Red moon rising occurred on June 15, 2011, and was a relatively uncommon event. A central lunar eclipse – that’s where part of the moon passes through the center of the Earth’s shadow. Central lunar eclipses are the darkest eclipses and they are relatively rare.

The last time a lunar eclipse was closer to the center of the earth’s shadow was on July 16, 2000. The next central total lunar eclipse will be on – July 27, 2018.

The red moon rising was visible in South America, Africa, Europe, and Asia. In western Asia, Australia and the Philippines, the lunar eclipse was visible just before sunrise.

What was as equally as rare, was the internet viewership shared by thousands. The blogosphere was lighted up itself by hits of adorers around the globe. This was a rare eclipse itself.

The Sky Watchers Association of North Bengal (SWAN) India sent an invitation to share the joy of the observation from Siliguri, West Bengal, India on June 15, 2011. The day turned out to be a complete success.

But there were challenges right from the start. The internet connection was a little fractured at times in the beginning. The clouds also presented to be a hindrance on multiple instances. But these obstacles were no match for the SWAN team, with the aid of mother nature, obviously.

At the peak of viewership, there were as many as 11,000 plus viewers savoring the occasion. Many of the the eyewitnesses got a glimpse of a total lunar eclipse in its entirety for the first time. The SWAN members were very courteous and displayed much professionalism. Thank you very much for hosting the adventure.  We enjoyed the discussion, the music, and the wonderful camaraderie. What a splendid function!

These type of brief time periods where huge crowds can participate can only be possible with the  power of the internet. It’s history in the making when this type of opportunity arises.

The Lunar Eclipse, June 15, 2011 was even hosted by Google on YouTube. But many of channel users afterwards were clearly upset that there wasn’t a replay of the event. Oops!

A big thank you to all for clicking on this website, posting the comments,  and sharing this occasion together with us. Please join the conversation on Twitter — @ki4kqd, and you will gain a follower as well.

If you have a rare photo of nature and you would like to have it posted,  please send it to us via Twitter or Twitpic, or give a suggestion in a comment. Again, thanks to all around the world for the participation — de Roger.

Photograph credit from _big_mouth _ .  Some rights reserved.

What is NAEP? Ever heard of it? Don’t feel like the lone ranger.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is the largest continuing and nationally representative assessment of what our nation’s students know and can do in core subjects. The results of NAEP are released as The Nation’s Report Card. Teachers, principals, parents, policymakers, and researchers all use NAEP results to assess progress and develop ways to improve education in the United States (Video).

The 2010 results are in. So how well did the students perform?

Actually, the overall performance was not so disappointing. There is hope. The 2010 tests showed that the weakest subject for students is — history. It appears that much of the emphasis these days is on science and math, especially math. Are the other subjects lacking because of this?

A similar 2009 report revealed that less than half of students were proficient in science. Few students have the skills that might lead to promising careers in the science field. Also, the rate that students were learning would leave them unable to compete on a global scale (HuffPo).

In the 2010 report, history was the focus, or the lack of focus you might say. U.S. students were less proficient in history than any other subject. Less than a quarter of students are scoring at or above the proficient level in history (Reuters).

Only 2% of 12th graders answered correctly on a question about the Brown vs Board of Education case. But to be fair about that, I wonder how many adults in the United States would have gotten it right. Can you say Jay Leno Jaywalking trivia?

Economics was the students’ best subject it seems (NY Times). That’s reassuring to know. In today’s economic environment, at least some of them might be aware of the increasingly rising cost of a college education…

Recent archaeological excavations at the Yoha River area has attracted historians all over the world. These remarkable findings are rewriting world history. A noticeable fact is that from the discovery and excavation, traces of the Korean are found a lot, providing a clue to the root of the Korean.

The vast land of the Manju, which is now Chinese territory, has a living and breathing history of Korean ancestors.

Hongsan, Red Mountain, in Inner Mongolia, has a secret of thousands of year old civilization.

The discovery of 5000 year-old goddess statues in October of 1984, has shocked the Chinese archaeology society.

Among East Asian civilization, this area has the oldest and the most developed civilization. This has been termed the “Yoha Civilization”.

Professor Yi Hyunggu (Sunmun University) who has studied Yoha Civilization for 30 years, declares that Yoha civilization is strongly related with Koreans, not Chinese.

Yoha River was the womb of Yoha civilization.

Wuharyang, where the goddess statues are found, is the core sight of Yoha civilization. In Wuharyang, 5500 year-old remains along with the temple of the goddess are concentrated.

Dozens of fragmented goddess parts were unearthed, including either life sized body parts or two or three times larger than life sized body parts, which show that not only was one goddess statue enshrined in the temple, but seven to eight goddess statues.

There were also pyramids of stone graves that are not found in China, below the Great Wall. These kind of graves can be found in Korea and Japan.

The Wuharyang sight is known to be a very important sight.

The Hongsan culture, a thousand years older than Yellow River civilization, shows the start of an earlier ancient state.

Traditionally, China has considered the Chinese wall as the boundary between the mainland and the borderlands. China long believed that the Yellow River Civilization was the root of the Hua Civilization (Chinese Civilization). But since the 1970′s, the Yangtze River Civilization had been claimed to be the root of the Hua Civilization by the Chinese.

The Yoha River finding could place Chinese history a thousand years prior to what historians had previously acknowledged (in the Yellow River Basin area).

Chinese archaeologist Su Bingqui said that the Chinese mythical hero in Chinese foundation myth led the Honsan culture, the heart of the Yoha Civilization. The mythical lord is the Yellow King (Haungdi).

There is a temple of the Chinese forefathers at the building called the “city of the Yellow King” near Bejing. The Yellow King, a mythical figure, has become an historic figure.

In the temple there are three figures enshrined therein. The Yellow King is in the middle, while on the left is Chiwoo and on the right is Yeomje. Yellow King and Yeomje are considered to be representatives of the Han Chinese (Hua), and Chiwoo the representative of minorities in China. This is inclusive of the 56 minorities of the Han culture.

The Yonyang Museum of southern Manchuria, is busiest on the third floor, where the exhibition of the Yoha Civilization is. The exhibition stresses that this civilization was led by the Yellow King.

Koreans disagree with this theory, but they are limited in further studies.

On the Sahae sight in China, there is a stone pile the shape of a dragon. This is the oldest and biggest archaeological discovery in Chinese territory. It’s called “The first dragon of Zhoung-Hua (the Huazu)”. The shock is that dragon worship originated in this area, which is Manchuria.

And it can be assumed that the Yoha people and the Koreans are connected.

Koreans claim that their ancestors in Manchuria had created a distinct culture, entirely different than the Hua culture (Chinese culture).

The Chinese have made the Hungyungwa sight a rivak to the Sahae sight, for the status of the first village of China. This location has reported the finding of jade.

Koreans argue that jade originated from Suam in the Abnock River, which is in North Korea. While the same jade is found on both sights, they are 450 km apart.

Koreans say that Manju is probably their home.

[Source: KBS]

How could it be that the history books in America omit some of the most important pieces of evidence, that are crucial to real truths, which weighed heavily upon societal degradation of the 20th century? Is there any hard evidence that implicates the reasoning that American bankers helped to enact legislation that would bring a tyrant, a man named Adolf Hitler to power?

The terms shadow banking and shadow government should be used more often in the vernacular when we try to explain the exploitation of vulnerable societies. The public should be aware that deals are made between banks and government state officials; the two entities are surprisingly intertwined with one another. And this is no new anomaly either, as some might have suggested.

It is now a well documented fact that the business journals and newspapers of the 1930′s were very much aware of the threat of the Nazi party:

The business press [in the United States] was aware, from 1935 on, that German prosperity was based on war preparations. More important, it was conscious of the fact that German industry was under the control of the Nazis and was being directed to serve Germany’s rearmament, and the firm mentioned most frequently in this context was the giant chemical empire, I. G. Farben. [Source: Wall Street And The Rise Of Hitler By Antony C. Sutton]

Initially, it was the Dawes Plan that was an attempt to force Germany to pay its debt for World War I. This attempt proved to be unsuccessful. It’s no surprise that a banker and a politician would bear the name of this plan – Charles G. Dawes.

Five years after that plan failed, the Young Plan would bring yet another program, another failed attempt to collect debts from an economically broken country of Germany. Owen D. Young was another powerful businessman and diplomat. He was even man of the year in Time magazine, in the year of 1929.

Without diving into the enormous details involved, the Young Plan would catapult the rise and fame of Adolf Hitler. The Germans were on the brink of a major economic collapse. It appears that the only way to relieve the pain and desperation of the Fatherland, was to totally withdraw the payments to Herbert Hoover and company permanently. Hitler and the Nazis provided the means necessary to accomplish this goal.

The Young Plan being responsible for the rise of Hitler is actually recorded in a U.S. Government Intelligence report:

The acceptance of the Young Plan and its financial principles increased unemployment more and more, until about one million were unemployed. People were desperate. Hitler said he would do away with unemployment. The government in power at that time was very bad, and the situation of the people was getting worse. That really was the reason of the enormous success Hitler had in the election. When the last election came, he got about 40%. [Source: Wall Street And The Rise Of Hitler By Antony C. Sutton]

There were American firms which contributed to Hitler’s Germany. General Motors, Ford, General Electric, Standard Oil, and DuPont are the primary firms that contributed. With the exception of Ford, the elite Wall Street boys controlled most of these companies. If we must be specific here – the J.P. Morgan firm, the Rockefeller Chase Bank, and the Warburg Manhattan bank were the financial institutions that were in control of the situation.

Subsequent to the Young Plan came the Wall Street Crash of 1929. By 1933, nearly two-thirds of world trade had vanished. As was the United States and the rest of Europe, Germany became extremely desperate.

To be sure, Germany was staring in the face of anarchism. Germany saw the unemployment rate go from 33.7% in 1931, to 40% in 1942. Approximately 2,000,000 people were unemployed. About 3,000,000 workers were expected to go on strike. Some have estimated that 6 million people were unemployed by 1932.

And when Germany finally got the bill from the Young Plan, when for the first time the total cost of the war (World War I) was presented to the Germans, the government official nearly fainted on the floor! The cost was going to be $28 billion and was to be paid off in 58 years.

Even after modifications, German elitists and barons grew to hate the debt and the consequences of the debt. There was so much hatred for American capital that Fritz Thyssen, leader of the union, expressed his view that “the Young Plan was one of the principal causes of the upsurge of National Socialism in Germany.”

On the other hand, Henry Ford contributed heavily to the Nazi party. The New York Times ran a report on December 20, 1922, which suggested that Adolf Hitler had a picture of Henry Ford hanging in his office! Of course Henry Ford was not available for comment, and his secretary knew nothing about the reports which came from Berlin.

There are other prominent families that have been linked with financed backers of Nazi Germany.

On November 2, 1936, BBC engineers at Alexander Palace transmitted what is often claimed to be the world’s first television program. However, the world’s first public television transmissions had begun in Berlin, Germany, the previous year. Adolf Hitler became absolutely furious, upon hearing BBC boasting the claim to be the first broadcaster to transmit a television program.

On March 22, 1935, the first regular television program in the world was broadcast from an aerial on the top of the Funkturm Berlin tower. Since 1962, the tower is no longer used for TV transmissions.

The first practical use of television was in Germany. Regular television broadcasts began in Germany in 1929 and in 1936 the Olympic Games in Berlin were broadcast to television stations in Berlin and Leipzig where the public could view the games live.

Nikola Tesla had actually predicted back in 1915 that mankind would produce technology that would allow him to transmit voice and images. In 1936, his prediction did become reality. Tesla was right about many things.

[Source: Television History]

On a special television cable the picture of the speaker in Berlin is transmitted to Leipzig and vice-versa. In this way the two persons are able to see one another and to converse simultaneously over a telephone wire. This is 1936 in Berlin, Germany.

On August 25, 1924, the Funkturm Berlin tower would transmit a radio program. The radio tower ‘Berliner Funkturm’ was opened to the public on September 3, 1926. Albert Einstein made the opening speech at the 1930 Wireless Exhibition (Funkausstellung) at the foot of the radio tower.

A personal reminiscence for radio amateurs: The author of this page personally also knows the tower from its highest point. For the Radio and Television Exhibition (Internationale Funkaustellung, IFA) in 1971 he was installing antennas with other amateurs (DC7AL, DC7BH, DC7CH, DJ7IC, DL7MO, DL7OG, DL7RR, DC7BJ – the author) on the uppermost mounting platform (on top of the elevator housing) for the amateur radio VHF repeater DL0UB on an outrigger. Lack of vertigo was a must and the reward was a breathtaking view of the city. DL0UB later became DB0WF. Decades later the author was up there again to help servicing the 70 cm – band repeater DB0TA. 73 de DC7BJ, Rainer [Source: Wumpus's Old Radio World]

The Funkturm Berlin built between 1924 and 1926 by Heinrich Straumer, which is nicknamed “der lange Lulatsch” (“the lanky lad”), is a point of interest in Berlin. Since 1973, the radio tower no longer serves as a regular transmission tower for broadcasting purposes, but it is still used as relay station for amateur radio, police radio, and mobile phone services.

Phone: (030) 38 19 05
Opening hours: Mon. 11am – 9pm; Tue. – Sun. 10am – 11pm
Map: Mapquest

European history would not be complete without mention of Iceland’s famous poet, Snorri Sturluson. Snorri’s most famous work is the Prose Edda. The piece is highly valued today among fans of Norse Mythology, and historians as well.

Snorri was also a politician, lawyer, and speaker. But he was and still is most notable for being a famous poet. In 1215, he became speaker of the Althing, the national parliament, or literally general assembly. Snorri Sturluson was a lover of power and he was a very ambitious person. But you don’t become a power politician without making powerful enemies, especially in the era of the Vikings.

On the night of September 23, 1241, Snorri was attacked by his enemies at his house in Reykholt, Iceland. Gissur Thorvaldsson and seventy men surprised Snorri at his house. After that they discovered where Snorri was and those entered the cellar: Markús Marðarson, Símon knútur, Árni beiskur, Þorsteinn Guðinason, Þórarinn Ásgrímsson.Símon knútur asked Árni beiskur to kill him. „Thou shalt not hew“, said Snorri. „Hew thou“, said Símon. „Thou shalt not hew“, said Snorri. Then Árni dealt him a fatal blow, and after that both he and Þorsteinn added further injuries. He was chased down into his cellar, and brutally hacked to death.

So there you have it. One of the most distinguished poets of his day, brutally murdered by his enemies. Snorri has a bath named after him in his honor. Snorralaug is a hot-spring bath, a basin of hewn stone to which hot-spring water is led along two conduits from the hot spring, named Skrifla, situated about 108 m east of Snorralaug.

The bath was built by Snorri Sturluson himself, and is located at (Reykholt) Reykholtshreppur, Borgarfjarðarsysla, West Iceland.

Welcome to Ponce de Leon’s Fountain Of Youth.  This is another tourist attraction in St. Augustine, Florida. And don’t forget to feed the peacocks and squirrels while you’re there. 

But what really is the true story behind the man? Was he really searching for a Fountain of Youth as our contemporary historians proclaim?

Ponce de Leon was not looking for a so called Fountain of Youth at all. Ponce was acting out as any other Conquistador of his time. He was wanting to conquer new lands in the honor of Spain. And like many in his day, money was the driving force behind the conquests. The search for gold to be more precise.

But what do we know about Ponce de Leon and his role in history? Ponce was awarded governor in 1504,  on an island called Hispaniola. This is known today as Puerto Rico.  La Casa Blanca is the name of the house that Ponce de Leon had built in 1521. His descendants occupied the residence for 250 years. The house today is a museum open to the public.

San Juan, located in the north, is the capital of Puerto Rico and is the most populous municipality in Puerto Rico.

The story about Ponce looking for the Fountain of Youth was not started until after the man died. The legend was created by Oviedo (Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés), a Spanish historian. His works called Historia General y Natural de las Indias of 1535, mentions that Ponce was hunting for the waters of Bimini to cure his aging.

It would not be the Fountain of Youth that would make Ponce de Leon immortal alone; it was the legend created by writers that would sustain the myth. Francisco López de Gómara writes about the same incident in 1551. Hernando de Escalante Fontaneda also speaks of Ponce de Leon in his memoirs in 1575.

But in the end, what made Ponce famous would contribute to his death. In 1521 he and 200 men landed on the southwest shores of Florida. The men were attacked by Calusa braves. A poison arrow struck Ponce’s thigh. The men sailed to Havana, Cuba, where Ponce would die from the wound. He would be buried in Puerto Rico.

Ponce de Leon will be remembered as an explorer searching for the Fountain of Youth. On April 2, 1513, Ponce de Leon and his men reached the shores of St. Augustine, Florida. And historians aren’t exactly sure about the location. The ships were: Santiago, the San Cristobal and the Santa Maria de la Consolacion.

After naming the discovery La Florida and spending five days there, Ponce de Leon and his men would sail south to discover other parts of Florida. There was never a word about a fountain.

“For the greatest part of the liberated Jews, there was no ecstasy, no joy at liberation. We had lost our families, our homes. We had no place to go, nobody to hug. Nobody was waiting for us anymore. We had been liberated from death and fear of death, but not from the fear of life.”

Dr. Hadassah Rosensaft
Liberated at Bergen-Belsen, April 15, 1945
Departed Bergen-Belsen DP [Displaced Persons] Camp 1950.

From: Liberation 1945, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington DC, 1995

In times of great peril, there are figures that are born of great heroic statute. Dr. Hadassah Bimko Rosensaft was certainly one of those figures. Although her family had been murdered by Germans, she unselfishly made a decision to help many of her fellow sufferers at Auschwitz-Birkenau and then at Bergen-Belsen. Dr. Hadassah Rosensaft is credited for saving literally hundreds of lives in these camps.

She was a member of President Carter’s Commission on the Holocaust, and a founding member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council.

Dr. Hadassah Rosensaft died in October of 1997 in Tisch Hospital of New York University Medical Center. She was 85 and lived on the Upper East Side of Manhattan (Source: New York Times Published: October 8, 1997).

In March of 1945, Anne Frank and her sister Margot were dying in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Dr. Hadassah Rosensaft was there to assist many of the victims. Luba Tryszynska managed the facility, while another unknown woman also assisted (Source: Memories of a Coal Child, Coby Lubliner). These thoughtful souls should always be honored and remembered for their wonderful contribution to humanity.

Fort Matanzas is now a National Monument. It was a Spanish fort that was constructed in 1740. The fort made out of coquina, was finished in 1742. The European struggle for dominance played out in this region. The Spanish for the most part controlled Florida for 200 years, until around 1819.

Although Fort Matanzas itself actually saw very little battle, it symbolizes the Massacre of the French during that fateful period of history in the 1500′s. A hurricane turned out to be the catalyst that hastened the French attack on the Spanish.

On Sep. 10, 1565, Jean Ribault, a French naval officer set sail on an attempt to clear out the Spanish at St. Augustine, Florida. A hurricane would take Ribault and his men below Daytona and wreck the ships on the beach. This proved to be fatal for the crew.

Simultaneously, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés was attacking Fort Caroline in Jacksonville. Fort Caroline was defended by French Protestants called Huguenots. At the time, too few of them remained at the fort to defend it. On Sep. 20, the fort was captured. On that day, 140 French men were quickly put to death by the Spanish. Only about 60 women and children were spared, and about 40 fled from the scene.

On October 12, after wrecking their ships and walking north, Jean Ribault and the French men surrendered, hoping for mercy. But there would be no mercy. In batches of ten, the Frenchmen were rowed across to the mainland, hands tied behind their backs. The prisoners were asked if they were Catholics. If your answer was no, then you were put to the death with the knife by Menéndez’s Spanish soldiers. About 134 men were killed this time, including Ribault himself. Only a few survived this one. The total number that were killed in both battles cost the French about 350 lives.

St. Augustine was the most important settlement in Florida. Pedro Menéndez sighted land on August 28, 1565. It was Pedro Menéndez that secured St. Augustine for Spain, and initiated a Spanish stronghold that lasted on and off for 200 years.

There is a free boat tour of Fort Matanza if you’re ever in the area. It’s a must see if you happen to be a history buff.

Adolf Hitler was with a girl on October 5, 1936 during the Black Shirt Riots in London. Just who is this girl in the film? The girl was also spotted at the 1937 Nuremberg Rally. She appeared with Hitler on the balcony in Vienna in 1938.

The lady that we are discussing – her name is Unity Valkyrie Mitford. Just who was Unity? She came from a large family of five sisters and a brother. The father’s name was David Bertram Ogilvy Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale, who was an English landowner and son of a British diplomat, Algernon Freeman-Mitford, 1st Baron Redesdale.

Lord Redesdale (grandfather of Unity) translated into English, edited, and wrote extensive effusive introductions of two books: Foundations of the Nineteenth Century and Immanuel Kant – A Study and Comparison with Goethe, Leonardo de Vinci, Bruno, Plato, Descartes. The author was Houston Stewart Chamberlain. Chamberlain would also write about Richard Wagner, the famous German composer.

Hitler would have been completely fascinated by the fact that Unity’s grandfather would’ve known and better yet, have been friends with the great Wagner. This was undoubtedly irresistable to Hitler and one reason for the unique bonding with Unity.

David Mitford married Sydney Bowles, the daughter of the founder of Vanity Fair magazine. Thomas Gibson Bowles also founded another magazine called The Lady. The couple were known as Lord and Lady Redesdale.

The Mitfords attended a Nuremburg Rally and even met Hitler. They supported Hitler in the beginning. But David later retracted his support after the commencement of WWII in 1939. As Sydney the wife, remained a Nazi supporter, this caused a split between the two. The death of Tom, their only son, was the final blow to David; his health became fragile afterwards.

Unity and sister Diana joined the British Union of Fascists in 1932. Diana had left her husband for the one who founded the party, Sir Oswald Mosley. An older Diana Mosley is actually interviewed in the video below. Interesting.

Unity went back to Germany to stalk and finally meet Hitler. She was obsessed with Hitler. Unity persisently kept attending the Osteria Bavaria restaurant, until she finally achieved her goal to meet him. Her diligence finally paid off, as Hitler sent an invitation and paid the bill. In return, Hitler became obsessed with the British blonde. By the way, the Osteria Bavaria is now called the Osteria Italiana, which is located in Munich, Germany. Hitler ate there often.

Apparently the two had become very close and Eva Braun was aware of this. In 1938 Hitler found an apartment for her. Unity even stayed at the Berghof, the residence of Hitler, before war was declared on England on Sep. 3, 1939.

Unity after receiving the bad news shot herself in the head; after surviving the blow Hitler had her sent back home to England. She never fully recovered from the trauma, but she was able to walk later on. Unity would eventually die of meningitis, due to the bullet that was still lodged in the head. The doctors were afraid to remove the bullet.

The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters was a book that surfaced in 2007 about the letters written between the Mitford sisters. The book was well received by The New York Times, The Washington Post, and several other well-known newspapers.

Were Unity and Hitler more than just friends?

HITLER’S BRITISH GIRL

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