The symbol was created by merging the signals for the letters N and D (Nuclear Disarmament) in the so-called “semaphore signals” that are given by the movement of flags. Professional artist and designer Gerald Holtom designed the international peace...
Already in the preamble, the Manifesto emphasizes conflict with the ruling powers and states that “all the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this specter of communism: Pope and Tsar, Metternich and Guizot, French Radi...
Johannes Steinhoff performed almost 1,000 combat missions as a member of Nazi Germany's air force – the Luftwaffe. He shot down as many as 176 enemy planes. It is interesting that the German air force is still called the Luftwaffe today, and uses the...
The Mexican military and political leader Antonio López de Santa Anna was born on this day in 1794. He is best known through the screen adaptations of the Battle of the Alamo, where he was the chief Mexican general who wanted to capture the American...
The man who would later become the Russian emperor Peter III Fyodorovich was born on this day in 1728, in the German city of Kiel. He acceded the Russian throne in 1762, having the right to it as he was the grandson of the famous Peter the Great. How...
Lamborghini’s fascination with bulls developed when he once visited the Seville ranch of Don Eduardo Miura, where bulls were bred to fight in the arenas. Today’s model, Gallardo, was named after a breed of fighting bulls. The famous Italian car manuf...
Among others, Telefunken, Osram, IG Farben, AEG, and Günther Quandt gave contributions to Hitler’s election campaign. On this day Adolf Hitler held a secret meeting with leading members of the German companies in order to gain their support be...
On this day the captured Pope Pius VI was taken from Rome, where a Roman Republic was proclaimed. After Napoleon’s troops occupied northern Italy, the French general Louis-Alexandre Berthier entered Rome practically unopposed and declared a Roman Rep...
Tunisia became an independent kingdom on this day in 1956. Bey Muhammad VIII al-Amin, then became the new king, addressed as His Royal Highness. His former title, bey, was a holdover from the time when Tunisia was under the rule of the Ottoman Empire...
On this day in 1685 French explorer René-Robert Cavelier de La Salle founded a colony of the area of what is now Texas. It was particularly interesting for being the westernmost French colony at the time. The French had previously taken a large part...
The first module of the space station Mir was launched on this day in 1986. When it was fully assembled, the space station reached a mass unsurpassed by any previous spacecraft – around 130 tons. The records for the most consecutive days spent by a h...
It is generally accepted that the brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright were the first people in history to fly a powered airplane, on 17 December 1903. Some New Zealanders, however, claim the first man to fly was Richard Pearse, who allegedly made his...
Seal’s scars originate from autoimmune skin disease, discoid lupus erythematosus, which he developed at the age of 23. One of the world’s most famous musicians – Seal – was born on this day in 1963. He was born in London, the son of Samuel Francis fr...
Approximately 110,000 people ended up in American internment camps, on the territory of the continental United States. Not many know today that the Americans established internment camps during World War II, on the territory of the United Stat...
It seems that the South American Indians attributed this eruption to the lack of bringing human sacrifices to god of death, Supay. The explosion was so strong that the ash from South America came as far as Russia. On this day in 1600 the strongest vo...
U.S. general Billy Mitchell, one of the most peculiar officers in U.S. history, died on this day. He is even considered the “Father of the U.S. Air Force”, and became a war hero during his career. However, Mitchell also lived to be court-martialed, w...
This day in 1602 marked the death of French duke Philippe Emmanuel from the Lorraine dynasty, in Nuremberg. He held the title of duc de Mercœur, and also the title duc de Penthièvre through his wife. He was also a Prince of the Holy Roman Empire, and...
The entire presidential term of Pedro Lascurain lasted, according to some sources 15, and the other 55 minutes. In any case it was less than one hour. Mexican President Pedro Lascurain had the briefest term of all state presidents in history. It happ...
Before he created the famous car brand Ferrari, Enzo owned a company called “Auto Avio Costruzioni”, which produced for Mussolini’s fascist government during the Second World War. The famous car manufacturer – Enzo Ferrari – was born on this day in t...
The Japanese placed the last Chinese emperor Pu Yi (who had previously been deposed in China) at the head of the state of Manchukuo. At its peak, Manchukuo had up to 50 million inhabitants. On this day in 1932, the founding of the Japanese vas...
This day marked the death of the Mongol-Chinese ruler Kublai Khan, one of the most powerful people in the history of mankind. The Europeans know the mighty Kublai Khan mostly from the descriptions made by Marco Polo, and these stories have to a large...
This day in 1895 marked the death of the exceptionally wealthy Archduke Albrecht of Austria. He was a contemporary of Austrian emperor Francis Joseph, and also his second cousin (they belonged to the same Habsburg-Lothringen family). According to the...
The Duke of Bourbon - the man who would have become king if he lived to be 99 - in 1490. The Duke of Bourbon held the highest military position in France from 1515 to 1521, the one of the Conétable (fr. Connétable de France), which made him superior...
To this day, Kosovo has largely not been recognized by countries that have substantial ethnic minorities and are afraid that the Kosovo example could trigger a wave of separatism. Today marks the anniversary of Kosovo's historic declaration of indepe...
On February 17, 1949, Chaim Weizmann was sworn in as Israel's first president. He was elected to the post by the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, which was sitting in Jerusalem at the time. Chaim Weizmann received 83 votes in the first presidential e...
On February 17, 1996, he completed one of the most famous chess matches between man and computer, a man's victory. It was a glorious duel of supercomputer IBM Deep Blue against chess champion Garry Kasparov. Kasparov was the reigning world chess cham...
On February 17, 1740, an interesting man was born, whom he considered to be the founder of mountaineering. His name was Horace-Bénédict de Saussure and he was a nobleman from the Swiss city of Geneva. Interestingly, Saussure started traveling the Alp...
On February 17, 1864, the first submarine sinking of a warship was carried out. It was the penultimate year of the American Civil War, with the USS Housatonic ship in the harbor of Charleston being sunk by the southern submarine Hunley. This submarin...
On February 17, 1933, the United States Senate passed the so-called. Blaine Act. The bill is named after John J. Blaine, Governor of Wisconsin, a Senator and Republican Party member, and one of the main sponsors of the U.S. repeal initiative. The pur...
Famous stories from the “One Thousand and One Nights” came to European audience thanks to a Frenchman – Antoine Galland – who lived in the era of the famous King Louis XIV (the Sun King). On this day a Frenchman who had a great influence on the Europ...
