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Picture of the Day

An aerial photo of Tokyo after the one-night firebombing attack in WWII that killed an estimated 100,000

The firebombing of Tokyo, also known as the Tokyo Air Raid, was a devastating series of bombing raids during World War II by the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF).

The most destructive of these raids occurred on the night of March 9-10, 1945, and is often highlighted for its extensive damage and high civilian casualties.

This event stands as one of the most devastating air raids in the history of warfare, paralleling the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in terms of destruction and loss of life.

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Picture of the Day

Eduard Bloch

Eduard Bloch, an Austrian physician from Linz, occupies a peculiar niche in history.

A Jew by heritage, Bloch treated a young Adolf Hitler and his family for years, culminating in his care for Klara Hitler during her fatal battle with breast cancer.

This unlikely relationship between a kind doctor and his future genocidal patient continues to intrigue historians.

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Picture of the Day

pu yi

Pu Yi, the last emperor of Qing Dynasty and the former head of Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo during World War II

Puyi was only two years old when his uncle, the Guangxu Emperor, died of arsenic poisoning on November 14, 1908, and the Empress Dowager selected the little boy as the new emperor before she died the very next day.

On December 2, 1908, Puyi was formally enthroned as the Xuantong Emperor, but the toddler did not like the ceremony and reportedly cried and struggled as he was named the Son of Heaven.

The child emperor spent the next four years in the Forbidden City, cut off from his birth family and surrounded by a host of eunuchs who had to obey his every childish whim. When the little boy discovered that he had that power, he would order the eunuchs caned if they displeased him in any way.

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Picture of the Day

Child Labor

Children belonging to families of Stark and Schwartz, beet workers near Sterling, Colo. Family, including children, work from 5 A.M. to 6 P.M, with only half an hour for lunch, a work-day of over 12 hours. Sterling, Colorado, 1915

From the colonial era onwards, child labor was woven into the fabric of American society. Necessity, not malice, often defined the lives of children, who contributed to farmwork, apprenticeships, and home-based industries.

However, with the dawn of the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century, the nature of child labor shifted dramatically. Factories beckoned, their voracious appetites easily satiated by the nimble fingers and small statures of children. Textile mills, mines, and glass factories became the new playgrounds, echoing with the clatter of machinery and the hollow coughs of dust-choked lungs.

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Picture of the Day

homesteaders

Family with Their Covered Wagon During the Great Western Migration, in Loup Valley, Nebraska – 1886

President Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act on May 20, 1862. The new law established a three-fold homestead acquisition process: file an application, improve the land, and file for deed of title.

Any U.S. citizen, or intended citizen, who had never borne arms against the U.S. Government could file an application and lay claim to 160 acres of surveyed Government land.

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Picture of the Day

Their story has been romanticized in Hollywood, immortalized in ballads, and dissected by historians. Bonnie and Clyde, two names forever intertwined with bank robberies, shootouts, and a love story born under the scorching sun of the Great Depression. But beyond the romanticized image, their tale exposes a brutal reality of violence and societal despair.

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Picture of the Day

In the late 1960s, the military demands of the Vietnam War meant that over 200,000 American men had to be drafted every year.  In 1969, the Selective Service System instituted a random drawing of birthdates to decide who would be called. As men were needed, the Selective Service System would call up men according to the order that their birthdates were drawn in the lottery.  (Thus, those with a low lottery number knew they were very likely to be drafted.  Those with a high lottery number could hope that the military’s manpower needs would be filled before their turn came.)

According to the National Archives, there were about 27 million American men eligible for military service between 1964 and 1973. Of that number, 2,215,000 men were drafted into military service. Around 15 million were granted deferments, mostly for education and some for mental or physical problems.

There were more than 300,000 draft evaders in total, of which 209,517 men illegally resisted the draft while some 100,000 deserted. Among them, around 30,000 emigrated to Canada during 1966-72.

In 1977, on his first day in office, President Jimmy Carter controversially offered a full pardon to any draft dodgers who requested one.

Find your birthday in the chart below to see what order you would have been called to service

Picture of the Day

Mount Athos monk

A Monk Lived For 82 Years Without Seeing A Single Woman In His Entire Life.

This article was published in an Athens newspaper on October 29th, 1938.

Mihailo Toloto was born in 1856. Shortly after his mother’s death (after giving birth), a few men carried him up to a monastery on Mount Athos (a mountain located on a peninsula in northeastern Greece). He grew up in the monastery and spent his whole life on the peninsula until his death.

In 1046, Byzantine emperor Constantine Monomachos enacted a law, which prohibited women from entering the region so that the monks could live in complete celibacy without temptation. Although Mount Athos is part of the European Union, the monastery has special jurisdiction over the region and has the authority to decide who can and cannot enter.

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Picture of the Day

A British soldier inside a trench on the Western Front during World War I, 1914–18

The trenches of World War I, a grim but iconic aspect of the conflict, epitomized the brutality and stalemate of the Great War. These trenches, dug along the Western Front, extended from the North Sea to the Swiss Frontier with France. Life in these trenches was a harrowing experience, marked by a constant struggle against the elements, the enemy, and the specter of death.

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