March 2017
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Sr Maria Restituta Kafka: Born on 1 May 1894 [at Hussowitz bei Bruenn in the Austria-Hungary Empire, today] Brno-Husovice, in modern day Czech Republic, of humble background, Helene Kafka grew up in the Austrian capital where she worked in the Lainz hospital with the Franciscan Sisters of Christian Charity. In 1914 she entered the convent…
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In 1945 disillusioned Himmler believed victory had slipped from Germany’s grasp and secretly attempted to start peace negotiations with Eisenhower in a bid to escape a war crimes trial. But Eisenhower refused to have anything to do with Himmler. A furious Hitler declared Himmler a traitor, stripped him of his powers and expelled him…
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On March 24 2015 Germanwings flight 9525 took off from Barcelona airport headed for Dusseldorf in Germany. But the Airbus A320 never made it to its final destination. Shortly after the plane reached its assigned cruising altitude, it suddenly began a rapid descent. Moments later the doomed passenger jet crashed into the French Alps northwest…
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Most of us will have seen the classic WWII movie ‘the Great escape’ usually around every Christmas period or Easter time it will be shown multiple times on a great number of channels. It is one of my favourite wartime movies although it does take quite a number of artistic liberties in relation to some…
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Hugo de Groot (AKA Hugo Grotius) born in Delft on 10 April 1583 (the year before William of Orange was murdered). He was the intellectual prodigy of his age, and one of the ornaments of the University of Leyden. Early in life he became associated with Olden Barneveld, and when the struggle between Arminius and…
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When the atom bomb “Fat Boy” devastated on the 9th of August 1945, one of the buildings reduced to rubble was the city’s Urakami cathedral — then among the largest churches in Asia. The blinding nuclear flash that would claim more than 70,000 lives in the city also, in an instant, blew out the stained…
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This is an A-political blog just highlighting the many facets of Martin McGuinness, a man who has made an impact on Ireland.I believe that ultimately history will portray him as a peacemaker. Martin McGuinness, pictured circa 1972, holding a Luger pistol Martin McGuinness with masked IRA men at the funeral of Brendan Burns in 1988…
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Zyklon B:hydrogen cyanide adsorbed on or released from a carrier in the form of small tablets, used as an insecticidal fumigant. (A fumigation team in New Orleans, 1939) Even in their preferred choice of mass killing the Nazis used a poison which was originally designed to kill insects and other pests, and that is the…
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The Alderney Camps were prison camps built and operated by Nazi Germany during its World War II occupation of the Channel Islands. The Channel Islands was the only part of the British Isles to be occupied. The Nazis built four camps on Alderney. The Nazi Organisation Todt (OT) operated each subcamp and used forced labour…
History of Sorts 
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