r/HistoricalCapsule

On 26 July, 1945, the U.S. Navy cruiser USS Indianapolis delivered several top secret packages to the U.S. Naval installation on Tinian Island, in the heart of the Pacific. Unbeknownst to her crew, they had just delivered the uranium core of “Little Boy”, the atomic bomb that would by dropped on Hiroshima a few weeks later.

Departing Tinian for the island of Leyte, she was rocked by explosions shortly after midnight on 30 July. Two torpedoes, fired by submarine I-58 of the Imperial Japanese Navy, brought “The Indy” down in only 12 minutes, plunging her beneath the Philippine Sea with 300 men.

The surviving 900 men were left stranded in the water. What would follow would become the largest known shark attack in history. Over four days, survivors died to hunger, thirst, and even their fellow men, with over 100 being dragged beneath the waves by unseen jaws. By August 2, only 316 men remained. Following their rescue, Captain Charles McVay was court martialed for not doing more to prevent the sinking, despite being attacked at night in waters he was told by the Navy were safe. Though he served no jail time, McVay would be haunted by the sinking and a never ending stream of hate mail from families of his dead sailors.

In 1968, McVay walked into his backyard in Litchfield, Connecticut, and shot himself in the head. He left no note.

And there the story remained, until a middle schooler from Florida sat down to watch “Jaws” with his father. Inspired by Quint’s harrowing monologue describing the sinking and subsequent shark attack, 12 year old Hunter Scott made it his mission to clear Captain McVay’s name. After interviewing over 150 survivors and reviewing 800 historical documents, Scott presented his findings as his National History Day project at his school. His testimony before Congress four years later led to a reevaluation of McVay’s court martial. They soon reached a unanimous decision.

While still in high school, Scott had managed to convince Congress to clear McVay’s name.

Captain Charles Butler McVay III of the USS Indianapolis was officially exonerated of all wrongdoing on 30 October, 2000.

Very little is known of Willie Johnson's life. He was blinded at the age of 7 by his stepmother when she threw lye water on him. His music career consisted of thirty songs between 1927-1930 and he performed live in various cities and towns throughout the Great Depression and 40s. In 1945, his house was destroyed in a fire, however, due to his poverty, he lived in the ruins of his house. He gradually developed various illnesses, but due to discrimination he couldn't be admitted to any hospitals in the local area.

He died on September 18th, 1945. He was broke, sick, homeless and blind, however, in 1977, Carl Sagan had Willie Johnson's song "Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground" sent on the Voyager probe launched by NASA, thus his music has traveled the solar system and beyond. His music will outlive humanity and represents humanity

When the USSR invaded Finland in 1939, the 16 year old Koivisto volunteered to serve in a firefighting unit at the Home Front. During the war, the Soviet Air Force bombed his hometown of Turku. When Finland invaded the USSR alongside Germany in 1941, Koivisto again volunteered to serve in a firefighting unit, but this time East Karelia. In early 1942, Mauno Koivisto started his compulsory military service. After finishing his military training, Kovisto was posted to Karhumäki in East Karelia, but in September 1942 he was transferred to Infantry Regiment 35 in nearby Poventsa. In February 1944, Koivisto was transferred to the jäger company commanded by the legendary Lauri Törni. He was discharged in November 1944.

The North Yemen civil war, also known in Yemen as the 26 September Revolution, was a civil war fought in North Yemen from 1962 to 1970 between partisans of the Mutawakkilite Kingdom and supporters of the Yemen Arab Republic. The war began with a coup d'état carried out in 1962 by revolutionary republicans led by the army under the command of Abdullah al-Sallal. He dethroned the newly crowned King and Imam Muhammad al-Badr and declared Yemen a republic under his presidency. His government abolished slavery in Yemen. The Imam escaped to the Saudi Arabian border where he rallied popular support from northern Shia Zaydi tribes to retake power, and the conflict rapidly escalated to a full-scale civil war.

On the royalist side, Jordan and Saudi Arabia supplied military aid, and Britain offered covert support. The republicans were supported by Egypt (then formally known as the United Arab Republic or UAR) and were supplied warplanes from the Soviet Union. Both foreign irregular and conventional forces were also involved.

Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser supported the republicans with as many as 70,000 Egyptian troops and weapons. Despite several military actions and peace conferences, the war sank into a stalemate by the mid-1960s. Egypt's commitment to the war is considered to have been detrimental to its performance in the June 1967 Six-Day War against Israel.

Once the Six-Day War began, Nasser found it increasingly difficult to maintain his army's involvement in Yemen and began to pull out his forces. The surprising removal of Sallal on November 5 by Yemeni dissidents, who were supported by republican tribesmen, resulted in an internal shift of power in the capital, as the royalists were approaching from the north.

The new republican government was headed by Abdul Rahman al-Eryani, Ahmed Noman, and Mohamed Ali Uthman, all of whom promptly resigned or fled the country. The capital was left under the control of Prime Minister Hassan al-Amri. The 1967 siege of Sana'a became the turning point of the war.

The remaining republican Prime Minister succeeded in keeping control of Sana'a and, by February 1968, the royalists lifted the siege. Clashes continued in parallel with peace talks until 1970, when Saudi Arabia recognized the Republic, and a ceasefire came into effect.

Pics from the sets of Dr. No (1962) and Goldfinger (1964)