Cool History Stuff

That's quite something. 

@rico I know. Hard to wrap your head around it, isn’t it—basically a man-made blast on the scale of a battlefield, right in the middle of a city.

 

Original 16th Century door in the Piombi prison located in the Doge's Palace (Palazzo Ducale) in Venice, Italy

@panzer-lehr That's just astounding, must've been apocalyptic.

@rico That's when they built stuff to last... 😉

In 1889, journalist Nellie Bly set out to turn fiction into reality. Inspired by Around the World in Eighty Days, she proposed a bold idea: beat the journey of Phileas Fogg. What began as a newspaper stunt quickly turned into a genuine race. Another reporter, Elizabeth Bisland, was sent the opposite direction around the globe, and suddenly the world was watching—east versus west, two women racing time itself.

Bly departed New York with astonishing confidence—and almost no baggage, carrying just a single small bag. She raced across continents by steamship and rail, chasing connections, shaving hours wherever she could, and even stopping briefly in France to meet Jules Verne himself. Meanwhile, newspapers breathlessly reported her progress, turning the journey into one of the first global media events—readers following each leg as if it were a championship match.

After 72 days, 6 hours, and 11 minutes, Bly arrived back in New York—beating both Verne’s fictional record and her real-world rival. Bisland, traveling the other direction, arrived a few days later. What started as a stunt became something far more significant: a demonstration of speed, endurance, and independence that shattered expectations of what women were “supposed” to do. In the process, Nellie Bly didn’t just win a race—she became one of the world’s first true celebrity journalists.

That's so cool -- never heard of this story -- -one learns something new every day. 🙂 

I love it! Great story, thanks for sharing.

Vietnam War photojournalist Larry Burrows

The U.S. Navy’s Only “Pirate Ship” ☠️

Among all the gray hulls of the U.S. Navy, only one is officially allowed to fly the Jolly Roger—the destroyer USS Kidd (DDG-100).

USS Kidd (DDG-100) is named for Isaac C. Kidd, who was killed aboard the battleship USS Arizona (BB-39) during the Attack on Pearl Harbor—the first U.S. flag officer lost in World War II.

Kidd’s nickname was “Cap,” a nod to the pirate William Kidd. Sailors didn’t need much more than that. The skull and crossbones became part of the ship’s identity, and unlike the submarine tradition of raising a Jolly Roger after a successful patrol, Kidd flies it openly—with approval.

A modern warship carrying a pirate’s flag, named for an admiral who went down fighting at Pearl Harbor.

Not a bad bit of legacy.

A Roman rock crystal die from the 1st–2nd century AD, engraved with numbers one to six just like modern dice.

This week in "Cool" History — 1955

That’s where the Miss Atomic Pageant comes in. In 1955, dancer Linda Lawson was crowned “Miss Atomic,” famously wearing a costume styled like a mushroom cloud. Her title coincided with Operation Cue (often misspelled “Cubid”), a U.S. nuclear test designed to study how blast effects impacted homes, infrastructure, and troops—complete with staged suburban houses and military observers positioned nearby.

The pageant itself ran for several years in the mid-1950s, blending Las Vegas showbiz with the era’s strange normalization of nuclear weapons. Winners posed in atomic-themed outfits while, just miles away, real detonations lit up the desert sky.

It’s one of those uniquely Cold War contradictions: a period defined by fear of annihilation… and, at the same time, a willingness to turn that fear into entertainment.

The parachute bombs or mines were naval mines dropped from an aircraft by parachute. They were mostly used in war by the German during the Blitz and frequently dropped on land targets. These were attached to parachutes to act as blast bombs. When detonated at roof level rather than on impact the aerodynamic effects of their blast were maximised. Instead of the shock waves from the explosion being cushioned by surrounding buildings, they could reach a wider area, with the potential to destroy a whole street of houses in a 110 yard radius and windows being blown in up to a mile away.

Fort Drum, nicknamed the "Concrete Battleship," was a heavily fortified island base run by the USA in the Philippines for many years.
Built from reinforced concrete between 1909 and 1914, it stood as a powerful defensive stronghold. Located in Manila Bay, it sits about 3.5 kilometers (2.2 miles) west of Cavite City’s coast.

The Unknown Warrior's tomb

The idea of such a burial seems first to have come to a chaplain at the Front, the Reverend David Railton (1884-1955), when he noticed in 1916 in a back garden at Armentières, a grave with a rough cross on which were pencilled the words "An Unknown British Soldier". In August 1920 he wrote to the Dean of Westminster, Herbert Ryle, through whose energies this memorial was carried into effect.
On 7 November 1920, six officers were sent to six battlefields. Each selected one grave marked only by a wooden Cross.
The bodies were gathered in a chapel in Ypres, where at midnight, a blindfolded officer was led to them. The first coffin he touched became that of the Unknown British Warrior.
The body was placed in a simple oak coffin bound with iron bands and adorned with a crusader's sword from the Tower of London.
The destroyer HMS Verdun carried him home across the Channel.
In London, more than a million people lined the route to Westminster Abbey.
Soldiers reversed arms, women dressed in black dabbed their eyes, and children sat on their fathers' shoulders as the procession passed. Many veterans' thoughts returned to the rough wooden crosses of Flanders marked "Here lies an unknown soldier."
The coffin was lowered into earth brought from Ypres, sealed beneath black Belgian marble inscribed:
‘They buried him among the Kings because he had done good toward God and toward his House.’

In May 1945, with Nazi Germany collapsing, one of the strangest battles of World War II took place at Castle Itter in Austria. The castle had been turned into a special prison for prominent French VIP prisoners, including former prime ministers, generals, tennis star Jean Borotra, and other political figures the Nazis considered valuable hostages.

Gangl linked up with a small force of U.S. troops led by Captain John “Jack” Lee Jr (pictured below). Together, Americans, anti-Nazi German soldiers, Austrian resistance fighters, and the French prisoners themselves prepared the castle defenses against an expected Waffen-SS attack. One of the defenders was even a Sherman tank nicknamed Besotten Jenny, parked outside the castle gate.

When the SS assault finally came, the defenders held out for hours under sniper and small arms fire. Some of the French prisoners reportedly joined the fighting directly. At one point, tennis champion Jean Borotra (pictured below) volunteered to leap over the castle wall and run through enemy lines to seek help from nearby American forces. Amazingly, he made it.

Relief finally arrived later that day, driving off the SS attackers. Major Gangl was killed during the fighting while trying to protect one of the French prisoners, and today he is remembered in Austria as a rare example of a German officer who actively resisted the Nazis during the final days of the war.

It remains one of the only known battles in WWII where American soldiers and German Wehrmacht troops fought side-by-side against the SS. ⚔️🏰🪖😳

Interesting. I was intrigued by the information about the prominent French figures and read that they included former Prime Ministers Edouard Daladier and Paul Reynaud, and Generals Maurice Gamelin and Maxime Weygand (among others).

I also read that the Besotten Jenny was hit by an 88mm cannon and put out of action.

On right of this pic you seen Melitta Schiller-Schenk Gräfin von Stauffenberg (born 1903) one of III Reich Germany's few women test pilots. Her borther-in- law was Claus von Stauffenberg.

Flugkapitänin Melitta flew over 2,500 hours in dive bombers and was awarded the Iron Cross Second Class and the Gold Front Flying Clasp for Bombers with diamonds. Melitta died on April 8, 1945 after being shot down while flying a Bücker Bü 181 near Strasskirchen, close to Straubing, Germany.

The first Africans to compete in the Olympic Games were two South Africans, Jan Mashiane and Len Taunyane, who competed in the Marathon at the 1904 St. Louis Olympics.

Their participation in the infamous 1904 St. Louis Olympic Marathon is one of the most fascinating and bizarre chapters in sports history. Neither man traveled to the United States as an official Olympic athlete. They were in Missouri as part of the Boer War Spectacle at the World's Fair, which ran concurrently with the Games.

They had previously served as dispatch runners during the Anglo-Boer War. They decided to enter the marathon on a whim just before the race began. Because officials struggled with their surnames, they were listed on the program as "LenTau" and "Yamasani".

Taunyane was actually on pace for a much higher finish but was chased nearly a mile off-course by a pack of aggressive, wild dogs. Despite the canine detour and brutal conditions that caused 18 out of 32 runners to drop out, both South Africans finished the race.

Taunyane finished 9th and Mashiane finished 12th.

Source: Olympics, Missouri History Museum, African Global News.