ICYMI, Thursday's links are here, and include 18th Century cudgelling matches, Scots, the birthday of Scotland's "prince of poets" Robert Burns, an airship disaster worse than the Hindenburg (the USS Akron), and video of a dog intimidating a pair of much larger lions.
On this date (January 27) in 1945, the Soviet Army liberated Auschwitz (wiki). Below are two documentaries (one short, one full length) and links to a few articles. Do the world a favor and educate your kids and grandkids about this - the schools don't do much with it anymore.
Auschwitz, also known as Auschwitz-Birkenau, opened in 1940 and was the largest of the Nazi concentration and death camps (wiki). Located in southern Poland, Auschwitz initially served as a detention center for political prisoners. However, it evolved into a network of camps where Jewish people and other perceived enemies of the Nazi state were exterminated, often in gas chambers, or used as slave labor. Some prisoners were also subjected to barbaric medical experiments led by Josef Mengele (1911-79). During World War II (1939-45), more than 1 million people, by some accounts, lost their lives at Auschwitz. In January 1945, with the Soviet army approaching, Nazi officials ordered the camp abandoned and sent an estimated 60,000 prisoners on a forced march to other locations. When the Soviets entered Auschwitz, they found thousands of emaciated detainees and piles of corpses left behind.
How do you describe the sorting out on arriving at Auschwitz, the separation of children who see a father or mother going away, never to be seen again? How do you express the dumb grief of a little girl and the endless lines of women, children, and rabbis being driven across the Polish or Ukrainian landscapes to their deaths? No, I can't do it. And because I'm a writer and a teacher, I don't understand how Europe's most cultured nation could have done that. For these men who killed with submachine-guns in the Ukraine were university graduates. Afterwards they would go home and read a poem by Heine. So what happened?
~ Elie Wiesel (wiki) (b. 1928) (quoted in Le Monde, Paris, 4 June 1987)
CONTENT WARNING: This longer (21 minute) documentary
"contains all of the film footage of Auschwitz which was filmed by Soviet camermen between January 27 and February 28, 1945, shortly after the camp was liberated.
In the interest of preserving the original character of the material, even the most shocking pictures have been left unedited, and neither sound nor music has been added."
Some animal husbandry advice from the ancient Greeks - you need to know which spices to rub on the genitals of your livestock to get them in the mood:
Aelian, Nature of the Animals 9.48
“Guardians who want the reproduction of their animals to increase when it is time to mate take handfuls of salt and sodium carbonate and rub them on the genitals of female sheep, and goats and horses. From these [animals] get more eager for sex. Others rub them down with pepper and honey; and others with sodium carbonate and nettle-seed. Some even rub them down with myrrh. From this kind of stimulation the females lose control and go crazy for the males.”
Scots, wha hae - Happy Burns Day! Here's a bio of Scotland's "prince of poets" Robert Burns, plus Braveheart, Burns Supper instructions,and lots of haggis.
The 10th President of the United States, John Tyler, who was born in 1790, has two living grandsons.
ICYMI, Monday's links are here, and include why all the actors from Hollywood’s Golden Age have such a distinct and strange accent, an animated map of the changing borders and population of Europe by year since 400 BC, two new Van Gogh drawings, and why your car company may know more about you than your spouse.
For geology buffs, this bit of history on the formation of the continents from Live Science:
Geologists matching rocks from opposite sides of the globe have found that part of Australia was once attached to North America 1.7 billion years ago.
Researchers from Curtin University in Australia examined rocks from the Georgetown region of northern Queensland. The rocks — sandstone sedimentary rocks that formed in a shallow sea — had signatures that were unknown in Australia but strongly resembled rocks that can be seen in present-day Canada.
The researchers, who described their findings online Jan. 17 in the journal Geology, concluded that the Georgetown area broke away from North America 1.7 billion years ago. Then, 100 million years later, this landmass collided with what is now northern Australia, at the Mount Isa region
This diagram shows the Georgetown terrane, in green, joining Australia around 1.6 billion years ago during the formation of the supercontinent Nuna. (Credit) Zoomable image here.
Big Brother on wheels: Why your car company may know more about you than your spouse.
ICYMI, Friday's links are here, and include weird vintage beauty hacks, the birthdays of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Stonewall Jackson (including the story of his left arm's separate grave), how apple pie became "American", and the anniversary of French King Louis XVI's guillotining.
Animated European history - this video shows the borders and populations of each country in Europe, for every year since 400 BC. Vassal states and colonies are not included in the count of a country's population.
