Starting on Christmas Eve, many German and British troops sang Christmas carols to each other across the lines, and at certain points the Allied soldiers even heard brass bands joining the Germans in their joyous singing.
At the first light of dawn on Christmas Day, some German soldiers emerged from their trenches and approached the Allied lines across no-man’s-land, calling out “Merry Christmas” in their enemies’ native tongues. At first, the Allied soldiers feared it was a trick, but seeing the Germans unarmed they climbed out of their trenches and shook hands with the enemy soldiers. The men exchanged presents of cigarettes and plum puddings and sang carols and songs. There was even a documented case of soldiers from opposing sides playing a good-natured game of football. In other cases some soldiers used this short-lived ceasefire for a more somber task: the retrieval of the bodies of fellow combatants who had fallen within the no-man’s land between the lines.
The Christmas Truce of 1914 came only five months after the outbreak of the war in Europe, and became one of the last examples of the outdated notion of chivalry between enemies in modern warfare. It was never repeated—future attempts at holiday ceasefires were quashed by officers’ threats of disciplinary action—but it served as heartening proof, however brief, that beneath the brutal clash of weapons, the soldiers’ essential humanity endured.
History lessons drummed into me the severity and brutality of the war, which makes this all the more amazing
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Jewish men were being picked up and put into concentration camps. They were told you have X amount of time to leave — two weeks, a month — if you can find a country that will take you. Outside, their wives and friends were struggling to get a passport, a visa, anything to help them get out. But embassies were closing their doors all over, and countries, including the United States, were closing their borders. … It started as a rumor in Vienna… ‘There’s a place you can go where you don’t need a visa. They have free entry.’ It just spread like fire and whoever could, went for it.
Janklowicz-Mann, on the Shanghai Ghetto
(Source: wsws.org)
President Franklin Roosevelt delivered his “Four Freedoms” speech on January 6, 1941, named for his ”four essential human freedoms,”: freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. As America became engaged in World War II, painter Norman Rockwell did a series of paintings illustrating the four freedoms as international goals that went beyond just defeating the Axis powers.
In 1885, nineteen-year-old Wilson A. Bentley took his first successful photomicrograph of a snow crystal. He went on to capture over 5000 such images before he died on Dec. 23, 1931, after walking six miles in a blizzard in order to photograph more snowflakes.
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One German Jew became flustered when asked for his name and mumbled, ‘Schoyn vergessen [I forgot].’ The inspector, who did not understand Yiddish, wrote ‘Sean Ferguson’ on the man’s roster.
my history textbook has the best antidotes (via sophelstien)
Elizabeth Eckford ignores the hostile screams and stares of fellow students on her first day of school on Sept. 6, 1957, in Little Rock, Ark. She was one of the nine African American students whose integration into Little Rock’s Central High School was ordered by a federal court following legal action by the NAACP. (via)
“The following day, President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent U.S. Army troops to accompany her to school for protection.”
Gosh but Issac Newton was a rotten kid.
Sir Isaac Newton lists 48 of his plentiful sins. He was a brilliant man but, evidently, a naughty teen.
“Wishing death and hoping it to some” ahahha so cute
This picture, found by former BBC newsreader Richard Whitmore during a trawl of archives in Hitchin, Hertfordshire, shows the First XI hockey team from Hitchin Boys’ Grammar School saluting a visiting team of German players.
In six months’ time, the two groups of young men would be mobilised on opposing sides of the battlefield as the Second World War began.
Left: Pretty Boy Floyd
Right: Baby Face Nelson
Charles Arthur “Pretty Boy” Floyd (February 3, 1904 – October 22, 1934) was an American bank robber. He operated in the Midwest and West South Central States, and his criminal exploits gained heavy press coverage in the 1930s. Like most other prominent outlaws of that era, he was killed by policemen. He remains a familiar figure in American popular culture, sometimes seen as notorious, but at other times viewed as a tragic figure, partly a victim of hard times.
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He was first arrested at age 18 after he stole $3.50 in coins from a local post office. Three years later he was arrested for a payroll robbery on September 16, 1925 in St. Louis, Missouri and served five years in prison.
When paroled, Floyd vowed that he would never see the inside of another prison. Entering into partnerships with more established criminals in the Kansas City underworld, he committed a series of bank robberies over the next several years; it was during this period that he acquired the nickname “Pretty Boy.” According to one account, when the payroll master targeted in a robbery described the three perpetrators to the police, he referred to Floyd as “a mere boy — a pretty boy with apple cheeks.” Like his contemporary Baby Face Nelson, Floyd hated his nickname.
Gorgo, Queen of Sparta and wife of Leonidas, as quoted by Plutarch
| "Why are you Spartan women the only ones who can rule men?" |
| "Because we are also the only ones who give birth to real men." |
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Through the 1950s, the list was primarily comprised of bank robbers, burglars and car thieves. Once into the radical 1960s, the list reflected the revolutionaries of the times, with destruction of government property, sabotage and kidnapping dominating the list. During the 1970s, with the FBI’s concentration on organized crime and terrorism, the ‘Ten Most Wanted Fugitives’ included many fugitives with organized crime ties or links to terrorist groups. In the 1980s and 1990s, the list included sexual predators, international terrorists and drug traffickers.
A spokeswoman for the FBI who asked not to be named, to TIME
(Source: TIME)
![lettersfromhere:
The Dutch method of [Google satellite image] censorship is notable for its stylistic inventiveness compared to other countries: imposing bold, multi-coloured polygons over sites rather than the subtler and more standard techniques employed elsewhere. The result is a landscape occasionally punctuated by sharp aesthetic contrasts between secret sites and the rural and urban environments surrounding them.
(via Dutch Landscapes | New Writing | Granta Magazine)](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m2zvn458821qzdiowo1_500.jpg)
The Dutch method of [Google satellite image] censorship is notable for its stylistic inventiveness compared to other countries: imposing bold, multi-coloured polygons over sites rather than the subtler and more standard techniques employed elsewhere. The result is a landscape occasionally punctuated by sharp aesthetic contrasts between secret sites and the rural and urban environments surrounding them.
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On 9 March, a group of the conspirators, accompanied by her own husband Darnley, murdered her lover Rizzio in front of the pregnant Mary, Queen of Scots at a dinner party in Holyrood Palace.
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Before her execution, the executioners (one named Bull and his assistant) knelt before her and asked forgiveness. She replied, “I forgive you with all my heart, for now, I hope, you shall make an end of all my troubles.
Girl so knew drah-ma.
“Leave it to Lennon to be a wise-ass in front of the Queen Mum. I love it.”
Rattle your jewelry (by ParaskeviKoutouba)
Joseph Stalin, 1902
“That’s right, ladies. The next time you’re at a party and you see a guy who looks like a rugged, more handsome Keanu Reeves with Johnny Depp hair, playing a guitar and staring at you with his big, soulful eyes, keep in mind that in 40 years he could very easily turn into a brutal Soviet dictator.” — Cracked
