BC HISTORY
Saved by @Mollyycolllinss

Everything is appalling, so here are some stories about the Navy's Coastal Forces (Motor Gun Boats and Motor Torpedo Boats) in WW2.

 These small vessels had very powerful engines which were complex and hard to maintain.

As a result, base engineering staff sometimes had to remain on board to continue their work during operations.
On one occasion, an Engineering Officer was labouring in the machinery space when the boat went into battle.

Not having seen one before, he opened the hatch to look around. Every gun was in action, and enemy tracer zipped past his head. The noise was appalling.
The officer (unnamed in the story, but perhaps a nautical Wooster) took in the scene for a moment, then turned to the CO and remarked, 'Oh I say! Madly *war*, isn't it?', before returning to his tinkering.
During the raid on Dieppe an MGB picked up a German airman, who was sent below under armed guard.
Some time later, the CO found the German sitting in a gangway playing with the ship's kitten, and keeping very still because the 'guard' had fallen asleep with his head on the German's shoulder.
The German had, unbeknownst to him, already been very lucky that day.

One of the MGB's crew, incensed by the Blitz, vowed to throw overboard any German he came across.
However, this prisoner began helping with the wounded as soon as he was picked up, causing the rating to shelve his homicidal plan.

When the CO asked why, the rating replied 'He's a gentleman, sir.'
On another occasion, MGBs came in with prisoners and lined them up on the jetty for collection by a detachment of guards.

One of the Germans was drenched, so an MGB officer told the guard commander that he needed dry clothes.
Misunderstanding this instruction, the Petty Officer thought the German was simply a wet RN rating and ordered him over to the stores shed to get a new uniform.
No doubt rather baffled by this turn of events, the German jogged off, unescorted, to join the stores queue, from which he was retrieved some time later.
Prisoners again, this time in the Mediterranean.

On 13 May 1943 MTBs attacked ferries evacuating German troops from North Africa, sinking them and taking numerous prisoners.

These included a number of paratroopers, notoriously tough and resourceful soldiers.
Ratings were instructed to guard them, but due to a shortage of small arms on the tiny MTBs, some of the guards had to borrow German weapons.
Just after they set out for home, the CO of one MTB was considerably alarmed to hear a long burst of submachine gun fire behind him.

He was all the more alarmed to discover that it emanated from a German paratrooper, with a smoking MP40 still in his hands.
Turning to the RN guard for an explanation, the CO was cheerily reassured that 'It's all right, sir! He was just showing me how it worked.'

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In 1965 the BBC had filmed The War Game, a fictional docu-drama about a nuclear attack on Britain. However under pressure from the government the BBC withdrew it from screening. It was finally released in 1966 as a film in selected theatres.


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A Guide To Armageddon was a documentary for the BBC's peak-time science series Q.E.D. Produced by Mick Jackson it graphically depicted the effect of a one megaton explosion on London. It also explored how well people could survive such a blast if they were in a fallout shelter.


Jackson had carefully researched his subject and knew how under-prepared the UK was for nuclear war. The physical and psychological effects of atomic attack would catapult what was left of Britain back to a 14th century mode of living, a time when bubonic plague killed millions.
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It was the early 1990s, the days before Washington DC had meters in taxis. A famine was raging in Somalia. And I was working in my first job out of college: a brief stint working for an organization that focused on the Middle East peace process.

I was heading to my parents’ house. I was standing in front of a mailbox near my office. I was holding a stack of papers with Hebrew writing on them. I hailed a cab.

I was aware that on the mailbox behind me was a large sign from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals with an image of a turkey and the words: “Thanksgiving is Murder on Turkeys.”

It was the period right around Thanksgiving.

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RANI TARABAI the nemesis of Aurangzeb

The forgotten warrior queen who didn't allow the tyrant to trample upon Hindu rule which was passing through its darkest phase. Courage and resilience. A falling empire, personal tragedies and a vicious enemy. None could shake her.

(Thread)


Tarabai, the Maratha queen (1675-1761), is perhaps one of the most important contributors to the breakup of the M0ghul empire. She prevented the Maratha rule from disintegrating when it was at its lowest with almost all forts in M0ghul hands.(1)

Aurangzeb’s dream of a pan India dominion was destroyed in the hills and forts of western Deccan.(2)

First she survived the M0ghul onslaught, later on carrying the battle into M0ghul territory, raiding and then creating permanent outposts. Had she buckled there may not have been Maratha hegemony in the 18th century, which reduced the M0ghul control to a small area.(3)


She was the daughter of Hambir Rao Mohite, Shivaji’s cmdr in chief, and got married to Shivaji’s younger son Rajaram. She was well trained in sword fighting, archery, cavalry, military strategy, diplomacy and other subjects of statecraft.(4)
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TIL:

- first Western detective stories translated & published in Japan in *1863*--that's pre-Meiji, even!

- first Chinese-written detective stories featuring Western-style detectives starred women as both detectives and criminals were published in 1907--author Lü Simian (!).

Quote: “This case is so complicated that even Sherlock Holmes would feel helpless if it fell into his hands. [Now] it is solved by a woman who returned from abroad for a brief
visit to her hometown. Who is to say that the wisdom of Chinese cannot compete with the Westerners?”

The lead female detective in these stories, Chu Yi, is a fan of Doyle's Holmes stories and asks herself "What would Sherlock Holmes do?" while crime-solving, but succeeds through her use of martial arts and more "Chinese" attributes--China, not the West, solves the crimes.

Author Lü Simian, btw, is this guy: https://t.co/swPvAxr87J . One of the "four greatest modern Chinese historians," also wrote a landmark work of literary theory, and helped cohere Chinese detective fiction with his stories. Bit of a badass.

Holmes was the dominant influence on Chinese detective fiction of the late-Qing & early Republic years, and the biggest star of Chinese detective fiction of those years, Cheng Xiaoqing's Huo Sang, was a spin on Holmes.
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On this day in 1878, Pamela Colman Smith was born. Although you may not have heard this artist's name, you will have almost definitely seen her work: among many other achievements, Smith illustrated the famous Waite-Smith tarot deck.


Smith's most famous illustrations in the tarot deck appear everywhere, and are synonymous with tarot. But there was much more to this artist, illustrator, writer and occultist than her tarot deck.

Early in her career, Smith illustrated works of WB Yeats, and travelled with the Lyceum theatre group. She also wrote and illustrated her own books, including books about Jamaican folklore.

While juggling all this, Smith also found the time to hold open houses for artists, and be active in the Suffrage Atelier, a collective of illustrators contributing work to further the cause of women's suffrage - this is an illustration she made for the cause.


In 1907, Smith became the first painter to exhibit at Alfred Stieglitz's Gallery 291, becoming the first painter to show at a gallery which had previously been devoted to photography. Her show was successful, and she showed twice more.
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