On November 8, 2023, a marine research team led by Kostas Toktaridis of ROV Planet Blue found the remains of the French submarine Floreal, sunk in 1918 during World War I in the waters of the Thermaic Gulf (also known as the Gulf of Thessaloniki), northeast of Greece. The Floreal belonged to the Pluviôse class […]
World Wars
Posted inSecond World War
The pilot who crashed his plane into a German bomber to save Buckingham Palace
On May 1, 2005, thanks to a meticulous study at the City of Westminster Archives Centre (the archive of the London City, containing documentary collections on the history of the urban center, mainly Marylebone and Paddington), the remains of an iconic World War II plane were located and recovered: a Hawker Hurricane that had been […]
Posted inSecond World War
Jasper Maskelyne, the magician who fooled the Germans with his tricks in World War II
In 1983, the famous magician David Copperfield caused a sensation by making the New York City Statue of Liberty disappear in a live television broadcast. It is curious that almost forty years before, in the middle of World War II, another illusionist also performed a magical feat of great proportions, although in his case it […]
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 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 […]
