• The Lesser Judgment Day

    The 1509 Constantinople earthquake, referred to as “The Lesser Judgment Day”  by contemporaries, occurred in the Sea of Marmara on 10 September 1509 at about 10pm. The earthquake had an estimated magnitude of 7.2 ± 0.3 on the surface wave magnitude scale.A tsunami and forty-five days of aftershocks followed the earthquake. Over a thousand houses and 109 mosques were destroyed, and an estimated 10,000 people died. The…

    Read more →

  • This is a small deviation from my usual blogs, just a bit fun trivia. The Netherlands , a small country with a population of 17.1 Million. Famous for its flowers,vegetables,artists and industry. But I betcha you did not know these were Dutch. Bobby Farrell Dancer and singer with the 70s/80s disco band Bomey M. Van…

    Read more →

  • Degenerate art was a term adopted by the Nazi regime in Germany to describe Modern art. Such art was banned on the grounds that it was un-German, Jewish, or Communist in nature, and those identified as degenerate artists were subjected to sanctions. These included being dismissed from teaching positions, being forbidden to exhibit or to sell their art, and in some cases being forbidden…

    Read more →

  • On Wednesday morning, September 9, 1942, the I-25, under the command of Lieutenant Commander Meiji Tagami, surfaced west of Cape Blanco. Launching from the Japanese sub I-25, Nobuo Fujita piloted his light aircraft over the state of Oregon and firebombed Mount Emily, alighting a state forest–and ensuring his place in the history books as the only man to ever bomb the…

    Read more →

  • Born to a Russian peasant family in 1895, as a young man he quickly earned a reputation for “chernaya rabota”, or “black work”, while serving in the Tsarist army during World War I- gaining recognition from Stalin himself for his covert assassinations, torture, and executions. Blokhin quickly rose through the ranks of Russia’s secret police…

    Read more →

  • Johannes Heesters  a very controversial Dutch Tenor and actor, and although I try no to judge people I think it is save to call this man a traitor whose only passions were fame and wealth. Remembered for his roles in such mid 20th-century German-language films as Viktor und Viktoria and Die Jungfrau auf dem Dach,…

    Read more →

  • One of my favourite songs is from a band called Extreme it is called “When I first kissed you” The opening line goes as follows.”New York city can be so pretty from a bird’s eye view” If history had gone a slightly different direction the lyrics to that song would not have  been the same.…

    Read more →

  • Al Capone-Sinner and Saint

    Al Capone was one of the most brutal criminals ever , there is no denying that. But as sometimes is the case that good men can do bad thing, the reverse is also true,bad men can do good things. Al Capone started one of the first soup kitchens. The kitchen employed a few people, but…

    Read more →

  • Josef Kohout (24 January 1915 – 15 March 1994) was an Austrian  concentration camp survivor, imprisoned for his homosexuality. He is known best for the 1972 book Die Männer mit dem rosa Winkel (The Men With the Pink Triangle), which was written by his acquaintance Hans Neumann using the pen name Heinz Heger. Josef Kohout is the name; prisoner No. 1896, Block 6,…

    Read more →

  • A child is born with no state of mind,blind to the ways of mankind. During WWII,as in any other war, all the children were victims,without exception.Of course the degree and severity on how they were victims had a significant difference. Some lost their lives,while others lost their innocence. Many of those who lost their innocence…

    Read more →