History

(Every blank is a different nation or nationality)

In 1972, three (1) _______ radicals smuggled (2) _______-made assault rifles in violin cases into an airport in (3) _______, where the security ignored them because they were on the lookout for (4) _______ threats. The radicals opened fire and 28 people were killed in the ensuing firefight, including two attackers.

The sole surviving radical plead guilty, saying, "It was my duty as a soldier of the revolution." He was given a life sentence, but was released in a prisoner exchange after 13 years. Upon release, he became the only person to ever claim political asylum in (5) ______, which does not have an extradition treaty with his home country (where he's still wanted). He is still alive, at 77, and resides there to this day, reportedly watching cartoons like Tom and Jerry.

In 2008, (6) _______ (ethnicity) families of victims of the attack sued the government of (7) _______ for allegedly supporting the attacks and (8) _______ ordered that country to pay $378 million to the families.

Points awarded for either getting correct guesses or coming up with something that feels more like a game of Mad Libs than the correct answers do. I'll be especially impressed if anyone guesses (1) correctly.

1. Japanese

2. Czech

3. Israel

4. Palestinian

5. Lebanon

6. Puerto Rican

7. DPRK

8. United States

The Japanese Red Army was wild

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C5%8Dz%C5%8D_Okamoto

https://www.arabnews.com/node/2094256/%7B%7B

tweety linky

wiki linky

People may be familiar with the incarceration of Japanese Americans in vast relocation camps during WWII. But, most are unaware that the U.S. government also detained thousands of Japanese, German and Italian immigrants living across Latin America — and their native-born spouses and children — and deported them to the U.S.

Their ultimate goal? To exchange them for U.S. citizens captured by enemy countries during the war.

and was curious what is was about, there was a prominent USA flag next to it.

Am Yisrael Chai (Hebrew: עַם יִשְׂרָאֵל חַי, pronounced [am jisʁaˈʔel χaj]; lit. 'The People of Israel Live') is a slogan of solidarity among Jews. It is used to express strength and unity, typically in the face of adversity, but also in moments of peace and prosperity. To this end, it has historically featured in Jewish music, literature, art, and politics.

The phrase gained popular use as the solidarity anthem of the United States movement Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry in the 1960s and 1970s. According to The Forward, the slogan ranks second as an "anthem of the Jewish people" behind only Hatikvah, the national anthem of the State of Israel.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Student_Struggle_for_Soviet_Jewry

The Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry, also known by its acronym SSSJ, was founded in 1964 by Jacob Birnbaum to be a spearhead of the U.S. movement for rights of the Jews in the Soviet Union, particularly their right to emigrate to Israel.

His parents were Russian socialists who fled the Tsarist regime. He lectured at Harvard at age 12 before graduating at 16. Then he was persecuted for being a socialist and anti-WW1 protestor, withdrew from public life, and died prematurely while working menial jobs to fund his independent research.

I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops

-Stephen Jay Gould

Carl Hagenbeck believed that animals should be housed in habitats that mimicked their natural environment. Earlier, he’d followed the same guiding philosophy when exhibiting Indigenous people in “human zoos”

At the turn of the 20th century, the great zoological gardens of Paris, London and New York City would have been hardly recognizable by today’s standards. Animals large and small—those that had evolved to sprint across plains and live half their lives submerged in water—were confined in rows of tiny, barren cages lined with metal bars. “They were often on their own and had nothing natural in their enclosures,” says Karen S. Emmerman, an expert on animal ethics at the University of Washington. At a time when it was difficult to keep exotic animals alive, let alone healthy, in such constrained conditions, giving the creatures freedom to roam outdoors was viewed as a death sentence.

But Carl Hagenbeck, a German animal trader and entertainment impresario, had a different vision of what zoos could be. These animals, he argued, should be able to engage in innate behaviors “in an environment which differed as little as possible from [their] own natural environment.” Ibexes needed mountains to climb. Lions needed grottos for bathing.

When Hagenbeck opened his Tierpark Hagenbeck in Hamburg, Germany, in 1907, it was unlike any zoo seen before. Instead of small indoor cages, he “recreated the natural landscape of faraway places,” says Nigel Rothfels, a historian at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and the author of Savages and Beasts: The Birth of the Modern Zoo. Hagenbeck built “living habitats”: large outdoor enclosures with sturdy fake rocks and shallow artificial pools. He replaced cage bars with moats and dug deep pits that could be observed from above. He created the perception that the animals, while not exactly free, were living authentic lives that mirrored their experiences in the wild.

Full Article

Gutta Percha: The tree that shrunk the world

The little-known tree that revolutionised global communication forever.

In Singapore, 1842, Dr William Montgomerie was shown a strange latex by his gardener. This material, when placed in hot water, could be moulded to any shape you wanted, and, on cooling, would set solid. You could do this again, and again and it would happily mould to any shape desired. Unlike rubber, it didn’t crumble in salt water and stayed firm on setting.

This new wonder material was called Gutta Percha, after the tree that it came from, and it would blow Victorian minds.

We Germans are not the only ones in the sixth year of war. One may assume that the problems the war’s long duration have given us also affect the other combatant nations. Each warring nation is naturally eager to conceal this from the eyes of the enemy and present a façade that does not accurately reflect the true situation.

The war is having the same effects on all participating nations, but one can see those effects faster and more clearly in one’s own country than in the enemy’s. As we always say, the other side is no better than we are.

The German people loves the truth, indeed is fanatic about it. It therefore finds it hard to understand that in war everyone must play by the same rules to have a chance at success. Recently the U.S. military leadership admitted the loss of a 20,000-ton troop ship two years ago. That would not be possible with us.

The German people would not accept such silence on the part of its leadership. It wants to know exactly how things stand, sometimes forgetting that what is told to it is also told to the enemy. One can argue about which way in the long run is the most successful, but it is clear that our enemy knows how to stay silent better than we do, and that we as a result are inclined to think their situation is better than it in fact is.

As a result we must occasionally consider the war’s broad picture, not forgetting that it is likely that things are concealed from us by the enemy’s greater secretiveness. The fact that the enemy conceals his calamities from us does not mean they do not exist. They exist nonetheless and influence the overall state of the war, even if we do not know it.

The extent of total Soviet losses, which can be estimated at about 15 million, certainly has consequences for the Bolshevist military potential. If the Red Army continues to attack nonetheless, it does not mean that Soviet reserves are inexhaustible, but rather that the Kremlin is using everything it has to defeat us as quickly as possible in the hopes that it can carry out its planned extermination of the German people with what remains of its armed strength.

That is also true to a certain extent of the Western enemy. The resources of the military leadership grow steadily smaller because of the long duration of this gigantic war, and it is probably true that in the end the last regiment will decide the last battle.

The fact that we are still firmly on our feet and show not the least sign of collapse is sufficient proof that our enemies cannot do what they want, that they suffer from internal problems, and that they make such terrible threats only to keep us from noticing that.

In an article published on April 8, 1945, Goebbels once again suggested that the Allies were on the verge of collapse:

The general world crisis we experience is assuming ever more terrible forms, and not only for us, but also for the rest of Europe, and of course for the enemy states. As even English and American newspapers have to admit, well over half of our continent is starving.

Far-reaching political consequences result from that, which seem likely to throw the enemy camp into ever greater confusion. They have to win quickly if they are to win at all. That explains their so often repeated appeals on us to lay down our weapons and give up the battle.

But for us, that is only one more reason to ignore these cynical appeals so that the latent crisis they face, and that seems so dangerous to them, will reach its peak. It is naïve to believe that they can carry on the war as long as they want to, given their material superiority. Like us, they have strained their war potential to the utmost, and exhausted it.

Such a test of strength can only last for a certain while. It depends on who first loses his nerve and gives up. He will lose the war and bear all the fateful consequences.

(Emphasis added in all cases.)