Photo Gallery: Downed Nazi Planes from the Battle of Britain

The link below is to a photo gallery of shot down German planes from the Battle of Britain – some great WWII shots here.

For more visit:
http://www.urbanghostsmedia.com/2013/04/20-photos-downed-luftwaffe-aircraft-battle-of-britain/

Today in History: 21 April 1918

The Red Baron is Shot Down and Killed

ABOVE: The Red Baron

 

On this day in 1918, Manfred von Richthofen (The Red Baron), was shot down and killed over Vaux-sur-Somme, France.

 

For more visit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manfred_von_Richthofen
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Red_Baron

Book:
The Red Knight of Germany: The Story of Baron von Richthofen, Germany’s Great War Bird, by Floyd Phillips Gibbons

Today in History – 18 April 1861

Robert E. Lee: Turns Down Offer to Lead Union Troops

On this day in 1861, with the Civil War in the United States in its very early stages, Colonel Robert E. Lee was offered the role of Major General in the United States Army. Knowing that Virginia was likely to secede from the Union, Lee turned the offer down and resigned from the United States Army two days later. This despite having said to his son in a letter that ‘I can anticipate no greater calamity for the country than a dissolution of the Union.’ However, it was love for and loyalty to his home state of Virginia, that forced his hand to join the Confederacy. On the 23rd of April Lee took command of the armed forces of Virginia and began his role in the southern rebellion, in which he would rise to be the General-in-Chief of all Confederate forces. Almost four years later, on the 9th April 1865, his role in the war ended with his surrender to U.S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia.