RossDas wrote:
One night the old brick railway viaduct succumbed to flood waters and collapsed into the river - luckily there was no train crossing. That's probably about the most dramatic thing to happen to my home town since half of the castle collapsed in a landslide; it's generally an uneventful place with fairly good quality of life.

Henry Miller Shreve (October 21, 1785 – March 6, 1851) was the American inventor and steamboat captain who opened the Mississippi, Ohio and Red rivers to steamboat navigation. Shreveport, Louisiana, is named in his honor.

Shreve was also instrumental in breaking the Fulton-Livingston monopoly on steamboat traffic on the lower Mississippi. He was the first riverboat captain to travel the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to New Orleans and back, as well as the first to bring a keelboat from the Ohio River up the Mississippi to the Fever River in Illinois.[1] Shreve also made significant improvements to the steamboat and the steam engine, such as separate boilers to power side paddlewheels independently, horizontal cylinders, and multiple decks to allow for passengers and entertainment.

 Frazzled wrote:
*More refining capacity in fifteen miles then the rest of Terra.
*Site of the largest non nuclear explosion in US history when a freighter full of ammonium nitrate blew up. The anchor was found miles inland.
*We were nuked in Independence Day.
*Only major city to have a state park with signs proclaiming "do not molest the alligators"
*Speaking of, the myth of alligators in the storm runoff ditches (bayous) is real.
*There have been no earthquakes here.
*The city was formed from a swindle involving re-selling "prime farm land" which in actuality was a swamp. Some say things have gone down since then.
*Defeated the Mexican Army (for the first time) here.

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:
This is local to me: http://www.damninteresting.com/the-wrath-of-the-killdozer/

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
This is a story that achieved urban legend status in Belfast.

During the height of the Troubles it wasn't uncommon for off duty soldiers to go about their business in civilian clothes, but still have their side arms in case they were made by certain groups. One night a group of soldiers, off duty and with their side arms, pulled up to a petrol station in Belfast. One guy filled the car while others went in to get some things. The store clerk noticed one of the pistols sticking out and thinking it was a group from either side of the sectarian divide phoned his friend in the RUC's Special Branch's extension (NI Police tasked with investigating serious, usually terrorist related, crimes) because their station was just around the corner. When the member of Special Branch got the call he rallied some of the men on duty, didn't inform his superiors, and went out to intercept the suspected n'er-do-wells.
Special Branch roll up to the petrol station, sidearms drawn, and don't identify themselves. The soldiers, most having left the store and returning to their car, see this think that they're about to come under attack from terrorists and a gun fight starts at the petrol station with both sides taking cover and trading shots.
As this is going on an RUC patrol arrives having heard the gunfire and pulls up. Special Branch didn't pass on that they were going out to this petrol station, so the regular RUC arrive to two groups of men with no clear uniform or identifying markings shooting at each other, so they start to engage both groups. The soldiers and Special Branch don't identify the regular RUC officers straight away and just assume that the extra man are each others. This small petrol station is now host to a three way gun battle.
During a lull in the shootout someone finally has a bright idea and shouts, "RUC! Put down your weapons and surrender", to which the reply comes,
"Special Branch", followed by,
"British Army".
All three groups now emerge from their cover, weapons at ease, look at each other, and silently go their separate ways with not a single person involved in the shoot out being hit

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:
Meanwhile at an IRA camp just outside of Derry...
"Do you get the feeling we're missing out on a golden opportunity some where?"
"Eh probably just gas, I told you not to eat that WW2 era ration"

The Northern Ireland riots of August 1969 marked the beginning of the conflict known as "The Troubles". As a result of the riots, Northern Ireland's two main cities—Belfast and Derry—had become more segregated than before. Many neighbourhoods became either purely Irish nationalist and republican or purely unionist and loyalist. In some places, residents and paramilitaries built barricades to seal-off and protect their neighbourhoods from incursions by "the other side", by the security forces, or both. These became known as "no-go areas".
By the end of 1971, 29 barricades were in place to block access to what was known as Free Derry; 16 of them impassable even to the British Army's one-ton armoured vehicles.[1] Many of the nationalist/republican "no-go areas" were controlled by one of the two factions of the Irish Republican Army—the Provisional IRA and Official IRA. On 29 May 1972, the Official IRA called a ceasefire[2] and vowed that it would only launch attacks in self-defence.
On 21 July 1972, in the space of 75 minutes, the Provisional IRA detonated 22 bombs in Belfast. Nine people (including two soldiers and a loyalist volunteer) were killed and 130 were injured. This attack prompted the British Government to implement Operation Motorman, just ten days later.[2]
Preparations [edit]

Operation Motorman would be the biggest British military operation since the Suez Crisis of 1956, and the biggest in Ireland since the Irish War of Independence.[2] In the days before 31 July, about 4,000 extra troops were brought into Northern Ireland.[2] Involved were almost 22,000 soldiers[2]—including 27 infantry and two armoured battalions—aided by 5,300 soldiers from the local Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR).[3] Several Centurion AVRE demolition vehicles, derived from the Centurion tank, were used. These were the only heavy armoured vehicles to be deployed operationally by the British Army in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. The tanks had been transported to Northern Ireland on board the amphibious landing ship HMS Fearless, and were operated with their turrets traversed to the rear and main guns covered by tarpaulins.[4]
This quick military build-up alerted the Provisional IRA and Official IRA that a major operation was being planned.[5] According to local MP Ivan Cooper and others, the IRA left Derry's no-go areas the day before the operation.[6]
The operation [edit]



A Centurion AVRE similar to those used in the operation


HMS Fearless landed troops and tanks on Derry
The operation began at about 4:00am on 31 July and lasted for a few hours. In "no-go areas" such as Free Derry, sirens were sounded by residents to alert others of the incursion.[7] The British Army used bulldozers and the Engineer Centurions to break through the barricades before flooding the no-go areas with troops in smaller, lighter armoured vehicles.[2][5] The Provisional IRA and Official IRA were not equipped to openly battle such a large force and did not attempt to hold their ground.[5] Small scale operations were carried out in other places like Lurgan, Armagh, Coalisland and Newry.[8] By the end of the day, Derry and Belfast had been cleared of no-go areas, but the Army remained cautious when operating in staunchly republican districts.
Casualties [edit]
During the operation, the British Army shot four people in Derry, killing a civilian and an unarmed IRA member.
Daniel Hegarty, a 15-year-old Catholic civilian,[9] was shot along with his two cousins as they walked along Creggan Heights in Derry.[10] The boys had gone out to see the tanks and watch the operation unfold.[10] The shots were fired from close range by soldiers who had hidden themselves behind a garden fence.[10] Daniel was shot twice in the head and was killed outright. One of his cousins, Christopher Hegarty, survived being struck in the head by a bullet. He said that none of the soldiers approached or spoke to them as they lay wounded.[11] Daniel's sister told an inquest into Daniel's death that, after shooting him, a soldier shouted "Get the fething lights out or there'll be another corpse".[12] In June 2007, 35 years later, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) released a document that described Daniel as a "terrorist" and claimed that he was armed. Two months later, the MoD withdrew and apologised for the document, accepting that "Daniel was innocent and that the reference to him as a terrorist was inaccurate".[13]
Seamus Bradley, a 19-year-old Provisional IRA member,[9] was shot as he climbed a tree in Bishop's Field, Derry.[14] He was shot in the leg from long range by soldiers who had hidden themselves behind a hedgerow.[14] The soldier who shot him claimed that he had been armed at the time. However, when a group of soldiers arrived to arrest him, no weapon was found.[14] Seamus was then taken away in a Saracen APC and bled to death while in the custody of British soldiers.[5]
In Belfast some arrests were made but no armed resistance was met.

 Soladrin wrote:
Erm.. I once saw a....


My brother once.....

There was this one time when...

 Soladrin wrote:
I don't even know what band camp is.

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:
I know I know, I was just thinking they wouldn't keep all the heavy ordie in the city ja?

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 Soladrin wrote:
I don't even know what band camp is.

It was an 'American Pie' reference

 Soladrin wrote:
That explains why I wouldn't get it. Those movies are so bloody terrible.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 Soladrin wrote:
That explains why I wouldn't get it. Those movies are so bloody terrible.

I only ever seen the first, the band camp thing did become a meme for a while if I recall.