5/8/2017 chasing NYK Line Castor Leader cargo ship around SF from Coit Tower
A fun flight pretending I'm a bird exploring whatever random objects I see on the screen.
Timeline of United States military operations | Wikipedia audio article
This is an audio version of the Wikipedia Article:
Timeline of United States military operations
00:00:33 1 Extraterritorial and major domestic deployments
00:00:52 1.1 1775–1799
00:03:29 1.2 1800–1809
00:04:53 1.3 1810–1819
00:09:13 1.4 1820–1829
00:10:43 1.5 1830–1839
00:13:10 1.6 1840–1849
00:15:56 1.7 1850–1859
00:21:11 1.8 1860–1869
00:24:21 1.9 1870–1879
00:26:21 1.10 1880–1889
00:27:54 1.11 1890–1899
00:32:44 1.12 1900–1909
00:36:24 1.13 1910–1919
00:44:36 1.14 1920–1929
00:48:10 1.15 1930–1939
00:49:03 1.16 1940–1944
00:50:41 1.17 1945–1949
00:53:01 1.18 1950–1959
00:56:15 1.19 1960–1969
00:58:50 1.20 1970–1979
01:02:00 1.21 1980–1989
01:12:01 1.22 1990–1999
01:22:28 1.23 2000–2009
01:27:43 1.24 2010–present
01:34:18 2 Battles with the Native Americans
01:34:36 3 Relocation
01:35:09 4 Armed insurrections and slave revolts
01:37:14 5 Range wars
01:38:06 6 Bloody local feuds
01:38:25 7 Bloodless boundary disputes
01:39:13 8 Terrorist, paramilitary groups and guerrilla warfare
01:39:25 8.1 18th and 19th century
01:40:12 9 Labor–management disputes
01:40:47 10 State and national secession attempts
01:41:25 11 Riots and public disorder
01:41:48 12 Miscellaneous
01:43:01 12.1 Latter-day Saints
01:43:16 12.2 Republic of Texas
01:43:33 13 See also
01:43:42 14 Notes
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The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.
- Socrates
SUMMARY
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This timeline of United States government military operations is based on the Committee on International Relations (now known as the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs). Dates show the years in which U.S. government military units participated. Items in bold are the U.S. government wars most often considered to be major conflicts by historians and the general public. Note that instances where the U.S. government gave aid alone, with no military personnel involvement, are excluded, as are Central Intelligence Agency operations.
The Vietnam War: Reasons for Failure - Why the U.S. Lost
In the post-war era, Americans struggled to absorb the lessons of the military intervention. About the book:
As General Maxwell Taylor, one of the principal architects of the war, noted, First, we didn't know ourselves. We thought that we were going into another Korean War, but this was a different country. Secondly, we didn't know our South Vietnamese allies... And we knew less about North Vietnam. Who was Ho Chi Minh? Nobody really knew. So, until we know the enemy and know our allies and know ourselves, we'd better keep out of this kind of dirty business. It's very dangerous.
Some have suggested that the responsibility for the ultimate failure of this policy [America's withdrawal from Vietnam] lies not with the men who fought, but with those in Congress... Alternatively, the official history of the United States Army noted that tactics have often seemed to exist apart from larger issues, strategies, and objectives. Yet in Vietnam the Army experienced tactical success and strategic failure... The...Vietnam War...legacy may be the lesson that unique historical, political, cultural, and social factors always impinge on the military...Success rests not only on military progress but on correctly analyzing the nature of the particular conflict, understanding the enemy's strategy, and assessing the strengths and weaknesses of allies. A new humility and a new sophistication may form the best parts of a complex heritage left to the Army by the long, bitter war in Vietnam.
U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger wrote in a secret memo to President Gerald Ford that in terms of military tactics, we cannot help draw the conclusion that our armed forces are not suited to this kind of war. Even the Special Forces who had been designed for it could not prevail. Even Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara concluded that the achievement of a military victory by U.S. forces in Vietnam was indeed a dangerous illusion.
Doubts surfaced as to the effectiveness of large-scale, sustained bombing. As Army Chief of Staff Harold Keith Johnson noted, if anything came out of Vietnam, it was that air power couldn't do the job. Even General William Westmoreland admitted that the bombing had been ineffective. As he remarked, I still doubt that the North Vietnamese would have relented.
The inability to bomb Hanoi to the bargaining table also illustrated another U.S. miscalculation. The North's leadership was composed of hardened communists who had been fighting for independence for thirty years. They had defeated the French, and their tenacity as both nationalists and communists was formidable. Ho Chi Minh is quoted as saying, You can kill ten of my men for every one I kill of yours...But even at these odds you will lose and I will win.
The Vietnam War called into question the U.S. Army doctrine. Marine Corps General Victor H. Krulak heavily criticised Westmoreland's attrition strategy, calling it wasteful of American lives... with small likelihood of a successful outcome. In addition, doubts surfaced about the ability of the military to train foreign forces.
Between 1965 and 1975, the United States spent $111 billion on the war ($686 billion in FY2008 dollars). This resulted in a large federal budget deficit.
More than 3 million Americans served in the Vietnam War, some 1.5 million of whom actually saw combat in Vietnam. James E. Westheider wrote that At the height of American involvement in 1968, for example, there were 543,000 American military personnel in Vietnam, but only 80,000 were considered combat troops. Conscription in the United States had been controlled by the President since World War II, but ended in 1973.
By war's end, 58,220 American soldiers had been killed, more than 150,000 had been wounded, and at least 21,000 had been permanently disabled. According to Dale Kueter, Sixty-one percent of those killed were age 21 or younger. Of those killed in combat, 86.3 percent were white, 12.5 percent were black and the remainder from other races. The youngest American KIA in the war was PFC Dan Bullock, who had falsified his birth certificate and enlisted in the US Marines at age 14 and who was killed in combat at age 15. Approximately 830,000 Vietnam veterans suffered symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder. An estimated 125,000 Americans fled to Canada to avoid the Vietnam draft, and approximately 50,000 American servicemen deserted. In 1977, United States President Jimmy Carter granted a full, complete and unconditional pardon to all Vietnam-era draft dodgers. The Vietnam War POW/MIA issue, concerning the fate of U.S. service personnel listed as missing in action, persisted for many years after the war's conclusion.
Virginia Beach, Virginia
Virginia Beach is an independent city located in the U.S. state of Virginia. As of the 2010 census, the population was 437,994. In 2013, the population was estimated to be 448,479. It is the most populous city in Virginia as well as the 39th most populous in the United States.
Located on the Atlantic Ocean at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, Virginia Beach is included in the Hampton Roads metropolitan area. This area, known as America's First Region, also includes the independent cities of Chesapeake, Hampton, Newport News, Norfolk, Portsmouth, and Suffolk, as well as other smaller cities, counties, and towns of Hampton Roads.
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North America | Wikipedia audio article
This is an audio version of the Wikipedia Article:
North America
Listening is a more natural way of learning, when compared to reading. Written
language only began at around 3200 BC, but spoken language has existed long ago.
Learning by listening is a great way to:
- increases imagination and understanding
- improves your listening skills
- improves your own spoken accent
- learn while on the move
- reduce eye strain
Now learn the vast amount of general knowledge available on Wikipedia through
audio (audio article). You could even learn subconsciously by playing the audio
while you are sleeping! If you are planning to listen a lot, you could try using
a bone conduction headphone, or a standard speaker instead of an earphone.
You can find other Wikipedia audio articles too at:
In case you don't find one that you were looking for, put a comment.
This video uses Google TTS en-US-Standard-D voice.
SUMMARY
=======
North America is a continent entirely within the Northern Hemisphere and almost all within the Western Hemisphere; it is also considered by some to be a northern subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the west and south by the Pacific Ocean, and to the southeast by South America and the Caribbean Sea.
North America covers an area of about 24,709,000 square kilometers (9,540,000 square miles), about 16.5% of the earth's land area and about 4.8% of its total surface.
North America is the third largest continent by area, following Asia and Africa, and the fourth by population after Asia, Africa, and Europe. In 2013, its population was estimated at nearly 579 million people in 23 independent states, or about 7.5% of the world's population, if nearby islands (most notably the Caribbean) are included.
North America was reached by its first human populations during the last glacial period, via crossing the Bering land bridge approximately 40,000 to 17,000 years ago. The so-called Paleo-Indian period is taken to have lasted until about 10,000 years ago (the beginning of the Archaic or Meso-Indian period). The Classic stage spans roughly the 6th to 13th centuries. The Pre-Columbian era ended in 1492, and the transatlantic migrations—the arrival of European settlers during the Age of Discovery and the Early Modern period. Present-day cultural and ethnic patterns reflect different kinds of interactions between European colonists, indigenous peoples, African slaves and their descendants.
European influences are strongest in the northern parts of the continent while indigenous and African influences are relatively stronger in the south. Because of the history of colonialism, most North Americans speak English, Spanish or French and societies and states commonly reflect Western traditions.