On 13 July 1943, a death occurred in the British field hospital in Acate, in the Sicilian province of Ragusa (Italy), which did not particularly attract the attention of the staff. After all, it was an enemy, a Luftwaffe obergefreiter (lance corporal) who was badly injured in defence of the island during the Allied invasion […]
History
The line of demarcation between prehistoric and historical times is crossed when people cease to live only in the present, and become consciously interested both in their past and in their future. History begins with the handing down of tradition; and tradition means the carrying of the habits and lessons of the past into the future. Records of the past begin to be kept for the benefit of future generations. (E.H. Carr)
Posted inModern Era
What’s the origin of the right and left terms in politics?
Why do we use the terms right and left in politics to identify ideologies or concepts on a one-dimensional axis? Everything has its origin in the French Revolution
Posted inModern Era
Yi Sun-sin, the Korean admiral who stopped the Japanese invasion of his country without ever being defeated or losing a single ship
In recent years the memory of some Spanish sailors such as Blas de Lezo or Alvaro de Bazan who were never defeated in their military careers has been recovered. These are not unique cases and there is at least one – a contemporary of the second one – who surpasses them because not only did […]
Posted inAntiquity
How did the Persians count their battle casualties?
On April 19, 531 A.D., two fairly evenly matched forces (about 20,000 men on each side) clashed on the banks of the Euphrates near present-day Raqqah in Syria. On one side were the Byzantine troops under the command of Belisarius, and on the other those of the Sassanian Empire led by Azarethes.
Posted inSecond World War
Eduard Bloch, the Jewish doctor whom Hitler helped to leave Germany in 1940
In March 1941 it had been about a year and a half since the outbreak of World War II, but there were still eight months before Pearl Harbor was attacked and the United States entered the fighting. That’s why Collier’s Weekly, one of the most important and widely read weeklies in the country at the […]
Posted inMiddle Ages
When Peter I of Portugal ordered the exhumation of his deceased wife to crown her queen
One of the most attractive places in Portugal is the Monastery of Alcobaça. Its interest is multiple: religious, artistic-monumental, cultural and, of course, historical, which is why it is part of the World Heritage by UNESCO since 1989 and is considered one of the Seven Wonders of that country. Apart from its Gothic beauty – […]
Posted inSecond World War
When Allies and Germans fought together in World War II: The Battle for Castle Itter
Austria seems to have a certain magnet for unusual military events. It was in the Austrian village of Itter in the Tyrol that one of the strangest battles of the entire Second World War took place. It was liberated on May 5, 1945, just five days after Hitler committed suicide in his Berlin bunker, and […]
Posted inSecond World War
Rettungsboje, the rescue buoy devised by the Germans in World War II to save downed pilots
Searching for a castaway lost at sea is an arduous and often frustrating task. Unless the search area can be narrowed down a lot, the task can be prolonged so long that probably when he or she is finally located – if at all – he or she is already dead from hypothermia, dehydration or […]
Posted inModern Era
The enigmatic 512 Manuscript describing an ancient Mediterranean civilization in pre-Hispanic Brazil
Like a Lovecraft tale, the Rare Works section of the National Library of Brazil jealously guards a strange ten-page document baptized with the suggestive name of Manuscript 512. It narrates an eighteenth-century expedition during which the ruins of an ancient city were discovered that seemed to have developed a classical civilization in the Mediterranean style. […]
Posted inSecond World War
10 heroines of World War II
The history of the Second World War is full of heroic actions carried out by men and women, often little known but whose work was indispensable in the discourse of war. Women were actively involved in virtually every aspect of the conflict, both military and civilian. For example, the British intelligence service (SOE) had 55 […]
