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Post by JustJohn or JJ on Jan 24, 2013 7:59:46 GMT -7
You might enjoy this from Col D. G. Swinford, USMC, Ret., and history buff. You would really have to dig deep to get this kind of ringside seat to history:1. The first German serviceman killed in WW II was killed by the Japanese (China, 1937). The first American serviceman killed was killed by the Russians (Finland 1940); highest ranking American killed was Lt. Gen Lesley McNair, killed by the US Army Air Corps. So much for allies. 2. The youngest US serviceman was 12 year old: Calvin Graham, USN. He was wounded and given a Dishonorable Discharge for lying about his age. His benefits were later restored by act of Congress. 3. At the time of Pearl Harbor, the top US Navy command was called CINCUS (pronounced 'sink us'); the shoulder patch of the US Army's 45th Infantry division was the Swastika, and Hitler's private train was named 'Amerika.' All three were soon changed for PR purposes. 4. More US servicemen died in the Air Corps than the Marine Corps. [Actually the 8th Air Force alone suffered about 5,000 more KIA than the entire Marine Corps in WW2. While completing the required 30 missions, an airman's chance of being killed was 71%. 5. Generally speaking, there was no such thing as an average fighter pilot. You were either an ace or a target. For instance, Japanese Ace Hiroyoshi Nishizawa shot down over 80 planes. He died while a passenger on a cargo plane. 6. It was a common practice on fighter planes to load every 5th round with a tracer round to aid in aiming. This was a mistake. Tracers had different ballistics, so (at long range) if your tracers were hitting the target, 80% of your rounds were missing. Worse yet tracers, instantly told your enemy he was under fire and from which direction. Worst of all was the practice of loading a string of tracers at the end of the belt to tell you that you were out of ammo. This was definitely not something you wanted to tell the enemy. Units that stopped using tracers saw their success rate nearly double and their loss rate go down. Here's something related from 5th SF, Detachment B-52's Tips of the Trade item #32; "Tracers work both ways". 7. When allied armies reached the Rhine, the first thing men did was pee in it. This was pretty universal from the lowest private to Winston Churchill (who made a big show of it) and Gen. Patton (who had himself photographed in the act). 8. German Me-264 bombers were capable of bombing New York City, but they decided it wasn't worth the effort. 9. German submarine U-1206 was sunk by a malfunctioning toilet. 10. Among the first 'Germans' captured at Normandy were several Koreans. They had been forced to fight for the Japanese Army until they were captured by the Russians and forced to fight for the Russian Army until they were captured by the Germans and forced to fight for the German Army until they were captured by the US Army. (I think I would apply for Brazilian citizenship)11. Following a massive naval bombardment, 35,000 United States and Canadian troops stormed ashore at Kiska, in the Aleutian Islands . 21 troops were killed in the assault on the island. It could have been worse if there had been any Japanese on the island. 12. The last marine killed in WW2 was killed by a can of spam. He was on the ground as a POW in Japan when rescue flights dropping food and supplies came over, the package came apart in the air and a stray can of spam hit him and killed him.
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Post by Jaga on Jan 25, 2013 7:09:16 GMT -7
John,
interesting statistics, history about non-typical events.
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Post by JustJohn or JJ on Jan 28, 2013 4:50:50 GMT -7
Chiune Sugihara, Japan Diplomat Who Saved 6,000 Jews During Holocaust, Remembered
Posted: 01/24/2013 7:15 am EST | Updated: 01/26/2013 3:28 pm EST
Most Americans know of Oskar Schindler, the German businessman who saved more than 1,200 lives during the Holocaust by hiring Jews to work in his factories and fought Nazi efforts to remove them.
But fewer know about Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese diplomat who disobeyed his government's orders and issued visas that allowed 6,000 Jews to escape from Nazi-occupied territories via Japan.
On Sunday, as Holocaust survivors and descendants of survivors observe International Holocaust Remembrance Day, a growing and widespread community of Jews -- linked by their gratitude toward Sugihara for saving them or family members -- remembers a man once forgotten.
"Without him, many of the most accomplished minds of our world would not exist today. His legacy produced doctors, bankers, lawyers, authors, politicians, even the first Orthodox Jewish Rhodes Scholar," said Richard Salomon, a board member of the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center. The museum holds artifacts from Sugihara as part of its permanent collection, and will honor him on Sunday along with others who saved Jews during the Holocaust.
Salomon's father, Bernard, received the 299th visa issued by Sugihara, who in 1940 became the Japanese consul general to Lithuania, an area where Polish Jewish refugees had relocated during World War II. As Nazis threatened to invade Lithuania, thousands of Jews surrounded the Japanese consulate and asked for visas to escape. Disobeying his bosses in Japan, Sugihara issued thousands. From July 31 to Aug. 28, 1940, Sugihara and his wife stayed up all night, writing visas.
The Japanese government closed the consulate, located in Kovno. But even as Sugihara's train was about to leave the city, he kept writing visas from his open window. When the train began moving, he gave the visa stamp to a refugee to continue the job.
The refugees typically followed a route that took them via train to Moscow, then via the trans-Siberian railroad to Vladivostok and on to Kobe, Japan. Most stayed in Kobe for a few months, then went to Shanghai, China, and elsewhere. Salomon's father went from Shanghai to India and eventually settled in the U.S, where he met his wife Marian in Chicago.
Meanwhile, Sugihara was transferred to Prague, where he worked in 1941 and 1942, and then to Bucharest, where he worked from 1942 to 1944. When the Soviets invaded Romania, he and his family were taken to a prison camp for 18 months. They returned to Japan in 1946, and a year later, the foreign office told him to resign. Years later, his wife, Yukiko Sugihara, who died in 2008, speculated the forced resignation was because of the unauthorized visas.
Chiune Sugihara, who worked odd jobs after returning to Japan and later was employed by a trading company in Russia, worked in obscurity and never spoke of the visas. He never knew if anything came of them and survivors had no luck finding him. But in 1968, a survivor who had become an Israeli diplomat, Joshua Nishri, finally made contact. In 1985, a year before his death in Tokyo, Israel named Sugihara "Righteous Among the Nations," a title given to non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust.
"There are so many people living today because he took the time and made the effort. It was not easy and it was not a matter of sitting down and saying, 'Here, I'll write you this,'" said Anne Akabori, an author who translated "Visas for Life," Yukiko Sugihara's memoir, and wrote "The Gift of Life," an account of Chiune Sugihara's life.
"And it's been so important for the Japanese people to know there was a person who did whatever he could to lessen the Japanese involvement in the war. He was always for peace," said Akabori, who was friends with the Sugiharas' son, Hiroki Sugihara, who died in 2001, and chairs the Visas for Life Foundation. The organization's mission is to "perpetuate the legacy" of Chiune Sugihara and connect "Sugihara survivors" and their descendents.
The group has documented 2,139 Sugihara visas (many were for entire families). It's unknown exactly how many people can trace their ancestry to a Sugihara survivor, though Akabori's organization estimated it to be more than 100,000. More conservatively, the Simon Wiesenthal Center has estimated that 40,000 people are alive today because of the Sugiharas.
Salomon's son, Mark Salomon, a 23-year-old law student at New York University, said knowing that his family would not have existed without Sugihara has ingrained a lifelong lesson in him about the "power of an individual."
"Most people have this idea that you can't really help the whole world, so what's the point?" said Mark Salomon. But Sugihara showed that "whatever you are doing with yourself, you are having a much broader impact. Sometimes it's hard to see the forest through the trees, but it's important in every aspect of your life to remember you are having an effect and to make it a positive effect."
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Post by JustJohn or JJ on Jan 30, 2013 6:51:01 GMT -7
From a Vermont blog - - -
Here is the story of Calvin Coolidge and the haircut.
After retiring, Coolidge was getting a haircut at his favorite barbershop. The only other customer in the establishment was his Northampton doctor. Nothing was said between the two men until the doctor asked, “Mr. President, are you still taking the pills I prescribed for you?” Coolidge replied, “Yes.” The doctor was done first, paid, and left. Soon thereafter, Coolidge stood up and was about to walk out the door without paying. The barber said, “Mr. President, I think that you have forgotten to pay for your haircut.” “Oh yes,” Coolidge replied, “I was so busy talking with the doctor that I must have forgot.”
Exciting, isn't it?
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Post by Nictoshek on Jan 30, 2013 7:20:53 GMT -7
Reminds me of the time while living in Chicago's colorful Uptown neighborhood. Visited a barber shop there on Wilson Avenue...where an Indian barber was just finishing a haircut on a patron. The barber said that will be $5 sir. But the customer said he didn't have $5. Indian barber replied: "Why you lousy low down stinkin bum rat bastard I never want to see you here again!" After the satisfied and now dapper bum patron walked away, I took my turn next to get a hair cut.
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Post by karl on Feb 23, 2013 10:28:20 GMT -7
J.J.
What a wonderful story of a desperate aircrew in desperate times on a disparate journey home...
I was very happy with the good ending,,for the aircrew found their way home...
Karl
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Post by pieter on Feb 23, 2013 14:17:17 GMT -7
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Post by pieter on Feb 23, 2013 14:33:05 GMT -7
A Polish Righteous Among the NationsRudolf Stefan Weigl (September 2, 1883 – August 11, 1957, Zakopane) was a Polish biologist and inventor of the first effective vaccine against epidemic typhus. He founded the Weigl Institute in Lwów, Poland (now Lviv, Ukraine), where he undertook vaccine research. It was here, during the Holocaust, that he harboured Jews and personally risked the death penalty to do so; his vaccines were also smuggled into the local ghetto as well as to the ghetto in Warsaw, saving countless additional Jewish lives. Weigl had Austrian heritage and was born in Prerau (now Přerov), Moravia. His father died in a bicycle accident when he was a child. His mother, Elisabeth Kroesel, married a Polish high school teacher, Józef Trojnar, and they raised Weigl in Jasło, Poland. Later the family moved to Lwów, where Weigl graduated in 1907 from the biology department at University of Jan Kazimierz, taught by professors Benedykt Dybowski (1833 – 1930) and J. Nusbaum-Hilarowicz (1859 – 1917). After graduation, Weigl became Nusbaum's assistant there and was habilitated in 1913 in the comparative zoology and anatomy department. Following the Soviet and Nazi German invasions of Poland in World War II, the Nazis became quite attentive to Dr. Weigl's research. When they occupied Lviv they ordered him to set up a vaccine production plant at his Institute. About a thousand people worked there. Weigl employed and protected Polish intellectuals, Jews and members of the Polish underground. His vaccines were smuggled into ghettos in Lviv and Warsaw saving countless lives, until the Institute was shut down by the Soviet Union following anti-German offensive of 1944. Rudolf Weigl in his own Weigl Institute in Lwów before the Second World warWeigl came to Kraków in 1945. He was appointed the Chair of General Microbiology Institute of the Jagiellonian University, and later as the Chair of Biology of the Medical Faculty in Poznań. Production of the vaccine remained in Kraków in the following years until discontinued. Weigl died on August 11, 1957. The Weigl Institute features prominently in Andrzej Żuławski's 1971 film The Third Part of the Night. In 2003, professor Weigl was posthumously awarded the medal of Righteous Among the Nations of the World by the state of Israel. Method of Vaccine ProductionIn 1930, following the 1909 discovery of Charles Nicolle that lice were the vector of epidemic typhus and on the work for the vaccine for the closely related Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, Weigl took the next step and developed a technique to produce the vaccine by growing infected lice and crushing them into a vaccine paste. He refined this technique over the years until 1933 when he performed large-scale testing. The method specifically broke into 4 major steps: Growing healthy lice, for about 12 days Injecting them with typhus Growing them more, for 5 more days Extracting the midguts and grinding them up into a paste (which was the vaccine) Weigl Monument in WrocławGrowing lice meant feeding them blood, the more human the better. At first he tested his method on Guinea pigs but around 1933 he commenced large-scale testing on humans, feeding the lice on human blood by letting them suck on human legs through a screen. This could cause typhus during the latter phase, when the lice were infected. He alleviated this problem by vaccinating the human "injectors" heavily, which successfully protected them from death (though some did develop the disease). Dr. Weigl himself developed the disease, but recovered. The first major application of this vaccine took place between 1936 and 1943 by the Belgian missionaries in China. The vaccine was dangerous to produce and was hard to make on a large scale. Other vaccines were developed over time that were less dangerous and more economical to produce, including the Cox vaccine developed from egg yolk. Rudolf Weigl at his deskwww.lwow.com.pl/weigl/wnuczki.html
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Post by pieter on Feb 23, 2013 15:10:24 GMT -7
Polish Righteous Among the NationsIrena Sendlerowa, helped rescue 2,500 Jewish children from the Ghetto during Holocaust in German-occupied Poland (1939-1945) WW II. Jan Karski, first reported the Holocaust to President Franklin D. Roosevelt Witold Pilecki, the only person known to have voluntarily gone to Auschwitz as a witness Jan Żabiński, sheltered hundreds of displaced Jews at his Warsaw Zoo Henryk Sławik, helped save over 5,000 Polish Jews in Budapest by giving them false 'arian' passports Władysław Bartoszewski, Jewish Uprising assistance (Delegatura) Irene Gut Opdyke, rescued sixteen Jews by becoming Nazi mistress Rudolf Weigl, made and supplied vaccines to two Jewish ghettos Władysław Kowalski, hid 50 Jews around Warsaw, as Philips employee Anna Borkowska, saved 17 young Jewish Zionists in her Vilna convent Szczepan Bradlo and family, saved three families of 16 in a dugout Ana and Jan Puchalski Józef Tkaczyk, his wife Zofia and daughter Genowefa, (Silesia) Jan Żabiński and wife Antonina Waclaw Nowinski, his wife Janina and son Waclaw,(Warsaw) Andrzej Garbuliński with sons Marian and Władyslaw Maria Fedecka, saved 12 members of close Jewish families in Wilno Antoni Gawrylkiewicz, saved three Jewish families consisting of 16 members Wincenty Antonowicz with wife Jadwiga and daughter Lucyna, ( Vilna) Jozef Adamowicz (Krakow) Irena Adamowicz, Warsaw Ghetto courier and writerHenryk Woliński, harbored 25 Jews in his apartment, helped 283 (AK BIP) Henryk Iwański, arms and military support for the Jewish Uprising, (AK) Jan Dobraczyński, placed Jewish children in Catholic convents Julian Grobelny with wife Halina, rescued a large number of Jewish children ( President of Zegota) Mieczysław Fogg, hid a Jewish family in his apartment till the end of WWII Kystyna Danko, hid and supplied a Jewish family of four with food, clothing and money Ferdynand Arczyński took care of 4,000 Jews on the " Aryan" side of Warsaw ( Zegota treasurer) Jerzy Latoszynsky, his wife Eugenia and daughters, Theresa and Ela Stanislaw Jasinski and daughter EmiliaStefan Jagodziński, saved Dr. Tenenwurzel's family of three (member of resistance) Maria Kotarba, " Angel of Auschwitz" delivering food and medicine, cooking for Jewish female prisoners in Auschwitz Marian Burakowski with wife AlicjaZofia Kossak-Szczucka, helped save several thousand Jews, especially children (co-founder of Zegota) Tadeusz Pankiewicz, operated the only pharmacy in the Jewish Ghetto of Kraków and distributed free medicine Konrad Rudnicki and his mother Maria harbored the Weintraubs family during WWII Barbara and son Jerzy Szacki, harboured a pregnant Ghetto fugitive with a 5-year-old, helped with the newborn Jerzy Zagórski and wife Maria, harbored 18 Jews in their home before the Warsaw Uprising Igor Newerly, saved Janusz Korczak's diary of martyrdom, harboured several Warsaw Ghetto journalists Aleksander Kamiński, helped organize Jewish resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto ( Home Army representative) Stefan Korboński, alerted London and the BBC about the ongoing destruction of the Jews, to no avail (Delegatura) Helena Podgórska (a six-year old), assisted her older sister Stefania hid 13 Jews for two and a half years Some of the 6,066 Polish Righteous Among the Nations In German-occupied Poland, all household members were punished by death if a Jew were found concealed in their home or property. This was the most severe law enforced by the Germans in occupied Europe. The movie Hidden in Silence, in two parts www.dailymotion.com/playlist/x1o0s0_amitaa_hidden-in-silence/1#video=xk4p5owww.dailymotion.com/video/xk4prh_hidden-in-silence-part-2_shortfilms#.USlDEI5rq9Q
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Post by Jaga on Feb 23, 2013 21:12:21 GMT -7
Pieter, thanks for a reminder about Mr. Weigl, I did not know that much about him!
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Post by JustJohn or JJ on Feb 24, 2013 5:44:27 GMT -7
Pieter, Great presentations that I was unaware of. Thank you.
I especially liked the ones about Sugihara.
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Post by JustJohn or JJ on Feb 24, 2013 7:43:50 GMT -7
I often heard of 'A Bohemian Lifestyle'.BBC News Magazine 23 February 2013 Last updated at 21:13 ET A Point of View: The Winter Queen of BohemiaElizabeth, Queen of Bohemia was a hugely powerful figure in her time. She deserves her rightful place in history, argues Lisa Jardine. I was sorry to have to miss a recent event at which Radio 4's Woman's Hour announced the results of their Power List - their pick of the UK's 100 most powerful women. I was going instead to an event in the Netherlands, to celebrate another once extremely powerful, now largely forgotten, woman - Elizabeth of Bohemia.On Valentine's Day 1613, a celebrity wedding took place in the Royal Chapel at Whitehall Palace in London. The bride was James I's 16-year-old daughter, Princess Elizabeth Stuart. The groom (also 16) was Frederick V, heir to the German Palatinate territories and titular head of the league of Protestant Princes. This was an enormously popular match, the occasion for an outpouring of public affection for the young couple on the streets of London. John Donne's was only one among dozens of extravagant Epithalamia, or wedding poems, published to mark the occasion. The wedding ceremony lived up to expectations. It was later described as "a wonder of ceremonial and magnificence even for that extravagant age". The bride was dressed in cloth of silver lined with taffeta, with a crown "of immense value" on her head. Sixteen noble bridesmaids, dressed in white satin, carried her train. Her hair hung in plaits down to her waist, and between every plait was "a roll of gold spangles, pearls, rich stones and diamonds... many diamonds of inestimable value were embroidered upon her sleeves which even dazzled and amazed the eyes of all the beholders." Elizabeth was apparently overcome with adolescent laughter as she took her vows. For almost two months the couple were feted and feasted in the capital. They eventually set out on the journey to their palace in Heidelberg, sailing from Margate to Vlissingen in Holland. When they reached The Hague they were welcomed as family - Frederick was the Stadholder's nephew - and treated to celebrations to match any they had left behind in London. At her departure five days later, Princess Elizabeth was presented with a collection of gems and pearls, together with tapestries, damask table linen, tableware and household furnishings to the value of £10,000 (well over £1m in today's money). Six years later, in late 1619, Frederick and Elizabeth were crowned King and Queen of Bohemia (today part of the Czech Republic) at the invitation of the Bohemian Confederacy, to prevent a Catholic incumbent ascending the throne - only to be driven from their court in Prague and deprived of all their Palatinate lands the following year by the Hapsburg Emperor Ferdinand. The "Winter King and Queen" - so called because their reign had lasted a single winter - sought refuge back in the Netherlands, in The Hague. Frederick died in 1632, but Elizabeth lived on in the Dutch Republic for a further 30 years, returning to England in 1661, a year before her death and a year after the restoration of her nephew Charles II. It was to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the wedding of the Winter King and Queen that I came to be in the Hague last week, walking through heavy snow past the Mauritshuis to the grand opening of a glorious exhibition of 17th Century paintings of the couple and their family. The Hague's glitterati were there, as was the British ambassador to the Netherlands. This was, after all, at its heart, a very British occasion, even if the speeches were in Dutch. As I listened to our host praising the enduring political power and influence of Elizabeth of Bohemia, Holland's queen of hearts, I asked myself why there had been no equivalent celebration in the UK? How had we missed the opportunity to mark the appearance on the royal scene of a couple who in their own day had matched the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge for glamour, and who at the time of their marriage were similarly destined to achieve international power and influence? How, above all, have we all but forgotten the Winter Queen? Many readers will never even have heard of her. And yet during the period of the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) Elizabeth was one of the foremost power brokers for the Protestant cause in Europe. When her husband died unexpectedly from the plague at Mainz while on perpetual military campaign, Elizabeth was forced to take Palatine affairs firmly into her own hands, vociferously continuing to lay claim to the disputed territories on behalf of her children. In this most political period of her life, Elizabeth devised ploys to gain financial, moral, and military support for the Palatine cause, frequently in direct opposition to her brother Charles I's wishes and demands. Mauritshaus in The Hague, a city where Elizabeth spent many years in exile More than 2,000 of her letters survive, revealing her to have been a key cultural, political and religious figure, her views taken seriously from London to Prague. Lobbying, bargaining, negotiating and cajoling, she was a major player during a particularly unsettled period of European history. In the end, she was successful in having her eldest son Charles Louis reinstated as Elector Palatine, and subsequently restored at the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, to his Lower Palatinate lands along the Rhine. Elizabeth's role in the affairs of the UK was equally important. Half a century after her death, when it became clear that Queen Anne would die without heirs, Elizabeth of Bohemia's youngest daughter Sophia (who had married the Elector of Hanover) was designated heir presumptive to the British throne, once again to put paid to a Catholic claimant. Sophia's son George I subsequently became King of Great Britain and Ireland in 1714. All British monarchs ever since are descended from Elizabeth of Bohemia. Why then is she largely hidden from history? Looking for an answer, I turned my attention back to that search for powerful women on Radio 4's Woman's Hour. The declared goal there was to look beyond the obvious candidates to find women who exercise real authority and can influence the outcomes of significant events. And indeed they were not hard to find. In the end the judges confessed that the difficulty had been whittling down a possible list of 250 or more to that top 100. What strikes me as I read the final list is that the real issue is not whether there are women in powerful positions (there clearly are) but whether their presence and importance is properly acknowledged in the train of events that eventually become our nation's history. Many of those on the list have been doing a great job for years, whether in public life or more discreetly behind the scenes. Their influence extends across business and commerce, politics and philanthropy, culture and journalism, science and technology. But like the Queen of Bohemia, relegated to the margins despite the pivotal role she played in international politics throughout much of the 17th Century, there is still a tendency in public debate to diminish the significance of women's actual achievements, and underrate their importance. When the big, defining stories are told, all too often it is still the protagonists in a recognisable male, adversarial mould who get the attention. Women outnumbered men by four to one at Bletchley Park during World War II, and played a vital part in the code-breaking operations that were key to the Allied victory. Yet modern accounts rarely feature any of the heroic female cryptographers who worked there in total secrecy for years. Bohemia was historic kingdom of central Europe, located in what is now Czech Republic, with Prague as its capital At height of its power, in the Middle Ages, the King of Bohemia ruled area from Hungary to Adriatic sea. It was ruled by Austrian Hapsburg dynasty from 1524 to 1918 Discontent among Bohemian protestant nobility against Catholic rulers among causes of Thirty Years' War Use of word "bohemian" to describe artistic or unconventional lifestyle derives from 19th Century France - "bohemians" said to resemble gypsies or Romeni, some of whom had come from BohemiaIn spite of her formidable presence in politics, profiles of the Home Secretary, Theresa May, who ranked second on the Power List, still like to dwell on her weakness for designer shoes, just as Elizabeth of Bohemia, if remembered at all, is likely to be associated with her pet monkeys and lapdogs, rather than with her impressive portfolio of international political contacts. Will ranked lists put this right? I somehow doubt it. First we need to reframe the stories of our past, in which, after all, lie the origins of our present understanding of ourselves. Those tales too have favoured warriors and generals, tycoons and tough boardroom bosses, lone, dysfunctional scientific geniuses, angry self-destructive artists, overlooking their equally single-minded female equivalents who were obliged to make their world-changing interventions in other ways. And for a start we need to give women like Elizabeth of Bohemia their proper place as powerful figures in their own right in the history of their times.
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Post by pieter on Feb 24, 2013 12:09:20 GMT -7
Very interesting story of Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia. I didn't know about her connection to the Netherlands and her role during the reformation as a lady who worked for the Protestant cause.
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Post by JustJohn or JJ on Mar 4, 2013 10:44:23 GMT -7
You may be aware of this story. I wasn't, but nonetheless I found it fascinating. In 1933, a beautiful, young Austrian woman took off her clothes for a movie director. She ran through the woods ... naked. She swam in a lake ... naked. Pushing well beyond the social norms of the period, the movie also featured a simulated orgasm. The most popular movie in 1933 was King Kong. But everyone in Hollywood was talking about that scandalous movie with the gorgeous, young Austrian woman. Louis B. Mayer, of the giant studio MGM, said she was the most beautiful woman in the world. The film was banned practically everywhere ... which of course made it even more popular and valuable. Mussolini reportedly refused to sell his copy at any price. The star of the film, called Ecstasy, was Hedwig Kiesler. She said the secret of her beauty was "to stand there and look stupid." In reality, Kiesler was anything but stupid. She was a genius. She'd grown up as the only child of a prominent Jewish banker. She was a math prodigy. She excelled at science. As she grew older, she became ruthless, using all the power her body and mind gave her. Between the sexual roles she played, her tremendous beauty, and the power of her intellect, Kiesler would confound the men in her life ... including her six husbands, two of the most ruthless dictators of the 20th century, and one of the greatest movie producers in history. Her beauty made her rich for a time. She is said to have made -- and spent -- $30 million in her life. But her greatest accomplishment resulted from her intellect ...And her invention continues to shape the world we live in today. You see, this young Austrian starlet would take one of the most valuable technologies ever developed right from under Hitler's nose. After fleeing to America, she not only became a major Hollywood star ... her name sits on one of the most important patents ever granted by the U.S. Patent Office. Today, when you use your cell phone or, over the next few years, as you experience super-fast wireless Internet access (via something called "long-term evolution" or LTE" technology), you'll be using an extension of the technology a 20- year-old actress first conceived while sitting at dinner with Hitler. At the time she made Ecstasy, Kiesler was married to one of the richest men in Austria. Friedrich Mandl was Austria 's leading arms maker. His firm would become a key supplier to the Nazis. Mandl used his beautiful young wife as a showpiece at important business dinners with representatives of the Austrian, Italian, and German fascist forces. One of Mandl's favorite topics at these gatherings -- which included meals with Hitler and Mussolini -- was the technology surrounding radio-controlled missiles and torpedoes. Wireless weapons offered far greater ranges than the wire-controlled alternatives that prevailed at the time. Kiesler sat through these dinners "looking stupid," while absorbing everything she heard ... As a Jew, Kiesler hated the Nazis. She abhorred her husband's business ambitions. Mandl responded to his wilful wife by imprisoning her in his castle, Schloss Schwarzenau. In 1937, she managed to escape. She drugged her maid, snuck out of the castle wearing the maid's clothes, and sold her jewelry to finance a trip to London. (She got out just in time. In 1938, Germany annexed Austria. The Nazis seized Mandl's factory. He was half Jewish. Mandl fled to Brazil. Later, he became an advisor to Argentina's iconic populist president, Juan Peron.) In London, Kiesler arranged a meeting with Louis B. Mayer. She signed a long-term contract with him, becoming one of MGM's biggest stars. She appeared in more than 20 films. She was a co-star to Clark Gable, Judy Garland, and even Bob Hope. Each of her first seven MGM movies was a blockbuster. But Kiesler cared far more about fighting the Nazis than about making movies. At the height of her fame, in 1942, she developed a new kind of communications system, optimized for sending coded messages that couldn't be "jammed." She was building a system that would allow torpedoes and guided bombs to always reach their targets. She was building a system to kill Nazis. By the 1940s, both the Nazis and the Allied forces were using the kind of single-frequency radio-controlled technology Kiesler's ex-husband had been peddling. The drawback of this technology was that the enemy could find the appropriate frequency and "jam" or intercept the signal, thereby interfering with the missile's intended path. Kiesler's key innovation was to "change the channel." It was a way of encoding a message across a broad area of the wireless spectrum. If one part of the spectrum was jammed, the message would still get through on one of the other frequencies being used. The problem was, she could not figure out how to synchronize the frequency changes on both the receiver and the transmitter. To solve the problem, she turned to perhaps the world's first techno-musician, George Anthiel. Anthiel was an acquaintance of Kiesler who achieved some notoriety for creating intricate musical compositions. He synchronized his melodies across twelve player pianos, producing stereophonic sounds no one had ever heard before. Kiesler incorporated Anthiel's technology for synchronizing his player pianos. Then, she was able to synchronize the frequency changes between a weapon's receiver and its transmitter.On August 11, 1942, U.S. Patent No. 2,292,387 was granted to Antheil and "Hedy Kiesler Markey," which was Kiesler's married name at the time. Most of you won't recognize the name Kiesler. And no one would remember the name Hedy Markey. But it's a fair bet than anyone reading this newsletter of a certain age will remember one of the great beauties of Hollywood 's golden age -- Hedy Lamarr. That's the name Louis B. Mayer gave to his prize actress. That's the name his movie company made famous. Meanwhile, almost no one knows Hedwig Kiesler -- aka Hedy Lamarr -- was one of the great pioneers of wireless communications. Her technology was developed by the U.S. Navy, which has used it ever since.You're probably using Lamarr's technology, too. Her patent sits at the foundation of "spread spectrum technology," which you use every day when you log on to a wi- fi network or make calls with your Bluetooth-enabled phone. It lies at the heart of the massive investments being made right now in so-called fourth-generation "LTE" wireless technology. This next generation of cell phones and cell towers will provide tremendous increases to wireless network speed and quality, by spreading wireless signals across the entire available spectrum. This kind of encoding is only possible using the kind of frequency switching that Hedwig Kiesler invented.
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Post by JustJohn or JJ on Mar 9, 2013 4:58:30 GMT -7
Our Military..Did Anyone Know This? Posted - 13 hours ago A chaplain, who happened to be assigned to the Pentagon, told of an >> > incident that happened right after Flight 77 hit the Pentagon on 9/11. >> > >> > A daycare facility inside the Pentagon had many children, >> > including infants who were in heavy cribs. The daycare supervisor, >> > looking at all the children they needed to evacuate, was in a panic >> > over what they could do. There were many children, mostly toddlers, >> > as well as the infants that would need to be taken out with the >> > cribs. >> > >> > There was no time to try to bundle them into carriers and >> > strollers. Just then a young Marine came running into the center and >> > >> > asked what they needed. After hearing what the center director was >> > >> > trying to do, he ran back out into the hallway and disappeared. The >> > >> > director thought, "Well, here we are, on our own." >> > >> > About 2 minutes later, that Marine returned with 40 other Marines in >> > tow. Each of them grabbed a crib with a child, and the rest started >> > gathering up toddlers. The director and her staff then helped them >> > take all the children out of the center and down toward the park >> > near the Potomac. >> > >> > Once they got about 3/4 of a mile outside the building, the Marines >> > stopped in the park, and then did a fabulous thing - they formed a >> > circle with the cribs, which were quite sturdy and heavy, like the >> > covered wagons in the Old West. Inside this circle of cribs, they >> > put the toddlers, to keep them from wandering off. Outside this >> > circle were the 40 Marines, forming a perimeter around the children >> > and waiting for instructions. There they remained until the parents >> > could be notified and come get their children. >> > >> > The chaplain then said, "I don't think any of us saw nor heard of this >> on >> > any of the news stories of the day. It was an incredible story of our >> men >> > there. >> > >> > There wasn't a dry eye in the room. The thought of those Marines and >> > what they did and how fast they reacted; could we expect any less >> > from them? It was one of the most touching stories from the Pentagon. >> > >> > It's the Military, not the politicians, that ensures our right to >> > life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It's the Military who >> > salutes the flag, who serves beneath the flag, and whose coffin is >> draped by >> > the flag. >> > >> > If you care to offer the smallest token of recognition and >> > appreciation for the military, please pass this on and pray for our >> > men and women, who have served and are currently serving our >> > country, and pray for those who have given the ultimate sacrifice for >> > freedom. >> > >> > Remember: Freedom isn't free--It costs a great deal!! >> > >> > GOD BLESS OUR MILITARY
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