War – Amazing Facts 4 u

Atomic Bomb

Amazing Facts 4 U — Fri, 14 Feb 2025 09:30:38 +0000

45 Amazing Facts about Atomic Bomb | Amazing Facts 4U

In 1933, a Hungarian scientist Leo Szilard, first theorized that enormous amounts of energy could be released by an atomic chain reaction. In December 1938, German scientists discovered nuclear fission in uranium, the heaviest natural element .The nuclear fission produced a tremendous release of energy from a very small amount of uranium.
Szilard, who had come to America to conduct chain reaction research, was in fact convinced that Hitler would attempt to build an “atomic” bomb. He persuaded Albert Einstein to write a letter to President Franklin Roosevelt in 1939 stating that it was conceivable that extremely powerful bombs of a new type might be constructed by Germans and urged the government to actively research into chain reactions.
In June 1942, the army took over the task of organizing all chain reaction research into a full-blown bomb program, code named the Manhattan Project. Gen. Leslie R. Groves, the man who had just built the Pentagon, was in charge of this top-secret project.
Enrico Fermi, a Nobel Prize-winning emigrant from Italy, in fact presided over the first self-sustaining manmade nuclear chain reaction, which took place December 2, 1942, at the University of Chicago.
The lead scientist on the Manhattan Project, the $2 billion wartime effort by U.S. and British scientists and the U.S. Army to develop the atomic bombs was J. Robert Oppenheimer, University of California physicist. He is often called the “father of the atomic bomb”.
At its peak, amazing 160,000 people worked on the project in more than 25 sites across the United States. No one person can be completely credited with the invention of atomic weapons.
The first nuclear bomb was in fact detonated on July 16, 1945, at Trinity site, New Mexico.
The US in fact dropped about 49 practice bombs nicknamed “pumpkin bombs” that killed 400 and injured 1,200 before nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Hiroshima was chosen because it was a large port city with an army base. It also had not been damaged much by earlier bombings. B-29 planes dropped atomic bombs. A-bomb on Hiroshima was dropped by Colonel Paul Tibbets. Name of the plane dropping it was Enola Gay named after his mother.
About 12 cyanide pills were kept in the cockpit of the Enola Gay (plane carrying A-bomb), and pilots were instructed to take them if the mission was compromised during the bombing of Hiroshima
Amazing fact is that only 3 of the 12 people on board the Enola Gay actually knew the real purpose of their mission to Hiroshima.
In 1945, Japanese radar operators detected a small number of incoming US planes one of which carried the atomic bomb to be dropped on Hiroshima but amazingly decided not to intercept them not seeing it as a threat.
The bomb called ‘Little Boy’ which was dropped over Hiroshima was over 10 feet long and weighed around 10,000 pounds. A small parachute was on the bomb in order to slow its drop and allow the plane time to fly away from the blast zone.
‘Little Boy’ dropped on Hiroshima exploded 580m (1,900ft) above the ground. Between 60,000 and 80,000 people were killed instantly. The fireball resulting from the bomb’s explosion was 50% hotter than the surface of the sun. Some people simply vanished in the explosion. Final death toll considering the long term effects of radiation was calculated at 135,000. The blast destroyed more than ten square kilometres (six square miles) of the city. The intense heat of the explosion created many fires, which consumed Hiroshima and lasted for three days, trapping and killing many of the survivors of the initial blast.
Amazing fact is that the amount of matter converted to energy in the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima was just 700 milligrams.
On the morning of 9 August, the Americans dropped a second, bigger atomic bomb. The original target was Kokura, but this was obscured by cloud so the bomb was dropped on nearby Nagasaki, an important port. The bomb over Nagasaki called ‘Fat Man’ blew up 500m above a tennis court. About 40,000 people were killed instantly and a third of the city was destroyed. The final death toll was calculated as at least 50,000.
The first bomb ‘Little Boy’ dropped on Hiroshima was in fact made from Uranium. The bomb ‘Fat Man’ dropped on Nagasaki was made from Plutonium, which was even more powerful than Uranium.
Amazingly it took Tokyo about 3 hours before they realized Hiroshima had been bombed.
After the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, hundreds of people made their way towards Nagasaki. Of these, amazing 165 survived both the bombings and lived to tell the tale.
The closest known survivor of the Hiroshima atomic bomb was in a basement only 170m (560 ft) from ground zero.
The USA originally denied that atomic bombs caused any lingering radioactivity whatsoever, calling such claims as Japanese propaganda. Even New York Times ran an article with the headline “No radioactivity in Hiroshima ruin” citing only military sources and ignoring eyewitness accounts of radiation sickness.
Six days after the bombing of Nagasaki, Emperor Hirohito and Japan surrendered to US forces. The Emperor announced this on the radio. It was the first time most Japanese had heard his voice.
Amazing fact is that the most destructive bombing event of WWII was neither Hiroshima nor Nagasaki. It was the Operation Meetinghouse, the American firebombing of Tokyo.
For decades, the mayor of Hiroshima, Tadatoshi Akiba wrote letters of protest each time a nuclear test was conducted, as a plea to end the use of nuclear weapons.
The Gingko Biloba species of tree is 270 million years old. It rarely suffers from disease or insect attack and was amazingly one of the only living things to survive the Hiroshima nuclear bombing. The trees healed quickly and are still alive today.
The oleander is the official flower of the city of Hiroshima because it was the first thing to bloom again after the explosion of the atomic bomb in 1945.
The Flame of Peace in Hiroshima, Japan has burned since 1964 in honor of the victims and will be extinguished only when all nuclear weapons are removed from the world and the Earth is free from nuclear threat.
An American made bank vault saved the contents from the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. After the reconstruction of the bank, the new manager in fact sent a congratulatory letter to the vault manufacturer.
After the Americans showed the power of the atomic bomb, other countries wanted to have that weapon.The Soviet Union tested their first atomic bomb in 1949, the British tested their first atomic bomb in 1952, France in 1960, China in 1964, India in 1974 and Pakistan in 1998.
Total number of U.S. nuclear weapons tests, 1945-1992: 1,030 . First and last test: July 16, 1945 (“Trinity”) and September 23, 1992 (“Divider”).
Total known land area occupied by U.S. nuclear weapons bases and facilities is an amazing 15,654 square miles in various states.
The minimum number of classified pages estimated to be in the Department of Energy’s possession is estimated to be 280 million.
Amazingly there was a nuclear explosion and no one knows who did it! It is known as the Vela Incident. On September 22, 1979, there was a double flash recorded near the Indian Ocean that is believed to be an atomic explosion. The satellite that recorded the flash had observed 41 other double flashes, which were all confirmed to be nuclear explosions. Nobody knows who did it as no one has taken credit.
There are 92 known cases of nuclear bombs lost at sea.
Since the advent of nuclear weapons, humans are now included in the list of endangered species. On our planet, we have about 25,000 nuclear warheads ready to be launched at any time enough to wipe out the entire human population of the planet many times over. A false warning can lead to nuclear war any second. More than 95% of nuclear weapons and atomic bombs are owned by the United States and Russia.
Amazing fact is that in one crisis a single man saved the world from destruction. If Stanislav Petrov, in 1983, had told his Russian superiors that his electronic monitors were signaling a massive nuclear attack from the US, there would have been a global nuclear war. He did not tell them and the signals turned out to be due to an electronic malfunction.
Amazingly globally, we have more than 2 million kilograms of HEU (Highly enriched uranium). This is a large stock enough to make millions of atomic bombs. At present, only 15 to 25 kg of HEU has been used to make all the nuclear warheads worldwide.
The cost of US nuclear weapons research, development, testing, deployment, and maintenance has exceeded an amazing $7.5 trillion.
The U.S. and Russia have an agreement to reduce the spread of nuclear weapons between Russia and the U.S. to 1.700 to 2.200 on December 31, 2012, but the deal failed. Both countries are keeping as much nuclear warheads as they can.
The U.S. has in fact paid compensation of $ 759 million for the Marshall Islands for the damage costs for nuclear testing.
The most powerful atomic bomb detonated an explosive force of 50 megatonnes of TNT .That is 2,500 times greater than the bomb on Nagasaki. Called “Tsar Bomb”, the explosives were detonated by the USSR in a test conducted on 30.10.1961 in an Arctic Ocean archipelago in Northern Russia.
The most powerful nuclear bomb produced and tested by the U.S. had provided a force of only 5 megatonnes TNT. But due to a chain reaction which was not foreseen in the project, the explosion was 3 times more powerful than anticipated.
The amazing fact is that one 5 megatons nuclear bomb has as much explosive power as all the explosives used in the second world war.
The average nuclear weapon in the US arsenal is approximately eight times more powerful than the nuclear bomb that destroyed Hiroshima.
Nuclear arsenals have to be totally eliminated to ensure survival of human race. If we wait till the first nuclear weapons are launched no emergency action will help the millions of dead and dying. Our power obsessed politicians will have done their irretrievable worst.

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American Civil War

Amazing Facts 4 U — Sun, 22 Dec 2024 09:30:49 +0000

25 Facts about American Civil War | Amazing Facts 4U

American Civil War, also called War Between the States was a four-year war (1861–65) between the United States and 11 Southern states (South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina) that seceded from the Union in 1861 forming the Confederate States of America.
An estimated 1.5 million troops joined the war on the side of the Union and approximately 1.2 million went into Confederate service. Over 620,000 Americans died in the war, with disease killing twice as many as those lost in battle. 50,000 survivors returned home as amputees.
In fact, neither side expected a war of long duration. Volunteers were asked to serve for 90 days but the war lingered on for 4 long years. Southerners thought Northerners too weak and cowardly to fight. Northerners thought a dependence upon slave labor had rendered Southerners too weak to present a serious battlefield threat. Both sides were due for a rude awakening.
The primary reason for the conflict was that southern states were invested heavily in slaves. Abraham Lincoln’s election as President in 1860 on a platform of anti-slavery was a catalyst for southern states’ secession. Confederate States of America of 11 states, when formed, had a population of 9 million, including nearly 4 million slaves.
The Confederate surprise attack on Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s unprepared troops at Shiloh on the Tennessee River resulted in a heavy fight with 13,000 Union killed and wounded and 10,000 Confederates, more men than in all previous American wars combined.
September 17, 1862, was in fact the bloodiest day in U.S. military history as Gen. Robert E. Lee and the Confederate Armies were stopped at Antietam in Maryland by McClellan and numerically superior Union forces. By nightfall 26,000 men were dead, wounded, or missing. Lee then withdrew to Virginia.
The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was passed by Congress on January 31, 1865, finally abolishing slavery.
Before the war ended by the final surrender of the Southern states army, John Wilkes Booth assassinated President Abraham Lincoln with a single bullet in the back of the head. He died the next day on April 15, 1865.
The last living American Civil War veteran, Albert Woolson, was in fact alive to see the beginning of the civil rights movement. He died in 1956.
The last surviving Civil War widow amazingly didn’t pass away until 2008. She married an 86-year-old veteran when she was only 19.
Nearly the entire student body and faculty of the University of Mississippi joined the Confederate Army during the Civil War and suffered a 100% casualty rate.
The amazing Fact is that in 1861, a slave took over on a confederate ship and delivered it to the Union. He later was given the ship to command during the American Civil War. After the war, he bought the house he was a slave in and became a US congressman.
In the 1930s the Smithsonian recorded Confederate Civil War veterans reenacting the rebel yell battle cry. This is the only recording of actual veterans doing the yell.
The first Memorial Day was a funeral held by freed slaves for Union soldiers who liberated them after the American Civil War in 1865.
In the American Civil War, soldiers were required to have at least four opposing front teeth, so that they could open a gunpowder pouch. Amazingly some men had their front teeth removed to avoid service.
Diarrhea was the leading cause of death among soldiers in the American Civil War and soldiers had a code of honor against shooting at someone who was pooping.
During the Civil War, JP Morgan’s founder in fact bought five thousand rifles for $3.50 each from an army arsenal and sold them to a general in the field for $22 each. The rifles were defective and would shoot off the thumbs of the soldiers using them.
During the civil war, the Union counterfeited Confederate currency and deliberately gave it away in the South to cause massive inflation
Some Civil War soldiers had wounds that glowed in the dark because of bioluminescent bacteria that were puked up by nematodes. These bacteria actually killed off other pathogens and made the survival rate of those soldiers higher.
A 9-year-old boy ran away from home to fight in the American Civil War. The army adopted him as their drummer boy, being too young to be a soldier. At age 11, he became the youngest noncommissioned officer in Army history, and decades later he retired as the last veteran of the civil war on active duty.
The first battle of the Civil War took place on the farm of a man named Wilmer McLean. He moved to get away from the violence, but 4 years later Lee would surrender to Grant in Wilmer’s new house. He quoted, “The war began in my front yard and ended in my front parlor.”
Nathaniel Bedford Forrest, the civil war general involved in the early Ku Klux Klan, had a total of 29 horses shot out from under him during the war. He himself was shot four times, and he defeated over 30 Union soldiers in hand-to-hand combat.
The first African American to receive the Medal of Honor in the American Civil War was Sgt. William Harvey Carney who, despite being shot in the face, shoulders, arms, and legs, refused to let the American flag touch the ground.
There were 8 African-American men from Southern states elected to Congress in 1870, just five years after the Civil War. Amazingly another black man wouldn’t be elected from a Southern state for the next 72 years.
W.V Meadows was shot in the eye at the battle of Vicksburg during the American Civil War. He survived, and amazingly 58 years later coughed the bullet out of his mouth.

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World War II (Part 2)

Amazing Facts 4 U — Mon, 16 Dec 2024 09:30:46 +0000

35 Amazing Facts about World War II (Part II) | Amazing Facts 4U

In 1935, British engineer Robert Watson-Watt was working on a “death ray” that would destroy enemy aircraft using radio waves. His “death ray” amazingly evolved into radar or “radio detection and ranging”.
The US Military was ranked amazing 17th (in terms of size) before WWII began. Romania was 16th.
After the sneak attack at Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt searched for a bulletproof car. However, because government regulation prohibited spending more than $750 to buy a car, the only one they could find was Al Capone’s limo, which had been seized by the Treasury Department after he was arrested for tax evasion.
Large, inflatable barrage balloons were in fact used to protect major towns and cities in Britain from air raids. The balloons were launched before a raid and trailed a network of steel cables beneath them. Bombers had to fly high to avoid becoming tangled in the cables, thus reducing their accuracy.
The Messerschmitt BF-109E was produced in larger numbers than any other aircraft in World War II. The amazing fact is that Germany made nearly 36,000 of them.
Germany surrendered on 8 May 1945 while Japan surrendered on 2 September 1945 ending WWII when Japan signed a surrender agreement on the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay after droppings of atomic bombs on Hiroshima & Nagasaki respectively on the 6th and 9th of August 1945.
During WWII, penicillin was recycled and extracted from the urine of soldiers already on the antibiotics.
During WWII, Pilots would intercept V-1 flying bombs also known as the Buzz Bomb, and tip them over with their wingtips causing them to crash.
Coconut juice or water inside not only is sterile but has the same electrolytic balance as human blood, which enabled medics in the Pacific Theater in World War II to use it as an emergency substitute for plasma.
During World War II, the very first bomb dropped on Berlin by the Allies in fact killed the only elephant of the Berlin Zoo.
There were American soldiers during World War II, who used fake tanks and pre-recorded sounds to deceive the Nazis into thinking their army was bigger than it actually was. They were called the ‘Ghost Army’.
During World War II, A woman slipped and fell at the top of the stairs of Bethnal Green tube station in London. It was being used as a bomb shelter. Amazingly the resulting domino effect killed 176 people.
SS Wien of Austria was sunk in 1918 during World War I. It was raised again, salvaged, refitted, and returned to service as SS Po. It was sunk again in 1941 during World War II.
The Taj Mahal was in fact covered with a huge scaffold during WWII to make it look like a stockpile of Bamboos and misguide any Japanese bombers.
During WWII, there was a secret program used by American forces to disguise plastic explosives as flour. It was such a good disguise that even baked goods could be made with it, which could then be used to blow things up.
Night Witches were the members of an all-female bomber regiment in WWII Russia. These pilots would turn off their engines, glide, and bomb German targets to avoid being heard. They dropped 3,000 tons of bombs over German lines and were exceptionally good at evading enemy planes.
Switzerland claimed neutrality during WWII and therefore thousands of people deposited their hard-earned money in Switzerland. When the depositors died, the relatives were denied any access to their funds, funds that the banks continued to make interest off. They also funneled hundreds of millions into Nazi Germany.
During WWII, Britain shipped most of its gold reserves and foreign securities to Canada in crates labeled as “Fish”. They were stored for years in an office building in downtown Montreal, where about 5000 people worked throughout the war without having a clue about what was hidden in their basement.
The fact is the USA firebombed Tokyo during WWII resulting in 100,000 deaths, which was more than Hiroshima or Nagasaki.
It’s amazing that because all factories were being used to support the war by manufacturing supplies, United States was only able to manufacture 139 cars during World War II.
Fritz Haber, a German chemist created a process of producing fertilizer that makes about half of the world’s food today. He also created chlorine gas in WWI. After his death, what he created to be a pesticide was used in WW2 gas chambers.
During WWII three bombs hit a single church in Malta. Two of them just bounced off and did not explode. The last one pierced the church roof, landing among a congregation of 300, but didn’t explode.
Pooli, the American cat was a World War II veteran, who earned three service ribbons and four battle stars.
During World War II, American pilot, Alan Magee fell 20,000 feet without a parachute before smashing through the glass roof of a train station. Amazingly he survived and lived to 82.
During World War II, a Russian pilot, Alexey Maresyev was shot down over Nazi Germany. He dragged himself 18 days to Soviet territory and had to have his legs amputated. Later, he mastered the use of prosthetic devices and returned to flying combat missions.
WWII Canadian soldier, Leo Major, singlehandedly captured about 93 Nazis in the Netherlands. He also later singlehandedly captured the town of Zwolle, also in the Netherlands from the Germans. It’s amazing that he was blind in one eye all along.
Adrian Carton de Wiart, a British officer who fought in the Boer War, WWI & II, was shot in the face, head, stomach, ankle, leg, hip, and ear, survived a plane crash, tunneled out of a POW camp, and bit off his own fingers when a doctor wouldn’t amputate them.
Roza Shanina was a female Soviet sniper who fought in WWII and achieved 54 confirmed hits. Allied newspapers called her, “the unseen terror of East Prussia.”
During World War II, Japanese Army officers hosted a party for the Japanese Navy officers, and when they ran out of meat they served the liver of a recently deceased American soldier.
There is a separate US cemetery in France for US soldiers, who were executed for rape or murder during WWII.
Nutella was invented during WWII because chocolate was in short supply due to World War II rationing.
After World War II, Denmark declined an offer of $100,000,000 from the United States to buy Greenland.
Britain only finished paying its WWII debts off in 2006.
Germany was forced to pay for all loss and damages to the allies after WWI. They just finished paying it in October 2010. The WWII debt is still outstanding.
There is a Twitter account posting events that occurred in WWII, in real-time, on the exact same time and date (except 70 years later).

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World War II (Part 1)

Amazing Facts 4 U — Sat, 14 Dec 2024 09:30:07 +0000

50 Amazing Facts about World War II ( Part I) | Amazing Facts 4U

The roots of World War II lie in the Treaty of Versailles which was created in 1919 to ensure peace in Europe following WWI. Germany was humiliated, lost all its overseas empires as well as land to its neighbors. The treaty stipulated that Germany would pay for damages caused by the war and that Germany could only have a small army with no air force, submarines, or tanks. German people suffered due to the harsh economic penalties and voted for Hitler to take over the government.
Since 1933, Germany had been ruled by Adolf Hitler and his political party, the Nazis. They wanted to take revenge for Germany’s defeat in the Great War by expanding Germany’s empire. Adolf Hitler had vowed to tear up the Treaty of Versailles.
On March 13, 1938, Germany took over Austria. At the Munich Conference in September 1938, the French and the British handed Germany a large portion of Czechoslovakia. Hitler then took the rest of Czechoslovakia by March 1939. Germany attacked Poland on September 1, 1939. Germany was allowed to take over both Austria and Czechoslovakia without a fight as the British & French didn’t want to fight another war after suffering heavily in World War I. Hitler used the harsh limitations that were set against Germany in the Versailles Treaty as a pretext for Germany’s right to acquire land where German-speaking people lived.
On September 1, 1939, the beginning of the German attack, Great Britain and France in fact sent Adolf Hitler an ultimatum, either withdraw German forces from Poland or they would go to war against Germany as they had a treaty with Poland.
On September 3, with Germany’s forces penetrating deeper into Poland, Great Britain and France both declared war on Germany. World War II had begun. Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa joined allies by 10 September 1939.
The Germans quickly invaded Denmark and Norway (April 1940), Luxemburg, the Netherlands, and Belgium (both in May), and then conquered France by June 1940.
In June 1941, The Soviet Union joined the Allies, after Germany attacked it. On December 11, 1941, four days after Japan carried out a huge attack on the American naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii without a declaration of war, the United States also joined the Allies. The war had become global.
The opposing sides in World War II were referred to as the Axis and the Allies. There were many countries in this conflict but the major ones on the Axis side were Germany, Italy & Japan. The Allies included Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, New Zealand, South Africa, Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The countries that remained neutral were Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland.
It’s estimated that an amazing 50-70 million people died due to the World War II conflicts.
The total casualties of the USA, Britain, and France during WWII put together roughly equal to the casualties of the Soviets in the decisive battle of Leningrad only. Amazingly Soviet casualties are 26 times that of other allies.
Amazingly almost 80% of the males born in the Soviet Union in 1923 did not survive World War II. Russia was the country with the largest number of causalities, with an estimated 21 million.
The Battle at Stalingrad (1942-1943) is arguably the bloodiest battle in history (800,000-1,600,000 casualties).
The greatest tank battle in history occurred between the Germans and Russians at the Kursk salient in Russia from July 4-22, 1943. More than 3,600 tanks were involved.
In WWII the Russians trained dogs to run under German tanks with bombs on their backs. The amazing fact was that the tanks the dogs were trained to run under were Russian so they ended up running under the Russian tanks and blowing them up instead.
Amazingly the number of Chinese killed by the Japanese during WWII was greater than the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust.
Between 1939 and 1945 the Allies dropped 3.4 million tons of bombs, An average of about 27,700 tons of bombs each month.
It’s amazing that 12,000 heavy bombers were shot down in World War II.
The amazing fact is that during WWII, Ford went from producing one B-24 bomber per day to one per hour!
German pilots used to intentionally rupture their eardrums during WWII to prevent air pressure issues. Similarly, the Bajau people of the Pacific rupture their eardrums to help them in diving and hunting at sea.
In the 1930s, the U.S. Army had only about 130,000 soldiers, making it the sixteenth largest force in the world, smaller than Czechoslovakia, Poland, Turkey, Spain, and Romania.
The official gesture that accompanied the Pledge of Allegiance was so similar to Hitler’s Nazi salute that Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered the change to the hand over heart during WWII.
Here are the amazing statistics. More than 650,000 Jeeps were built during WWII. American factories also produced 300,000 military aircraft; 89,000 tanks; 3 million machine guns; and 7 million rifles.
The most powerful artillery gun created by any nation and used in WWII was named Karl by its designer General Karl Becker. Used mostly against the Russians, the huge gun could shoot a 2.5-ton shell over three miles. The shells were 24 inches wide and could go through eight to nine feet of concrete.
At the time of the Pearl Harbor attack, there were 96 ships anchored. During the attack, 18 were sunk or seriously damaged, including eight battleships. There were 2,402 American men killed and 1,280 injured. Three hundred and fifty aircraft were destroyed or damaged.
Amazingly the Russians destroyed over 500 German aircraft by ramming them in midair.
German U-boats sunk 2,000 Allied ships at a cost of 781 U-boats destroyed.
40,000 men served on U-Boats during the war and a huge 30,000 never returned from combat
The Nazis murdered approximately 12 million people, nearly 6 million of those being Jews killed in the Holocaust.
The Red Army (Russian) defeated 75-80% of deployed German forces during WWII. The US/UK forces only defeated 20-25%.
The amazing fact is that Hitler never visited a single Jew concentration camp.
A number of air crewmen died of gaseous distention. (Ascending to 20,000 ft. in an un-pressurized aircraft causes intestinal gas to expand 300%! )
U.S. Soldier John R. McKinney held off over 100 Japanese soldiers single-handedly in WWII.
When the US Army landed in North Africa, among the equipment brought ashore were 3 complete Coca-Cola bottling plants.
The German city of Konstanz was not bombed by the Allied Forces during World War II, because the city left all its lights on at night, thus fooling the allied bombers into thinking it was actually a city of Switzerland.
Amazing 84 German Generals were executed by Hitler for various reasons.
The amazing story is that among the first “Germans” captured at Normandy were several Koreans. They had been forced to fight for the Japanese Army until they were captured by the Russians and forced to fight for the Russian Army until they were captured by the Germans and forced to fight for the German Army until they were capture by the US Army. These were veterans of three armies.
During World War II, a Germanic group called the SS short for Schuftzstaffel carried out massive executions of political opponents and ethnic minorities. Headed by Heinrich Luitopold Himmler (1900-1945), it was initially formed as a personal protection service for Hitler. It is estimated that this group killed about 1.4 million Jews.
During WWII, the Nazis built fake airfields to deceive the Allies. Sometimes, these airfields had fake runways and buildings. They always had fake wooden planes though. However, the Allies discovered that these were fake airfields and displaying an amazing sense of humor, dropped fake bombs on them. The bombs were actually made of wood.
The amazing fact is that during WWII, the Japanese army convinced 22,000 people to commit mass suicide on the island of Saipan due to the propaganda laid out by the Japanese army that US troops would torture and murder them if they didn’t.
During World War II, there were cars developed to run on wood! These wood gas vehicles would run on wood heated to 1400 °C (2550 °F) converting the wood into a combustible gas!
As the result of the Second World War Europe lost its position as the center of world power and made way for the rise of the United States and Russia as the superpowers.
Amazingly Russia and Japan have never signed an official peace treaty with each other to end World War II. Japan wanted Russia to return four offshore Kurile islands it had taken after the war.
The ‘’007’’ character that we all know was in fact based on the Yugoslavian-born spy Dusko Popov (1912-1980). Author Ian Fleming got all his insight for the character from this spy from WWII, speaking at least five languages he even came up with his own formula for invisible ink. He was the first-ever spy in history to use microdots, which are basically photos shrunk down to the size of dots. He had deciphered the vital information about the Japanese planning an airstrike on Pearl Harbor which was passed on to the FBI which did not act on his warning.
Nine American crewmen survived when their warplane crashed during World War II. Eight of them were captured by the Japanese and eaten. Only one survived because he was picked up by a passing submarine. Amazingly that survivor was George H.W. Bush.
An Imperial Japanese Army intelligence officer, who fought in World War II, Hiroo Onoda never surrendered in 1945. Until 1974, for almost 30 years, he held his position in the Philippines. His former commander traveled from Japan to personally issue orders relieving him from duty in 1974.
During World War II, there was a double agent named Juan Pujol Garcia, who started a spy network consisting of 27 sub-agents of his own, all of them nonexistent. He submitted expense reports for them and had the Nazis giving him money to pay their salaries.
The US playing card company ‘Bicycle’ had manufactured a playing card in WWII. When the card was soaked, it revealed an escape route for Prisoners of War. These cards were Christmas presents for all POWs in Germany.
“Monopoly” board games helped thousands of Allied POWs escape German camps. Germany allowed the Red Cross to send care packages to POWs and among the items that could be sent were board games. Special Monopoly boxes were created that contained items to help the prisoners escape: – German, French, and Italian money currency was hidden within the Monopoly money. A metal file was hidden within the board. A small compass was hidden in a playing piece. Silk maps of the prison and its location were hidden inside the hotel pieces.
The amazing fact is Netherland still sends Canada 10,000 tulips each year as a thank you gesture for sheltering their Dutch princess during WWII.
The term “dogfight” originated during WWII. The pilot had to turn off the plane’s engine from time to time so it would not stall when the plane turned quickly in the air. When a pilot restarted his engine midair, it sounded like dogs barking.

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World War I (Part 2)

Amazing Facts 4 U — Thu, 22 Aug 2024 09:30:08 +0000

35 Amazing World War I Facts (Part 2) | Amazing Facts 4U

Until it was suppressed forcefully during WWI, German was in fact the second most widely spoken language in the United States of America. Most of the local governments, schools, and newspapers operated in German.
The ocean liner Olympic, sister ship to Titanic in fact became the only merchant vessel in WWI to sink an enemy warship when she rammed U-boat U-103.
Hitler used to have a full-sized mustache but was ordered to trim it down to a ‘toothbrush’ during World War I to better accommodate wearing a gas mask.
Adolf Hitler was adamant about not using poison gas on the battlefield in WWII as a result of his exposure to it during World War I.
In WWI, British armed merchant cruiser RMS Carmania engaged and sank the German merchant cruiser SMS Cap Trafalgar. The amazing fact was the two ships had been disguised as each other.
The pharmaceutical company “Bayer” discovered Heroin and until WWI in fact sold it as a cough treatment.
Over 90,000 Chinese laborers were used by the British Army to dig trenches on the Western Front in WWI.
Due to steel shortages during World War I, concrete ships were built. Only ten of them are in fact still afloat, all of them in a small coastal town of British Columbia.
Karl von Müller, Captain of the German WWI vessel the SMS Emden allowed the passengers of the enemy merchant ships enough time to gather their belongings and abandon the ship before sinking it.
Safety Razors were invented in the late 18th century but weren’t popularized until World War I. During World War I, Gillette worked out a deal with the U.S. Armed Forces to provide it to every enlisted man or officer on his way to Europe.
Because metal was in great demand WWI, corsets began to fade and bras became popular.
Kleenex brands of tissues were used as gas mask filters during World War I.
New Zealand had one of the highest casualty per capita (wounded and dead) rates in WWI, at 58%.
Amazingly people did not need passports until World War I.
Amazing fact is that the Eiffel Tower was due to be demolished in 1909 after its lease ran out, but it became useful during World War I due to its antenna.
Brushing teeth was not a regular practice among Americans before WWI. “So many recruits had rotting teeth the officials said poor dental hygiene was a national security risk.”
During WWI, starving wolves amassed in such great numbers that Germans and Russians had to declare a temporary ceasefire just to fight off the wolf attacks.
In World War I, when a pilot from either side went down behind enemy lines, the “enemy” would drop a note to inform his comrades whether he had been killed in a crash or taken prisoner.
Ormer Locklear, a WWI pilot, amazingly got out of his plane, diagnosed the problem, and repaired it all while still flying the plane and then did this numerous times after that.
An American hero in WWI had the amazing ability to sense approaching mustard gas, hear incoming artillery before anyone else and even caught a German spy. He was awarded multiple medals. He was a dog.
A South African monkey served in the 3rd South African Infantry Brigade for three years at the frontlines in WWI, eventually being awarded the Pretoria Citizen’s Service Medal upon his return home.
During World War I, the United States Government tried to rename hamburgers as “liberty sandwiches” to promote patriotism.
In World War I, Canadians survived the first chemical attack by urinating on their handkerchiefs and holding them over their faces as masks.
Germany made tires for bicycles out of metal springs after WWI because there was no more rubber available.
Some cataract patients have an “extraordinary sensitivity” to ultra-violet light. They were used in World War I to detect flashing UV beacons.
During World War I, a lone Portuguese soldier amazingly convinced the German soldiers that they were fighting against an entire unit for three days without eating or drinking.
During World War I, a Hungarian soldier named Paul Kern was shot in the frontal lobe, resulting in him being unable to fall asleep. He lived for years after that and no one really knows how.
Rudyard Kipling urged John, his 18-year-old son to join WWI. He had such a bad eyesight that he was repeatedly turned down. Kipling used his connections with a Commander-In-Chief of the Army to get him in.
Hugh Lofting, not wishing to write his children about the horrors of trench warfare in WWI, instead wrote them imaginative letters that later became the Dr. Doolittle stories.
Minnie Schönberg, the mother of the Marx Brothers, upon hearing that farmers were exempt from being drafted, bought a farm and forced the brothers to work on it, so they won’t be called to fight in WWI.
In 1955, a thunderstorm in Belgium set off 40 000 pounds of buried explosives left over from the WWI battle of Messines. Luckily, the only casualty was a single cow.
In 1964, the German government decided to pay back East African soldiers (Askari) that had fought for them in WWI. In fact most of them had no proof of service, so they had to perform the Manual of arms in German (handling and using weapons in formation) with a broom to prove themselves. Not a single one of them failed and did it perfectly.
In 1978 in Yukon, Canada, a bulldozer uncovered buried reels of nitrate film during excavation of a landfill. About 500 old films dating from 1910 to 1921 were uncovered. This included long lost newsreels of World War I and many long lost silent movies.
The last surviving Tommy of WWI died aged 111 years, 1 month, 1 week, 1 day. Also the oddest part is that WWI ended on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.
Germany finally paid off all of its World War I debt in 2010.

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~ By Amazing Facts 4U Team

World War I (Part 1)

Amazing Facts 4 U — Tue, 20 Aug 2024 09:30:57 +0000

40 Amazing World War I Facts (Part 1) | Amazing Facts 4U

It all began on June 28, 1914, when a Serbian terrorist shot and killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his pregnant wife. Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia on July 28, 1914. The Allied Powers consisted of Belgium, France, Great Britain, Greece, Italy, Montenegro, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, and the United States sided with Serbia, and The Central Powers consisted of Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, Germany, and Ottoman Empire (now Turkey) supported Austria-Hungary. Other countries around the world were soon pulled into the fighting. World War I officially ended 4 years later on November 11, 1918.
Amazingly the number of people engaged in this war from 30 countries counted up to almost 65 million. The Allied powers amazingly lost 6 million men and The Central Powers approx. 10 million . In fact about two-third of the soldiers were wiped out during battles. There were heavy casualities due to disease and bad environmental conditions. There were also 25 million civilian casualties.
During World War I, Albert I, the King of Belgium amazingly fought alongside his troops, and his wife, Queen Elisabeth, worked as a nurse at the front.
The war in fact claimed the lives of at least 6,000 men a day. With 1.7 million deaths during World War I, France suffered losses more than the total losses of the US armed forces in all conflicts since 1776, including the civil war.
About as many horses were killed on the Western Front in WWI as people (8 million).
Russia mobilized an amazing 12 million troops during World War I, making it the largest army in the war. More than 3/4 were killed, wounded, or went missing in action.
Amazingly battle of Verdun, 1916 alone resulted in over a million casualties in ten months.
The bloodiest battle in World war I was an amazing hundred Day Offensive that claimed 18,55,000 lives.
At the start of the year 1917, British cryptographers deciphered a telegram from German Foreign Secretary Arthur Zimmermann to Germany’s minister in Mexico. The telegraph in fact encouraged Mexico to invade U.S. territory. The British kept it a secret from the U.S. for more than a month so they could use it at just the right time to help draw the U.S into the war on their side which they did. U.S. was in actual combat for only seven and a half months during which time 116,000 men were killed and 204,000 were wounded.
U.S. troops fought their first battle of World War I on November 2, 1917, in the trenches at Barthelemont, France.
Amazing fact is that some 25,000 miles of zig-zagging trenches were dug on the Western Front alone. Many had nicknames like Bond Street or Death Valley. German trenches were far superior to Allied ones. Built to last , some had shuttered windows, bunk beds, furniture, cupboards, water tanks with faucets, electric lights, and doorbells. Over 200,000 men died in the trenches of World War I. Trenches were infested with millions of rats, frogs and lice.
Periscope rifles were developed to see over the 12 ft trenches. Other new weapons included flame throwers and tanks . The first tank, in 1915, was called Little Willie. Tanks were so called because of early attempts to disguise them as water tanks. Tanks were split into males (armed with cannons) and females (with machine guns).
In the morning of the Battle Of The Somme, July 1, 1916, the British amazingly suffered 60,000 casualties – 20,000 dead. It was the worst toll for a single day in military history. Allied forces advanced six miles.
Amazing fact is that a total of 346 British soldiers were shot by their own side, mostly for desertion.
None of the soldiers had metal helmets in 1914. The French were the first to introduce them, in 1915.
World War I pilots used to use pistols and carbines in air to air combat before guns were installed on planes.
In World War I, British and American fighter pilots were never issued any parachutes because they were considered cowardly.
World War I planes used Castor Oil as engine lubricant and the Pilots suffered from persistent diarrhea due to inhaling unburnt castor oil coming out of the exhaust.
The first use of anti-aircraft fire was not during World War I, but during the AmericanCivil War. The Confederates used artillery and small arms to attack the Union Balloon Corps. The first specialized anti-aircraft weapon was used by the Germans during the Franco-Prussian War.
Amazingly during WWI, a British soldier had a chance to kill Hitler, but didn’t! Private Henry Tandey fought in a battle near the French town of Marcoing, when a wounded enemy soldier entered his firing line but he didn’t kill him . The enemy soldier was Adolf Hitler.
Officially a British soldier had to be 19 years old to serve overseas but many lied about their age. About 250,000 under-age boys served. The youngest was discovered to be just 12.
At Christmas 1914 an unofficial truce was observed along two thirds of the Western Front. Near Ypres, Belgium, some German and British troops played a football match in No Man’s Land. Germany won 3-2.
Amazingly one of the biggest blasts of the war occurred when the British detonated a million pounds of explosives under the Germans at Messines Ridge, in Belgian West Flanders. The resulting explosion could be heard 150 miles away in London.
The deadliest non-nuclear explosion ever recorded was a mine explosion during World War I that killed 10,000 Germans.
In 1917 food shortages at home caused by the loss of British shipping to German U boats meant the government amazingly banned the use of rice at weddings and the feeding of pigeons.
At the height of the war, the British Army had 870,000 horses. Dead ones were melted down for fat which was later used for making explosives.
The gas was in fact used by French for the first time, in 1914. Throughout the War, 1,19, 000 tons of gas were used and almost a million soldiers were gassed meeting an awful death. Initially the only protection against gas attacks was a cloth soaked in a soldier’s own urine. British officer Edward Harrison invented the first practical gas mask, saving thousands of lives.
Amazingly the war in the air saw Germany’s Baron von Richthofen, dubbed the Red Baron, shoot down 80 Allied aircraft. The top British ace, Major Edward Mannock, shot down 61 enemy planes. Both later died in action.
For the span of World War I, from 1914-1918, 274 German U-boats sank amazing 6,596 ships. Most of these were sunk near the coast, particularly in the English Channel.
When soldiers returned there was a baby boom. Births increased by 45 percent between 1918 and 1920. But the 1918 influenza pandemic killed more people worldwide than the war.
The amazing fact is that most of the weapons the armies around the world possess today were either built back then in the First World War or have been built using concepts derived from the blueprints of those weapons. Everything from flamethrowers, tanks, submarines to some of the best machine guns of all times were invented during the Great War.
Big Bertha was a 48-ton howitzer used by the Germans in World War I. It was named after the wife of its designer Gustav Krupp. It could fire a 2,050-lb (930-kg) shell a distance of 9.3 miles (15 km). Amazing fact was that it took a crew of 200 men six hours or more to assemble. Germany had 13 of these huge guns or “Wonder Weapons.”
The Devil Gun is another one of the most famous weapons of this conflict. It belonged to the French and it was a cannon which could accurately shoot at a 4-mile distance.
Germans were the first to use flamethrowers in World War I. Their flamethrowers could fire jets of flame as far as 130 feet (40 mtrs).
Amazingly during the war, the U.S. shipped about 7.5 million tons of supplies to France to support the Allied effort. That included 70,000 horses or mules as well as nearly 50,000 trucks, 27,000 freight cars, and 1,800 locomotives.
Amazing fact was that More than 500,000 pigeons carried messages between headquarters and the front lines. Groups of pigeons trained to return to the front lines were dropped into occupied areas by parachutes and kept there until soldiers had messages to send back.
There was a wounded pigeon in WWI that saved the lives of 198 American soldiers.
After World War I, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland emerged as independent nations.
During World War I, 16 days before the ship RMS Lusitania set sail, Germany published a warning in the New York Times that they would sink the ship if it set sail to Britain. They went anyway and 1198 people died.
During World War I, France built a ‘Fake Paris’ near its capital city to confuse German pilots.

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