans on the other side in a celebratory atmosphere. Over the next few weeks, euphoric people and souvenir hunters chipped away parts of the Wall. The Brandenburg Gate in the Berlin Wall was opened on December 22, 1989. The demolition of the Wall officially began on 13 June 1990 and was completed in 1992. The "fall of the Berlin Wall" paved the way for German reunification, which formally took place on 3 October 1990.

<snip>


East German construction workers building the Berlin Wall, 20 November 1961.

Construction begins, 1961
On 15 June 1961, First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party and GDR State Council chairman Walter Ulbricht stated in an international press conference, "Niemand hat die Absicht, eine Mauer zu errichten!" (No one has the intention of erecting a wall!). It was the first time the colloquial term Mauer (wall) had been used in this context.

The transcript of a telephone call between Nikita Khrushchev and Ulbricht, on 1 August in the same year, suggests that the initiative for the construction of the Wall came from Khrushchev. However, other sources suggest that Khrushchev had initially been wary about building a wall, fearing negative Western reaction. Nevertheless, Ulbricht had pushed for a border closure for quite some time, arguing that East Germany's very existence was at stake.

Khrushchev had become emboldened upon seeing US President John F. Kennedy's youth and inexperience, a weakness against Khrushchev's brutal, undiplomatic aggression. In the 1961 Vienna summit, Kennedy made the error of admitting that the US wouldn't actively oppose the building of a barrier. A feeling of miscalculation and failure was admitted by Kennedy, immediately afterwards, in a candid interview with New York Times columnist James "Scotty" Reston. On Saturday, 12 August 1961, the leaders of the GDR attended a garden party at a government guesthouse in Döllnsee, in a wooded area to the north of East Berlin. There, Ulbricht signed the order to close the border and erect a wall.

At midnight, the police and units of the East German army began to close the border and, by Sunday morning, 13 August, the border with West Berlin was closed. East German troops and workers had begun to tear up streets running alongside the border to make them impassable to most vehicles and to install barbed wire entanglements and fences along the 156 kilometres (97 mi) around the three western sectors, and the 43 kilometres (27 mi) that divided West and East Berlin. The date of 13 August became commonly referred to as Barbed Wire Sunday in Germany.

The barrier was built inside East Berlin or East German territory to ensure that it did not encroach on West Berlin at any point. Generally, the Wall was only slightly inside East Berlin, but in a few places it was some distance from the legal border, most notably at Potsdamer Bahnhof and the Lenné Triangle that is now much of the Potsdamer Platz development.

Later, the initial barrier was built up into the Wall proper, the first concrete elements and large blocks being put in place on 17 August. During the construction of the Wall, National People's Army (NVA) and Combat Groups of the Working Class (KdA) soldiers stood in front of it with orders to shoot anyone who attempted to defect. Additionally, chain fences, walls, minefields and other obstacles were installed along the length of East Germany's western border with West Germany proper. A huge no man's land was cleared to provide a clear line of fire at fleeing refugees.

Immediate effects


US President John F. Kennedy visiting the Berlin Wall on 26 June 1963

With the closing of the East-West sector boundary in Berlin, the vast majority of East Germans could no longer travel or emigrate to West Germany. Berlin soon went from being the easiest place to make an unauthorized crossing between East and West Germany to being the most difficult. Many families were split, while East Berliners employed in the West were cut off from their jobs. West Berlin became an isolated exclave in a hostile land. West Berliners demonstrated against the Wall, led by their Mayor (Oberbürgermeister) Willy Brandt, who strongly criticized the United States for failing to respond. Allied intelligence agencies had hypothesized about a wall to stop the flood of refugees, but the main candidate for its location was around the perimeter of the city. In 1961, Secretary of State Dean Rusk proclaimed, "The Wall certainly ought not to be a permanent feature of the European landscape. I see no reason why the Soviet Union should think it is—it is to their advantage in any way to leave there that monument to communist failure."

United States and UK sources had expected the Soviet sector to be sealed off from West Berlin, but were surprised by how long the East Germans took for such a move. They considered the Wall as an end to concerns about a GDR/Soviet retaking or capture of the whole of Berlin; the Wall would presumably have been an unnecessary project if such plans were afloat. Thus, they concluded that the possibility of a Soviet military conflict over Berlin had decreased.

The East German government claimed that the Wall was an "anti-fascist protective rampart" (German: "antifaschistischer Schutzwall" ) intended to dissuade aggression from the West. Another official justification was the activities of Western agents in Eastern Europe. The Eastern German government also claimed that West Berliners were buying out state-subsidized goods in East Berlin. East Germans and others greeted such statements with skepticism, as most of the time, the border was only closed for citizens of East Germany traveling to the West, but not for residents of West Berlin travelling to the East. The construction of the Wall had caused considerable hardship to families divided by it. Most people believed that the Wall was mainly a means of preventing the citizens of East Germany from entering or fleeing to West Berlin.

Secondary response
The National Security Agency was the only American intelligence agency that was aware that East Germany was to take action to deal with the brain drain problem. On 9 August 1961, the NSA intercepted an advance warning information of the Socialist Unity Party's plan to close the intra-Berlin border between East and West Berlin completely for foot traffic. The interagency intelligence Berlin Watch Committee assessed that this intercept "might be the first step in a plan to close the border." This warning did not reach John F. Kennedy until noon on 13 August 1961, while he was vacationing in his yacht off the Kennedy Compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts. While Kennedy was angry that he had no advance warning, he was relieved that the East Germans and the Soviets had only divided Berlin without taking any action against West Berlin's access to the West. However, he denounced the Berlin Wall, whose erection worsened the relations between the United States and the Soviet Union.

In response to the erection of the Berlin Wall, a retired general, Lucius D. Clay, was appointed by Kennedy as his special advisor and sent to Berlin with ambassadorial rank. Clay had been the Military Governor of the US Zone of Occupation in Germany during the period of the Berlin Blockade and had ordered the first measures in what became the Berlin Airlift. He was immensely popular with the residents of West Berlin, and his appointment was an unambiguous sign that Kennedy would not compromise on the status of West Berlin. Clay and Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson arrived at Tempelhof Airport on the afternoon of Saturday, 19 August 1961.

They arrived in a city defended by three Allied brigades —one each from the UK (Berlin Infantry Brigade), the US (Berlin Brigade), and France (Forces Françaises à Berlin). On 16 August, Kennedy had given the order for them to be reinforced. Early on 19 August, the 1st Battle Group, 18th Infantry (commanded by Colonel Glover S. Johns Jr.) was alerted.

On Sunday morning, U.S. troops marched from West Germany through East Germany, bound for West Berlin. Lead elements—arranged in a column of 491 vehicles and trailers carrying 1,500 men, divided into five march units—left the Helmstedt-Marienborn checkpoint at 06:34. At Marienborn, the Soviet checkpoint next to Helmstedt on the West German-East German border, US personnel were counted by guards. The column was 160 kilometres (99 mi) long, and covered 177 kilometres (110 mi) from Marienborn to Berlin in full battle gear. East German police watched from beside trees next to the autobahn all the way along.

The front of the convoy arrived at the outskirts of Berlin just before noon, to be met by Clay and Johnson, before parading through the streets of Berlin in front of a large crowd. At 04:00 on 21 August, Lyndon Johnson left West Berlin in the hands of General Frederick O. Hartel and his brigade of 4,224 officers and men. "For the next three and a half years, American battalions would rotate into West Berlin, by autobahn, at three month intervals to demonstrate Allied rights to the city".

The creation of the Wall had important implications for both German states. By stemming the exodus of people from East Germany, the East German government was able to reassert its control over the country: in spite of discontent with the Wall, economic problems caused by dual currency and the black market were largely eliminated. The economy in the GDR began to grow. But, the Wall proved a public relations disaster for the communist bloc as a whole. Western powers portrayed it as a symbol of communist tyranny, particularly after East German border guards shot and killed would-be defectors. Such fatalities were later treated as acts of murder by the reunified Germany.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Approach_and_Landing_Tests


Enterprise takes flight for the first time in August 1977

The Approach and Landing Tests were a series of taxi and flight trials of the prototype Space Shuttle Enterprise, conducted in 1977 to test the vehicle's flight characteristics both on its own and when mated to the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, prior to the operational debut of the Shuttle system.

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Test program
Upon the orbiter's entry into service, NASA began an extensive program of tests using Enterprise to ensure all of the systems it had put in place for the Shuttle program functioned as designed. These tests would encompass not only the flight tests planned to test the flight characteristics of the orbiter, but also ground-based testing of the launch pad systems and procedures. In January 1977, Enterprise was taken by road from the Rockwell plant at Palmdale, California to the Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base to begin the flight test phase of the program, which had been christened by NASA as the Approach and Landing Tests (ALT).

Crews
The program lasted from February until October 1977, with a pair of two-man crews assigned to the orbiter:

Crew 1
Commander Fred W. Haise, Jr.
Pilot C. Gordon Fullerton

Haise had previously flown as the Lunar Module pilot of Apollo 13. Fullerton later flew as the pilot of STS-3 and commanded STS-51-F.

Crew 2
Commander Joe H. Engle
Pilot Richard H. Truly

This crew later flew on STS-2. Engle was originally the lunar module pilot for Apollo 17, but was bumped in favor of Harrison Schmitt due to pressure from the scientific community when Apollo 18 was cancelled.

Shuttle carrier aircraft
In addition to the two assigned Shuttle crews, who would alternate crewing the orbiter, a single flight crew was attached to the Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA) for the entire program:

SCA crew:
Fitzhugh L. Fulton, Jr. (captain)
Thomas C. McMurtry (co-pilot)
Louis E. Guidry, Jr. (flight engineer)
Victor W. Horton (flight engineer)

ALT
The ALT program was divided into three distinct phases. The first phase was designated as the "taxi-test" phase, which involved the SCA and orbiter in a mated formation conducting taxi tests at Edwards Air Force Base to verify the taxiing characteristics of the aircraft while carrying the orbiter. These tests did not involve the orbiter in any way beyond it being mated to the aircraft, so consequently it remained powered down and uncrewed. A total of three taxi-tests were performed on February 15, 1977. Following this, the program moved into its next phase.

Captive flights


Enterprise during a captive flight

The captive flight phase of ALT saw the SCA/orbiter combination in flight as a test of the SCA's flying characteristics while mated to the orbiter, and as an initial test of the orbiter systems in flight. This was subdivided into two phases:

Captive – inert
There were a total of five captive-inert flights designed to test the flight and handling characteristics of the aircraft while it was mated to the orbiter. As with the taxi tests, this did not involve the orbiter beyond it being mated to the SCA, so it remained unpowered and uncrewed.

Captive – active
The captive-active flights were intended to determine the optimum profile required for Enterprise to separate from the SCA during the orbiter's free-flights. These were also intended to refine and test the orbiter crew procedures and to ensure the operational readiness of the orbiter's systems. For these three flights, although Enterprise remained mated to the SCA, it was powered and crewed

.

Free-flight


Enterprise on its approach during the second free-flight

The final phase of flight testing involved free-flights. These saw Enterprise mated to the SCA and carried to a launch altitude, before being jettisoned by the use of explosive bolts to glide to a landing on the runways at Edwards AFB. The intention of these flights was to test the flight characteristics of the orbiter itself, on a typical approach and landing profile from orbit.

There were a total of five free-flights between August and October; the first three saw Enterprise remain fitted with its aerodynamic tail cone, intended to reduce drag when mounted on the SCA during flight. The final two had the tail cone removed, with the orbiter in its full operational configuration, with dummy main engines and OMS pods. Enterprise used an air data probe mounted on its nose for these flights. These five flights were to be the only time Enterprise flew alone.

After flying missions on Columbia (STS-2) and Discovery (STS-51-I), Engle reported that the flight and handling characteristics of the operational orbiters were similar to those of Enterprise, except that he had to fly a steeper profile with the prototype, as it was much lighter than the operational spacecraft.

Ferry flights
Following the free-flight tests, Enterprise was prepared for ferry flight tests, which were intended to ensure that the SCA/orbiter configuration was viable for flights of the duration between landing and launch sites.

After ALT
Following the end of the flight test program, Enterprise was taken for testing with the external tank and SRBs in full-up launch configuration, to test both the structural responses of the "stack" itself and the launch procedures prior to the entry into service and first launch of the first operational orbiter. These tests first saw Enterprise taken to the Dynamic Structural Test Facility, located at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, where the complete stack was subjected to vertical ground vibration tests, assessing the structural responses to a number of scenarios. Then, the orbiter was flown to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, to fit check the facilities at LC-39 and the procedures to be used in launching the Shuttle.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Gulch_massacre

The Bloody Gulch massacre was a war crime that took place in the Korean War on August 12, 1950 in "Bloody Gulch", west of Masan, South Korea. After a very successful attack on two undefended American artillery battalions that killed or wounded hundreds of American troops, members of the North Korean Korean People's Army (KPA) 13th Regiment executed seventy-five captured US Army (US) prisoners of war during one of the smaller engagements of the Battle of Pusan Perimeter. The troops were from the 555th Field Artillery Battalion (24th Infantry Division) and the 90th Field Artillery Battalion (25th Infantry Division).

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Massacre
Fight at Pongam-ni
As the Marine brigade maneuvered around the southern coastal loop toward Chinju, the 5th Regimental Combat Team planned a simultaneous attack in the center of the line toward Much'on-ni, its planned junction point with the 35th Infantry. On August 10, as the 5th Infantry moved toward Pongam-ni, aerial observation did not find KPA troop concentrations ahead of it. US Navy aircraft, however, did spot and attack KPA north of Pongam-ni and Tundok to the north. The 1st Battalion attacked down the north side of the road and the 2d Battalion down the south side. The 1st Battalion on its side encountered the KPA on the hills near Pongam-ni, but was able to enter the town and establish its command post there.

The village of Pongam was a village of mud-walled and thatch-roofed huts clustered around a road junction. It and Taejong-ni were small villages 200 yards (180 m) apart on the east side of the pass. About 400 yards (370 m) northeast of Pongam-ni rose a steep, barren hill, which was the end of a long ridge that paralleled road about 800 yards (730 m) from its north side. The KPA occupied this ridge. Northward from Pongam-ni extended a valley 500 yards (460 m) wide. The main road ran westward along its base and climbed out of the valley at a pass where this ridge joined the other slanting in from the north. Immediately west of Pongam-ni the two ridges were separated by a valley 300 yards (270 m) wide. The northern ridge was the higher.

On August 10, the 2nd Battalion, 5th Regimental Combat Team, held the southern of these two ridges at Pongam-ni and B and C Companies of the 1st Battalion held the eastern part of the northern one. The KPA held the remainder of this ridge and contested control of the pass. During the day the regiment's support artillery came up and went into positions in the stream bed and low ground at Pongam-ni and Taejong-ni. A Battery of the 555th Field Artillery Battalion emplaced under the concrete bridge at Pongam-ni, and B Battery went into position along the stream bank at the edge of the village. Headquarters Battery established itself in the village. The 90th Field Artillery Battalion, less one battery, had emplaced on the west side of the south-flowing stream. All the artillery pieces were on the north side of the east-west road. The 5th Regimental Combat Team headquarters and C Battery of the 555th Field Artillery Battalion were eastward in a rear position.

That night, KPA attacked the 1st Battalion and the artillery positions at Pongam-ni. The action continued after daylight. During this fight, Lieutenant Colonel John H. Daly, the 555th Field Artillery Battalion commander, lost communication with his A Battery. With the help of some infantry, he and the 1st Battalion commander, tried to reach the battery but both were wounded in the process. Daly then assumed temporary command of the infantry battalion as he was less seriously injured. As the day progressed, the KPA attacks at Pongam-ni lost speed and momentum and finally came to a halt.

When the 3rd Battalion attacked westward, the 5th Regimental Combat Team headquarters and C Battery of the 555th Field Artillery Battalion, east of Pongam-ni, had been left without protecting infantry close at hand. KPA attacked them during the night at the same time Pongam-ni came under attack, though Regimental Headquarters and C Battery were able to force back the attack. On the morning of the 11th, close-in air strikes helped drive the KPA back into the hills. The 2nd Battalion headquarters had also come under attack and was repulsed with the assistance of reserve troops.

The plan for passing the regiment westward through Pongam-ni was for the 2nd Battalion to withdraw from the south ridge and start the movement, after the 1st Battalion had secured the north ridge and the pass. The regimental trains were to follow and next the artillery. The 1st Battalion was then to disengage and cover the rear of the formation. The 1st Battalion was ordered to clear the ridge north of the road west of Pongam-ni, secure the pass, protect the combat team as it moved west through the pass, and then follow it. Just before dark, B Company moved to the head of the gulch and attacked the hill on the right overlooking the north side of the pass. At the same time, C Company attacked west along the north ridge. The artillery and all available weapons of the 2nd Battalion supported the attack, and before dusk B Company had gained and occupied the commanding ground north of the pass. One platoon of A Company, reinforced with a section of tanks, remained in its position north of Pongam-ni on the Tundok road, to protect from that direction the road junction village and the artillery positions. The remainder of A Company relieved the 2nd Battalion on the south ridge, when it withdrew from there at 21:00 to lead the movement westward.

Movement
As a result of heavy fighting during the night of August 10–11 and during the day of the 11th, the regimental commander decided that he could not safely move the regimental trains and the artillery through the pass during the day, and accordingly he had made plans to do it that night. That afternoon, however, General Kean wanted the division to move forward rapidly, and said that a battalion of the 24th Infantry Regiment would come up and protect its right, north flank. General Kean apparently did not believe any considerable force of enemy troops was in the vicinity of Pongam-ni, despite representations to the contrary.

About 21:00, as 2nd Battalion, C Battery of the 555th, and the trains were forming on the road, Kean ordered the commanders to move the 2nd Battalion and one battery of artillery through the pass immediately, but to hold the rest of the troops in place until daylight. Immediately, the 2nd Battalion moved through the pass, and once over it was out of communication with the rest of the regiment. In effect, though the 2nd Battalion thought it was the advance guard of the rest of the regiment, it was on its own and neither force could assist the other if it came under attack. In the movement of the 2nd Battalion and C and Headquarters Batteries, Daly was wounded a second time and was evacuated. The 2nd Battalion cleared the pass before midnight. On the west side it came under light attack, but was able to continue its advance all the way to Taejong-ni, where it held position for the rest of the night.

While these events were taking place at Pongam-ni during daylight and the evening of August 11, the main supply road back toward Chindong-ni was under sniper fire probing attacks. Three US tanks and an assault gun escorted supply convoys to the forward positions. By midnight of August 11, the 555th Field Artillery Battalion, firing 105 mm howitzers, along with and Headquarters and A Batteries, of the 90th Field Artillery Battalion emplaced at Pongam-ni and Taejong-ni-had near them only the 1st Battalion north of the road. The regimental headquarters and the guns of the 159th Field Artillery Battalion were emplaced 1 mile (1.6 km) behind them along the road.

Sometime after 01:00, 12 August, 2nd Battalion lost contact with C Company on the ridge northward and sounds of combat could be heard coming from that area. When further efforts to reach the company by telephone and radio failed, the battalion commander sent runners and a wire crew out to try to re-establish contact. He then urged speedy movement of the trains and artillery westward through the pass. But the regimental commander reluctantly held firm to division orders not to move until after daylight. The runners returned and said they could not find the company. The wire crew was missing. Members of the battalion staff had again heard sounds of combat in the company area. They also had seen flares there. This was interpreted to mean that KPA troops held it and were signaling to allied units. Still unable to contact the division, 5th Infantry now decided to move the trains and artillery out westward while it was still dark, despite division orders to wait for daylight, seeing too much risk in delaying any longer. The battalion of the 24th Infantry promised by the division had not arrived. About 04:00 the trains moved out. They were to be followed by the artillery, and then the 1st Battalion would bring up the rear. In the meantime, the battalion was to hold open the pass and protect the regimental column. Movement of the trains through the pass should have been accomplished in twenty minutes, but it required hours. During the hour or more before daylight, no vehicle moved more than 10–20 feet (3.0–6.1 m) at a time. One of the factors creating this situation was caused when the Medical Company tried to move into the column from its position near the 1st Battalion command post. An ambulance hung up in a ditch and stopped everything on the road behind it until it could be pulled out.

Artillery surrounded
About this time, soon after daybreak, KPA infantry had closed in so as to virtually surround the artillery, still in the village. The KPA 13th Regiment, 6th Division now struck furiously from three sides at the 555th and 90th Field Artillery Battalions' positions. The attack came suddenly and with devastating power. Troops in the column spotted two tanks and several self-propelled guns on the dirt trail in the valley north of Pongam-ni, firing into the village and the artillery positions.

The withdrawal of the section of tanks and the A Company infantry platoon from its roadblock position had permitted this KPA armor force to approach undetected and unopposed, almost to point-blank range, and with completely disastrous effects. The 555th emplacements were in the open and exposed to this fire; those of the 90th were partially protected by terrain features. The howitzers of the 555th Field Artillery Battalion ineffectually engaged the KPA armor. The 90th could not depress its howitzers low enough to engage the tanks and the self-propelled guns. Some of the 555th guns received direct hits. Many of the artillerymen of this battalion sought cover in buildings and under the bridge at Taejong-ni. Some of the buildings caught fire.

Soon after the KPA armor came down the trail from the north and shot up the artillery positions, KPA infantry closed on the 555th Artillery emplacements and fired on the men with small arms and automatic weapons. Three of the 105 mm howitzers managed to continue firing for several hours after daybreak, perhaps until 09:00. Then the KPA overran the 555th positions. The 90th Field Artillery Battalion suffered almost as great a calamity. Early in the pre-dawn attack, the KPA scored direct hits on two 155 mm howitzers and several ammunition trucks of A Battery. Only by fighting resolutely as infantrymen, manning the machine guns on the perimeter and occupying foxholes as riflemen, were the battalion troops able to repel the KPA attack.

At daybreak, F4U Corsairs flew in to strafe and rocket the KPA concentrations. Despite this close air support, the artillery position was untenable by 09:00. Survivors of the 90th loaded the wounded on the few serviceable trucks. Then, with the uninjured giving covering fire and U.S. Air Force (USAF) F-51 Mustang fighter planes strafing the KPA, the battalion withdrew on foot. Survivors credited the vicious close-in attacks of the fighter planes with making the withdrawal possible. KPA fire destroyed or burned nearly every vehicle east of the Pongam-ni bridge.

Massacre
At "Bloody Gulch", the name given by the troops to the scene of the successful enemy attack, the 555th Field Artillery on August 12 lost all eight of its howitzers in the two firing batteries there. The 90th Field Artillery Battalion lost all six 155 mm howitzers of its A Battery. The day after the attack, only 20 percent of the battalion troops were present for duty. The battalion estimated at the time that from 75 to 100 artillerymen were killed at the gun positions and 80 wounded, with many of the latter unable to get away. The 90th Field Artillery Battalion lost 10 men killed, 60 wounded, and about 30 missing at Bloody Gulch—more than half the men of Headquarters and A Batteries present.

With the swift attack, KPA troops had surrounded and virtually destroyed four artillery batteries in the village, now known as "Bloody Gulch". In addition to the hundreds of American servicemen the KPA had killed and wounded in the attack, they were able to capture the last survivors of the devastated force: 55 men from the 555th Field Artillery Battalion, and 20 men from the 90th Field Artillery Battalion. In two separate events, all of these men were massacred. The men of the 555th Field Artillery were rounded up in nearby Taejong-ni. The KPA then ordered all of them into a house where they machine-gunned the entire group, killing all 55. In a separate location, the 20 survivors of the 90th Field Artillery Battalion were executed, each with a gunshot to the head. The bodies would not be recovered for five weeks until UN forces had regained the area after the breakout from the Pusan Perimeter.

Aftermath
US response
The deaths at Bloody Gulch, combined with the subsequent Hill 303 massacre led UN commander General Douglas MacArthur to broadcast to the KPA on August 20, denouncing the atrocities. The USAF dropped many leaflets over enemy territory, addressed to KPA commanders. MacArthur warned that he would hold North Korea's senior military leaders responsible for the event, and any other war crimes.

Inertia on your part and on the part of your senior field commanders in the discharge of this grave and universally recognized command responsibility may only be construed as a condonation and encouragement of such outrage, for which if not promptly corrected I shall hold you and your commanders criminally accountable under the rules and precedents of war.

—General of the Army Douglas MacArthur's closing remark in his broadcast to the North Korean Army on the incident.

The incident at Bloody Gulch would be only one of the first of a series of atrocities the US forces accused KPA soldiers of committing. In late 1953, the United States Senate Committee on Government Operations, led by Joseph McCarthy, conducted an investigation of up to 1,800 reported incidents of war crimes allegedly committed throughout the Korean War. The US Government concluded that the KPA violated the terms of the Geneva Convention, and condemned its actions.

North Korean response
Historians agree there is no evidence that the KPA High Command sanctioned the shooting of prisoners during the early phase of the war. The Hill 303 massacre and similar atrocities are believed to have been conducted by "uncontrolled small units, by vindictive individuals, or because of unfavorable and increasingly desperate situations confronting the captors." T. R. Fehrenbach, a military historian, wrote in his analysis of the event that KPA troops committing these events were likely accustomed to torture and execution of prisoners due to decades of rule by oppressive armies of the Empire of Japan up until World War II.

On July 28, 1950, General Lee Yong Ho, commander of the KPA 3rd Division, had transmitted an order pertaining to the treatment of prisoners of war, signed by Kim Chaek, Commander-in-Chief, and Choi Yong-kun, commander of the KPA Advanced General Headquarters, which stated killing prisoners of war was "strictly prohibited." He directed individual units' Cultural Sections to inform the division's troops of the rule.


US and ROK soldiers lay roses at the foot of the memorial established on Hill 303.

Documents captured after the event showed that KPA leaders were aware of—and concerned about—the conduct of some of its soldiers. An order issued by the Cultural Section of the KPA 2nd Division dated August 16 said, in part, "Some of us are still slaughtering enemy troops that come to surrender. Therefore, the responsibility of teaching the soldiers to take prisoners of war and to treat them kindly rests on the Political Section of each unit."

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