The Hidden History of Shanghai’s Jewish Quarter – Atlas Obscura

The Fiedler family poses in front of their home on Tongshan Road. UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM, COURTESY OF ERIC GOLDSTAUB

It’s common knowledge that as Hitler’s bid to rid the world of Jews escalated, so did the world’s refusal to let them in. What’s not well known is that when those borders, ports, doors, windows, and boundaries began shutting Jews out, in part by refusing to issue them visas, Shanghai, though already swollen with people and poverty, was the only place on Earth willing to accept them with or without…

via The Hidden History of Shanghai’s Jewish Quarter – Atlas Obscura

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What happened to the children of Oswald Mosley’s Blackshirt followers?

Blackshirt followers of Oswald Mosley gave Nazi salutes in the street, openly greeted strangers with anti-Semitic slogans and holidayed at ultra-right-wing seaside camps CREDIT: GETTY IMAGES

In a memoir published in 1998, journalist Trevor Grundy recalled how, when he was a boy just after the war, his mother used to come out on to the front step of their house in Paddington to see him off to school. As he turned out of the square where they lived, he’d wave back at her.

Each morning, she’d stand to attention and fling out her right arm in a full fascist salute. ‘I returned it. “PJ,” she shouted…

via What happened to the children of Oswald Mosley’s Blackshirt followers?

D-Day: Pointe du Hoc | History Geek

First Night History

The prominent heights of Pointe du Hoc on the Normandy coast were the scene of a desperate battle during the D-Day landings on 6 June 1944.  The strategic promontory overlooks Utah Beach to the wes…

Source: D-Day: Pointe du Hoc | History Geek

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The Heroic World War Two Volunteer – Charles Joseph Coward

Auschwitz III (Monowitz); Photo Credit

He fought against the Nazis and was sent to a concentration camp. There he spied on his captors and risked his life to save those he could. All that under…

Source: The Heroic World War Two Volunteer – Charles Joseph Coward

The proof that British nuclear test crews WERE used as human guinea pigs by their own government – Mirror Online

A shot of one of the bombs tested on Christmas Island (Image: Sunday Mirror/Collect)

For decades the MoD has denied using unwitting servicemen as “guinea pigs” in radiation experiments during the race to build a nuclear bomb.

But the widow of one Cold War pilot has blown that claim apart after obtaining secret documents that show he was used in a deadly experiment as he was ordered to fly through the cloud of a thermonuclear explosion.

And Shirley Denson, 83, said husband Eric had such a massive dose of radiation to…

via The proof that British nuclear test crews WERE used as human guinea pigs by their own government – Mirror Online

Maya Angelou, Malcolm X & Cuba

It was 1965 in Accra, the capital city of Ghana. Maya Angelou had been set up there for a few years working as a journalist. It was a long way from her birthplace in St Louis (Missouri), but she enjoyed life in Africa.

One day in January, her son, Guy, got home from school to find a feast of fried chicken – his mum’s speciality – laid out. But that wasn’t the most striking thing in…

via Maya Angelou, Malcolm X & Cuba

PLUTO Pump-houses at Shanklin, Isle of Wight

A picture from the Illustrated London News, showing a cut-away diagram, revealing the main features of a PLUTO pump-house. “Pluto,” Britain’s Latest War Secret: How a Million Gallons of Oil Are Daily Pumped across the Channel. Illustrated London News, 02 June 1945, Issue 5537. Camouflaging

In 1942, in preparation for D-Day, the crucial issue of fuel supply for the tanks and vehicles of the Allied forces became a vital consideration for the military staff, charged with the planning of the landings in Normandy and the subsequent advance through France. It was realised that a reliance on oil tankers might bring with it problems…

via Isle of Wight History Centre

Palace of pain: Netley, the hospital built for an empire of soldiers | Art and design | The Guardian

An aerial photograph of the Royal Victoria Hospital at Netley, Hampshire, in the first world war. Click here to see the full image. All photographs courtesy Marion Ivey

A hospital orderly, wearing what resembles a butcher’s apron, poses with an equally ominous-looking trolley. Ward maids, country-looking girls, pose in utilitarian overalls designed for dirty work, rather than the pristine starch of nurses’ uniforms. A handsome stable hand, straight out of War Horse and proudly holding a pair of equine charges, looks hesitantly into the camera’s lens. A quartet of stretcher-bearers wait on a dockside to…

via Palace of pain: Netley, the hospital built for an empire of soldiers | Art and design | The Guardian

Kick Kennedy, the Marquess & the Earl – Turtle Bunbury

Seventy years ago today, a plane crash in southern France ended the life of Kick Kennedy, oldest sister of Jack and Bobby, and her lover, Peter, Earl Fitzwilliam. This story recounts the series of events that lead up to the tragedy and the remarkable Irish connections to each of the protagonists…

via Kick Kennedy, the Marquess & the Earl – Turtle Bunbury

Fake History 6 : The Failure of primary source evidence. | First World War Hidden History

Establishment historians place great value on the use of primary source evidence. This is described as ‘Narrative Fixation’ by the heterodox economist Edward Fullbrook [1] who cites Einstein’s famous aphorism:
‘Whether you can observe a thing or not depends on the theory which you use: It is the theory which decides what can be observed.’…

via Fake History 6: The Failure of primary source evidence. | First World War Hidden History

Parson’s Green, Fulham: seclusion, secrets and novels – All Things Georgian

Parson’s Green, Fulham by William Pengree Sherlock, early 19th century. © The Trustees of the British Museum

Parson’s Green in Fulham still has two green, open spaces in the heart of its residential area. Back in the eighteenth-century, Fulham was a pleasant rural village outside the bustle of London complete with farms and market gardens that supplied the capital with fruit and vegetables, and Parson’s Green was a hamlet within the manor of Fulham where…

via Parson’s Green, Fulham: seclusion, secrets and novels – All Things Georgian

The Duties of a Georgian Footman – All Things Georgian

© The Trustees of the British Museum

A while ago we took a  look at the below stairs roles of the household maid, the laundry maid and the cook, now we come to the role of the footman. Once again, we’re using the information provided by a certain Mrs William Parkes.

via The Duties of a Georgian Footman – All Things Georgian

The Crusader Conquest of Constantinople | toritto

It is the Year of Our Lord 1075 and a great disaster has befallen Christendom.

The Islāmic armies of the Seljuk Turks have taken Jerusalem.

In Western Europe, the Roman Empire is gone some 600 years.  In the East the empire still lives at Constantinople, its Emperor ruling portions of the eastern shore of the Adriatic through the Balkans and Greece into Asia Minor and Syria.  It is in constant conflict with the…

via The Crusader Conquest of Constantinople | toritto

1948: After the Windrush — Retronaut

Above: Men and women gather in the bows of their tender prior to stepping ashore at Southampton to undergo routine checks by Passport and Customs officials, 1954. A one-way ticket cost £100, and the original press caption for this image ran: “Their assets are a few pounds in their pockets and a touching faith in Great Britain.”

Despite having paid £100 for a one-way ticket on the Empire Windrush – and the other vessels that were to follow in its metaphorical wake – the 492 people arriving at Tilbury, England were to find their journey had yet to be concluded.

They had come to England at the invitation of a British Government eager to replenish its national workforce – more than 380,000 United Kingdom’s population had been killed during the Second World War. In 1948, in order for mass immigration from…

via 1948: After the Windrush — Retronaut

Telephone’s early adopters | Actonbooks

An aside into Victorian business life is the fact that when a London solicitors sent a letter on April 27 1885, its headed paper quoted the firm’s telephone number. The number was 1095 and th…

Source: Telephone’s early adopters | Actonbooks