• During the Cold War, Berlin’s Checkpoint Charlie was one of the crossing points between West and East Berlin (and West and East Germany). It was operated by members of the U.S. military in the American Sector of the city. Located by the Berlin Wall, which divided the German city during the Cold War, Checkpoint Charlie…

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  • +++++++contains graphic images++++++++++++ At the end of World War II, General Eisenhower made a decision to personally visit as many Nazi concentration camps as he could. His reason? He wanted to document the camps and their appalling conditions. (picture below is of inmates demonstrating how they were tortured) Anticipating a time when Nazi atrocities might be denied, General…

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  • In a quiet cemetery outside Chicago lies a mass grave of clowns, strongmen, and acrobats who died in one of the worst circus tragedies in history. In the early morning hours of June 22, 1918, the members of the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus were fast asleep in the wooden cars at the back of their train. The Hammond…

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  • Ich bin ein Berliner

    The speech is considered one of Kennedy’s best, both a notable moment of the Cold War and a high point of the New Frontier. It was a great morale boost for West Berliners, who lived in an enclave deep inside East Germany and feared a possible East German occupation. Speaking from a platform erected on…

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  • Operation Paperclip (also Project Paperclip) was the code name for the O.S.S.–U.S. Military rescue of scientists from Nazi Germany, during the terminus and aftermath of World War II. In 1945, the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency was established with direct responsibility for effecting Operation Paperclip. The primary purpose for Operation Paperclip was for the U.S. to…

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  • Lizzie Borden took an axe, And gave her mother forty whacks, When she saw what she had done, She gave her father forty-one. Actually, the Bordens received only 29 whacks, not the 81 suggested by the famous ditty, but the popularity of the above poem is a testament to the public’s fascination with the 1893…

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  • A little known fact of WWII is that Japan attacked North America several time. Aside from the Pearl Harbor attack, the other attacks were relatively unsuccessful Below a summary of some of those attacks. On June 3–4, 1942, Japanese planes from two light carriers Ryūjō and Jun’yō struck the U.S. military base at Dutch Harbor…

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  • Escape from Auschwitz

    Four Poles, Kazimierz Piechowski, Stanislaw Gustaw Jaster, Józef Lempart, and Eugeniusz Bendera, escaped on June 20, 1942 after breaking into an SS storeroom and stealing uniforms and weapons. In disguise, they drove away in a vehicle that they stole from the SS motor pool, and reached the General Government. Jaster carried a report that Witold…

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  • When standing at attention for a long time, once the musical director gives the sign, the horn may be placed under the right arm’ These and other strict instructions applied to playing the Nationale Jeugdstorm (NJS, National Youth Storm) trumpet. With the Hitlerjugend  (Hitler Youth Movement) in Germany as their example, the Dutch Nazi Party…

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  • There are very few positive stories of the Holocaust,however every once in a while a positive tale of survival during the world’s darkest era pops up. On 8 October 1941, the Jewish cattle dealer Salli Schwarz narrowly escaped a roundup on Molenstraat in the town of Winterswijk,the Nerherlands.. Sneaking through backyard after backyard, he embarked…

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