Advanced search
- TITLES
- NAMES
- COLLABORATIONS
Search filters
Enter full date
to
or just enter yyyy, or yyyy-mm below
to
Only includes names with the selected topics
to
or just enter yyyy, or yyyy-mm below
to
1-4 of 4
- British aircraft designer RJ Mitchell was born Reginald Joseph Mitchell in Stoke-on-Trent, England, in 1895. His father was a school headmaster and owned a printing business. RJ, as he came to be known, got interested in aviation while attending high school, and began making and flying his own model airplanes. It wasn't long before he developed a reputation among his fellow students for being "mad" about aircraft. When he turned 16 he entered an apprenticeship with a firm that designed locomotives. He started at the workshop where the engines were built and eventually worked his way up to the drawing office, meanwhile taking evening classes in drawing, mechanics and higher mathematics.
In 1917, after finishing his apprenticeship, he applied to be assistant to Hubert Scott-Pain, the owner and chief designer of Supermarine Aviation Works in Southampton, and was accepted. In less than a year he was promoted to assistant to the works manager. In 1918 he married Florence Dayson, the headmistress of a childrens school. They had one son.
In 1919 the 24-year-old Mitchell was made chief designer, and the next year chief engineer. For almost 20 years Mitchell was to design and develop more than 20 aircraft for the company. Supermarine, established in 1912, had specialized in manufacturing seaplanes--or, as they were called back then, "flying boats"--and Mitchell improved on the company's already solid reputation in that field. He designed an armed flying boat called the Southampton--based on an earlier craft he had designed called the Swan--and the British military establishment was so impressed with Mitchell's design and concept of the plane that it ordered six of them before the first one had even been built. When the craft made its debut in March 1925, it lived up to everyone's expectations. The RAF equipped six of its squadrons with the Southampton and it remained in service for more than ten years, making Britain a pioneer in marine aviation and, incidentally, turning Supermarine into an extremely profitable concern.
Branching out into high-speed aircraft design, Mitchell developed the Sea Lion, a small biplane flying boat that won the 1922 Schneider Trophy race with an average speed of more than 145 mph. He entered the race the next year, but was tremendously impressed with another entry, the American Curtiss seaplane, which won the race. Mitchell began developing a series of "float" planes, and eventually came out with a series of four streamlined craft. One of them, the S5, won the Schneider trophy in 1927; its successor, the S6, took it in 1929 and the final one, the legendary S6B, won the race in 1931, with an average speed of 340 mph (it eventually set a world speed record of 407.5 mph). In 1932 Mitchell was awarded the CBE for his contribution to high-speed flight.
The quality and innovations of Mitchell's craft made him the top aircraft designer in Britain, and Supermarine signed him to an unheard-of ten-year contract in 1923. In 1927 he was made technical director for the company. He was so valuable to the firm that when Vickers took over Supermarine in 1928, one of the non-negotiable terms of its purchase was that Mitchell would be bound to the new company, without having the option to leave on his own, until 1933.
Mitchell's best-known aircraft, however, was the legendary Spitfire--the name was coined by the company, not Mitchell, and he hated it--fighter, which he began developing in 1934 and completed in 1936 and which is now considered a masterpiece that combined speed, maneuverability, agility and streamlined design; it has been termed by many experts "the plane that won the war for Britain". Unfortunately, however, Mitchell never saw the plane fly in combat--he died of cancer in Southampton, England, on June 11, 1937. - Mikhail Tukhachevsky, one of the top generals in the Soviet army, was actually born into a family of the Russian nobility. He graduated from the Russian Military Academy shortly before World War I and fought during the war as a Second Lieutenant. Captured by German forces, he escaped from captivity on several occasions, only to be recaptured and imprisoned each time. The Germans finally threw him into Ingolstadt Fortress, which was used to house their most incorrigible prisoners and was considered escape-proof. Tukachevsky promptly escaped from it, eventually making his way back to the Russian lines, where he was decorated for bravery.
After the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 he joined the Red Army, and was made an officer. His military abilities enabled him to rise rapidly through the ranks, and during the Russian Civil War that followed the Revolution, he was made commander of the Red forces defending Moscow. His successful defense of the city caught the eye of Communist commissar Lev Trotskiy, who placed him in command of the elite 5th Army with orders to capture Siberia from the White Russian forces of Gen. Aleksandr Kolchak. Tukhachevsky's innovative tactics hammered the White Russian army, and he not only recaptured Siberia but also defeated White Russian forces in the Crimea and carried his offensive into the Kuban area, where he used his cavalry to great effect and inflicted a crushing defeat on the White army. He mopped up the remaining White forces and over the next few years successfully put down several military revolts and peasant uprisings, in the process gaining a reputation as an effective but ruthless commander who used whatever tools and tactics were necessary to achieve his goals, including mass executions and chemical warfare.
His string of successes was broken during the Soviet-Polish War of 1920 when his armies were defeated in their attack on Warsaw by Polish forces led by Marshal Józef Pilsudski. Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin attributed the defeat to what he considered Tukhachevsky's reckless tactics (at one point he disobeyed Stalin's orders for a direct attack on Warsaw, which he believed would fail, and attacked Lvov instead) and Tukhachevsky, for his part, blamed the defeat on what he believed was Stalin's constant interference with military operations for political reasons, and made no secret of his resentment. Stalin, never one to forgive real or imagined slights, didn't forget what he felt to be Tukhachevsky's insubordination. He also saw Tukhachevsky as a potential rival and set about to eliminate that possibility. When Stalin assumed the leadership of the Communist Party in 1929 he used the pretext of complaints from several of Tukhachevsky's subordinate officers to try to implicate him in alleged coup attempt, and his secret police "persuaded" several army officers to accuse Tukhachevsky of doing just that. The tactic didn't work, however, as Stalin couldn't muster enough support among the Politburo and the party hierarchy to eliminate Tukhachevsky, who still enjoyed considerable support because of his war record. Biding his time, Stalin put Tukhachevsky in charge of modernizing the Russian military. One of his more innovative ideas was to place an emphasis on the coordination of air and armored forces in an attack, a tactic that was put to good use in the later Soviet war with Germany.
Tukhachevsky's interests weren't solely confined to military matters, though. A violinist, he became great friends with famed Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich and the two often played together. The friendship no doubt saved Shostakovich's life when he and his music were denounced in the mid-1930s during the period known as "the great purges" and Shostakovich found himself in danger of arrest and possible execution. However, his friend Tukhachevsky intervened on his behalf with Stalin.
Tukhachevsky was promoted to the rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union in 1935, and in that capacity visited Europe the next year, paying particular attention to France, Germany and Great Britain. Stalin began to grow suspicious of Tukhachevsky's popularity among his officers and men and also among the general public and, still having not forgotten his problems with the general during the Polish war of the 1920s, set out to eliminate him once and for all. He transferred his rival to the Volga Military District, away from his base of support, and finally in 1937 ordered the arrest and trial of Tukhachevky and seven other generals on charges of plotting with "foreign" elements during his European visit to overthrow the Communist government. At the secret court-martial signed confessions by Tukhachevsky's alleged "co-conspirators" were introduced that "proved" he had plotted with Nazi army officers and anti-Communist Russian exiles to overthrow and assassinate Stalin. On June 12, 1937, Tukhachevsky and the seven other generals were convicted, sentenced to death and executed. - Mariana Hellerová was born on 5 August 1878 in Prague, Cechy, Austria-Hungary [now Czech Republik]. She was an actress, known for Muzi v offsidu (1931), Rina (1926) and The Laughing Woman (1931). She died on 11 June 1937 in Prague, Czechoslovakia [now Czech Republic].
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
José María Lacalle was born in August 1860 in Cadiz, Spain. José María is known for Frida (2002), Once Upon a Time in America (1984) and La bella Lola (1962). José María died on 11 June 1937 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA.