1840: American explorer Charles Wilkes completes the voyage that confirms Antarctica is a continent.
1915: German Zeppelins begin the first ever strategy bombing campaign, hitting Great Yarmouth and King's Lynn.
1942: Japan invades Burma, igniting the longest World War Two campaign fought by British troops.
The zeppelin
The first German air attack against Britain took place on the 21st December 1914. This one against Dover was delivered by an aeroplane, but the major form of attack was to be Germany's futuristic and potentially war-winning super-weapon, the zeppelin.
Although dismissed by Winston Churchill before the war as 'enormous bladders of combustible and explosive gas' the zeppelins proved very hard to attack.
The first zeppelin, a rigid-framed airship designed and fanatically promoted by Count Zeppelin, flew in 1900. By 1914 the German army and the navy had started the build up of fleets of airships. With the first airship raid against England on the 19th January 1915, targeting East Anglia and killing 20 people, 20th century warfare had arrived.
Although dismissed by Winston Churchill before the war as 'enormous bladders of combustible and explosive gas' the zeppelins proved very hard to attack. They slipped over the British coast silently and at great height so they were difficult to reach with conventional weapons. They dropped their bombs on utterly unsuspecting targets and then melted away. They were, it appeared, the ultimate terror weapon. But the Germans wanted the zeppelin to do more than create terror by the arbitrary scattering of bombs; they wanted it to realise its potential as a war-winning weapon by operating as a strategic bombing force attacking and destroying specific and important targets. This the zeppelin could not do. It was vulnerable to the winds and so often difficult to fly and virtually impossible to steer with any degree of accuracy.
Zeppelin design was improved and on the night of the 23rd September 1916 three of the new, large super-zeppelins took off to raid Britain. Within the next few hours two of these promising new craft - the L 32 and the L 33 - were destroyed by the British. By late 1916 the zeppelin force had finally been defeated. British defences had been greatly improved so that intruders were more rapidly located and more often attacked by both anti-aircraft guns and fighters. Fighters, of more powerful design and armed with new explosive and incendiary ammunition were to prove the great enemy of Churchill's lumbering 'gaseous monsters'.
Air attack
Effectively, the zeppelin threat was over, but attack from the sky was not. Germany continued to believe that air raids against Britain were a potentially war-winning exercise and from May 1917 the task was given over to aircraft. As weapons the Gotha and Giant bombers - flying in formation, undisturbed by wind and initially raiding by daylight - were more deadly and accurate than airships had ever been. The death toll and damage they inflicted in Britain's cities was horrifying. On one raid on London and Kent on the 13th June 1917 162 people were killed and 432 injured, including 18 children killed and 45 injured in an East End school.
...attacks like this achieved little in Britain beyond death and fury in the civilian population.
But attacks like this achieved little in Britain beyond death and fury in the civilian population. Military targets of significance were not greatly damaged and public morale did not crack. When the armistice was agreed in November 1918 the power of air invasion remained unclear. It had achieved little of direct military value but it had killed many, caused horrendous damage in city centres and created terror. If planes were bigger and able to carry heavier bomb loads, and if accuracy of attack could be achieved and defence from fighters improved, then the potential of a bomber force as an independent weapon of war, executing strategic attacks on the heartland of the enemy, would finally be realised.
It was this thinking that influenced military planning during the inter-war years with Britain in particular embracing the destructive potential of strategic bombing undertaken by long-range, well-armed heavy bombers. Politicians and military planners argued aerial offense was the most effective against foreign aggression or invasion.
This acceptance in Britain that the heavy bomber would prove virtually invulnerable led to the creation, from 1935, of a heavy bomber force. The Vickers Wellington came into service in 1936 in which year the Government aimed to give the RAF a bomber force of 1,736 by May 1939. But, when war came in 1939, it was Britain that was, initially at least, to be the testing ground for new methods of aerial attack.
1915: German Zeppelins begin the first ever strategy bombing campaign, hitting Great Yarmouth and King's Lynn.
1942: Japan invades Burma, igniting the longest World War Two campaign fought by British troops.
The zeppelin
The first German air attack against Britain took place on the 21st December 1914. This one against Dover was delivered by an aeroplane, but the major form of attack was to be Germany's futuristic and potentially war-winning super-weapon, the zeppelin.
Although dismissed by Winston Churchill before the war as 'enormous bladders of combustible and explosive gas' the zeppelins proved very hard to attack.
The first zeppelin, a rigid-framed airship designed and fanatically promoted by Count Zeppelin, flew in 1900. By 1914 the German army and the navy had started the build up of fleets of airships. With the first airship raid against England on the 19th January 1915, targeting East Anglia and killing 20 people, 20th century warfare had arrived.
Although dismissed by Winston Churchill before the war as 'enormous bladders of combustible and explosive gas' the zeppelins proved very hard to attack. They slipped over the British coast silently and at great height so they were difficult to reach with conventional weapons. They dropped their bombs on utterly unsuspecting targets and then melted away. They were, it appeared, the ultimate terror weapon. But the Germans wanted the zeppelin to do more than create terror by the arbitrary scattering of bombs; they wanted it to realise its potential as a war-winning weapon by operating as a strategic bombing force attacking and destroying specific and important targets. This the zeppelin could not do. It was vulnerable to the winds and so often difficult to fly and virtually impossible to steer with any degree of accuracy.
Zeppelin design was improved and on the night of the 23rd September 1916 three of the new, large super-zeppelins took off to raid Britain. Within the next few hours two of these promising new craft - the L 32 and the L 33 - were destroyed by the British. By late 1916 the zeppelin force had finally been defeated. British defences had been greatly improved so that intruders were more rapidly located and more often attacked by both anti-aircraft guns and fighters. Fighters, of more powerful design and armed with new explosive and incendiary ammunition were to prove the great enemy of Churchill's lumbering 'gaseous monsters'.
Air attack
Effectively, the zeppelin threat was over, but attack from the sky was not. Germany continued to believe that air raids against Britain were a potentially war-winning exercise and from May 1917 the task was given over to aircraft. As weapons the Gotha and Giant bombers - flying in formation, undisturbed by wind and initially raiding by daylight - were more deadly and accurate than airships had ever been. The death toll and damage they inflicted in Britain's cities was horrifying. On one raid on London and Kent on the 13th June 1917 162 people were killed and 432 injured, including 18 children killed and 45 injured in an East End school.
...attacks like this achieved little in Britain beyond death and fury in the civilian population.
But attacks like this achieved little in Britain beyond death and fury in the civilian population. Military targets of significance were not greatly damaged and public morale did not crack. When the armistice was agreed in November 1918 the power of air invasion remained unclear. It had achieved little of direct military value but it had killed many, caused horrendous damage in city centres and created terror. If planes were bigger and able to carry heavier bomb loads, and if accuracy of attack could be achieved and defence from fighters improved, then the potential of a bomber force as an independent weapon of war, executing strategic attacks on the heartland of the enemy, would finally be realised.
It was this thinking that influenced military planning during the inter-war years with Britain in particular embracing the destructive potential of strategic bombing undertaken by long-range, well-armed heavy bombers. Politicians and military planners argued aerial offense was the most effective against foreign aggression or invasion.
This acceptance in Britain that the heavy bomber would prove virtually invulnerable led to the creation, from 1935, of a heavy bomber force. The Vickers Wellington came into service in 1936 in which year the Government aimed to give the RAF a bomber force of 1,736 by May 1939. But, when war came in 1939, it was Britain that was, initially at least, to be the testing ground for new methods of aerial attack.