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  • #198581
    JessiCapri
    Participant

    Hitler was two days away from blowing his brains out as the Soviets crushed Berlin’s defenses. Meanwhile, in the small town of Hostau in West Czechoslovakia, there were hundreds of prize horses held by German forces. The Americans learned that Soviets were closing in and feared they’d be all, “Oh, horse meat! Yum!” and launched a quadruped rescue raid.

    Shit Went Down: April 28, 1945–

    It didn’t hurt that there were also a few hundred Allied prisoners held there in need of rescue. But among the horses were 400 Lipizzans, representing the entire breeding stock of a famous equine of the Hapsburg Empire. If they got turned into kolbasa, that would be it for the breed.

    The Lipizzan is prized for being both powerful and agile, with history as a war horse. Born dark colored, their coats turn grey as they age. According to the Disney version, General Patton, commander of the U.S. Third Army and an avid horseman, ordered the raid to rescue the horses. But that’s not true. He didn’t know shit about it. A Third Army tank unit commanded by Colonel Charles Reed took the initiative to fight its way through enemy lines to affect the rescue. Patton didn’t get involved until later, providing support to help with the escape.

    How did the Americans learn of the endangered equines? The German officer in charge of the horses sent a message saying he and all his men would surrender if the Americans promised to save the horses. The mission was called Operation Cowboy. The Americans entered Hostau on April 28, 1945, rescued the Allied soldiers, took the Germans prisoner, and got the horses. Not just Lipizzan, but several hundred others, over a thousand in all.

    Now they needed to escape, and the fucking Nazis weren’t having it. See, the Germans who surrendered were regular army, called the Wehrmacht. Definitely on the same side as Nazis, but not actual Nazis. Nazi soldiers were called Waffen-SS, and they were made of douche. And, being douches, they wanted to wipe out the Americans and the horses too. So some of the Wehrmacht soldiers who had just surrendered to Americans turned coats and joined forces with their American vanquishers to fight alongside them against Nazi attacks.

    There were two battles during the escape, leading to a number of American deaths, but they killed a lot of fucking Nazis in the engagements. But it wasn’t just Nazis they had to protect the horses from. Despite the Soviets being American allies, they wouldn’t take kindly to seeing the ass end of all that “food” riding out of Hostau. The herd rode west out of town just as the first Soviet tanks rolled into the east end of Hostau.

    The Lipizzans were returned to the riding school in Austria where their descendants perform to this day.

    #198582
    JessiCapri
    Participant

    Men’s beauty contest 1919.

    #199074
    JessiCapri
    Participant

    The name Uncle Sam is derived from Samuel Wilson, a meat packer who supplied rations for soldiers during the War of 1812. Army troops would jokingly say that their food came from Uncle Sam and that they were “Uncle Sam’s soldiers”. After the war, people started associating Uncle Sam with anything related to the United States.

    #199148
    JessiCapri
    Participant

    In 1810, Cassius Marcellus Clay was born into one of the wealthiest slave-owning families in Kentucky. However, while studying at Yale, he heard the radical abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison speak. It was a powerful experience that seriously challenged the beliefs Cassius was raised with, and set him on the path to embracing abolition.

    This prominent son of wealthy slave owners later served three terms in the Kentucky House of Representatives, where his anti-slavery views led to attacks and assassination attempts. The stories of Cassius Clay fighting off assailants sound like the stuff of legend. During a heated public debate, for example, a hired killer fired a bullet into Cassius’ chest… just as Cassius was unsheathing his bowie knife, which took the hit and saved his life. Despite having just taken the impact of a bullet, Cassius tossed the would-be assassin over an embankment… after slicing off his nose and one of his ears. When six men wielding knives and clubs attacked Cassius at a public meeting, he was stabbed in the back… but was still able to end the fight by gutting one of them and causing the rest to flee.

    In 1845, Cassius Clay began publishing an anti-slavery newspaper called True American. He installed armored doors at the printing press, as well as two cannons. It didn’t stop a mob of 60 men from storming the press, and forcing the publication to relocate to a free state (even as Cassius himself remained in Kentucky.)

    A decade and a half later, Cassius Clay would organize the defense unit that protected the White House when the Civil War erupted. He served as minister to Russia during the war, where he helped to secure Russia’s support for the Union. When President Lincoln recalled him from Russia in 1862 to serve as a general in the Union Army, Cassius publicly refused the position unless the President issued a proclamation freeing all slaves under Confederate control… which Lincoln did later that same year.

    Nine years after Cassius Clay’s death in 1903, a man named Herman Heaton Clay – whose ancestors had been enslaved by the Clay family – named his son after the knife-wielding abolitionist. The Cassius Clay born in 1912 would later name HIS son Cassius Clay, Jr. – better known to the world as Muhammad Ali.

    #199165
    Vaughan
    Moderator

    UK.

    It is the Queen Elizabeth 2nd’s Platinum Jubilee. (2022)
    She has been on the throne 70 years and is England’s longest serving Monarch.
    She is 96 years old.

    The UK are having a four-day national bank holiday weekend from Thursday June 2 until Sunday June 5 2022 known as the Platinum Jubilee Weekend

    Elizabeth II is currently the longest-reigning monarch, having been Queen of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand since 6 February 1952.
    She is also the monarch of 11 other Commonwealth realms which have become independent states since 1952

    The 25 longest-reigning monarchs in history….
    Louis XIV, France (72-year reign)
    Bhumibol Adulyadej (Rama IX), Thailand (70-year reign)
    Johann II, Liechtenstein (70-year reign)
    Elizabeth II, United Kingdom (70-year-reign)

    Queen Elizabeth II was born on 21 April in 1926 to King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, so this year marked her 96th birthday.
    Every year, the Queen marks her birthday twice: once on the anniversary of her date of birth, and then again with the “official”, ceremonial occasion in June.
    The official one is celebrated on the second Saturday in June. The two birthdays tradition for monarchs began with King George II back in 1748.

    Trooping the Colour.
    The Trooping of the Colour has marked the official birthday of the British Sovereign for over 260 years.
    Over 1400 parading soldiers, 200 horses and 400 musicians come together each June in a great display of military precision, horsemanship and fanfare to mark The Queen’s official birthday.
    People come far and wide to see her. The streets are lined with crowds waving flags as the parade moves from Buckingham Palace and down The Mall to Horse Guard’s Parade, alongside Members of the Royal Family on horseback and in carriages.
    The display closes with an RAF fly-past, watched by Members of the Royal Family from Buckingham Palace balcony.

    Congratulations Your Majesty. Happy Jubilee and Happy Birthday
    God Save The Queen.

    #199251
    Vaughan
    Moderator

    UK

    Queen Elizabeth II becomes world’s second-longest reigning modern monarch

    The Queen has overtaken Thailand’s King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who reigned for 70 years and 126 days between 1927 and 2016.

    Louis XIV of France remains the longest-reigning monarch, with a 72-year and 110-day reign from 1643 until 1715.

    The Queen, crowned in 1953, became the longest-serving British monarch in September 2015, surpassing her great-great grandmother Queen Victoria.

    The 96-year-old celebrated her Platinum Jubilee earlier this month, with four days of parades, street parties, and other events held across the UK and the Commonwealth.

    Afterwards she thanked the nation in a letter, saying that she had been “humbled and deeply touched”, and that “this renewed sense of togetherness will be felt for many years to come”.

    Mobility problems stopped her from attending many of the events, but she did appear on the balcony of Buckingham Palace at the end of the Jubilee Pageant as the extended bank holiday weekend drew to a close.

    Congratulations Your Majesty.

    #199400
    Vaughan
    Moderator

    It was in 1967 that David Steel, a member of parliament brought in a bill which legalised abortion in the UK.

    Now, if that was ever to change, it would take at least 326 elected officials to agree to such a thing.

    It would then take another 400 appointees in the House of Lords to vote on that bill before it could ever become law.

    So that’s nearly 800 people who would all have to agree before the fundamental rights of half the population would be endangered in the United Kingdom.

    In the USA, the Supreme Court have six politically appointed judges. On June 24, 2022 these judges made a decision that ends the constitutional right to abortion across America.

    A woman’s right to choose what happens to her own body, wiped out in a moment in the land of the American Dream, the land of the free a country which prides itself on the protection of an individual’s liberties.

    It’s incomprehensible that in 2022 we should even have to say out loud that women should be entitled to control their own lives and bodies, let alone live in a country that won’t allow it.

    If only the American leaders on the right would care and fight as much for the rights of women, as they do their guns.

    James Corden

    #199565
    Vaughan
    Moderator

    Check these amazing images out from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope LIVE Tracking New photos of the Deep Universe of Galaxies.

    #199683
    JessiCapri
    Participant

    It really was not all that long ago that men were so intimidated by women that they attempted to control our every move.

    #199770
    JessiCapri
    Participant

    #199887
    JessiCapri
    Participant

    Berlin, August 12, 1961. Carrying only what they were wearing the East Berliners continued to run once in the west, although no longer in any danger.
    An estimated 3,000 people crossed the border that day, as they used their last chance to flee to West Berlin.
    Overnight the border was sealed with barbed wire, and construction on a permanent wall, totally encircling West Berlin, began the following Tuesday, August 15.
    For the next three decades the city was the centerpiece of the Cold War, as the world’s nuclear superpowers faced off across the Wall.

    #200146
    JessiCapri
    Participant

    In the late 1980s, Lieserl, the daughter of the famous genius, donated 1,400 letters, written by Einstein, to the Hebrew University, with orders not to publish their contents until two decades after his death. This is one of them, for Lieserl Einstein.

    …”When I proposed the theory of relativity, very few understood me, and what I will reveal now to transmit to mankind will also collide with the misunderstanding and prejudice in the world.

    I ask you to guard the letters as long as necessary, years, decades, until society is advanced enough to accept what I will explain below.
    There is an extremely powerful force that, so far, science has not found a formal explanation to. It is a force that includes and governs all others, and is even behind any phenomenon operating in the universe and has not yet been identified by us.

    This universal force is LOVE.

    When scientists looked for a unified theory of the universe they forgot the most powerful unseen force.
    Love is Light, that enlightens those who give and receive it.

    Love is gravity, because it makes some people feel attracted to others.

    Love is power, because it multiplies the best we have, and allows humanity not to be extinguished in their blind selfishness. Love unfolds and reveals.
    For love we live and die.

    Love is God and God is Love.

    This force explains everything and gives meaning to life. This is the variable that we have ignored for too long, maybe because we are afraid of love because it is the only energy in the universe that man has not learned to drive at will.

    To give visibility to love, I made a simple substitution in my most famous equation.

    If instead of E = mc2, we accept that the energy to heal the world can be obtained through love multiplied by the speed of light squared, we arrive at the conclusion that love is the most powerful force there is, because it has no limits.

    After the failure of humanity in the use and control of the other forces of the universe that have turned against us, it is urgent that we nourish ourselves with another kind of energy…

    If we want our species to survive, if we are to find meaning in life, if we want to save the world and every sentient being that inhabits it, love is the one and only answer.

    Perhaps we are not yet ready to make a bomb of love, a device powerful enough to entirely destroy the hate, selfishness and greed that devastate the planet.
    However, each individual carries within them a small but powerful generator of love whose energy is waiting to be released.

    When we learn to give and receive this universal energy, dear Lieserl, we will have affirmed that love conquers all, is able to transcend everything and anything, because love is the quintessence of life.

    I deeply regret not having been able to express what is in my heart, which has quietly beaten for you all my life. Maybe it’s too late to apologize, but as time is relative, I need to tell you that I love you and thanks to you I have reached the ultimate answer!.”

    Your father Albert Einstein

    #200147
    JessiCapri
    Participant

    “Years ago, anthropologist Margaret Mead was asked by a student what she considered to be the first sign of civilization in a culture. The student expected Mead to talk about fishhooks or clay pots or grinding stones.

    But no. Mead said that the first sign of civilization in an ancient culture was a femur (thighbone) that had been broken and then healed. Mead explained that in the animal kingdom, if you break your leg, you die. You cannot run from danger, get to the river for a drink or hunt for food. You are meat for prowling beasts. No animal survives a broken leg long enough for the bone to heal.

    A broken femur that has healed is evidence that someone has taken time to stay with the one who fell, has bound up the wound, has carried the person to safety and has tended the person through recovery. Helping someone else through difficulty is where civilization starts, Mead said.”

    We are at our best when we serve others. Be civilized.

    #205477
    synner
    Participant

    This is Jeannie a mechanical elephant that gave rides to children in 1950 . it is part of the history of the town of Margate ( kent , uk ) and has a pub named after it

    Jeannie , although most realistic to look at , is purely mechanical , petrol driven but can move its trunk and head and walk . Mr . Frank Stuart , the inventor , who has had orders for replicas from many parts of the world , has had to apply for a road licence for the elephant . PICTURE SHOWS:- Jeannie the 1200 lb mechanical elephant makes her way through the Margate crowds with a mahout at the controls . 1950

    • This reply was modified 8 months, 3 weeks ago by synner.
    • This reply was modified 8 months, 3 weeks ago by synner.
    #205636
    RED68
    Participant

    knocker-up or knocker-upper was a member of a profession in the Netherlands, Britain, Ireland, and some other countries that started during, and lasted well into, the Industrial Revolution, when alarm clocks were neither cheap nor reliable. A knocker-up’s job was to rouse sleeping people so they could get to work on time. By the 1940s and 1950s, this profession had more or less entirely died out, although it still continued in some pockets of industrial England until the early 1970s.

    The knocker-up used a baton or short, heavy stick to knock on the clients’ doors or a long and light stick, often made of bamboo, to reach windows on higher floors. One famous photograph shot in 1931 by John Topham shows a knocker-up in East London using a pea-shooter. In return for the task, the knocker-up would be paid a few pence a week. Some knocker-ups would not leave a client’s window until they were sure that the client had been awakened, while others simply tapped several times and then moved on.

    A knocker-up would also use a ‘snuffer outer’ as a tool to rouse the sleeping. This implement was used to put out gas lamps which were lit at dusk and then needed to be extinguished at dawn.

    There were large numbers of people carrying out the job, especially in larger industrial towns such as Manchester. Generally the job was done by elderly men and pregnant women but sometimes police constables supplemented their pay by performing the task during early morning patrols.

    Molly Moore (daughter of Mary Smith, also a knocker-up and the protagonist of a children’s picture book by Andrea U’Ren called Mary Smith) claims to have been the last knocker-up to have been employed as such. Both Smith and Moore used a long rubber tube to shoot dried peas at their clients’ windows.

    In Ferryhill, County Durham, miners’ houses had slate boards set into their outside walls onto which the miners would write their shift details in chalk so that the colliery-employed knocker-up could wake them at the correct time. These boards were known as “knocky-up boards” or “wake-up slates”

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