From Yesterday to Tomorrow: Exploring the Journey of History

The massacre of the Isenschnibbe Farm: the fanaticism of the People and the scapegoat of the SS Where there is a crime, sooner or later, there is always also a scapegoat. The ideal scapegoat is never innocent, because this mystification would not mislead anyone. The ideal scapegoat is ugly, dirty and bad. It is the personification of evil according to the mentality of his time. Once upon a time, the ideal scapegoats were the "monsters", deformed people with a repulsive appearance. The well-known pathologist Pierluigi Baima Bollone, in "The last days of Jesus" explains that much of what we know about the effects of the crucifixion we learned from the examination of the remains of a young Jew, found in 1968 inside one ossuaries found in a 1st century tomb in Giv'at ha-Mivtar, near Jerusalem.  An Aramaic inscription tells us that they belonged to a certain Yhvhnn, i.e. John. John died crucified in the same period narrated by the synoptic Gospels. While alive, Giova

Hiram Thompson - for wife murder. The Thompson family lived at No. 11 Brandiforth Street, Bamber Bridge near Preston in Lancashire.  They comprised 52 year old Hiram, his wife, 49 year old Ellen, two daughters, 17 year old Ellen, Priscilla and her husband and son John.  Hiram was a heavy drinker and there were frequent quarrels between him and his wife over the amount of money he spent on drink.  Sadly, these often led to Ellen being physically assaulted. On the morning of Tuesday the 25th of April 1922, the family rose as usual and daughters Ellen and Priscilla got ready for work.  When they returned home for lunch their mother was fine and their father had gone to the pub, where he consumed four pints. The girls returned to work by 1 p.m.  When Ellen got home at 5.45 p.m., she found her mother dead in the kitchen.  Ellen senior had her throat cut and had been battered around the head.  The police were immediately called.  Thompson was missing and became the prime suspect for Sergeant

Scary Holes With Deadly Pasts Catawba Murder Hole ------------------------------ Locals have passed down plenty of legends about this cave. In one story, a farmer killed a traveling tinkerer in order to steal his wares. He dumped the man’s body back into his cart, then drove the horse and buggy over the edge of the Murder Hole. Another legend tells of a young couple whose families disapproved of their relationship, so they killed themselves by driving a cart into the Hole.However, one death that certainly isn’t a legend is that of David Spencer. Back in 1958, Spencer was part of the Virginia Tech cave club. He was around 7.5 meters (25 ft) into the hole when his rope snapped and he plummeted into the depths. Investigators found that cleaning fluid had spilled onto his rope when it was in storage, which had weakened the fibers.Nobody has died in the Catawba Murder Hole since that tragic accident, but dozens have still found ways to get trapped there. Marian McConnell and her husband bou

Another Unknown Soldier of the Great War identified. On 10 May, Corporal Frederick ‘Percy’ Bousfield was confirmed as the Canadian soldier buried in a previously unknown grave in Ypres, Belgium.  Bousfield, who died in June 1916, had been commemorated on the Menin Gate Memorial along with 55,000 other empire troops who had no known grave in the Ypres Salient.   Thanks to remarkable archival work, Bousfield’s grave could be conclusively confirmed.  Yet what is most remarkable about this story, is how often remains are still discovered on the Western Front, with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission alerted almost daily to these finds.  Why is this the case?  Back in September 1921, the secretary of state for war, Laming Worthington-Evans, officially ended the search for the Western Front’s missing, citing that the battlefields had been searched at least six times. Yet British exhumation parties were still discovering 600 bodies per week. Worthington-Evans’ declaration gave the impressi

Memorial to the ‘Johnnies and the Mehmets’ that lie side by side on Gallipoli  The Australian Turkish Friendship Memorial is located in the leafy gardens in Kings Domain in Melbourne, Australia. It was built to mark the Anzac Day centennial anniversary, and celebrate the shared values between the two nations. As striking as the memorial is, it’s the words on its base that are most evocative. It reads, ‘Those heroes that shed their blood.’  It’s an excerpt from Turkish President Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s longer passage that reassured the grieved: ‘you, the mothers, who sent their sons from faraway countries wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace.’ Atatürk, who came to prominence for his role in securing the Ottoman Turkish victory on Gallipoli, reassures the grieved that their loved ones are ‘lying in the soil of a friendly country.’ He finishes with the comforting reassurance:  ‘After having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as w

The controversy surrounding Norman Lindsay’s shocking 1918 recruitment posters  Throughout the Great War, Australia had to rely on volunteers to replenish its divisions on the Western Front.  With enlistments drying up in 1918, a desperate Australian government turned to artist Norman Lindsay to produce six recruitment posters.  In early October 1918, aiming to surprise and shock, the posters were distributed at night, one design at a time.  In this poster, Lindsay suggested that an invading German army could threaten Australia. It plays on visceral themes of marauding ape-like Germans wearing spiked helmets threatening a homestead with a husband unable to protect his vulnerable wife.  Was Lindsay - who is better known for classics such as ‘The Magic Pudding - really a Machiavellian artist who cravenly preyed on peoples’ primal fears?  Lindsay had been deeply affected by the war. In 1916, his younger brother, Reg, died on the Somme. His death deeply affected Lindsay, who thereafter acu

The Renault FT 31 May 1918, the German army launches a sudden attack near the Forest of Retz near Ploisy in the north-east of France. It is the last year of World War One, and the Germans are desperately trying to beat the Western Allies. A British blockade is crippling the German economy. Those back at home are suffering shortages of fuel and food. The German Empire faces starvation and defeat. As the French units at Retz try to resist the onslaught, they are joined by reinforcements. Among them is a new tank: the FT. Compared to the giant, lumbering British tanks that have been used with mixed results for the past 18 months, these are tiny. There is only room for two people inside them. But they are remarkably effective. The 30 tanks rushed to this battle help to push the Germans back. The tanks only stop advancing because the accompanying infantry cannot keep up with them. At the site of this action, a century later, there is now a plaque, commemorating the first use of what is argu

The Missing of Fromelles: the poignant story behind this perished train ticket.  After 250 missing Australian and British soldiers were discovered in a mass grave near Fromelles in 2009, their remains were carefully exhumed, and all their personal items painstakingly catalogued.  The recovery team collected 6,200 artifacts from the remains, ranging from everyday items such as buttons, buckles and smoking pipes to more intimate ones such as bibles, rosary beads and lockets.  These personal items not only supported identification of remains but also told poignant stories about their deceased owners.  The item that most ‘strikes a chord’ with me is this partially perished train ticket that was found folded with a gas mask. After the ticket was dried out, it revealed some remarkable text.  It was an unused second-class return train ticket from Freemantle to Perth in Western Australia that its owner had purchased in 1915 in anticipation of his return to civilian life.  I often ponder about

Reverend Langley walked from his St Mary’s vicarage to an unfamiliar address in Elsternwick. He opened the picket-fence gate, walked up the path, and knocked on the door.  Widow Mary Reid answered. Langley guided Mary into a room, sat her down, and shared the ‘sad tidings’ that her son Lindsay had died on Gallipoli. Reverend Langley offered Mary words of comfort, but she would have no memory of them, and would not recall how long he stayed or when he left. The news of Lindsay’s death overwhelmed Mary. Everything seemed swept away by the hand of fate. She struggled to comprehend how, in her declining years, she would cope without Lindsay’s much-needed financial support.  In Mary’s grief she drew the curtains and took to bed. Reverend Langley attempted to nurse Mary through her grief with soon-to-be familiar rhetoric about a noble sacrifice. Mary understood that Victorian sensibilities meant that displays of emotion in public were frowned upon. Mary sent a letter to the ‘military authori

The first person killed in the American Revolution was not British, nor were they white?... Crispus Attucks was born about 1723 and died March 5th, 1770.  He was a dockworker in Boston of African, Native American of the (Wampanoag) Tribe, and possibly European descent (due to one of his possible Natick ancestors being half European). He is believed to be the first person killed during the Boston Massacre which makes him the first American killed in the American Revolution.  The massacre occurred when a British soldier chastised a young boy for complaining that the officer did not pay a barber bill. As a result, a group of colonists which included Attucks confronted a group of soldiers.   Attucks was killed in the confrontation along with 4 others. Six others were wounded. Attucks' body was brought to Faneuil Hall where it lay in state until Thursday, March 8th. Bostonians regarded Attucks as a martyr for the American cause for independence.  His gravesite can be located at the Gran

The youngest French military pilot of the First World War, who died in the last year of the war, at the age of 18. Jean Corentin Carré was born on January 9, 1900 in Le Faouët, in the Morbihan department, into the family of a day laborer. When the war began, Jean's father was called to the front. The 14-year-old boy also tried to go to the front as a volunteer, but, naturally, he was refused. However, in April 1915, Jean ran away from home, went to the south-west of France and appeared at the draft office of the city of Pau.  There, Jean said that his name was Auguste Dutoy, he was born on April 10, 1897 in Rumigny, in the Ardennes. The choice of place of birth was not accidental: Rumigny was in the zone of occupation and the military authorities could not request confirmation of the recruit's civil status.  Therefore, Jean was assigned to the 410th Infantry Regiment and went to the front on October 20, 1915. Carré began the war in Champagne as a soldier of the 2nd class, and i

THE AGONY Please what have we done? don't do this to my sister,she is the only one I have;I said while crying! Out of fear, Ella undressed herself before my very eyes and the man forced himself into her.. While having an affair with my sister,I couldn't hold myself so I quickly tried to collect the gun from him and remove the mask from his face and all of a sudden I was shot at my left leg and I fell down,I could see the man running away after shooting me.. Ella was hurt serious after the man forced himself into her,I saw blood flowing on her lap... I was really sad after seeing my sister lieing down while being rape.d Even though she was hurt,she managed to put her dress on and took me inside and use some bandage to tied my shot leg because I was unable to walk.. Brother let me go out and look for a car so we can go to the hospital; Ella said!  While she was going, I look at her and I cried because I promised to always protect her! She walked out and in about 5mins,she brought

 I stumbled across eleven abandoned ships, their rusted hulls decaying, boundless and bare, sunk deep into the mud. Hiking through the Musquash Estuary Nature Reserve, I stumbled across eleven abandoned ships, their rusted hulls decaying, boundless and bare, sunk deep into the mud. Two were United States Navy ships from the Second World Warwhich had fought in the Battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa. At 62 meters (200 feet) long and two floors high, they are the biggest of the ships in Musquash.  They rest close to one another, side by side. Seaweed grows on them from when the waters cover them at high tide. They were landing craft built by the US Navy to carry soldiers and tanks beaches in the heat of battle on the opposite side of the world during the Second World War. They are called “Landing Ship Medium Class One” (LSM) and their respective numbers were 46 and 56. Both were awarded battlestars for their involvement in major battles. Iwo Jima was a key island controlled by the Imperial J

The Unknown Soldier  In 1916 Reverend Railton saw a cross inscribed ‘An Unknown Warrior of the Black Watch.’ Railton contemplated who the soldier was, and who grieved for him. He also wondered if an unidentified soldier’s body could be reinterred in England to represent the lives sacrificed in the Great War.  Railton’s vision became reality on 11 November 1920 when an unknown soldier was buried at Westminster Abbey. As Amelia Bromley watched on, her thoughts turned to her dead son: ‘Yes, he’s come back home … to the place he first entered this world.’ That same day, France entombed a poilu’s remains beneath the Arc De Triomphe. A year later, an unknown American soldier was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.  These tombs became places for silent contemplation, and often sad resignation.  In 1926, a one-legged veteran named Trocker visited the Paris tomb, and smashed a magnum of champagne on the sacred stone and drunkenly toasted the glorious dead. He was arrested and carted away. He

Killing someone's Soul ...  Emotionally Dead has to be the Worst Death!  Bone Pointing ...  A strange method of execution used by Aborigines. Supposedly the practice never fails to kill despite the fact that the victim is never physically harmed. The practice leaves no trace whatsoever on the condemned. This practice is carried out by a Kurdaitcha, or a ritual executioner. The name Kurdaitcha comes from the slippers that the Kurdaitcha wear. These slippers, made of cockatoo or emu feathers and human hair are completely silent when the user walks in them. The Kurdaitcha will use this silence to quickly hunt down the person to be killed if the person has fled. Once the person is caught the Kurdaitcha will go down onto one knee and point the kundela, or killing bone (which will have been charged with a psychic energy in a previous ritual), at the condemned.  At this point the victim is said to be completely frozen in fear. The Kurdaitcha will then chant a curse. Afterwards the Kurdait

Did you know that Sir Francis Drake was the first Englishman to see the Pacific Ocean? In 1573, during an expedition in present-day Panama, Drake climbed a huge tree in the mountains of the Isthmus of Panama and from the top he caught sight of the Pacific Ocean, thus becoming the first known Englishman in history to see the Pacific Ocean. As he looked out he “besought Almighty God of His goodness to give him life and leave to sail once in an English ship in that sea.”   Seven years later he completed a circumnavigation of the globe, the first Englishman to achieve this, and he did it in a single expedition. Drake's the first known person in history to complete a circumnavigation of the planet as captain throughout the entire journey—a marvellous achievement. Pacific Ocean Facts The largest and deepest body of water on Earth, the Pacific Ocean completes the list of the world’s waters. Along with the four other oceans and seven seas, it covers up to 71% of the Earth’s surface. Despit