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: Interesting History... Did you Know...  ( 27956 )
JessiCapri
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« #90 : March 16, 2021, 03:44:39 PM »




The man who saved the world... 50 years ago, at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, second-in-command Vasilli Arkhipov of the Soviet submarine B-59 refused to agree with his Captain's order to launch nuclear torpedos against US warships and setting off what might well have been a terminal superpower nuclear war.

The US had been dropping depth charges near the submarine in an attempt to force it to surface, unaware it was carrying nuclear arms. The Soviet officers, who had lost radio contact with Moscow, concluded that World War 3 had begun, and two of the officers agreed to 'blast the warships out of the water'. Arkhipov refused to agree - unanimous consent of three officers was required - and thanks to him, we are here to talk about it.

His story is finally being told - the BBC is airing a documentary on it.

Raise a glass to Vasilli Arkhipov - the Man Who Saved the World.

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« #91 : March 17, 2021, 06:30:19 PM »


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« #92 : March 28, 2021, 01:06:46 PM »


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« #93 : March 28, 2021, 01:11:30 PM »




When he walked into a San Francisco barbershop after the war, he was told by the owner, “We don’t serve Japs here.”

The owner of the barbershop obviously didn't know who the one-armed Japanese-American was - his name was Daniel Inouye. And, according to one website that honors heroes, he was one tough "badass".

This is the man who led a one-man assault against a German machine-gun nest, got shot in the stomach, had his arm torn off by a 30mm Schiessbecher antipersonnel rifle grenade, and still kept going. When his fellow soldiers tried to help him, he gruffly commanded them to get back to their positions, saying, "Nobody called off the war!"

He was born on September 7, 1924. A Nisei Japanese American, Inouye was the son of a Japanese immigrant father and a mother whose parents had migrated from Japan.

Inouye would become a war hero, who lost his arm fighting for his country, the United States. He would become a U.S. Senator from 1963 to his death, Dec. 17, 2012, when he was the second longest serving U.S. Senator in history and the highest-ranking Asian American politician in U.S. history. At the time of his death, at the age of 88, Inouye was third in line to the presidency.

Inouye, who was studying to be a doctor in Hawaii, was a medical volunteer at Pearl Harbor when the Japanese attacked in 1941. He immediately tried to enlist in the U.S. Army at age 17, but he was classified 4-C, meaning "Enemy Alien", undraftable, unable to serve.
He volunteered in whatever capacity he could to help the war effort until the United States Army lifted its ban on Japanese-Americans, allowing Inouye to join the new 442nd Regimental Combat Team, the first all-Nisei volunteer unit.

It would become one of the most decorated units in American military history.

"The 442nd, including the 100th Battalion, was honored with seven Distinguished Unit Citations, more than 4,000 Purple Hearts, and a large number of individual decorations for bravery, including 21 Medals of Honor, 29 Distinguished Service Crosses, 588 Silver Stars, and more than 4,000 Bronze Stars," according to the National Veteran Network.

Inouye's heroism is legendary (see the Wikipedia account of his heroics), but because of his race he only received a Distinguished Service Cross. He finally received the Medal of Honor (albeit belatedly) in 2000.

After the war, while in his uniform "with three rows of ribbons and a captains bars on my shoulder," he still had to face racism in his home country. When he went to get a haircut, one barber asked him, "Are you a Jap?" Inouye responded, "I'm an American." The barber responded, "We don't cut Jap hair."

Inouye would later say, "I thought to myself, here I am in uniform. It should be obvious to him that I'm an American soldier, a captain at that. And that fellow very likely never went to war. And he's telling me we don't cut Jap hair. I was so tempted to strike him. But then I thought if I had done that, all the work that we had done would be for nil. So I just looked at him and I said, 'Well, I'm sorry you feel that way.' And I walked out."

One of the senators he served with recalled a story about Inouye's son asking him why he had volunteered to fight in War World II, even though the U.S. had declared Japanese Americans "enemy aliens" and had placed them in internment camps. Inouye's response was that he "did it for the children."

That integrity would follow him through his career. Because of the loss of his arm, he was unable to become the doctor he dreamed of, but he found another way to help others, representing his home state of Hawaii in the House and the Senate.

He was so admired as a senator that he would be selected as a member of the Senate Watergate committee, which investigated illegal activities in President Richard M. Nixon’s 1972 re-election campaign. He won wide admiration for patient but persistent questioning of the former attorney general John N. Mitchell and the White House aides H. R. Haldeman, John D. Ehrlichman and John Dean to the point when one of the attorneys defending Nixon's advisers would call him a “little Jap.”

In a poll, Americans rated Inouye first among the members of the Senate Watergate committee. Inouye was also involved in the Iran-Contra investigations of the 1980s.

According to writer John Nichols, Inouye "never stopped confronting power on behalf of the rights of people of color, people with disabilities, women, lesbians and gays and political dissenters to equal justice and equal opportunity."

The American Civil Liberties Union hailed Inouye as “a champion of civil rights and civil liberties”.

"The last sitting senator who joined the epic struggles to pass the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, he led the fight for the Americans with Disabilities Act and was a key sponsor of the constitutional amendment to extend voting rights to 18-to-20-year-olds," wrote Nichols.
Inouye also battled for reparations for Japanese-Americans who were interned in government compounds during World War II.

When he was chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and discussions of Vietnam were brought up, he made it clear that he objected to the terminology, "“Oriental human beings.”

According to Nichols, "Inouye was one of the handful of senators who rejected the discriminatory Defense of Marriage Act in the 1990s and he emerged as one of the earliest and most determined backers of marriage equality in the Senate, asking: 'How can we call ourselves the land of the free, if we do not permit people who love one another to get married?'

"When the debate over whether gays and lesbians serving in the military arose, Inouye declared as a Congressional Medal of Honor recipient: “In every war we have had men and women of different sexual orientation who have stood in harm’s way and given their lives for their country. I fought alongside gay men during World War II, many of them were killed in combat. Are we to suggest that because of their sexual orientation they are not heroes?”

Inouye continued to represent all Americans, fighting for their rights. When he saw that the loyalties of Arab Americans were being questioned, he would say:
"I hope that the mistakes made and suffering imposed upon Japanese-Americans nearly 60 years ago will not be repeated against Arab-Americans whose loyalties are now being called into question. History is an excellent teacher, provided we heed its lessons, otherwise, we are likely to repeat them."

A fellow Hawaiian senator would say of Inouye:
“He served as a defender of the people of this country, championing historic changes for civil rights, including the equal rights of women, Asian-Americans, African-Americans and Native Hawaiians."

Among his many awards and honors, Inouye received the Medal of Honor in 2000. He was inducted as an honorary member of the Navajo Nation and titled "The Leader Who Has Returned With a Plan." In 2013, he was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 2017, Honolulu International Airport was officially renamed Daniel K. Inouye International Airport in his honor. And, in June of this year, 2019, a naval destroyer was named the USS Daniel Inouye.

According to The Nation, "No senator fought longer and harder for the rights of people of color, people with disabilities, women and the LGBT community."

And, he was one tough badass.

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« #94 : March 29, 2021, 02:27:10 PM »

The world’s most successful pirate in history was a lady.



Named Ching Shih, she was a prostitute in China. This was until the Commander of the Red Flag Fleet bought and married her.

But rather than just viewing her as a wife, her husband considered her his equal and she became an active pirate commander in the fleet.

Ching Shih soon earned the respect of her fellow pirates. So much so that after her husband’s death she became the captain of the fleet.

Under Shih’s leadership, the Red Flag Fleet consisted of over 300 warships, with a possible 1,200 more support ships. She even had a possible 40,000 – 80,000 men, women, and children.

They terrorized the waters around China. The Red Flag Fleet was such a fearsome band of raiders, that the Chinese government eventually pardoned Ching Shih and her entire fleet – just to get them off the high seas!


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Vaughan
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« #95 : March 30, 2021, 11:50:42 AM »

In the Ancient Olympics, athletes performed naked.



The athletes did this to imitate the Gods, but also to help them easily clear toxins from their skin through sweating after each attempt at a sport.

In fact, the word “gymnastics” comes from the Ancient Greek words “gumnasía” (“athletic training, exercise”) and “gumnós” (“naked”).

This translates as “to train naked”.


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Vaughan
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« #96 : March 31, 2021, 10:42:52 AM »

Julius Caesar was stabbed 23 times.



Julius Caesar is probably the most iconic name associated with the Romans. Likewise, his assassination and death are also highly notorious.

Due to his coup d’état of the Roman Republic and his proclamation of himself as Dictator for Life, along with his radical political views, a group of his fellow Roman senators led by his best friend Brutus assassinated him on March 15, 44 BC.

During the assassination, Caesar was stabbed at least 23 times, before finally succumbing to his wounds.

He passed away with fabled words to his former best friend Brutus, allegedly being “you too, sweet child?”


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Vaughan
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« #97 : April 01, 2021, 11:06:34 AM »

The Colosseum, is an oval amphitheatre in the centre of the city of Rome, Italy.

The Colosseum was originally clad entirely in marble.



When you visit or see the Colosseum these days you’ll notice how the stone exterior appears to be covered in pockmarks all across its surface.

Whilst you might assume this is just degradation of the material due to its age, it is actually because it was originally clad almost entirely in marble.

The reason for the pockmarks is, after the fall of Rome, the city was looted and pillaged by the Goths. Yes, that’s right, the Goths!

They took all of the marble from the Colosseum and stripped it (mostly) down to its bare stone setting.

The holes in the stone are from where the iron clamps and poles attaching the marble cladding to it have been ripped out.

It was named the Colosseum because it was next to a statue called the Colossus.



It was originally known as the Amphitheatrum Flavium, or Flavian Amphitheatre, as it was constructed during the Flavian dynasty.

Residents of Rome nicknamed it the Colosseo.

This was due to the fact that it was built next to a 164-foot statue of Emperor Nero known as “the colossus of Nero”.


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Vaughan
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« #98 : April 02, 2021, 07:17:28 AM »

There were female Gladiators.



A female gladiator was called a Gladiatrix, or Gladiatrices (plural). They were rarer than their male counterparts.

Gladiatrices served the same purpose of executing criminals, fighting each other, and fighting animals in Rome’s various fighting pits.


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Vaughan
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« #99 : April 06, 2021, 12:37:24 PM »

The Vikings were the first people to discover America.



Half a millennium before Christopher Columbus “discovered” America, Viking chief Leif Eriksson of Greenland landed on the Island of Newfoundland in the year 1,000 AD.

The Vikings under Leif Eriksson settled Newfoundland as well as discovering and settling Labrador further north in Canada.


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Vaughan
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« #100 : April 06, 2021, 12:40:49 PM »



Vikings – even though they called Scandinavia their home, these Ancient Norse sea experts did everything from exploring, trading, colonizing, and looting.

During their time, they instilled fear in most of Europe, and even parts of the middle east.

Vikings never wore horned helmets! It’s possible that painters made up the horned helmets during the 19th Century.

The word “Viking” means “a pirate raid” in the old Norse language.

The age of the Vikings lasted for just under 300 years between 900 A.D. and 1066.

Vikings have been known to have fantastic hygiene. Archaeologists have found tweezers, razors, combs, and even ear cleaners at excavations sits. Vikings bathed at least once a week which is more frequent that other Europeans of their time.

Due to the Norse religion, it was believed that warriors went to incredible realms after their death, therefore burying their dead in boats was common to help reach the afterlife. In the boats, the dead were often sent off with their weapons, jewelry, and sometimes even sacrificed slaves.


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Vaughan
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« #101 : April 16, 2021, 06:19:02 AM »

In Ancient Asia, death by elephant was a popular form of execution.



As elephants are very intelligent and easy to train, it proved easy enough to train them as executioners and torturers.

They could be taught to slowly break bones, crush skulls, twist off limbs, or even execute people using large blades fitted to their tusks.

In some parts of Asia, this method of execution was still popular up to the late 19th Century.


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Vaughan
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« #102 : April 17, 2021, 10:23:22 AM »

The Luftwaffe had a master interrogator whose tactic was being as nice as possible.



Hanns Scharff was a master interrogator who was very much against physical torture and brutality.

His techniques were so successful that the US military later incorporated his methods into their own interrogation schools.

Scharff’s best tactics for squeezing information out of prisoners included: nature walks without guards present, baking them homemade food, cracking jokes, drinking beers, and afternoon tea with German fighter aces.

He even took trips to visit fellow POWs and swimming pool parties. And on some rare occasions even test flights of German fighter aircraft.



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Vaughan
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« #103 : April 18, 2021, 09:01:00 AM »

In 1386, a pig was executed in France.



There wasn’t a great detail of civil rights in the Middle Ages, and as it turns out there weren’t a great of animal rights either. So much so that they were even subject to human justice.

One such case happened in Falaise, France, where a pig attacked a child’s face who went on to later die from their wounds.

The pig was arrested, kept in prison, and then sent to court where it stood trial for murder, was found guilty and then executed by hanging!


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Vaughan
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« #104 : April 21, 2021, 11:01:40 AM »

Shrapnel is named after its inventor.



British Army Officer Henry Shrapnel was the first person to invent an anti-personnel shell that could transport a large number of bullets to its target before releasing them.

This was all at a far greater distance than the current rifle fire at the time.


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