Soul Food Thanksgiving

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We know that African-Americans are famous for their good eats ~ sweet potato pie, mac & cheese, hot sauce on your greens, pork chops and cornbread and so much more!

MMMMMMMMM.....Yum!

Happy Thanksgiving to the soul food cooks of history who huddled together and found rest in loved ones and good food.

95,000 Born Brown

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Bi-racial babies conceived during WWII to German mothers and African-American GIs were later shipped out of Germany en masse for racial intolerance.  They were adopted in African-American homes during the period of segreation in that country which exposed these children to even greater forms of racial rejection - being half white themselves, afterall.

Children who remained in Germany with their white mothers also faced intolerance.

In their thousands these people are seeking to piece together their heritage - they are the subject of  a documentary Brown Babies: The Mischlingskinder Story.

Humanity and its gut wrenching stupidity.

Graffiti Insights

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Does graffiti in a flat once occupied by the Sex Pistols, pioneers of punk give us insight into the 1970s musicial movement?

Archaeologists declare this graffiti so significant they compare with world famous graffiti on the walls of the Lascaux caves in Southern France.

Texas Reveal

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An earlier blog recalled the devastating Texas drought in the 1950s.

Texas is again gripped by a savage drought that has shrunk lakes - receding water have revealed historic and pre-historic treasures.

....treasures include a prehistoric skull, ancient tools, fossils and a small cemetary with what appears to be the graves of freed slaves.

An unexpected twist.

Exterminating by Working

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Belgians deported to Germany in WWII to work as slaves of the Third Reich after their defeat in 1940 have suddenly had tax demands laid on them from Berlin on pensions and lump sums paid out in slavery compensation settlements agreed on in 2005.

Nazi Germany enslaved over 13 million people in munitions plants, as labourers and as farm and kitchen hands - Germany publicly recognized its responsibility to these survivors by issuing pensions and payments to them six years ago but now want to claw back 17% of that sum in taxes.

Sexiest Men 50s, 60s & 70s

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Sexiest men alive ... from the past! Loving that!

1971 Life Covers

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Saturday Night Fever wanna-be

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1971 LIFE covers

Stewardess' in Training

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Life.com graces us with what they do best ... pictures from the past.  At the link are young ladies at stewardess school.  What with all the PanAm fun on your tv - here's a blast from that past.

Goldfinger

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Photographs of Goldfinger actress Shirley Eaton being painted in gold for her 1964 character role Jill Masterson were auctioned to a happy Bond collector!

The Great Escape

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Three tunnels immortalized in The Great Escape with Steve McQueen in which the notorious Stalag Luft III PoW camp built at the height of the Third Reich was centrally featured.  

It was erected a hundred miles east of Berlin on 60 acres encircled with double wired fencing and watch towers and incarcerated ten thousand allied prisoners. 

Three tunnels famously dug 30ft underground with homemade tools were nicknamed Tom, Dick and Harry but it was the third tunnel Harry that gained notoriety on 24 March 1944 when prisoners gathered in hut 104 and crawled 100ft to freedom before seventy were caught and fifty were summarily executed, only three escaped. 

Remarkably a fourth tunnel has been excavated by engineers - it's name is George.

Mr. Nineteen Thirties

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Would you like to live in a home set entirely in the 1930s? 

At the link is the story of an Englishman whose home and daily life solely employs items of that nostalgic time.

Time Travel Genre

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A history of Time Travel Books - from Charles Dickens (1843) to Stephen King (2011).

Rural Times in the Great Depression

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The Great Depression began on Black Tuesday on 29 October 1929 and precipitated the most severe economic slump in US history.  Unemployment rose to 25% as food prices were slashed upto 60% ... great suffering spread like dust in a wind storm.

See photographs from the Farm Security Administration-Office of War Information Collection.

The Masked Bandit

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Alledged!

Frank Sinatra in a blue movie - The Masked Bandit  1934

A movie Sammy Davis Jnr. screened privately in 1972 for friends as a prank on the masked Sinatra - who came close to cutting Davis off for good but relented for fear of being outed by Davis.  Davis later destrroyed his copy.

The story of The Masked Bandit was also said to be a rumour started by Peter Lawford after he and Sinatra fell out in the 1960s.

Space Race

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The Space Race ... was

atleast as far as the United States are concerned.  Now Russia carries forth the torch to litter space with astronautical garbage.  China with their newly minted faux capitalist communist agenda have determined the best step at this time will be to join Russia in this phallic fallacy of space exploration.

Men ...

topdocumentaryfilms.com

British Labour

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An article rooted in today's depressing labour statistics and education fall out details Britain's ignoble fall from its history as a labour powerhouse.

Oldest Toy Train

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A 180 year old toy train is oldest in the world.  Just sweet.

Nixon Documents Reveal ...

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Henry Kissinger's frustrated outburst at the incessant lobbying of Zionists in service of their Soviet brethren.

Although also Jewish, he declared them to be "self-serving" bastards.

Document was part of State Department's cache of US-Soviet relations.

Gatsby Outtakes!

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Remember Leonardo DiCaprio stars in a remake of The Great Gatsby ... another untouchable classic tarnished by 21st century hands.

Wamp. Wamp. Wamp.

Vatican Claims Shakespeare

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Roman Catholic or Protestant?

The long and pitched debate was recently re-ignited by the film Anonymous.  The Vatican has "little doubt that he was" Catholic.

Proof appears to be in his reference to purgatory in Hamlet and a line in Sonnet 124 BUT if he never wrote those famous works  then surely the Earl of Oxford was the writer the Vatican has claimed as thier member.

No JFK Conspiracy?

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The Claim: new technology proves the lone shooter theory

that Lee Harvey Oswald had acted alone, perpetrated one of history's greatest assassinations and ignited an undying theory of conspiracy. 

The new evidence also claims enhanced photographic evidence of a form in the famous Book Depository window, placing Oswald at the scene of the crime.

Gee ... I think I like the conspiracy.

The Babylonian Jewry Museum

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2700 years ~ from their exile from the Land of Israel (721-586 BCE) until the return (1950-1952) into a domino effect of foreign policy disdain and disagreement.

The Museum displays ethnographic chapters in the long history of the Jewish people.  No doubt a sobering and enlightening experience.  If ever in the neighbourhood!

The Lessons of Shame

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In 2005 Pope Benedict recalled the holocaust as "a project of death" that will forever stain the history of humanity - on a trip to his homeland he remarked that Germans will always have to acknowledge that stain with shame and suffering.

The Pope had himself been a Hitler youth, a compulsory paramilitary organisation under the Nazi regime but was never a party member of the political movement his family had rejected.

So much shame, so much confusion and that's just the Germans who lived through the war but what of the new generations - how do they reconcile with a past they did not create ... a conundrum indeed.

A former chief rabbi stated in 2004 that Jewish history is nearing its end in Europe because of rising anti-Semitism expressed in almost every European country and the government of Israel must prepare to absorb that population.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/former-chief-rabbi-european-jewish-history-nearing-its-end-1.142429
He quoted data released at the time that 62% of German citizens are tired of hearing of the Holocaust and 70% are angered when reminded of Nazi crimes.

The lessons of the war were not for the Germans alone but the entire world and isolating them with that shame has been proven a foolish notion because all inhumanity can reoccur at any time in any place ... and does. 

The world is buckling under the rife of ignorance and a deficit of history, understood.

Making History: the peace process in pictures

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The tortured road to not-quite-the-peace ~ at the link see a photo history of the Israeli/Palestinian Peace Process.

OY VEY!

Suez - A British Crisis

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In many ways the Suez Canal was the cause of so much strife and angst in the Middle East for Western governments  ... a very, very hot political potato. 


Topdocumentaryfilms.com does the honour - Suez: A British Crisis.

War to Solar

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NAZI bunker becomes a solar power plant.

Baseball Autograph

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A perfectly preserved program autographed in 1887 by Mike "King" Kelly of the Boston Beaneaters is destined to become the most valuable sport memorabilia in history.

The Munsters Revamped

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NBC re-ups The Munsters.

In a line of revamped TV hits that fell flat, NBC hopes to revive the magic that was The Munsters.

Clearly good programming is reminiscent of a time when the human mind was less vacuous and capable of intelligent writing within a PG rating.  In lieu of that - the networks desperately reach back in time for what was.

Natalie Wood Investigation

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Nearly 30 years after the initial investigation into her death ~ Natalie Wood's case has been reopened, is it routine or did new information come available?  I wonder ....

UPDATE

This story is heating up ... ! http://specials.msn.com/a-list/entertainment/christopher-walken-hires-lawyer-for-investigation

The Tale Sordid
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2063056/Natalie-Wood-death-Sister-Lana-reveals-Robert-Wagner-left-drown.html


Life.com 25 Unpublished photos
http://www.life.com/gallery/65921/natalie-wood-25-unpublished-photos?xid=yahooapp#index/0

Life.com West Side Story
http://www.life.com/gallery/65891/west-side-story-a-look-back?xid=yahooapp#index/0

Spoof of Hitler

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No doubt Ian Fleming's secret service that wittily supported the character 007 was inspired by The Special Operations Executive.  

During the war its forgery section created a spoof passport in the name of Adolf Hitler and had lots of comical fun depicting the dictator as Jewish with a little moustache.

The Story of English in 100 Words

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An earlier blog entry took an amusing turn at tracing the history of select words that had the noble turn of admittance into the mono-salubrious vocabulary that is the English Language.

A smart new book takes us through the story of the language in a hundred words.

It formed in the fifth century when Saxons, Angles and Jutes arrrived in England from Germany - their vacabulary mingled with Latin, a replica of Roman domination.  There was also Old Norse in the mix that gifted the words skirt, yard and kick.

The Norman invasion of 1066 added French words such as question and flame ~ see other words gained from Spanish, Italian and Indian influcences.

Fun read, worth the gander .. buy the book.

Fossiled lovers hold hands for 1500 years

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Lovers who held hands for hundreds of years are uncovered in a recent excavation ~ wonder must the story of their love.

Assassination of Lincoln

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The assassination history never forgot ... loved through time Abraham Lincoln.

Five Sons Lost on Armistice Day

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My tardy commemoration of Armistice Day ... and highlighting true loss and patriotism of one mother who lost five sons on that fateful day.

Nubia: the Forgotten Civilization

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See a mini-documentary on Nubia: the forgotten civilization!

Teach Truth

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Article at the link insists that truth not mere narrative be told of the 1948 War when Germany attacked Poland in 1939.

London's Liberty

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Relics of England's Elizabethan past can be found near Oxford Circus at a store fashioned from two wooden warships, the HMS Hindustan (1841) and the HMS Impregnable (1854) ... nifty cultural heritage site.

Enduring Sea Stories

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Five of best sea stories published in history.

Artistic Symbolism

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For amateur symbolists everywhere ... decode the greatest art works in history.

Da Vinci Quiz

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Test your IQ on your knowledge of the genius Leonardo Da Vinci!

Famous NFL Nicknames

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MM

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An auction of all things Marilyn Monroe ~ a collection of epic proportions. Slide at the link.

Piccadily Circus

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LS Lowry's 1960 oil painting of London's bustling Piccadily Circus is one of a rare group of artistic renditions of the city.

Unseen for 30 years - it has been auctioned at Christie's around the block from the famed junction.

More Elizabeth Taylor

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More Elizabeth Taylor collector's items on auction ... still utterly lovely.

Bronze Artifact in Alaska

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Archaeologists are mystified on finding a bronze buckle dated at least 1,400 years old in Alaska. 

Did the Eskimos take it from East Asia to Alaska?

LIFE's Sexiest Photos

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You know this has gotta be good ... LIFE Mag's sexiest photos of all time.

Spitfire's Gun Still Fires

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A Browning machine gun, part of a downed Spitfire that was buried in peat after it crashed to earth in Donegal in 1941. 

Hundreds of bullets were found alongside the gun that fired easily despite its 70 years mired in an Irish peat bog.

Nazi Memorabilia

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More Nazi memorabilia <...>

Hitler confidante and Reich co-architect Heinrick Himmler was once an 11 year old with a devout Catholic mother who sent him to Holy Communion school.

The Communion Certificate will be auctioned with other items found when Himmler's house was remodeled by its new owners - objects include his postcard to his dear mother on her 75th birthday.

Born 1905 to a middleclass family, he began officer training during WWI - the war ended before he could join the travesty - in the intervening years he studied agriculture and became a chicken farmer.

He swiftly became a trusted aide after joining Hitler's fledgling Nazi party.  Hitler's der treue Heinrich (the loyal Heinrich) until his disillusionment inspired him to negotiate with EInsenhower, Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe, Hitler's ferocity at the betrayal drove Himmler to go on the run, he was stripped as SS chief.  Captured in disguise on 22 May 1945, he committed suicide with a cyanide capsule the next day.

Dead Cooks?

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I don't know about this ... a cookbook titled the Dead Celebrity Cookbook but we do live in graceless times!

Better Late?

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A WWII retired army captain receives seven military medals decades after serving.