Lost Leonardo da Vinci painting to break all records – Telegraph http://ping.fm/YeNnK

 

 

There are six Ivanovs listed on the web site: Grigory, Semyon, Pavel, Vasily, Pyotr and Alexei.

Ivanov is one of Russia’s most common surnames, so it is unlikely that the six were relatives. What they do have in common though, is that all of them died on Norwegian soil between 1942 and 1945, where they remain to this day.

The Ivanovs are listed on the Krigsgraver web site — launched earlier this year — which lists basic information about close to half of the roughly 13,000 Soviet citizens who died in prison camps in Norway during World War II.

The database is part of a project called “Krigsgraver Soker Navn,” or “War Graves Seek Names.”

“We started the project about one year ago, compiling the data about prisoners and where they were held, from Norwegian, German and Russian archives,” said Marianne Neerland Soleim, project manager for the team that has created the database. “So far we’ve added 3,500 new names to what we had before, but it’s been difficult work, particularly as the Germans and Russians often have place names spelled wrongly — they wrote them down just as they heard them.”

via Matching Names to the Soviet Norwegian Dead | Arts & Ideas | The Moscow Times.

Image via Wikipedia

Toward a Pluralistic Middle East? – Jewish Ideas Daily.As the Middle East lurches through the present confusion of civil war, revolution, and mass protest, decent people everywhere wonder about the chances of a more pluralistic and democratic order emerging. One way of measuring progress in that direction will be to track the treatment of minorities like the Berbers and the Jews.

 

 

When John Buscemi talks about his dual-fuel range, he doesn’t mean one of the modern, high-end, gas cooktop-electric convection models. Buscemi’s cooker, a cast-iron Gold Medal Glenwood, is powered by gas and coal, and it was the top of the line about 100 years ago.

via Antique stove’s versatility conquers convenience – The Boston Globe.

Image via Wikipedia

 

Tuesday March 15 2011

There’s a memorable scene in the WWII movie Schindler’s List where grateful Jewish workers thank their Nazi boss Oskar Schindler with the words: “Whoever saves one life saves the world entire.”

But what if in saving one life you inadvertently plunged the world into the most catastrophic horror of all time? What if you saved the life of Adolf Hitler just as he was taking his first baby steps to becoming the most evil monster in history?

Carlow man Michael Keogh wrestled with that “what if” for decades up to his death in 1964. Because Keogh, from the village of Tullow, saved Hitler from being ripped apart by an ugly mob.

via The Irish man who saved Hitler – Lifestyle, Frontpage – Independent.ie.

Image via Wikipedia Edward Jenner (1749-1823), Discoverer of vaccination.

Despite these unorthodox medical practices, the end of the 18th century was marked by many true medical innovations. British physicians William Smellie and William Hunter made advances in obstetrics that established this field as a separate branch of medicine. The British social reformer John Howard furthered humane treatment for hospital patients and prison inmates throughout Europe. In 1796 British physician Edward Jenner introduced vaccination to prevent smallpox. His efforts both controlled this dreaded disease and also established the science of immunization.

• John Adams and Colonial Era Medicine (bsurgmed.wordpress.com)
• How Species Save Our Lives (opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com)
• Smallpox: the most successful vaccination ever (telegraph.co.uk)

 

1936

First television broadcast made available in London.

 

It was in the years immediately preceding WWII that the television industry we know today was born. RCA‘s David Sarnoff used his company’s exhibit at the 1939 World’s Fair as a showcase for the 1st Presidential speech on television and to introduce RCA’s new line of television receivers – some of which had to be coupled with a radio if you wanted to hear sound. In addition, anybody visiting the Fair could go into the RCA pavilion and step before the cameras themselves.

The excitement about television generated by the 1939 World’s Fair carried the interest in television through WWII when development of the medium took a back seat. By the time the war was over the electronic system of television had clearly proven its greater capacity and a period of intense growth took place. Between 1945 and 1948 the number of commercial (as opposed to experimental) television stations grew from 9 to 48 and the number of cities having commercial service went from 8 to 23. And, sales of television sets increased 500%. By 1960 there were 440 commercial VHF stations, 75 UHF stations, and 85% of U.S. households had a television set.

 

 

 

Nebraska pioneer family, 1886

Although the pioneers traveled to the frontier for many different reasons, they all wanted an opportunity to start new lives.  Many of the pioneers were farmers.  They went to Oregon, Texas, and other areas of the frontier for the inexpensive or even possibly free land. This land was available forhomesteading.  They wanted the rich, fertile land for their crops.  Other people came to the frontier because they had heard stories that made the new lands sound like magical places.  Some went to the frontier in order to prospect for gold, to hunt and trade fur pelts, and for many other reasons

Related Articles

• My Pioneering Family (shirleymclain930.wordpress.com)
• Collection of Nebraska Pioneer Reminiscences (pgdp.net)

The Vietnam War: An Overview

The Second Indochina War, 1954-1975, grew out of the long conflict between France and Vietnam. In July 1954, after one hundred years of colonial rule, France was forced to leave Vietnam. Communist forces under the direction of General Vo Nguyen Giap defeated the allied French troops at Dien Bien Phu, a remote mountain outpost in the northwest corner of Vietnam. This decisive battle convinced the French that they could no longer maintain their Indochinese colonies and Paris quickly sued for peace. As the two sides came together to discuss the terms of the peace in Geneva, Switzerland, international events were already shaping the future of Indochina.

 

On August 2, 1964, in response to American and South Vietnamese espionage along itscoast, North Vietnam launched a local and controlled attack against an American ship on call in the Gulf of Tonkin. A second attack was supposed to have taken place on August 4, although Vo Nguyen Giap the DRV’s leading military figure at the time and Johnson’s Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara have recently concluded that no second attack ever took place. In any event, the Johnson administration used the August 4 attack to secure a Congressional resolution that gave the president broad war powers. The resolution, now known as the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, passed both the House and Senate with only two dissenting votes (Senators Morse of Oregon and Gruening of Alaska). The Resolution was followed by limited reprisal air attacks against North Vietnam.

 

Image via Wikipedia

The kidnapping of Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr., was the abduction of the son of aviator Charles Lindbergh and Anne Morrow Lindbergh. The toddler, 20 months old at the time, wasabducted from his family home in East Amwell, New Jersey, near the town of Hopewell, New Jersey, on the evening of March 1, 1932. Over two months later, on May 12, 1932, his body was discovered a short distance from the Lindberghs’ home.^[1] A medical examination determined that the cause of death was a massive skull fracture.^[2]

After an investigation that lasted more than two years, Bruno Richard Hauptmann was arrested and charged with the crime. In a trial that was held from January 2 to February 13, 1935, Hauptmann was found guilty of murder in the first degree and sentenced to death. He was executed by electric chair at the New Jersey State Prison on April 3, 1936, at 8:44 in the evening. Hauptmann proclaimed his innocence to the end.^[3]

Newspaper writer H. L. Mencken called the kidnapping and subsequent trial “the biggest story since the Resurrection“.^[4] The crime spurred Congress to pass the Federal Kidnapping Act, commonly called the “Lindbergh Law”, which made transporting a kidnapping victim across state lines a federal crime.^[5]