History

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/20380586

Wine, Urine, Paperclips: America's Secret Weapons of WWII - A fun bit of history on Sabotage and its effectiveness against Fascist Regimes

An article about a (possibly fictional) animal trial in 16th century France.

“The rats were charged with the theft and destruction of the barley harvest, and the Bishop’s vicar requested that they be excommunicated and anathematized. And that court likely would have convicted the rats had it not been for the brilliant legal maneuvers of the man they appointed to defend the rats, Barthélemy de Chasseneuz.”

It’s April 4th, happy World Rat Day?

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/19768178

Community Defense Saves Lives - Abolitionists & the 1860 "Race Riots" in Grinnell, Iowa

By then Hitler no longer needed either Hugenberg’s corporate contacts or his Reichstag delegates. The bankers and industrialists who had once shunned the crass, divisive, right-wing extremist had gradually come to embrace him as a bulwark against the pro-union Social Democrats and the virulently anti-capitalist Communists.

Six months earlier, three weeks before Hitler’s appointment as chancellor, the banker Kurt Baron von Schröder had met with Hitler at Schröder’s villa in a fashionable quarter of Cologne. The arrangements were cloak-and-dagger: Hitler made an unscheduled, early-morning exit from a train in Bonn, entered a hotel, ate a quick breakfast, then departed in a waiting car with curtained rear windows to be driven to the Schröder villa while a decoy vehicle drove in the opposite direction.

Hitler walked out of the meeting with a 30 million reichsmark credit line that saved his political movement from bankruptcy. Once Hitler was in power, there was no longer need for secrecy or subterfuge.

When George ranted and raved and attacked those attending him, Willis ordered the king’s servants to gag him and place him in a straitjacket. He was left that way, thrashing around and making incomprehensible noises until he tired himself out and calmed down. When the king behaved himself, he was rewarded by being allowed to see members of his family. When he misbehaved, it was back into the straitjacket. Even mealtimes became a carrot and stick exercise. When George was bad, he ate mushed-up food with a wooden spoon; when he was good, he was allowed to use cutlery.

I saw the film The Madness of King George with my parents when it was in theaters. I'm adding that to the list of movies to watch.