The Village Hemorrhoid

Monday, October 16, 2023

On This Date In History

On October 16, 1946, at Nuremberg, Germany, 10 high-ranking Nazi officials are executed by hanging for their crimes against humanity, crimes against peace, and war crimes during World War II.
Two weeks earlier, the 10 were found guilty by the International War Crimes Tribunal and sentenced to death along with two other Nazi officials. Among those condemned to die by hanging were Joachim von Ribbentrop, Nazi minister of foreign affairs; Hermann Göring, founder of the Gestapo and chief of the German air force; Wilhelm Frick, minister of the interior; and Alfred Rosenberg, head of the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories. Others, including Rudolf Hess, Adolf Hitler’s former deputy, were given prison sentences ranging from 10 years to life. Three others were acquitted.
The trial, which had lasted nearly 10 months, was conducted by an international tribunal made up of representatives from the United States, the USSR, France, and Great Britain. It was the first trial of its kind in history, and the defendants faced charges ranging from crimes against peace, to crimes of war and crimes against humanity. On October 16, 10 of the architects of Nazi policy were hanged one by one. Hermann Göring, who at sentencing was called the “leading war aggressor and creator of the oppressive program against the Jews,” died by suicide by poison on the eve of his scheduled execution. Nazi Party leader Martin Bormann was condemned to death in absentia; he is now known to have died in Berlin at the end of the war.

On October 16, 1964, The People’s Republic of China joins the rank of nations with atomic bomb capability, after a successful nuclear test. China is the fifth member of this exclusive club, joining the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain and France.
U.S. officials were not terribly surprised by the test; intelligence reports since the 1950s indicated that China was working to develop an atomic bomb, possibly aided by Soviet technicians and scientists. Nevertheless, the successful test did cause concern in the U.S. government. During the early 1960s, China took a particularly radical stance that advocated worldwide revolution against the forces of capitalism, working strenuously to extend its influence in Asia and the new nations of Africa. The test, coming just two months after the Tonkin Gulf Resolution (a congressional resolution giving President Lyndon B. Johnson the power to respond to communist aggression in Vietnam) created a frightening specter of nuclear confrontation and conflict in Southeast Asia.
The test also concerned the Soviet Union; the split between the USSR and communist China over ideological and strategic issues had widened considerably by 1964. The Chinese acquisition of nuclear capabilities only heightened the tensions between the two nations. Indeed, the test might have been a spur to the Soviets to pursue greater efforts to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons; in 1968, the United States and the Soviet Union signed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. Little wonder that the Soviets would wish to see China’s nuclear force limited, since the first Chinese intermediate-range missiles were pointedly aimed at Russia. The Cold War nuclear arms race had just become a good deal more complicated.

Lop Nur Test Site - American KH-4 Corona Intelligence Satellite - 10.20.1964

On October 16, 1958, Chevrolet begins to sell a car-truck hybrid that it calls the El Camino. The El Camino was a combination sedan-pickup truck built on the Impala body, with the same “cat’s eye” taillights and dramatic rear fins. It was, ads trilled, “the most beautiful thing that ever shouldered a load!” “It rides and handles like a convertible,” Chevy said, “yet hauls and hustles like the workingest thing on wheels.”
Ford’s Ranchero was the first “car-truck” sold in the United States, it had been on the market for two years already, but it was not a new idea. Since the 1930s, Australian farmers had been driving what they called “utes”, short for “coupé utility”, all around the outback. Legend has it that a farmer’s wife from rural Victoria had written a letter to Ford Australia, asking the company to build a car that could carry her to church on Sundays and her husband’s pigs to market on Mondays. In response, Ford engineer Lewis Brandt designed a low-slung sedan-based vehicle that was a ritzy passenger car in the front, with wind-up windows and comfortable seats and a rough-and-tumble pickup in back. The ute was a huge hit; eventually, virtually every company that sold cars Down Under made its own version.
In the United States, however, ute-type vehicles were slower to catch on. Though the Ranchero was a steady seller, the first incarnation of the El Camino was not and Chevy discontinued it after just two years. In 1964, the company introduced a new version, this one built on the brawnier Chevelle platform. In 1968, the more powerful SS engine made the El Camino into one of the iconic muscle cars of the late 1960s and 1970s.
In 1987, Chevrolet dropped the El Camino from its lineup for good. Today, the car is a cult classic.