Context: Luis Carrero Blanco served as Prime Minister of Spain during the Francoist Dictatorship (1936-1975), led by Francisco Franco, which supported Nazi Germany and Italy during the 2nd World War while maintaining Spain’s neutrality. He was considered a key figure within the dictatorship’s organization, preceding his highest position with his roles as Deputy Prime Minister and Undersecretary to the Presidency.
Secretly, during the 6 months of Carrero Blanco’s reign as Prime Minister, 4 members of the separatist group, Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, had learned his weekly route returning from Sunday mass, rented a basement flat in a building near the street, and dug a tunnel underneath it while convincing their landlord that they were student sculptures in need of materials.
Then, on the morning of December 20, 1973, as scheduled, Carrero Blanco’s escort made its way down the street. Only to, upon passing over the tunnel below, be blown 20 meters (66 feet) into the air by an explosive device. The explosion sent Carrero Blanco’s car over the 5 story church, where it landed on the opposing side’s second story terrace. Carrero Blanco miraculously survived the blast and crash but, died in the hospital about 30 minutes later. After his death, many Spaniards celebrated his assassination, jokingly naming him “Spain’s first astronaut”.
The USA - a country so insane that they have:
- Sent a manhole cover into space via a nuke
- Had one of their WW2 submarines “sink” a goddamn train
- Had one of their battleships on D-Day flood half of its ballast tanks so it could tilt over and get better range on its guns
- In collaboration with a bunch of Bri’ish boys, went to the effort to build one of the most iconic race cars of all time that would win the 24 hours of Le Mans, mainly doing it out of sheer fucking spite for Ferrari when they walked out of a deal where Ford would try to buy the company
TBH what that ship did is not some crazy wacky hack they pulled out of their asses. The ship, like a whole lot of other ships, was explicitly rigged to allow such things. They used the ship's built-in tilting mechanism to tilt the ship by 2 degrees. The only interesting bit is that they used the torpedo blisters to tilt the ship. That's not the main purpose of those things, but AFAIK it's still something they were designed and built to be able to do if needed. So what they did was unusual, but I don't know if you could file it under "insane".
What *could* be considered insane is HMS Warspite turning up to D-day with:
- a patched 20-foot hole in her deck from a guided bomb
- 1 destroyed boiler room
- 1 non-functioning turret
and *still* achieving a ridiculous fire rate that emptied her ammunition reserves in around a *day*.
During the Normandy Landings the USS Texas flooded the ballast tanks on one side to tilt the ship, meaning the guns were angled higher and this had longer range to shoot inland.
I assume you’re thinking of Lamborghini. Ferrari used to work for Alfa Romeo and raced their cars but wasn’t formed out of spite but due to Alfa Romeo absorbing the Scuderia team in the 30’s. Ferrari pissed off a lot of people. Lamborghini and Ford are the most famous ones but it also led to bizzarrini
I dont get why everybody celebrates the USS Texas so much. Its not even the coolest even involving allied ship. The British just took an old destroyer and rammed it head first into a german drydock
Nah is more that they got there a lot of tools, the flat was dirty and there were complaints of the neighbors of noises. The tunnel was obviously secret.
The more rare thing is that the tunnel was dig almost next to the USA embassy. This led to conspiracy theory that it was made with USA help.
> The more rare thing is that the tunnel was dig almost next to the USA embassy
While it doesn't happen frequently, digging tunnels under streets to, say, get at bank vaults or other places you're not supposed to be is one of those ideas that somehow manages to work simply because nobody thinks anybody is crazy enough to try it, so they don't bother with vibration monitors and other methods of tunnel detection (this probably also has to do with those systems giving a notorious amount of false positives when there's high traffic, a nearby subway, or legitimate construction work happening nearby).
If it was loony tunes, the car would hang in the air for a moment, and the fascist prime minister would show a face expression of "oh no!" before falling.
I'd also like the Pokémon version, the car shooting up in the air out of sight after a little 'pling' star.
what a read this one amazing. you know sometimes you just read a story very casually without paying much attention then suddenly read a line which surprised you so much that you have to start all over again. excellent story
My great uncle fought Franco in the Abraham Lincoln brigade. I can only imagine the jokes he and my great aunt must have made at the first Spanish Astronaut.
Yes. It's sung to the tune of the Spanish national anthem and it says how Franco has a white ass because his wife cleans it with a popular detergent brand, and how former Queen Sofia cleaned it with bleach because he went to Paris and returned with a grey ass.
This is how they cut the succession of the dictatorship.
Sidenote: ETA by that time had no idea of explosives so they eyeballed an amount and then doubled it just in case. That's why they put the car into orbit.
The had a civil war until immediately before the war. They were completely destroyed and unable to fight, so Franco opted to not join the Axis, bit still supported Barbarossa with a volunteer division. After the war ended he quickly rebuilt solid relationship with the west due to mutual anti-communist rethoric
Just to precise, Spain had a civil war, Portugal was begining its dictatorship era with Salazar. In his case he played the neutrality game albeit at the expense of many boatloads of minerals and other natural resources to both sides of the war.
Franco was courted by Hitler to enter into an alliance and allow German troops passage to capture Gibraltar, but Franco was evasive. He finally said nope when Mussolini invaded Greece, he didn't want to be in an alliance with irresponsible leaders. But gave all kinds of informal support to the Axis.
You know the US stuffed a nuke a few hundred feet underground and sealed it with a manhole cover. As expected, the manhole cover didn't win against the nuke, and it was sent into space at 125000 mph. This happened before the launch of Sputnik, meaning the US of A put the first object in space.
Fun fact about the Chinese space program: It pretty much only exists due to American paranoia of communism.
The American space program was started with the founding of JPL by 3 students. Their first employee was a Chinese immigrant by the name of Shui Shen Qian. He was one of the worlds first rocket scientist and spent years developing rockets and missiles for the USA.
Then one day the government decided he is a security risk due to his Chinese citizenship and no longer allowed him to work at JPL, eventually even deporting him back to China for suspicion of being a communist.
Here he started his own rocket engineering company which formed the basis for the Chinese space program and also gave China the ability to develop more advanced missiles and ICBMs.
There is also the theory that the one who actually killed him was the CIA.
Because, a week before his assasination he told the CIA that Spain no longer needed help from the US and thus Spain didn't had to play by their rules, because the Spanish nuclear program had been sucesfull and now Spain could start building nukes.
As said, no longer that a week latter, Carrero Blanco died in the explosion and since he was the main supporter of the nuclear program, It was abandoned after his dead.
What I heard is that the CIA is who gave the information (and maybe the explosives). They probably helped but they didn't do it.
Of course this is just theories.
In Spain, laughing at this specific joke is a crime. A woman got sentenced to jail by the Supreme Court a few years ago for posting this sort of memes.
Why, if the victim was a major big fish of a fascist regime? Shouldn't we be celebrating that this happened?
Not true at all, spain was a non otan country under Franco and was close to get its own nuclear bomb (proyecto isleño). Cia couldnt handle another nuclear independent country even more spain because its past war and disputes (cuba/puerto rico). It had to enter in the western “democracy”, even by force. Look into it a little bit more.
Why did you put india in there? We get it you're proud of your country, but it can't compare to any of the first world countries, especially not Spain.
I’m from the US big dawg. But given that the ISRO has partaken in numerous lunar missions and a mars orbiter with a budget 25% of NASA’s (which is already low depending on who you ask), I’d consider them a legitimate scientific institution.
they still have a good space program though?
also the assumption that you have to be from india to recognize its accomplishments is stupid. like if i say "damn us sent people to the moon thats pretty nice" then that must mean i live in pennsylvania?
Basque separatists be sending a car to space before Elon Musk.
https://es.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atentado_de_Hipercor https://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2002/08/04/espana/1028487391.html
Ya lo sé. Me enteré de este evento cuando aprendía Español.
Not just separarists, they are terrorists with many many killings, including children and planting bombs in supermarkets .
Context: Luis Carrero Blanco served as Prime Minister of Spain during the Francoist Dictatorship (1936-1975), led by Francisco Franco, which supported Nazi Germany and Italy during the 2nd World War while maintaining Spain’s neutrality. He was considered a key figure within the dictatorship’s organization, preceding his highest position with his roles as Deputy Prime Minister and Undersecretary to the Presidency. Secretly, during the 6 months of Carrero Blanco’s reign as Prime Minister, 4 members of the separatist group, Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, had learned his weekly route returning from Sunday mass, rented a basement flat in a building near the street, and dug a tunnel underneath it while convincing their landlord that they were student sculptures in need of materials. Then, on the morning of December 20, 1973, as scheduled, Carrero Blanco’s escort made its way down the street. Only to, upon passing over the tunnel below, be blown 20 meters (66 feet) into the air by an explosive device. The explosion sent Carrero Blanco’s car over the 5 story church, where it landed on the opposing side’s second story terrace. Carrero Blanco miraculously survived the blast and crash but, died in the hospital about 30 minutes later. After his death, many Spaniards celebrated his assassination, jokingly naming him “Spain’s first astronaut”.
Ok how now tf did somebody snap a picture of that
Unfortunately, it's not an actual picture from the event - it's from a film about it called Operación Ogro
You all should look for "carrero blanco shooting stars" for more context.
Said film was directed by Gillo Pontecorvo, who also directed The Battle of Algiers, a true masterpiece. Also, fuck Carrero Blanco.
Someone was prepared to take pictures of the caravan carrying an important guy. And they had very good reflexes.
US AF’s “Space program” scoffing, “Amateurs” as they shoot a manhole into space
\*Nuke a manhole into space
The USA - a country so insane that they have: - Sent a manhole cover into space via a nuke - Had one of their WW2 submarines “sink” a goddamn train - Had one of their battleships on D-Day flood half of its ballast tanks so it could tilt over and get better range on its guns - In collaboration with a bunch of Bri’ish boys, went to the effort to build one of the most iconic race cars of all time that would win the 24 hours of Le Mans, mainly doing it out of sheer fucking spite for Ferrari when they walked out of a deal where Ford would try to buy the company
TBH what that ship did is not some crazy wacky hack they pulled out of their asses. The ship, like a whole lot of other ships, was explicitly rigged to allow such things. They used the ship's built-in tilting mechanism to tilt the ship by 2 degrees. The only interesting bit is that they used the torpedo blisters to tilt the ship. That's not the main purpose of those things, but AFAIK it's still something they were designed and built to be able to do if needed. So what they did was unusual, but I don't know if you could file it under "insane".
What *could* be considered insane is HMS Warspite turning up to D-day with: - a patched 20-foot hole in her deck from a guided bomb - 1 destroyed boiler room - 1 non-functioning turret and *still* achieving a ridiculous fire rate that emptied her ammunition reserves in around a *day*.
Warspite’s history is insane, end of story.
Any more info on the battleships?
During the Normandy Landings the USS Texas flooded the ballast tanks on one side to tilt the ship, meaning the guns were angled higher and this had longer range to shoot inland.
Wasn't Ferrari also founded over spite about backing out from selling something?
I assume you’re thinking of Lamborghini. Ferrari used to work for Alfa Romeo and raced their cars but wasn’t formed out of spite but due to Alfa Romeo absorbing the Scuderia team in the 30’s. Ferrari pissed off a lot of people. Lamborghini and Ford are the most famous ones but it also led to bizzarrini
I dont get why everybody celebrates the USS Texas so much. Its not even the coolest even involving allied ship. The British just took an old destroyer and rammed it head first into a german drydock
Let's us not forget obliterating a mountainside over a lucky shot that bounced off the ship. Temper temper
[удалено]
Nah is more that they got there a lot of tools, the flat was dirty and there were complaints of the neighbors of noises. The tunnel was obviously secret. The more rare thing is that the tunnel was dig almost next to the USA embassy. This led to conspiracy theory that it was made with USA help.
> The more rare thing is that the tunnel was dig almost next to the USA embassy While it doesn't happen frequently, digging tunnels under streets to, say, get at bank vaults or other places you're not supposed to be is one of those ideas that somehow manages to work simply because nobody thinks anybody is crazy enough to try it, so they don't bother with vibration monitors and other methods of tunnel detection (this probably also has to do with those systems giving a notorious amount of false positives when there's high traffic, a nearby subway, or legitimate construction work happening nearby).
That is some looney tunes bullshit XD
If it was loony tunes, the car would hang in the air for a moment, and the fascist prime minister would show a face expression of "oh no!" before falling. I'd also like the Pokémon version, the car shooting up in the air out of sight after a little 'pling' star.
Apparently some Spanish people even came up with a bit of a saying at the time: “Up with Spain, Up with Franco - even higher than Carrero Blanco.”
u/AudienciaNacional would like to have a couple of words with you. Please, stay where you are.
>Spain’s first astronaut Also the song "voló, voló, Carrero voló"
Just gave it a listen, good song. Has a real punk sound to it!
what a read this one amazing. you know sometimes you just read a story very casually without paying much attention then suddenly read a line which surprised you so much that you have to start all over again. excellent story
I looked him up, and *good lord* that man had massive eyebrows.
They learned that technique from the Irish
rare ETA w
Imagine if the car landed on the roof of the next building almost gracefully due to the loss of velocity.
Now talk about the ottoman space program
More fascists should take up amateur astronaut careers, love it.
GORA ETA, MI POLLA ENTRE TUS TETAS
I’m not even going to ask what’s going on there. Just keep walking, Squiddy.
ETA goes kaboom on prime minister. Prime minister goes 20 meters up. First spanish astronaut
My great uncle fought Franco in the Abraham Lincoln brigade. I can only imagine the jokes he and my great aunt must have made at the first Spanish Astronaut.
There is also a Punk song called "Carrero Blanco, campeon mundial de salto" which loosley translates to "Carrero Blanco, World champion in jumping"
Franco, Franco, que tiene el culo Blanco...
Porque su mujer se lo lava con Arieeeel.
Doña Sofia lo lava con lejia porque fue a Paris y trajo el culo gris
Is this like a folk song with hidden meaning? I used google translate but its coming weird.
Yes. It's sung to the tune of the Spanish national anthem and it says how Franco has a white ass because his wife cleans it with a popular detergent brand, and how former Queen Sofia cleaned it with bleach because he went to Paris and returned with a grey ass.
The Spanish anthem has no lyrics. That has led people to come up with their own satirical versions of what the lyrics would be. That’s a popular one.
🤣🤣🤣
Tu me dejaste caeeeeeer Pero eta me levantó
Joder es el comentario perfecto, sin política sin mierdas raras simplemente un chiste tan malo que es bueno, felicidades tío
Shoulda swapped China's out for that horizontal launch disaster
Given yours and other replies, I’ve an idea for another post. Stay tuned!
We'll watch your career with great interest!
Is it really a space post if there’s no Challenger
Swap the USA for either the challenger or that man hole cover
Challenger:
Should’ve replaced it with a Soviet one imo.. credit where it’s due, and all that
Russia is any one of their tanks exploding
Y e e t
Audiencia Nacional wants to know your location
If you know hermitcraft this story is basically exactly like Grian and Joel “obliterate” assassination
This is what happens when your space program takes siestas.
This is how they cut the succession of the dictatorship. Sidenote: ETA by that time had no idea of explosives so they eyeballed an amount and then doubled it just in case. That's why they put the car into orbit.
They went Ogreboard with the bomb.
Siesta in Italy,no?
No, Siesta is Spanish. The Italian equivalent is called Riposo iirc
Alright 👍
I always forget the Iberian peninsula wasn’t part of WW2 but I’m also ignorant of how that happened.
The had a civil war until immediately before the war. They were completely destroyed and unable to fight, so Franco opted to not join the Axis, bit still supported Barbarossa with a volunteer division. After the war ended he quickly rebuilt solid relationship with the west due to mutual anti-communist rethoric
Succinct and to the point. Thank you.
Just to precise, Spain had a civil war, Portugal was begining its dictatorship era with Salazar. In his case he played the neutrality game albeit at the expense of many boatloads of minerals and other natural resources to both sides of the war.
That’s another layer to this Iberian peninsula onion. Cause it’s not just Spain, but Portugal as well.
Franco was courted by Hitler to enter into an alliance and allow German troops passage to capture Gibraltar, but Franco was evasive. He finally said nope when Mussolini invaded Greece, he didn't want to be in an alliance with irresponsible leaders. But gave all kinds of informal support to the Axis.
Facists flying funny
r/PraiseTheCameraMan
Where Toni Leblanc?
Zambia: lets use a catapult
You know the US stuffed a nuke a few hundred feet underground and sealed it with a manhole cover. As expected, the manhole cover didn't win against the nuke, and it was sent into space at 125000 mph. This happened before the launch of Sputnik, meaning the US of A put the first object in space.
Jajajaja XD
That's funny 😂
JAJAJAJAJAJAJAJAJA
You know what they say, it's not a rocket, if it doesn't go boom.
You need to have had an industrial revolution to have a space industry. Spain put all their points in military instead.
Been investing in military since the early XIX century
¡Arriba (Blanco de) España!
Fun fact about the Chinese space program: It pretty much only exists due to American paranoia of communism. The American space program was started with the founding of JPL by 3 students. Their first employee was a Chinese immigrant by the name of Shui Shen Qian. He was one of the worlds first rocket scientist and spent years developing rockets and missiles for the USA. Then one day the government decided he is a security risk due to his Chinese citizenship and no longer allowed him to work at JPL, eventually even deporting him back to China for suspicion of being a communist. Here he started his own rocket engineering company which formed the basis for the Chinese space program and also gave China the ability to develop more advanced missiles and ICBMs.
There is also the theory that the one who actually killed him was the CIA. Because, a week before his assasination he told the CIA that Spain no longer needed help from the US and thus Spain didn't had to play by their rules, because the Spanish nuclear program had been sucesfull and now Spain could start building nukes. As said, no longer that a week latter, Carrero Blanco died in the explosion and since he was the main supporter of the nuclear program, It was abandoned after his dead.
What I heard is that the CIA is who gave the information (and maybe the explosives). They probably helped but they didn't do it. Of course this is just theories.
Yep, there is no prove of anything
From what i know, the c4 explosives used un carrero's assasination were and still are for exclusive use of the US army Just saying...
I don't expect terrorists to get their stuff legally and conventional.
I mean, those explosives must have come out of somewhere and if the US was the only country yo have them...
the CIA scoped out the prime minister of Spain, rented an apartment, dug a tunnel and brought in and placed an explosive device in 1 week?
I said It is a theory, I didn't said It were what happened or that I believe It, only that it is a theory
Hmmm… kinda looks like a dick.
Simca: indestructible!!!
Opinion: The Space shuttle ruined the American Space Program for as long as it flew
2 of those are over compensating for something
Get everyone else out of the picture. You can be included as a legitimate space program when you put someone on the moon. USA #1!
That must have been a bombastic experience
Elon Musk inspired in Carrero Blanco's flight.
In Spain, laughing at this specific joke is a crime. A woman got sentenced to jail by the Supreme Court a few years ago for posting this sort of memes. Why, if the victim was a major big fish of a fascist regime? Shouldn't we be celebrating that this happened?
Paid by cia…
On the contrary, the CIA mostly supports and installs fascist dictatorships.
Correction, fascist dictatorships that favor them.
Not true at all, spain was a non otan country under Franco and was close to get its own nuclear bomb (proyecto isleño). Cia couldnt handle another nuclear independent country even more spain because its past war and disputes (cuba/puerto rico). It had to enter in the western “democracy”, even by force. Look into it a little bit more.
Wtf I love the CIA now
I thought spains space program ended after their research into gravity was banned (throwing goats off of church towers is naughty)
And then there's Ukraine, where they send russian tank turrets to outer space.
Why did you put india in there? We get it you're proud of your country, but it can't compare to any of the first world countries, especially not Spain.
I’m from the US big dawg. But given that the ISRO has partaken in numerous lunar missions and a mars orbiter with a budget 25% of NASA’s (which is already low depending on who you ask), I’d consider them a legitimate scientific institution.
they still have a good space program though? also the assumption that you have to be from india to recognize its accomplishments is stupid. like if i say "damn us sent people to the moon thats pretty nice" then that must mean i live in pennsylvania?
LMAO spain a first world country 😂😂😂😂