• Space Monkey

    There are many brave astronauts that have participated – and even given their lives – in the quest to put human beings into space. But before those astronauts had a chance to take flight, there was a long line of other creatures that paved the way for human spaceflight. The first living beings were fruit…

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  • The most evil acts of the Nazi regime were done to children. I often have thought about how I would feel if suddenly my classmates suddenly started disappearing from school,mostly without any real reason given or sometimes only a  vague explanation. This what happened in schools all across Europe during WWII, Below are just a…

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  • The five Sullivan brothers were World War II sailors who, serving together on the USS Juneau (CL-52), were all killed in action on its sinking around November 13, 1942. The five brothers, the sons of Thomas (1883–1965) and Alleta Sullivan (1895–1972) of Waterloo, Iowa, were: George Thomas Sullivan, 27 (born December 14, 1914), Gunner’s Mate Second Class…

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  • The Holocaust was a gradual process. The Nazis didn’t start mass extermination when they got into power. But gradually prepared the population by dehumanizing the Jewish people. Segregation, as shown in the photo above, was part of this. The point was not to provide a bench for Jews, it was to segregate the benches so…

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  • The Battle of Ballynahinch was fought outside Ballynahinch, County Down, on 12 June, during the Irish rebellion of 1798 between British forces led by Major-General George Nugent and the local United Irishmen led by Henry Munro. Munro was a Lisburn linen merchant and Presbyterian United Irishman who had no military experience but had taken over…

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  • Anne Frank

    Anne Frank would have turned 88 today so on her birthday what better time to reflect on her life. I will focus more on her younger years prior to her diary. So much has already been written about Anne, I doubt there will be anything new in this blog, it is nevertheless important to remember…

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  • Canine WWII Warriors

    In the late summer of 1942, the Marine Corps decided to experiment with the use of dogs in war, which may have been a new departure for the Corps, but not a new idea in warfare. Since ancient times, dogs have served fighting men in various ways. The Romans, for instance, used heavy mastiffs with…

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  • The Auschwitz Numbers

    During the Holocaust, concentration camp prisoners received tattoos only at one location, the Auschwitz concentration camp complex. The Auschwitz camp complex consisted of Auschwitz I (Main Camp), Auschwitz II (Auschwitz-Birkenau), and Auschwitz III (Monowitz and the subcamps). Incoming prisoners were assigned a camp serial number which was sewn to their prison uniforms. Only those prisoners…

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  • The above image is from the 10 October 1846 issue of the Pictorial Times. It has the title  “Cahirciveen, the retreat of the Liberator.”  It accompanies an article discussing the plight of the Irish people who are suffering from hunger after the failure of their potato crops. Words of the time—written by a British, not an…

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  • Geleen  is a city in the southern part of the province of Limburg in the Netherlands. With 33,960 inhabitants, it is part of the municipality of Sittard-Geleen. Geleen is situated along the river Geleenbeek, a right tributary to the river Meuse. The Latin name for Geleenbeek is Glana, meaning “clear river”. At the start of…

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