WHAT YOU MUST KNOW

 On this day .... July 27, 1949 Brothers Rufus and George Hamilton are hanged in Fredericton for the murder of taxi driver Norman Burgoyne.  Despite the early hour of 2 a.m., more than 1,000 people turn out to witness the hanging. The execution of George and Rufus Hamilton in Fredericton at 2:00am on 27 July 1949, the last execution in New Brunswick’s capital, underscored Constance Backhouse’s assertion that the legal system “played a principal and dominant role in creating and preserving racial discrimination. It was quite possibly the most infamous case in Fredericton's history.  Though the details may be vague and the exact date may escape them, many of the city's residents can still recall the night that George and Rufus Hamilton went to the gallows. The crime sealing the fate of these young men from Barker's Point took place January 7th, 1949.  On that evening, George (23) and Rufus (22) Hamilton called a taxi, a phone call which ultimately led to the brutal mur...

 This Day in History... 50 years agoSunday, 9th of August, 1970- Peru 🇵🇪 : LANSA Flight 502, a domestic scheduled passenger flight from Cuzco-Velazco Astete Airport to Lima-Jorge Chávez International Airport, operated with a Lockheed L-188A Electra, registered OB-R-939, crashed shortly after takeoff from Quispiquilla Airport near Cusco, Peru. The aircraft was completely destroyed. Seven crew members and all 99 passengers including two farmers on the ground perished.  The sole survivor was the copilot. (102 fatalities, 1 survivor) The crash of Flight 502 is the second deadliest aviation accident on Peru's soil.  It is also the second worst accident involving the Lockheed L-188. - Details : The airplane was departing Cuzco-Velazco Astete Airport on a flight to Lima, carrying a crew of nine and 91 passengers, among them 49 US students who were returning to Lima following a visit of the Machu Picchu ruins.  During the takeoff roll, which was 700 meters longer than norm...

 🇺🇲 WWII uncovered:  A Salute to the Women of WW II: Harriet Pickens and Frances Wills: Trailblazers of the US Navy. Lieutenant Junior Grade Harriet Ida Pickens and Ensign Frances Wills were members of the final graduating class at the Naval Reserve Midshipmen's School (Women's Reserve) in Northampton, Massachusetts.  Commissioned as WAVES officers, in December 1944, they were the first female African-American U.S. Navy officers." Harriet Pickens, born in Talladega, Alabama, graduated cum laude from Smith College in 1930 and from Columbia University with a Master’s degree in Political Science.  LTJG Pickens was the daughter of William Pickens, one of the founders of the NAACP.  Prior to her military service, Harriet was the Executive Secretary of the Harlem Tuberculosis and Health Committee of the New York Tuberculosis and Health Association.   In addition to this position, she was a supervisor of recreation programs in the New Deal’s WPA (Works Proj...

 🇺🇲 WWII uncovered: Lawrence "Yogi" Berra Veteran of D-Day to Baseball Hero. Lawrence Peter Berra, of St Louis Missouri, enlisted with the US Navy on May 12, 1943 at the age of 18 years old.  Yogi Berra was a member of the Norfolk Tars Baseball Team at the time.  He would later sign with the New York Yankees after putting his career on hold to serve his country. "Berra served in the US Navy as a gunner’s mate on the attack transport USS Bayfield during the D-Day invasion of France.  A Second Class Seaman, Berra was one of a six-man crew on a Navy rocket boat, firing machine guns and launching rockets at the German defenses at Omaha Beach.  During an interview on the 65th Anniversary of D-Day, Yogi confirmed that he was sent to Utah Beach during the D-Day invasion as well. According to an interview with the Baseball in Wartime website: “It was just like a Fourth of July celebration,” Berra later recalled of his D-Day experience.  Yogi spent 12 days manning...

 Jews settled in the Kingdom of Poland in the 12th century, due to the persecutions of the Holy Roman Empire.  Eastern Jews (Ashkenazis) found refuge here, and they were welcomed.   Absent from the European map for over a hundred years, following the dismemberment of the territory by the three great Prussian, Russian and Austro-Hungarian empires, Poland returned to being sovereign at the end of the first post-war period with the name of "Second Polish Republic.   From the thirteenth century until the third partition (1795), the country is characterized by being multi-ethnic and multinational.   It includes minorities of Ukrainians, Belarusians, Russians, Lithuanians, Germans and Jews, and also has the reputation of being the most tolerant state in Europe towards persecuted Jews elsewhere (France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Hungary, Austria  ).  But precisely in the years between the two world wars, nationalist, agrarian-conservative governments, im...

 This Day in History... 27 years ago Wednesday, 20th of December, 1995- Colombia 🇨🇴 : American Airlines Flight 965, an international scheduled passenger flight from Miami International Airport, FL (MIA/KMIA), USA, to Cali-Alfonso Bonilla Aragón Airport (CLO/SKCL), Colombia, operated with a Boeing 757-223, registration N651AA, crashed into a mountain while on approach in Buga, Valle del Cauca, Colombia.  The aircraft was completely destroyed. The eight crew members and 155, but four passengers, perished. (159 fatalities, 4 survivors).  The crash of Flight 965 is the deadliest aviation accident on Colombian soil and the second worst accident involving the Boeing 757.  It was also the deadliest air disaster involving a U.S. carrier since the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988. At about 18:34 EST, American Airlines Flight 965 took off from Miami for a flight to Cali.  At 21:34, while descending to FL200, the crew contacted Cali Approach. The aircraft was 63nm ou...

 RHODESIAN BOMBING IN MKUSHI – 1978: The year of the worst execution in history. The year 1978 is the worst year in the history of Zambia the execution of people on its soil. It can only be compared to the 1963 killing of Lumpa sect members by the Northern Rhodesia force in which about 1,500 members of the sect who were slaughtered.  In the 1978 massacre, the victims were not Zambia, but Zimbabwean freedom fighters who had sought refuge in Zambia.  The exact number of victims is not known but should be over 1,500.  The Zimbabwean freedom fighters lived in camps which were a target of spying by the agents of the Rhodesian government.  The two main targets that were bombed are suffered heavy human loss was the Mkushi Camp (for girls) in Mkushi and the Freedom camp in the Chikumbi area of Lusaka. THE bombardment of Mkushi Camp in Zambia by the Rhodesian army in 1978 put Zipra female combatants, stationed at the camp, in the line of heavy fire by the blood thirsty I...

 Paying the Ultimate Price. During the Holocaust police forces all over Europe participated in roundups and in the deportation of Jews to their death.  Local policemen in the occupied countries were ordered to go to Jewish homes, arrest men, women and children and bring them to the detention sites, where they were held until they were taken to transit camps or put on the deportation trains.  The participation of local police and other civilian agencies was crucial to Nazi Germany’s ability to implement the “Final Solution”. All over Europe policemen did their jobs. Many never stopped to reflect on the significance of the task they had been given; others may have sympathized with the people they were tearing from their homes, but felt they were under orders and that there was nothing they could do about it; some went and warned Jews of their impending arrest.  We know only of a couple of very rare cases of open resistance to follow these horrific orders. On March 9, 1...

Who were the 3 most evil dictators of all time? This smiling fellow right here, his name is Pol Pot. As the dictator of Cambodia, he killed up to two million people — as many as a quarter of his nation’s population. Which makes him pretty much a one-man black death. A living, breathing genocide machine. Hitler, Stalin, Mao, King Leopold… all have higher body counts. But they ran nations far larger than Cambodia, so in terms of percentage none hold a candle to the Cambodian equivalent of Satan personified. It’s odd that this man can still smile. He made the streets of his nation run red with blood. He murdered for the most insane of reasons — people who were intellectual, well-educated, would get killed just for the hell of it, regardless of political beliefs. At some point he even went after people with bad eyesight, because glasses made them look intellectual in his mind. Pol Pot had so many intelligent, successful and critical minds slaughtered that the avera...

 How were German war brides treated in America when brought home after WWII? My uncle Hugh married a German girl in Hamburg and brought her back to the U.K., so this isn't quite what was asked but it might provide an interesting contrast. Hugh was actually "Heinz" and was an Austrian Jew.  He came to the U.K. with my father as boys in 1938.  Hugh was old enough to enlist in the British Army in 1942 and saw a lot of action in tanks, finishing the war in Hamburg. So he brought Elvira back to bleak, post-war, bombed out London in the late 1940's. Not just that though.  He brought her to Hampstead, a part of London full of Jewish refugees from all over Europe. Germans were not popular in post-war London, as one might imagine.  They were, after all, responsible for turning a lot of London into gravel.  However it was widely assumed that Elvira was a Jewish refugee like so many around her.  Her English was pretty good but accented, and she was in no rush to ...