An archaeologist studied bones Monday in Gerena, Spain, that are believed to be from more than a dozen women killed by the forces of Francisco Franco in 1937 during the Spanish Civil War.

nickturse:

Khmer Rouge survivor’s tale helps Cambodia confront its brutal past

Film documenting mother’s ordeal under communist regime aims to educate sceptical new generation 

Kate Hodal of The Guardian writes:

“Lost Loves focuses on Sotheary’s mother, who lost seven members of her family – including her father, husband and four children – during the hardline communist regime of 1975-79, which killed about 2 million people. With its all-Cambodian cast and crew, including Sotheary as the protagonist, the film premiered in 2010 at the Cambodian international film festival to a riveted audience, and last week finally appeared in city cinemas. Critics have called it ‘groundbreaking’ and ‘beautiful’.”

yesyesyesandyes:

Countess Elizabeth Báthory de Ecsed (Báthory Erzsébet in Hungarian, Alžbeta Bátoriová in Slovak; 7 August 1560 – 21 August 1614) was a countess from the renowned Báthory family of Hungarian nobility. Although in modern times she has been labeled the most prolific female serial killer in history, the number of murders and even her guilt is debated. She is nevertheless remembered as the “Blood Countess.”

After her husband’s death, she and four collaborators were accused of torturing and killing hundreds of girls, with one source attributing to them over 650 victims, though the number for which they were convicted was 80.^[1] Elizabeth herself was neither tried nor convicted. In 1610, however, she was imprisoned in the Csejte Castle, now in Slovakia and known as Čachtice, where she remained bricked in a set of rooms until her death four years later.

Later writings about the case have led to legendary accounts of the Countess bathing in the blood of virgins in order to retain her youth and subsequently also to comparisons with Vlad III the Impaler of Wallachia, on whom the fictional Count Dracula is partly based, and to modern nicknames of the Blood Countess and Countess Dracula.

Russian soldiers dressed in World War II-era Red Army uniforms paraded through Moscow’s Red Square Monday to mark the 70th anniversary of a 1941 parade from which Soviet soldiers marched off to fight German soldiers.

The September, 1955 issue of Reading Automobile Club Magazine – a magazine from the town of Reading, Pennsylvania associated with AAA – included an article by Michael Frome titled, “A Travel Editor Speculates: If Today Were 1965!”

The piece mentions some staples of futurism from the time, such as the four-day work week, which would allow citizens to take full advantage of the benefits resulting from greater mobility.

Frome also quotes Robert F. Kohr, director of Ford’s engineering staff about the future of the automobile:

“Today’s developments, no matter how advanced,” [Kohr] said then, “will be antiquated by 1965 — though that is just a little too far in the future for any accurate prediction.

“The passenger car engine probably will be lighter, smaller and more compact. It should have greater combustion efficiency, higher compression ratios and improved ignition. If some of today’s knotty metallurgical problems are solved, a gas turbine power plant, weighing roughly half as much as the reciprocating engine, may be used.

“Tomorrow’s automobile will be a highly dependable and durable vehicle, requiring fewer repairs and less frequent servicing. Strong, light metals, such as magnesium and titanium, may perform increasingly important roles in engine and body construction.

“Visibility will be enhanced, probably by smaller structural supports and greater use of glass — although car glass may be tough enough to support the roof itself, and impregnated to filter out the burning rays of the sun. Stylists will attempt to lower the future automobile, imparting a longer, wider and faster look. Sliding car doors are a possibility. Electronic controls will be popular.”

(via Smithsonian)

livercirrhosis:

Prehistoric Colors Preserved in Near-Perfect Beetle Fossils

“You need to mentally redshift the color. If it’s green, it’s actually a little more on the yellow side. If it’s blue, it’s a little greener,” said McNamara, who next plans to analyze the colors of moth fossils.

science:

The Gokstad ship was a viking longship found in a burial mound on a Norwegian farm in 1880. In 1893, for the Chicago World’s Fair, twelve men sailed a replica, the Viking, across the Atlantic, up the Hudson river and all the way to Chicago, to show that it was capable of crossing the sea.

I bring this up because there’s this cool project to build a seaworthy replica of another longship, the 9th century Osebergskipet, using authentic viking techniques and tools. The National Geographic Channel is making a documentary about the project. The Oseberg ship was very well preserved, but still in a thousand pieces, making any reconstruction educated guesswork. (Two previous attempts at building replicas were unseaworthy, but there is some evidence that the original ship would have been sailed before it was buried.)

In the burial mound, along with the ship and other assorted treasures, two women were buried. The budget for building a modern-day replica is nearly two million dollars: clearly, these were important women. The elder of the two women has been thought to be either a queen or a seeress. Among the treasures in the grave was the so-called Buddha bucket, which is ornamented with a human figure sitting in a lotus position. (It’s highly unlikely that there is any connection to Buddhism, but it’s a funny coincidence.)

During the last days of the Second World War in Italy, Benito Mussolini attempted to escape the advancing Allied Army by hiding in a German convoy headed toward the Alps. Partisans stopped and searched the convoy at a small village on Lake Como; in the back of a truck, they found a private suspiciously wearing a general’s pants under his overcoat. It was, of course, Mussolini.

The partisans took him prisoner and he was later joined by his mistress, Clara Petacci. The council of partisan leaders, lead by the Communists, secretly decided to execute Mussolini and 15 leading Fascists. They were executed on April 29, 1945, and their bodies were brought back to Milan, where the fascist dictator’s meteoric rise to power began two decades ago; the bodies were hung from an Esso gas station in the Piazzale Loreto, the scene where Mussolini’s own fascists executed fifteen partisans (the so-called Martyrs of Piazzale Loreto) the previous year.

The photos of Mussolini’s gruesome demise was widely reproduced and sold to many Allied soldiers. Meanwhile in Berlin, Hitler heard how Mussolini was executed and vowed he would not let this happen to him. The end was near and Gotterdammerung was about to begin. (See an extremely gruesome picture of Mussolini’s defaced (literally) body here).

*

Mussolini’s body was buried in a secret grave, but fascists found the body and removed it a year later. A small trunk containing the remains moved from a local convent to a monastery to a police constabulary until it was finally returned to Mussolini’s widow in 1957, and was buried at Predappio, Il Duce’s birthplace.

A police officer from Pozzuoli, Italy, descended a ladder Wednesday into an ancient Roman mausoleum discovered under an illegal toxic waste dump near Naples. A layer of garbage had covered a tunnel leading into the mausoleum, which archaeologists described as ‘of extraordinary interest.’