dirkdeklein
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Execution by elephant was a common method of capital punishment in South and Southeast Asia, particularly in India, where Asian elephants were used to crush, dismember, or torture captives in public executions. The animals were trained and versatile, able to kill victims immediately or to torture them slowly over a prolonged period. Most commonly employed by royalty, the elephants were used to signify both the ruler’s absolute…
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Ireland remained officially neutral during World War II. However, on 26 August 1940, the German Luftwaffe bombed Campile in broad daylight. On August 26 1940, the tiny village of Campile in County Wexford was bombed by the German Luftwaffe, killing three local women and giving Ireland—until then largely insulated from the terror of World War II—its first experience of…
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I am not saying I am a great lover of art but the fact that I am from a nation that has produced some of the greatest artist in history, probably means there is a bit or “artist” DNA in me. During WWII many Jewish artists were butchered by the Nazi regime. What the Nazi’s…
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On this day in 1835, the first in a series of six articles announcing the supposed discovery of life on the moon appears in the New York Sun newspaper. Known collectively as “The Great Moon Hoax,” the articles were supposedly reprinted from the Edinburgh Journal of Science. The byline was Dr. Andrew Grant, described as a colleague…
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During World War II, the 22nd Artillery Supply Company of the 2nd Polish Corps had an unusual soldier among its ranks, a 440-pound Syrian bear named Wojtek. Wojtek first came to the company as a cub, but throughout of the war, he matured and was given the rank of corporal in the Polish army. .Amid…
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One of the most extraordinary episodes in Irish history saw a French naval flotilla sail to the Northern coast of Mayo in 1798 to help Ireland in its long fight to break with Britain. The 1789 French Revolution had been a huge source of inspiration for Irish nationalists and in the wake of the second…
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The Drancy camp was a transit camp located near Paris. Like many other detention centres throughout France, Drancy was created by the Vichy government of Philippe Pétain in 1941 and was under the control of the French police until 3 July 1943, when Nazi Germany took day-to-day control as part of the major stepping up…
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Lange Jan(Long John) was the name of the 135 meter(442ft) tall chimney of the former coal mine “Oranje Nassau 1” in Heerlen in the province of Limburg in the south east of the Netherlands. It had been erected in 1937/1938 and had been dominating Heerlen’s skyline. To put it in perspective the Big Ben tower…
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The naval Battle of Texel or Battle of Kijkduin took place on 21 August 1673 between the Dutch and the combined English and French fleets and was the last major battle of the Third Anglo-Dutch War, which was itself part of the Franco-Dutch War (1672-1678), during which Louis XIV of France invaded the Republic and sought to establish control over the Spanish Netherlands. English involvement came about because of the Treaty of Dover,…
History of Sorts 
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