From Yesterday to Tomorrow: Exploring the Journey of History

The execution of fourteen-year-old George Stinney lasted four excruciating minutes.  The first attempt to electrocute the teenager caused the mask to slip off, revealing his wide and teary eyes for all the witnesses in the room to see. It took two more jolts of electricity to execute the innocent young man. Seventy years after Stinney’s conviction, Judge Carmen T. Mullen overturned Stinney’s first-degree murder conviction, stating that his sentencing was “cruel and unusual.”  Although the sheriff claimed Stinney confessed to the murders of two girls, no written or signed statement was presented. An all-white jury deliberated for only ten minutes and sentenced the black teenager to death. To this day, Stinney’s case remains one of the worst cases of racial injustice. This story originally appeared in True Crime Factbook. From Ted Bundy authoring a pamphlet instructing women how to prevent rape, a serial killer saving the life of a prison guard during a riot, to a groupie plotting Richar

January 14, 1945 Holocaust Diary of Tamara Lazerson: "Boredom and cold; it is bleak outside and in my heart. Vitas left for someplace afar, and I do not know where. Uncle and aunt are somewhere in a desolate land, and I am here alone, a stranger.  O God, what a burden it is to be solitary among aliens, fatherless and motherless. There is no one to whom you can run for solace, to embrace, to kiss. Around me are apathetic faces of people.  How long can this continue?  How can one stand up under it and endure? I want to die so that my sufferings will end…” "It is important to realize that Tamara wrote these words months after she had been liberated.  The idea that freedom solved the problems of Holocaust survivors is incomplete at best and insensitive at worst.   For many, freedom brought first the necessity to mourn and grieve for all that had been lost.   People who were just starting to rebuild their lives and families had many more trials to face before they could consider t

🇺🇲WWII uncovered: A Salute to the 511th PIR Angels: Colonel Edward Henry "Big Ed / Slugger" Lahti After the death of his older brother in WWI, Edward Lahti joined the Oregon National Guard at age 15 where he became a member of the Color Guard of the 162nd Infantry Regiment, 41st Division. He enlisted in the regular Army at age 18 and was sent to the 19th Infantry Regiment, Hawaiian Division. Ed earned an appointment to the West Point Military Academy where he played soccer and baseball, including in the 1936 Army vs. Yankees game where Ed faced off against Joe DiMaggio and Lou Gehrig.    After graduating Jump School, in January of 1943 Major Lahti was assigned to the new 511th Parachute Infantry Regiment, "The Angels" where he was given command of 3rd Battalion at Camp Toccoa, GA. Big Ed led his battalion with distinction through the regiment's operations on Leyte and Luzon in 1944-1945. During the Leyte Campaign, some battalion elements became pinned down by

The Missing of the Somme Historian Charles Bean observed during the Somme offensive how ‘a scrap piece of iron flung at random on the hillside in front of Mouquet drove its course right through to the furthest end of the world.’ It was a random scrap of iron that struck Captain Ralph Ekin-Smyth in the failed attack on Mouquet Farm on 3 September 1916. His body unrecovered, Ralph was classified as missing in action.  For months afterwards, his wife Hilda waited patiently for news about her husband, but little came. Then ‘out of the blue’, she received a parcel containing his prized Kodak camera. Then in 1923, Hilda received an unexpected letter. It explained that Ralph’s remains, along with those of 18 others, had been discovered in a large crater just beyond the farm. The contents in his badly deteriorated wallet had helped to identify him. Hilda requested that it be returned so her sons, Raymond, Walter, and Kenneth would have something to remember their father by. For these young boy

“One day if I return to my life, I will look back on this night and I'll see you, Nadine. In whose arms I rested. The arms that I feel grow thinner daily under the striped uniforms. Nadine, will there ever be a life for us?" Nelly  Mousset-Vos wrote those words about Nadine Hwang. The women met and fell in love in the most unlikely of places. They were imprisoned at Ravensbrück concentration camp, likely because they were deemed Nazi political opponents. Amidst their bleak surroundings— starvation, crowding, and illness—they found hope in each other. In stolen moments in the barracks, they painted a picture of an imagined life—glamorous nights out with champagne and caviar. Though they were separated when Nelly was transferred to a different camp, the women found each other after the war. They lived together for two decades, sometimes claiming to be cousins. Watch this Pride Month program live on Facebook on June 1 at 9:30 a.m. ET to learn how, after Nelly’s death, her grandda

The battle in the Bosnian Highlands took place at the beginning of May 927 between Croatian and Bulgarian forces. Emperor Simeon of Bulgaria captured much of Byzantine territory in Europe and crowned himself "Emperor of Bulgaria" in 913. In 924, Simeon sent a large army against Zaharia in the Principality of Serbia. The Bulgarian army ravaged Serbia and forced Zaharia to flee to Croatia, and Serbia was annexed to Bulgaria. In 924, Tomislav defeated the Hungarian duke Zsoltan in Lower Pannonia and annexed it to his state. After Emperor Romanus I Lekapenos granted him some form of control over the coastal cities of the Byzantine theme of Dalmatia and was rewarded with a portion of the tribute collected from the cities, Tomislav proclaimed himself king around 925. Tomislav received and protected the Serbs who were expelled by Simeon. For Simeon, these events were proof enough that the Croats had sided with the Byzantine emperor and that they would actively support him in the fut

Poon Lim was a Chinese sailor who survived 133 days alone on a raft at sea by fishing, drinking bird blood and killing a shark with a jug of water.⁣ ⁣ He holds the Guiness World Record for longest time adrift at sea—alone. When told of the record, he said, “I hope no one will ever have to break it.”⁣ ⁣Lim was a 25-year-old seaman from the south coast of China when he hopped on a British merchant ship in 1942. Shortly after leaving Cape Town, the ship was torpedoed by a German U-boat. As the ship was sinking, Poon put on a life jacket and managed to swim to a raft that was stocked with fresh water, biscuits, an electric torch and some flares.  He estimated there was enough supplies onboard to survive for a month.⁣ ⁣In the first month, Poon came in to contact with a freighter, U.S. Navy Patrol and another German U-boat; they all ignored his frantic calls for her help. Poon later recalled that these moments were the hardest to overcome mentally. However, he did not give up. He took matter