History in Pics

Channel Tunnel

When both sides of the channel tunnel first met in 1990.

The Channel Tunnel (nicknamed Chunnel) is a 50.45-kilometre (31.35 miles) rail tunnel linking Folkestone, Kent, in the United Kingdom, with Coquelles, Pas-de-Calais, near Calais in northern France, beneath the English Channel at the Strait of Dover. At its lowest point, it is 75 m (250 ft) deep below the sea bed, and 115 m (380 ft) below sea level.

A two-inch (50-mm) diameter pilot hole allowed the service tunnel to break through without ceremony on 30 October 1990. On 1 December 1990, Englishman Graham Fagg and Frenchman Phillippe Cozette broke through the service tunnel with the media watching.


Woodrow Wilson

President Woodrow Wilson asking Congress to declare war on the Germany, April 2, 1917.

The USA didn’t really have an issue with German hegemony in the American sphere of influence, but rather the fact that Germany had been practicing unrestricted submarine warfare. They were sinking American cargo ships and even passenger liners in the Atlantic.

Germany had also sent a telegraph to Mexico known as the Zimmerman Telegram, which promised Mexico swaths of land in the American South-West if they took up arms against the Americans.

At this point, as the executive leader, the American president had to react with war. Plus, a fresh army on the Western Front is arguably the reason why the allies lasted long enough for an armistice. Had the Americans not showed up, Germany was poised to actually win the war. Especially since the Russians had pulled out of the war by late 1917.

Even before entering the war, U.S. was providing a lot of support to Britain. They were favoring Britain from the onset far more than the Germans. They had many ships with their flag on them providing resources to the British. The Germans saw these ships, knew what was on there and where they were going.


Mona Lisa

The Mona Lisa stolen from the Louvre, 1911.

In 1911, Vincenzo Peruggia perpetrated what has been described as the greatest art theft of the 20th century. It was a police theory that the former Louvre worker hid inside the museum on a Sunday, August 20, knowing the museum would be closed the following day. But, according to Peruggia’s interrogation in Florence after his arrest, he entered the museum on Monday, August 21 around 7 am, through the door where the other Louvre workers were entering. He said he wore one of the white smocks that museum employees customarily wore and was indistinguishable from the other workers. When the Salon Carré, where the Mona Lisa hung, was empty, he lifted the painting off the four iron pegs that secured it to the wall and took it to a nearby service staircase. There, he removed the protective case and frame. Some people report that he concealed the painting (which Leonardo painted on wood) under his smock. But Peruggia was only 5’3″, and the Mona Lisa measures approximately 21″ x 30″, so it would not fit under a smock worn by someone his size. Instead, he said he took off his smock and wrapped it around the painting, tucked it under his arm, and left the Louvre through the same door he had entered.

Peruggia hid the painting in his apartment in Paris. Supposedly, when police arrived to search his apartment and question him, they accepted his alibi that he had been working at a different location on the day of the theft. After keeping the painting hidden in a trunk in his apartment for two years, Peruggia returned to Italy with it. He kept it in his apartment in Florence, Italy but grew impatient, and was finally caught when he contacted Alfredo Geri, the owner of an art gallery in Florence. Geri’s story conflicts with Peruggia’s, but it was clear that Peruggia expected a reward for returning the painting to what he regarded as its “homeland”. Geri called in Giovanni Poggi, director of the Uffizi Gallery, who authenticated the painting. Poggi and Geri, after taking the painting for “safekeeping”, informed the police, who arrested Peruggia at his hotel. After its recovery, the painting was exhibited all over Italy with banner headlines rejoicing its return and then returned to the Louvre in 1913.

This painting only became popular after it was stolen. The Louvre took it as an opportunity to market the painting. It wasn’t really seen as some masterpiece before the theft, but while it was gone writers told stories of a “stolen masterpiece,” and some even told lies about the painting to get people interested. Once it was found, they paraded it around for several weeks before bringing it back. Some even believe the man who stole it (a Louvre worker) was paid by the museum to steal it so that they could do their little PR stunt.


American Soldier

American soldier poses with captured German weaponry, 1944-45.

In the background is an M20 armored utility car, a turretless version of the M8 armored car used as a transport, command, and reconnaissance vehicle in cavalry, tank destroyer, and armored units; many high-ranking officers such as General George S. Patton also used them as command vehicles. 3,971 were built between July 1943 and June 1945.


Thiers, France

Thiers, France (Photochrom), 1890-1900.

Thiers is an actually a medieval town. Its foundation goes back to the 10th century. It is the world capital of knife manufacturing thanks to the centuries old cutlery traditions.

This neighborhood is actually called ‘Le Moutier’, and the ramparts you see in the background are the former fortifications (back in the Middle Ages) of the higher part of town.

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18 COMMENTS

  1. I find it amusing how people talk about the Nazi’s like the christians haven’t done the same thing during the Inquisition and the crusades. Nazi’s are still reviled, yet christians are popular? Make a choice, hypocrites, or shut the he!! up.

    1
    • You clearly know nothing about the Crusades or the Inquisition.

      The Spanish Inquisition, though draconian by our standards, was actually more lenient, and ended in more not guilty verdicts, than the civil courts run by the King and his government. Most of the Inquisition’s horrors were played up by English Protestants as propaganda, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I when a Spanish invasion seemed imminent.

      And the Crusades were a response to several centuries of Islamic incursions into Christian lands. The First Crusade began because Seljuq Turks conquered half the Byzantine Empire and began slaughtering Christian pilgrims on the road to Jerusalem. Infamous battles, like the Massacre of Jerusalem, were indeed brutal, but were, in fact, entirely common in the warfare of the Middle Ages. Everyone acted the same way. Not two hundred years later, Muslim armies would commit atrocities in Georgia and Turkey that were far greater than the deaths at the hands of Crusaders, and razed the city of Jerusalem to the ground so no one would want it.

      Also, look at you, edgelord. You can say Hell, your mom’s not going to find out.

      11
      • Thank you for this information! I wish people would research thing for themselves and there would be a lot fewer problems in this world. People still believe in propaganda still today. Just turn on the TV, it is everywhere. And also, Christianity has been under constant attack since it’s inception, so it’s no surprise that evil will show it’s face in this thread:(

        986
      • Muslim armies still commit atrocities against Christians still to this day. And I’m not saying all Muslims are bad people, because they are not. There are radicals in most every religion and always will be sadly.

        887
    • Really, how far back you want to go? It is true that crimes of this nature have been committed since the dawn of time. However, this does not justify the crimes committed by the Nazis and their allies. Those criminals earned their fate. And, those who support their ideals will also get their appropriate Justice.
      BTW, the Spanish Inquisition executed 39 person at the pyre, 2 of them in effigy. Lord Calvin executed 6,000, including the Jesuit priest that discovered our circulatory system.

      788
    • The ability for humans to inflilct suffering on others is born out of weakness and lack of insight in the individual, and fostered by the flaw in all of us as a group, in our inability to create a society which is a product of the finest of our knowledge, in justice, equity, compassion, creative will, and love for each other. Our tragedy is that we are lost in a sea of competing ideologies, political contests, hidden schemes to control wealth, religious traditions, and power struggles, while the simple truth blunders on waiting for catastrophe to shape us, while the gift of choice is ignored.

      4
    • The thing is, Nazis were Christians and German Christian Democratic party with the help of a Vatican and the German Pope of the time helped elect Hitler to power.

      781
      • Yes, The whole world mostly approved of hitler until they didn’t. Big difference. He was a wolf in sheep’s clothing. And then he pounced!:( The ultimate deceiver and devil incarnate!

        797
    • The Christian’s held inquisitions a 1000+ years ago and the Germans 80 years ago. There is no moral equivalence. Who do be blame for the 100,000 + fentanyl deaths every year in America? The human race is very flawed but no as flawed as our Government!👎🆘🤯

      0
  2. Having just looked up the total deaths during the inquisition, it seems to vary from 30,000 up to the millions. Though we cannot arrive at accuracy, we do know that 50,000,000 people died in the world wars recently, and no one was a victor! German fascism rose out of a frustrated Germany burdened with debt after the first world war. We are now burdened with debt once again, and the arms makers are itching for excuses to use them, so lets be careful eh? As to Arabs and terrorism, the school kids recently blowing off their immaturity are catching up to terrorist executions of innocents as we speak, but few are seeing the real ill behind all this. Since our churches are proving to be little more than international pedophilia rings, where are the moral arbiters of the modern age? You certainly cannot look to the governments, muslims, christians or fascists for that can you??

    2
    • Hitler’s ideology is very much still alive. There are direct ties with Margaret Sanger Associates having direct ties to Nazi figures who served directly under Hitler and where involved in the creation of Planned Parenthood . So, technically, Hitler is still very much so still murdering innocent human beings. If you don’t believe me it is documented and confirmed.

      818
  3. Easier said than done folks.
    From a ‘Black-Op’s point of view…while attached to a 12 man Force Recon team, we were attracted by a slight buzzing noise that as we got closer, it, of course, got louder.
    Being attracted by the sound of over a billion flies surrounding the strung up corpses of over 300 people that were tied to cross-post in an ‘X’ fashion and skinned alive from the neck to their crotch with the skin hanging down past their calves…pretty much says it all.

    843
  4. People don’t understand how horrifying it can be up front and personal. I respect everything about what your job is and was if that’s the case. I wish more people knew what it takes to keep us all free and from being slaughtered by our enemies.

    1047

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