#dec 7 1941

[usafphantom2]

83 years ago, our Pacific Fleet faced devastation at Pearl Harbor, but the courage of our Sailors and civilians turned tragedy into resolve. Today, we honor their sacrifice and bravery, a legacy woven into the fabric of our Navy’s history. #PearlHarborRemembranceDay #NeverForget #USNavy @USNavyCNO @SECNAV

@USNAVY via X

[nocternalrandomness]

Poster by Artist Allen Russell - 1942

[slavicgerman]

Remember Pearl Harbor

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, December 7, 1941. (by ALFRED BENWAY)

The Japanese declare war on the United States after they attack Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on December 7, 1941.

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

December 6, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

On the sunny Sunday morning of December 7, 1941, Messman Doris Miller had served breakfast aboard the USS West Virginia, stationed in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and was collecting laundry when the first of nine Japanese torpedoes hit the ship.

In the deadly confusion, Miller reported to an officer, who told him to help move the ship’s mortally wounded captain off the bridge. Unable to move him far, Miller pulled the captain to shelter. Then another officer ordered Miller to pass ammunition to him as he started up one of the two abandoned anti-aircraft guns in front of the conning tower.

Miller had not been trained to use the weapons because, as a Black man in the U.S. Navy, he was assigned to serve the white officers. But while the officer was distracted, Miller began to fire one of the guns. He fired it until he ran out of ammunition. Then he helped to move injured sailors to safety before he and the other survivors abandoned the West Virginia, which sank to the bottom of Pearl Harbor.

That night, the United States declared war on Japan. Japan declared war on America the next day, and four days later, on December 11, 1941, both Italy and Germany declared war on America. “The powers of the steel pact, Fascist Italy and National Socialist Germany, ever closely linked, participate from today on the side of heroic Japan against the United States of America,” Italian leader Benito Mussolini said. “We shall win.” Of course they would. Mussolini and Germany’s leader, Adolf Hitler, believed the Americans had been corrupted by Jews and Black Americans and could never conquer their own organized military machine.

The steel pact, as Mussolini called it, was the vanguard of his new political ideology. That ideology was called fascism, and he and Hitler thought it would destroy democracy once and for all.

Mussolini had been a socialist as a young man and had grown terribly frustrated at how hard it was to organize people. No matter how hard socialists tried, they seemed unable to convince ordinary people that they must rise up and take over the country’s means of production.

The efficiency of World War I inspired Mussolini. He gave up on socialism and developed a new political theory that rejected the equality that defined democracy. He came to believe that a few leaders must take a nation toward progress by directing the actions of the rest. These men must organize the people as they had been organized during wartime, ruthlessly suppressing all opposition and directing the economy so that businessmen and politicians worked together. And, logically, that select group of leaders would elevate a single man, who would become an all-powerful dictator. To weld their followers into an efficient machine, they demonized opponents into an “other” that their followers could hate.

Italy adopted fascism, and Mussolini inspired others, notably Germany's Hitler. Those leaders came to believe that their system was the ideology of the future, and they set out to destroy the messy, inefficient democracy that stood in their way.

America fought World War II to defend democracy from fascism. And while fascism preserved hierarchies in society, democracy called on all men as equals. Of the more than 16 million Americans who served in the war, more than 1.2 million were African American men and women, 500,000 were Latinos, and more than 550,000 Jews were part of the military. Among the many ethnic groups who fought, Native Americans served at a higher percentage than any other ethnic group—more than a third of able-bodied men between the ages of 18 and 50 joined the service—and among those 25,000 soldiers were the men who developed the famous “Code Talk,” based in tribal languages, that codebreakers never cracked.

The American president at the time, Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt, hammered home that the war was about the survival of democracy. Fascists insisted that they were moving their country forward fast and efficiently—claiming the trains ran on time, for example, although in reality they didn’t—but FDR constantly noted that the people in Italy and Germany were begging for food and shelter from the soldiers of democratic countries.

Ultimately, the struggle between fascism and democracy was the question of equality. Were all men really created equal as the Declaration of Independence said, or were some born to lead the rest, whom they held subservient to their will?

Democracy, FDR reminded Americans again and again, was the best possible government. Thanks to armies made up of men and women from all races and ethnicities, the Allies won the war against fascism, and it seemed that democracy would dominate the world forever.

But as the impulse of WWII pushed Americans toward a more just and inclusive society after it, those determined not to share power warned their supporters that including people of color and women as equals in society would threaten their own liberty. Those reactionary leaders rode that fear into control of our government, and gradually they chipped away the laws that protected equality. Now, once again, democracy is under attack by those who believe some people are better than others.

Donald Trump and his cronies have vowed to replace the nonpartisan civil service with loyalists and to weaponize the Department of Justice and the military against those they perceive as enemies. They have promised to incarcerate and deport millions of immigrants, send federal troops into Democratic cities, silence LGBTQ+ Americans, prosecute journalists and their political opponents, and end abortion across the country. They want to put in place an autocracy in which a powerful leader and his chosen loyalists make the rules under which the rest of us must live.

Will we permit the destruction of American democracy on our watch?

When America came under attack before, people like Doris Miller refused to let that happen. For all that American democracy still discriminated against him, it gave him room to stand up for the concept of human equality—and he laid down his life for it. Promoted to cook after the Navy sent him on a publicity tour, Miller was assigned to a new ship, the USS Liscome Bay, which was struck by a Japanese torpedo on November 24, 1943. It sank within minutes, taking two thirds of the crew, including Miller, with it.

I hear a lot these days about how American democracy is doomed and the reactionaries will win. Maybe. But the beauty of our system is that it gives us people like Doris Miller.

Even better, it makes us people like Doris Miller.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[moshedayanslebanesetradwife]

OVER THERE

[graydog-mod1]

[newyorkthegoldenage]

People crowd near the "Zipper" on the NY Times Building to see the news about the attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941.

Photo: Robert Kradin for the AP

[saltlifehippie]

Dec. 7, 1941

[henrykathman]

The Miraculous Horror of Stop Motion

From the same artform that brought you Coraline and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, comes three stories that evoke the existential fear of art.

Original Music by Molly Noise

Bibliography below

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Brubaker, Charles. “The Japanese Studios of Rankin/Bass.” Cartoon Research, Jerry Beck, 14 Apr. 2014, cartoonresearch.com/index.php/the-japanese-studios-of-rankinbass/.

Bute, Paris. “Introduction to “a Rankin/Bass Retrospective from a New Perspective.”” Citizen Jane, Stephens College, 19 Nov. 2021, www.citizenjane.org/home/cwwicd2ucb2fvs64kgfaocfykjhaum. Accessed 19 June 2024.

Crome, Althea. “Coraline.” Althea Crome | Micro Knitter, 2012, www.altheacrome.com/coraline. Accessed 19 June 2024.

Harold Halibut. Directed by Onat Hekimoğlu, Slow Bros., 16 Apr. 2024.

Hekimoglu, Onat, and Gabriel Schmitz. “Unite Berlin 2018 - Harold Halibut and Making a Stop Motion Game.” Unity, YouTube, 6 Aug. 2018, youtu.be/9usssSQc0wQ. Accessed 6 May 2023.

Jon "Sikamikanico" Clarke. “The Making of Harold Halibut.” XboxEra, YouTube, 21 Mar. 2024, youtu.be/WMyxM9t3o7A. Accessed 19 June 2024.

LAIKA Studios. “Sweater and Gloves: Knitting Coraline by Hand.” YouTube, 11 July 2017, youtu.be/zUvkfcGR-7U. Accessed 19 June 2024.

Mad God Productions. “Phil Tippett’s “Mad God.”” Kickstarter, 17 May 2012, www.kickstarter.com/projects/madgod/phil-tippetts-mad-god/posts.

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Ono, Kosei. “Tadahito Mochinaga: The Japanese Animator Who Lived in Two Worlds.” Animation World Network, AWN, Inc, 1 Dec. 1999, www.awn.com/animationworld/tadahito-mochinaga-japanese-animator-who-lived-two-worlds.

Orland, Kyle. “Claptrap Voice Actor Accuses Gearbox CEO of Assault, Underpayment.” Ars Technica, 7 May 2019, arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/05/claptrap-voice-actor-accuses-gearbox-ceo-of-assault-underpayment/. Accessed 19 June 2024.

Pilling, Jayne. A Reader In Animation Studies. Indiana University Press, 1998. Project MUSE muse.jhu.edu/book/40033.

Prehistoric Beast. Directed by Phil Tippett, Tippett Studios, 1984. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlaXIRTjNfo

Randles, Jonathan. “VFX Studio with Star Wars, Jurassic Park Credits Goes Bankrupt.” Bloomberg Law, 1 May 2024, news.bloomberglaw.com/bankruptcy-law/vfx-studio-with-star-wars-jurassic-park-credits-goes-bankrupt. Accessed 19 June 2024.

Shanley, Patrick. “Gearbox Software CEO Accused of Contempt in Latest Filing.” The Hollywood Reporter, 27 Aug. 2019, www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/digital/gearbox-software-ceo-accused-contempt-latest-filing-1235064/. Accessed 19 June 2024.

The Making of “Jurassic Park.” Directed by John Schultz, Amblin Entertainment, 1995. https://youtu.be/8r01mk6F_Pk

The Making of Mad God. Directed by Maya Tippett, Shudder, 2021. https://youtu.be/sfUOHh0xmwc

The Tale of the Fox. Directed by Irene Starewicz and Ladislas Starevich, UFA GmbH, 10 Apr. 1941. https://youtu.be/Us_Pn6Q1dBQ

Wikipedia contributors. "List of films with longest production time." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 12 Jun. 2024. Web. 19 Jun. 2024.

Wikipedia contributors. "List of media notable for being in development hell." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 19 Jun. 2024. Web. 19 Jun. 2024.

Wikipedia contributors. "List of Rankin/Bass Productions films." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 9 Jun. 2024. Web. 19 Jun. 2024.

Wikipedia contributors. "Tadahito Mochinaga." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 28 Nov. 2023. Web. 19 Jun. 2024.

Wilson, Josh. “Phil Tippett: 24 Frames per Second < the Fabulist Words & Art.” The Fabulist Words & Art, 5 Nov. 2021, fabulistmagazine.com/24-frames-per-second-the-phil-tippett-interview/.

Worse than the Demon. Directed by Maya Tippett, Shudder, 2013. https://youtu.be/ghKqvDNRe4c

[fivesevenseveneight]

for anyone else struggling with timeline stuff: Tony was 26 when he took his driver’s test on Dec 7, 1941 (retconned at 0:25:39).

since the podcast takes place in 195X, he is now between the ages of 35 and 44.

it’s not an exact year, so we can approximate that Tony is likely somewhere in his late 30s.

thank you for coming to my ted talk

[captain-price-unofficially]

Remains of a B-24A destroyed on the ground at Hickam Field, Pearl Harbor, Oahu, Hawaii. 7 Dec 1941

[nocternalrandomness]

[slavicgerman]

Remember Pearl Harbor

[usafphantom2]

Dec 7 1941 – Imperial Japanese Navy makes surprise attack on US Navy fleet at Pearl Harbor. Six aircraft carrierslaunched total of nearly 400 warplanes which claimed five US battleships and ten other vessels, and damaged three other battleships. The US declares war on Japan.

@CcibChris via X

[hareofhrair]

Edith Finch Timeline

So I'm still organizing my theories (honestly they're more like a list of unanswered questions than a coherent theory right now) but I think my timeline is pretty much complete now that I've had a chance to go back through the pet cemetery and add all those in.

I do some wild speculating about Odin here that has no canon basis, just spinning ideas.

Things to notice- Just how many deaths happen on or very near birthdays. Not always the birthday of the person who dies and not every time, but suspiciously often.

The pets almost seem to fill in the years when no one human died? Like everything in this game it's nothing definitive enough to base a solid theory on, but it is odd.

TIMELINE

1439 - Earliest possible beginning of the Finch Family Curse based on the Odin viewmaster reel, as this is 500 years prior to the invention of the first viewmaster.

1445 - If the Odin viewmaster is the Model E made in 1955 (which I think it is), this is the start of the curse instead. Not much is happening in Norway during this period, but Vlad the Impaler was at the top of his game this year?

~About 7 generations of Finches dying horribly happens here.~

1880 - Odin is born. At some point between now and his death he writes "The Mysteries of Death and the Thereafter" and "Joining the Great Majority" which both appear to be books about the afterlife.

1896 - Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration begins with the Belgian Antarctic Expedition and won't end till after WWI. Expeditions are marked by depression, starvation, insanity and scurvy. Many famous expeditions are made by Norwegian teams. Odin is 16.

1911 - A Norwegian expedition is first to reach the South Pole. The British Scott expedition chasing the same goal are lost. Odin is 31.

28 July 1914 - WWI begins, Odin is 34. Norway, "The Neutral Ally", remains neutral on the war but due to economic pressure from Britain commits its merchant marine fleet (one of the largest in the world) to Britain's service. Half the fleet is sunk and 2000 seamen are killed. If Odin was a sailor, he likely served. Alternatively, he may have been one of the wealthy merchants who profited greatly during the war. He clearly has a great deal of money to burn by 1937.

June 17 1915 - Sven is born.

April 8, 1917 - Edie is born.

1935 - At some point between now and Dec 1937, Edie and Sven marry and Sven takes Edith's last name.

1936 - Ingeborg and her newborn Johann Finch die in an unknown manner. Odin is 56, Edie is 19, Sven is 17.

Jan 7 1937 - Odin sets sail for Washington.

Dec 1937 - Arrival on Orcas Island, death of Odin at 57. Molly is born, on the boat? In the Old House? Sven and Edie build the cemetery, and then the house.

1938 - Churpy the budgie joins the family.

1939 - Invention of the viewmaster, earliest point the Odin story could have been recorded.

Sep 1939 - Sep 1945 - WWII. Sven was 24, and may have served or been drafted.

1940 - Burpy the house finch joins the family.

1941 - Churpy dies.

1947 - Christopher the goldfish joins the family.

Oct 31 1947 - Halloween Baby Barbara

Sometime between 1937 and 1947 - Molly's unnamed gerbil joins the family.

Dec 13 1947 - Molly dies of apparent poisoning after eating mistletoe berries, on or very near her 10th bday. She relates hallucinating having become several animals, most notably a cat. Christopher the fish dies shortly after. The fate of her unnamed gerbil is unrecorded, as none of the unattributed headstones are of the right age, but presumably it dies eventually.

1948 - Burpy dies at 8.

April 25 1950 - Sam and Calvin are born.

Aug 26 1952 - Walter is born.

1952 - Lurpy the Cockatiel joins the family.

1955 - Viewmaster Model E released- If this is the one used for Odin's story, that puts the beginning of the curse at 1455.

1956 - Lucy the dog joins the family.

1959 - Bailey the (???) joins the family.

Oct 31 1960 - Barbara dies, allegedly murdered, on her 16th bday. Her boyfriend Rick disappears the same night. The version of her death shared in the game is notably extremely unreliable and raises numerous questions. Rick is seen in a leg cast using crutches. Walter is 8, Sam and Calvin are 10 and notably absent from reported events.

Sept 23 1961 - Calvin dies at 11 falling from a cliff. He is seen wearing a weathered and heavily autographed leg cast. His model shows him with a black eye and several cuts.

1962 - Zoe the (???) joins the family.

1963 - Lurpy dies at 11. (Cockatiels have a life expectancy of 20-25 years)

Aug 26 1964 - Sven dies on Walter's 12th bday, while making a dragon shaped slide. He's 49.

1968 - Walter enters the bunker. He's 16. Durpy the Dove joins the family.

May 7 1968 - Dawn is born.

1969 - Lucy the dog dies.

June 20 1969 - Gus is born.

1970 - Zoe dies

1971 - Purply the Budgie joins the family.

1974 - Coco the (???) joins the family.

Jan 12 1976 - Gregory is born

Dec 7 1977 - Kay files for divorce after arguing with Sam about the curse.

Dec 19 1977 - Gregory drowns in the bath a month before his 2nd bday

1978 - Shadow the cat joins the family.

1979 - Purply dies at 8.

1980 - Rob the Bearded Dragon joins the family. Bob the Snake joins the family.

1981 - Durpy dies at 13.

1982 - Oliver the rabbit joins the family.

Nov 8 1982 - Gus dies, crushed by debris from a storm during Sam's wedding to an unnamed woman.

July 16 1983 - Sam dies, kicked off a cliff by a deer. Dawn is 15.

1984 - Bob dies at 4.

1985 - Daisy the (???) joins the family.

1986-87 Dawn goes to India, meets Sanjay.

1988 - Shadow the cat dies.

Dec 27 1988 - Lewis is born. Furpy joins the family. Tucker the (???) joins the family

1989 - Oliver the rabbit dies.

1991 - Rob dies at 10. Furpy dies.

1992 - Zurpy the Owl joins the family.

May 19 1992 - Milton is born.

1993 - Charlie the cat joins the family. Daisy dies.

1994 - Durpy Jr the Dove joins the family.

1995 - Zurpy dies at 3. Schatzi the (???) joins the family.

Feb 14 1999 - Valentine's Baby Edith. Lowest tide in a thousand years allegedly allows Edie to access the Old House. At some point between now and Nov 2010, three unnamed gerbils join the family, and then die.

Feb 22 2002 - Sanjay dies in an earthquake, eight days after Edith's 3rd bday, Dawn and children return to Finch House. Dawn writes "To Teach and To Learn" at some point in the next few years. At some point between now and 2010, Dawn probably finds a stray cat and names it Molly.

Oct 23 2003 - Milton disappears.

Late 2003 to Early 2004 - Dawn searches for Milton, eventually gives up and seals the rooms for unknown reasons.

March 31 2005 - Walter leaves the bunker and dies, allegedly hit by a train. There are several strange inconsistencies surrounding the circumstances of his death.

2006 - Durpy Jr dies at 12.

2009 - Schatzi dies

Nov 21 2010 - Lewis dies of apparent suicide one month before his 22nd bday.

Nov 28 2010 - A week after Lewis's death, Dawn informs Edie they are leaving the house. After Edie attempts to give Edith a book containing a story about their family which Dawn violently rips away, Dawn flees the house with Edith immediately, leaving Edie and all her belongings behind.

(Molly the cat is not mentioned in regards to the move, so she may have died by this point, but she is not listed in the graveyard, so it's possible she was simply left behind. There is a taxidermy calico in Sam's room, but Sam was dead before Molly could reasonably have joined the family, so this is unlikely to be her. A cat is seen outside human Molly's room in 2016, which may prove she's still alive- but she'd be around 14 years old. An unlikely age for a cat abandoned outdoors for 7 years.)

Nov 29 2010 - Edie is found dead by nursing care workers, and may have killed herself by combining alcohol with her medication, intentionally or otherwise. She's 93, the only member of her family to live longer than her father, who died at 57.

Dec 5 2010 - The date on Edie's tombstone, a week after when she supposedly died.

May (around the 12-18th?) 2016 - Edith becomes pregnant.

Oct 12 2016 - Dawn dies of a chronic illness at 48. Edith is 16 and about 6 months pregnant.

Oct 13 - 19 2016 - Edith returns to the Finch House at 22 weeks pregnant.

Jan 18 2017 - Edith dies in childbirth a month before her 18th bday. Christopher is born (possibly named for Molly's goldfish?).

2027? - At some point in the future, a young Christopher returns to the house, which has changed since the last time it was seen. He is wearing a cast.

A note on unrecorded pets- There are additionally 5 (possibly 6?) unmarked pet graves in the cemetery. One of the blank stones presumably belongs to Rob the bearded dragon, who has a memorial in Edie's room but no gravestone. One is marked as a fish and another is a rabbit, with no names or dates. One is a knocked over and unreadable sign of the same kind used for the birds, indicating it may be an otherwise unrecorded bird. There is also a statue of a frog- the knocked over sign may instead refer to an unrecorded pet frog, or the frog statue might be a separate gravestone, or simply a decoration. This leaves one blank headstone with no indication of what might lie beneath it. Let's assume it's a mass grave for gerbils.

[whencyclopedia]

Operation Compass

Operation Compass (9 Dec 1940 to 7 Feb 1941) was an Allied offensive in North Africa, which pushed Italian forces out of Egypt and then Cyrenaica (Eastern Libya). The Allied Western Desert Force, led by Lieutenant-General Richard O'Connor (1889-1981), inflicted numerous heavy defeats on the Italian army commanded by Marshal Rodolfo Graziani (1882-1955).

The Italian army was poorly trained and equipped with their troops often so eager to surrender that the Allies captured an incredible 138,000 prisoners. Operation Compass thus gained the Allies control of the Western Desert. The Axis powers would fight back, but Compass was a much-needed victory for the Allies after enduring nothing but defeats so far in the war.

The Importance of North Africa

After WWII broke out in Europe in September 1939, the Allies, then principally British and Commonwealth forces, were particularly keen to protect the Suez Canal from falling into the control of the Axis powers of Germany and Italy. The loss of the canal would have effectively cut the British Empire in half. North Africa was also strategically important to both sides' wish to control and protect vital Mediterranean shipping routes. The island of Malta was also crucial in this role and holding the island fortress (then in British hands) was another reason to control potential airfields in the North African desert. Finally, North Africa was the only place where Britain could fight a land war against Germany and Italy and so hopefully gain much-needed victories that would encourage the British people after the debacle of the Dunkirk Evacuation and the horrors of the London Blitz. For all of the above reasons, a series of desert battles ensued, which are collectively known as the Western Desert Campaigns (June 1940 to January 1943).

The desert war involved battles that could range over many miles as, relative to other theatres of the war, territorial gains became much less important than inflicting material damage on the enemy. Other peculiarities of desert warfare included the general absence of any civilian involvement and the fact that both sides frequently used captured equipment, a phenomenon that often made positive identification of exactly who was who difficult. Allied and Axis air forces could only play a limited role in mobile tank battles and so were largely reduced to targeting supply lines or fixed defensive positions.

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