The Second Reich’s Genocide

In the midst of a bitter war, the German government began to round up people of particular ethnicities which it considered to be subhuman enemies, gathered them into concentration camps, and worked them to death as slave labor in a deliberate policy of extermination and  genocide. But this was not the Third Reich in Europe in 1940. It was the Second Reich in Africa in 1904.

Herero_chained
Captured and chained Herero prisoners                   
photo from WikiCommons

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The Hopkinsville Space Aliens

Today, “unidentified flying objects” are usually associated with extraterrestrial spacecraft, but in the pre-space race days of the 1940’s, they also had a different interpretation: the Cold War was raging, and it was assumed by many that the “discs” were actually some sort of secret Soviet aircraft, on surveillance missions over the US. By the 1950s, however, thanks to scifi movies and sensational books, the idea of UFOs as ET spacecraft was firmly fixed in the public’s imagination. And it was sealed forever by a famous report from Kentucky which made the phrase “Little Green Men” world-famous.

Hopkinsville Space Alien photo from WikiCommons

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The Cugnot Steam Auto

What was the first “automobile” … ?

The first modern “automobiles”—self-propelled wheeled carriages run by gasoline-powered internal-combustion engines—were built in Germany by Karl Friedrich Benz and Gottlieb Wilhelm Daimler in 1885. But if we look at an “automobile” as being simply a self-propelled wheeled vehicle, the history goes back further, and the earliest one that we know about was a steam-powered cart built in 1769 by a French Army officer named Nicholas-Joseph Cugnot.

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A Necessary Political Interlude

The very fine people in the Florida State Legislature have in their infinite wisdom introduced a bill into the Assembly:

“Florida Sen. Jason Brodeur (R-Lake Mary) wants bloggers who write about Gov. Ron DeSantis, Attorney General Ashley Moody, and other members of the Florida executive cabinet or legislature to register with the state or face fines.

Brodeur’s proposal, Senate Bill 1316: Information Dissemination, would require any blogger writing about government officials to register with the Florida Office of Legislative Services or the Commission on Ethics.”

https://www.wfla.com/news/politics/florida-bill-would-require-bloggers-who-write-about-governor-to-register-with-the-state/

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