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Weird Facts of the World Wars Mary Tudor The Peaky Blinders & Recommended Films Crossword Weimar Republic Witchfinder General
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In WWI Tanks had Genders
At the start of the war, tanks were grouped according to ‘gender’. The male tanks had cannons attached while the females carried machine guns. The prototype tank was named Little Willie. 5
The Americans killed dogs What did I do? In America, during WWI suspicion of the Germans was so high that even German Shepherd dogs were killed.
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The dog pictured is half German Shepherd.
WWI: The Birthplace of Plastic Surgery
Harold Gillies established the field of plastic surgery, pioneering the first7 attempts of facial reconstruction.
He was only 12
“Many young men faked their age in order to sign up early. The youngest to do so was Sidney Lewis, who was only 12 years old at the time.� 8
• At the start of the war, the British Army had 25,000 horses. • Another 115,000 were purchased compulsorily under the Horse Mobilisation Scheme.
Eight million horses, donkeys and mules died in
• Over the course of the war, between 500 and 1000 horses were shipped to Europe every day.
World War I, three-quarters of them from the extreme • Dummy horses were sometimes used to conditions they worked in. deceive the enemy into misreading the location of troops.
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Unusual WWI Facts
1. The Canary Girls - Women who joined the working forces during WWI would often be working with TNT. This would result in a toxic jaundice, turning their skin yellow.
2. Secret tunnels were being dug by secret miners under the German trenches in order to plant and detonate mines there. The explosions were so severe that not only was it heard 140 miles away in London by the Prime Minister but it destroyed most of the German front.
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3. The beginning of the war was caused by Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife being assassinated on June 28th 1914. The Archdukes number plate read: A 111 118, a series that can actually be read as Armistice 11 Nov ‘18. Very strange coincidence.
In Flanders Field by John McCrae
The poem that helped to make the red poppy a symbol of remembrance 11
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William Patrick Hitler Adolf Hitler’s nephew who was born in Liverpool & fought for the Americans against the Nazis.
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Hiroo Onoda The Japanese soldier was fighting WWII until 1974. Sent on a mission to the Philippines and ordered never to surrender or take his own life, Onoda refused to believe the war ended in 1945. Alone, desperate but undefeated, Onoda was eventually found in 1974, and had to be officially relieved of duty by his old commanding officer, who was by then an elderly bookseller. 14
Ardennes
There is a road of abandoned cars in the Ardennes, Belgium, where US soldiers left them after WWII. 15
Konstanz: The German City that avoided the bombs Konstanz come up with a novel and ingenious way of dodging Allied bombing raids in WWII. Close to the Swiss border, they decided to keep all its lights on as normal at nighttime, rather than enforcing the usual backout. The bluff paid off, as Allied pilots assumed it actually was Switzerland, and spared them from harm.
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Other Unusual WWII Facts
1. George H.W, Bush, the future President of the United States, narrowly avoided a diabolical fate when his plane was shot down during a bombing raid against Japan. He was picked up by the Allies, but all the other men on the same raid were captured by Japanese officers who proceeded to torture, execute, cook and eat them, in one of the grisliest war crimes of the whole conflict.
2. Total casualties for World War II were between 50 and 70 million people, 80% of who came from only four countries — Russia, China, Germany, and Poland. Over 50% of the casualties were civilians, with the majority of those being women and children.
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3. The first bomb dropped on Berlin by the Allies killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo.
Other Unusual WWII Facts Cont..
4. In World War II, British soldiers got a ration of three sheets of toilet paper a day. Americans got 22.
5. The Siege of Stalingrad resulted in 6. Had it been necessary for a third atom more Russian deaths (military and civilian) bomb, the city targeted would have been than the US and Britain sustained Tokyo. (combined) in all of World War II.
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Born 1516 Died 1558 y r Bloody a M n Mary e e u Q
Father: Henry VIII Mother: Catherine of Aragon 19 19
Mary Tudor: Facts • The couples fifth child • She suffered ‘phantom but Mary was the only pregnancies’ one to survive past infancy. • She had lots of stepmothers: • She was engaged at Anne Boleyn 6 years old to Charles Jane Seymour V, the King of Spain. Queen Anne of Cleves Kathryn Howard • In 1554 she Catherine Parr announced her interntion to marry • Died age 42 in 1558 & Prince Philip of Spain, there are a number of the son of her previ- possible illnesses that ous fiance Charles V. killed her including ovarian dropsy & Influenza. 20
More events of Mary’s reign: • Currency reform attempts • Expanded International trade • A brief war with France that lost England its last French enclave at Calais. • The Marian Persecution earned her the nickname ‘Bloody Mary’.
Bloody Mary: Marian Persecutions February 1555:
“Most were popular preachers, artisans, farm labourers, or poor, ignorant folk who could not recite the Lord’s Prayer or did not know what the Sacraments were,,.. . . Some were blind or disabled; one woman, Perotine Massey of Guernsey, was pregnant. Her baby was born as she was burning, and cast back into the flames by the executioner.”
240 Men 60 Women Condemned as Protestant heretics and burned at the stake. ALISON WEIR, “THE CHILDREN OF HENRY VIII” 21
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What the show got right
What the show got Wrong
1. The Hats - All gangs wore the hats
1. Time Period - The real blinders were 1890s rather than 1920s
2. Post war feeling that the show managed to capture
2. Razor Blades - No evidence of their use at all
3. Communism fears - This fear was rampant across europe due to the comminist revolution in russia
3. Winston Churchill - Completely wrong time frame 4. IRA - Didn’t rise to prominence until right after WWI
4. Horse Racing - The real peaky blinders were known for horse racing and gambling 5. Drugs - During the 20s, the decade the TV show is based, the use of cocaine was rampant just like the show
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5. Tommy Shelby - No record of the name Shelby as part of the Peaky Blinders but his character played by Cillian Murphy might have been based on Birmingham Boys leader Billy Kimber
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1. The President
Elected every 7 years Appoints the Chancellor Can use ARTICLE 48 - In an emergency the President can make laws without asking the Reichstag
2. Chancellor
Appointed by the President. Needs support of the majority of the Reichstag.
3. Reichstag
Same as our House of Commons. Power to pass or reject changes to the law. Elected by proportional representation every 4 years
4. The Electorate (German Voters)
All adults over the age of 20 can vote for President and Reichstag. All have equal rights.
Note:This makes Germany one of the most democratic countries in the world at the time. BUT Germany had no history of democracy.
• Germany was made up of 18 states each with its own parliament, police and laws • A new democratic constitution was created for Germany • In Jan 1919 elections took place for a new central parliament with Friedrich Ebert elected President • The new parliament met in the town of Weimar because of a communist uprising in Berlin. 27
Weimar Republic
Constitution
Facts about Matthew Hopkins: Hopkins’ reign of terror across East Anglia lasted from 1644-46. Since it has been estimated that all of the English witch trials between the early 15th and late 18th centuries resulted in fewer than 500 executions, the 300 women that Hopkins and his colleague, John Stearne had put to death account for around sixty-percent of the total.
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Witchfinder GenerAL SHOCKING FACTS: In March 1644 he alleged his first discovery of witches—six of them, in Manningtree, who he claimed tried to kill him. Despite torture being unlawful in England methods of inquisition were not far removed from actual torture: 1. Sleep deprivation to extract a confession 2. Cut the arm of the accused with a blunt knife and called her a witch if she did not bleed 3. Swimming tests - Suspects were tied to a chair and were called a witch if they floated or drowned if they did not 4. Supposed Devil’s marks - To us, now, these would be seen as a mole or some form of birthmark, back then Hopkins believed these marks were used by witches to feed their familiar (I.E. Cat) like a baby so they would prick the mark and if it did not bleed.... revert to point 2. Why would anyone do this? Money, of course. They were paid very well for their work and even more so if they could convince people there were witches and they had found them and solved the communities issues. 29
Hopkins’ actions even impacted the overseas colonies. Following the publication of Hopkins’, The Discovery of Witches (see below), which outlined his various witch-hunting methods, trials and executions for witchcraft began in New England; the conviction of Margaret Jones, a puritan midwife, became the first in a New England witch-hunt that lasted from 1648 to 1693. As described in the journal of Governor John Winthrop, the evidence assembled against her was gathered by the use of Hopkins’ techniques of “searching” and “watching”. Some of Hopkins’ methods were once again employed during the Salem Witch Trials, which occurred primarily in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692–93
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Celebrate Christmas
Take your medicine Ignore the superstitions
Go to the theatre Converse with papists
Thou Shalt Not
In the 16th and 17th centuries, Puritans followed a strict moral code in order to live a life that was centred around following God’s laws. Thou Shalt Not... Dance around the maypole
Enjoy sports
Upset the Fifth Monarchists
Mention Ireland Mention Scotland
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