In Gearhart Mountain, Oregon, Mrs. Elsie Mitchell and five
neighborhood children were killed while attempting to drag
a Japanese balloon out of the woods.

They were the first and only known American civilians to be
killed in the continental United States during World War II.

The U.S. government eventually gave $5,000 in compensation
to Mitchell’s husband, and $3,000 each to the families of Edward
Engen, Sherman Shoemaker, Jay Gifford and Richard and Ethel
Patzke, the five slain children.

The explosive balloon found at Lakeview was a product of one
of only a handful of Japanese attacks against the continental
United States, which were conducted early in the war by
Japanese submarines and later by high-altitude balloons
carrying explosives or incendiaries.

Leavey and Rex in 2012.     
    
    
   

Megan Leavey (41) is a US Marine corporal who served as a Military
Police K9 handler. She was paired with military working dog Rex
(E168). The pair served two deployments in Iraq together.

They were first deployed to Fallujah in 2005, and then to Ramadi
in 2006, where they were both wounded by an improvised explosive device. Leavey was awarded the Purple Heart and the Navy and
Marine Corps Achievement Medal with a "V" device denoting
heroism in combat.

In 2012, Rex developed facial palsy, which ended his bomb-
sniffing duties. Leavey was able to adopt him through the
intervention of Senator Chuck Schumer, around April 2012.  
   

While living with Leavey, Rex died of old age on December 22,
2012.

Lance Corporal Leavey with Rex in Iraq, November 2005.

(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Leavey is portrayed by Kate Mara, and had a
cameo appearance in the film as "Female Drill
Instructor #3". In 2019, she was one of two
recipients of the Genesis Legacy Medal which
was presented to her by the National Purple
Heart Honor Mission. 

Kate Rooney Mara (41)

At Haymarket Square in Chicago, Illinois, a bomb was thrown at
a squad of policemen attempting to break up what had begun as
a peaceful labor rally. The police responded with wild gunfire,
killing several people in the crowd and injuring dozens more.

The demonstration, which drew some 1,500 Chicago workers,
was organized by German-born labor radicals in protest of the
killing of a striker by the Chicago police the day before.

Peter Sellers

Stanley Kubrick’s black comic masterpiece, Dr. Strangelove or:
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb opened in
theaters to both critical and popular acclaim. The movie’s
popularity was evidence of changing attitudes toward atomic
weapons and the concept of nuclear deterrence.

Peter Sellers

Peter Sellers

George C. Scott

Sterling Hayden

Slim Pickens

U.S. Dept. Of Energy

On this day in 1952, the United States detonated the world’s first thermonuclear weapon, the hydrogen bomb, on Eniwetok atoll
in the Pacific. The test gave the U.S. a short-lived advantage
in the nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union. 

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