Save the date and don’t miss our next General Assembly meeting in June!
Texas State University regents professor Don Olson and faculty member Russell Doescher, the “Celestial Sleuths”, will present a talk about Astronomy and World War II.
The current month is an appropriate time to look back at the World War II D-Day invasion because June 2019 marks the 75th anniversary of the original events in Normandy on June 6, 1944. This talk will describe how astronomical factors affected the planning and the selection of the date for D-Day. The lunar phase and the Moon’s position in the sky were important for the airborne assault that began during the night of June 5-6, 1944. The lunar phase, the times of morning twilight and sunrise, and the times of low and high tides all were crucial factors for the amphibious landings on the early morning of D-Day.
The talk will also describe the significance of astronomy to five other World War II events: the sinking of the British battleship HMS Royal Oak in 1939, the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941, the Tarawa landing of the U.S. Marines in 1943, the sinking of the USS Indianapolis in 1945, and the famous VJ Day Times Square Kiss photograph on the day in 1945 that marked the end of the Pacific War.
For more information, including time, date, and location please click this link.
