It was 62 years ago today...

"Michael 182" wrote in message
news:yb6Bb.473401$Fm2.460449@attbi_s04...
I hate getting into semantic battles, and if this is one, I quit.

I concur with that also: I may have chosen the wrong interpretation of the
phrase on both sides.

On Mon, 08 Dec 2003 21:21:10 GMT, Michael 182 wrote:

*hmmm* still no clue ... well, *googling* ... oh. Pearl Harbor.
Hm, not that important of a date here in Europe and/but well known in the
US, I assume.

Come on Martin - I agree with a lot of your posts that accuse the US of a
provinicial world-view, but to say Pearl Harbor was not a date important in
world history is ludicrous.

oh, I think you got me wrong here. I don't meant that Pearl Harbor was not
an important event in history (au contraire!).
I meant the date itself (Dec 7th) is not one that someone on my side of the
pond is remembering (maybe it is in th media on round dates like 60, 65, 70
years or so).

It was the precipitating event that drew the US
into WWII, which, as I remember, had a pretty large effect on Europe. Saying
Pearl Harbor is an unimportant date in European history is like saying the
rise of Nazism was unimportant in US history.

see above; and yes, when it would be me saying that what you meant I would
understand your argumentation. But as said above: it was not the event, it
was the date.

(hope I got that right)

#m
--
http://www.declareyourself.com/fyr_candidates.php
http://www.subterrane.com/bush.shtml

On Mon, 8 Dec 2003 13:30:17 -0800, David Brooks wrote:

Or, for a closer analogy, the day
Britain declared war.

early September 1939 .. the 9th or so. after Hitler invaded Poland, France
and England declared war (as it was written in a treaty for assistance
[wording?] with Poland).

#m

--
http://www.declareyourself.com/fyr_candidates.php
http://www.subterrane.com/bush.shtml

On Mon, 08 Dec 2003 21:38:38 GMT, Michael 182 wrote:

I hate getting into semantic battles, and if this is one, I quit. Martin
said "Hm, not that important of a date here in Europe but well known in the
US, I assume."


*whooa* well, maybe I missed fine meanings in wording ...

If the meaning was that the event was important but the date was not well
known, I agree with you.

yes, yes, yes. this is it.

If the meaning was "not that important of a date
here in Europe " then, of course, my initial post makes my point.


sure. and I would not agree with someone saying that.

Michael

#m
--
http://www.declareyourself.com/fyr_candidates.php
http://www.subterrane.com/bush.shtml

On Mon, 08 Dec 2003 21:22:57 GMT, Jay Honeck wrote:

Funny, I'd say the chain of events began two years earlier, when England
and France declared war on Germany after the invasion of Poland. The US
participation was simply a later link in that chain.

Technically true, but it is unlikely that France and England would be
democracies today, had Japan not jolted us into the war.

Thus, some links in the chain are more important than others...

You mean: USA wouldn't have joined into the war without the Japanese
agression?
I doubt that the USA would have remained neutral as there have been some
attackes by german submarines in US ports and en-route on the Atlantic and
the US more and more supporting England.

#m
--
http://www.declareyourself.com/fyr_candidates.php
http://www.subterrane.com/bush.shtml

On Mon, 08 Dec 2003 21:29:04 GMT, Rob Perkins wrote:

Hm, I don't have the details, but isn't there a stoy about the Japanese
ambassador to the USA being late delivering the declaration of war?

Yeah. He was late. Wouldn't have changed the outcome.

true. formalism only.

That was the day
that brought the U.S. into the war, and the first time in a longlong
time that the U.S. had had its backside handed to it by an aggressive
enemy.

besides: this was the last time the USA declared war.

And, yes, I don't think the outcome of WWII would have been a free
Austria without the U.S. in the middle of it.

true

Roosevelt was one of the
principal founders of the United Nations, after all.

but the UN had nothing to do with our peace treaty (at least: we had one,
Germany had none)

I don't think
Stalin, Degualle, and Churchill would have been able to pull it off;
Stalin would not have come to the table. And even in '45 Britain could
not have stood alone against the U.S.S.R.'s creation of satellite
states.

yes. And it sure was also good negotiations by Leopold Fiegl.

Had Russia freed Austria

first troops to free Vienna where Russian troops.

it would not have been the neutral
republic it was for the last half of the 20th.

yep. Funny thing that it was possible to form such a small nation with
neutrality at that time.

Rob

#m

--
http://www.declareyourself.com/fyr_candidates.php
http://www.subterrane.com/bush.shtml

Well, I'm confused, but I think we are in complete agreement ;-)

Michael

"Martin Hotze" wrote in message
news
On Mon, 08 Dec 2003 21:21:10 GMT, Michael 182 wrote:

see above; and yes, when it would be me saying that what you meant I would
understand your argumentation. But as said above: it was not the event, it
was the date.

(hope I got that right)

#m
--
http://www.declareyourself.com/fyr_candidates.php
http://www.subterrane.com/bush.shtml

On Mon, 08 Dec 2003 22:36:19 GMT, Michael 182 wrote:

Well, I'm confused, but I think we are in complete agreement ;-)

good. very good. :-))

Michael

martin

--
http://www.declareyourself.com/fyr_candidates.php
http://www.subterrane.com/bush.shtml

On Mon, 8 Dec 2003 13:30:17 -0800, "David Brooks"
wrote:

Agreed, but see my post on distinguishing the date from the event. Following
your analogy, Americans should be able to immediately identify the day/month
a certain person became Reichskanzler.

Ooo, you got me.

I think it was autumn 1933, but I can't remember the month. And I
don't remember the day, month, or year for "Kristallnacht", only that
it predated the Blitzkrieg into Poland. Am I wrong?

Or, for a closer analogy, the day
Britain declared war.

September 1939?

I take your point, though. The order of the events in time is more
important than the exact date.

Rob

On Mon, 08 Dec 2003 22:14:34 GMT, Martin Hotze
wrote:

If the meaning was that the event was important but the date was not well
known, I agree with you.

yes, yes, yes. this is it.

Oh! OK, yeah, I don't have a problem with that. Sorry for the
provincialism, if that's even a word one can use for a nation that
covers almost as much land area as the U.S. does.

On a related issue, I had a curious experience watching Swiss
television on the 20th anniversary of the moon landing. The producers
noted it and spent the bulk of the hour talking about the Swiss
experiment that went with Aldrin and Armstrong to the moon.

It was an interesting shift in perspectives, to say the least.

Rob