• On March 10, 1865, just weeks before the final collapse of the Confederacy, a slave named Amy Span was hanged on a sycamore tree before the courthouse of Darlingon, S.C., for anticipating her liberty a little too exuberantly. Amy Spain’s slave master was  Major Albertus C. Spain, a Mexican-American War veteran who owned a large…

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  • It was  billed as a contest for the heavyweight championship of the world. And yet, by noon on Dec. 2, 1896, with the fight slated to take place that same evening in San Francisco’s Mechanics’ Pavilion, they had the boxers, they had the venue but they didn’t have a referee. It was the problem promoters…

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  • SPAM

    On this day, July 5, 1937, Hormel Foods Corporation, headquartered in Austin, Minnesota, USA, first introduced the product SPAM, a square can of pork, salt, water, sugar, potato starch, and sodium nitrite that rolled off the assembly lines 82 years ago during the late Depression era. Hormel created SPAM to capitalize on the previously unprofitable pork…

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  • Just a Girl

    Just a girl, not a soldier or a politician. Just a girl, the only threat she posed was that one day her smiley face would melt someone’s heart. Just a girl, no hate to be seen in her eyes. Just a girl, the only wish she had was to grow up. Just a girl, just…

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  • Alleen maar een meisje, geen soldaat of politicus Alleen maar een meisje, haar enige bedreiging dat haar glmlachend gezicht een hart zou kunnen laten smelten. Alleen maar een meisje, geen haat waar te nemen in haar ogen. Alleen maar een meisje, haar enige wens was om op te groeien. Alleen maar een meisje, Alleen maar…

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  • I can’t think of any place on Earth that was more evil than Auschwitz—although other camps had perhaps more cruelty, it is the scale of the cruelty, torture and murder that makes Auschwitz pure evil, a literal hell on Earth. The photograph above is of Yisrael and Zelig Jacob, the younger brothers of Lili Jacob.…

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  • The Nazi regime in Germany (1933–1945) is infamous for its industrial-scale atrocities, including genocide, war crimes, and systemic abuses of human rights. Among those complicit in these crimes were not only military officers and politicians but also scientists and physicians who abandoned medical ethics in favor of ideology and power. One such figure was Dr.…

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  • Graphic photos of the Holocaust often tell such harrowing stories, but sometimes it takes just an inventory list of everyday items that are more shocking because it tells the story of people like you and me. They ate the same food, wore the same clothes, and used identical cups and plates. It was only because…

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  • A picture tells a thousand words, and in this case, they truly do. The drawings and cartoons are made by Emile Franken. I am not sure what happened to Emile. I do know he was born on 15 April 1921 somewhere in the Netherlands and he survived the war. I also know he spent time…

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  • Renia Spiegel was born on 18 June 1924, in Uhryńkowce, then in Poland and now in Western Ukraine, to Polish-Jewish parents Bernard Spiegel and Róża Maria Leszczyńska. Like many other teenage girls, Renia kept a diary. She started hers at age 15, on 31 January 1939, nine months before German and Slovak troops invaded Poland.…

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