Additional ID: (F-Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th PIR, 101st Airborne Division underway to Normandy aboard their C-47 #12. At 01.20 hours they jumped over DZ “C” (Hiesville). L to R: William G. Olanie, Frank D. Griffin, Robert J. “Bob” Noody, Lester T. Hegland. This photo took on a life of its own after publishment. In the picture Bob remembers he must have weighed at least 250 lbs, encumbered with his M-1 rifle, a bazooka, three rockets, land mines, and other assorted “necessities”.) Bob Noody is still alive.
To see more photographs that were colorized by me for my #DDay75 collection, or to commission me, access: https://marinamaral.com/2019/06/d-day-in-color/
POSTERS || MY BOOK
by marinamaral 2019-11-17
The balloons were anti-aircraft devices.
To see more photographs that were colorized by me for my #DDay75 collection, or to commission me, access: https://marinamaral.com/2019/06/d-day-in-color/
Hope you guys like this one!
POSTERS || MY BOOK
by marinamaral 2019-11-17
Bobby de la Tour was killed in action: 1635 - The patrol withdrew after inflicting heavy casualties on the enemy and capturing 3 PWs. Capt. R.E.V. de LATOUR was mortally wounded whilst leading the patrol in the final assault, and evacuated to 195 A/L Fd Amb. 1650 - Capt. R.E.V. de LATOUR died of wounds.
The others were wounded but survived.
To see more photographs that were colorized by me for my #DDay75 collection, or to commission me, access: https://marinamaral.com/2019/06/d-day-in-color/
Hope you guys like this one!
POSTERS || MY BOOK
Soldiers, Sailors, and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force: You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on other Fronts you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world. Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well equipped, and battle-hardened. He will fight savagely. But this is the year 1944. Much has happened since the Nazi triumphs of 1940-41. The United Nations have inflicted upon the Germans great defeats, in open battle, man-to-man. Our air offensive has seriously reduced their strength in the air and their capacity to wage war on the ground. Our Home Fronts have given us an overwhelming superiority in weapons and munitions of war, and placed at our disposal great reserves of trained fighting men. The tide has turned. The free men of the world are marching together to victory. I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty, and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full victory. Good Luck! And let us all beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking. -Dwight D. Eisenhower
by marinamaral 2019-11-17
More from me || Facebook || Instagram
PRINTS || MY BOOK
Photographer Toni Frissell: “I was told he had come back from playing and found his house a shambles—his mother, father and brother dead under the rubble…he was looking up at the sky, his face an expression of both confusion and defiance. The defiance made him look like a young Winston Churchill. This photograph was used by IBM to publicize a show in London. The boy grew up to become a truck driver after the war, and walking past the IBM offices, he recognized his picture."
Here's another photo that was taken on the same day.
by marinamaral 2019-11-17
More from me || Facebook || Instagram
PRINTS || MY BOOK
Bismarck spent his final years composing his memoirs (Gedanken und Erinnerungen, or Thoughts and Memories), a work lauded by historians.
His health began to fail in 1896. He was diagnosed with gangrene in his foot, but refused to accept treatment for it; as a result he had difficulty walking and was often confined to a wheelchair. By July 1898 he was permanently wheelchair-bound, had trouble breathing, and was almost constantly feverish and in pain. His health rallied momentarily on the 28th, but then sharply deteriorated over the next two days. He died just after midnight on 30 July 1898, at the age of eighty-three in Friedrichsruh, where he is entombed in the Bismarck Mausoleum. He was succeeded as Prince Bismarck by his eldest son, Herbert. Bismarck managed a posthumous snub of Wilhelm II by having his own sarcophagus inscribed with the words, "A loyal German servant of Emperor Wilhelm I". Source: Wiki
Here's a photo of him on his deathbead.
The year before his death, Bismarck predicted: "One day the great European War will come out of some damned foolish thing in the Balkans."
"Anyone who has ever looked into the glazed eyes of a soldier dying on the battlefield will think hard before starting a war."
by marinamaral 2019-08-24
Hey, so awesome to see that you have my book there!
by marinamaral 2019-08-24
More from me || Facebook || Instagram
PRINTS || MY BOOK
A posed photo of official artist Richard Jack at work on his iconic painting, The Second Battle of Ypres, the first work of art commissioned by Lord Beaverbrook. This work is on permanent display at the Canadian War Museum. The official war art program employed close to 120 artists, most of them British or Canadian, who eventually created nearly 1,000 works. The painting commemorates the first major action of Canadian troops at the front, which led British Field Marshal Sir John French to declare that the Canadians "saved the situation." Sir Edmund Walker, of the CWMF's Advisory Arts Council in Canada, doubted that Jack's painting captured the achievement in a way Canadians would understand: "Whatever its merits, the public of the future is not likely to appreciate such realistic treatment of war." (Courtesy of the Canadian War Museum)
by marinamaral 2019-08-24
More from me || Facebook || Instagram
PRINTS || MY BOOK
The Romanov children: Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia and Alexei. Sofia Tyutcheva, the girls’ governess, is also in the picture. She was fired by Alexandra for spreading gossip about Rasputin. On the night of 17 July 1918, Bolshevik authorities acting on Yakov Sverdlov's orders in Moscow and led locally by Filip Goloschekin and Yakov Yurovsky, shot Nicholas II, his immediate family and four servants in the Ipatiev House's cellar.
The family was roused from sleep around 1:30 a.m. and told that they were being moved to a newer, safer location. They dressed quickly but informally. They were then led from the house where they had been staying and taken across a courtyard and down some stairs, then through a number of corridors and small dark rooms, few of which were lit. They reached a room at the end of one particular corridor that had a single electric light burning dimly. They asked for and were brought two chairs for the youngest children to sit on. The family members were then left alone for several minutes. Suddenly, a group of armed men led by Yurovsky entered the room. Yurovsky read an announcement from the local Duma explaining that they must all be killed immediately. Nicholas was utterly perplexed, and asked Yurovsky, "What? What?" Yurovsky eventually responded by saying, "This!" and shot Nicholas in the chest.
Nicholas immediately fell dead from multiple bullet wounds. Then the dark room filled with smoke and dust from the spray of bullets, and the gunmen shot blindly, often hitting the ceiling and walls, creating yet more dust. Alexandra was soon shot in the head by military commissar Petar Ermakov, and killed, and some of the gunmen themselves became injured. It was not until after the room had been cleared of smoke that the shooters re-entered to find the remaining Imperial family still alive and uninjured. Maria tried to escape through the doors at the rear of the room, which led to a storage area, but the doors were nailed shut. The noise as she rattled the doors attracted the attention of Ermakov. Some of the family were shot in the head, but several of the others, including the young and frail Tsarevich, would not die either from multiple close-range bullet wounds or bayonet stabs. Finally, each was shot in the head. Even so, two of the girls were still alive 10 minutes later, and had to be bludgeoned with the butt of a rifle to finally be killed. Later it was discovered that the bullets and bayonet stabs had been partially blocked by diamonds that had been sewn into the children's clothing.
The bodies of the Romanovs were then hidden and moved several times before being interred in an unmarked pit where they remained until the summer of 1979 when amateur enthusiasts disinterred and re-buried some of them, and then decided to conceal the find until the fall of communism. In 1991 the grave site was excavated and the bodies were given a state funeral under the nascent democracy of post-Soviet Russia, and several years later DNA and other forensic evidence was used by Russian and international scientists to make genuine identifications.
The Ipatiev House has the same name as the Ipatiev Monastery in Kostroma, where Mikhail Romanov had been offered the Russian Crown in 1613. The large memorial church "on the blood" has been built on the spot where the Ipatiev House once stood.
Nicholas II and his family were proclaimed passion-bearers by the Russian Orthodox Church in 2000. In orthodoxy, a passion-bearer is a saint who was not killed because of his faith, like a martyr; but who died in faith at the hand of murderers. (Source: wiki)
by marinamaral 2019-07-21
More from me || Facebook || Instagram
PRINTS || MY BOOK
Photo: He is seated in the original chair of the old lord of the St. Benoit Chateau, France. September 19, 1918.
Douglas MacArthur (January 26, 1880 – April 5, 1964) was an American five-star general and Field Marshal of the Philippine Army. He was Chief of Staff of the United States Army during the 1930s and played a prominent role in the Pacific theater during World War II. He received the Medal of Honor for his service in the Philippines Campaign, which made him and his father Arthur MacArthur Jr. the first father and son to be awarded the medal. He was one of only five to rise to the rank of General of the Army in the US Army, and the only one conferred the rank of field marshal in the Philippine Army.
Raised in a military family in the American Old West, MacArthur was valedictorian at the West Texas Military Academy, and First Captain at the United States Military Academy at West Point, where he graduated top of the class of 1903. During the 1914 United States occupation of Veracruz, he conducted a reconnaissance mission, for which he was nominated for the Medal of Honor. In 1917, he was promoted from major to colonel and became chief of staff of the 42nd (Rainbow) Division. In the fighting on the Western Front during World War I, he rose to the rank of brigadier general, was again nominated for a Medal of Honor, and was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross twice and the Silver Star seven times.
From 1919 to 1922, MacArthur served as Superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, where he attempted a series of reforms. His next assignment was in the Philippines, where in 1924 he was instrumental in quelling the Philippine Scout Mutiny. In 1925, he became the Army's youngest major general. He served on the court-martial of Brigadier General Billy Mitchell and was president of the American Olympic Committee during the 1928 Summer Olympics in Amsterdam. In 1930, he became Chief of Staff of the United States Army. As such, he was involved in the expulsion of the Bonus Army protesters from Washington, D.C. in 1932, and the establishment and organization of the Civilian Conservation Corps. He retired from the US Army in 1937 to become Military Advisor to the Commonwealth Government of the Philippines.
MacArthur was recalled to active duty in 1941 as commander of United States Army Forces in the Far East. A series of disasters followed, starting with the destruction of his air forces on 8 December 1941 and the Japanese invasion of the Philippines. MacArthur's forces were soon compelled to withdraw to Bataan, where they held out until May 1942. In March 1942, MacArthur, his family and his staff left nearby Corregidor Island in PT boats and escaped to Australia, where MacArthur became Supreme Commander, Southwest Pacific Area. Upon his arrival, MacArthur gave a speech in which he famously promised "I shall return" to the Philippines. After more than two years of fighting in the Pacific, he fulfilled that promise. For his defense of the Philippines, MacArthur was awarded the Medal of Honor. He officially accepted the Surrender of Japan on 2 September 1945 aboard the USS Missouri, which was anchored in Tokyo Bay, and he oversaw the occupation of Japan from 1945 to 1951. As the effective ruler of Japan, he oversaw sweeping economic, political and social changes. He led the United Nations Command in the Korean War with initial success; however, the controversial invasion of North Korea provoked Chinese intervention. Following a series of major defeats, he was removed from command by President Harry S. Truman on 11 April 1951. He later became chairman of the board of Remington Rand. (Source: wiki)
by marinamaral 2019-07-21
This photo is from my book, The Colour of Time.
More from me
On this day in 1905 – Albert Einstein completes his doctoral thesis with Alfred Kleiner, Professor of Experimental Physics, serving as pro-forma advisor. As a result, Einstein was awarded a PhD by the University of Zürich, with his dissertation "A New Determination of Molecular Dimensions".
In that same year, which has been called Einstein's annus mirabilis (miracle year), he published four groundbreaking papers, on the photoelectric effect, Brownian motion, special relativity, and the equivalence of mass and energy, which were to bring him to the notice of the academic world, at the age of 26.
by marinamaral 2019-07-21
More from me || Facebook || Instagram
PRINTS || MY BOOK
VIDEO: Franz Reichelt’s Death Jump off the Eiffel Tower (1912) (trigger warning)
Franz Reichelt (1879 – 4 February 1912), also known as Frantz Reichelt or François Reichelt, was an Austrian-born French tailor, inventor and parachuting pioneer, now sometimes referred to as the Flying Tailor, who is remembered for jumping to his death from the Eiffel Tower while testing a wearable parachute of his own design. Reichelt had become fixated on developing a suit for aviators that would convert into a parachute and allow them to survive a fall should they be forced to leave their aircraft. Initial experiments conducted with dummies dropped from the fifth floor of his apartment building had been successful, but he was unable to replicate those early successes with any of his subsequent designs.
Believing that a suitably high test platform would prove his invention's efficacy, Reichelt repeatedly petitioned the Parisian Prefecture of Police for permission to conduct a test from the Eiffel Tower. He finally received permission in 1912, but when he arrived at the tower on 4 February he made it clear that he intended to jump personally rather than conduct an experiment with dummies. Despite attempts to dissuade him, he jumped from the first platform of the tower wearing his invention. The parachute failed to deploy and he fell 57 metres (187 ft) to his death. The next day, newspapers were full of illustrated stories about the death of the "reckless inventor", and the jump was shown in newsreels. (Source: Wiki)
by marinamaral 2019-07-21
More from me || Facebook || Instagram
PRINTS || MY BOOK
The Tuskegee Airmen were the first African-American military aviators in the United States Armed Forces. During World War II, black Americans in many U.S. states were still subject to the Jim Crow laws and the American military was racially segregated, as was much of the federal government. The Tuskegee Airmen were subjected to discrimination, both within and outside the army. Contrary to negative predictions from some quarters, they were some of the best pilots in the U.S. Army Air Forces due to a combination of pre-war experience and the personal drive of those accepted for training.
The Tuskegee Airmen were credited by higher commands with the following accomplishments:
1578 combat missions, 1267 for the Twelfth Air Force; 311 for the Fifteenth Air Force
179 bomber escort missions, with a good record of protection, losing bombers on only seven missions and a total of only 27, compared to an average of 46 among other 15th Air Force P-51 groups
112 enemy aircraft destroyed in the air, another 150 on the ground and 148 damaged
950 rail cars, trucks and other motor vehicles destroyed (over 600 rail cars)
One destroyer put out of action. The ship concerned was a World War I-vintage destroyer (Giuseppe Missori) of the Italian Navy, that had been seized by the Germans and reclassified as a torpedo boat, TA22. It was attacked on 25 June 1944 and damaged so severely she was never repaired. She was decommissioned on 8 November 1944, and finally scuttled on 5 February 1945.
40 boats and barges destroyed
Source: Wiki.
by marinamaral 2019-07-21
MY BOOK || More from me
The Tuskegee Airmen were the first African-American military aviators in the United States Armed Forces. During World War II, black Americans in many U.S. states were still subject to the Jim Crow laws and the American military was racially segregated, as was much of the federal government. The Tuskegee Airmen were subjected to discrimination, both within and outside the army. Contrary to negative predictions from some quarters, they were some of the best pilots in the U.S. Army Air Forces due to a combination of pre-war experience and the personal drive of those accepted for training.
The Tuskegee Airmen were credited by higher commands with the following accomplishments:
1578 combat missions, 1267 for the Twelfth Air Force; 311 for the Fifteenth Air Force
179 bomber escort missions, with a good record of protection, losing bombers on only seven missions and a total of only 27, compared to an average of 46 among other 15th Air Force P-51 groups
112 enemy aircraft destroyed in the air, another 150 on the ground and 148 damaged
950 rail cars, trucks and other motor vehicles destroyed (over 600 rail cars)
One destroyer put out of action. The ship concerned was a World War I-vintage destroyer (Giuseppe Missori) of the Italian Navy, that had been seized by the Germans and reclassified as a torpedo boat, TA22. It was attacked on 25 June 1944 and damaged so severely she was never repaired. She was decommissioned on 8 November 1944, and finally scuttled on 5 February 1945.
40 boats and barges destroyed
Source: Wiki.
by marinamaral 2019-07-21
More from me || Facebook || Instagram
PRINTS || MY BOOK
The picture was taken during a state visit of the German Emperor, after a banquet. In the photo you can see Prince Olaf of Norway (the later King Olav V), the English King Edward VII, the Infanta Isabella of Spain, Princess Beatrice of Great Britain (Prinzessin Henry of Battenberg), Grand Duchess Vladimir of Russia, the Portuguese Queen Maria Amelia of Orleans, the Duchess of Aosta Helene of Orleans, Princess Johanna of Saxony, Duchess Louise of Fife (Princess Louise of Great Britain), Duke Arthur of Connaught, Queen Maud of Norway, Kaiser Wilhelm II, Mary Princess of Wales (later the British Queen Mary), Princess Patricia of Connaught, George Prince of Wales (later George V), King Alfonso XIII of Spain, Empress Auguste Victoria, Prince Arthur of Connaught, the British Queen Alexandra and Grand Duke Vladimir of Russia.
At the outbreak of the First World War, the grandchildren of Queen Victoria and of Christian IX (King of Denmark) occupied the thrones of Denmark, Greece, Norway, Germany, Romania, Russia, Spain and the United Kingdom. For this, Queen Victoria was nicknamed "the grandmother of Europe" while King Christian IX was nicknamed "Father-in-law of Europe".
German Stormtrooper photographed on a French training ground exercise for the March 1918 Kaiserschlacht offensive (The 1918 Spring Offensive), which began on 21 March 1918 and marked the deepest advances by either side since 1914.
The Germans had realized that their only remaining chance of victory was to defeat the Allies before the overwhelming human and matériel resources of the United States could be fully deployed. They also had the temporary advantage in numbers afforded by the nearly 50 divisions freed by the Russian surrender (the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk).
There were four German offensives, codenamed Michael, Georgette, Gneisenau, and Blücher-Yorck. Michael was the main attack, which was intended to break through the Allied lines, outflank the British forces which held the front from the Somme River to the English Channel and defeat the British Army. Once this was achieved, it was hoped that the French would seek armistice terms. The other offensives were subsidiary to Michael and were designed to divert Allied forces from the main offensive on the Somme. No clear objective was established before the start of the offensives and once the operations were underway, the targets of the attacks were constantly changed according to the battlefield (tactical) situation. The Allies concentrated their main forces in the essential areas (the approaches to the Channel Ports and the rail junction of Amiens), while leaving strategically worthless ground, devastated by years of combat, lightly defended.
The Germans were unable to move supplies and reinforcements fast enough to maintain their advance. The fast-moving stormtroopers leading the attack could not carry enough food and ammunition to sustain themselves for long and all the German offensives petered out, in part through lack of supplies.
By late April 1918, the danger of a German breakthrough had passed. The German Army had suffered heavy casualties and now occupied ground of dubious value which would prove impossible to hold with such depleted units. In August 1918, the Allies began a counter-offensive with the support of 1–2 million fresh American troops and using new artillery techniques and operational methods. This Hundred Days Offensive resulted in the Germans retreating or being driven from all of the ground taken in the Spring Offensive, the collapse of the Hindenburg Line and the capitulation of the German Empire that November.
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), commonly referred to by his initials JFK, was an American politician who served as the 35th President of the United States from January 1961 until his assassination in November 1963. Kennedy served at the height of the Cold War, and much of his presidency focused on managing relations with the Soviet Union. A member of the Democratic Party, Kennedy represented the state of Massachusetts in the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate prior to becoming president.
Kennedy was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, to Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. and Rose Kennedy. A scion of the Kennedy family, he graduated from Harvard University in 1940 before joining the U.S. Naval Reserve the following year. During World War II, Kennedy commanded a series of PT boats in the Pacific theater and earned the Navy and Marine Corps Medal for his service. After the war, Kennedy represented the 11th congressional district of Massachusetts in the United States House of Representatives from 1947 until 1953. He was subsequently elected to the U.S. Senate and served as the junior Senator from Massachusetts from 1953 until 1960. While serving in the Senate, he published Profiles in Courage, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography. In the 1960 presidential election, Kennedy narrowly defeated Republican opponent Richard Nixon, who was the incumbent Vice President. At age 43, he became the youngest elected president as well as the first and only Roman Catholic to occupy the office.
Kennedy's time in office was marked by high tensions with communist states in the Cold War. He increased the number of American military advisers in South Vietnam by a factor of 18 over President Dwight D. Eisenhower. In April 1961, he authorized a failed joint-CIA attempt to overthrow the Cuban government of Fidel Castro in the Bay of Pigs Invasion. He subsequently rejected Operation Northwoods plans by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to orchestrate false flag attacks on American soil in order to gain public approval for a war against Cuba. In October 1962, U.S. spy planes discovered that Soviet missile bases had been deployed in Cuba; the resulting period of tensions, termed the Cuban Missile Crisis, nearly resulted in the breakout of a global thermonuclear conflict. Domestically, Kennedy presided over the establishment of the Peace Corps and supported the civil rights movement, but he was largely unsuccessful in passing his New Frontier domestic policies. Kennedy continues to rank highly in historians' polls of U.S. presidents and with the general public. His average approval rating of 70% is the highest of any president in Gallup's history of systematically measuring job approval.
On November 22, 1963, Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested for the state crime, but he was never prosecuted due to his murder by Jack Ruby two days later. Pursuant to the Presidential Succession Act, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in as president later that day. The FBI and the Warren Commission officially concluded that Oswald was the lone assassin, but various groups challenged the findings of the Warren Report and believed that Kennedy was the victim of a conspiracy. After Kennedy's death, Congress enacted many of his proposals, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Revenue Act of 1964.
Additional ID: (F-Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th PIR, 101st Airborne Division underway to Normandy aboard their C-47 #12. At 01.20 hours they jumped over DZ “C” (Hiesville). L to R: William G. Olanie, Frank D. Griffin, Robert J. “Bob” Noody, Lester T. Hegland. This photo took on a life of its own after publishment. In the picture Bob remembers he must have weighed at least 250 lbs, encumbered with his M-1 rifle, a bazooka, three rockets, land mines, and other assorted “necessities”.) Bob Noody is still alive.
To see more photographs that were colorized by me for my #DDay75 collection, or to commission me, access: https://marinamaral.com/2019/06/d-day-in-color/
POSTERS || MY BOOK
The balloons were anti-aircraft devices.
To see more photographs that were colorized by me for my #DDay75 collection, or to commission me, access: https://marinamaral.com/2019/06/d-day-in-color/
Hope you guys like this one!
POSTERS || MY BOOK
Bobby de la Tour was killed in action: 1635 - The patrol withdrew after inflicting heavy casualties on the enemy and capturing 3 PWs. Capt. R.E.V. de LATOUR was mortally wounded whilst leading the patrol in the final assault, and evacuated to 195 A/L Fd Amb. 1650 - Capt. R.E.V. de LATOUR died of wounds.
The others were wounded but survived.
To see more photographs that were colorized by me for my #DDay75 collection, or to commission me, access: https://marinamaral.com/2019/06/d-day-in-color/
Hope you guys like this one!
POSTERS || MY BOOK
Soldiers, Sailors, and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force: You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on other Fronts you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world. Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well equipped, and battle-hardened. He will fight savagely. But this is the year 1944. Much has happened since the Nazi triumphs of 1940-41. The United Nations have inflicted upon the Germans great defeats, in open battle, man-to-man. Our air offensive has seriously reduced their strength in the air and their capacity to wage war on the ground. Our Home Fronts have given us an overwhelming superiority in weapons and munitions of war, and placed at our disposal great reserves of trained fighting men. The tide has turned. The free men of the world are marching together to victory. I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty, and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full victory. Good Luck! And let us all beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking. -Dwight D. Eisenhower
More from me || Facebook || Instagram
PRINTS || MY BOOK
Photographer Toni Frissell: “I was told he had come back from playing and found his house a shambles—his mother, father and brother dead under the rubble…he was looking up at the sky, his face an expression of both confusion and defiance. The defiance made him look like a young Winston Churchill. This photograph was used by IBM to publicize a show in London. The boy grew up to become a truck driver after the war, and walking past the IBM offices, he recognized his picture."
More from me || Facebook || Instagram
PRINTS || MY BOOK
Bismarck spent his final years composing his memoirs (Gedanken und Erinnerungen, or Thoughts and Memories), a work lauded by historians.
His health began to fail in 1896. He was diagnosed with gangrene in his foot, but refused to accept treatment for it; as a result he had difficulty walking and was often confined to a wheelchair. By July 1898 he was permanently wheelchair-bound, had trouble breathing, and was almost constantly feverish and in pain. His health rallied momentarily on the 28th, but then sharply deteriorated over the next two days. He died just after midnight on 30 July 1898, at the age of eighty-three in Friedrichsruh, where he is entombed in the Bismarck Mausoleum. He was succeeded as Prince Bismarck by his eldest son, Herbert. Bismarck managed a posthumous snub of Wilhelm II by having his own sarcophagus inscribed with the words, "A loyal German servant of Emperor Wilhelm I". Source: Wiki
Here's a photo of him on his deathbead.
The year before his death, Bismarck predicted: "One day the great European War will come out of some damned foolish thing in the Balkans."
"Anyone who has ever looked into the glazed eyes of a soldier dying on the battlefield will think hard before starting a war."
Hey, so awesome to see that you have my book there!
More from me || Facebook || Instagram
PRINTS || MY BOOK
A posed photo of official artist Richard Jack at work on his iconic painting, The Second Battle of Ypres, the first work of art commissioned by Lord Beaverbrook. This work is on permanent display at the Canadian War Museum. The official war art program employed close to 120 artists, most of them British or Canadian, who eventually created nearly 1,000 works. The painting commemorates the first major action of Canadian troops at the front, which led British Field Marshal Sir John French to declare that the Canadians "saved the situation." Sir Edmund Walker, of the CWMF's Advisory Arts Council in Canada, doubted that Jack's painting captured the achievement in a way Canadians would understand: "Whatever its merits, the public of the future is not likely to appreciate such realistic treatment of war." (Courtesy of the Canadian War Museum)
More from me || Facebook || Instagram
PRINTS || MY BOOK
The Romanov children: Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia and Alexei. Sofia Tyutcheva, the girls’ governess, is also in the picture. She was fired by Alexandra for spreading gossip about Rasputin. On the night of 17 July 1918, Bolshevik authorities acting on Yakov Sverdlov's orders in Moscow and led locally by Filip Goloschekin and Yakov Yurovsky, shot Nicholas II, his immediate family and four servants in the Ipatiev House's cellar.
The family was roused from sleep around 1:30 a.m. and told that they were being moved to a newer, safer location. They dressed quickly but informally. They were then led from the house where they had been staying and taken across a courtyard and down some stairs, then through a number of corridors and small dark rooms, few of which were lit. They reached a room at the end of one particular corridor that had a single electric light burning dimly. They asked for and were brought two chairs for the youngest children to sit on. The family members were then left alone for several minutes. Suddenly, a group of armed men led by Yurovsky entered the room. Yurovsky read an announcement from the local Duma explaining that they must all be killed immediately. Nicholas was utterly perplexed, and asked Yurovsky, "What? What?" Yurovsky eventually responded by saying, "This!" and shot Nicholas in the chest.
Nicholas immediately fell dead from multiple bullet wounds. Then the dark room filled with smoke and dust from the spray of bullets, and the gunmen shot blindly, often hitting the ceiling and walls, creating yet more dust. Alexandra was soon shot in the head by military commissar Petar Ermakov, and killed, and some of the gunmen themselves became injured. It was not until after the room had been cleared of smoke that the shooters re-entered to find the remaining Imperial family still alive and uninjured. Maria tried to escape through the doors at the rear of the room, which led to a storage area, but the doors were nailed shut. The noise as she rattled the doors attracted the attention of Ermakov. Some of the family were shot in the head, but several of the others, including the young and frail Tsarevich, would not die either from multiple close-range bullet wounds or bayonet stabs. Finally, each was shot in the head. Even so, two of the girls were still alive 10 minutes later, and had to be bludgeoned with the butt of a rifle to finally be killed. Later it was discovered that the bullets and bayonet stabs had been partially blocked by diamonds that had been sewn into the children's clothing.
The bodies of the Romanovs were then hidden and moved several times before being interred in an unmarked pit where they remained until the summer of 1979 when amateur enthusiasts disinterred and re-buried some of them, and then decided to conceal the find until the fall of communism. In 1991 the grave site was excavated and the bodies were given a state funeral under the nascent democracy of post-Soviet Russia, and several years later DNA and other forensic evidence was used by Russian and international scientists to make genuine identifications.
The Ipatiev House has the same name as the Ipatiev Monastery in Kostroma, where Mikhail Romanov had been offered the Russian Crown in 1613. The large memorial church "on the blood" has been built on the spot where the Ipatiev House once stood.
Nicholas II and his family were proclaimed passion-bearers by the Russian Orthodox Church in 2000. In orthodoxy, a passion-bearer is a saint who was not killed because of his faith, like a martyr; but who died in faith at the hand of murderers. (Source: wiki)
More from me || Facebook || Instagram
PRINTS || MY BOOK
Photo: He is seated in the original chair of the old lord of the St. Benoit Chateau, France. September 19, 1918.
Douglas MacArthur (January 26, 1880 – April 5, 1964) was an American five-star general and Field Marshal of the Philippine Army. He was Chief of Staff of the United States Army during the 1930s and played a prominent role in the Pacific theater during World War II. He received the Medal of Honor for his service in the Philippines Campaign, which made him and his father Arthur MacArthur Jr. the first father and son to be awarded the medal. He was one of only five to rise to the rank of General of the Army in the US Army, and the only one conferred the rank of field marshal in the Philippine Army.
Raised in a military family in the American Old West, MacArthur was valedictorian at the West Texas Military Academy, and First Captain at the United States Military Academy at West Point, where he graduated top of the class of 1903. During the 1914 United States occupation of Veracruz, he conducted a reconnaissance mission, for which he was nominated for the Medal of Honor. In 1917, he was promoted from major to colonel and became chief of staff of the 42nd (Rainbow) Division. In the fighting on the Western Front during World War I, he rose to the rank of brigadier general, was again nominated for a Medal of Honor, and was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross twice and the Silver Star seven times.
From 1919 to 1922, MacArthur served as Superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, where he attempted a series of reforms. His next assignment was in the Philippines, where in 1924 he was instrumental in quelling the Philippine Scout Mutiny. In 1925, he became the Army's youngest major general. He served on the court-martial of Brigadier General Billy Mitchell and was president of the American Olympic Committee during the 1928 Summer Olympics in Amsterdam. In 1930, he became Chief of Staff of the United States Army. As such, he was involved in the expulsion of the Bonus Army protesters from Washington, D.C. in 1932, and the establishment and organization of the Civilian Conservation Corps. He retired from the US Army in 1937 to become Military Advisor to the Commonwealth Government of the Philippines.
MacArthur was recalled to active duty in 1941 as commander of United States Army Forces in the Far East. A series of disasters followed, starting with the destruction of his air forces on 8 December 1941 and the Japanese invasion of the Philippines. MacArthur's forces were soon compelled to withdraw to Bataan, where they held out until May 1942. In March 1942, MacArthur, his family and his staff left nearby Corregidor Island in PT boats and escaped to Australia, where MacArthur became Supreme Commander, Southwest Pacific Area. Upon his arrival, MacArthur gave a speech in which he famously promised "I shall return" to the Philippines. After more than two years of fighting in the Pacific, he fulfilled that promise. For his defense of the Philippines, MacArthur was awarded the Medal of Honor. He officially accepted the Surrender of Japan on 2 September 1945 aboard the USS Missouri, which was anchored in Tokyo Bay, and he oversaw the occupation of Japan from 1945 to 1951. As the effective ruler of Japan, he oversaw sweeping economic, political and social changes. He led the United Nations Command in the Korean War with initial success; however, the controversial invasion of North Korea provoked Chinese intervention. Following a series of major defeats, he was removed from command by President Harry S. Truman on 11 April 1951. He later became chairman of the board of Remington Rand. (Source: wiki)
This photo is from my book, The Colour of Time.
More from me
On this day in 1905 – Albert Einstein completes his doctoral thesis with Alfred Kleiner, Professor of Experimental Physics, serving as pro-forma advisor. As a result, Einstein was awarded a PhD by the University of Zürich, with his dissertation "A New Determination of Molecular Dimensions".
In that same year, which has been called Einstein's annus mirabilis (miracle year), he published four groundbreaking papers, on the photoelectric effect, Brownian motion, special relativity, and the equivalence of mass and energy, which were to bring him to the notice of the academic world, at the age of 26.
More from me || Facebook || Instagram
PRINTS || MY BOOK
VIDEO: Franz Reichelt’s Death Jump off the Eiffel Tower (1912) (trigger warning)
Franz Reichelt (1879 – 4 February 1912), also known as Frantz Reichelt or François Reichelt, was an Austrian-born French tailor, inventor and parachuting pioneer, now sometimes referred to as the Flying Tailor, who is remembered for jumping to his death from the Eiffel Tower while testing a wearable parachute of his own design. Reichelt had become fixated on developing a suit for aviators that would convert into a parachute and allow them to survive a fall should they be forced to leave their aircraft. Initial experiments conducted with dummies dropped from the fifth floor of his apartment building had been successful, but he was unable to replicate those early successes with any of his subsequent designs.
Believing that a suitably high test platform would prove his invention's efficacy, Reichelt repeatedly petitioned the Parisian Prefecture of Police for permission to conduct a test from the Eiffel Tower. He finally received permission in 1912, but when he arrived at the tower on 4 February he made it clear that he intended to jump personally rather than conduct an experiment with dummies. Despite attempts to dissuade him, he jumped from the first platform of the tower wearing his invention. The parachute failed to deploy and he fell 57 metres (187 ft) to his death. The next day, newspapers were full of illustrated stories about the death of the "reckless inventor", and the jump was shown in newsreels. (Source: Wiki)
More from me || Facebook || Instagram
PRINTS || MY BOOK
The Tuskegee Airmen were the first African-American military aviators in the United States Armed Forces. During World War II, black Americans in many U.S. states were still subject to the Jim Crow laws and the American military was racially segregated, as was much of the federal government. The Tuskegee Airmen were subjected to discrimination, both within and outside the army. Contrary to negative predictions from some quarters, they were some of the best pilots in the U.S. Army Air Forces due to a combination of pre-war experience and the personal drive of those accepted for training.
The Tuskegee Airmen were credited by higher commands with the following accomplishments:
Source: Wiki.
MY BOOK || More from me
The Tuskegee Airmen were the first African-American military aviators in the United States Armed Forces. During World War II, black Americans in many U.S. states were still subject to the Jim Crow laws and the American military was racially segregated, as was much of the federal government. The Tuskegee Airmen were subjected to discrimination, both within and outside the army. Contrary to negative predictions from some quarters, they were some of the best pilots in the U.S. Army Air Forces due to a combination of pre-war experience and the personal drive of those accepted for training.
The Tuskegee Airmen were credited by higher commands with the following accomplishments:
Source: Wiki.
More from me || Facebook || Instagram
PRINTS || MY BOOK
The picture was taken during a state visit of the German Emperor, after a banquet. In the photo you can see Prince Olaf of Norway (the later King Olav V), the English King Edward VII, the Infanta Isabella of Spain, Princess Beatrice of Great Britain (Prinzessin Henry of Battenberg), Grand Duchess Vladimir of Russia, the Portuguese Queen Maria Amelia of Orleans, the Duchess of Aosta Helene of Orleans, Princess Johanna of Saxony, Duchess Louise of Fife (Princess Louise of Great Britain), Duke Arthur of Connaught, Queen Maud of Norway, Kaiser Wilhelm II, Mary Princess of Wales (later the British Queen Mary), Princess Patricia of Connaught, George Prince of Wales (later George V), King Alfonso XIII of Spain, Empress Auguste Victoria, Prince Arthur of Connaught, the British Queen Alexandra and Grand Duke Vladimir of Russia.
More from me || Facebook || Instagram
PRINTS
German Stormtrooper photographed on a French training ground exercise for the March 1918 Kaiserschlacht offensive (The 1918 Spring Offensive), which began on 21 March 1918 and marked the deepest advances by either side since 1914.
The Germans had realized that their only remaining chance of victory was to defeat the Allies before the overwhelming human and matériel resources of the United States could be fully deployed. They also had the temporary advantage in numbers afforded by the nearly 50 divisions freed by the Russian surrender (the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk).
There were four German offensives, codenamed Michael, Georgette, Gneisenau, and Blücher-Yorck. Michael was the main attack, which was intended to break through the Allied lines, outflank the British forces which held the front from the Somme River to the English Channel and defeat the British Army. Once this was achieved, it was hoped that the French would seek armistice terms. The other offensives were subsidiary to Michael and were designed to divert Allied forces from the main offensive on the Somme. No clear objective was established before the start of the offensives and once the operations were underway, the targets of the attacks were constantly changed according to the battlefield (tactical) situation. The Allies concentrated their main forces in the essential areas (the approaches to the Channel Ports and the rail junction of Amiens), while leaving strategically worthless ground, devastated by years of combat, lightly defended.
The Germans were unable to move supplies and reinforcements fast enough to maintain their advance. The fast-moving stormtroopers leading the attack could not carry enough food and ammunition to sustain themselves for long and all the German offensives petered out, in part through lack of supplies.
By late April 1918, the danger of a German breakthrough had passed. The German Army had suffered heavy casualties and now occupied ground of dubious value which would prove impossible to hold with such depleted units. In August 1918, the Allies began a counter-offensive with the support of 1–2 million fresh American troops and using new artillery techniques and operational methods. This Hundred Days Offensive resulted in the Germans retreating or being driven from all of the ground taken in the Spring Offensive, the collapse of the Hindenburg Line and the capitulation of the German Empire that November.
More from me || Facebook || Instagram
PRINTS
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), commonly referred to by his initials JFK, was an American politician who served as the 35th President of the United States from January 1961 until his assassination in November 1963. Kennedy served at the height of the Cold War, and much of his presidency focused on managing relations with the Soviet Union. A member of the Democratic Party, Kennedy represented the state of Massachusetts in the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate prior to becoming president.
Kennedy was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, to Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. and Rose Kennedy. A scion of the Kennedy family, he graduated from Harvard University in 1940 before joining the U.S. Naval Reserve the following year. During World War II, Kennedy commanded a series of PT boats in the Pacific theater and earned the Navy and Marine Corps Medal for his service. After the war, Kennedy represented the 11th congressional district of Massachusetts in the United States House of Representatives from 1947 until 1953. He was subsequently elected to the U.S. Senate and served as the junior Senator from Massachusetts from 1953 until 1960. While serving in the Senate, he published Profiles in Courage, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography. In the 1960 presidential election, Kennedy narrowly defeated Republican opponent Richard Nixon, who was the incumbent Vice President. At age 43, he became the youngest elected president as well as the first and only Roman Catholic to occupy the office.
Kennedy's time in office was marked by high tensions with communist states in the Cold War. He increased the number of American military advisers in South Vietnam by a factor of 18 over President Dwight D. Eisenhower. In April 1961, he authorized a failed joint-CIA attempt to overthrow the Cuban government of Fidel Castro in the Bay of Pigs Invasion. He subsequently rejected Operation Northwoods plans by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to orchestrate false flag attacks on American soil in order to gain public approval for a war against Cuba. In October 1962, U.S. spy planes discovered that Soviet missile bases had been deployed in Cuba; the resulting period of tensions, termed the Cuban Missile Crisis, nearly resulted in the breakout of a global thermonuclear conflict. Domestically, Kennedy presided over the establishment of the Peace Corps and supported the civil rights movement, but he was largely unsuccessful in passing his New Frontier domestic policies. Kennedy continues to rank highly in historians' polls of U.S. presidents and with the general public. His average approval rating of 70% is the highest of any president in Gallup's history of systematically measuring job approval.
On November 22, 1963, Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested for the state crime, but he was never prosecuted due to his murder by Jack Ruby two days later. Pursuant to the Presidential Succession Act, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in as president later that day. The FBI and the Warren Commission officially concluded that Oswald was the lone assassin, but various groups challenged the findings of the Warren Report and believed that Kennedy was the victim of a conspiracy. After Kennedy's death, Congress enacted many of his proposals, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Revenue Act of 1964.
Guess what :) https://toptalkedbooks.com/amzn/1786692686
https://toptalkedbooks.com/amzn/1786692686
More from me || Facebook || Instagram
PRINTS || Amazon US
'Sir Winston, his son Randolph, and grandson, Winston in coronation robes' Photographer: Toni Frissell
Thank you! Hope you have a chance to take a look at the book too. x
https://toptalkedbooks.com/amzn/1786692686