History, Events And Facts

Meet the Actress Who Set Out to Kiss 10,000 Soldiers to Boost Morale Caption from LIFE.  "A tent-floor scrubber sticks his neck out and recieves a right and a lip to the jaw. 'Now I won't mind if I kick the bucket,' cried he as he rose and upset his scrub pail." The line between blatant self-promotion and selfless magnanimity is often hazy, and it takes a delicate sense of balance — or a great gimmick — to neatly straddle the two. Case in point: a young actress, in a rush of wartime patriotic fervor, decides to raise troop morale by a surefire, if unorthodox, method. And if her well-meaning stunt earns her some welcome publicity — well, where’s the harm? Here’s how LIFE magazine described just such a scenario in an article titled “LIFE Goes to an Army Party,” published in the uncertain days of March 1942 At an Army encampment near a southern California aircraft factory last month, perky movie starlet Marilyn Hare embarked on one of the most formidable morale-b...

The tragically powerful story behind the lone German who refused to give Hitler the Nazi salute Adopted by the Nazi Party in the 1930s, Hitler's infamous "sieg heil" (meaning "hail victory") salute was mandatory for all German citizens as a demonstration of loyalty to the Führer, his party, and his nation. August Landmesser, the lone German refusing to raise a stiff right arm amid Hitler's presence at a 1936 rally, had been a loyal Nazi. Landmesser joined the Nazi Party in 1931 and began to work his way up the ranks of what would become the only legal political affiliation in the country Landmesser and Eckler decided to file a marriage application in Hamburg, but the union was denied under the newly enacted Nuremberg Laws. The couple welcomed their first daughter, Ingrid, in October 1935. And then on June 13, 1936, Landmesser gave a crossed-arm stance during Hitler's christening of a new German navy vessel. The act of defiance stands out amid the ...

Defiant to the end: The true story of a British spy's courage in the face of Nazi torture and the firing squad whose heroics were immortalised in the film Carve Her Name With Pride  The medal ceremony was one of the most unusual over which His Majesty King George VI ever presided. Curtseying before him at Buckingham Palace was a pretty four-year-old. Wearing a puff-sleeved dress, with her hair in ribbons, the little girl looked ready for a birthday party.  Yet there Tania Szabo was, being presented to the monarch and having a George Cross for bravery pinned to her chest The explanation for this extraordinary event 70 years ago was both simple and poignant.  The award had been made posthumously to Tania’s mother Violette Szabo, one of the most courageous British agents to have operated behind enemy lines during World War II.  Only 22 when she first parachuted into France, Violette was a striking beauty who had previously worked on the perfume counter at a London...

Russia, Ukraine Accuse Each Other of Prison Attack That Killed Ukrainian POWs Burnt bodies of detainees lie covered following the shelling at a pre-trial detention center in the course of Ukraine-Russia conflict, in the settlement of Olenivka in the Donetsk Region, Ukraine July 29, 2022. Russia and Ukraine have accused each other of shelling a prison in eastern Ukraine killing dozens of Ukrainian prisoners of war, including some who were captured after the fall of Mariupol in May. Neither claim could be independently verified. Russia said Ukraine’s military used multiple rocket launchers to strike the prison in Olenivka, a settlement controlled by the Moscow-backed Donetsk People’s Republic. Separatist authorities and Russian officials said the attack killed 53 Ukrainian POWs and wounded 75. The Ukrainian military denied making any rocket or artillery strikes in Olenivka and said it only aims for Russian military targets. It accused the Russians of shelling the prison to cover up ...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visits injured Ukrainian servicemen in a hospital, as Russia's attack on Ukraine continues, in Odesa, Ukraine July 29, 2022.  Russia and Ukraine have accused each other of shelling a prison in eastern Ukraine, killing dozens of Ukrainian prisoners of war, including some who were captured after the fall of Mariupol in May.  Neither claim could be independently verified.  Russia said Ukraine’s military used multiple rocket launchers to strike the prison in Olenivka, a settlement controlled by the Moscow-backed Donetsk People’s Republic. Separatist authorities and Russian officials said the attack killed 53 Ukrainian POWs and wounded 75.  The Ukrainian military denied making any rocket or artillery strikes in Olenivka and said it only aims for Russian military targets. It accused the Russians of shelling the prison to cover up the alleged torture and execution of Ukrainians there.  The Russian claims are part of an “informati...

It's easy money!' Young women are paid $160 an hour to clean homes completely NAKED - with mothers and university students cashing in on 'lonely guys' A man decided to create a naked cleaning service three years ago when he was recovering from a hangover at home Southport councillor Dawn Crichlow unleashed her frustration at the founder of Gold Coast's Bare All Cleaning Service in a heated on-air radio confrontation this week (stock image) 'There is a minimum of a two hour booking time for each cleaner but customers can hire them for as long as they want,' Mr Kemp said (cleaner pictured) While some boost their bank balance by taking up jobs in retail or selling items on Gumtree, one group of bold Queenslanders have opted for something a little different.  Thanks to Brisbane-based entrepreneur Shane Kemp, 27, almost 100 men and women are making up to $160 per hour by cleaning homes completely naked - a business idea that came to him after a big night in 201...

I QUIT shaving eight months ago - now I make $50,000-A-MONTH flaunting my hairy body on OnlyFans A woman who made the decision to stop shaving has revealed she now makes a whopping $50,000-a-month by proudly showing off her body hair online.  Cherry, 25, from Washington, who wanted to keep her surname hidden for privacy reasons, began sharing racy snaps in April 2020 after she lost her job as a salesperson during the COVID-19 pandemic.  Prior to boasting her unshaven body, she was making $4,000 from her nude photos and videos, but when she received a request to feature her natural body hair, her income skyrocketed.  She stopped shaving and posted the content to her page and immediately gained subscribers and money - raking in anywhere between $20,000 and $50,000 a month.  Hairy and proud, Cherry now shows off her hairy body to 104,000 TikTok followers and her OnlyFans network of 1,000 subscribers. The content creator said: 'I lost my job and I needed ...

Ritual Murder In Rural England: The Strange Case Of Charles Walton A brutal murder is reported in a quiet West Midlands village. Local authorities are unable to come up with a suspect or motive, so Scotland Yard sends its best detective to help crack the case. It could be the plotline to any number of classic English murder mysteries. However, the investigation into this particular homicide would soon take an unexpectedly strange turn. Hushed rumors of witchcraft, spectral black dogs, and ritual sacrifice would surround the case as it became entangled in the dark folklore and history of the region. Was this the work of a lone madman… or something far more sinister? On the evening of February 14, 1945, in the small Warwickshire hamlet of Lower Quinton, the mutilated body of Charles Walton was discovered in a field he had worked just below Meon Hill. A lifelong resident of the area, the 74-year-old Walton was known to be a quiet man and something of a recluse. He shared a small cottage...

A SOIL THAT THIRSTS FOR BLOOD A popular theory is that Charles Walton’s murder was some form of ritual sacrifice – “the ghastly climax of a pagan rite,” according to the Chief Inspector. [28] Margaret Murray, a professor from University College in London who had written extensively on the history of European witchcraft, took a great interest in the Walton case. She claimed that the murder was likely a ritual act, performed for the purpose of replenishing the soil with the old man’s blood. “The belief is,” according to Murray, “that if life is taken out of the ground […] it must be replaced by a blood sacrifice.” [29] Not much is known about “the old ways” as they were practiced during Iron Age Britain. What little information there is has been pieced together from the accounts of Roman historians and various archaeological discoveries – both of which point to the importance of ritual sacrifice within the ancient Celtic magico-religious system. Sacrifice was the means by which th...

How He Captured America When Bob Hope died in 2003 at the age of one hundred, attention was not widely paid. The “entertainer of the century,” as his biographer Richard Zoglin calls him, had long been regarded by many Americans (if they regarded him at all) “as a cue-card-reading antique, cracking dated jokes about buxom beauty queens and Gerald Ford’s golf game.” A year before his death,  The Onion  had published the fake headline “World’s Last Bob Hope Fan Dies of Old Age.” Though Hope still had champions among comedy luminaries who had grown up idolizing him—Woody Allen and Dick Cavett, most prominently—Christopher Hitchens was in sync with the new century’s consensus when he memorialized him as “paralyzingly, painfully, hopelessly unfunny.” Zoglin, a longtime editor and writer for  Time , tells Hope’s story in authoritative detail. But his real mission is to explain and to counter the collapse of Hope’s cultural status, a decline that began well before his death and...

DID THESE VICHY PARAMILITARY TROOPS SUFFER REPRISALS AFTER THE WAR? Milice paramilitary troops round up French Resistance members in July 1944. (Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1989-107-24) Thousands of Frenchmen served the Vichy government as part of the paramilitary  Milice,  which earned a terrible reputation for brutality, torturing and killing many French citizens in the Resistance. After the country’s liberation, were there reprisals against these men?  —Mark Peters, New York, N.Y. Following the liberation there was what was called in France an “ epuration ,” or purge, of those who had worked for or collaborated with the Nazi occupiers. Some of these purges were unofficial, in other words people who had served in the  Milice  or otherwise collaborated were summarily executed, while women who had conducted relationships with Germans had their heads shaved and were ostracized from their communities. In his 1997 seminal work,  Occupation: The Ordeal of Fr...

CURTIS LEMAY’S BRUTAL BOMBING CAMPAIGN LAID WASTE TO TOKYO — AND THAT WAS JUST THE START At sunset on March 9, 1945, Major General Curtis E. LeMay watched the first of more than 300 bombers lift off from Guam’s crushed coral runway for a midnight strike on Tokyo some 1,500 miles to the north. The 38-year-old LeMay, who had endured a hardscrabble childhood as the son of an itinerant worker, understood the incredible stakes of the night’s mission. The burly general had landed his job as the head of the XXI Bomber Command after his predecessor was fired for his inability to destroy Japan’s aircraft factories. In the nearly two months since he had taken over, however, LeMay had suffered the same dismal results. But far more was at risk than just his career. If LeMay’s bombers could not force the Japanese to surrender, hundreds of thousands of troops would have no choice but to storm the beaches of the enemy’s homeland in what promised to be a bloody invasion. But tonight, LeMay...