Secret HistoryS


Arrow Down

A short history of the 'humane' guillotine


The Connexion
Sat, 15 Jul 2017 00:00 UTC
the guillotine
Cheers as Marie-Antoinette's head is displayed after her execution in Place de la Concorde on October 16, 1793
BASTILLE Day on July 14 has come to symbolise the French Revolution but its real symbol is the guillotine, which ended the lives of King Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette and thousands of others linked with the aristocracy in the Reign of Terror.

It was used for capital punishment in France well into the 20th century, with the last public beheading in 1939 and its last use in 1977 for the execution of convicted murderer Hamida Djandoubi. Capital punishment was not abolished until September 1981.

Always regarded as an instrument of terror, the guillotine was invented as a more humane and more egalitarian form of punishment to echo the motto of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.

Emmanuelle Broux-Foucaud, the curator of the Préfecture de Police Museum in Paris, said that until the Revolution it was thought anyone who was being punished should suffer, often horribly, to deter anyone else from committing a similar crime.

Comment: Funny how the machinery of death - however 'humane' - usually falls into the hands of those who most want to dole out death.

Read More...
Star of David

Documents reveal Israeli leaders were concerned evidence would come to light that 1967 attack on USS Liberty was intentional


If Americans Knew
Wed, 12 Jul 2017 18:19 UTC
uss liberty
Recently discovered documents show Israeli leaders were worried that evidence would come out that Israel's 1967 attack on the USS Liberty was intentional.

The Liberty was a Navy electronics surveillance ship operating in international waters during the Six-Day War. Israeli forces perpetrated an extended air and sea assault on the ship that killed 34 Americans, injured 175, and damaged the ship beyond repair. Afterward, Israel claimed the assault was an accident and provided $6 million in compensation for the loss of the $40 million ship. (More information here.)

According to the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz, Israeli historian Adam Raz recently examined hundreds of documents related to the Liberty that had been posted by Israeli State Archives.

Comment: See also:

Read More...
Book 2

War in the Balkans: Memoirs of a Portugese Peacekeeper

Stephen Karganovic
Strategic Culture Foundation
Fri, 07 Jul 2017 15:38 UTC
General Carlos Martins Branco
General Carlos Martins Branco is one of the most fascinating (and until quite recently also inaccessible) actors in the Srebrenica controversy. From his Zagreb vantage point as deputy head of the U.N. Protection Force (UNPROFOR) between 1994 and 1996, during the latter phase of the 1990s Yugoslav conflict as it unfolded in Croatia and Bosnian and Herzegovina, this Portuguese officer had privileged access to significant information. Confidential reports about the goings on in the field were crossing his desk. With first-hand information and further enlightened by discrete conversations with colleagues from various intelligence structures, Martins Branco was positioned ideally to learn facts which many officials would have preferred to cover up, and the media frequently ignored.

With a typically Latin emotional flair, refusing to remain silent as the "Srebrenica genocide narrative" was taking shape in the second half of the 1990s, Martins Branco published in 1998 an article provocatively entitled "Was Srebrenica a Hoax? Eyewitness Account of a Former UN Military Observer in Bosnia". In that early plunge into the toxic Srebrenica debate, Martins Branco ventured a number of critical questions concerning the notorious events in July 1995:
"One may agree or disagree with my political analysis, but one really ought to read the account of how Srebrenica fell, who are the victims whose bodies have been found so far, and why the author believes that the Serbs wanted to conquer Srebrenica and make the Bosnian Muslims flee, rather than having any intentions of butchering them. The comparison Srebrenica vs. Krajina, as well as the related media reaction by the 'free press' in the West, is also rather instructive."
Read More...
Footprints

200,000-year-old baby tooth is fourth fossil identified from Siberia's Denisova Cave

Charles Q. Choi
Live Science
Mon, 10 Jul 2017 19:28 UTC
Denisovian tooth
© Slon et al. Sci. Adv. 2017; 3: e1700186Photographs of the Denisova 2 lower second molar in (A) occlusal, (B) mesial, (C) buccal, (D) lingual, (E) distal, and (F) apical views. Scientists estimate the molar found in the Denisova Cave in Siberia is older than previously studied Denisovan fossils.
DNA in a fossil from a young girl has revealed that a mysterious extinct human lineage occupied the middle of Asia longer than previously thought, allowing more potential interbreeding with Neanderthals, a new study finds.

Although modern humans are the only surviving human lineage, other hominins — which include modern humans, extinct human species and their immediate ancestors — once lived on Earth. These included Neanderthals, the closest extinct relatives of modern humans, as well as the Denisovans, who lived across a region that might have stretched from Siberia to Southeast Asia.

In 2010, researchers analyzed DNA from fossils to reveal the existence of the Denisovans, suggesting the lineage shared a common ancestor with Neanderthals. However, the Denisovans were nearly as genetically distinct from Neanderthals as Neanderthals were from modern humans, with the ancestors of Denisovans and Neanderthals splitting about 190,000 to 470,000 years ago.
Read More...
Info

Neandertal thigh bone may rewrite history of humanity's origins

Tabitha M. Powledge
PLOS
Fri, 07 Jul 2017 17:57 UTC
German neanderthal thigh bone
© Oleg Kuchar/Museum UlmGerman neanderthal thigh bone
It was big news, the announcement in Nature Communications that mitochondrial DNA recovered from a German Neandertal thigh bone believed to be more than 120,000 years old was (1) from a modern Homo sapiens (or almost-modern Homo sapiens), and (2) entered the Neandertal gene pool more than 270,000 years ago.

"This Thigh Bone Could Force Us To Completely Rewrite The History Of Our Species" is the headline on Kristy Hamilton's post at IFLScience. (I see that this long-lived science blog has turned its original attention-getting name into a decorous acronym.)

It was big news because, if confirmed, it means that the early direct ancestors of all 7.5 billion of us anatomically modern humans, the last Homo standing, entered Eurasia much earlier than current theory holds. Current theory being that we emerged from Africa relatively recently, only 60,000 or 70,000 years ago.

But hardly any of the commentary spoke of another major reason it was big news: it calls into question another central thesis of human evolution, which is that we came out of Africa at all.
Read More...
Wine n Glass

New Jersey museum finds cases of wine nearly as old as the United States


NWF Daily News
Wed, 12 Jul 2017 16:11 UTC
300 year old wine US museum
© Davud J. Del Grande/NJ Advance Media
A restoration project at a New Jersey museum unearthed cases of wine nearly as old as the United States.

The Liberty Hall Museum in Union says it discovered almost three full cases of Madeira wine, a fortified wine, dating to 1796 while restoring its wine cellar. NJ.com (http://bit.ly/2sHP4uh ) reports the museum also found 42 demijohns — large glass jugs sometimes used for holding spirits — dating to the 1820s.

The museum said the monetary value of the wine cannot be made public.
Read More...
Propaganda

In 1951 the CIA compared U.S & Soviet Propaganda - here's what they found

Alec Shea
Muck Rock
Wed, 12 Jul 2017 12:32 UTC
CIA Central Intelligence Agency logo
In 1951, as the Cold War was intensifying, the CIA decided to see how Voice of America radio broadcasts into Eastern Europe compared with Soviet efforts. In a remarkably candid document, the Agency critically assessed the similarities and differences between U.S. and Soviet propaganda.

Today, VOA claims that it was founded during the Second World War to provide "Unbiased and accurate information." The CIA officers assessing VOA in 1951, though, saw the service as essentially similar to Soviet propaganda, going so far as saying that most Americans would be surprised by the similarities between the two.

CIA’s 1951 listicle comparing U.S and Soviet Propaganda
Read More...
MIB

Unit 731: Japan's inhuman experimentation camp that the West tried to erase from history

Rachel Blevins
Free Thought Project
Sun, 09 Jul 2017 00:00 UTC
Unit 731
No one involved with Unit 731 has ever been tried for war crimes, and there are many who hold the U.S. responsible for helping to cover up the atrocities.

Newly released historical documents are giving insight into a mass killing during the World War II era that is not covered in public schools. Japanese Unit 731, a group that specialized in biological warfare, committed horrifying atrocities during the Japanese Army's occupation of northeast China—and the United States was complicit in its cover up.

According to a report from Xinhua Net News, 24 documents were collected in Japan on Thursday that were written by members of Unit 731. This adds to the current public information on the unit, categorized in the Museum of Evidence of War Crimes by Japanese Army Unit 731, which was opened in 2015.
Read More...
Archaeology

Stone monument carvings, only visible at night, may have been used in mysterious night-time rituals

Sarah Knapton
The Telegraph
Fri, 07 Jul 2017 18:14 UTC
Stonehenge
© WENNThe Summer Solstice at Stonehenge
Ancient stone monuments may have been used for mysterious night-time ceremonies, archaeologists believe, after finding that some rock carvings only appear in moonlight.

Traditionally Neolithic structures were believed to align with the movements of the Sun, with the huge Wiltshire circle of Stonehenge lining up perfectly with the summer solstice.

But a new investigation of the stone age engraved panel Hendraburnick Quoit in Cornwall by Dr Andy Jones, found nearly 10 times the number of markings when viewed in moonlight or very low sunlight from the south east.

They also discovered that pieces of quartz had been deliberately smashed up around the site which would have glowed in the dark under moonlight, or firelight, creating a gentle luminescence.
Read More...
Pyramid

Tunnel to 'underworld' discovered beneath pyramid at Teotihuacan in Mexico


RT
Fri, 07 Jul 2017 10:05 UTC
Pyramid in Mexico
© Henry Romero / Reuters
An underground tunnel that archaeologists believe was meant to imitate the underworld has been found under a pyramid at Teotihuacan in Mexico. Electrical scans taken at the ancient city revealed the extent of the mysterious tunnel.

"The finding confirms that Teotihuacans reproduced the same pattern of tunnels associated with their great monuments, whose function had to be the emulation of the underworld," archaeologist Veronica Ortega, who was involved in the discovery, said in a statement.

Hidden 10 meters (33 feet) beneath the ground, the tunnel extends from the Pyramid of the Moon, the second largest structure at the site, to the central square.

Comment: See also: Secret chamber may solve Mexican pyramid mystery

Read More...