Scanned Images From a 1962 Fallout Shelter Handbook

I finally got around to scanning some more of that incredibly popular Fallout Shelter Handbook from 1962 I posted about several weeks ago. I figured that it probably wouldn't hurt to scan more -- it offered me the chance to really check out some of the photos. Interesting stuff going on. The nature of some of the following scans require a closer look; if you click on each image you will be taken to its prospective Flickr page. Once there, select "All sizes," to view larger. (The same goes for the earlier post.)

Fargo Then and Now

Fargo, North Dakota, 1950 - the middle of town in the middle of the midwest in the middle of the century. Almost everything you see here still stands. And almost everything you see is gone.

Take a look at this picture, and tell yourself that things are better today. Cities today: Big white malls, clean black parking lots with a superstore rising like a cheap brick glacier, fast-food franchises, landscapes indistinguishable from any other city. Bah. I don't want to short-shrift convenience or harangue the auto culture, but they're thin comforts, and they have no weight. You throw out your anchor and it clatters at your feet. This picture shows a town usually used as shorthand for America's arctic gulag, the end of the earth, a distant outpost of igloos and teepees. But tell me this doesn't look like a small civil corner of a long-gone golden time.

Günter Grass - "How I Spent the War"

It must have been possible for a Luftwaffe auxiliary to trade a weekend leave for a Wednesday or Thursday off. In any case, one thing is clear: after one long day’s march, I took the tram from Heubude to the Central Station, and from there the train via Langfuhr and Zoppot to Gotenhafen, where Navy recruits were trained to handle submarines. It took all of an hour to reach the goal of my dreams of heroism. I found the recruitment office in a low, Polish-period building where, behind a row of doors with signs, bureaucratic rigmarole was processed, passed on, filed. After signing in, I was told to wait for my name to be called. There were two or three older boys ahead of me. I did not have much to say to them.

The sergeant and the seaman first class I spoke to rejected me out of hand: I was too young; my age group hadn’t come up yet; it would soon enough; no reason for excessive haste.

The Astor Place Riots

The Astor Place Riot, one of the bloodiest days in New York's history, had its roots in a banal squabble between two arrogant actors. Actor William Macready, Englishman, and actor Edwin Forrest, Native son, had once been friends. Macready had helped Forrest get his start in London, and Forrest had married an English woman he met through the older actor. But over the years, professional competition and personal egotism had created friction and then outright antipathy. Their rivalry was exacerbated, and then exploited, by a growing nativist movement, then organized as the Order of United Americans, forerunner of the know-nothings and a group with much strength in the organized gangs of the Bowery and other working-class areas. The slights supposedly delivered by an effete, aristocratic Macready to a bold, Democratic Forrest - billed everywhere as "The American Tragedian" - were transformed into insults piercing the very soul of the American character. When the English actor arrived in the United States for an 1849 tour, nativists were incensed.

An attempt by Macready to play Macbeth at the Astor place Opera House on May 7, 1849 proved unsuccessful, as he was driven from the stage by an unruly crowd throwing, as he later cataloged, "eggs of doubtful purity, potatoes, a bottle of pungent and nauseating asafetida, old shoes, and a copper coin."

Convinced by city elders, including Washington Irving and Herman Melville, to try again, he announced a return to the Opera House stage for May 10. This proved to be, to put it mildly, a miscalculation. Nativist elements, fired by the temerity of this fop and organized by local ward leaders, regrouped. One of the principal instigators of the protest was Edward Z.C. Judson, a popular author who use the pen name "Ned Buntline" and who was the man that dubbed William C. Cody "Buffalo Bill." He later served a year in prison for his role in the riot.

Astor Place, from Broadway to Third Avenue, began to fill up early on the evening of the 10th . By curtain time there were thousands of unruly citizens - estimates ran up to 20,000 - in the street, and a packed house inside. It was clear that the situation was uncontrollable.

An Obituary of an "Amateur Historian"

I don't think there's a good word for what Mr. Hall did: "researcher" is too dry, "historical investigator" carries hints of melodrama, and "archivist" suggests a dutiful drudge, which Mr. Hall was not. "Amateur historian" probably fits best, though it sounds vaguely derivative and second-tier. Following a career with the Labor Department--he retired in the early 1970s--Mr. Hall turned himself into the world's foremost authority on the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Historians, pros and amateurs alike, sought him out for his knowledge and access to his exhaustive files. As one of them put it, James O. Hall knew more about Lincoln's murder than anyone who ever lived, including John Wilkes Booth.

Uncorrupted by graduate degrees, with no thought of professional advancement, Mr. Hall exemplified a tradition in the study of American history, particularly in the Lincoln field, where the most interesting writing and research is often done by hobbyists. It's been this way from the beginning. Until the middle of the last century, all the great Lincoln biographers made their livings outside the university--journalists like Ida Tarbell and free-lance enthusiasts like Benjamin Thomas produced biographies that were beautifully written and filled with news. Even now, dozens of Lincoln or Civil War roundtables flourish, and many of them publish quirky newsletters in which members let drop bits of recondite research or boldly advance new theories. While other areas of academic research have shriveled into hyperspecialization, the amateur tradition has kept the Lincoln field blessedly free of the guild mentality that can make academic history seem the dreary province of pedants and bullies.

Complete List of Old West Gunfights

Though movies and television would like us to believe otherwise, it was very rare when gunfights occurred with the two gunfighters squarely facing each other from a distance in a dusty street. This romanticized image of the Old West gunfight was born in the dime novels of the late 19th century and perpetuated in the film era, to such a point that this fictional version is the what our mind’s eye quickly conjures up when we hear the word “ gunfight.� In actuality, the “real� gunfights of the Old West were rarely that “civilized.�

Silphium, Birth Control of the Ancient Greeks

The prized plant became such a key pillar of the Cyrenean economy that its likeness was stamped upon many of the city's gold and silver coins. The images often depicted a regal-looking woman sitting in a chair, with one hand touching the herb and her other hand pointing at her genitals. The plant was known as silphium or laserwort, and its heart-shaped fruit brought the ancient world a highly sought-after freedom: the opportunity to enjoy sex with very little risk of pregnancy.

The silphium plants were giant fennels which grew wild along the dry hillsides of the Mediterranean coast. It didn't take long for the Greek settlers to discover its value as a food source, and the vegetable flesh came to be prized as a delicious garnish, while pleasant perfumes were coaxed from its yellow blossoms. Over time further uses for the wild fennel were found, such as the resin extracted from its stalks and roots which was used to treat cough, sore throat, fever, indigestion, snake bite, "warts in the seat," epilepsy, and a host of other disagreeable ailments. But of all of the plant's virtues, the silphium was certainly most prized for its pregnancy-preventing properties.

Pigeon Recon

In 1903, German Engineer Julius Neubronner combined a small analogue camera with a mechanical timer and attached it around a pigeon's neck. This innovative approach to aerial photography soon raised interest from the German military. Shortly thereafter, exploring the potential for secret aerial photography carried out by pigeons began in earnest.

How Hitler Became a Dictator

The day after the fire, Hitler persuaded President Hindenburg to issue a decree entitled, "For the Protection of the People and the State." Justified as a "defensive measure against Communist acts of violence endangering the state," the decree suspended the constitutional guarantees pertaining to civil liberties:

Restrictions on personal liberty, on the right of free expression of opinion, including freedom of the press; on the rights of assembly and association; and violations of the privacy of postal, telegraphic and telephonic communications; and warrants for house searches, orders for confiscations as well as restrictions on property, are also permissible beyond the legal limits otherwise prescribed.

Two weeks after the Reichstag fire, Hitler requested the Reichstag to temporarily delegate its powers to him so that he could adequately deal with the crisis. Denouncing opponents to his request, Hitler shouted, "Germany will be free, but not through you!" When the vote was taken, the result was 441 for and 84 against, giving Hitler the two-thirds majority he needed to suspend the German constitution. On March 23, 1933, what has gone down in German history as the "Enabling Act" made Hitler dictator of Germany, freed of all legislative and constitutional constraints.

The Noli Plan

The Nolli map was based on Bufalini's map of 1551, with which Nolli readily invited comparison, but Nolli made a number of important innovations. Firstly, Nolli reorients the city from east (which was conventional at the time) to magnetic north, reflecting Nolli's reliance on the compass to get a bearing on the city's topography. Secondly, though he follows Bufalini in using a figure-ground representation of built space with blocks and building shaded in a dark poché, Nolli represents enclosed public spaces such as the collonades in St. Peter's Square and the Pantheon as open civic spaces. Finally, the map was a significant improvement in accuracy, even noting the asymmetry of the Spanish Steps. The map was used in government planning for the city of Rome until the 1970s.

History of the Term, "White Trash"

The term white trash dates back not to the 1950s but to the 1820s. It arises not in Mississippi or Alabama, but in and around Baltimore, Maryland. And best guess is that it was invented not by whites, but by African Americans. As a term of abuse, white trash was used by blacks—both free and enslaved—to disparage local poor whites. Some of these poor whites would have been newly arrived Irish immigrants, others semiskilled workers drawn to Baltimore and Washington, D.C. in the postrevolutionary building boom, and others still may have been white servants, waged or indentured, working in the homes and estates of area elites. The term registered contempt and disgust, as it does today, and suggests sharp hostilities between social groups who were essentially competing for the same resources—the same jobs, the same opportunities, and even the same marriage partners.

While white trash is likely to have originated in African American slang, it was middle-class and elite whites who found the term most compelling and useful and they who, ultimately, made it part of popular American speech.

The Sphinx's Nose

There exists an interesting account written by historian Muhammad al-Husayni Taqi al-Din al-Maqrizi (died CE 1442), in a book called al-Mawa`iz wa al-i`tibar fi dhikr al-khitat wa al-athar (G. Wien, ed., 1913). In vol. 2, page 157 of the Wien edition, al-Maqrizi states that the face, specifically the nose and ears, were demolished in 1378 by a Sufi from the khanqah of Sa`id al-Su`ada named Sa'im al-dahr. The reason for the vandalism, according to al-Maqrizi, was to "remedy some religious errors:" at that time some Egyptians were still burning milk-thistle (shuka`a) and safflower (badhaward) at the foot of the Sphinx while murmuring a verse 63 times in hope that their wishes would be fulfilled. "From the time of this disfigurement also," al-Maqrizi wrote, "the sand has invaded the cultivated land of Giza, and the people attribute this to the disfigurement of Abul-Hol [i.e., the Sphinx]."

It is interesting that al-Maqrizi mentions that the ears were demolished. As far as I can see, the Sphinx still has his ears.

Salem Witchcraft Trials

From June through September of 1692, nineteen men and women, all having been convicted of witchcraft, were carted to Gallows Hill, a barren slope near Salem Village, for hanging. Another man of over eighty years was pressed to death under heavy stones for refusing to submit to a trial on witchcraft charges. Hundreds of others faced accusations of witchcraft. Dozens languished in jail for months without trials. Then, almost as soon as it had begun, the hysteria that swept through Puritan Massachusetts ended.

Why did this travesty of justice occur? Why did it occur in Salem? Nothing about this tragedy was inevitable. Only an unfortunate combination of an ongoing frontier war, economic conditions, congregational strife, teenage boredom, and personal jealousies can account for the spiraling accusations, trials, and executions that occurred in the spring and summer of 1692.

Mystery Solved: How Alexander the Great Defeated Tyre

No man is an island, but it turns out all Alexander the Great needed to take over an entire island was a little help from Mother Nature.

A half-mile-long spit of sand once linked the ancient Lebanese island of Tyre to the mainland, according to a new study of the area's geological history. Alexander used the natural sandbar to build a causeway, allowing his army to overwhelm the island stronghold during a siege in 332 BC.

Alexander's conquest of Tyre has long been known to archaeologists, but they never understood how he managed to build a viable overwater passage to the enemy. The challenge probably troubled the Macedonian king at first too, said study leader Nick Marriner of the CEREGE-CNRS, a French geosciences research institute.

Pliny the Elder: Rampant Credulist, Rational Skeptic, or Both?

Though there may be 20,000 topics in his Natural History, the simple fact is that far too many of the "facts" Pliny provides us are not facts at all, but unverified anecdotes reported as facts. If we were to swing an imaginary "B.S." detector over Pliny's book, the meter would read off-scale. What do we make of this? How does it affect our judgment of poor Gaius Plinius? Is he a rampant credulist, rational skeptic, or both?

The evidence he leaves in his Natural History suggests that Pliny was no different from most of us. His belief system and the structure by which he explained the world grew naturally out of the culture in which he was raised and lived, and though he might now and then reach beyond that culture, unlike either Thales or Aristotle, Pliny was neither genius nor pioneer.

Yet Pliny stood at a significant decision point of Western history, when one pathway to the future could have followed Stoic ethics towards the close study of nature and our role in it. Instead, within a few centuries of his death the dark barbarity of the Church fell over Europe, arresting the nascent rationality of pagan philosophy. The evidence we have, as we read his Natural History, suggests Pliny was a conflicted man, with a deep belief in skepticism and rational inquiry, yet unable to rise out of the magical thinking endemic around him.

Terror on Wall Street

On 16 September 1920, throngs of brokers, clerks, and office workers poured from the buildings lining New York City's Wall Street as a nearby church bell struck twelve o'clock. The narrow cobblestone street became a river of sputtering automobiles and scurrying pedestrians as the financial district employees set out to make the most of their mid-day break.

Traveling opposite the egressing crowds, an elderly bay horse plodded along Wall Street pulling a nondescript wagon and a driver. The cart came to a stop just around the corner from the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), across the street from the imposing JP Morgan & Co. bank building. The wagon's driver cast the reigns aside, leaped from his perch, and fled from the street with conspicuous haste. As the lunch-going men and women shuffled past the parked wooden cart and its patiently waiting horse, a timer within the cargo compartment quietly counted off its final few seconds.

Strange Air Raid Bunkers of the Third Reich

These concrete towers were unique AIR RAID SHELTERS of Nazi Germany, built to withstand the destructive power of WWII bombs and heavy artillery. Their cone shape caused bombs to slide down the walls and detonate only at a heavily fortified base. Cheaper to build above ground than to dig bunkers, they were quite effective, as it was possible to cram as many as 500 people inside. Plus the "footprint" of such tower was very small when observed from the air, so it was very hard for the bombers to ensure a direct hit.

Incan Suspension Bridges

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Conquistadors from Spain came, they saw and they were astonished. They had never seen anything in Europe like the bridges of Peru. Chroniclers wrote that the Spanish soldiers stood in awe and fear before the spans of braided fiber cables suspended across deep gorges in the Andes, narrow walkways sagging and swaying and looking so frail.

Yet the suspension bridges were familiar and vital links in the vast empire of the Inca, as they had been to Andean cultures for hundreds of years before the arrival of the Spanish in 1532. The people had not developed the stone arch or wheeled vehicles, but they were accomplished in the use of natural fibers for textiles, boats, sling weapons — even keeping inventories by a prewriting system of knots. So bridges made of fiber ropes, some as thick as a man’s torso, were the technological solution to the problem of road building in rugged terrain. By some estimates, at least 200 such suspension bridges spanned river gorges in the 16th century. One of the last of these, over the Apurimac River, inspired Thornton Wilder’s novel "The Bridge of San Luis Rey."

The Newspaper Editorial that COULD Have Won the Civil War For the Confederates

It was an incredible scheme. When finalized, New York City was their target and the plot was thus:. One group was to be responsible for setting off a series of fires as a diversion while another group was to seize Federal buildings and municipal offices, still another to take control of the police department, and yet another to free prisoners from Fort Lafayette and throw the Army Commander in New York, Major General John Adams Dix, into a dungeon. By sunset a Confederate flag would surely fly over New York City. This would surely be a coup for the Confederacy!

About the time the plot was finalized, Richmond learned from its spies that Washington was beginning to obtain bits and pieces of the plan to capture the North. It was then decided that, since everything but the date had been formalized, no more messages would be sent by runners. It was further decided that for two reasons carrying out the plot would wait. One reason was to "lay low" to give Washington the impression that the plot had died, and, two, the most opportune time to best capture the North off guard would be soon after another Union victory. Since Southern newspapers could still freely travel to Canada, members were instructed to keep reading the Richmond newspaper for an editorial advising that a "Northern city" should be burned in retaliation. (It is not known just how it was accomplished, but the same editorial also appeared in the New York Times a few days later!) At that time they were to congregate in New York's St. Dennis Hotel and begin to put the plot in motion.

Hitler's Moustache

His moustache is the most instantly recognisable - and sinister - in history.

Yet, according to new research into Adolf Hitler's early life, the distinctive, toothbrush shape that adorned his scowling face was not his first preference.

A previously unpublished essay by a writer who served alongside Hitler in the First World War trenches reveals that the future Führer was only obeying orders when he shaped his moustache into its tightly-clipped style. He was instructed to do so in order that it would fit under the respirator masks, introduced in response to British mustard gas attacks.

Had that order never been issued, the tyrant who brought most of Europe to its knees would be remembered as a man with a large Prussian moustache.

How a Self-Taught British Genius Rediscovered Gilgamesh

In November 1872, George Smith was working at the British Museum in a second-floor room overlooking the bare plane trees in Russell Square. On a long table were pieces of clay tablets, among the hundreds of thousands that archaeologists had shipped back to London from Nineveh, in present-day Iraq, a quarter-century before. Many of the fragments bore cuneiform hieroglyphs, and over the years scholars had managed to reassemble parts of some tablets, deciphering for the first time these records of daily life in Assyria of the 7th and 8th centuries B.C.—references to oxen, slaves, casks of wine, petitions to kings, contracts, treaties, prayers and omens.

As scholars go, Smith, 32 years old, was an anomaly; he had ended his formal education at age 14 when he was apprenticed to a printer, and perhaps it was because of his training as an engraver that he had such a knack for assembling coherent passages of cuneiform out of the drawers and drawers of old rubble. In fact, Smith had already established dates for a couple of minor events in Israelite history, and on this brisk fall day he was looking for other references that might confirm parts of the Bible. Then, on a fragment of a tablet, he came across a story that would soon astonish the Western world. He read of a flood, a ship caught on a mountain and a bird sent out in search of dry land—the first independent confirmation of a vast flood in ancient Mesopotamia, complete with a Noah-like figure and an ark.

The shipwrecked memory of the L'Utile slaves

A corvette drops anchor near a small island, lost in the Indian Ocean, on November 29, 1776. The island seems completely deserted, a stretch of white sand with a few palm trees. Yet the sailors discover a baby and seven women, all former slaves from Madagascar. Dressed in tunics of woven feathers, they are the only survivors of a shipwreck 15 years earlier. They survived by eating birds, turtles and shellfish.

Max Guérout, former French navy officer and vice-president of France’s marine archaeology research group, GRAN, tells the story: “L’Utile left Bayonne in southwest France for the Mascarene Islands on November 17, 1760. It called at Madagascar to replenish food supplies, and the captain, Commander La Fargue, decided to take aboard 60 slaves, against the governor’s orders. He set sail for the Ile de France, now Mauritius. Blown off course by the bad weather, the ship was wrecked on the reefs of a small island, one kilometer square, which now bears the name of the man who saved the last few survivors: Tromelin.�

David Halberstam RIP

In the mid 1960s, Halberstam covered the Vietnam War for The New York Times. While there, he gathered material for his book The Making of a Quagmire: America and Vietnam during the Kennedy Era. In 1963, he received a George Polk Award for his reporting at the New York Times. At the age of 30, he won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the war. He is interviewed in the 1968 documentary film on the Vietnam War entitled In the Year of the Pig. Halberstam put an enormous effort into his book about Kennedy's foreign policy decisions about the Vietnam War, The Best and the Brightest. Synthesizing material from dozens of books and many dozens of interviews, Halberstam focused on the odd paradox that those who crafted the U.S. war effort in Vietnam were some of the most intelligent, well-connected and self-confident men in America—"the best and the brightest"—and yet those same men were unable to imagine and promote any but a bloody and disastrous course in the Vietnam War. Thousands of readers began The Best and the Brightest feeling that the U.S. must pursue the war in Vietnam until "victory" was achieved, but became convinced by Halberstam's book that the U.S. could not win and therefore should withdraw from Vietnam.

Lincoln Assassination Conspiracy Theories

Approximately 7 hours before shooting the President, Booth dropped by the Washington hotel which was Vice-President Andrew Johnson's residence. Upon learning from the desk clerk that neither Johnson nor his private secretary, William A. Browning, was in the hotel, Booth wrote the following note: "Don't wish to disturb you Are you at home? J. Wilkes Booth." Browning testified before the military court that he found the note in his box later that afternoon. Did Johnson and Booth know each other?

Mary Todd Lincoln felt Johnson was involved. On March 15, 1866, she wrote to her friend, Sally Orne:
"...that, that miserable inebriate Johnson, had cognizance of my husband's death - Why, was that card of Booth's, found in his box, some acquaintance certainly existed - I have been deeply impressed, with the harrowing thought, that he, had an understanding with the conspirators & they knew their man... As sure, as you & I live, Johnson, had some hand, in all this..."

Some members of Congress also thought Johnson was involved and a special Assassination Committee was established to investigate any evidence linking Johnson to Lincoln's death. Nothing suspicious was ever found by the committee; yet a belief by some Americans that Johnson was somehow involved with Booth continued for many years.

The Nazi Triangle

If the canard that Adolf Hitler was a superb art director is meant to glorify the art directorial profession, think again. Although historians say he was the "art dictator" of Germany because he spent an inordinate amount of time overseeing the art and design of the Third Reich, he nonetheless had thousands of willing "executioners," like Hugo Boss, designer and manufacturer of Wehrmacht and SS uniforms, doing the everyday work. Yet like art directors today, as Führer (leader) he received credit for everything under his domain, even those things he knew nothing about and had no hand in creating. One such was the identification system implemented throughout the concentration camp network. No documentation has surfaced that proves Hitler had any direct input in developing the inverted triangle (known as the "Winkel") made of variously colored fabrics to distinguish homosexuals from habitual criminals from political enemies from Jehovah’s Witnesses from Gypsies from, of course, Jews. But this color and symbol code (concentric circles distinguished failed escapees and were worn on prisoners' sleeves like boy scout merit badges) was initiated shortly after the Nazis opened the infamous Dachau in 1933, in a former munitions factory in Upper Bavaria. Although the camp was originally designed for the “protective custody� of political offenders, it soon swelled up with the regime's undesirables, most of who had to be segregated and then earmarked for "special treatment." It is probable that camp commandant Theodor Eicke was responsible for — or even the designer of — the classification scheme which, like the camp layout itself, became the model for all other camps in occupied Europe. (In fact, prospective camp commandants were required to complete a special "school of violence" at Dachau).

Mysteries of computer from 65BC are solved

A 2,000-year-old mechanical computer salvaged from a Roman shipwreck has astounded scientists who have finally unravelled the secrets of how the sophisticated device works.

The machine was lost among cargo in 65BC when the ship carrying it sank in 42m of water off the coast of the Greek island of Antikythera. By chance, in 1900, a sponge diver called Elias Stadiatos discovered the wreck and recovered statues and other artifacts from the site.

The machine first came to light when an archaeologist working on the recovered objects noticed that a lump of rock had a gear wheel embedded in it. Closer inspection of material brought up from the stricken ship subsequently revealed 80 pieces of gear wheels, dials, clock-like hands and a wooden and bronze casing bearing ancient Greek inscriptions.

The Book Behind the Movie "300"

The Histories of Herodotus of Halicarnassus is considered the first work of history in Western literature. Written about 440 BC in the Ionic dialect of classical Greek, The Histories tells the story of the war between the Persian Empire and the Greek city-states in the 5th century BC. Herodotus travelled extensively around the ancient world, conducting interviews and collecting stories for his book. The Histories is divided into nine books, each named after one of the Muses. The rise of the Persian Empire is chronicled, and the causes for the conflict with Greece. Herodotus treats the conflict as an ideological one, frequently contrasting the absolute power of the Persian king with the democratic government of the Greeks.

Dead Malls

The Worcester Outlet Mall, nee Worcester Common Fashion Outlets, was the latest incarnation of the Worcester Galleria, located in downtown Worcester, MA. The Galleria was built sometime in the mid 1970's (before I was born). I have vague childhood memories of shopping in the Galleria with my grandparentsbut nothing more than that. It fell into disuse in the 80's but was reborn as the Outlets circa 1993. The mall did well financially for a few years, but it too fell into disuse as the years wore on (helped in no small part by the crime reports that appeared regularly in the local paper). Parking was plentiful, thanks to the attached parking garage, but was expensive. It also find stiff competition from the nearby Greendale Mall (itself reported as either thriving or teetering on the edge) and from two malls in the surrounding suburbia, the Auburn Mall (Auburn, MA) and the Solomon Ponds Mall (Marlborough, MA).

Stardust to Dust

The Las Vegas Strip's first mass-market casino-hotel was imploded early Tuesday in a hail of fireworks to make way for Boyd Gaming Corp.'s $4.4 billion megaresort Echelon. Hundreds of people partied beneath tents and on makeshift patios before Boyd chairman Bill Boyd's four grandsons pushed a plunger to detonate the former Stardust casino. The blast generated a massive dust cloud that chased the revelers into cars, buses and nearby casinos.

Mincemeat and the Imaginary Man

From his personal effects, the man was identified as Major William Martin, a temporary captain and acting major in the British Royal Marines. Rather than allowing possible military intelligence to go unintercepted, the local agents for the Abwehr– the German intelligence organization– coaxed the briefcase open to examine its contents. Inside, along with the man's personal effects, the Nazis discovered a personal correspondence between Lt. Gen. Sir Archibald Nye, vice chief of the Imperial General Staff, and General Sir Harold Alexander, the British commander in North Africa. This letter described key details of the Allies' plans to invade Nazi-held territory. It seemed that luck was favoring Germany; but the discovery ultimately resulted in disaster for the Nazis.

Old Photos of the Pyramids and Sphinx

These photos were taken from the book Egypt Caught in Time by Colin Osman and from the collection of photos and postcards from the Great Pyramid of Giza Research Assocation.

Hitler was building the Third Reich. What were Reichs One and Two?

According to a fascinating tome called The Hitler Fact Book by Thomas Fuchs (like I say, I get the most amazing stuff in the mail), "the first Reich was the Holy Roman Empire of the Middle Ages; the second, the one established by Bismarck and ended by Germany's defeat in 1918." The term was a favorite of Hitler's propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels. Hitler himself wasn't that crazy about it, Fuchs notes; he outlawed the term at the beginning of World War II and referred to his realm merely as the Reich.

Grace Slick almost turned on Richard Nixon

No Way, Man!

The legendary reputation of the decade, and the continued playing of much of its popular music, created irresistible temptations to embroider in just over a third of those surveyed. A quarter of the total admitted that their flexibility with the truth was prompted by wanting "to appear cool to my children and gain the respect of friends and family". Chief exaggerations included supposed membership of the hippy movement - of the quarter who claimed to be hippies in the 60s, only 6% actually were - and meeting Beat Generation icons they had actually seen only on TV. A third have told their children that they shopped in London's Carnaby Street when only 5% actually did so.

Welcoming Mussolini

A giant M installed to greet Mussolini’s arrival in a small Piemonte village (Italy, 1938).

The White Mouse

Nancy Wake was the Allies' most decorated servicewoman of WWII, and the Gestapo’s most-wanted person. They code-named her 'The White Mouse' because of her ability to elude capture. When war broke out she was a young woman married to a wealthy Frenchman living a life of luxury in cosmopolitan Marseilles. She became a saboteur, organiser and Resistance fighter who led an army of 7,000 Maquis troops in guerrilla warfare to sabotage the Nazis. Her story is one of daring, courage and optimism in the face of impossible odds.

Top 10 Ancient Capitals

They may now lie in ruins of crumbling stone but, to the people who lived during their glory days, these cities were the centers of the universe. Find out what made them legendary.

Byzantine Blogging

This history lecture podcast covers the little known Byzantine Empire through the study of twelve of its greatest rulers. Mr. Lars Brownworth presents this series for free through this website and the podcast section of the iTunes store.

Mr. Brownworth teaches History at The Stony Brook School on Long Island, New York. His passion for Byzantine history has taken him on travels from the furthest reaches of the Byzantine Empire right into Constantinople, (present day Istanbul) the very heart of Byzantium. He has traveled and studied Byzantine history extensively and produced this lecture series giving us this concise overview.

Colonial Currency

Select any of the subheadings below to view all of our examples of currency emitted in those states. Colonies/ States are listed in alphabetical order followed by Continental Currency. Following the currency are Lottery Tickets and then Fiscal Documents, both are listed chronologically by colony.

Kristallnacht

Jewish homes and stores were ransacked all throughout Germany and also in Vienna, with a mixture of German citizens and Stormtroops going to destroy buildings with sledgehammers, leaving the streets covered in smashed windows of destroyed businesses the next morning (the origin of the name “Crystal Night�). Although violence against Jews had not been condoned by the authorities, there were cases of Jews being beaten or assaulted.

This pogrom damaged, and in many cases destroyed, about 1574 synagogues (constituting nearly all Germany had), many Jewish cemeteries, more than 7,000 Jewish shops, and 29 department stores. Some Jews were beaten to death while others were forced to watch. More than 30,000 Jewish males were arrested and taken to concentration camps; primarily Dachau, Buchenwald, and Sachsenhausen. [13] The treatment of prisoners in the camps was brutal, but most were released during the following three months on condition that they leave Germany.

The number of German Jews killed is uncertain, with estimates ranging from 36 to about 200 over two days of rioting. The number killed in the rioting is most often cited as 91. There are believed to have been hundreds of suicides in addition to this, as the slim slivers of hope that remained in some Jews disappeared completely. Counting deaths at the concentration camps, around 2,000-2,500 deaths, were directly or indirectly attributable to the Kristallnacht pogrom. A few non-Jewish Germans mistaken for Jews were also killed.

On This Day

Many people missed or ignored the opening credits of the programme, and in the atmosphere of growing tension and anxiety in the days leading up to the Second World War, took it to be a news broadcast. Contemporary newspapers reported that panic ensued, with people fleeing the area, and others thinking they could smell the poison gas or could see the flashes of the fighting in the distance.

The author Richard J. Hand cites studies by unnamed historians who "calculate[d] that some six million heard the Columbia Broadcasting System broadcast; 1.7 million believed it to be true, and 1.2 million were 'genuinely frightened'". (Hand, 7) While Welles and company were heard by a comparatively small audience (Bergen's audience was an estimated 30 million), the uproar that followed was anything but minute: within a month, there were about 12,500 newspaper articles about the broadcast or its impact (Hand, 7), while Adolf Hitler cited the panic, as Hand writes, as "evidence of the decadence and corrupt condition of democracy." (Hand, 7)

Later studies suggested this "panic" was far less widespread than newspaper accounts suggested. However, it remains clear that many people were caught up — to one degree or another — in the confusion that followed.

The Children's Crusade

The long-standing view of the Children's Crusade is some version of events with similar themes. A boy began preaching in either France or Germany claiming that he had been visited by Jesus and told to lead the next Crusade. Through a series of supposed portents and miracles he gained a considerable following, including possibly as many as 20,000 children. He led his followers southwards towards the Mediterranean Sea, where it is said he believed that the sea would part when he arrived, so that he and his followers could march to Jerusalem, but this did not happen. Two merchants gave passage on seven boats to as many of the children as would fit. The children were either taken to Tunisia and sold into slavery, or died in a shipwreck on the island of San Pietro (off Sardinia) during a gale. In some accounts they never reached the sea before dying or giving up from starvation and exhaustion. Scholarship has shown this long-standing view to be more legend than fact.

The Russell Tribunal

The Russell Tribunal was a public international body organized by British philosopher and pacifist Bertrand Russell, along with Ken Coates and several others. It was designed to investigate and publicize war crimes and conduct of the American forces and its allies during the Vietnam War. The tribunal was constituted in November, 1966 and conducted over two sessions in 1967 in Stockholm, Sweden and Copenhagen, Denmark. It gained significant international attention, but was largely ignored in the US, where many considered it an ineffectual, biased show trial.

Representatives of 18 countries participated in the two sessions of this tribunal, formally calling itself the International War Crimes Tribunal. The tribunal committee consisted of 25 notable personages, predominantly from leftist peace organizations. Many of these individuals were winners of the Nobel Prize, Medals of Valor and awards of recognition in humanitarian and social fields. There was no direct representation of Vietnam or the United States on this 25 member panel, although a couple of members were American citizens.

More than 30 individuals testified or provided information to this tribunal. Among them were military personnel from the United States, as well as from each of the warring factions in Vietnam. Financing for the Tribunal came from many sources, including a large contribution from the North Vietnamese government after a request made by Russell to Ho Chi Minh.

The Eclipse That Saved Columbus

The astronomical tables that Columbus consulted during his voyage proved useful for determining latitude and, to some degree, longitude. A prediction contained in the tables probably saved his life at a crucial moment during his fourth voyage to the lands he had discovered.

Nearly 2 years after sailing from Cadiz in 1502, Columbus and his restless, disgruntled crew were stranded on the north coast of Jamaica, confined to worm-eaten, leaking ships. The native inhabitants were no longer awed by the newcomers. Annoyed by their voracious appetites and angry at the depredations of crew members, who had plundered several villages, the population was hostile and would no longer supply food.

Weary and ill, Columbus had withdrawn to his ship. There, he pondered his precarious situation. Returning to the stained pages of the Ephemerides, he noted Regiomontanus's prediction of a total eclipse of the moon on Feb. 29, 1504....

...Columbus had observed a lunar eclipse on an earlier voyage and had noticed discrepancies between the predictions made by Zacuto and those contained in the Ephemerides. Moreover, he had no reliable way of determining the correct local time of this particular projected eclipse. The times provided by Regiomontanus for its start and end were for Nuremberg, Germany.

Despite these uncertainties, Columbus was desperate enough to take a chance. On the day before the predicted eclipse, he summoned the leaders of the native inhabitants and warned them through an interpreter that if they did not cooperate with him, the moon would disappear from the sky on the following night.

The natives for the most part were unimpressed; some even laughed. Columbus nervously awaited the outcome of his gamble. Could he rely on tables that had been compiled several decades earlier and that predicted the positions of celestial bodies only for the years between 1475 and 1506? How large were the errors?

Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact

Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact is interactions between the indigenous peoples of the Americas and peoples of other continents – Europe, Africa, Asia, or Oceania – before the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1492. Many such events have been proposed at various times, based on historical reports, archaeological finds, and cultural comparisons. Some of those claims are listed in this article. However, evidence for those claims is generally scant and circumstantial, and only a few of them are taken seriously by researchers; only Native American migration from Siberia and the presence of the Norse in North America have been proven for certain.

Happy Columbus Day

Between the evening of October 11 and the morning of October 12, a sailor on the Pinta named Juan Rodriguez Bermejo called out, "Land, land!" Isabella had offered a reward to the first person to sight land. However, Columbus said that he had seen a flickering light hours earlier, and he claimed the reward.

"They brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks' bells. They willingly traded everything they owned . . . they do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance . . .. Their spears are made of cane . . . they would make fine servants . . .. With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want."

Yes, this was how Columbus saw the Indians--not as hospitable hosts, but “servants,� to “do whatever we want.�

And what did Columbus want? This is not hard to determine. In the first two weeks of journal entries, there is one word that recurs seventy-five times: GOLD.

In the standard accounts of Columbus what is emphasized again and again is his religious feeling, his desire to convert the natives to Christianity, his reverence for the Bible. Yes, he was concerned about God. But more about Gold. Just one additional letter. His was a limited alphabet. Yes, all over the islands of Hispaniola, where he, his brothers, his men, spent most of their time, he erected crosses. But also, all over the island, they built gallows--340 of them by the year 1500. Crosses and gallows--that deadly historic juxtaposition.

In his quest for gold, Columbus, seeing bits of gold among the Indians, concluded there were huge amounts of it. He ordered the natives to find a certain amount of gold within a certain period of time. And if they did not meet their quota, their arms were hacked off. The others were to learn from this and deliver the gold.

Samuel Eliot Morison, the Harvard historian who was Columbus’ admiring biographer, acknowledged this. He wrote: “Whoever thought up this ghastly system, Columbus was responsible for it, as the only means of producing gold for export.... Those who fled to the mountains were hunted with hounds, and those who escaped, starvation and disease took toll, while thousands of poor creatures in desperation took cassava poison to end their miseries.�

Morison continues: “So the policy and acts of Columbus for which he alone was responsible began the depopulation of the terrestrial paradise that was Hispaniola in 1492. Of the original natives, estimated by modern ethnologist at 300,000 in number, one-third were killed off between 1494 and 1496. By 1508, an enumeration showed only 60,000 alive...in 1548 Oviedo (Morison is referring to Fernandex de Oviedo, the official Spanish historian of conquest) doubted whether 500 Indians remained.

But Columbus could not obtain enough gold to send home to impress the King and Queen and his Spanish financiers, so he decided to send back to Spain another kind of loot: slaves. They rounded up about 1200 natives, selected 500, and these were sent, jammed together, on the voyage across the Atlantic. Two hundred died on the way, of cold, of sickness.

In Columbus’ journal, an entry of September 1498 reads: “From here one might send, in the name of Holy Trinity, as many slaves as could be sold...�

U.S. Treaty with Tripoli (1796)

Art. 11. As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

Ancient Rome's 9/11?

IN the autumn of 68 B.C. the world’s only military superpower was dealt a profound psychological blow by a daring terrorist attack on its very heart. Rome’s port at Ostia was set on fire, the consular war fleet destroyed, and two prominent senators, together with their bodyguards and staff, kidnapped.

The incident, dramatic though it was, has not attracted much attention from modern historians. But history is mutable. An event that was merely a footnote five years ago has now, in our post-9/11 world, assumed a fresh and ominous significance. For in the panicky aftermath of the attack, the Roman people made decisions that set them on the path to the destruction of their Constitution, their democracy and their liberty. One cannot help wondering if history is repeating itself.

The Battle of Los Angeles

On the night of 24 February 1942 the Air Raid sirens sounded, and the Coast Guard Anti-aircraft guns were ordered to "green alert," putting them in readiness to fire. From the time the battle began until it ended in the early hours of the morning, thousands of people had witnessed the search lights around Los Angeles fix on a target hovering above the city, and anti-aircraft rounds detonate in the sky. Reputable news agencies reported the attack, complete with eye-witness accounts. But the Japanese claim that they never attacked, and there was no wreckage to indicate that anyone actually did. These conflicting accounts cast uncertainty on the nature of the unidentified aircraft that caused the Battle of Los Angeles.

Picture History

Robert Smalls

Robert grew up a slave, and experienced the full measure of that corrupt institution. In April of 1862 Robert was assigned work on a Rebel Warship. The "Planter" was a high-pressure, side-wheel steamer, one hundred and forty feet in length, and about fifty feet beam, and drew about five feet of water. She was built in Charleston. She was built to be a Cotton transport boat, but with the outbreak of the unpleasantness of 1861, she was commissioned by the Rebel Navy as a gunboat. She became the prized vessel of the confederate Navy. Her armament consisted of one 32-pound rifle gun forward, and a 24-pound howitzer in the rear. She also sported an eight-inch Columbiad, one eight-inch howitzer, and one long 32-pounder. She was commanded by Captain Relay, of the Confederate navy.

Robert hatched a plan that was so daring it was almost unthinkable . . . he would commandeer the Planter, and use it to steam himself, the crew, and all their families to safety in the North. He shared his plans with the slave crew, and cautioned them against alluding to the matter in any way on board the boat, but asked them, if they wanted to talk it up in sober earnestness, to meet at his house, where they would devise and determine upon a plan to place themselves under the protection of the Stars and Stripes instead of the Stars and Bars.

The Gay Scare of '57

On Feb. 4, 1957, a Guilford County grand jury emerged from its closed session and issued a bundle of indictments of a scope unlike any before or since — against 32 men accused of being homosexual.

After witnesses named the men during police interrogations, the suspects were tried one by one in a Greensboro courtroom for crimes against nature, almost exclusively with consenting adults.

The now-obscure episode, which some longtime residents came to call "the purge," was the largest attempted roundup of homosexuals in Greensboro history and marked one of the most intense gay scares of the 1950s.

Unlike sweeps of subsequent decades, involving raids on public parks and gay bars, Greensboro’s 1957 trials focused on private acts behind closed doors.

The purpose, in the words of the police chief, was to "remove these individuals from society who would prey upon our youth," and to protect the town from what a presiding judge called "a menace."

Some 32 trials in the winter and spring of 1957 would end in guilty verdicts, 24 of them resulting in prison terms of five to 20 years, with some defendants assigned to highway chain gangs.

Based on dozens of interviews over a four-week period with those who recall it, this is the story of what happened.

Pictures From Chernobyl

Pictures From Chernobyl

The Hiroshima Panorama Project

The Hiroshima Panorama Project

How Hitler Became a Dictator

How Hitler Became a Dictator

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The Atomic Automobile

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A Short (and Bloody) History of the High IQ Societies

A-bombed Ginkgo trees in Hiroshima, Japan

A-bombed Ginkgo trees in Hiroshima, Japan

The Geography of Slavery in Virginia

The Geography of Slavery in Virginia

The Geography of Slavery in Virginia

The Scandal at the Zoo

The Scandal at the Zoo

What Flying Was Like In The 1960s

What Flying Was Like In The 1960s

How the Allies Estimated German Tank Production in WWII Using Serial Numbers

How the Allies Estimated German Tank Production in WWII Using Serial Numbers

How To Spot a Jap

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Goering's 1939 Mercedes-Benz for sale on eBay

Goering's 1939 Mercedes-Benz for sale on eBay

The Constitution of the Confederate States of America

The Constitution of the Confederate States of America

Why Israel's capture of Eichmann caused panic at the CIA

Why Israel's capture of Eichmann caused panic at the CIA

Unrealized Soviet Architectural Projects From the 1930s to 1950s

Unrealized Soviet Architectural Projects From the 1930s to 1950s

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Historical Sounds in MP3 Format

8th Grade Final Exam: Salina, Kansas - 1895

8th Grade Final Exam: Salina, Kansas - 1895

The White House Putsch

The White House Putsch

Giants From Times Past

Giants From Times Past

The Montana Sedition Project

The Montana Sedition Project

Civil War Letters of the Christie Family

Civil War Letters of the Christie Family

Operation Wetback

Operation Wetback

Treaties Between the United States and Native Americans

Treaties Between the United States and Native Americans

Illustrations of Flying Machines Before 1893

Illustrations of Flying Machines Before 1893

Razzle Dazzle Camouflage

Razzle Dazzle Camouflage

The Duel that Could Have Changed the Nation

The Duel that Could Have Changed the Nation

Howard Carter's Diaries

Howard Carter's Diaries

The Armenian Genocide

The Armenian Genocide

Boy's pancake breakfast delayed the end of WWII

Boy's pancake breakfast delayed the end of WWII

The Nixon-Presley Meeting

The Nixon-Presley Meeting

Chronology of Japanese Military Holdouts After the Surrender

Chronology of Japanese Military Holdouts After the Surrender

Wild and Wacky Tales From the 1906 Quake

Wild and Wacky Tales From the 1906 Quake

The Tank Man

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Anti-Tank Dogs

Anti-Tank Dogs

How Superman Took on the KKK

How Superman Took on the KKK

Devil's Island

Devil's Island

Top 10 Greatest Impostors in History

Top 10 Greatest Impostors in History

Castrati

Castrati

The Dahlgren Affair

The Dahlgren Affair

The Outbursts of Everett True

The Outbursts of Everett True

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The History of Greek Fire

The History of Greek Fire

The Dutch Tulip Bubble of 1637

The Dutch Tulip Bubble of 1637

Medical Antiques

Medical Antiques

The Axe Murders and Operation Paul Bunyan

The Axe Murders and Operation Paul Bunyan

History of Flight Recorders

History of Flight Recorders

A Short History of Lobotomy

A Short History of Lobotomy

67 Japanese Cities Firebombed in World War II

67 Japanese Cities Firebombed in World War II

A Day in the Life of a British Miner

A Day in the Life of a British Miner

The 442nd Regimental Combat Team

The 442nd Regimental Combat Team

Unseen. Unforgotten.

Unseen. Unforgotten.

Events in History

Events in History

Secret Societies

Secret Societies

The 1912 Eiffel Tower Jump

The 1912 Eiffel Tower Jump

The Mad Gasser of Mattoon

The Mad Gasser of Mattoon

The Antarctic Snow Cruiser

The Antarctic Snow Cruiser

The Rohonczi Codex

The Rohonczi Codex

The 1943 Detroit Race Riots

The 1943 Detroit Race Riots

History's Youngest Mother

History's Youngest Mother

Colditz Castle

Colditz Castle

War Timeline

War Timeline

Castles of Tuscany Italy

Castles of Tuscany Italy

Maunsell Army Sea Forts

Maunsell Army Sea Forts

Byzantium 1200

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The Egypt Archive

The Egypt Archive

The Antikythera Computer

The Antikythera Computer

The Story of Oak Island

The Story of Oak Island

Antique Produce Crate Labels

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Concrete Ships

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Photojournalism During the Spanish Civil War

Photojournalism During the Spanish Civil War

Cincinnati's Abandoned Subway

Cincinnati's Abandoned Subway

An Eyewitness Account of the Events Surrounding Cook's Death

An Eyewitness Account of the Events Surrounding Cook's Death

Explorer's Route Maps

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The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment

The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment

The Dark Days After the 1906 Earthquake

The Dark Days After the 1906 Earthquake

Pants of the Third Reich

Pants of the Third Reich

Deutschland 1929

Deutschland 1929

WWII Aerial Photos

WWII Aerial Photos

The World's First Photo?

The World's First Photo?

The Piris Reis Map

The Piris Reis Map

Popular Songs in American History

Popular Songs in American History

The Ghost Village of Imber

The Ghost Village of Imber

Slavery As We've Heard It

Slavery As We've Heard It

The President Calling

The President Calling

The Iranian-Soldier Bear of Monte Cassino

The Iranian-Soldier Bear of Monte Cassino

Japanese Propaganda Booklet From WW2

Japanese Propaganda Booklet From WW2

Famous Monkeys Through History

Famous Monkeys Through History

20 Mishaps That Might Have Started Accidental Nuclear War

20 Mishaps That Might Have Started Accidental Nuclear War

WWI Statistics

WWI Statistics

Scanned Images From Old Books

Scanned Images From Old Books

WWI and Early Aviation Image Archive

WWI and Early Aviation Image Archive

The Little Rock Nine

The Little Rock Nine

Assassination Attempts on Hitler's Life

Assassination Attempts on Hitler's Life

African Hairstyles of the 50s and 60s

African Hairstyles of the 50s and 60s

Pictures from The Illustrated London News

Pictures from The Illustrated London News

The Indiana Pi Bill, 1897

The Indiana Pi Bill, 1897

The Fenian Invasion of Canada

The Fenian Invasion of Canada

Hans Island

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Ernest Hemingway on D-Day

Ernest Hemingway on D-Day

The Newark and Detroit "Riots" of 1967

The Newark and Detroit "Riots" of 1967

Depictions of Slavery in Confederate Money

Depictions of Slavery in Confederate Money

Panoramic Photographs (1851 - 1991)

Panoramic Photographs (1851 - 1991)

Unpublished Photos From the Scopes 'Monkey Trial'

Unpublished Photos From the Scopes 'Monkey Trial'

Treasures of the Library

Treasures of the Library

The Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia

The Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia

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History of . . .

History of . . .

Brigham Young's Deseret Alphabet

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