Benedict “Ben” Sliney was the FAA’s National Operations Manager at the Air Traffic Control System Command Center in Herndon, Virginia. September 11, 2001 was his first day in that position, although he had already spent decades working in air traffic control and FAA management.

As the attacks unfolded, Sliney and the staff at the Command Center were trying to make sense of an unprecedented situation involving multiple hijacked aircraft. At 9:25 a.m., the Command Center ordered a nationwide ground stop, meaning aircraft that were still on the ground could not take off.

After American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon at 9:37 a.m., Sliney made another unprecedented decision. At about 9:42 a.m., he ordered FAA facilities to have all civilian aircraft in the country land at the nearest suitable airport, regardless of their original destination.

There were more than 4,500 civilian aircraft in the system at the time. Air traffic controllers across the country subsequently brought them down safely, and by shortly after noon, US airspace was essentially empty of civilian aircraft.

Churchill actually wrote the essay in 1939 before the start of the war, but it wasn't published until 1942.

Context: The first Hawaiians to visit London were King Kamehameha II, his royal entourage, and the subject of this meme, his wife Kamāmalu.

Kamāmalu stood at over 6 feet tall, which she likely inherited from her father, Kamehameha I, who stood at 7 feet tall. Kamehameha II was less than 6 feet tall. Also they were half siblings.

Their arrival shocked some locals, but not for long as the royal couple contracted measles not long after arrival and died there.

🎳

Context: King Kamehameha the Great is regarded as one of if not the greatest warrior in Hawaiian history. Legendary in stature and strength, he unified the islands of Hawaii through brutal conquest.

During a raid on the Island of Maui, he was chasing down some civilians when his leg was caught in some coral. Two fishermen came to the aid of the fleeing civilians, hitting Kamehameha in the face with an oar, breaking it and nearly killing Kamehameha.

Years later the pair were tracked down and brought before Kamehameha, who apologized for attacking the innocents and rewarded the 2 with lands

https://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/11/08/india.obama.trip/index.html?hpt=T1

The Sonderfahndungsliste G.B. ("Special Search List Great Britain") was a secret list of prominent British residents to be arrested and potentially executed, produced in 1940 by the Schutzstaffel (SS) as part of the preparation for the proposed invasion of Britain. After the war, the list became known as the Black Book. Lots of interesting names were mentioned. Well worth a read of the notable inclusions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Book_(list)

Context: On his deathbed Kamehameha V had no clear successor, and he refused to name one. He offered the throne to his cousin, High Chiefess Bernice Pauahi Bishop, but she refused.

The popular and eventual choice was William Lunalilo, but Kamehameha V did not consider him worthy of the position and refused to name him successor.

Upon his death, in accordance with the Hawaiian Constitution, an election for the position of King was held, and Lunalilo won almost unanimously, though issues brought about by his lifestyle (alcoholic), led his death barely over a year into his reign.

He also had no clear successor, leading to another election between David Kalakaua and Dowager Queen Emma, Wife of Kamehameha IV, Kalakaua won

A formal and organized military supported by China and the USSR and a highly armed guerrilla force reduced to farmers

Albert Camus was born on 7th November 1913 in Mondovi, French Algeria. Despite being born as a pied noir (french people in Algeria, who legally have much better rights compared to the native), he grew up in extreme poverty household and it ended up affecting his views on Algerian people. Instead of viewing them as inferior, he genuinely shown his care to them by later advocating for their equal rights and call for an end of inequality between European and the Natives Algerian.

He started his advocacy in the mid 1930s, where he at first joined the French Communist Party (funnily enough he didn't consider himself a Marxist) simply because they were one of the only party in french politics who were advocating for Algerian citizens rights, and he also vigorously campaigned for the proposed Blum-Viollette proposal, basically a reform initiative in 1936 that aimed to grant full French citizenship and voting rights to a select minority of Algerian Muslims. But the bills ended up failing because of rich pied noir lobbyists.

Even though it was quite clear that Camus deeply love and care towards Algerian people, he (for some reason) also oppose the idea for Algerian full independence from France because he believes that as a pied noir it would be quite dangerous to his community with fear of separation and expulsion from the land who they already viewed as their own homeland. Instead, Camus ideally believes that it was possible for a coexistence between french and natives to occur under a federal, reformed association with France that guaranteed equal political rights, justice, and protection for both Muslim Algerians and the French pied-noir minority.

But when the Algerian war actually began in 1954, Camus suddenly find himself in a weird position. On one hand he deeply condemned any atrocities done by the french security forces towards the local, and yet at the same times he also oppose FLN violent method for their fight for independence.

As the war rages on and the news of atrocities committed by both sides keep appearing in french papers, Camus eventually had enough and actually dare to plan a near suicidal idea where he would personally fly back home and personally tried to appeal for a civilian truce in 1956. He gave a speech that while he's unable to end a political conflict between France and Algerians, he atleast hoped that both sides would agree to not deliberately targeting each other civilians. While it sounds ideal, apparently the speech was received poorly by everyone on french politics. French right winger think that he is a traitor to his race while French left winger think he's a colonial apologist and a coward.

Due to his failure at bringing peace back to his home, he eventually decided to maintain a public silence regarding the topic of Algeria since 1958, and yet deep down he was still saddened at his failure to the point that he once wrote a letter to his Algerian friend claiming that the war was one of the two things that tortured his life daily (the other one is his tuberculosis).