Thursday - January 08, 2009

Hiroshima and Nagasaki taken by a British serviceman a month after the atom bombs were dropped.

True we’ve all seen photos of the aftermath many times.  Don’t recognize all of these but then again, it all looks so much the same after the bomb that one shot looks much like another.

Gee… all those civilians, murdered by Yankee imperialist monster killer war criminals.  Bush did it!

“The damage in Hiroshima was very different in that while Nagasaki was spread along a valley, Hiroshima was situated on a flat, open plain”

HMS Speaker, an escort aircraft carrier, which was directed to Nagasaki for the purpose of transporting hundreds of British POWs to Okinawa

THERE ARE 12 MORE PHOTOS > HERE

“it’s frightening to think that the atom bombs of 1945 weighed several tons, but today bombs with the same destructive power could be reduced to such a small size that they could be carried in a back pack”

And you can bet it’s what the muzzies would love to achieve here in the west.  Just wish we could turn their landscape into this before they do it to us.

   Wednesday - January 07, 2009

The amazing tin can bomber made by British pilot in Great Escape POW camp.  AMAZING IS RIGHT!

Awesome, isn’t it?  Wow.  Be sure to look at the other photos at the link.
Must have been one tough and determined soldier.  And very talented as well.

You really need to read this.  Can’t understand how or why this was hidden away for so long. What a great bit of history!
Take a look too at his drawings of the camp and actual photo of the camp.

The amazing tin can bomber made by British pilot in Great Escape POW camp
By DAVID WILKES
Last updated at 4:59 PM on 07th January 2009

Skillfully crafted from tin cans, matchsticks and off cuts, one can only imagine the satisfaction a prisoner of war derived from finishing this stunning model aircraft as he languished in Stalag Luft III.

Constructed almost perfectly to scale, his detailed version of a Lancaster Bomber like the one he flew before his capture even bears what appears to be the skull and crossbones logo of RAF 100 Squadron, famous for its night-time raids.

Little is known about its maker, other than that he was an airman named E Taylor.

The model was found during a clearance sale at house in the south of England along with his prison camp diary, in which he had drawn a map of where his plane was shot down over Hungary on August 28, 1944.

He was incarcerated in the prisoner of war camp in Sagan, 100 miles south-east of Berlin, during its strictest regime, having arrived there only months after the ‘Great Escape’ when 76 Allied airmen made an audacious bid for freedom.  Only three made it home and 50 were executed by the Gestapo.

The pilot’s model shows how prisoners were determined to keep their spirits up despite being made to go on forced marches and fed only meagre rations.

His diary includes morale-boosting songs, along with sketches of the camp so detailed they show the prisoners’ sleeping arrangements and clothes hanging on a washing line. In it, he tells of his harsh treatment at the hands of his captors, referred to as the ‘goons’.

Describing how he and his fellow prisoners were given an hour’s notice before one forced march, he wrote: ‘The first day we covered 20km. The ice on the roads was good and we pulled our kit along on homemade sleigh.

‘Tired and hungry we put up at a school for the night. Next day. Until now no food was given us by the goons and it was hard going on the roads.
‘We covered about 20km during the day and spent the night in a church it is pouring with rain.’

Elsewhere he writes: ‘We got in the gates and an air raid started. There was panic by the goons and it was early morn when they searched us and put us in blocks.

‘This is one of the unhealthy and dirtiest places I had seen. We are starving there is practically no food. Our food for the day consists of 3 slices of bread and a cup of soup, there is no need to say more.’

The model and diary are due to be auctioned in Ludlow, Shrosphire, later this month. Richard Westwood-Brookes, historical documents expert at at Mullocks Auctioneers said the plane is the finest example of ‘trench art’ he has ever seen.

He said: ‘The model is beautifully slotted together and is constructed of a lot of different sections, which require some skill.

‘While the main body is made out of wood, the moving propellors are fashioned by materials from a tin can and the cockpit section from glass or some kind of resin.

‘Matchsticks underneath form the guns on the plane and the model is completed with realistic camouflage colouring. He will have managed to have got the paints whilst doing the painting duties around the camp.

‘The guards will have let this kind of thing happen because the more time the prisoners were doing things like that, the less time they were spending on trying to escape.’

Mr Westwood-Brookes added: ‘The model and diary just shows the remarkable spirit of the British troops. Mr Taylor has certainly left us with a fine legacy of his courage.’

MORE PHOTOS

   Tuesday - January 06, 2009

Diaries of swashbuckling hero who rescued Robinson Crusoe unearthed.

SAY HEY PEOPLE ... IF ANYONE HAS AN EXTRA SIX THOUSAND DOLLARS NOT WANTED OR NEEDED OR YOU’D JUST LIKE TO TOSS SOME CASH OFF A MOUNTAIN, INSTEAD OF THROWING IT AWAY .... SEND IT TO ME SO I CAN BUY THIS ITEM.  WAIT, IT’S GONNA BE AUCTIONED. 6G MIGHT NOT BE THE SELL PRICE.  OK. BELAY THE LAST REQUEST.

ANYONE OUT THERE WITH AN EXTRA , SAY 20 THOUSAND YOU WANNA GIVE AWAY? 

Man oh man I just love this sort of thing. I tend to get carried way, away and over the top.  Can’t help it.

Now why can’t anyone go after modern day pirates the old fashioned way?  What did they know in the 17 and 1800s that we forgot?

Oh well, this isn’t exactly about that particular subject anyway.

This is some kind of find.

A 300-year-old journal of a British explorer who saved the real-life Robinson Crusoe and defeated pirates of the Caribbean has been discovered.

By Nick Britten
Last Updated: 3:37PM GMT 05 Jan 2009

Rogers, who left Britain in 1708, had been tasked with ‘victimising’ pirates targeting his fellow British merchants Photo: BNPS

The extremely rare account chronicles a three-year round-the world voyage of the swashbuckling privateer Capt Woodes Rogers, who made a fortune pillaging from pirate ships and Spanish galleons.

During that journey, Rogers, who was a friend of the author Daniel Defoe, even stopped off at a remote Pacific island and found castaway Alexander Selkirk, who inspired the character and book Robinson Crusoe. He said he found him “wild-looking” and wearing “goatskins”, adding: “He had with him his clothes and bedding, with a firelock, some powder, bullets and tobacco, a hatchet, a knife, a kettle, a Bible and books.”

Rogers, who left Britain in 1708, had been tasked with “victimising” pirates targeting his fellow British merchants.

Commanding two 36-gun ships, the Duke and the Duchess, and 333 men, he sailed the South Seas, the East Indies and the Cape of Good Hope, going about his task with great gusto.

His finest catch was the prized vessel The Great Manila, a Spanish trading ship that sailed across the Pacific with a valuable cargo, including precious stones and exotic silks worth $2 million.

In 1717, he was appointed the governor of the Behamas by King George I and played a major role in ridding the islands of 2,000 pirates, including Edward Teach, also called Blackbeard. He was pursued by Rogers’ forces and killed.

The slogan of his epic voyage, “Piracy expelled, commerce restored”, remained the islands’ own motto until independence was declared in 1973.

It is thought only a hundred copies of his book, A Cruising Voyage Around the World, were printed seven years after Rogers completed his odyssey. One was recently found in a loft in Bristol, where Rogers’ was based, and is expected to fetch £3,000 when it is auctioned on January 21st.

TELEGRAPH

You can’t begin to know how much I’d love to own this bit of history. One among many really. Darn.
I think that passion began when I was just a kid, and something called “The Freedom Train” was making it’s way across the USA.  It was a rolling museum and contained the ORIGINAL US Constitution, letters by Washington,Jefferson etc. AND, get this, a document by early explorers describing what they were seeing in this new world that later became America.  Awesome stuff let me tell ya.  Made an impression on me that never went away.

Try that today and it would be picketed by protesters who could find some excuse to protest some issue, the pc crowd would be out to point out the negative aspects of America’s founding, blah blah and blah.  Now I’m PO’d just thinking about that.
While I’m sure they were present, they must have been, we didn’t see any armed guards or high security.

I think I grew up in a somewhat better time.  For all it’s flaws it was a better time.

   Monday - January 05, 2009

Mutiny?  In the 20th century English Navy?  Not possible.  Oh yeah?  Some interesting history.

I forgot I had this among all the things here. Better late then never I guess because this is some interesting history both naval and economic.

You might like reading this. Well try anyway. Ya never know.

Six vital lessons of the 1931 depression
As we enter a second year of slump, history has some key pointers to the best way forward
William Rees-Mogg

Those of us who were alive at the time, or who have seen the film, have vivid memories of the sinking of HMS Hood in 1941, and of the pursuit and subsequent sinking of the German battleship Bismarck. Ten years earlier the Hood had been involved in another episode of naval history, which had a significant influence on British economic history.

On September 19, 1931, Captain J.F.C. Patterson, the acting Senior Officer, Atlantic Fleet, sent a signal to the Admiralty: “For two days, the ships at Invergordon of the Atlantic Fleet were in a state of open mutiny... large numbers of men were massed on the forecastles of Hood, Rodney and Dorsetshire. Men on the forecastle of Hood had refused to allow any work to be done to commence on unmooring, and it became evident that neither Hood nor Rodney could go to sea.”

Patterson had some sympathy with the underlying grievance. He informed the Admiralty: “The use of force was in my opinion quite out of the question,” and that “with regard to the causes of the outbreak, there is no doubt that first and foremost was the disproportionate reduction (in pay) of the lower ratings who entered before 1925”.

On the same day that Patterson sent his report of the Invergordon mutiny, a small conference was held at 10 Downing Street; the Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald, reported that he had had a discussion with Stanley Baldwin, the leader of the Conservative Party, and Sir Herbert Samuel, the leader of the Coalition Liberals.

* October 3, 1931: The ‘Daily Worker’ articles - incitement to mutiny over navy pay cuts

The result had been an agreement that it was essential to get legislation that would release the Bank of England from the obligation to pay out gold. E.R. Peacock, a director of the Bank of England, commented: “A sudden blizzard has struck the world. People have got anxious about their bank, that is to say, Great Britain, and they are gravely anxious about themselves.” The Downing Street meeting agreed to take Britain out of the gold standard.

The sailors at Invergordon were loyal and patriotic - many were to die for their country in the Second World War. But they were not prepared to have their pay docked - unfairly as they thought - to defend the convertibility into gold. In this, they were good Keynesians. In September 1931 the gold pound lost the confidence of British sailors, Cambridge economists and French bankers. That combination was irresistible.

September 19, 1931, was approximately the second anniversary of the start of the Great Depression in 1929. The mutiny and the decision to leave the gold standard proved to be the recovery point for Great Britain. From that point on, recovery became possible.

Two lessons were taught by Invergordon and the withdrawal from the gold commitment: governments should not try to balance the budget by cutting the pay of essential public servants; and they should not defend at all costs an overvalued fixed exchange rate. Britain does not now have a fixed exchange rate, although some people still want to join the euro. If we were in the euro, we would probably be arguing about when to leave.

The year 2009 can be paired with 1931. Both are the second year after the start of a big recession: 1931 was, beyond question, a year of depression. In the US the Federal Reserve Board kept statistics of the profits of 500 companies. In 1929 the index had been 998; in 1930 it had fallen to 760; in 1931 it was 370, and went as low as 267 in the final quarter.

Between 1929 and 1931 US employment fell by a third. If we based a forecast for 2009 on 1931 we would produce ghastly figures. The American recovery really began only in March 1933, after the inauguration of President Roosevelt. Britain had a lighter and shorter recession.

However, we can follow, and perhaps guard against, the acceleration of “the vicious spiral” of depression in 1931 itself. The turning of the screw actually began in June 1930, with the disastrous Hawley-Smoot tariff. Intended to protect US industry from excessive imports, it aroused international resentment and retaliation against US exports. If British experience offers the first two lessons, this would be the third: do not raise tariffs in a recession.

In May 1931, the Credit Anstalt, the leading bank in Austria, became insolvent and had to close. As the American economist, Irving Fisher, observed: “It was a great bank, and its collapse embarrassed both Germany and England.” Lesson four: do not allow systemic banks to fail. This was not applied to Lehmann Brothers, which may be regarded as the Credit Anstalt of the Wall Street panic of 2008. In June 1931 after runs on other Austrian banks, its Government belatedly guaranteed the liabilities of the Credit Anstalt.

In July 1931, the Bank of England rescued the German Reichsbank, which had been embarrassed by the failure of the Credit Anstalt. The French withdrew gold from Germany and the Bank of England for having taken the risk of supporting Germany. Lesson five: do not depend on central bankers in a panic.

On September 21 Britain left the gold standard, followed by 23 other nations. The US and France maintained gold convertibility.

In October 1931 President Hoover proposed the creation of the Home Mortgage Corporation, the ancestor of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage banks that did not become insolvent until 77 years later.

In December Hoover announced his relief programme. Fisher commented: “To meet the rapidly developing emergency, each step was too small and by the time it was enacted into law, it was too late.”

Lesson six: in a depression, too much and too early is safer than too little and too late.

TIMES

The British Army in retreat.  Was this the first Dunkirk?

I was supposed to be gone over an hour ago, just shows ya the kind of trouble you get into once you learn to read.  Spelling another matter.
Anyway, I was about to quit and ran across this in the Times of London.

I was familiar with the story but didn’t remember a whole lot and then saw this.  Makes for interesting reading.

The British Army was in retreat from Napoleon’s forces 200 years ago, during a bitter winter in northern Spain. In November 1808 an expeditionary force of 20,000 men under General John Moore marched into Spain to help to drive out the French invaders. But the British were badly equipped and rapidly became outnumbered as Napoleon poured in reinforcements to deliver a crushing defeat.

By late December 1808 Moore realised his dire situation and began a gruelling retreat over 250 miles through the northwestern mountains of Spain to the port of Corunna, near the Bay of Biscay, to escape by sea. Snow, hail and rain storms turned the roads to quagmires, many of the troops died in the perishing cold and stragglers left behind were shown no mercy by the pursuing French. Hungry and demoralised, the Army was on the verge of collapse. However, the French had to battle through the appalling conditions as well, and Napoleon himself led a desperate advance through a mountain pass in a blizzard to pursue the British.

Moore just managed to stay one step ahead and by January 11, 1809, the exhausted remains of his Army arrived in Corunna where they waited for the British fleet.

However, the French soon caught up and even though the British were starved, diseased and frostbitten, they fought a valiant rearguard action. Moore was killed, but the remains of the Army beat off the enemy and boarded the ships home. Several thousand men had been lost, but the Army had been saved from annihilation and would return to Spain to fight again.

BATTLING BRITS

   Tuesday - December 23, 2008

archaeologist uncovers hoard of 1,300-year-old gold coins under a car park in Jerusalem .

WOW. Must be my day for finding stories relating to antiquity.

Photo and video available at the link below.  Those coins though look too well preserved and the print awfully darn modern looking to me. But I am very far from expert on matters of that nature.  See what you think.

British archaeologist uncovers hoard of 1,300-year-old gold coins under a car park in Jerusalem

By Daily Mail Reporter

Last updated at 2:31 PM on 23rd December 2008

A hoard of more than 1,300- year-old gold coins has been unearthed under a car park in Jerusalem, the Israeli Antiquities Authority revealed.

Archaeologists said the collection of 264 coins found in the ruins of a 7th century building, the end of the Byzantine period, was one of the largest uncovered in Jerusalem.

‘We’ve had pottery, we’ve had glass, but we’ve had nothing like this,’ said British archaeologist Nadine Ross, who made the discovery on Sunday.

The coins date to the reign of the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius, who ruled from AD 610 to 641.
Enlarge gold coins

On one side they bear a likeness of the emperor wearing military garb and holding a cross in his right hand.

On the reverse is the cross.

Experts said they were minted at the beginning of Heraclius’s reign, before the Persians conquered Byzantine Jerusalem in AD 614.

‘This is one of the largest and most impressive coin hoards ever discovered in Jerusalem – certainly the largest and most important of its period,’ said site directors Doron Ben-Ami and Yana Tchekhanovets.

‘Since no pottery vessel was discovered adjacent to the hoard, we can assume that it was concealed inside a hidden niche in one of the walls of the building,’ they said.

Until now, the only hoard of gold coins from the Byzantine period that had been discovered in Jerusalem consisted of five gold coins, they added.

At the time the coins were minted Anglo-Saxon England was split into several kingdoms including Mercia and East Anglia.

A number of rulers converted to Christianity in the seventh century.

Watch video of the find ...

HERE

Tombs of ancient Egyptian court officials found in 4,000-year-old cemetery.

As most here already know, I’m a sucker for this kind of thing.  And this is also Drew’s area of interest. So how’d I find it first?
Hey, psst. You awake Drew?  Look at this find.

Look at the scale in the photo. Awsome. What a shame long ago grave robbers cleaned the place out. Would loved to have seen what it held.

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 12:00 PM on 23rd December 2008

Egyptian archaeologists have found the tombs of two court officials, in charge of music and pyramid building, in a 4,000-year-old cemetery from the reign of Pharaoh Unas.

The tombs were buried in the sands south of Cairo and could shed light on the fifth and the sixth dynasties of the Old Kingdom, said Zahi Hawass, Egypt’s antiquities chief.

Hawass said: ‘We announce today a major important discovery at Saqqara, the discovery of two new tombs dating back to 4,300 years ago.’

Saqqara is the burial site of the rulers of ancient Memphis, about 12 miles south of Cairo.

One of the tombs belonged to Iya Maat, the supervisor of pyramid-building under the reign of Unas, Hawass said.

Iya Maat organised the acquisition of granite and limestone from Aswan and other materials from the Western Desert.

The second tomb housed the remains of Thanah, who was in charge of singers in the court of Unas.

Both tombs feature hieroglyphics at their entrances but the contents of the tombs have long since been stolen, Hawass said.

The entrance of Thanah’s tomb shows carved images of her smelling lotus flowers.

‘The discovery of the tombs are the beginning of a big, large cemetery,’ he said.

‘We are continuing our excavation and we are going to uncover more tombs in the area to explain the period of dynasty five and dynasty six,’ he said, adding that 70 per cent of Egypt’s ancient monuments remain buried under sand.

The death of Unas brought to an end the fifth dynasty, as he did not have a male heir. His daughter is widely believed to have become a queen to the first king of the sixth dynasty.

The Sixth Dynasty, a time of conflict in Egypt’s royal family and erosion of centralised power, is considered to be the last dynasty of the Old Kingdom (2,613-2,494 BC), after which Egypt descended into famine and social upheaval.

Archaeologists have been working at the site for six months, Hawass added.

MORE PHOTOS HERE

   Tuesday - December 16, 2008

ONE HELL OF AN AMERICAN THAT MAKES ME SO DAMN PROUD HE WAS OURS! RIP, Major Robert Furman.

This is in The Telegraph today.
How many American papers have told his story?  Has it been on TV back home?  I sure hope so.

Did this story at least make the papers in NJ?  NY? CT?  I have no idea why this is so late in coming as he passed away two months ago. But better late and learn about this guy then never know at all.  Damn it that was one hell of a generation!  What happened to us?

Major Robert Furman
Wartime intelligence officer charged with discovering the true extent of the German nuclear threat .

Robert Furman, civil engineer who helped to oversee the construction of the Pentagon and then played a clandestine role in the Manhattan Project. Photo: US Department of Defence.

Major Robert Furman, who has died aged 93, oversaw the construction of the Pentagon and played a vital part in the American struggle for nuclear supremacy when, in 1943, he was ordered to discover how far the Germans had advanced in developing the atomic bomb.

He began by interviewing scientists on campuses across the United States and was appointed the personal handler of Niels Bohr, the Nobel prizewinner who had worked on the understanding of atomic structure and had recently escaped from occupied Denmark. Furman was particularly impressed by the ability of Bohr and his associates to play chess without using a board.

Furman’s next task was to organise collection of water samples from the Upper Rhine and Lake Constance to check for evidence of German nuclear activity. After a failed attempt to kidnap the senior German scientist Werner Heisenberg, Bohr’s former assistant, he sent Moe Berg, a former baseball player for the Boston Red Sox among others, to hear Heisenberg address a scientific conference in neutral Switzerland. Berg was given a pistol to shoot him if he indicated that the Germans were working on a nuclear bomb and a cyanide capsule for himself in case the assignment failed. But after hearing Heisenberg’s talk, and then dining with him, Berg reported that he could find no evidence to support such suspicions.

As the Allied armies advanced across Europe, Furman ran Operation Peppermint, in which he led a team which searched for all existing uranium stocks, needed for nuclear fission. This involved his coming under German sniper fire in Belgium. But he eventually found a stockpile of 31 tons near Toulouse, which was duly dispatched to the United States. He also rounded up Heisenberg and nine other scientists; they were held at Farm Hall, Godmanchester, near Cambridge, to ensure that they did not end up in the Soviet Union.

When Germany surrendered Furman escorted a large consignment of uranium aboard the cruiser Indianapolis from the secret Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, New Mexico, to Tinian island in the Pacific. Four days after the cargo was discharged the ship was torpedoed, with the loss of 800 sailors’ lives.

From Tinian, Furman watched the B-29 Enola Gay take off to drop the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Later he visited Japan, but he continued to believe that the two atomic bombs had ensured that the Cold War “remained cold”.

The son of a bank teller descended from an immigrant who left Stoke-on-Trent in the early 18th century, Robert Ralph Furman was born on August 21 1915, at Trenton, New Jersey. He grew up a keen tennis player. On leaving Trenton High School he studied Civil Engineering at Princeton, where he joined the Reserve, then worked for the Pennsylvania railroad and the Turner construction company in New York.

After being called up in 1940 he was commissioned as an artillery officer with a horse-drawn unit and transferred to the Quartermaster Corps’ construction division. It was there that he attracted the attention of Colonel Leslie Groves, who was in charge of constructing the new War Department building in Washington, to be known as the Pentagon.

Groves appointed Furman the third-ranking supervisor of the project, but he soon took the major role, with responsibilities that ranged from the materials used to the 123,000-strong workforce. His duties involved staying overnight once a week to walk round the whole building, when he would stop workers on the night shift drinking on the job.

After 17 months the job was finished, and Furman was invited by Groves – who was by now a major-general and military director of the Manhattan Project – to become his chief of foreign intelligence.

When Furman left the Army in 1946 he settled at Bethesda, Maryland, and started a construction business building houses, schools, churches and offices, including the American embassy in Nicaragua.

He became a pillar of his local community, serving as an active president of the Rotary Club and becoming a member of the chamber of commerce and of his local Episcopalian church. He also sang baritone in a barbershop quartet.

For decades his role in the development of the atomic bomb was cloaked in secrecy, with his name eliminated from so many official documents that he was known to historians as “the mysterious major”.

His neighbours knew him to be a private man who was proud to have served in the war, but they were astonished when, in his last years, he appeared in a television programme about the Manhattan Project.

Recognising the growing interest in events that were receding from the public memory, he agreed to give a conducted tour of his old office in the Pentagon which, little changed in 60 years, now houses the Bureau of Verification and Implementation, which tracks arms control measures. Last December he took part in a seminar at the State Department on the atomic bomb.

Robert Furman died on October 14. He married, in 1952, Mary Eddy, who had worked for the Office of Strategic Services during the war. She survives him with their son and daughter and two daughters from her previous marriage.

TELEGRAPH

Hey .. is it just me or did the uniforms look better in his day then in the present time?  Seems that way.

   Saturday - December 06, 2008

Freedom Day

13th Amendment is 143 years old today

On this day in 1865, the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution was ratified, officially banning slavery.

The Amendment was written by a Republican, Lyman Turnbull from Illinois. Every Republican in Congress voted for it. Almost every Democrat voted against it.

The Republican party was formed by Abolitionists specifically to stand against slavery. The Democrats were in favor of slavery. Even after the end of the war between the states, it was Democrats that put Jim Crow into place down south. Right up through Teddy Roosevelt’s administration Republicans were strong supporters of freedom and for equality. I’m not exactly sure what happened, maybe Turtler can fill us in, but they backed away - didn’t turn away from the ideas, just didn’t push for them anymore - soon after that. These days if you can find a black Republican it’s almost a miracle. And in a few weeks we inaugurate our first black President. A Democrat. 

   Thursday - December 04, 2008

Archaeologists have discovered a lost city carved into the Andes Mountains.

Lost city of ‘cloud people’ found in Peru
Archaeologists have discovered a lost city carved into the Andes Mountains by the mysterious Chachapoya tribe.

By Jeremy McDermott, Latin America Correspondent
The Telegraph

The settlement covers some 12 acres and is perched on a mountainside in the remote Jamalca district of Utcubamba province in the northern jungles of Peru’s Amazon.

The buildings found on the Pachallama peak are in remarkably good condition, estimated to be over 1,000 years old and comprised of the traditional round stone houses built by the Chachapoya, the ‘Cloud Forest People’.

The area is completely overgrown with the jungle now covering much of the settlement but explorers found the walls of the buildings and rock paintings on a cliff face.

The remote nature of the site appears to have protected the site from looters as archaeologists found ceramics and undisturbed burial sites.

Archaeologist Benedicto Pérez Goicochea said: “The citadel is perched on the edge of an abyss.

“We suspect that the ancient inhabitants used this as a lookout point from where they could spot potential enemies.”

The ruins were initially discovered by local people hacking through the jungle. They were drawn to the place due to the sound of a waterfall.

The local people “armed with machetes opened a path that arrived at the place where they saw a beautiful panorama, full of flowers and fauna, as well as a waterfall, some 500 metres high,” said the mayor of Jamalca, Ricardo Cabrera Bravo.

Initial studies have found similarities between the new discovery and the Cloud Peoples’ super fortress of Kulep, also in Utcubamba province, which is older and more extensive that the Inca Citadel of Machu Picchu, but has not been fully explored or restored.

Little is known about the Chachapoya, except that they had been beaten into submission by the mighty Incas in 1475.

When in 1535 the Spanish Conquistadores arrived in Peru, they found willing allies in the Cloud People for their fight against the Incas.

Spanish texts from the era describe the Cloud People as ferocious fighters who mummified their dead.

They were eventually wiped out by small pox and other diseases brought by the Europeans.

The women of the Chachapoya were much prized by the Incas as they were tall and fair skinned. The Chronicler Pedro Cieza de León offers wrote of the Chachapoyas.

“They are the whitest and most handsome of all the people that I have seen in Indies, and their wives were so beautiful that because of their gentleness, many of them deserved to be the Incas’ wives and to also be taken to the Sun Temple.”

LOST

Wish the Telegraph would post the shots here they have in the hard copy.  I think this is awesome.  How much else is out there somewhere waiting to be discovered?

   Wednesday - December 03, 2008

Damn Hippies Sneak In Everywhere

Researchers find oldest-ever stash of marijuana

Researchers say they have located the world’s oldest stash of marijuana, in a tomb in a remote part of China.

The cache of cannabis is about 2,700 years old and was clearly “cultivated for psychoactive purposes,” rather than as fibre for clothing or as food, says a research paper in the Journal of Experimental Botany.

The 789 grams of dried cannabis was buried alongside a light-haired, blue-eyed Caucasian man, likely a shaman of the Gushi culture, near Turpan in northwestern China.

Remnants of cannabis have been found in ancient Egypt and other sites, and the substance has been referred to by authors such as the Greek historian Herodotus.

But the tomb stash is the oldest so far that could be thoroughly tested for its properties.

The 18 researchers, most of them based in China, subjected the cannabis to a battery of tests,

The marijuana was found to have a relatively high content of THC, the main active ingredient in cannabis, but the sample was too old to determine a precise percentage.

Researchers also could not determine whether the cannabis was smoked or ingested, as there were no pipes or other clues in the tomb of the shaman, who was about 45 years old.

The large cache was contained in a leather basket and in a wooden bowl, and was likely meant to be used by the shaman in the afterlife.

The region of China where the tomb is located, Xinjiang, is considered an original source of many cannabis strains worldwide.

2700 years old ... dating back to 700 BC. Wow. That was during the Bhong Dynasty, right?

   Saturday - November 15, 2008

The first colour photographs from the German front line during World War One.

A bit of interesting photographic history.

My posting will be light to non today.

There are 17 color photos at the link.

Hans Hildenbrand was one of 19 official German photographers documenting the war, but the only one to shoot in colour

Hildenbrand’s photos are mostly from Alsace and Champagne in 1915 and 1916
Picture: HANS HILDENBRAND

Here is the link to the other pictures.

   Saturday - October 25, 2008

French accuse English of war crimes and exaggeration over Agincourt, (593 years ago. ahhhhhh)

OKAY ... BACK TO SCHOOL TO LEARN THE FRENCH VERSION .... ANY BRITS LURKING OUT THERE?  NAUGHTY BRITS. NAUGHTY. SAY SORRY TO THE FRENCH IMMEDIATELY. LOL BRITS STILL GET UP FRENCH NOSE AFTER ALL THIS TIME.  THEY’LL NEVER FORGIVE YA WATERLOO EITHER.

French accuse English of war crimes and exaggeration over Agincourt
The French are using the anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt to accuse England’s men of acting like ‘war criminals’.

By Peter Allen and Nabila Ramdani in Agincourt
Last Updated: 6:19PM BST 24 Oct 2008

Exactly 593 years after King Henry V’s legendary victory, a revisionist conference will be held at the scene of the triumph.

Academics will suggest that the extent of the feat of arms was massively exaggerated, with claims that the English were hugely outnumbered a lie.

More controversially still, they will say that the foreign invaders used numerous underhand tactics against an honourable enemy.

These included burning prisoners to death and setting 40 bloodthirsty royal bodyguards on to a single Gallic nobleman who had surrendered.

‘There’s been a distortion of the facts and this conference will attempt to set the record straight,’ said Christophe Gilliot, a distinguished French historian who is director of the Medieval History Museum in Agincourt, where the conference will take place.

‘We have historians arriving from all over France, and all will produce hard facts concerning the battle, rather than rumours and speculation.

‘At the very least the English forces acted dishonourably. The middle ages were a very violent time, of course, but some might accuse the English of acting like what might now be called war criminals.’

It was on Friday October 25 1415 - St Crispin’s Day - that a force led by Henry V engaged the French at Agincourt, a small village not far from Calais in northern France.

The English army, made up mainly of archers using longbows, massacred a vast force of noblemen in the most famous battle of the Hundred Years’ War.

Immortalised by William Shakespeare in his play Henry V, Agincourt has since become a byword for English heroism in the face of apparently insurmountable odds.

In fact, detailed bureaucratic records of French king Charles VI’s army reveal that they were made up of 9000 travelling soldiers, perhaps with another 3000 locals from the Picardy region where the battle took place.

This compares to the total force of 12000 who travelled to France with Henry, although some 3000 were lost during the preceding siege of Harfleur, and through dysentery.

English chroniclers writing in the years following the battle have wrongly claimed that there were as many as 150,000 French, compared to 6000 odd English.

Mr Gilliot said notably horrific acts perpetuated by the English included placing prisoners in a barn and setting in on fire, with the permission of Henry V.

When the Duke of Alençon, who commanded the second division of the French army, had failed to put an axe through Henry, he tried to surrender but was killed by the King’s 40-strong bodyguard.

Mr Gilliot said: ‘There were numerous heroic acts by the French on the field of battle, but they were met with barbarism by the English.’ While, significantly, no English academics have been invited to today’s conference in France, the revisionist theories have found support on the other side of the Channel.

Professor Anne Curry, a military historian from Southampton University, admitted that many accounts of the battle have been exaggerated to give the impression of “plucky little England” against the evil French.’

Professor Curry, author of ‘Agincourt: A New History’, added: ‘For the French, Agincourt was such a disaster that someone had to be blamed. For the English, it afforded an opportunity to eulogise Henry and his army.’

http://tinyurl.com/5m3ffh

   Sunday - October 19, 2008

Trivia

A trivia question:

Name a President who served without a Vice-President.

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