On This Day in History

22 February 2012, 08:18 AM

On this day, February 22, in 1943, three brave young people in Germany, founders of the White Rose Society, a student resistance movement, were tried and summarily executed by guillotine, for having distributed leaflets against the brutal, totalitarian Nazi control of their country.

Their society was named after a novel, The White Rose by B. Traven, who also wrote The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

Thought this might be of interest to my fellow readers of this board.

Walt

22 February 2012, 03:38 PM

dragonfly

quote:
Originally posted by Walt:
On this day, February 22, in 1943, three brave young people in Germany, founders of the White Rose Society, a student resistance movement, were tried and summarily executed by guillotine, for having distributed leaflets against the brutal, totalitarian Nazi control of their country.

Their society was named after a novel, The White Rose by B. Traven, who also wrote The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

Thought this might be of interest to my fellow readers of this board.

Walt

Ugh. Augh. I read this story in German, during high school German class, not knowing the accuracy or historicity of it. This has to be the same event. Ugh. Even though I don't remember the correct German words for it decades later, "they were allowed to smoke a last cigarette together" is seared into my memory, never to stop searing.

22 February 2012, 08:24 PM

dandelion

Poor kids! Something to be aware of when we take freedom too much for granted.

24 February 2012, 06:50 AM

Doug Spaulding

The funniest man on TV died. 2006. Don Knotts!

24 February 2012, 08:12 PM

jkt

Pre-Twitter:

On this day in 1886 Thomas Edison married Mina Miller. He wooed the 19 year old woman via Morse code.

28 February 2012, 01:20 PM

jkt

1983: The last episode of M*A*S*H, Goodbye, Farewell and Amen, aired on television

28 February 2012, 07:41 PM

fjp451

quote:
He wooed the 19 year old woman via Morse code.

Whoa...I wonder what her parents thought of this!?

http://www.livephysics.com/pto...ages/morse-codes.gif

28 February 2012, 10:27 PM

dandelion

quote:
Originally posted by fjp451:
quote:
He wooed the 19 year old woman via Morse code.

Whoa...I wonder what her parents thought of this!?

http://www.livephysics.com/pto...ages/morse-codes.gif

If that link doesn't work, maybe this: http://www.almanac.com/calendar/date/2012-02-24

Just learned Edison was a real bastard to French filmmaker Georges Melies and lost much respect for him.

29 February 2012, 12:52 AM

philnic

quote:
Originally posted by dandelion:
...Just learned Edison was a real bastard to French filmmaker Georges Melies...

I imagine this was over Edison's insistence that the Edison company had invented the motion picture, and trying to secure a monopoly through the enforcement of patent rights.

01 March 2012, 03:40 AM

dandelion

I don't know enough about it to know how Edison may have justified it, but he was making a ton with illegal copies of other peoples' films, to the point where Melies had to send his brother to America to enforce the copyrights. This is the only way some of the films were saved. The brother made a paper copy of each frame for the Library of Congress. While film deteriorates or is subject to other bad ends, paper holds up relatively well.

02 March 2012, 08:32 AM

jkt

Born 1904: Theodor Seuss Geisel (Dr. Seuss)

1933: World premiere of King Kong

Died 1982: Philip K. Dick

03 March 2012, 07:37 AM

jkt

Speaking of the devil: Born 1847: Alexander Graham Bell

1959: Pioneer 4, first U.S. spacecraft to orbit Sun, launched

1969: Apollo 9 spacecraft launched from Cape Kennedy

03 March 2012, 01:26 PM

dandelion

quote:
Originally posted by jkt:
Speaking of the devil: Born 1847: Alexander Graham Bell

Accused of some stuff almost as bad as Edison but in his case perhaps not as clear cut.