The World War II Jedburgh teams were brutally effective commandos who fought in surprisingly small units. Their dangerous missions made the invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe more effective, and they laid the groundwork for many unconventional warfare units like Army Special Forces that are still fighting today.
Iran on July 19, 2019, said it seized a British oil tanker and its crew amid reports it diverted a second tanker toward Iran within hours of the seizure in a clear message to the UK and the US that it's willing to get aggressive in a feud over oil sanctions. But it may soon have to contend with heavy US and UK naval firepower already in the region.
The US sent its USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier and attached strike group to the region in May 2019. This represents the world's most potent unit of naval power, with the aircraft carrier's formidable air wing, a cruiser, four destroyers, and support ships.
The USS Boxer, a smaller carrier for AV-8B Harrier jets and helicopters, is also operating nearby and said it recently downed an Iranian drone. Iran denied this and posted video of one of its drones landing to challenge the US's narrative, although it's unclear if Iran's footage proves anything.
The Wall Street Journal reporter Rory Jones was aboard the USS Boxer in the hours before the US amphibious flattop downed an Iranian drone and recounted a series of tense encounters that led up to the engagement.
According to Jones, the Boxer was leading a flotilla of Navy ships through the Strait of Hormuz into the Persian Gulf, where Iran has repeatedly harassed international vessels. Just after 7 a.m. local time, Jones reported, an unarmed Iranian Bell 212 helicopter came so close to the Boxer that it could have landed on deck. A US helicopter chased away the Iranian craft, cutting short an incident that Capt. Ronald Dowdell, the commander of the Boxer, called "surreal."
If you've been on the internet at all for the last few weeks, you've probably seen news regarding the Facebook event "Storm Area 51, They Can't Stop All of Us." It started out mostly as a joke - if you couldn't tell by the name of the group that's hosting it being called "Sh*tposting cause im in shambles" and the only actual plan set forward is to "Naruto run faster than their bullets." Even the date of September 20th is a reference to the anniversary of Leeroy Jenkins storming Upper Blackrock Spire by himself in World of Warcraft.
That was until, at the time of writing this article, 1.6 million people clicked "Going," another 1.2 million are "Interested," and a four-star general at the Pentagon had to be debriefed by some poor lower-enlisted soldier about the intricacies of a 1997 Japanese manga series about a teenage ninja with a fox demon inside him.
Which begs the question: "But what if it wasn't a joke?" Well. It's really circumstantial.
The favoured instrument of the likes of Lisa Simpsons, former President Bill Clinton, and the co-author of this article and founder of TodayIFoundOut, the saxophone has variously been described as everything from "the most moving and heart-gripping wind instrument" to the "Devil's horn." Rather fittingly then the instrument's inventor, Adolphe Sax, was a similarly polarising figure and led a life many would qualify as fulfilling all of the necessary specifications to be classified as being "all kinds of badass."
Born in 1814 in the Belgian municipality of Dinant, Sax was initially named Antoine-Joseph Sax but started going by the name Adolphe seemingly almost from birth, though why he didn't go by his original name and how "Adolphe" came to be chosen has been lost to history.
In July 2019 Navy SEAL Chief Edward Gallagher was facing the worst possible war crimes court-martial a special operator could imagine. After a spirited defense and support from a community of veterans who believed in his innocence, he won the day, exonerated on all charges except one – posing with a photo of a dead body.
Now he's appealing to the community one more time.
Russia's T-80 battle tank was once expected to be among the best in the world. They were the first tanks developed by the Soviet Union to utilize a gas turbine engine, giving it an impressive top speed of 70 kilometers per hour and a far better power to weight ratio than its predecessors. It was even dubbed the "Tank of the English Channel," because Soviet war games calculated that it could plow through Europe and reach the Atlantic Coast in just five days.
Once you enter your password to access your accounts, you might imagine the website dusting off its hands in satisfaction that its verification process is complete and that, yes, it now knows it was you who just logged in and not an imposter.
But it doesn't stop there — websites and the companies behind them often monitor your behavior as a security measure, too.
"We look into behavioral biometrics," Etay Maor, a security advisor at IBM Security, told Business Insider. "We've been doing this for years ... most of the industries I talk to look into these things."
Behavioral biometrics are similar to regular biometrics, like fingerprints. But instead of recognizing a fingerprint, your actions and behavior within a website or app where you have an account with sensitive information are monitored to authenticate you.
In 1979, American Vela Hotel satellites detected a bright double flash near the Prince Edward Islands of Antarctica. A double-flash is a clear indication of a nuclear explosion in the atmosphere, as all 41 of the previous double flashes turned out to be. The only thing was this time, no one was claiming this unannounced nuclear test.
A Soviet spy later announced the flashes were caused by a joint Israeli-South African nuclear test.
U.S. Army Col. Andrew R. Morgan, M.D., will launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, aboard a Soyuz (Union) MS-13 spacecraft on July 20, 2019, at 12:28 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time for a nine-month mission aboard the International Space Station.
"Twenty-five years ago I made the decision to serve my country as a military officer. I view my nine-month mission to the space station as a continuation of that service, not just to my country, but the entire international community." Morgan said. "Service to others will keep me focused and motivated while I'm away from my family, living and working on board the International Space Station to successfully complete our mission."
