A new Russian film on the 1968 events in Czechoslovakia has revived accusations that the Kremlin is twisting historical facts to forge a new ideology and justify some of its most controversial actions and policies.

Here is a look at some remarkable recent Russian treatments of history:

1968 Soviet-Led Invasion Of Czechoslovakia

A Russian film glorifying the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 has sparked fury among Czechs and Slovaks. 

Warsaw Pact: The Declassified Pages, which aired on state-run Russian television on May 23, justifies the armed crackdown on the democratic "Prague Spring" movement and claims Warsaw Pact troops were sent into Czechoslovakia to protect its citizens from a purported NATO threat.

Czech Foreign Minister Lubomir Zaoralek accused Russia of "grossly distorting" history and summoned the Russian ambassador in protest. Czech President Milos Zeman, who is seen as relatively Kremlin-friendly, dismissed the film as "Russian propaganda lies," according to his spokesman.

The Slovak Foreign Ministry accused Russia of "trying to rewrite history and falsify historical truths about this dark chapter of our history."

Defense Of The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact

Putin caused dismay across Europe last year by arguing there was nothing wrong with the infamous 1939 nonaggression pact between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, which led to the carve-up of Eastern Europe.

"What's bad about that if the Soviet Union didn't want to fight?" he asked a meeting with historians in Moscow. "Serious research must show that those were the foreign-policy methods then."

Last month, Putin again defended the pact during a news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, saying the deal was signed "when the Soviet Union realized it was being left one-on-one with Hitler's Germany" despite what he described as "repeated efforts" by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin to form an anti-Hitler coalition with Western countries.

Merkel responded by pointing out that the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact encompassed a secret protocol under which Stalin and Nazi leader Adolf Hitler agreed to divide Eastern Europe into respective spheres of influence.

The agreement paved the way for Hitler's invasion of Poland in 1939, as well as the Soviet Union's invasion of eastern Poland in the following weeks and its occupation of the Baltic states in 1940.

Hitler Was 'Good' Until 1939

Amid Russia's persistent claims that Ukraine is teeming with neo-Nazis, a pro-Kremlin Russian newspaper caused stupor last year with an article asserting that Hitler was actually "good" before World War II.

"We should distinguish between Hitler before 1939 and Hitler after 1939, and separate the wheat from the chaff," read the piece in Izvestia, which rejected comparisons between Hitler's annexation of Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland to Putin's annexation of Crimea. 

The author, Andranik Migranyan — who heads the New York office of the Institute for Democracy and Cooperation, an NGO set up under President Vladimir Putin in 2007 — credited Hitler with uniting Germany, Austria, the Sudetenland, and Memel "without a single drop of blood."

"If Hitler stopped at that, he would be remembered in his country's history as a politician of the highest order," Migranyan stated.

Critics reminded Migranyan about some of Hitler's most horrific policies prior to 1939, including the establishment of concentration camps, the purges of "non-Aryans," the creation of the Gestapo, and the bloody Kristallnacht pogroms in 1938.

Crimea As Sacred Cradle Of Russian Civilization

President Vladimir Putin has gone to great lengths to defend Russia's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine by portraying the peninsula as a holy cradle of Russian civilization.

Speaking in a state-of-the-nation address in December, he said Crimea had an "enormous civilizational and sacral meaning for Russia, just as the Temple Mount of Jerusalem does for those who profess Islam and Judaism."

Grand Prince Vladimir is believed to have converted Kievan Rus to Orthodox Christianity in the 10th century after being baptized in Crimea.

The logic behind the annexation, however, is disputed as the conversion of Kievan Rus established the foundations for both the Russian and Ukrainian states.

The Black Sea peninsula was also home to various populations before Russia first annexed it from the Ottoman Empire in 1783, including Greek colonies some 2,500 years ago and Crimean Tatars, who today are considered the region's indigenous population — and have been under increasing pressure since the Russian takeover in March 2014.

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“Her father petted and loved her.... How could he already be at the same time one of the world’s bloodiest dictators?” asks Rosemary Sullivan in her ever-engaging biography, Stalin’s Daughter. 

And how – this is Sullivan’s ultimate challenge – can we sympathize with anyone so closely related to the dictator?

From the late 1920s until his death in 1953, Papa Stalin oversaw the ruthless Soviet system imposed on Russia and its neighbors.

Tens of millions of Soviet citizens died as a result of famine, war, imprisonment, or execution during his tenure.

But what if he were your father? Svetlana Alliluyeva (nee Stalina) wrestled with this fate throughout her long life (1926-2011). At first she was simply a little girl, raised with the Soviet elite in Moscow, almost as unconscious of her privilege as had been the aristocrats her father’s government had recently driven out or murdered.

When her mother, Nadya Alliluyeva, killed herself when Svetlana was 6 years old, the girl didn’t know it was suicide until 10 years later. Eventually Svetlana knew that “The life of a man depended entirely on a word from my father,” and that he could be brutal even to her. At 16, when she announced she was marrying a Jewish writer, her father had him sent to the Gulag.

A dedicated student who never disdained household chores, Alliluyeva shunned special treatment. At the command of her father, she studied the history of the United States and after university became a translator of foreign classics. As she became aware of the injustices committed under Stalin’s direction, she deplored them: “[My father] knew what he was doing. He was neither insane nor misled. With cold calculation he had cemented his own power, afraid of losing it more than of anything else in the world.”

At the same time she couldn’t help feeling for Papa, and named her only son after him. In her famously restless love life, she sought a bliss and contentment that never lasted. She married several times and had three children, the last when she was 44 and living in exile in the US.

Sullivan opens the biography in the middle, in 1967, when Alliluyeva, age 42, went on a pilgrimage to India to pay her respects to her deceased lover, Brajesh Singh (the government hadn’t permitted her to marry the former Communist official). She decided on the spot to defect to the US, despite her own children, ages 17 and 21, left back in Russia. President Lyndon Johnson’s administration feared her defection would disrupt relations with the Soviet Union, but after the Central Intelligence Agency helped stow her in Switzerland, American publishers offered her so much money for her memoirs that the government let her in on her own dime.

Alliluyeva took to American life with gusto, mastering everything except financial planning. Though she had a temper and could be overbearing, she won friends everywhere from all walks of life. No place, however, fulfilled her for long. She moved to England while her second daughter went to boarding school there, and 17 years after her defection, she suddenly longed for home and bolted to Russia, which repatriated her. After a year the Soviets were all too glad when she defected back to the US.

Although an accomplished writer of memoirs, she couldn’t or wouldn’t write the book that Western publishers wanted about her father. Instead, she chose to live and work humbly, sometimes on “charity” in public housing, and rejected CIA-sponsored funding that would’ve obliged her, she felt, to restrain her mouth and feet.

Of Putin’s new Russia, she was a shrewd critic: “Russia is quickly (in my opinion) sliding back into the past – with that awful former KGB-SPY now as an acting president!” Sullivan, Alliluyeva’s even-tempered biographer, writes straightforwardly and with common sense, neither detached nor overly intimate. She quotes often from Alliluyeva’s letters and interviewed dozens of Alliluyeva’s surviving family members and friends in the US and Russia.

Continuously engaged by her difficult but captivating subject, Sullivan deals fairly with a woman who perhaps seems best suited to a Greek tragedy. As a reviewer of Alliluyeva’s first book observed, “To be Stalin’s daughter and to remain human is itself admirable – and we have every evidence that Svetlana Alliluyeva remained so.”

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On June 4, 1942, the Battle of Midway kicked off between the US and Japan. When it was all over on June 7, it was hailed as a decisive American victory — and much of it was captured on film.

That’s all because the Navy sent director John Ford to Midway atoll just days before it was attacked by the Japanese. Ford, already famous in Hollywood for such films as “Stage Coach” and “The Grapes of Wrath,” was commissioned a Navy commander with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and thought he was just going to document a quaint island in the South Pacific.

“The next morning – that night we got back and evidently something was about to pop, great preparations were made,” Ford told Navy historians after the battle. “I was called into Captain Semard’s office, they were making up plans, and he said ‘Well, now Ford, you are pretty senior here, and how about you getting up top of the power house, the power station, where the phones are?’ He said, ‘Do you mind?” I said ‘No, it’s a good place to take pictures.’

He said, ‘Well, forget the pictures as much as you can, but I want a good accurate account of the bombing. We expect to be attacked tomorrow.'”

From History.com:

A thousand miles northwest of Honolulu, the strategic island of Midway became the focus of his scheme to smash US resistance to Japan’s imperial designs. Yamamoto’s plan consisted of a feint toward Alaska followed by an invasion of Midway by a Japanese strike force. When the US Pacific Fleet arrived at Midway to respond to the invasion, it would be destroyed by the superior Japanese fleet waiting unseen to the west. If successful, the plan would eliminate the U.S. Pacific Fleet and provide a forward outpost from which the Japanese could eliminate any future American threat in the Central Pacific. US intelligence broke the Japanese naval code, however, and the Americans anticipated the surprise attack.

The three-day battle resulted in the loss of two US ships and more than 300 men. The Japanese fared much worse, losing four carriers, two battleships, three destroyers, 275 planes, and nearly 5,000 men.

Ford was wounded in the initial attack, but he continued to document the battle using his handheld 16mm camera. Here’s how he described it:

“By this time the attack had started in earnest. There was some dive bombing at objectives like water towers, [they] got the hangar right away. I was close to the hangar and I was lined up on it with my camera, figuring it would be one of the first things they got. It wasn’t any of the dive bombers [that got it]. A Zero flew about 50 feet over it and dropped a bomb and hit it, the whole thing went up. I was knocked unconscious. Just knocked me goofy for a bit, and I pulled myself out of it. I did manage to get the picture. You may have seen it in [the movie] 'The Battle of Midway.' It’s where the plane flies over the hangar and everything goes up in smoke and debris, you can see one big chunk coming for the camera."

Everybody, of course, nearly everybody except the gun crews were under ground. The Marines did a great job. There was not much shooting but when they did it was evidently the first time these boys had been under fire but they were really well trained. Our bluejackets and our Marine gun crews seemed to me to be excellent. There was no spasmodic firing, there was no firing at nothing. They just waited until they got a shot and it usually counted.”

Now see his 1942 film “The Battle of Midway,” which won the Academy Award for best documentary:

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Two days before Israel would embark on the Six Day War, army brass and top politicians held a tumultuous meeting in which a group of Israeli-born generals, watching the build-up of Egyptian forces in the Sinai desert, seemed to be accusing prime minister Levi Eshkol of suffering from a perilous, Diaspora-related hesitancy that could have existential repercussions for the state.

The details of the June 3, 1967, meeting between the IDF General Staff and the government of Israel were released for the first time on June 4th by the Israeli army and Defense Ministry archive, revealing the width of the gap separating the political and military leadership at the time.

Some have contended that the army was on the cusp of a coup at the time. The protocol does not support that, but it does illustrate the lengths the army went to force Eshkol to war.

“I think we may find ourselves in a military situation whereby we lose many of our advantages and could reach a situation — which I don’t want to describe in sharp words — but there would be a serious danger to the existence of Israel,” IDF chief of the General Staff, Lt. Gen. Yitzhak Rabin, said two days before the start of the Six Day War.

He described an immense build-up of Egyptian forces in the Sinai desert. The longer Israel waited to launch a pre-emptive strike, the future prime minister said, the greater the chances that Jordan, Iraq, and Syria would join the Arab offensive.

“I, at least, feel, or more than feel, that a military and diplomatic noose is being cinched around us, and I don’t believe anyone else is going to loosen it,” he said.

Israel had long asserted that shutting the straits was equivalent to a declaration of war. It summoned its reserves troops, but Eshkol, seeking either a green light from president Lyndon B. Johnson or US action to open the straits, did not instruct the army to act.

As the days ticked by, with diplomatic messages traveling to and from Israel, Egypt amassed over 1,000 tanks in the Sinai desert. The public endured perhaps the most harrowing weeks in the history of the state.

The head of military intelligence, Maj. Gen. Araleh Yariv, who described Israel and Egypt as “pawns” in the larger game, told the cabinet ministers that “the president will be annoyed and we will be condemned,” but if Israel takes fast and immediate action, the US will not be “a major obstacle to our actions.”

Rabin assured Eshkol that the Russians would not join in the fray.

Others were more forceful. Maj. Gen. Ariel Sharon arrived at the meeting from the southern front. He declared immediately that the army’s goal was “nothing short of the full destruction of the Egyptian forces.” The IDF was fully capable of that, he said, but “on account of the hesitancy and time-wasting we have lost the main point of deterrence we had, which is the fear the Arab states had of us.”

Sharon said that what determines “a war between us and the Arabs is the swiftness and momentum of the strike” and not the balance of power on the battlefield.

Delaying a strike, he said, would be “a mistake of the first order.” He guaranteed the resounding defeat of the Egyptian army, saying “I promise you it will be done in the best possible way” so long as the government gives the order to act.

Maj. Gen. Moshe Peled said that the General Staff “has not received a single explanation – what are we waiting for … reveal the secret and we will know what it is we are waiting for!”

Nasser, he said, delivered his army to the borders of Israel in an unready state. “The only thing working in his favor is that the government of Israel is unwilling to strike it.” 

He called the government’s caution “a lack of faith” in the army and said that while soldiers were manning the front lines, the home front was in a process of collapse.

“The State of Israel does not have endless endurance … it is unclear to me whether the government has the accurate picture of what is happening internally ... if you knew, you would be asking why we do not act more swiftly. The enemy is fortifying and growing in strength, the economy is increasingly weak, and all this for a goal that no one explains to us.”

“We deserve to know why we must endure this humiliation. Perhaps we shall receive, at this opportunity, explanations for what it is we wait for?”

The Soviet Union, he said, may or may not get involved. And the IDF may prevail, as it says it will, but even if Israel broke the back of the enemy today, he said, it would still need to re-arm. “Even if we start to build our own planes – engines we shall not build so fast on our own. And if every 10 years we are forced to fight – we need to think, is there an ally who will help us or do we talk to an ally today and tomorrow say: we honk at you [an expression of contempt].”

Without a doubt there is room for the line of thought that says “don’t wait for the goyim to help you,” he said, but the army needs to understand “that the matter is not being done” not because the government does not want to but because there is still time that needs to be ticked off the diplomatic clock.

“We need a few more days in order to not lose the sympathy and assistance – monetary and materiel – that will be necessary, from someone. And that,” he said at the close of the meeting, “the Soviet Union will surely not grant us.”

The Six Day War, in which Israel won the Golan Heights from Syria, the Sinai from Egypt and the West Bank and the Old City of Jerusalem from Jordan, began with a preemptive Israeli strike two days later.

SEE ALSO: The startlingly simple reason Obama ignores Syria

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Apple's mobile software has changed a lot since the first iPhone was unveiled in 2007.

Most people remember the polarizing flat design of iOS 7, but it can be tough to remember all the little changes that happened throughout the entire evolution of Apple's iPhone software.

From the first time Apple announced the App Store to the unveiling of Siri, here's how the iPhone's homescreen has changed through the years.

iPhone OS 1.0

Apple unveiled the original iPhone on January 9, 2007, and Steve Jobs said it was running a version of "OS X," the same software running on Apple's Mac computers. Apple later referred to its software as "iPhone OS" when it opened up the software to developers.

But there was no App Store on the original iPhone when it launched, and you couldn't download any third-party apps.

iPhone OS 2.0

Apple's second-generation iPhone, the iPhone 3G, shipped in July 2008 with iPhone OS 2.0 installed. Owners of the original iPhone could upgrade to iPhone OS 2.0, and it was worth it — this was when Apple introduced its App Store, and upgrading was the only way to gain access to the third-party apps that are partially responsible for turning the iPhone into a smash hit.

iPhone OS 3.0

Apple's iPhone OS 3.0 software launched in June 2009 and came pre-installed on the iPhone 3GS. The new software allowed iPhone owners to copy and paste text for the first time, and introduced the first landscape keyboard for messaging. Interestingly enough, many iPhone users today prefer texting while their phones remain in portrait mode.

Produced by Matthew Stuart and Alana Kakoyiannis

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A giant metal sculpture surrounded by boulders and dirt piles is featured next to the Palace of Versailles in France.

The installation by Anish Kapoor is called "Dirty Corner" and has caused a stir in France. It is to meant to represent Marie Antoinette’s vagina, but the artist says people can intrepret it any way they like. 

While visitors are engaging with the art piece, the mayor of Versailles isn't as pleased with the suggestive installation.

Produced by Emma Fierberg. Video courtesy of Associated Press.

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Despite the constant hand-wringing that smartphones will lead to the downfall of society, there's mounting evidence that your phone habit may not be so bad after all.

In fact, there are ways your phone might actually be good for you.

We've compiled a list of apps to boost your brainpower, hone your memory, and even improve your emotional intelligence.

The science of how exactly our brains work — and how much we can train them — is constantly evolving, but one thing's for sure: there's no better way to get smarter while waiting in line at the grocery store.

Whether you use an iPhone or an Android phone, there's something here for you.

This is an update of an article originally written by Dylan Love.

Duolingo

Combining reading, writing, listening, and speaking exercises for maximum progress in minimal time, Duolingo is a free (and beautiful) app designed to help you learn one of 13 languages.

And you don't have to be traveling any time soon to reap the potential benefits: research suggests that becoming multilingual boosts your cognitive power. Moreover, the process of learning a new language — whether or not you ever become fluent in it — may actually help you delay cognitive decline in old age.

Price: Free

iOS / Android

Longform

Longform sifts through the web and delivers the best in-depth journalism to your mobile device.

Not only will reading teach you about discreet topics — mandatory drug sentencing, the early work of Alanis Morissette, SpaceX — but it may also increase the raw power of your mind. Regular reading helps keep your brain sharp as you age, boosts your vocabulary, enhances your memory, and improves your analytical thinking.

Also, it will make you more interesting at parties.

Price: Free

iOS

Kindle

With the Kindle app, you can systematically work your way through all of literature on your morning commute. Almost any book you can think of is available for purchase, but you can also download anything that's out of copyright (i.e., most of the Western canon) for free. 

We already know that reading is generally good for you, but recent research suggests that immersing yourself in a novel boosts emotional intelligence and increases your capacity for empathy.

Price: Free

iOS / Android

Disclosure: Jeff Bezos is an investor in Business Insider through his personal investment company Bezos Expeditions.

Today’s roller coasters tempt and terrify in equal measure with names like Mind Eraser and Intimidator 305, boasting hairpin turns, heavy drops and insane speeds of up to 149.1 miles per hour.

But nothing beats a classic.

We've found 9 of the oldest roller coasters around the world. Most of these rides date back to the early 1900s, and you can still ride them today. 

Leap-The-Dips (1902)

Lakemont Park, Altoona, PA

This tamely named wooden rollercoaster hails from 1902, and though it closed in 1986, the US National Historic Landmark reopened in 1999.

It’s only 41 feet tall, and its average speed of 10 miles per hour will barely ruffle your hair.

Scenic Railway (1912)

Luna Park, Melbourne, Australia

While not the oldest roller coaster in the world, the Scenic Railway is the world’s oldest continually operating one. Its dips and turns may leave you unfazed, but its stunning views of Port Philip Bay won’t.

Rutschebanen (1914)

Tivoli Gardens, Copenhagen, Denmark

The Rutschebanen may be the main attraction in the world’s second oldest amusement park (built in 1843), but it was originally designed for the Baltic Fair.

To this day it retains an operator who manually brakes the 2,051-foot ride, keeping it at a mellow 36 miles per hour.

Maybe we're in a bubble. Maybe we aren't. Either way, the current bull market is approaching historic levels for stocks.

As you can see in this chart from Tiho at the Short Side of Long, stock returns have hit 209% since the beginning of the current bull market on March 9, 2009.

In comparison, this is the fourth largest bull market in terms of stock growth since the Great Depression and beats the average bull by nearly 80%.

The record for the largest gain still belongs to the 1990s explosion, where stock values quadrupled.

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Take off your tin-foil hats for a second, because sometimes an insane-sounding conspiracy theory actually turns out to be true.

From the government making up an enemy attack to justify war to “mind control” experiments, some stories are hard to believe until declassified documents or investigations prove they actually happened.

Here are five of the wildest former conspiracy theories we found:

1. The US Navy fired on North Vietnamese torpedo boats that weren’t even there.

On the night of Aug. 4, 1965, the USS Maddox engaged against hostile North Vietnamese torpedo boats following an unprovoked attack. The only problem: there were no torpedo boats. Or an attack.

The Maddox fired at nothing, but the incident was used as a justification to further escalate the conflict in Vietnam. 

President Lyndon Johnson reported that at least two of the enemy boats were sunk, and American media outlets backed up that story in numerous articles. But conspiracy theorists thought it looked a lot like a “false flag” attack. They were right, according to the National Security Agency’s own declassified documents.

Others who were present, including James Stockdale — a Navy pilot who would later receive the Medal of Honor — disputed the official account:

I had the best seat in the house to watch that event, and our destroyers were just shooting at phantom targets — there were no PT boats there … There was nothing there but black water and American fire power.

Even LBJ wasn’t convinced: “For all I know, our Navy was shooting at whales out there.”

2. The FBI infiltrated, surveilled, and tried to discredit American political groups it deemed “subversive.”

When it wasn’t investigating crimes, the Federal Bureau of Investigation under Director J. Edgar Hoover kept busy trying to suppress the spread of communism in the Unites States. Under a secret program called COINTELPRO (counter-intelligence program), the FBI harassed numerous political groups and turned many of its members completely paranoid.

Though they could never be sure, many activists suspected the FBI was watching them. And the Bureau was able to mess with groups it didn’t like and influence what they did.

From the book “The United States of Paranoia” by Jesse Walker:

Under COINTELPRO, FBI agents infiltrated political groups and spread rumors that loyal members were the real infiltrators. They tried to get targets fired from their jobs, and they tried to break up the targets’ marriages. They published deliberately inflammatory literature in the names of the organizations they wanted to discredit, and they drove wedges between groups that might otherwise be allied. In Baltimore, the FBI’s operatives in the Black Panther Party were instructed to denounce Students for a Democratic Society as “a cowardly, honky group” who wanted to exploit the Panthers by giving them all the violent, dangerous “dirty work.” The operation was apparently successful: In August 1969, just five months after the initial instructions went out, the Baltimore FBI reported that the local Panther branch had ordered its members not to associate with SDS members or attend any SDS events.

It wasn’t only communist or left-leaning organizations. The FBI’s list of targets included the Civil Rights movement, and public enemy number one was Dr. Martin Luther King. Agents bugged his hotel rooms, followed him, tried to break up his marriage, and at one point even sent him an anonymous letter trying to get him to commit suicide.

It would’ve been just a whacky conspiracy theory from a bunch of paranoid leftists that no one would’ve believed. But the conspiracy theorists — a group of eight anti-war activists — broke into an FBI field office in 1971 and found a trove of documents that exposed the program.

3. US military leaders had a plan to kill innocent people and blame it all on Cuba.

Sitting just 90 miles from the Florida coast and considered a serious threat during Cold War, communist Cuba under its leader Fidel Castro was a problem for the United States. The US tried to oust Castro during the Bay of Pigs invasion of 1961, but the operation failed. So the generals went back to the drawing board and came up with an unbelievable plan called Operation Northwoods.

From ABC News:

The plans had the written approval of all of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and were presented to President Kennedy’s defense secretary, Robert McNamara, in March 1962. But they apparently were rejected by the civilian leadership and have gone undisclosed for nearly 40 years.

“These were Joint Chiefs of Staff documents. The reason these were held secret for so long is the Joint Chiefs never wanted to give these up because they were so embarrassing,” Bamford told ABCNEWS.com.

What were the “embarrassing” plans? There were ideas for lobbing mortars into Guantanamo naval base, in addition to blowing up some of the aircraft or ammunition there. Then there was another idea floated to blow up a ship in its harbor. But these were timid compared to other plans that came later in a top secret paper:

We could develop a Communist Cuba terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington … We could sink a boatload of Cubans enroute to Florida (real or simulated) … Exploding a few plastic bombs in carefully chosen spots, the arrest of Cuban agents and the release of prepared documents substantiating Cuban involvement also would be helpful in projecting the idea of an irresponsible government.

The paper went on to describe in detail other plans for possibly hijacking or shooting down a “drone” airliner made to look like it was carrying civilian passengers, or faking a shoot-down of a US Air Force jet over international waters to blame Cuba.

4. The CIA recruited top American journalists to spread propaganda in the media and gather intelligence.

Started in the 1950s amid the backdrop of the Cold War, the Central Intelligence Agency approached leading American journalists in an attempt to influence public opinion and gather intelligence. The program, called Operation Mockingbird, went on for nearly three decades.

From journalist Carl Bernstein, writing in Rolling Stone in 1977:

Some of these journalists’ relationships with the Agency were tacit; some were explicit. There was cooperation, accommodation and overlap. Journalists provided a full range of clandestine services — from simple intelligence-gathering to serving as go‑betweens with spies in Communist countries. Reporters shared their notebooks with the CIA. Editors shared their staffs. Some of the journalists were Pulitzer Prize winners, distinguished reporters who considered themselves ambassadors without‑portfolio for their country. Most were less exalted: foreign correspondents who found that their association with the Agency helped their work; stringers and freelancers who were as interested in the derring‑do of the spy business as in filing articles; and, the smallest category, full‑time CIA employees masquerading as journalists abroad. In many instances, CIA documents show, journalists were engaged to perform tasks for the CIA with the consent of the managements of America’s leading news organizations.

The Church Committee exposed much of the program, with a full report from Congress stating: “The CIA currently maintains a network of several hundred foreign individuals around the world who provide intelligence for the CIA and at times attempt to influence opinion through the use of covert propaganda.

These individuals provide the CIA with direct access to a large number of newspapers and periodicals, scores of press services and news agencies, radio and television stations, commercial book publishers, and other foreign media outlets.”

5. The CIA conducted “mind control” experiments on unwitting US and Canadian citizens, some of which were lethal.

Perhaps one of the most shocking conspiracy theories that turned out to be true was a CIA program called MKUltra, which had the stated goal of developing biological and chemical weapons capability during the Cold War, according to Gizmodo. But it ballooned into a larger program that encompassed research (via Today I Found Out):

• which will promote the intoxicating affect of alcohol;
• which will render the induction of hypnosis easier or otherwise enhance its usefulness;
• which will enhance the ability of individuals to withstand privation, torture and coercion during interrogation and so called “brain-washing;”
• which will produce amnesia for events preceding and during their use;
• [which will produce] shock and confusion over extended periods of time and capable of surreptitious use; and
• which will produce physical disablement such as paralysis of the legs, acute anemia, etc.

During the program, the CIA established front companies to work with more than 80 institutions, such as hospitals, prisons, and universities. With these partnerships in place, the agency then ran experiments on subjects using drugs, hypnosis, and verbal and physical abuse. At least two American deaths can be attributed to this program, according to the Church Committee.

Though the Church Committee uncovered much of this shocking program, many of the top secret files were ordered destroyed in 1973 by CIA Director Richard Helms.

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WATERLOO, Belgium (AP) — To the victor go the spoils: So Waterloo became synonymous with Napoleon's demise, even if the worst of the battle never happened there.

Ignoring the bloodied grounds of nearby towns, the victorious Duke of Wellington picked the name of the battle as the place where he slept after it was all over. And nothing has been the same since for the once-sleepy village — or for the world.

Prince Charles leads a host of dignitaries Wednesday to kick off four days of commemorations Wednesday of the battle that changed the course of history 200 years ago Thursday. Napoleon's defeat in the half-day battle against an overwhelming international coalition ended France's supremacy in the world and opened the British century with the biggest of bangs.

Little wonder the French are still gnashing their teeth two centuries later. "It is not easy for them — psychologically speaking," said military historian Professor Luc De Vos.

Earlier this year, the Belgians wanted to mint a commemorative Battle of Waterloo euro coin which many of the belligerents in the fight now share. Paris blocked the idea.

Belgium promptly turned them into commemorative coins that do not need approval from other eurozone nations before minting.

But France's bruised ego over Waterloo has healed somewhat. Descendants of Napoleon and the French ambassador will show up during the four days of Waterloo commemorations just south of Brussels.

On the battlegrounds themselves, kept intact down to the lush wheat that stands near full ripeness this time of year, everything has been prepared for official ceremonies and re-enactments.

At the heart of the battle was the pivotal French assault on Hougoumont Farm, on whose wooden gate, in the Duke of Wellington's words, the outcome of the entire world hinged. Once the smoke lifted, France's Grande Armee was in retreat and 26 years of Napoleonic warfare to unite Europe under French rule had ended.

On the small battlefield, over 10,000 soldiers lay dead — and as many horses.

On Wednesday, Prince Charles will be at the lovingly restored Hougoumont farm again to survey the battlefield with the descendants of the troop leaders — the Duke of Wellington, Prince Nikolaus von Bluecher of Prussia and Prince Charles Bonaparte of France.

Through Saturday, some 5,000 re-enactors will roll the drums, fire the guns and cannons and walk through the gunpowder smoke, only to come to the same result: Napoleon lost.

Napoleon "was 46, but in bad health. Wellington was fit. His staff was not functioning well. There was hesitation. At the end of the battle, he only had 70,000 men and his opponents had nearly double," said De Vos.

So off went Napoleon, eventually to die in exile in Saint Helena, a speck of an island in the south Atlantic.

Instead of France, Britain came to rule the waves of the 19th century, reaping a rich harvest in colonies around the globe and firing the furnaces of the industrial revolution in Europe.

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Contracts play an important role in business — and they always have. But the ways in which people have agreed upon terms and conditions have changed significantly over time.

Apttus has created an infographic tracing the history of the contract, from Ancient Egypt to the modern day boardroom.

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The Battle of Waterloo changed the course of history.

On June 18th, 1815, Napoleon suffered his final and most crushing defeat. For over a decade, the French emperor had conquered or invaded much of Europe, using his seemingly superhuman charisma, leadership, and strategic thinking to threaten Europe's conservative, monarchical order.

Even his defeat and exile in 1814 couldn't stop him. By mid-1815, Napoleon had returned to mainland Europe and raised an army. And so had his enemies.

Waterloo was one of the most massive single-day battles in modern history, with an estimated 60,000 total casualties. Today, "Waterloo" is shorthand for a pivotal confrontation — or for massive defeat.

Here's the story of one of the most important battles of all time.

Napoleon abdicated as emperor of France on April 6, 1814, after troops from the Sixth Coalition entered Paris. The French monarchy was restored to power a quarter-century after the French Revolution began — and Napoleon, who had once conquered much of Europe, was exiled to Elba, an island off the west coast of Italy.

He didn't stay there for long. On February 26, 1815, Napoleon left the island. His goal: to depose the French monarchy and regain his position as emperor.

Napoleon landed on the European mainland on March 1st, 1815, with 1,000 men at his command. By the time he reached Paris on March 19th, the king had fled. By June, Napoleon had nearly 250,000 troops at his command.

A Facebook picture may provide some insight into the political beliefs of Dylann Roof, the 21-year-old man who has been identified by authorities as the suspect in a shooting that left nine people dead at a Charleston, South Carolina, church on Wednesday evening.

Authorities are investigating the shooting as a hate crime. The Emanuel AME Church where the crime took place is a historically black congregation. Witnesses have reportedly said the killer declared he was there "to shoot black people."

Roof was arrested on Thursday. Before he was taken into custody, the sheriff's office in Berkeley County South Carolina sent out two photos of Roof, including one from a Facebook profile that bears his name. In the Facebook photo, Roof is wearing two patches that have been identified by many observers as the flags of Rhodesia and apartheid-era South Africa.

Both of these flags represent defunct African governments whose regimes were controlled by white minorities. Both countries had racial segregation policies, and as a result they are admired by many American white supremacists.

Rhodesia, which was located in what is now Zimbabwe, existed between 1965 and 1979. It was a former British colony, but the country's white government unilaterally declared independence because the United Kingdom had a policy of not allowing its African territories to separate until they instituted systems that would ensure the black population would have a place in government. Rhodesia eventually came to an end after elections were held following a lengthy war between the government and guerilla forces.

During Rhodesia's existence, the British government refused to recognize the country. The United Nations also imposed sanctions on Rhodesia in an effort to pressure the white government to step down. Some American Ku Klux Klan leaders publicly supported the Rhodesian government.

The flag of Rhodesia, which can be seen below, featured the country's coat of arms. It includes the Zimbabwe bird, a national emblem based on sculptures found in the ancient ruins of the capital of the Kingdom of Zimbabwe.

South Africa's apartheid regime lasted from 1948 until 1994. Because of the brutal segregation in the country, it was also subject to international sanctions. The apartheid system was removed after the country's first election in which citizens of all races were allowed to participate.

Because much of the white population of South Africa is made up of Dutch Afrikaner settlers, the country's apartheid-era flag includes a background based on a Dutch historical flag. In the middle of the South African version were three smaller flags: the Union Jack, to represent the former British colonies in the country, and two flags of two former Boer republics in the country. The apartheid-era flag is below.

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The relatives of a much-debated 8,500-year-old skeleton found in Kennewick, Washington, have been pinned down: The middle-age man was most closely related to modern-day Native Americans, DNA from his hand reveals.

The new analysis lays to rest wilder theories about the ancestry of the ancient American, dubbed Kennewick Man, said study co-author Eske Willerslev, an evolutionary biologist at the Natural History Museum of Denmark at the University of Copenhagen.

"There have been different theories, different mythology, everything from him being related to Polynesians, to Europeans, to [indigenous people] from Japan," Willerslev told Live Science. "He is most closely related to contemporary Native Americans."

Disputed identity

A couple first discovered the skeleton in 1996 on the banks of the Columbia River in Kennewick. The coroner analyzing the remains noticed an arrow tip lodged in the man's pelvis, and surmised he was a European felled by a Native American, said co-author David Meltzer, an anthropologist at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

But the man's bones revealed he was at least 8,000 years old.

At a news conference then, researchers studying the skeleton said the ancient man was "Caucasoid," an archaic, 19th-century term that includes a wide swath of people with origins in Africa, Western Asia and Europe. Reporters heard the word "Caucasian," and all of a sudden people were wondering how a European showed up in North America and was shot thousands of years before Europeans set foot on the continent, Meltzer said.

"That was the moment when all the wheels fell off and this became quite the mess," Meltzer told Live Science.

Meanwhile, five Native American tribes argued the Kennewick Man was an ancestor, and since native graves are protected under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), the prehistoric man should be reburied on their land, not studied.

A judge, however, concluded the Kennewick Man's Native American ancestry was in doubt, opening the door to more scientific research.

Rough life

The first efforts to analyze the man's DNA failed, so researchers tried recreate some of the ancient man's life. It turned out he was between 35 and 45 years old, with developed muscles as well as rib fractures and other injuries suggesting a life of hard work. Chemical analysis of his bones suggested he ate a diet of mostly fish.

Most surprisingly, anthropologists measured his skull and concluded its shape tied him more closely to the modern-day Polynesians or the indigenous Ainu people of Japan than to modern-day Native Americans.

Native American ancestry

In the new study, which was published today (June 18) in the journal Nature, Meltzer, Willerslev and their colleagues took a second look at DNA from a sliver of Kennewick Man's hand bone. They then compared that DNA with that of several modern-day Native American populations, as well as Ainu and Polynesian populations. The team also reanalyzed the skull and concluded that, because it was just one sample, it was well within the range of variation that could have been found among ancestral Native American populations. 

"There's no getting around it, Kennewick Man is Native American," Meltzer said.

The team also found the closest genetic match came from people living along the Northwest coast, particularly the Colville people, who were some of the first to claim Kennewick Man as one of their own. But because not all the tribes that claim the Kennewick Man as an ancestor submitted DNA, and few other Native Americans have submitted DNA samples, other tribes could be even more closely related to him, Meltzer added.

If the Kennewick Man did come from the ancestral population of the Colville tribes, that would mean the same people have occupied roughly the same region for thousands of years, Willerslev said. The Colville tribes were historically a nomadic tribe that migrated between different hotspots for fishing and gathering berries, but they have long lived around the Columbia River, according to their website.

The new DNA also sheds light on the ancient migrations that peopled the Americas. Last year, Willerslev and his colleagues analyzed the DNA from a 12,600-year-old skeleton, known as the Anzick boy, unearthed in Montana. That DNA revealed the first Americans split into two groups before the Anzick boy lived. One lineage migrated southward to populate Central and South America, while another branch headed north along the northwest coast of North America and into Canada. The new data suggest Kennewick Man's group formed a third offshoot that diverged from the southern lineage, but migrated back north. This lineage includes modern Native Americans such as the Colville and some other Pacific Northwest tribes. 

Still, with so few ancient American remains available for study, scientists can't completely recreate the history of these long-lost migrations, said Benjamin Auerbach, a professor of anthropology at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, who was not involved in the current study.

"As exceptional and important a study as this is, and as much as it reveals about early populations and ancestry in North America, Kennewick Man is only one individual," Auerbach told Live Science in an email. "Only through aggregating more information from these earliest human remains globally will we be able to shed light on broad patterns of human ancestry and migration."

Despite the new findings, it may be a while before Kennewick Man is finally laid to rest.

"This is just the first step in the process," Jim Boyd, chairman of the Colville Business Council and a spokesman for the tribe, said in an email. Now that the Native American DNA ancestry question is settled, "this will begin the NAGPRA process that will logically lead to joint repatriation and reburial," he said.

Follow Tia Ghose on Twitter ;and Google+.FollowLive Science @livescience, Facebook& Google+. Original article on Live Science.

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If you were born in 1900, you had a pretty good chance of dying by your 50th birthday. Today, thanks to improved health and safety around the world, that would be — in many countries — a life cut short by at least a few decades.

"The dramatic increase in average life expectancy during the 20th century ranks as one of society’s greatest achievements," notes a report from the National Institute on Aging, a division of the National Institutes of Health.

That dramatic increase — approximately three additional months in life expectancy each year — is clear in the chart below (which looks only at women in a subset of developed countries, though trends are similar among men):

These gains have not been universal; the average life expectancy in the world's least developed countries is still about 61.

But overall, people are living longer. A number of factors have contributed to this upswing in our longevity, including declining infant deaths, better management of infectious diseases, and more widespread access to clean water. In the decades leading up to the nineteenth century, much of the improvement in life expectancy was not because people were living into what we now consider old age — it's because fewer children were dying before they reached adulthood.

In the 20th century, we finally began to see the trend that's continuing now: fewer deaths at older and older ages.  

The 85-and-over population is projected to increase 351% between 2010 and 2050.

The most interesting thing about that trend, the report notes, is that it was totally unexpected: "The progressive increase in survival in these oldest age groups was not anticipated by demographers, and it raises questions about how high the average life expectancy can realistically rise and about the potential length of the human lifespan."

Most scientists agree that there is in fact a limit on how long, physically, we can live: rising averages aside, no one has ever been documented as living beyond 122. "Getting to about 110 is really approaching the limit of the human lifespan," explains Thomas Perls, an attending geriatrician at Boston Medical Center and professor at the Boston University School of Medicine.

But while birth rates are dropping, average life expectancy is still rising, as more and more people live past 80, 90, and even 100. The population of people demographers call the "oldest old" is ballooning relative to other age groups — with no signs of slowing down.

The National Institute on Aging report puts this in stark terms: "The 85-and-over population is projected to increase 351 percent between 2010 and 2050, compared to a 188 percent increase for the population aged 65 or older and a 22 percent increase for the population under age 65."

That should help explain why some people are in panic mode about Social Security.

"This is uncharted water," one Pew researcher told The Atlantic.

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Over the weekend, Belgium celebrated the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo in style. Five-thousand participants from around Europe recreated scenes from June 1815, when two of history's biggest military giants, Napoleon and Wellington, faced off against each other.

With over 64,000 spectators, it was the largest Waterloo reenactment ever seen, with reenactors coming from a number of countries including Russia, Germany, Britain, and France.

Waterloo changed the course of history and was one of the deadliest single-day battles to date, with an estimated 60,000 casualties 

The bicentennial celebrations kicked off with a stunning opening ceremony entitled "Inferno," directed by Luc Petit.

The ceremony was a sight to behold, complete with fireworks and flame-throwing bayonets.

There was also a lion's head crying blood.

The killing of nine people at a historically black church in Charleston, South Carolina, last Wednesday has ignited a nationwide debate over the Confederate flag.

But in New York, one of the country's largest and most racially diverse cities, a street honoring the general who led the Confederate army has gone largely unnoticed.

A website linked to Dylan Roof, the alleged Charleston church shooter, featured a virulently racist manifesto and several photos that seem to show him posing with the flag. Roof's apparent attachment to the Confederate emblem prompted calls for the flag to be removed from South Carolina's state capitol, where it had flown since 1961.

South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) responded on Monday by calling for the flag to be taken down in South Carolina. However, the Confederacy is still commemorated on the flags in multiple other southern states. It's also honored at an Army base in a very northern locale — Brooklyn, New York.

The central street at Fort Hamilton, New York City's only US Army base, is General Lee Avenue. It runs for about a half mile in the borough of Brooklyn.

General Lee Avenue is named after Robert E. Lee, commander of the Confederate forces. Before he joined the secessionist South, Lee served as the base's engineer. Along with General Lee Avenue, the base features a plaque commemorating the home in which the future Confederate leader lived while he was at Fort Hamilton, 1841-46.

Business Insider contacted Fort Hamilton on Monday. A spokesperson declined to comment on whether it had received requests to change the street name. They noted it is landmarked federal property and therefore outside of local jurisdiction.

We also reached out to several officials including New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) and Rep. Dan Donovan (R-New York), whose district includes the base, to see if they would comment on the street name. Neither de Blasio nor Donovan has responded to these requests.

Fort Hamilton isn't the only military base that honors Confederate leaders. There are at least 10 bases where the entire facility is named for a general from the losing side in the US Civil War.

These Confederate names are relics from reconciliation efforts undertaken in the years after conclusion of post-Civil War Reconstruction. During this time, officials promoted a narrative of moral equality between the war's combatants that made it possible to honor leaders who fought American troops on US bases.

Here are photos showing Lee's house and the General Lee Avenue sign from inside Fort Hamilton that Business Insider's Jeremy Bender took last summer:

According to the website of the Harbor Defense Museum at Fort Hamilton, Lee "devised a plan to improve the waterproofing of the casements in the fort" while serving as engineer.

Lee was never the commander of the base, but he is almost certainly the most significant person with a connection to it. According to David Eicher's biography of Lee, the slow pace of life at Fort Hamilton discouraged the future Confederate leader, whose tasks were limited to peacetime maintenance and upgrades.

"I am very solitary, and my only company is my dogs and cats," Lee wrote to his wife in 1846, according to Eicher.

Lee served as a vestryman with the base's parish church. His career at the base ended that year, when he was dispatched at the outbreak of the Mexican-American war.

Lee later served as commandant of West Point, where there's a cadet barracks named after him.

An American nuclear-power ballistic-missile submarine named after Lee was decommissioned in 1983.

But the most prominent commemoration of Lee on federal property is the general's mansion overlooking the Potomac River on the grounds of Arlington National Cemetery. The house was designated a "permanent memorial" to Lee by congressional action in 1955, with the Congress citing his purported "desire and hope ... for peace and unity within our nation."

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With calls mounting for the Confederate flag to be removed from government buildings in South Carolina, some kids are getting ready to attend a Confederate youth camp run by an organization with ties to hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan.

The Sons of Confederate Veterans holds an annual summer camp that it bills as a place for young people to learn the “truth” about Southern history.

That, according to the group, includes abandoning “the liberal, politically correct view of history” through “thoughtful instruction” on “our Southern history and culture.”

“Our kids aren’t getting taught this stuff in the schools,” said Phil Walters, who helps organize the group’s Sam Davis Youth Camp. “Great American heroes like Jefferson Davis and General Robert Lee…our kids are not gonna be told that these people are evil, hate-mongering slave-holders and not have us do something to correct it.”

Hundreds of teenagers from across the South attend Confederate camps in several states, including Texas and South Carolina, where 21-year-old, Confederate-sympathizing Dylann Roof allegedly murdered nine African-Americans in a historic Black church last week after spending an hour with his victims studying the bible. Former SVC Commander Johnnie Holley, who has volunteered at Sam Davis camps, says the youth camp is used as a recruitment tool for the organization.

“Probably one of the largest…problem[s] that all of these heritage organizations….[have] is the age of the membership,” he says. “In the schools today, the war is not taught properly, our children are dying for information about their ancestry and their heritage. If we don’t bring our young people into our organizations, then the organizations will eventually die.”

On the surface, the Sam Davis Youth Camp seems like a normal summer camp—there’s archery, swimming, boating and fishing. But in between the outdoor activities—and daily “cannon salutes” to fallen Confederate soldiers—campers attend classes on the “true” history of the Civil War (SCV members refer to the Civil War as the “War of Southern Independence”).

According to the SCV, the Civil War had nothing to do with slavery, and President Abraham Lincoln was one of the most racist leaders of his era. Walters says his group is not against African-Americans, and any links between the Confederacy and racism are a product of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s declaration of “war on everything Confederate.”

“When you get down to it, this is a small group of people–the NAACP—who say that everything in the South is evil and that it needs to be erased,” he says.

The Confederate camps have been around since the mid-2000s. They typically get about a hundred campers a year, between the ages of 12 and 18. Sessions are a week long, and cost $500. Every year, the SCV gauges interest around the South and then rents out a campground or other outdoor space in any states where there are enough campers. This year, there are camps in Virginia and Texas.

The SCV’s history with hate groups is complex. The group initially was founded after the Civil War for descendents of Confederate soldiers killed during the war. It was organized “to encourage the preservation of history, perpetuate the hallowed memories of brave men.”

The group has not been labeled a hate group, but one of its highest-profile members—and a man who is also one of the chief organizers of the Sam Davis Youth Camp—has been on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s hate-radar for nearly 20 years.

Kirk Lyons serves on the SCV Long-Range Planning Committee, which oversees the Sam Davis Youth Camp. He’s also one of the camp’s biggest boosters. When he’s not raising money for Confederacy camp, Lyons is the top trial attorney in Houston for the Southern Legal Resource Center, a law firm he co-founded and that has defended members of the Ku Klux Klan and other hate groups.

According to the SPLC, Lyons is a former member of the National Alliance, a neo-Nazi organization founded by William Pierce, the author of the Turner Diaries, a fictional blueprint for starting a race war and something of a bible for hate groups since it was published in 1978. Pages of Pierce’s novel were found in the getaway car driven by Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh in 1995.

Lyons’ own words tend to echo the revolutionary themes in Pierce’s novel. In a speech in 2000 to American Friends of the British National Party, Lyons explained the sort of movement he was hoping to lead. “The civil rights movement I am trying to form seeks a revolution,” he said in the speech. “We seek nothing more than a return to a godly, stable, tradition-based society with no ‘Northernisms’ attached, a hierarchical society, a majority European-derived country.”

In 2003, an SCV internal email was uncovered in which Lyons argues that members of the KKK should be allowed into the organization. According to the SPLC, the discovery of the email “set off a struggle over the SCV [over whether to allow the organization to radicalize] that continues to this day, [and] that has led to the loss of thousands of members, and badly damaged the group’s reputation.”

Lyons declined our requests for an interview.

Despite Lyons’ history, Walters says the camp is open to all races and religions. That said, not a single African-American is seen in any photos or videos of the camp posted online. When asked if there were any black campers, Walters said he’s “not sure.”

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