Riga, Latvia… November 1941 – Carolina Taitz and her family survived the first Aktion in the Riga ghetto in 1941.  Jews were taken from the ghetto and killed in the Rumbuli forest.   Soon the remaining families, including Carolina’s, were ordered to report for transport to a nearby concentration camp.  The Taitz family quickly realized that they were being taken to the Rumbuli forest, the site of the first massacre.  There was no way out. The Germans had just about reached the Taitz family when men on horseback arrived looking for seamstresses.  Several Jews, including Carolina, her mother, and sister stepped aside.   They were taken to the nearby prison and than back to the empty ghetto which was being filled with deported Jews from France, Belgium, and the Netherlands.  Carolina decided she had to escape.  She would try to find her old nursemaid and hide with her.  She had already lost her father and brother in the ...

   In January 1945, Joseph Schleifstein, then age four, and his father, Izrael, were deported from German-occupied Poland to the Buchenwald concentration camp. Izrael hid Joseph in a large sack with some tools during the selection process, in which prisoners were sent to their death or chosen for work details. Camp officials later discovered Joseph but spared his life. The SS guards came to treat the Polish boy as a camp mascot, and even had him appear at roll call wearing a child-sized striped uniform.  Despite this special treatment, Joseph was not safe. He remembers being lined up for execution at one point. His father intervened to save him. Months after their liberation, Joseph and his father were reunited with his mother, Esther, in Dachau, where they lived until immigrating to the United States in 1947. Joseph, wearing his old uniform, was interviewed by a journalist.

  In American history, there have been over 3,500 Medals of Honor awarded for bravery. However, there has only been one female recipient—Mary Edward Walker.   Mary Edward Walker worked as a nurse in the beginning of the American Civil War but became the army’s first female surgeon. She was captured by the Confederacy while tending to sick across enemy lines and was declared a spy. Walker was held as a prisoner of war for roughly four months before being released.  After the war ended, Walker was awarded the Medal of Honor by Andrew Johnson on November 11, 1865. In 1917, the Army changed the eligibility criteria to receive the Medal of Honor, and over nine hundred people lost their awards.  This included Walker, who refused to return her medal and continued to wear her medal until she died two years later. During her lifetime, she was an ardent abolitionist, prohibitionist, she was against tobacco use, and she was an early advocate of women’s rights. In 1977, the Army...

On this day 30th May 1940. The story of the Operation fish British battleship HMS Revenge, troop transport HMS Antonia, and troop transport HMS Duchess of Richmond with £40 million, £10 million, and £10 million in gold, respectively, departed from Britain for Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. With storm clouds gathering in 1939 and the threat of a war in Europe, the Bank of England decided to increase its gold reserves held at the bank of Canada in Ottawa. During the summer of 1939 and early 1940 half a dozen ships (HMS Emerald, Southampton, Glasgow) moved over 100 Tons of gold to Canada for safe storage. With these ships having successfully tested the waters, and the war situation in Europe turning grave, Winston Churchill gave the green light to “Operation Fish” which would massively accelerate the movement of gold and securities from Britain to Canada.  Using their wartime powers, the Churchill government confiscated the securities that the British people were forced to register at ...

Scarification involves scratching, etching, burning/branding, or superficially cutting designs, pictures, or words into the skin as a permanent body modification or body art. The body modification can take roughly 6–12 months to heal.  In the process of body scarification, scars are purposely formed by cutting or branding the skin by various methods (sometimes using further sequential aggravating wound-healing methods at timed intervals, like irritation). Scarification is sometimes called cicatrization (from the French equivalent). Here are County's that practice Scarification   Scarification, which is also known as cicatrization in European works, is sometimes included within the category of tattooing, due to both practices creating marks with pigment underneath and textures or pigments on the surface of the skin. In Africa, European colonial governments and European Christian missionaries criminalized and stigmatized the cultural practices of tattooing and scarification; con...

   Istvan Reiner  stares straight into the camera with his big, dark eyes- he looks happy, playing with card and a hole-punch. Not long after the photo was taken, he was deported to Auschwitz, and sent with his grandmother into the gas chambers and murdered.  I wonder what kind of a child he was; shy and quiet or boisterous and energetic? I wonder how old he was when he learned to walk, what his first word was, if he had a favourite toy. I wonder if he had friends, and if so, did any of them survive? I wonder if he had any sort of childhood, if he ever saw the sea, learned the alphabet, or painted a picture. I wonder what kind of a man he would have been, what he would have believed and how he would have lived. I wonder if he would have become a farmer or a postman or a doctor; he might have changed the way we understand the universe, or he might never have read a book. I wonder what he would look like if he'd survived and was still alive, and what sort of lives h...

      Have you ever heard of the British "White Rabbit?" It was late, it was late, for a very important date. But it wasn't from Alice in Wonderland. This was a British terror tank designed for World War I trenches but not created until World War II. Unfortunately, at that point, it was too late to matter. The idea for the "White Rabbit," "Nellie," or Cultivator No. 6 World War I featured extensive trench warfare. Battle lines in Europe would often barely shift, even over the course of a year of fighting. Thousands died for mere yards of soil in a ferocious back and forth. British engineers came up with a few ideas to break the stalemate. The most famous and successful was probably the "Landships," better known as tanks. These were originally rolling pillboxes built on tractor chassis and engines. The Royal Navy worked on other engineering projects to breach German lines. A similar weapon, designed to dig a trench from British lines to German...

Japan’s secret WWII weapon you played with as a kid Advancing Japanese troops ride bicycles in Malaysia in 1941. Believe it or not, you've almost certainly played with a secret weapon before. Well, not literally a weapon, but Japan's secret ace-in-the-hole for their invasion of Malaysia in 1941. In preparation for challenging logistics while fighting in jungles on islands, Japan ordered 6,000 bicycles for each of its attacking divisions, changing military history. Shockingly, they made a huge difference and would probably still be useful today. Bicycles' history in combat the use of bicycles in war has a long history, but it is rarely used in actual combat. The modern bicycle, with two even wheels and a chain connecting the pedals to the back wheel, was first invented in 1885, and militaries began experimenting with it and earlier designs the same year. Europe quickly embraced the bicycle for message couriers, some reconnaissance, and, in rare cases, moving infantry troops....

the terrible story of Isfahan "Power and beauty", In 2014, a city in Iran called Isfahan was the location of a number of brutal and horrific acid attacks against a number of women.  An acid attack is a form of physical violence. It involves a person throwing acid on a victim, usually targeting their face in order to deliberately cause disfiguration to the body. Acid attacks have primarily seen a rise in the Middle East / India in the last few years. Cases usually involve males attacking ex lovers.  Isfahan saw at least 8 acid attacks in 2014. It is speculated that 2 males on a motorbike are to blame. They covered their faces and have never been identified for their crimes.  It is debated as to what  the motivation behind the attacks was. Some Iranians speculate that it had to do with the progression of women in Iran, as many of the women targeted were driving cars or were not wearing traditional Islamic attire. Other theories about the attackers range suggest ...

The Goatman is a North American cryptid commonly known in the states of Louisiana, Maryland, and Texas The Goatman is a North American cryptid commonly known in the states of Louisiana, Maryland, and Texas. The mysterious creature appears as a 7 feet tall humanoid, with demonic goat features. Reports all over the state of Maryland speak of a horrific creatures that kills wondering strangers in the night. The legend also mentions how sometimes, the creature breaks into people’s houses, rapes whoever’s in the house, and kills them in the most horrifying way possible. The Goatman’s appearance is said to be similar to that off a Satyr from Greek mythology. The creature is very territorial, and it’s also very aggressive to.  It is also Belice that this creature is an elemental, a protector of the land it inhabits. Many believe the creature to be nothing but legend, yet every year, there are many witnesses who have reported being attacked by a goat-like creature. Is the Goatman a legend?...

Teddy Roosevelt standing over a freshly-hunted elephant, 1909-1910. This photograph depicts the 26th President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, standing over the corpse of an elephant that he had hunted whilst on an African expedition, sometime between 1909 and 1910. Roosevelt was a  passionate hunter , as well as a self-proclaimed  naturalist  and conservationist – through combining these three interests, Roosevelt organized his grand African expedition, which he started immediately after his final term as President. The expedition was in partnership with the Smithsonian Institution, which funded and outfitted the expedition in order to receive natural specimens for its upcoming Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. Roosevelt also intended to collect scientific, observational data on the various gargantuan animals that inhabited the continent. It was a dream come true for the old President – he was so enamored with the notion of going on an expedition to...

  After a beautiful English woman named Mary Ann Bevan developed acromegaly, she was forced to perform in sideshows and circuses to support her family in the early 20th century.   M ary Ann Bevan wasn’t always “ugly.” Born on the then-outskirts of London in the late-19th century, she looked much the same as any other young woman of the time, and was even considered attractive. That all changed when, well into adulthood and a mother several times over, a rare disfiguring disease began to manifest in her. After just a few short years, her features, hands, and feet were distorted beyond all recognition, and with no other recourse, Bevan made use of her looks to earn a living. This is the story of how Mary Ann Bevan became the Ugliest Woman in the World, one of the most tragic figures in the once-thriving sideshow business, to support herself and her family. Mary Ann Bevan’s Early Life Mary Ann Webster was born on Dec. 20, 1874, to a large family on the eastern edge of London. Thr...

A mother who’s given birth to 44 children has been barred from having any further children by her husband. In the year after she was married off at the age of twelve, Marian Nabatanzi became a mother to twins. Knowing that there were five more sets of twins, as well as four sets of triplets and five sets of quadruplets, Mariam Nabatanzi has given birth to 38 children. Six of them, unfortunately perished as a result of her abnormally big ovaries. Her husband abandoned her three years ago, leaving her to sustain their 38 children on her own. She’s now 39 years old and lives alone in Uganda. Her family has been forced into poverty as a result of this. A village surrounded by coffee fields 31 miles north of Kampala, is home to her and her children, who live in a four small cement block cottages with corrugated iron roofs in a village surrounded by coffee fields. Doctors have intervened to prevent Miriam from having any more children now that she’s 40. She claimed that the doctor informed h...