With Hank Aaron's passing, I thought I would pass along a unique and memorable experience I had with him in the early 1990s.

My good friend, @MarkGrunskeSS, brought Hank to State Fair Park as the headliner for a 1957 Milwaukee Braves reunion.

#3/thread on Angkor wat

Christianity and islam may be the largest religion of today’s world but Sanatan dharm has the largest religious monument in the world in the form of Angkor wat. It is situated in combodia and spread across over 400 acres / 1.6 km².

It was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1992, which encouraged an international effort to save the complex.
It was originally built as a Hindu temple dedicated to the god Vishnu. In Khmer, the Cambodian language, Angkor means "city" and Wat means "temple grounds".

So Angkor Wat means "Temple City". Its original name was Vrah Vishnuloka or Parama Vishnuloka, meaning the sacred dwelling of Vishnu in Sanskrit.
But, it gradually turned into a Buddhist temple towards the end of the 12th century & is still used for worship today.

Angkor Wat was initially designed and constructed in the first half of the 12th century, during the reign of Suryavarman II, as the king’s state temple and capital city. It was built without the aid of any machinery, as there was no machinery available at that time.

Evidence for these dates comes in part from inscriptions, which are vague, but also from the architectural design and artistic style of the temple and its associated sculptures.

Another aspect is that the five central towers of Angkor Wat symbolize the peaks of Mount Meru,

Taj Mahal is Hindu Monument: Prof Marvin Mills, Reputed New York Architect.
@LostTemple7 @DivineElement

1.Professor Marvin H. Mills, a leading New York architect and professor of architecture at the Pratt Institute had studied the Taj Mahal in detail. Here is part of his letter published in The New York Times. 👇👇

2.“New information and analysis have come forth to constitute a compelling argument that the Taj was actually a former Hindu palace occupied and converted to a tomb by the Moguls…There are many other inconsistencies in the Taj legend. The building to its left is now a mosque.

3.Had it been built originally as a mosque it would almost certainly have been oriented directly to Mecca,instead of due west.The four“minarets”that surround Taj mausoleum r inappropriate,for they logically should have been in front of the“mosque”for convenient calls to prayer.”

4.Through the letter, he had appealed thus, “The origin of the Taj can best be determined through scientific dating by carbon-14 and thermoluminescence, which the Archeological Survey of India should be urged to undertake.”
According to Prof Mills,

Rhino Barges

One of the dullest, coolest, more bizarre and fascinating pieces of kit used in Normandy.

Which NO ONE REALLY CARES ABOUT.

BUT I DO AND YOU SHOULD TOO.
/1

#WW2 #SWW #History

Planning for Overlord and Neptune had a serious snag, how to get troops from LSTs onto the beach as simply ramming them onto the beaches and dropping the ramp was known to damage the exceptionally vulnerable LSTs and felt to be unsustainable in the mid to long term. /2

LSTs were essential in sustaining Overlord's progress and were a subject of major headaches in the planning phase, and a real subject of friction when it came to launching additional amphibious operations such as Dragoon.

A single LSTs loss represented a capability nick. /3

So, logic dictated, we don't really want these remarkable but rare and highly valuable vessels constantly doing beach landings, we want something to act as a medium between ship to shore, and in came the (mostly) American designed Rhino. /4

I fucking love Rhinos.

Seriously.

Graceful lines of pure industrial pedigree.

Modular.

LOOK AT IT. /5

There was no stigma around 1982 coup; Kenya was already sliding to the abyss. My fourth thread on Railaphobia in Kikuyuland. LONG THREAD, FREE TO DISCARD

As alluded to in a previous thread, Moi was very popular when he inherited the power from Jomo. He played an important historical role in dismantling Kikuyu hegemony that peaked at Kenyatta’s death. The whole nation supported him thinking it was all driven by national interest

Just that time he was very popular, he made a lot of decisions that laid the ground for his future dictatorship which he was cunningly planning for. Like civil servants’ union and university staff union were proscribed. This time, President's word was law and Moi took advantage

To compensate lack of charisma, Moi resorted to populist roadside decrees that would make people happy. In the process, he was making so many policy decisions at the spur of the moment. Some were so expensive to the country economically and politically

Among such decisions was to ban traditional liquor. The implications were enormous to this day – the gvt spends so much time and resources following up people and pouring liquors. It was a prime opportunity for gvt agencies to meddle in peoples social and economic lives