WORLD HISTORY AND FACTS

First World War  soldier with gas mask. US soldier at a First World War training camp peeling onions while wearing a gas mask.  The First World War (1914-1918) saw the first large-scale use of chemical weapons, with a chlorine gas attack by German forces on French positions at the Second Battle of Ypres on 22 April 1915.  Around 85,000 soldiers died due to the use of chemical weapons over the remaining years of the war, with many more wounded or blinded, either permanently or temporarily. The gas masks used by soldiers consisted of a mask and a respirator. The US entered the war on 6 April 1917, playing a crucial role in helping Britain and France to defeat Germany and its allies.  This soldier is part of the 40th Division of the US Army. Photographed in March 1918, at Camp Kearny, San Diego, California, USA. See more photos below: We hope that you have enjoyed reading our blog on the world history and facts. If you enjoy this blog please let ...

Don’t forget how the Soviet Union saved the world from Hitler. People look at photos on the "We have won!" memorial panel in Stavropol, Russia May 5, 2015. The panel shows the famous Soviet picture "Flag above the Reichstag" made from 4,222 portraits of defenders of their Motherland during the World War II from Stavropol, local media reported. REUTERS/Eduard Korniyenko In the Western popular imagination -- particularly the American one -- World War II is a conflict  we  won. It was fought on the beaches of Normandy and Iwo Jima, through the rubble of recaptured French towns and capped by sepia-toned scenes of joy and young love in New York. It was a victory shaped by the steeliness of Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, the moral fiber of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and the awesome power of an atomic bomb. But that narrative shifts dramatically when you go to Russia, where World War II is called the Great Patriotic W...

The girl who forgave death, 1945 Eva Kor was a Romanian/American survivor of the Holocaust. She was taken to the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1944. At the camp, her mother, father and two sisters were taken away upon arrival to be executed. Eva had this to say: "I never even got to say goodbye to her. But I didn't really understand that this would be the last time we would see her" Eva and her sister Miriam were spared as they were twins, and they were sent to be experimented on by Josef Mengele, the Nazi Angel of death. Eva and Miriam would go through months of medical torture. They were injected with unknown liquids which modern doctors can't figure out. Both girls became very sick, and Eva suffered from a fever for 5 weeks. Eva was so sick that she could not walk and was given 2 weeks to live, however she fought through the experiments and the pain and kept telling herself "I must survive, I must survive". In 1945, the camp was liberated by the S...

In the winter of 1945, Dresden’s normal population of about 600,000 had been swelled by several hundred thousand refugees, fleeing from the advancing Soviet army.  The seventh largest city in Germany, Dresden was an important industrial center and transportation hub. It was also renowned for its beautiful art and architecture, known throughout the world as “Florence on the Elbe.” In February 1945, Dresden was the largest remaining German city that had not been the target of a major Allied bombing raid. Although by then it was clear to the Allies that Germany was going to be defeated, how quickly and at what cost was still unknown. One of the high priority targets that had been identified by RAF Bomber Command was Dresden, in part to assist the Soviet offensive in east Germany. In late January RAF Bomber Command ordered that Dresden be bombed as soon as weather permitted. Allied plans called for the attack to begin with a daylight raid by U.S. bombers, but weather forced the c...

On January 27, 1945, the Red Army liberated the Auschwitz concentration camp, about 60 kilometers southwest of Krakow, where the Nazis perfected their mass murder techniques.  A first prison camp was set up here in 1940, but in just one year, in 1941, the Nazis built a huge extermination camp complex where more than 1.6 million people ended up.  This camp was also served by a major railway junction with 44 parallel lines, which were used to transport and kill millions of detainees across Europe.  The prisoners who were brought to the extermination camp were assigned by a simple selection process from the train station, so that the young and the healthy were sent to work, and the children, women, the elderly and the disabled were sent directly to the gas chambers.  Tens of thousands of prisoners were also selected by Dr. Josef Mengele, also known as the "angel of death at Auschwitz," for medical experiments.  His most egregious experiments involved injectin...

A terrible journey to escape from the Nazi army Over the course of a few years, Stella Knobel, a young Jewish Polish refugee, and her beloved teddy bear “Mishu” journeyed from Poland to Siberia, Uzbekistan, Iran, and finally Palestine to escape the Nazis. Stella Knobel, left, pictured with her cousin Elisabeta. Yad Vashem “He’s [Mishu’s] part of my family,” Stella recalled. “The last remnant of my home in Poland.” Stella, born in Kraków in 1931, received the teddy bear as a gift for her seventh birthday from her father, Marton. When the German Army invaded Poland and occupied Kraków in September 1939, Stella and her parents fled east to Soviet-controlled territory, taking with them only the essentials, including Mishu. After a few months, Soviet authorities deported the family, along with other Polish refugees, to Siberia and held them in a labor camp. Eventually, Stella and her parents made their way to Soviet Uzbekistan, where her father worked as a doctor in a military hospita...

Check below for enlarged view of the letter The Forgotten First. We joined this country’s army when the going was the roughest.  We’re with a mad division that is called the fighting first.  We swallowed sand in Borden when the training was the roughest.  We crossed the grim Atlantic when the subs were at their worst.  We prowled about in London when the nights were black and dreary. We roamed around the country on manonuvres by the score.  We never knew that men could get so all un Godly weary, So utterly disgusted with that endless waiting war.  Then just when things were such as make the bravest of us falter. They packed us into vessels and we headed out to sea They kept us in the atokeholes till we got around Gibraltar. Then we stormed the sandy beaches on the shores of Sicily, We slugged it out with Jerry on the bloody Moro river. We beat him at Cassino and we drove him out of Rome. And many of our buddies will be lying there forever.  We’ve...