During the Second World War the Nazis acquired vast amounts of gold to fund their regime and military aims. From countries they invaded/annexed they took: Approximately $71 million from Austria and Czechoslovakia prior to the outbreak of war $223 million from Belgium $193 million from the Netherlands £131 million from Continue Reading
Military
VJ Day – 14 August 1945
On 14 August 1945, Japan unconditionally surrendered ending WWII in the Pacific. This followed the dropping of atomic weapons by the United States. “Little Boy”, a 15 kiloton of TNT, uranium based bomb destroyed Hiroshima on 6 August 1945 and was deployed by the B29 Superfortress “Enola Gay”. “Fat Man”, Continue Reading
Winston Churchill: The Few
On August 20, 1940, during the Battle of Britain, Winston Churchill made a speech to the House of Commons, honouring the bravery of and expressing gratitude to the airmen who prevailed. The most famous part of the speech is in the extract below: The gratitude of every home in our Island, in Continue Reading
Myth: Napoleon’s height
There is a common misconception that Napoleon Bonaparte was small. He was measured as five feet two inches using the French system of measurement which in the English system is five feet seven inches. He employed particularly tall bodyguards which may have contributed to the perception that he was small. Continue Reading
The best known UFO conspiracy
On July 8 1947, the Roswell Daily Record newspaper reported that the US Air Force at Roswell Army Air Field (RAAF) had captured a flying saucer. This was in response to a press release issued by the RAAF on that day: The many rumors regarding the flying disc became a reality Continue Reading
They couldn’t hit an elephant at this distance
Union General John Sedgwick was a brave and inspiring figure in the American Civil War. At a skirmish near Spotsylvania Court House, Confederate snipers were causing problems when he was trying to deploy his men. The following report by General McMahon who was at his side, describes his unfortunate last conversation: Continue Reading
The Bloodiest Wars
World War II 1939–1945 Worldwide 40,000,000–85,000,000 casualties Mongol conquests 1206–1324 Eurasia 40,000,000 to 70,000,000 casualties Taiping Rebellion 1850–1864 China 20,000,000 to 100,000,000 casualties Conquest of the Americas 1492–1691 Americas 8,400,000 to 137,750,000 casualties Qing dynasty conquest of Ming Dynasty 1616–1662 China 25,000,000 to 25,000,000 casualties Second Sino-Japanese War (Part of World War II) Continue Reading
Americans planned to nuke the Moon
On 4 October 1957 the Soviet Union took the lead in the Space Race by launching Sputnik I, the first successful artificial satellite. One of several plans by the the US government to reverse this embarrassment, given the failure of the their own Project Vanguard satellites, was to detonate an Continue Reading
Why D-Day?
The invasion of France by the Allies on 6 June 1944 was known as D-Day. Why ‘D’ and not ‘F’ (for France) or ‘I’ (for invasion) or any other letter? The simple answer is that ‘D’ stands for Date. The US military regularly used this type of shorthand and H-Hour Continue Reading
Mutiny Magnet
After losing the HMS Bounty to the mutiny lead by his former friend Fletcher Christian, in 1789, William Bligh was later (1797) given command of HMS Director which he also lost to mutiny. When he was Governor of New South Wales, Australia (1806-1810), colonists forced Bligh to flee to Tasmania during the Continue Reading