History: Wait, what? This really happened?

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Nckdictator: Sep 8, 2006; Just..someone

Josiah Harlan is one of my favorite little known historical figures if only because his life reads like a bad adventure movie.

A American Quaker merchant seaman jilted by his fianc� in 1822, he vows never to return to the United States. Harlan jumps ship in Calcutta and passes himself off as a doctor to British rulers there. Over the next decades he ingratiates himself with Indian and Afghani royalty, leads armies, invades distant lands, becomes fluent in various local dialects, is thoroughly seduced by Afghan culture, and ultimately reigns as a prince of an Afghan land in the Hindu Kush. Along the way he studies the flora and fauna with scholarly interest and thoroughly enjoys himself despite brushes with death, disease and duplicitous potentates.

...

So then he returns to the United States and..

With his funds dwindling, Harlan began taking on new tasks. He began lobbying the American government to import camels to settle the Western United States. His real hope was that they would order their camels from Afghanistan and send him there as purchasing agent. Harlan convinced the government that camels would be a worthy investment (Secretary of War Jefferson Davis was particularly interested), but it was decided that it would be cheaper to import them from Africa than from Afghanistan. When the US Army discovered the resistance of American horses, mules, and cows to the aggressive camels, the Camel Corps was disbanded in 1863. Camels were set free in Arizona.

Harlan next decided that he would convince the government to buy Afghan grapes. He spent two years working on this venture, but the coming of the American Civil War prevented this. Harlan then proposed to raise a regiment.

Always horrified by slavery, he raised a Union regiment, but he was used to dealing with military underlings in the way an oriental prince would. This led to a messy court-martial, but the aging Harlan ended his service due to medical problems.

He wound up in San Francisco, working as a doctor, dying of tuberculosis in 1871. He was essentially forgotten.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josiah_Harlan

And lastly

Scott Reiniger, star of classic 1978 horror film Dawn of the Dead, is Harlan's great-great-great-grandson, and thus as of 2011 heir to the title Prince of Ghor.

Edit: The story of the Camel Corps is amazing in itself. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hi_Jolly

# ¿ Jan 19, 2011 09:22

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# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 19:04

Nckdictator: Sep 8, 2006; Just..someone

Crazy Turkish Sultans are the best.

quote:

... Sometimes Murad disguised himself and, accompanied by his executioner, he wandered the streets incognito, personally carrying out inspections. When he came across some "troublemaker", Murad would turn to the executioner and select the tool he thought most suited to the job. Thus Murad had many people mercilessly executed and corpses hung at every street corner. In the early years of his reign, his executions had been justified by unquestionable guilt, but later he was killing out off ill humour or a whim. Once, he forced one of his doctors to swallow an overdose of his own opium. He impaled a courier for informing him mistakenly that he had become father of a boy, whereas in fact it was a daughter. Murad's cruelty became legendary and his approach created a terrified silence everywhere. He cut off the head of every man who came under the slightest suspicion; in 5 years time he executed some 25,000 subjects. His musician, for example, was beheaded for playing a Persian melody. In 1633, coffee houses, wine shops and taverns were closed, because they were meeting places where people could spend their time criticising the government. Murad passed a law prohibiting smoking and the consumption of alcohol or coffee throughout the Ottoman Empire on pain of death. When he caught anyone with a pipe or a cup of coffee, Murad had the offender executed on the spot, although he himself indulged in both habits

Knowing the strife among the harem women, Sultana K�sem had tried to encourage her son to homosexual love, showing him only beautiful boys and keeping him away from girls. During the rest of his life Murad was to show both feelings of lust and hate for women. Once Murad encountered a group of women singing in a meadow and ordered all of them to be drowned for disturbing his peace. When a boat with ladies came too close to the harem walls, Murad ordered his gunners to open fire, sinking the boat and drowning them all. At other times, he forced his harem women to jump naked into a pool. He liked to fire harmless pellets at their bodies or fill the pool with so much water that they had to jump up and down to take a breath. Murad was also intensely jealous. A man who added a room to the top of his house was hanged, because Murad thought he had done it to peer over the palace walls into his harem.

During the last years of his life Murad became addicted to alcohol. It turned him into a homicidal maniac. Dimitrie Cantemir of Moldavia (1678-1723) wrote: "Very often at midnight he stole out of the women's quarters through the private gate of the palace with his drawn sword, and running through the streets barefooted with only a loose gown around him, like a madman, killed whoever came his way." He took particular pleasure in beheading men with fat necks. Murad practised his powers with the arquebus from the palace walls on passers by - in case they were intending to look into the harem. While riding out, armed with his bow, he used to practise his aim on any passing woman...

quote:

Ibrahim was born on November 5, 1616, as a younger son of Sultan Ahmed I (1590-1617). As an infant he had been locked up in the "Cage", and ever since he had been living in fear of death. The Sultans Osman II (1604-1622) and Murad IV (1612-1640) had executed all their brothers - except Ibrahim. In 1640, Murad actually ordered Ibrahim's death on his deathbed, because he thought it better for the dynasty to end rather than continue with 'insane seed'. But their mother, Sultana K�sem, intervened.When he had finally left the "Cage", Ibrahim began dancing through the harem, while screaming: "The butcher of the Empire is dead!".

Seeking compensation for his lost years, 23-year-old Ibrahim indulged in an urge for debauchery. Sultana K�sem was happy to reign in her son's place, so she took care of an endless supply of virgins and fat women for his pleasure. Ibrahim was frequently impotent so his mother supplied him with aphrodisiacs, too. Ibrahim preferred women he could not have and found it difficult to make love to slave-girls, who were not in a position to refuse him anything. Dimitri Cantemir of Moldavia wrote: "In the palace gardens he frequently assembled all the virgins, made them strip themselves naked, and neighing like a stallion ran amongst them and as it were ravished one or the other, kicking or struggling by his order". When Ibrahim met the beautiful daughter of the Grand Mufti, Turkey's highest religious leader, he asked him for her hand in marriage. The Mufti, aware of the debaucheries in the harem, advised his daughter to refuse the proposal. Ibrahim was enraged and had the girl followed and kidnapped. He ravaged her for a couple of days and then sent her back to her father. Another time Ibrahim treatened to stuff his Grand Vezir with straw unless he recovered presents given by previous Sultans to the shrine at Medina.

In 1641, one of Ibrahim's concubines, Turhan Hadice (1627-1682), gave birth to his first son, Prince Mehmed (1642-1687). Shortly before the birth, Ibrahim (to the right) acquired a slave girl, who accidentally happened to be pregnant. After the birth she was employed as a wet nurse for the little Prince and so she moved into the Royal harem with her own son. The Sultan was so taken with the healthy and robust little boy - a contrast with his own fragile and sickly son - that he spent a lot of time with him. When Turhan Hadice complained, Ibrahim had one of his rages; he tore his son from his mother's arms and threw him into the pool. Luckily, Mehmed survived. Three months after Mehmed's birth another concubine gave birth to Ibrahim's second son, S�leyman (1642-1691). More sons soon followed. In 1645, Ibrahim betrothed his 3-year old daughter Fatima to Kapudan Yusuf Pasha*, but he had him executed within a year.

The shops of jewellers and European merchants were pillaged to satisfy Ibrahim's whims and tastes of the moment. Ibrahim used to drench his beard, clothes and room hangings with perfumes, especially the exotic ambergris. He had a fetish for furs: his clothes, curtains and walls were all decorated with fur. His pillows were stuffed with it and he had a preference for making love on sable skins. Ibrahim collected books expressing the various ways of coition and he was said to have invented some new and previously unknown positions himself. Once, Ibrahim happened to see the private parts of a wild young cow and according to Cantemir, "he sent the shape of them in gold all over the Empire with orders to make enquiries whether a woman made in just that manner could be found for his lust". A woman fitting the description was found in Armenia and she was received into the harem. Her name was Sechir Para ("Sugar Cube") and she weighed around 150 kilograms. Ibrahim became madly infatuated with her.

One day Sechir Para told Ibrahim about a rumour that one of his concubines was "compromised by an outsider", but she didn't know any details, like the girl's name. Ibrahim promptly raged for three days. When his son Mehmed made a joke that Ibrahim didn't like, he took his dagger and thrust it in his little son's face. Mehmed was to carry the resulting scar on his forehead until the end of his life. The chief black eunuch, the most powerful man after the Grand Vezir, tried to find the identity of the concubine by torturing some of the harem girls, but he was not provided with a name. Then Ibrahim decided to have his entire harem of 280 women thrown into the Bosporus, tied up in weighted sacks. Sechir Para and Turhan Hadice were spared. Only one other girl survived, because her sack had not been sufficiently tied up. She was dragged out of the water by the crew of a French ship. Eventually Sultana K�sem became jealous of Sechir Para's influence and one day she invited the woman to dinner and had her strangled. She told the inconsolable Ibrahim that the woman "had died suddenly of a powerful illness".

In the provinces the custodians of public property turned into feudal lords. Offices were sold to the highest bidder or given to favourites, taxes were increased and every resource possible was drained to supply the demands of the Sultan's excesses. Ibrahim was indifferent to the chaotic situation in his country and his insane behaviour alienated all political fractions. But the birth of his sons had made Ibrahim replaceable. In 1648, the Janissaries revolted because they were paid poorly or not at all. They cut up the body of the Grand Vezir and sold it in the street. Then the Grand Mufti decided to take revenge for the deflowering of his daughter by sanctioning a coup. When Ibrahim asked him: "Did I not appoint you to this high office?", he replied: "No, God appointed me." Thus Ibrahim was deposed and put back in the "Cage". Confined once again, he became a raving lunatic. Despite the thick walls, his cries could be heard day and night. A week after losing his throne, on August 18, the executioners entered the "Cage". With the Koran in his hand, Ibrahim cried out: "Behold! God's book! By what writ shall you murder me?" and "Is there no one among those who have eaten my bread who will take pity on me and protect me? These cruel men have come to kill me. Mercy! Mercy!" Nevertheless, he was strangled with a bowstring and buried in the Haghia Sophia Mosque beside Mad Mustafa.

And of course the famous letter sent by the Cossacks when asked by one of the sultan's to surrender.

quote:

The text of the Sultan's letter to the Cossacks:

As the Sultan; son of Muhammad; brother of the Sun and Moon; grandson and viceroy of God; ruler of the kingdoms of Macedonia, Babylon, Jerusalem, Upper and Lower Egypt; emperor of emperors; sovereign of sovereigns; extraordinary knight, never defeated; steadfast guardian of the tomb of Jesus Christ; trustee chosen by God himself; the hope and comfort of Muslims; confounder and great defender of Christians�I command you, the Zaporozhian Cossacks, to submit to me voluntarily and without any resistance, and to desist from troubling me with your attacks.

�Turkish Sultan Mehmed IV

quote:

Zaporozhian Cossacks to the Turkish Sultan!

Thou art a turkish imp, the damned devil's brother and friend, and a secretary to Lucifer himself. What the devil kind of knight art thou that cannot slay a hedgehog with your naked arse? The devil shits, and your army eats. Thou a son of a bitch wilt not ever make subjects of Christian sons; we have no fear of your army, by land and by sea we will battle with thee, gently caress thy mother.

Thou art the Babylonian scullion, Macedonian wheelwright, brewer of Jerusalem, goat-fucker of Alexandria, swineherd of Greater and Lesser Egypt, Armenian pig, Podolian villain, catamite of Tartary, hangman of Kamyanets, and fool of all the world and underworld, a fool before our God, a grandson of the Serpent, and the crick in our dick. Pig's snout, mare's arse, slaughterhouse cur, unchristened brow, screw thine own mother!

So the Zaporozhians declare, you lowlife. Thou wilt not even be herding Christian pigs. Now we shall conclude, for we don't know the date and don't have a calendar; the moon's in the sky, the year in the book, the day's the same over here as it is over there; for this kiss our arse!

Koshovyi Otaman Ivan Sirko, with the whole Zaporozhian Host.

Off the subject slightly but does anyone know any good, redable books about the Ottoman Empire, I recently read A Peace to End all Peace and it had be wanting some background info?

# ¿ Jan 21, 2011 22:43

Nckdictator: Sep 8, 2006; Just..someone

Haha, nice, he sounds like a real life Flashman

# ¿ Jan 22, 2011 09:03

Nckdictator: Sep 8, 2006; Just..someone

T-1000 posted:

They ought to make a werewolf movie based on this. Dog Soldiers meets All Quiet On The Western Front.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vv-uW7Z3fR8

Close enough?

# ¿ Jan 23, 2011 04:50

Nckdictator: Sep 8, 2006; Just..someone

So, i'm pretty sure most of us have heard of brave people such as Schindler but there's one who's name is quite unexpected: Albert G�ring, the brother of Reichsmarschall Hermann G�ring.

quote:

...As the brutality of the Nazis accelerated with murder, violence and terror, the seeds of their plan for the total extermination of the Jews dawned on Albert Goering in all its horror - he saw the Jews as mothers, fathers, children. So he decided to act and helped many Jews escape from Vienna by procuring travel documents...

Richard Sonnenfeldt, chief interpreter and youngest member of the American prosecution team at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trial, later recalled how the Reichmarshal enjoyed displaying his power to Albert by freeing Jews from the concentration camps. "Albert would go to his brother Hermann and say, 'Hermann you're so big and so powerful, and here's a Jew who's a good Jew and doesn't belong in a concentration camp'," Sonnenfeldt said.

" 'Can't you just sign a paper?' And Hermann would say, 'This is absolutely the last time I'm going to do this, don't come back. A month later, Albert would be back," he said. "We found a hundred people on Albert's list that were freed. All because Goering had such a need to show off to his younger brother."...

Later - as part of his job as export director of the Czech arms factory Skoda - Albert Goering was able to save many employees, among them the director Jan Moravek and his family. He protected several members of the Czech resistance and covered resistance actions.

The employees were very grateful to Albert Goering due to the human treatment he always gave to all Czechs and people of other nationalities. At that time passive resistance was the order of the day. Any work in the lines of production or in the administrative area always took much more days to be done than was initially expected.

Karel Sobota recalled how Albert Goering looked the other way as the Czech employees made wrong translations of catalogs, 'forgot' to do tasks assigned to them, left work unfinished in their desks or 'lost' important documents. The employees risked their lives - had they been caught red-handed by the Gestapo or the SS, they had been executed on the spot.

So after all that...

quote:

G�ring then returned to Germany but found himself shunned because of his family name. He found occasional work as a writer and translator. Prior to his death, G�ring was living on a pension from the government. He knew that if he was married, the pension would transfer to his wife after his death. As a sign of gratitude, in 1966 G�ring married his housekeeper so she could receive his pension and not have to work anymore. One week later, he died without having his wartime activities publicly acknowledged.

# ¿ Jan 24, 2011 06:13

Nckdictator: Sep 8, 2006; Just..someone

You know, i'm not sure what I can add to this other then ohgodwhy?

http://www.nytimes.com/1995/03/17/world/unmasking-horror-a-special-report-japan-confronting-gruesome-war-atrocity.html

quote:

He is a cheerful old farmer who jokes as he serves rice cakes made by his wife and then he switches easily to explaining what it is like to cut open a 30-year-old man who is tied naked to abed and dissect him alive, without anesthetic.
"The fellow knew that it was over for him and so he didn't struggle when 'they led him into the room and tied ,him down," recalled the 72-year-old farmer, then a medical assistant in a Japanese army unit in China in World War II. "But when I picked up the scalpel, that's when he began screaming

"I cut him open from the chest to the stomach and he screamed terribly and his face was all twisted in agony. He made this unimaginable sound, he was screaming so horribly. But then finally he stopped. This was all in a day's work for the surgeons, but it really left an impression on me because it was my first time."

Finally, the old man, who insisted on anonymity, explained the reason for the vivisection: The prisoner, who was Chinese, had been deliberately ~ infected with the plague, as part of a research project, the full horror of which is only now emerging, to develop plague bombs for use in World War II. After infecting him, the researchers decided to cut him open to see what the disease does to a man's inside.

"That research program was one of the great secrets of Japan during and after World War II: a vast project to develop weapons of biological warfare, including plague, anthrax, cholera and a dozen other pathogens. unit 731 of the Japanese Imperial Army conducted research by experimenting on humans and by "field testing" plague bombs by dropping them on Chinese cities to see whether they could start plague outbreaks. They could.

A trickle ofinformation about the germ warfare program has turned into a stream and now a torrent. Half a century after the end of the war, a rush of books, documentaries and exhibitions are unlocking the past and helping arouse interest in Japan in the atrocities committed by some of Japan's most distinguished doctors.

Scholars and former members of the unit say that at least 3000 people and by some accounts several times that number were killed in the medical experiments; none survived. No one knows how many died in the "field testing"

It is becoming evident that the Japanese officers in charge of the program hoped to use their weapons against the United States. They proposed using balloon bombs to carry disease to America and they had a plan in the summer of 1945 to use kamikaze pilots to dump plague infected fleas on San Diego.

The research was kept secret after the end of World War II in part because the U.S. Army granted immunity from war crimes prosecution to the doctors in exchange for their research data. Japanese and U.S. documents show that the United States helped cover up the human experimentation and instead of putting the ringleaders on trial, it gave them stipends.

The accounts now emerging are wrenching to read even after so much time has passed: a Russian mother and daughter reportedly left in a gas chamber, for example, as doctors peer through the thick glass and time their convulsions, watching as the woman sprawls over her child in a futile effort to save her from the gas.

The origin of Germ warfare
Japan's biological weapons program was born in the 1930s, in part because Japanese officials were impressed that germ warfare had been banned by the Geneva Protocol of 1925. If it was so awful that it had to be banned under international law, the officers reasoned, it must make a great weapon.
The Japanese army, which was then occupying a large chunk of China, evicted the residents of eight villages near the city of Harbin in Manchuria to make way for the headquarters of Unit 731. One advantage of China, from the Japanese point of view, was the availability of research subjects on whom germs could be tested. The subjects were called marutas. or logs, and most were Communist sympathizers or ordinary criminals. The majority were Chinese, but there were also many Russian expatriates living in China.

Takeo Wane, 71, a former medical worker in Unit 731 who now lives in the northern Japanese city of Morioka, said he once saw a 6-foot high glass jar in which 3 Western man was pickled in formaldehyde. The man had been cut into two pieces, vertically, and Wane guesses that he was a Russian because there were many Russians then living in the area

The Unit 731 headquarters contained many other such jars with specimens. They contained feet, heads, internal organs, all neatly labeled.

"I saw samples with labels saying 'American,' 'English' and 'Frenchman,' but most were Chinese, Koreans and Mongolians" said a Unit 731 veteran who insisted on anonymity.

Medical researchers also locked up diseased prisoners with healthy ones, to see how readily various ailments would spread. The doctors locked others inside a pressure chamber to see how much the body can withstand before the eyes pop from their sockets.

Victims were often taken to a proving ground called Anda, where they were tied to stakes in a pattern and then bombarded with test weapons to see how effective the new technologies were. Planes sprayed the zone with a plague culture or dropped bombs with plague-infested fleas to see how many people and at what distance from the center would die.

The Japanese army regularly conducted field tests to see whether biological warfare would work outside the laboratory. Planes dropped plague-infected fleas over Ningbo in eastern China and over Changde in north-central China and plague outbreaks were later reported.

Japanese troops also dropped cholera and typhoid cultures in wells and ponds, but the results were often counterproductive. In 1942, germ warfare specialists distributed dysentery, cholera and typhoid in Zhejiang Province in China. but Japanese soldiers themselves became ill and 1,700 died of the diseases, scholars say.

Sheldon Harris, a historian at California State University, in Northridge, estimates that more than 200,000 Chinese were killed in germ warfare field experiments. Hams -author ofa book on Unit 731, "Factories of Death" also says that plague-infected animals were released as the war was ending and caused outbreaks of the plague that killed at least 30,000 people in the Harbin area from 1946 through 1948.

The leading scholar of Unit 731 in Japan, Keiichi Tsuneishi, is skeptical of such numbers. Tsuneishi, who has led the efforts in Japan to uncover atrocities by Unit 731, says that the attack on Ningbo killed about 100 people and that there is no evidence for huge outbreaks of disease set off by field trials.

Knowledge gained at the cost of human lives
Many of the human experiments were intended to develop new vaccines or treatments for medical problems the Japanese army faced. Many experiments remain secret, but an 18-page report prepared in 1945--and kept by a senior Japanese military officer until now--includes a summary of the unit's research. The report was prepared in English for U.S. intelligence officials and it shows the extraordinary range of the unit's work.
There are scores of categories that describe research about which nothing is known. It is unclear what the prisoners had to endure for entries like "studies of burn scar" and "study of bullets lodged in the brains."

Scholars say that the research was not contrived by mad scientists and that it was intelligently designed and' carried out. The medical findings saved many Japanese lives.

For example, Unit 731 proved that the best treatment for frostbite was not rubbing the Limb, which had been the traditional method but immersion in water a bit warmer than 100 degrees, but never mom than 122 degrees.

The cost of this scientific breakthrough was borne by those seized for medical experiments. They were taken outside and left with exposed arms, periodically drenched with water, until a guard decided that frostbite had set in. Testimony From a Japanese officer said this was determined after the "frozen arms, when struck with a short stick, emitted a sound resembling that which a board gives when it is struck."

A booklet just published in Japan after a major exhibition about Unit 731 shows how doctors even experimented on a three-day-old baby, measuring the temperature with a needle stuck inside the infant's middle finger.

"Usually a hand of a three-day-old infant is clenched into a fist", the booklet says, "but by sticking the needle in, the middle finger could be kept straight to make the experiment easier".

The Scope of Human experimentation
The human experimentation did not take place just in Unit 731, nor was it a rogue unit acting on its own. While it is unclear whether Emperor Hirohito knew of the atrocities, his younger brother, Prince Mikasa, toured Unit 731's headquarters in China and wrote in his memoirs that he was shown films showing how Chinese prisoners were "made to march on the plains of Manchuria for poison gas experiments on humans."
In addition, the recollections of Dr. Ken Yuasa, 78, who still practices in a clinic in Tokyo, suggest that human experimentation may have been routine even outside Unit 731. Dr. Yuasa was an army medic in China, but he says he was never in Unit 731 and never had contact with it.

Nevertheless. Dr. Yuasa says that when he was still in medical school In Japan, the students heard that ordinary doctors who went to China were allowed to vivisect patients. And sure enough, when Dr. Yuasa arrived in Shanxi Province in northcentral China in 1942, he was soon asked to attend a "practice surgery."

Two Chinese men were brought in, stripped naked and given general anesthetic. Then Dr. Yuasa and the others began practicing various kinds of surgery: first an appendectomy, then an amputation of an arm and finally a tracheotomy. After 90 minutes, they were finished, so they killed the patient with an injection.

When Dr. Yuasa was put in charge of a clinic, he said, he periodically asked the police for a Communist to dissect, and they sent one over. The vivisection was all for practice rather than for research, and Dr. Yuasa says they were routine among Japanese doctors working in China in the war.

In addition, Dr. Yuasa - who is now deeply apologetic about what he did - said he cultivated typhoid germs in test tubes and passed them on, as he had been instructed to do, to another army unit. Someone from that unit, which also had no connection with Unit 731, later told him that the troops would use the test tubes to infect the wells of villages in Communist-held territory.

Plans to take the germ war to the US homeland
In 1944, when Japan was nearing defeat, Tokyo's military planners seized on a remarkable way to hit back at the American heartland: they launched huge balloons that rode the prevailing winds to the continental United States. Although the American Government censored re. ports at the time, some 200 balloons landed in Western states, and bombs carried by the balloons killed a woman in Montana and six people in Oregon.
Half a century later, there is evidence that it could have been far worse; some Japanese generals proposed loading the balloons with weapons of biological warfare, to create epidemics of plague or anthrax In the United States. Other army units wanted to send cattleplague virus to wipe out the American livestock industry or grain smut to wipe out the crops.

There was a fierce debate in Tokyo, and a document discovered recently suggests that at a crucial meeting in late July 1944 it was Hideki Tojo - whom the United States later hanged for war crimes - who rejected the proposal to use germ warfare against the United States.

At the time of the meeting, Tojo had just been ousted as Prime Minister and chief of the General Staff, but he retained enough authority to veto the proposal. He knew by then that Japan was likely to lose the war, and he feared that biological assaults on the United States would invite retaliation with germ or chemical weapons being developed by America.

Yet the Japanese Army was apparently willing to use biological weapons against the Allies in some circumstances. When the United States prepared to attack the Pacific island of Saipan in the late spring of 1944, a submarine was sent from Japan to carry biological weapons it is unclear what kind - to the defenders.

The submarine was sunk, Professor Tsuneishi says, and the Japanese troops had to rely on conventional weapons alone.

As the end of the war approached In 1945, Unit 731 embarked on its wildest scheme of all. Codenamed Cherry Blossoms at Night, the plan was to use kamikaze pilots to infest California with the plague.

Toshimi Mizobuchi, who was an instructor for new recruits in Unit 731, said the idea was to use 20 of the 500 new troops who arrived in Harbin in July 1945. A submarine was to take a few of them to the seas off Southern California, and then they were to fly -in a plane carried on board the submarine and contaminate San Diego with plague-infected fleas. The target date was to be Sept. 22, 1945.

Ishio Obata, 73, who now lives in Ehime prefecture, acknowledged that he had been a chief of the Cherry Blossoms at Night attack force against San Diego, but he declined to discuss details. "It is such a terrible memory that I don't want to recall it," he said.

Tadao Ishimaru, also 73, said he had learned only after returning to Japan that he had been a candidate for the strike force against San Diego. "I don't want to think about Unit 731," he said in a brief telephone interview. "Fifty years have passed since the war. Please let me remain silent."

It Is unclear whether Cherry Blossoms at Night ever had a chance of being carried out. Japan did indeed have at least five submarines that carried two or three planes each, their wings folded against the fuselage like a bird.

But a Japanese Navy specialist said the navy would have never allowed Its finest equipment to be used for an army plan like Cherry Blossoms at Night, partly because the highest priority in the summer of 1945 was to defend the main Japanese islands, not to launch attacks on the United States mainland.

If the Cherry Blossoms at Night plan was ever serious, it became irrelevant as Japan prepared to sur-render in early August 1945. In the last days of the war, beginning on Aug. 9, Unit 731 used dynamite to try to destroy all evidence of its germ warfare program, scholars say.

No Punishment, Little Remorse
Partly because the Americans helped cover up the biological warfare program in exchange for its data, Gen. Shiro Ishii, the head of Unit 731, was allowed to live peacefully until his death from throat cancer in 1959. Those around him in Unit 731 saw their careers flourish in the postwar period, rising to positions that included Governor of Tokyo, president of the Japan Medical Association and head of the Japan Olympic Committee.
By conventional standards, few people were more cruel than the farmer who as a Unit 731 member carved up a Chinese prisoner without anesthetic, and who also acknowledged that he had helped poison rivers and wells. Yet his main intention in agreeing to an interview seemed to be to explain that Unit 731 was not really so brutal after all.

Asked why he had not anesthetized the prisoner before dissecting him, the farmer explained: "Vivisection should be done under normal circumstances. If we'd used anesthesia, that might have affected the body organs and blood vessels that we were examining. So we couldn't have used anesthetic."

When the topic of children came up, the farmer offered another justification: "Of course there were experiments on children. But probably their fathers were spies."

"There's a possibility this could happen again," the old man said, smiling genially. "Because in a war, you have to win."

Edit: nice write-up about the San Patricos

# ¿ Jan 25, 2011 22:50

Nckdictator: Sep 8, 2006; Just..someone

Brice posted:

I was looking something up and ended up finding out a few people a year die of Yersinia pestis in the US. Yersinia pestis is the bacteria that caused the Black Plague.

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/06/05/New-Mexico-boy-dies-of-bubonic-plague/UPI-81101244221759/

I never really worried about rodents but now I do, Thanks Wikipedia.

Yeah, my abuelita caught the Black death sometime before I was born but she pulled through.

# ¿ Jan 26, 2011 23:36

Nckdictator: Sep 8, 2006; Just..someone

SeanBeansShako posted:

Okay, I'm not sure if this is real or not but years ago I saw something on the History channel that is stuck in my head.

Basically, it was news reel footage of a ship in the forties or fifties on its bow leaning against a suspension bridge. Did that happen or what?

The USS Lafayette?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Lafayette_(AP-53)

# ¿ Jan 29, 2011 07:07

Nckdictator: Sep 8, 2006; Just..someone

Yeah, i really liked that picture but for some reason I couldn't find one without the text.

It's funny, I only know about it because it had a (very small) role in a Hitchcock movie.

# ¿ Jan 29, 2011 07:18

Nckdictator: Sep 8, 2006; Just..someone

Paradox Personified posted:

Here you go, Tineye is nice for such things.

Awesome,thanks

# ¿ Jan 29, 2011 07:31

Nckdictator: Sep 8, 2006; Just..someone

Related to the discussion going on earlier on this page I had a question.

Did Nazi Germany treat Jewish World War One veterans any diffrent then other Jews?

# ¿ Feb 3, 2011 01:18

Nckdictator: Sep 8, 2006; Just..someone

Here have a bunch of random propaganda.

:nws:

for gay Hitler/Mussolini rape. This one was made by the Italian Resistance

http://i51.tinypic.com/qz5icg.jpg

This Italian one shows FDR and Winston as cowboy bandits

This Japanese one shows Churchill as a spider stealing gold from India.

Another Japanese one aimed at India, it shows India destroying the British Empire

This German leaflet aimed at American GIs is pretty straightfoward

This British faked-photo simply tries to embaress Hitler

http://tinypic.com/r/6gzor9/7

That's all I got for now.

# ¿ Mar 4, 2011 22:33

Nckdictator: Sep 8, 2006; Just..someone

Crosposting this from the "predictions of the future thread"

Here's some of my favorites about the end of the world.

quote:

The calculations indicating the odds that Gorbachev is the actual and true antichrist are: 710,609,175,188,282,100 to 1.

This means that if you want to bet that Gorbachev is not the true antichrist, you will be betting against odds of seven hundred and ten quadrillion, six hundred and nine trillion, one hundred and seventy-five billion, one hundred and eighty-eight million, two hundred and eighty-two thousand, one hundred...

The statistics indicate overwhelmingly that Mikhail S. Gorbachev is the actual man which John saw rising from the sea -- the antichrist.

quote:

[#20] According to Genesis 6:4, these giants were a result of the union (marriage) of the sons of God (fallen angels) and the daughters of men. This unholy union occurred both before and after the flood of Noah's day. Since Jesus stated that the same events which occurred in Noah's day would reoccur in the days just prior to his coming (Luke 17:26), will giants roam the earth again? Let's see! Sightings of a creature have been reported in numerous areas in the Sierras and the Cascades. Known as Bigfoot. North of these mountains, in Canada, the creature is called Sasquatch. The name for them in the Himalayas is Yeti or the Abominable Snowman. In the Florida Everglades, the creature is named Skunkman and in Malaysia it is Omah. These creatures. are tall, weighing 500 or 600 pounds each, giants by any standard. [...]
The fact that the giants were partly of supernatural origin made it easy for the ancient paganistic world to regard thein as gods. [...]
Were these evil spirits the driving force for Maharish Mahesh Yogi, the leader of the Satanic Transcendental Meditation movement which swept our nation? This man admittedly received his spiritual calling to "rechannel the course of humanity," while living as a hermit in the Himalayan Mountains, the home of the Abominable Snowman. (33-4)

[#77] Why was "Star Wars" the all-time, top-grossing picture in box-office history? The film is simply the prelude of a soon-coming war to be fought in the heavens. Revelation 12:7 � "And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon (Satan); and the dragon fought and his angels (fallen angels)." (128)

[#79] Even though this comet is named in honor of Edmund Halley, it has a remarkable similarity to the Greek word "Heli" meaning "My God" or "High . Priest of Israel." (135)

[#82] Why is the bulk of the world's oil located in the Middle East? The Bible can supply that information. Moses tells us that the Garden of Eden was once the plant and animal capitol of the world. (140)

quote:

Elipandus, bishop of Toledo, described a brief bout of end-time panic that happened on Easter Eve, 793. According to Elipandus, the Spanish monk Beatus of Li�bana prophesied the end of the world that day in the presence a crowd of people. The people, thinking that the world would end that night, became frightened, panicked, and fasted through the night until dawn. Seeing that the world had not ended and feeling hungry, Hordonius, one of the fasters, quipped, "Let's eat and drink, so that if we die at least we'll be fed."

Final apocalyptic battle and the destruction of the Antichrist were to take place between 1655 and 1657, as per the Fifth Monarchy Men, a radical group of English millenarians who attempted to take over Parliament to impose their extremist theocratic agenda on the country

On May 19th 1780 in New England the skies mysteriously turned dark for several hours in the afternoon, causing people to believe that a biblical prophecy had come true and Judgement Day had arrived. In reality, the darkness was caused by smoke from large-scale forest fires to the west.

The Millennium would begin between 1793 and 1795, claimed retired English sailor Richard Brothers, who called himself "God's Almighty Nephew." He was convinced that he would lead the ten lost tribes of Israel, and once said that God told him he would become king of England. He was eventually committed to an insane asylum

The Crimean War (1853-56) was seen by some as the Battle of Armageddon. After all, Russia had plans to wrest control of Palestine from the Ottoman Empire.

Many people believed the arrival of Halley's Comet would spell the end of the world. Some thought that cyanide gas from the comet's tail would poison the Earth's atmosphere. In Germany, one could buy postcards depicting apocalyptic scenes bearing the caption, "End of the World on May 18 (1910)". Con artists took advantage of people's fears by selling "comet pills" to make people immune to the toxins...or so they claimed.

In 1931, Wilbur Glen Voliva announced that "the world is going to go 'puff' and disappear in September, 1935."

Between 1965 and 1966, an apocalyptic battle was to occur, resulting in the fall of the United States, claimed the Nation of Islam

In the late '70s, Pat Robertson predicted the end of the world would occur in the fall of 1982. "I guarantee you by the end of 1982 there is going to be a judgment on the world," he said in a May, 1980 broadcast of the 700 Club.

Louis Farrakhan declared that the Gulf War would be the "War of Armageddon which is the final war."

A UFO will pick up true believers on May 5, 2003, according to the Nuwaubians, a Georgia cult headed by Dr. Malachi Z. York, who claims to be the incarnation of God and a native of the planet Rizq.

quote:

"Look at the casket, Child. This is the death of The United States of America. This was done in secret long ago. Clinton made a pact with the devil, himself, through blood agreement with Khruschev to go The Red Way. The death knoll tolls for The USA, My Child, and many will be involved in this secret--not only Russia but China, as well. All is not well in China. While China prepares for your death, she has a very large, black vulture on her own back. This vulture will help to devour her from within."

"My Lord, what of the black and white ball?"

"The ball within the casket is black and white, as the black and white issues, My Child, will help bury The USA. But, at the center of the black and white issues are not real black and white issues, but communism, being molded and fanned by Red China. Issues which may appear to be black and white issues are really communist issues being propelled by Red China."

"My Lord, what of the brass knuckles and knee coverings?"

"They show the hole in the makeup of Red China, My Child, which is Hong Kong. When Red China is not looking, Hong Kong will devour it. This is in the works. Red China shall not prevail as they wish, for internal strife shall be great."

"My Lord, you have shown me the red headed woman. Tell me about her."

"When the USA dies, she shall be very prominent. My Child, this is the Red Dragon of Communism. She is dressed in black, as she brings death. Her purse is large, as she will take from you all you have."

"My Lord, who are these in black at this funeral?"

"Look, My Child."

"I see Bill Clinton. I see Margaret Thatcher. I see several from Germany. In fact three from Germany now take the casket and lift it. They throw it over a steep cliff. There are mountains all around, and these mountains are named The Swiss Alps. Then, these three dust off their hands, and the others applaud them. Even Bill Clinton applauds. He is walking back up the path with several of them, and they are chatting. He is talking to the king of Saudi Arabia. Someone comes by with a copy of The New York Times. On the front of the paper is written, �US sells out to Oil Rich Countries.�"

"Clinton takes a copy of it and laughs. He says, �They will never know, will they?� He sits there alone with the Saudi Arabian king. Night begins to fall and Clinton says, "Well, we must go. Something is beginning to bite me." He starts scratching all over. The crickets come out and start singing. The Saudi Arabian king stays on. Clinton pulls out a bottle of calamine lotion. He pulls his pants down and starts to rub this lotion on his legs. As he does huge sores appear on his legs. Each sore has an ugly black spider on it. Clinton is covered all over with these ugly black spiders. The king gasps as he sees the sores. He hops back, then turns and runs off."

"Clinton watches the king leave. He begins to tear at these wounds, and blood pours from each wound. Then, each wound begins to speak. They are each speaking different things at the same time and I cannot understand a single word. My Lord, this is a mess! This itch, then the spiders, then the sores, then the voices, all saying different things."

"My Child, look again, what do you see?"

"I see atomic bombs going off everywhere all over The USA. But what does this have to do with Clinton and his sores?"

"My Child, the itch comes from the conscience that he has sold his country for fame. This rash is red, as it is started by the red communist take-over. It will make him very uncomfortable. Then, My Child, this irritation will turn into deadly spiders, whose venom will destroy him. My Child, these spiders are the black military forces trained to take over The USA. You hear many voices speaking at once. These are from two sources: the many voices of foreign soldiers upon you, and the voices of innocent persons, he has murdered. These sores caused by atomic war, My Child, shall eventually kill him, and all who took blood covenants, as he has."

"Why did all forsake him but The Arab, My Lord?"

"My Child, as long as a single vehicle moves, you shall need oil. But, even The Arab shall forsake you. Does this show you your future state, My Child?"

"I see it, My Lord. But, who are these others at this funeral?"

"My Child, look! France is not there. England is there along with Russia, China, Mexico, and Switzerland. Canada is not there. Australia is not there. Belgium is there, along with Germany, who has three representatives. Peru and Columbia are there along with Panama. And, there are others. All in all you see 22. These are mostly countries, but there are three individual families represented. The Rothschilds of Germany are the most prominent. (Make not of the mention of these three families. You will see much about their evil.) These, My Child, have planned your demise for a very long time. It is no accident that Bill Clinton was in The Soviet Union as a war protester. His red connections run as deep as blood. He was hand-picked by Satan even before this life to do Satan�s work, as he is smooth and credible."

Then I saw the Clint Eastwood look-a-like going through fields of rice patties in The Orient, giving away cigarettes to little children. They were smoking them, their eyes running with tears. These children grew up into adults, wearing black, and dying early of lung cancer.

"Child, you have heard of the men in black, the clones in these black helicopters. These have been created of Lucifer in conjunction with Germany, primarily."

"And also in conjunction with the USA?"

"Yes, indeed but at this point, The USA has fallen."

"So, Germany will use the clones to terrorize?"

"They will use them to terrorize and to spy."

"In what way?"

"Child, they possess super-human abilities. They are part Luciferian--given to have abilities of mind reading, and mind altering, which you do not have."

"So, these so-called aliens, or Luciferians, kidnapped women? Then, mated with them and created these clones, or the men in black which some have seen?"

"�Tis so."

"And where are these mostly?"

"Underground."

"Are some in military bases?"

"Yes, within mountains, deep within Germany. Also in your military installation currently within the desert."

"So, these clones, or the so-called men in black will be unleashed in great numbers? How many are there?"

"In excess of 200,000."

"So, they will help round up Christians?"

"�Tis so."

# ¿ Apr 7, 2011 00:05

Nckdictator: Sep 8, 2006; Just..someone

RedMagus posted:

I wonder if there's any literature like that from older generations. The rome version of Fox would be interesting to read.

Well, there is the Aeneid which was a propoganda work for Augustus.

# ¿ Apr 7, 2011 01:00

Nckdictator: Sep 8, 2006; Just..someone

meme posted:

Someone mentioned Nazi architecture before, reminded me of some documentaries I really like.

Een if you don't give a poo poo about Architecture (I don't) they are definately worth a watch.

1. Jerry Building- Explores the architecture of Nazism.
p1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jagoBzZT1q8
p2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dECQhFSP2tk&feature=related
p3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gmv-1mebbHo&feature=related
p4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lL6xCnWFUOs&feature=related

2. Joe Building- Ditto, but for The USSR (Stalin especially)
p1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sn_L3fcZXL8&feature=related
p2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVeFSTpTK5c&feature=related
p3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vksANo-de6A&feature=related
p4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKbLK_rAIhw&feature=related
p5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQqit_hcEo4&feature=related
p6: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VS-Begd1INI&feature=related
p7: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leb6E8_t-4g&feature=related
p8: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4LwVHQtSOo&feature=related

Apologies if these have been posted before, I've been following the thread and I don't remember seeing them.

Seconding these, their great.

# ¿ Apr 10, 2011 00:47

Nckdictator: Sep 8, 2006; Just..someone

asbo subject posted:

"Hitler," Gandhi said, "killed five million Jews. It is the greatest crime of our time. But the Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher�s knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs... It would have aroused the world and the people of Germany... As it is they succumbed anyway in their millions."

loving great advice there, mate.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Origins-Second-World-War/dp/014013672X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1302392905&sr=1-1

Is well worth reading- it explains how ww2 started and dispels the myth that some how Hitler was so uniquely evil that he talked a country into doing evil things against their wishes. Hitler was the most popular German leader in its history.

On that note i'm going to reccomend this

http://www.amazon.com/Human-Smoke-Beginnings-World-Civilization/dp/B002RAR3KG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1302398484&sr=8-1

It's biased of course due to the author being a pacifist but it still provides good infnromation.

# ¿ Apr 10, 2011 02:24

Nckdictator: Sep 8, 2006; Just..someone

feedmegin posted:

I'd say Hong Kong also counts as major, and I remember us giving that back - it only happened 12 years ago after all.

http://www.amazon.com/Outposts-Journeys-Surviving-Relics-British/dp/0060598611/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1302896738&sr=8-1

This is a pretty informative (and funny) book on the subject of the remaining British 'colonies'.

# ¿ Apr 15, 2011 20:46

Nckdictator: Sep 8, 2006; Just..someone

Ha, this talk of Taft just inspired me to post this little tidbit about a certain presidental canidate from the same era.

Most people only know of William Jennings Bryan - if at all- through the portrayl of him at the Scopes Trial in Inherit the Wind but he was a complicated figure and much more then that.

On one hand Bryan ignored the plight of African Americans, was narrow-minded , friends with segregationists, and sought to get rid of the teaching of evolution in schools.

On the other hand he rallied agaisnt big business, Imperialisim, eugenics, and honestly hoped that he could bring about world peace .

quote:

The poor man who takes property by force is called a thief, but the creditor who can by legislation make a debtor pay a dollar twice as large as he borrowed is lauded as the friend of a sound currency. The man who wants the people to destroy the Government is an anarchist, but the man who wants the Government to destroy the people is a patriot.

quote:

Science is a magnificent force, but it is not a teacher of morals. It can perfect machinery, but it adds no moral restraints to protect society from the misuse of the machine. It can also build gigantic intellectual ships, but it constructs no moral rudders for the control of storm tossed human vessel.

quote:

There are two ideas of government. There are those who believe that, if you will only legislate to make the well-to-do prosperous, their prosperity will leak through on those below. The Democratic idea, however, has been that if you legislate to make the masses prosperous, their prosperity will find its way up through every class which rests up on them.

FDR posted:

I think that we would choose the word 'sincerity' as fitting him [Bryan] most of all...it was that sincerity that served him so well in his life-long fight against sham and privilege and wrong. It was that sincerity which made him a force for good in his own generation and kept alive many of the ancient faiths on which we are building today. We...can well agree that he fought the good fight; that he finished the course; and that he kept the faith."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckpuylgkyIs

# ¿ Apr 19, 2011 07:39

Nckdictator: Sep 8, 2006; Just..someone

benito posted:

Interesting history tidbit

Lucky, there's something great about holding a old book in your hands(or maybe i'm just weird) I was reading Micheal Kazin's new biogrophy of Bryan and he reports that Bryan was one of the first politcal figures to market himself. He came up with the idea to sell recordings of his speeches and to everyone's suprise they sold very well. the book also mentions "Bryan clubs"; enthusiastic groups of supporters who would hold weekly readings of his speeches in living rooms and meeting halls.

# ¿ Apr 19, 2011 08:33

Nckdictator: Sep 8, 2006; Just..someone

How are u posted:

Talking about Michener books on the other page reminded me of another series of fantastic historical fiction novels that both lovers of history and lovers of entertainment can enjoy. The author George MacDonald Fraser wrote a series of books that follow the misadventures of a British Army officer in the Victorian age, from 1839 through 1894. The protagonist is a dyed-in-the-wool anti-hero who would rather save his own skin than fight with honor, and drink and whore rather than conform to pious Victorian morals. Despite this he becomes a lauded hero of the age.

The books take the hero and the reader through some of the most monumental events of the 19th century such as (straight from wikipedia):

Anyway, the books are tremendous fun, full of sex and humor and action and some of the accounts of tragedies such as the Kabul Retreat or the Siege of Cawnpore or the burning of the Old Summer Palace in China are genuinely saddening. They're excellent books and I can't recommend them enough.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flashman#Volumes_of_the_Flashman_Papers

I love the Flashman books, sure their not the sort of thing you'd want to read in public but their very well researched and entertaining.

I recently fiished the Mountain of Light, are And the Tiger and On the March any good?

# ¿ Apr 27, 2011 13:40

Nckdictator: Sep 8, 2006; Just..someone

You're welcome, just read Micheal Kazin's recent biogrophy of him so I kinda wanted to share that.

Edit:

Currently reading Robert Massie's Nicholas and Alexandra. It's pretty good, while it's a bit too pro-Monarchist for my taste it does do a very good job at humanizing the Tsar and his family. Anyone else read it?

# ¿ May 3, 2011 21:03

Nckdictator: Sep 8, 2006; Just..someone

piss posted:

James Brooke, White Rajah of Sarawak, might qualify. Guy turned a good chunk of the northern part of the island of Borneo into his own personal kingdom (ie not part of the British Empire) in the early 19th century, passed it on to his nephew, and it stayed in the family until Sarawak was incorporated into the new country of Malaysia in the 1940s.

Also a character in one of the Flashman books.

# ¿ May 10, 2011 22:29

Nckdictator: Sep 8, 2006; Just..someone

Are there any good English language books on the Polar Bear Expedition or the Russian Civil War in general?

I just finished Nicholas and Alexandra and am halfway through The Great Game which is a absolutely amazing book.

# ¿ May 11, 2011 22:54

Nckdictator: Sep 8, 2006; Just..someone

HonorableTB posted:

I did a paper on the Polar Bear Expedition (specifically the fighting in Northern Russia around Murmansk and Arkangelsk) and I used the following sources:

Chew,Allen F.. Fighting the Russians in Winter: Three Case Studies. Leavenworth Papers. 5,
Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: Combat Studies Institute, U.S. Army Command and General Staff
College, 1981.

Goldhurst,Richard. The Midnight War: The American Intervention in Russia, 1918-1920. New
York City: McGraw-Hill, 1978.

Gordon,Dennis. Quartered in Hell: The Story of the American North Russian Expeditionary
Force. Canada: Gateway Printing, 1982.

Willet,Robert L.. Russian Sideshow: America's Undeclared War. 1 ed. Dulles, Virginia:
Brassey's, Inc., 2003.

Strakhovsky,Leonid I.. Origins of American Intervention in North Russia (1918). New York: H.
Fertig, 1937.

Any of those sources should get you pointed in the right direction (yes I did copy/paste parts of my Works Cited page)

Thanks! I'l try to check out Russian Sideshow it looks nice.

# ¿ May 11, 2011 23:26

Nckdictator: Sep 8, 2006; Just..someone

Shimrra Jamaane posted:

Was there really anything the Western Allies could have done to keep Eastern Europe out of Stalin's hands besides World War III? Obviously it will be debated until the end of time, but I can't see any real way.

Could the US have brandished some nukes if it wanted to? I don't mean use them, but imply that we would.

Let's not get into that again.

I bellive there were brief ideas of excuting the main Invasion of Europe by landing in Greece or Yugoslavia, if that had not failed it would have likely kept atleast Yugoslavvia, Bulgaria, and maybe Romaania, or Hungary out of the Iron Curtain.

# ¿ Jun 11, 2011 07:14

Nckdictator: Sep 8, 2006; Just..someone

Don't forget Lawernce had some pretty homoerotic fantasies involvig himself being beat.

# ¿ Jun 14, 2011 22:52

Nckdictator: Sep 8, 2006; Just..someone

Well the Hashemites in Jordan seem to be doing fairly well.

# ¿ Jun 15, 2011 00:44

Nckdictator: Sep 8, 2006; Just..someone

Hey, Rutkowski, did you by chance used to play Star Wars:Jedi Academy There was a guy with that name on the old server I used to go to.

# ¿ Jun 15, 2011 05:56

Nckdictator: Sep 8, 2006; Just..someone

Rutkowski posted:

Yup, I was a douchebag(and still is) and pretty much only hang on the RP servers.

Haha, hey then, I was at RPG World as 'Lem'

# ¿ Jun 15, 2011 17:59

Nckdictator: Sep 8, 2006; Just..someone

Gunt McBadpost posted:

This picture in particular reminded me of something interesting.

#39 America's Jesse Owens, center, salutes during the presentation of his gold medal for the long jump on August 11, 1936, after defeating Nazi Germany's Lutz Long, right, during the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin. Naoto Tajima of Japan, left, placed third. Owens triumphed in the track and field competition by winning four gold medals in the 100-meter and 200-meter dashes, long jump and 400-meter relay. He was the first athlete to win four gold medals at a single Olympic Games.

That reminds me of these German propaganda leaflets aimed at African-American troops in World War 2

Infact here: have a bunch of intresting propaganda related stuff.

Japanese leaflet aimed at native Indians "The British are looting India and trampleing its dead bodies: Who is responable?"

Another Japanese one that brings up the brutal way the British supressed the 1857 Mutiny and says "When will you take revenge?"

"Just to save their ecnomy the British comitted this atrocity"

A pro-British one showing India eating the Axis.

Showing your enemies leaders as literal monsters was not uncommon

The Americans stealing ARE WIMEN

I'm linking the following because their all NWS, VERY NWS

:siren:

http://i.imgur.com/0DxIC.jpg :nws:

A German leaflet aimed at African French troops: The French send the poor African to fight and die while a evil Frenchman has sex with his wife.

I'm thinking this is another German leaflet aimed at British troops

http://imgur.com/JrsGW :nws:

A big theme in German stuff aimed to British troops was that Americans were going to seduce their wives.

http://i.imgur.com/lvvbl.jpg :nws:

and lastly how could I not post the Nazi Penis Gun

http://i.imgur.com/Vegnb.jpg :nws:

# ¿ Jun 21, 2011 12:32

Nckdictator: Sep 8, 2006; Just..someone

AgentF posted:

Huh? Whu?! What's even the metaphor here?

I hae no idea, I bellive I found it somwhere here

:nws:

http://www.psywarrior.com/sexandprop.html :nws:

# ¿ Jun 21, 2011 14:55

Nckdictator: Sep 8, 2006; Just..someone

Vincent Van Goatse posted:

This is fascinating stuff. I think the Hitlercock photo is my favorite.

Yeah, check out the other sections of that site (or reasons it calls them links) http://www.psywarrior.com/links.html.

Oh, and thakns Nenonen for the Finnish posts. I know very little about Finland so that was pretty nice.

# ¿ Jun 21, 2011 22:46

Nckdictator: Sep 8, 2006; Just..someone

Vincent Van Goatse posted:

Actually Warrior is remembered as the first iron-hulled seagoing warship to enter service. She's also the last surviving British example of the type. I can do an effort post about her if there's enough interest.

That would be nice, for some reason I think ironclads and Pre-dreadnoughts are some of the best looking ships around.

# ¿ Jun 24, 2011 13:35

Nckdictator: Sep 8, 2006; Just..someone

Shimrra Jamaane posted:

As always, Wikipedia is our best friend.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Order_%28Nazism%29

Basically, Hitler planned long term with a less than solid grasp on reality (and logistics).

What the hell?

quote:

Nazi propagandists went as far as declaring that Germany would return expropriated land to the Indians, while Goebbels predicted they possessed little loyalty to America and would rather rebel than to fight against Germany.[62] The Nazis considered the Sioux, and by extension all Native Americans to be Aryans,[62] a theory echoed in the sympathetic portrayal of the Natives in German westerns of the 1930s such as Der Kaiser von Kalifornie.

Edit:

In a intresting turn of fate the Japanese commander of the air attack on Peral Harbor- Mitsuo Fuchida- later became friends with Jacob DeShazer - who had been shot down in the Dolittle Air Raid and tortured in a POW camp- became a US citizen, converated to Christianity, and became a preacher untill his death in 1976

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsuo_Fuchida

# ¿ Jun 29, 2011 23:37

Nckdictator: Sep 8, 2006; Just..someone

Slantedfloors posted:

Nazi racial philosophy is completely retarded. This is news to you?

Nah, it just seemed more silly the normal, almost as nonsensical as this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_National_Socialist_Green_Party

# ¿ Jun 30, 2011 03:15

Nckdictator: Sep 8, 2006; Just..someone

FredMSloniker posted:

...paintings? Why paintings?

Because Henry Wallace was one of the craziest Vice Presidents this country ever had.

Someone said about Wallace that.. � [He] gives me an eerie feeling that he isn�t really listening to me�� he seemed to consider himself �a man of destiny, a person answering the calls the rest of us don�t hear�.

and to expand on the Mongolia thing (To quote Veeps)

quote:

Wallace was attracted to was a man named Nicholas Konstantinovich Roerich, who was a 1929 Nobel Prize winner the charter and only member of something called the �Great White Brotherhood�. He filled Wallace�s head with fanciful tales of a young Jesus Christ having visited Tibet and left behind thousands of his own paintings. Wallace, acting in his capacity as Secretary of Agriculture, sent Roerich on official USDA business to Mongolia to search for drought-resistant grasses, though rumors flew that Wallace was using his government imprimatur and taxpayer dollars to authorize Roerich to search for everything from the lost Jesus paintings to a Buddhist utopia to the second coming of Christ. (Roerich�s trip was eventful, but in a much less mystical way: he was arrested by the Chinese on suspicion of spying, and, in his absence from the U.S., was charged there with tax evasion.)

That was the end of Wallace�s association with Roerich, until some of Roerich�s �Dear Guru� letters from Wallace surfaced. These included crypto-New Age/Masonic rhetorical flourishes like �I have been thinking of holding the casket�the sacred, most precious casket. And I have thought of the New Country going forth to meet the seven stars under the sign of the three stars. And I have thought of the admonition 'Await the Stone.' We await the Stone and we welcome you again to this glorious land of destiny.�

Now, Wallace wasn't a bad guy, he just had some really weird mystic ideas. The problem with Wallace was that he could be easily duped in some of the worst ways, such as on a state visit to the Soviet Union

quote:

In Siberia, his Soviet hosts squired him about in style and took him to a bustling gold-mining center called Magadan. Wallace, an ardent admirer of Stalin�s Soviet Union and a proponent of a one-world government, was dazzled, describing it as a productive hive of human enterprise, �a combination TVA and Hudson's Bay Company�. Unfortunately, Magadan was actually a slave labor camp the Soviets had slapped a figurative coat of paint on, Potemkin Village-style, in anticipation of Wallace�s visit.

I'm going to have to reccomend Veeps it's a pretty hilarious look at each of America's Vice Presidents up to 2007

http://www.veeps.us/

http://www.amazon.com/Veeps-Profiles-Insignificance-Bill-Kelter/dp/1603090037/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1309728643&sr=8-1

We've had some really screwed up Vice Presidents

quote:

...When his father passed away, Johnson inherited a slave named Julia Chinn. She bore him two children, and she and Johnson cohabitated for several years. While it wasn�t unheard of in the antebellum South for a randy landowner to get freaky with the help every now and then, setting up and keeping house was another matter entirely.

After Julia died in a cholera epidemic in 1833, Johnson went back to his bullpen and picked a second slave. But his second wife was no Julia and didn�t return Johnson�s affections, instead running off with her common-law husband. Johnson responded by playing the granddaddy of all race cards�hunting her down, catching her, and selling her at auction. He then selected the woman�s sister to be his wife. Probably mindful of her sister�s ill-considered deportment in their marriage, Johnson�s third slave wife at least pretended to be happily married to the man she called, either lovingly or dutifully, �the Colonel�.

Given the relative short supply of progressive thinkers in 1830s America, it�s not surprising that many considered Johnson�s exotic tastes a liability to the ticket. Editor Duff Green of the United States Telegraph complained of Johnson�s �connection with a jet-black, thick-lipped, odoriferous negro wench, by whom he has reared a family of children whom he had endeavoured to force upon society as equals.�...
Johnson was no more captivated by the Vice Presidential duties than most of his predecessors or successors. Unlike most of them, though, he had no compunction about hanging out the �Closed� sign and heading back home to tend to his bustling tavern and spa. Many complained that this wasn�t conduct befitting a Vice President

quote:

...New Hampshire Senator William Plumer was more colorful when he commented on Clinton�s habit of falling asleep in the presiding chair of the Senate, and his doddering management style when he was awake: �He is old, feeble & altogether uncapable of the duty of presiding in the Senate. He has no mind�no intellect�no memory�He forgets the question�mistakes it�& not infrequently declares a vote before its taken�& often forgets to do it after its taken.� ...

quote:

...Curtis was very proud of his Native American heritage, having grown up on a reservation and learning to ride bareback as a boy. He was conspicuous and relentless in using his Native American lineage for political gain, so much so that it was impossible to separate Curtis the politician from Curtis the Kaw Indian. H.L. Mencken would refer to the President and his VP as �Lord Hoover and the Injun�. During Curtis� House days, Speaker Tom Reed became rather fond of �the Indian�, and on one occasion�when Curtis thought he�d interrupted the Speaker and excused himself�Reed called after him, �Come back in here, Indian, I want you to hear this!�

During the �28 campaign, he made liberal use of the declaration �from Kaw teepee to the Capitol� and would pose for pictures in exotic headdresses and festoon his office in American Indian artifacts...

quote:

...During the campaign, future George H.W. Bush press secretary Torie Clarke took Senator John McCain to task for a comment he�d made that Dan Quayle would help with women voters. McCain told Clarke, �Torie, I know three things about Dan Quayle: He�s dumber than poo poo, he�s a scratch golfer, and he�s good-looking. I went with his strengths.�
...Shortly after Bush and Quayle were inaugurated, Bush sent his new Vice President on a 12-day tour of the Far East, starting in the Pacific. It seemed a low-risk opportunity to test-drive Quayle�s diplomacy skills�a harmless round of photo opportunities and �meet-n-greets� with America�s most non-controversial allies, and then they�d give him remedial training afterwards as needed. Quayle�s first stop was in Hawaii, where Air Force II was to be refueled. His initial informal address fell somewhat short of the dignity one would expect from a representative of America�s Executive Branch of government, but did offer penetrating insights into Hawaii�s place in the world: "Hawaii has always been a very pivotal role in the Pacific. It is in the Pacific. It is a part of the United States that is an island that is right here.� Frank and guileless, well-intentioned, but definitely not controversial.

If only that could be said about his next stop in American Samoa. In Pago Pago, which is pronounced �Pango Pango�, Quayle made his first misstep, pronouncing the capital, �Pogo Pogo�. Awkward, but not fatal. Unfortunately, he would continue speaking during his visit, addressing the locals: "Keep that commitment to just being happy people . . . But you all look like happy campers to me. Happy campers you are. Happy campers you have been. And, as far as I am concerned, happy campers you will always be."

# ¿ Jul 3, 2011 22:43

Nckdictator: Sep 8, 2006; Just..someone

Monkeytime posted:

The third installment of the Atlantic's World War II photo series is out:

http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2011/07/world-war-ii-axis-invasions-and-the-fall-of-france/100098/

These are great,thanks for keeping us updated.

c355n4 posted:

The sign broke down the different groups and the markings.

What exactly was a "antisocial"?

Edit: You know,reading up on concentration camp badges on Wikipedia got me to thinking since the Nazis persecuted Jehovah's Witnesses does anyone know how Quakers were treated in Nazi Germany or have a link to a good article or book on the subject?

# ¿ Jul 4, 2011 00:33

Nckdictator: Sep 8, 2006; Just..someone

Paxicon posted:

In living history news, the last heir to the Imperial Austrian throne has died. He was born in 1912 and at seven years he had to flee the country along with the rest of the family.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14019319

From his Wikipedia entry.

quote:

During his time in parliament, Otto was alleged to have struck fellow MEP Ian Paisley. (Pope John Paul II had given a speech to the European Parliament in 1988, and Paisley shouted at the Pope, "I renounce you as the Antichrist!", holding a poster reading "Pope John Paul II Antichrist", whereupon he was excluded from the session and expelled from the room by other MEPs.

It's always nice to see progressive royalty.

# ¿ Jul 5, 2011 00:52

Nckdictator: Sep 8, 2006; Just..someone

Patter Song posted:

Not to disagree with him or anything (anyone who punched Ian Paisley is cool in my book), but a member of one of the most prominent Catholic families in the world punching someone that is calling the Pope an Antichrist is probably not doing it in the name of religious tolerance.

Point taken, I didn't think about it that way but hey he punched Ian Paisley.

# ¿ Jul 5, 2011 04:32

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# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 19:04

Nckdictator: Sep 8, 2006; Just..someone

RC and Moon Pie posted:

Marvin Griffin

"In 1958 Griffin took advantage of the intense media coverage surrounding the Springhill mining disaster in Springhill, Nova Scotia, Canada to promote tourism to his state by offering a group of survivors free vacations to Jekyll Island. However, to the segregationist governor's chagrin, one of the rescued miners was black, resulting in a public relations nightmare.[3]"

Thanks for posting those, I love learning about my state's screwed up history.

# ¿ Jul 11, 2011 02:48

The Something Awful Forums > Archives > Comedy Goldmine > History: Wait, what? This really happened?

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