Hidden 10 stories below Grand Central Terminal, a secret basement can be found. This basement was a prime New York City target during World War II, as it provided electricity for trains in the Northeast dedicated to troop and equipment transport. The location remains confidential, and the facility continues to provide electricity to Metro-North trains.
Produced by Justin Gmoser. Additional camera by Sam Rega.
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They’ve got a list going over at The Atlantic: What Was the Most Significant Airplane Flight in History?
Flight of the Enola Gay, that’s a heavy one. And from my friend Christine Negroni: “In 1914, Abram Pheil became the very first passenger on the very first passenger flight, a 23-minute trip from St. Petersburg, Florida to Tampa. Like the 12-second flight of the Wright Brothers eleven years earlier, his brief time in the air has had an enormous impact on the world.”
It’s hard to argue with her. But some of the other entries, I don’t know. D.B. Cooper? United 175? Come on. Of course, there is no single correct answer. The idea of lists like these is to draw from different perspectives.
For me, the proper benchmark is less a matter of first, fastest, or highest, than a matter of scope, scale and influence. Thus, my entry would be this one:
The most significant flight of all time was Pan Am’s inaugural of the Boeing 747 in January, 1970. This was the aircraft that introduced the concept of affordable long-haul flying, and changed the face of global air travel more than any other plane in history.
Runner up would be the debut of the Douglas DC-3. Rolled out in 1935, the DC-3 wasn’t really the first of anything, but it perfected the evolution of the all-metal passenger transport to become the first truly profitable and mass-produced airliner. So many thousands of DC-3s were built, in civilian and military versions, both in the U.S. and under license abroad, that nobody knows for sure the actual count. As late as the 1960s more than a thousand were still in airline service. Today every passenger plane, from a ten-seater to the 777, bears a debt to this old piston twin.
Much the same way, Boeing’s four-engined 707 revolutionized air travel forever. The 707 was third in jetliner chronology — the star-crossed de Havilland Comet and the Soviet Union’s Tu-104 copycat came before it — but it was faster, with greater range and more seats, taking the Comet’s ill fortune and turning it into gold. At twice the speed of mainstay propliners, it safely crossed oceans and continents in unimaginable time. When, in 1958, Pan Am launched the 707 between New York and Paris (just like Lindbergh), the jet age truly was born.
A year later, American Airlines inaugurated transcon 707 non-stops between New York and Los Angeles. The poet Carl Sandburg was on that inaugural voyage. Scheduled westbound flying time in 1959: just under six hours. Scheduled time along that same route, a half century later: just under six hours.
Boeing’s 747 was the next great leap. The industry’s first-ever widebody, it took the 707’s economies of scale and more or less doubled them, ushering in, like or not, the concept of affordable travel for the masses. Plus, it was a gorgeous plane. Almost fifty years later, the 747 remains in production (for now), and of the vast Boeing inventory, only its 737 has sold more copies.
Pan Am was first again. Its Clipper Victor made the first flight between New York and London on January 21, 1970. Ironically this was the very same 747 destroyed at Tenerife seven years later, in history’s worst aviation disaster. Remarkably, this single aircraft (registration N736PA), was actually involved in two of the most significant flights of all time, one celebratory and the other catastrophic.
Yes, well, sorry to some of you who’d lobby for something flashier. The Concorde, I know, makes a prettier icon than the 707 or a DC-3. But while sexy and expensive, it proved nothing beyond the non-viability of the SST concept. Perhaps when hydrogen replaces kerosene this category will be reborn. Until then, here’s your supersonic whizjet.
Portions of this story appeared previously in the magazine Salon.
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One of the most significant US intelligence operations in modern history took place in the heart of Soviet Moscow, during an especially dangerous period of the Cold War.
From 1979 to 1985 — a span that includes President Ronald Reagan's "evil empire" speech, the 1983 US-Soviet war scare, the deaths of three Soviet General Secretaries, the shooting-down of KAL 007, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan — the CIA was receiving high-value intelligence from a source deeply embedded in an important Soviet military laboratory.
Over a period of several years, Adolf Tolkachev, an engineer overseeing a radar development lab at a Soviet state-run defense institute, passed the US information and schematics related to the next generation of Soviet radar systems.
Tolkachev transformed the US's understanding of Soviet radar capabilities. Prior to his cooperation with the CIA, US intelligence didn't know that Soviet fighters had "look-down, shoot-down" radars that could detect targets flying beneath the aircraft.
This was vitally important information. Thanks to Tolkachev, the US could develop its fighter aircraft, and its nuclear-capable cruise missiles, to take advantage of the latest improvements in Soviet detection — and to exploit gaps in Soviet radar systems.
The Soviets had no idea that the US was so aware of the state of their technology. If a hot war had ever broken out between the US and the Soviet Union, Tolkachev's information may have given the US a decisive advantage in the air and aided in guiding cruise missiles past Soviet detection systems. Tolkachev helped tip the US-Soviet military balance in Washington's favor. And he's part of the reason why, since the end of the Cold War, a Soviet-built plane has never shot down a US fighter aircraft in combat.
Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Hoffman's newly published book "The Billion Dollar Spy" is the definitive story of the Tolkachev operation. It's an extraordinary glimpse into how espionage works in reality, evoking the complex relationship between case officers and their sources, as well as the extraordinary methods that CIA agents use to exchange information right under the enemy's nose. And it revisits a compelling example of the unexpected ways in which technology can effect intelligence collection.
In the 1960s, the CIA was attempting to develop a hand-held two-way communications system that would allow case officers to swap messages with sources without having to physically meet.
There were a few possible advantages to these early Short-Range Agent Communications devices (SRAC). SRAC systems could eliminate detection risks associated with face-to-face meetings. Messages could be sent directly to sources, rather than left in vulnerable "dead drops" or conveyed through risky "brush passes" in public. Agents could transmit instructions in text-form over short distances, using radio frequencies that were far more difficult to intercept than those used for long-range or telephonic communications.
Buster, an early version of SRAC, had "two portable base stations — each about the size of a shoe box — and one agent unit that could be concealed in a coat pocket," Hoffman writes. "With a tiny keyboard one and a half inches square, the agent would first convert a text message into a cipher code, then peck the code into the keypad. Once the data were loaded — Buster could hold 1500 characters — the agent would go somewhere within a thousand feet of the base station and press a 'send' button."
This "primitive text-messaging system" underwent a major upgrade in the late 1970s. The Discus, a greatly improved version of Buster, "eliminated the need for the bulky base station and could transmit to a case officer holding a second small unit hundreds of feet away." The Discus consisted of just two devices that could send and receive messages, along with a keyboard larger and more user-friendly than Buster's. The terminals were small enough to fit in an agent or source's coat pocket.
In addition, the Discus automatically encrypted its messages, eliminating the cumbersome process of converting communications into cipher code. It could also transmit a larger data load than its predecessor.
As Hoffman puts it, the device was "way ahead of its time," a hand-held personal messaging system in an era when there was "nothing remotely like the Blackberry or the iPhone" in existence — except for the Discus.
At one point, the CIA considered giving Tolkachev a Discus that he could use to signal his handlers for meetings, since just relaying even basic messages in Cold War-era Moscow ran a a significant risk of exposure. Some hoped the Discus could eventually be used to send intelligence: "While the traditional method of dead drops usually took a day or longer to signal, place, and collect, the electronic communicator could transmit urgent intelligence almost instantly," Hoffman writes.
The Discus could be "an invulnerable magic carpet that would soar over the heads fo the KGB."
But there were a few drawbacks. In order to send and receive a message, both users had to remain still. A user would know that a message had arrived when a red light flashed on the device, but had to remain in place until they were positive it had been received. On top of that, even something as basic as checking for a flashing light on a concealed piece of complex electronics could give an operative away in a city swarming with counter-intelligence agents.
The Discus was also obvious spy equipment. There was no plausible cover story that a source could concoct if the device were ever spotted. It would almost necessarily compromise the source and expose the CIA's work.
There was another, more fundamental problem with the technology. The Tolkachev operation was successful in large part because a succession of talented CIA case officers had built up trust with the radar researcher based on little more than hand-written notes and brief and infrequent face-to-face meetings. From that, the CIA was able to build a profile of Tolkachev, analyzing his motives and state of mind and ensuring that the Agency wouldn't alienate, needlessly endanger, or psychologically break one of the most important intelligence assets in US history.
That was only possible because of masterful case officer handling of Tolkachev. "Human intelligence" methods that would still be essential to espionage regardless of how far technology advanced — as Hoffman writes, some of the agents involved in handling Tolkachev realized that in spite of the the Discus's impressive technology, "they still needed to look the agent in the eye, and Tolkachev needed to shake the hand of a case officer he could trust."
Tolkachev was eventually given a Discus, but never successfully used it to contact the CIA. Other, less technically sophisticated methods proved more effective in his case.
Hand-held communication devices are now ubiquitous around the world. The Discus represented a huge step forward, and it's a virtually unknown fore-runner of smart phone technology. But it's still an example of how even the most vaunted technology doesn't automatically solve every problem in intelligence and national security. The human element will always be decisive — no matter how good the technology may look.
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What does it mean to learn from history and can it make you a better investment professional?
Economic and financial history have been experiencing a “revival” in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, and governments and central banks have been using claims and assumptions about past historical events to support and justify their policy decisions, for better or for worse. Knowledge about economic and financial history matters at a macro/systemic level and for individual investment professionals. But do we know what we’re doing?
We asked CFA Institute Financial NewsBrief readers about the importance of economic and financial history to their success as investment professionals. Of the 844 responses, an overwhelming majority (96%) answered that it was either very or somewhat important. I suspect, however, that some may not know how to use this knowledge to make better investment decisions (or, at the very least, avoid poor ones).
Over the past few years, CFA Institute has started exploring, through practice analysis and forthcoming research projects, how investment professionals can integrate an understanding of past events into their worldviews and investment decision-making toolkits. The following five insights from roundtable discussions convened by CFA Institute in London and Boston on the subject provide helpful guidance on how historical perspectives can be incorporated into investment decision-making processes:
If you use the guidance above to work your way through a thoughtful process, you just might stumble on an insight that helps you avoid a bad decision, take an opposite and advantageous position in the market (exploiting someone else’s mistake), or prepare yourself and your clients for an impending development through better understanding and anticipation.
We are part of the history that future generations will study and we owe it to ourselves and the clients we serve to thoughtfully consider lessons from the past when making decisions that will impact our future.
In his fourth book, "American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures in North America," award-winning author Colin Woodard identifies 11 distinct cultures that have historically divided the US.
"The country has been arguing about a lot of fundamental things lately including state roles and individual liberty,"Woodard, a Maine native who won the 2012 George Polk Award for investigative reporting, told Business Insider.
"[But] in order to have any productive conversation on these issues," he added, "you need to know where you come from. Once you know where you are coming from it will help move the conversation forward."
Here's how Woodard describes each nation:
Encompassing the entire northeast north of New York City as well as parts of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, Yankeedom values education, intellectual achievement, communal empowerment, and citizen participation in government as a shield against tyranny. Yankees are comfortable with government regulation. Woodard notes that Yankees have a "Utopian streak." The area was settled by radical Calvinists.
A highly commercial culture, New Netherland is "materialistic, with a profound tolerance for ethnic and religious diversity and an unflinching commitment to the freedom of inquiry and conscience," according to Woodard. It is a natural ally with Yankeedom and encompasses New York City and northern New Jersey. The area was settled by the Dutch.
Settled by English Quakers, The Midlands are a welcoming middle-class society that spawned the culture of the "American Heartland." Political opinion is moderate and government regulation is frowned upon. Woodard calls the ethnically diverse Midlands "America's great swing region." Within the Midlands are parts of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, Kansas, and Nebraska.
Tidewater was built by the young English gentry in the area around the Chesapeake Bay and North Carolina. Starting as a feudal society that embraced slavery, the region places a high value on respect for authority and tradition. Woodard notes that Tidewater is in decline today, partly because "it has been eaten away by the expanding federal halos around D.C. and Norfolk."
Colonized by settlers from the war-ravaged borderlands of Northern Ireland, northern England, and the Scottish lowlands, Greater Appalachia is stereotyped as the land of hillbillies and rednecks. Woodard says Appalachia values personal sovereignty and individual liberty and is "intensely suspicious of lowland aristocrats and Yankee social engineers alike." It sides with the Deep South to counter the influence of federal government. Within Greater Appalachia are parts of Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Indiana, Illinois, and Texas.
The Deep South was established by English slave lords from Barbados and was styled as a West Indies-style slave society, Woodard notes. It has a very rigid social structure and fights against government regulation that threatens individual liberty. Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Texas, Georgia, and South Carolina are all part of the Deep South.
Composed of the borderlands of the Spanish American empire, El Norte is "a place apart" from the rest of America, according to Woodard. Hispanic culture dominates in the area, and the region values independence, self-sufficiency, and hard work above all else. Parts of Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, and California are in El Norte.
Colonized by New Englanders and Appalachian Midwesterners, the Left Coast is a hybrid of "Yankee utopianism and Appalachian self-expression and exploration," Woodard says, adding that it is the staunchest ally of Yankeedom. Coastal California, Oregon, and Washington are in the Left Coast.
The conservative west. Developed through large investment in industry, yet where inhabitants continue to "resent" the Eastern interests that initially controlled that investment. Among Far West states are Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Washington, Oregon, North Dakota, South Dakota, Colorado, Nevada, Utah, Nebraska, Kansas, Arizona, New Mexico, and California.
A pocket of liberalism nestled in the Deep South, its people are consensus driven, tolerant, and comfortable with government involvement in the economy. Woodard says New France is among the most liberal places in North America. New France is focused around New Orleans in Louisiana as well as the Canadian province of Quebec.
Comprised of Native Americans, the First Nation's members enjoy tribal sovereignty in the US. Woodard says the territory of the First Nations is huge, but its population is less than 300,000, most of whom live in the northern reaches of Canada.
Woodard says that among these 11 nations, Yankeedom and the Deep South exert the most influence and are constantly competing with each other for the hearts and minds of the other nations.
"We are trapped in brinkmanship because there is not a lot of wiggle room between Yankee and Southern Culture," Woodard says. "Those two nations would never see eye to eye on anything besides an external threat."
Woodard also believes the nation is likely to become more polarized, even though America is becoming a more diverse place everyday. He says this is because people are "self-sorting."
"People choose to move to places where they identify with the values. Red minorities go south and blue minorities go north to be in the majority," Woodard explains. "This is why blue states are getting bluer and red states are getting redder and the middle is getting smaller."
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Riding in an open car on the morning of June 27, 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, was assassinated along with his wife by a Serbian nationalist in Sarajevo, Bosnia.
On July 28th, 1914, a month after 19-year-old Gavrilo Princip killed Ferdinand, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia and invaded, igniting a conflict that would last five years and kill an estimated 17 million people.
Historians still debate whether the European powers would have fought a continent-wide war if Ferdinand hadn't been assassinated. But the immediate causes of the war still stemmed from the consequences of the Archduke's killing.
In the days after Ferdinand's death, Austria-Hungary — shaken by the prospect that the assassination would empower nationalists in the empire's often-unstable Balkan holdings — issued an ultimatum to Serbia demanding that Austria be allowed to send agents into the country to investigate possible connections between the kille and the Serbian government.
Serbia stalled and then mobilized its military. That's when superpower dynamics kicked in: Serbia was allied with Russia, which had a military alliance with France. Meanwhile, Austria-Hungary had an alliance with Germany, which was in turn allied with the Ottoman Empire. By the end of July 1914, Europe's military powers were mobilizing and the the continent was at war.
What could have been a containable crisis stemming from the Austro-Hungarian empire's weakening control over its periphery rapidly morphed into a conflict that killed millions. The assassination, and the fearsome and unstoppable cascade of events it unleashed, is one of history's prime examples of how countries can go to war without consciously intending to — and how seemingly manageable events can explode in ways that the existing international order can't control.
The Archduke's last words to his wife, who was hit in the stomach by a stray second shot were, "Sophie! Sophie! Don't die! Live for our children!," PBS News Hour reports.
She died in the car and Ferdinand passed away about 10 minutes later. The war would begin on July 28th, and end 4 years, 3 months, and 2 weeks later, on November 11th, 1918.
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Christianity is currently the world's largest religion with over 2 billion followers. Beginning with the son of a Jewish carpenter, the religion was spread around the world first by Jesus's disciples, then by emperors, kings, and missionaries. Through crusades, conquests, and simple word of mouth, Christianity has had a profound influence on the last 2,000 years of world history.
Produced by Alex Kuzoian
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Sometimes in life, the guy with the drunken, so-crazy-it-just-might-work ideas hits one out of the park and saves the day.
This is clearly what happened in 1942 aboard the HNLMS Abraham Crijnssen, the last Dutch warship standing after the Battle of the Java Sea.
Originally planning to escape to Australia with three other warships, the then-stranded minesweeper had to make the voyage alone and unprotected.
The slow-moving vessel could only get up to about 15 knots and had very few guns, boasting only a single 3-inch gun and two Oerlikon 20 mm canons — making it a sitting duck for the Japanese bombers that circled above.
Knowing their only chance of survival was to make it to Australia, the Crijnssen‘s 45 crew members frantically brainstormed ways to make the retreat undetected. The winning idea? Turn the ship into an island.
You can almost hear crazy-idea guy anticipating his shipmates’ reluctance: “Now guys, just hear me out…” But lucky for him, the Abraham Crijnessen was strapped for time, resources and alternative means of escape, automatically making the island idea the best idea.
Now it was time to put the plan into action.
The crew went ashore to nearby islands and cut down as many trees as they could lug back onto the deck. Then the timber was arranged to look like a jungle canopy, covering as much square footage as possible.
Any leftover parts of the ship were painted to look like rocks and cliff faces — these guys weren’t messing around.
Now, a camoflauged ship in deep trouble is better than a completely exposed ship. But there was still the problem of the Japanese noticing a mysterious moving island and wondering what would happen if they shot at it.
Because of this, the crew figured the best means of convincing the Axis powers that they were an island was to truly be an island: by not moving at all during daylight hours.
While the sun was up they would anchor the ship near other islands, then cover as much ocean as they could once night fell — praying the Japanese wouldn’t notice a disappearing and reappearing island amongst the nearly 18,000 existing islands in Indonesia. And, as luck would have it, they didn’t.
The Crijnssen managed to go undetected by Japanese planes and avoid the destroyer that sank the other Dutch warships, surviving the eight-day journey to Australia and reuniting with Allied forces.
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Four lost leaders of the first permanent English settlement in the Americas have been identified, thanks to chemical analysis of their skeletons, as well as historical documents.
The settlement leaders were mostly high-status men who were buried at the 1608 Jamestown church in Virginia. And all played pivotal roles in the early colony.
"They're very much at the heart of the foundation of the America that we know today," said Douglas Owsley, a forensic anthropologist at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., who helped identify the bodies. [See photos of the newly identified Jamestown settlers]
By analyzing the bones, researchers can get a snapshot of what it was like to live during the earliest days of America, Owsley said.
"It's a way of getting very detailed information you simply can't get from the history books," Owsley told Live Science.
Though the British had previously sent out settler ships (to the doomed colony of Roanoke), the British colonial adventure in America truly got started in Jamestown, Virginia.
English settlers disembarked from their ships in 1607 at an inland spot along the James River, marking a chunk of land as a prime location for a fortified settlement. Over the next few years, several boats would arrive, bearing hundreds of settlers to what would be called Jamestown.
But times were rough; during a six-month period in 1609 known as the "starving time," nearly 250 people died at Jamestown. At least some of the inhabitants resorted to cannibalism, according to a 2013 study by the same researchers.
In 2013, Owsley and his colleagues first unearthed the bodies, near the historic Jamestown church where Captain John Smith married Pocahontas. Two of the bodies were in fairly ornate, anthropomorphic coffins, though the bodies were poorly preserved.
To identify the men, the archaeologists combined genealogical and historical documents from both England and the colonies, along with artifacts and analyses of the chemicals in the skeletons. For instance, the elite often had higher levels of lead in their bones during this time, because they frequently used lead-containing pewter and lead-glazed ceramics for eating and drinking, Owsley said.
"These are high-status individuals, two of them particularly so," Owsley told Live Science.
One of the men was Ferdinando Weyman, who died in 1610 at around age 34. He was the uncle of Sir Thomas West, the governor of Virginia. Weyman was also related to another of the men identified, Captain William West. This man perished in 1610 after a fight with the Powhatan Indians. His body was identified thanks to a partly decayed, dirt-covered military sash that was found with the skeleton. The sash, still inside a block of dirt, was placed in a computed tomography (CT) scanner, which revealed a silk cloth decorated with silver fringe.
Both West and Weyman were buried in human-shaped coffins with a distinctive pattern of nails. Weyman had higher lead levels in his bones than the other individuals, indicating his elite status.
Another of the newly identified men was Captain Gabriel Archer, who died during the starving time in 1609 at the age of 34. Captain Archer was buried with the leading staff, an arrow-tipped staff that he used, enabling the team to identify him. Archer was also buried with a small silver box, known as a reliquary, containing bone fragments and pieces of a lead container for holding holy water atop his coffin. The artifact suggests he may have secretly clung to his Catholic faith.
The last man of the group was Reverend Robert Hunt. Unlike the more affluent men, he was buried in a simple shroud, facing west, toward the congregation he headed. Hunt died in 1608 around the age of 39.
The research team may do further analysis to confirm the men's identities. The bodies were poorly preserved, but it may be possible to extract some usable DNA from the remains, Owsley said.
"Even as we speak, we're looking at genetic evidence to see if I can show the connection between Weyman, who would be the uncle of William West," Owsley said.
While the team would like to identify other individuals from historic Jamestown, that could prove difficult, as fewer traces remain of most of the settlers, the researchers said.
"If you're a woman in the 17th century, you live totally in the shadow of your husband," Owsley said. "Most people would come and go and die at Jamestown, and nobody would write a word about them."
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Vienna (AFP) - "Please forgive me for what I've done, I could not resist love" -- these are the final dramatic words of Baroness Mary Vetsera, whose farewell letters were discovered in a bank vault in Vienna 126 years after she famously committed suicide with Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria, experts announced Friday.
Hailing the find as "sensational", the Austrian National Library (ONB) said bank employees had stumbled across the precious documents during a clear-out of the archives.
They had been there since 1926, according to the library.
"An unknown person deposited a leather-bound folder containing numerous personal documents, letters and photographs of the Vetsera family, including the farewell letters of Mary Vetsera from 1889," the ONB said in a statement.
"Dear Mother/ Please forgive me for what I've done/ I could not resist love/ In accordance with Him, I want to be buried next to Him in the Cemetery of Alland/ I am happier in death than life," the letter to Helen Vetsera read.
The ONB said it hoped the discovery would help shed light on one of the world's great romances, which has inspired numerous movies, novels, ballets and plays.
The bodies of Mary Vetsera, two months shy of turning 18, and the 30-year-old crown prince were discovered in January 1889 at a hunting lodge in the Viennese woods near the town of Mayerling.
The exact circumstances of their suicide-pact, commonly referred to as the "Mayerling incident", still remain unclear.
The prince is thought to have shot his lover before turning the gun on himself.
Their deaths sparked international headlines and became a source of speculation.
With the exception of a farewell letter from Rudolf to his wife, Stephanie, no other original documents related to the incident were believed to have survived.
"Until now it had been assumed that the letters had been destroyed after the mother's death," the ONB said.
Scientific research on the letters would begin in August, it added.
The letters, addressed to the baroness's mother, sister and brother, had been kept inside a closed envelope sealed with the crown prince's insignia.
The historical documents will go on public display at the library in 2016, as part of celebrations to mark the centenary of Emperor Franz Joseph's death.
The Associated Press and partner British Movietone have made 120 years of historical news footage available online for the first time ever by uploading 550,000 YouTube videos.
That adds up to over one million minutes of footage.
On the AP's new Youtube Channel and the British Movietone Channel, people now have instant access to footage of some of the most pivotal moments in modern history, including news footage of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby, and the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., as well as videos of the Titanic leaving an Irish port, the stock market crash of 1929, and the the bombing of Hiroshima.
The Washington Post reports that before putting this footage on Youtube, most of it was only available to be seen in historical archives or museums.
Here are 17 of the best videos released by the AP:
SEE ALSO: This map shows the US really has 11 separate 'nations' with entirely different cultures
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TOKYO (AP) — The 4 ½-minute speech that has reverberated throughout Japan's modern history since it was delivered by Emperor Hirohito at the end of World War II has come back to life in digital form.
Hirohito's "jewel voice"— muffled and nearly inaudible due to poor sound quality — was broadcast on Aug. 15, 1945, announcing Japan's surrender.
On Saturday, the Imperial Household Agency released the digital version of the original sound ahead of the 70th anniversary of the speech and the war's end.
In it, the emperor's voice appears clearer, slightly higher and more intense, but, Japanese today would still have trouble understanding the arcane language used by Hirohito.
"The language was extremely difficult," said Tomie Kondo, 92, who listened to the 1945 broadcast in a monitoring room at public broadcaster NHK, where she worked as a newscaster. "It's well written if you read it, but I'm afraid not many people understood what he said."
"Poor reception and sound quality of the radio made it even worse," she said. "I heard some people even thought they were supposed to fight even more. I think the speech would be incomprehensible to young people today."
Every Japanese knows a part of the speech where Hirohito refers to his resolve for peace by "enduring the unendurable and suffering what is insufferable," a phrase repeatedly used in news and dramas about the war.
When people heard that part 70 years ago, they understood the situation, Kondo says. But the rest is little known, largely because the text Hirohito read was deliberately written in arcane language making him sound authoritative and convincing as he sought people's understanding about Japan's surrender.
Amid growing concern among many Japanese over nationalist Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's push to expand Japan's military role, the current Emperor Akihito is increasingly seen as liberal and pacifist, and the effort by his father, Hirohito, to end the war has captured national attention.
Speaking in unique intonation that drops at the end of sentences, Hirohito opens his 1945 address with Japan's decision to accept the condition of surrender. He also expresses "the deepest sense of regret" to Asian countries that cooperated with Japan to gain "emancipation" from Western colonization.
Japan itself colonized the Korean Peninsula and occupied parts of China, often brutally, before and during World War II.
Hirohito also laments devastation caused by "a new and most cruel bomb" dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and asks everyone to stay calm while helping to reconstruct the country.
Its significance is that Hirohito, who at the time was considered a living deity, made the address, said Takahisa Furukawa, a historian at Nihon University in Tokyo.
"What's most important is the emperor reached out to the people to tell them that they had to surrender and end the war," he said. "The speech is a reminder of what it took to end the wrong war."
On the eve of the announcement, Hirohito met with top government officials to approve Japan's surrender inside a bunker dug at the palace compound.
Amid fear of violent protest by army officials refusing to end the war, the recording of Hirohito's announcement was made secretly. NHK technicians were quietly called in for the recording. At almost midnight, Hirohito appeared in his formal military uniform, and read the statement into the microphone, twice.
A group of young army officers stormed into the palace in a failed attempt to steal the records and block the surrender speech, but palace officials desperately protected the records, which were safely delivered to NHK for radio transmission the next day.
The drama of the last two days of the war leading to Hirohito's radio address was made into a film, "Japan's Longest Day," in 1967, and its remake will hit Japanese theaters on Aug. 8.
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If you're a perfume aficionado, you probably know the basics of the modern history of perfume.
You know how Guerlain and Coty were the first big companies to mass-produce perfume, you know that Chanel No 5 smashed sales records and made perfume history, and you understand how scents marketed by famous women from Elizabeth Taylor to Katy Perry have defined the perfume market for decades.
But the slick glass bottles and perfectly airbrushed celeb campaigns of today's perfume counters belie a frankly strange history that stretches back thousands of years — and involves chemicals derived from the butts of dead cats, the Crusades, "god sweat," scented feet, the Plague and whale vomit.
The history of perfume is more than just the history of human beings trying to smell nice — it's a history filled with much strife and innovation.
The ingredients that are used to create scents have historically been hugely important for trade routes; high-class scents have always been used as a method of distinguishing nobility from the peasantry (Elizabeth I wore a perfume made of musk and rose-water, while Napoleon ordered 50 bottles of cologne a month), and fragrance has been tied to expressions of religious devotion, health precautions and cleanliness efforts for most of the history of human civilization.
Here are some of the ancient origins of perfume. Take them in, and then look at your bathroom cabinet with relief.
The Egyptians were huge fans of perfume, and used it for both ceremonial and beautification purposes: fragrance was thought to be the sweat of the sun-god Ra.
They even had a god of perfume, Nefertum, who wore a head dress made of water lilies (one of the biggest perfume ingredients of the time). Archaeologists have also uncovered many Egyptian recipes and elaborate prescriptions for perfume-making.
If you were a king or other person of high status in Egyptian society, perfume of some sort was going to be part of your everyday life, smeared on you in the form of scented oil to keep you fragrant. (In the modern world, alcohol is the base material on which perfumes are built, but in ancient times, perfumes were made with an oil base.)
In fact, the University of Bonn is currently trying to recreate apharaoh's perfume from 1479 BC, based off its dessicated remains found in a flagon. Chances are it'll be sticky and smell heavily of river botanicals and incense. (And no, poor people didn't get to wear any perfume.)
Egyptians imported huge amounts of perfume ingredients from Punt, a region of Africa which specialized in aromatic woods and myrrh — so much so that the perfume trade was a big part of international relations for both of the regions. It was basically the equivalent of the U.S. and China striking a million-dollar trade deal for sandalwood.
The ancient Persian royal class was also seriously invested in perfume — so much so that it was common for kings to be pictured with perfume bottles in Persian art.
The legendary rulers Darius and Xerxes are shown in one relief sitting comfortably with their perfume bottles and holding perfume flowers in their hands. It was the ancient equivalent of Prince William having a Burberry fragrance contract.
The Persians dominated the perfume trade for hundreds of years, and many believe that they invented the distillation process that led to the discovery of base alcohol. One thing we do know for sure is that Avicenna, the Persian doctor, chemist and philosopher, experimented extensively with distillationto try and make better scents, and was the first to figure out the chemistry behind perfumes that weren't oil-based.
So many ancient Roman and Greek perfume recipes have survived (including those inked carefully by people like Pliny the Elder in his Natural History) that we are actually able to recreate ancient perfumes in our modern era. The ancient Greeks and Romans carefully documented their perfume-making processes.
In fact, there's even a mural in a perfume-maker's house in Pompeii documenting the process of making Greco-Roman perfumes: first, oil was made by pressing olives; then ingredients like plants and woods were added to the oil using meticulous scale measurements from a recipe; finally, they were left to "steep"— that is, the ingredients were left in the oil so that the oil could take on its scent — before being sold.
The world's oldest perfume factory was unearthed in Cyprus in 2007 — the mythological home of Aphrodite, goddess of love.
But this probably wasn't a coincidence.
The cult of Aphrodite's strong cultural link to perfume meant that this perfume factory was probably supplying scents for the temples and worshippers. Perfume was often used in ancient societies to bring believers closer to the gods. But scent wasn't just for religious purposes: it was everywhere. By a rough guess, by 100 AD Romans were using 2800 tons of frankincense a year, and perfume was used in beauty products, public baths and even on the soles of feet.
Ironically, Pliny's meticulously kept recipe records were actually part of acondemnation of perfumes.
In James I. Porter's Constructions of The Classical Body, he points out that excessive use of perfumes were actually seen as un-Roman by some; Pliny approvingly recounts how an aristocrat's hiding place was discovered by the scent of his perfume. Some people definitely thought pretty scents should stay confined to the temples.
The ancient Chinese relationship with scent didn't really focus on the body: rather than wearing perfume, ancient Chinese culture utilized scent by burning incense and fragrant material in special spaces.
Histories of the use of scent in Chinese society tend to emphasize that perfumes weren't originally considered a cosmetic there; rather, they were used for disinfection and purity, as it was believed that they could eliminate disease from rooms.
While scented flowers were a part of traditional gardens, and mandarin oranges were once used by noblewomen to scent their hands, it seems that for centuries, wearing perfumes on your body wasn't necessarily the "in thing" in China.
But even though there's a myth today that there was no perfume used on bodies in ancient China, it's nonsense.
According to Chinese chemistry historians, the period between the Sui and the Song dynasties was rife with personal perfumes, with nobles competing for the best scents and importing ingredients via the Silk Road. By the Qing dynasty (1644-1912), the emperor seems to have carried a "perfume pouch" year-round, an adaptation of the traditional pocket pouch that brought good luck — except that his was stuffed with fragrant herbs.
The big difference between this and other perfume traditions, though? A lot of Chinese perfume ingredients were also used for many other purposes, like food and medicine.
If you were anybody in Europe from the 1200s to about the 1600s, you carried a pomander — a ball of scented materials, kept inside a lovely open case, and used to ward off infection and keep the air around you clean. Since the medieval Europeans literally thought that bad air could make you sick (it's called the theory of the miasma, which postulated that diseases were thought to be suspended in badly scented, unhealthy air), these little baubles were seen as life-savers as well as charming accessories.
The whole idea of this portable perfume seems to have popped up in the Middle Ages after Crusaders, returning from holy wars in Arabia, also brought back their enemies' perfume-making secrets.
Even though the idea of personal oil-based perfumes didn't catch on, they discovered that civet, castor, musk, ambergris and other animal-based products made great bases for scents, and carried scent bags or sachets to perfume their clothes.
But the first alcohol-based perfume was created in this period, too: it was known as Hungary Water, because it was believed to have been created for the Queen of Hungary during the 14th century, and involved distilled alcohol and herbs (probably rosemary and mint).
And in case you were wondering what those animal-based ingredients were, I hope you have a strong stomach.
Musk is a secretion from the "musk pod" of the male musk deer, an organ used for marking territory; civet is a liquid from the anal glands of civet cats; castor is made from the scent glands of beavers; and ambergris is a grey oily lump found in the digestive systems of sperm whales, probably a byproduct of trying to digest squid. Yep. Glamorous.
A serious breakthrough in perfume production came in medieval Italy, when they discovered how to create aqua mirabilis, a clear substance made of 95 percent alcohol and imbued with strong scent. And thus, the liquid perfume was born. After this invention, Italy — Venice in particular — became the center of the world perfume trade for several hundred years.
If there's one person who definitely brought Italian perfume to France and the rest of the world, it was Catherine de Medici, who as an Italian bride wed to the French king had her own perfume made up for her by her Italian parfumier, Rene le Florentin (Rene the Florentine) – a scented water with bergamot and orange blossom. He also created musk and civet-scented gloves for her, which were a sensation.
Given that Catherine's been accused of murdering people with gloves daubed with poison, this is actually pretty poetic.
From there, things accelerated: after a brief dip in perfume popularity in repressed Victorian England, synthetic compounds began to be discovered in the late 1800s, and the modern perfume industry was born.
So next time you daub on some of your Miss Dior, enjoy — and be thankful you're not carrying around beaver-butt liquid.
A quarter century ago, after Saddam Hussein's Iraqi army successfully invaded and took over the tiny Persian Gulf nation of Kuwait, President George H.W. Bush famously drew a line in the sand against Iraqi aggression.
While the United States and its allies easily ejected Iraq from Kuwait within seven months of the Aug. 2, 1990, invasion, Bush's line has continued onward in an almost Biblical fashion, accompanied by plenty of pre-modern horrors.
The Gulf War begat the 9/11 terrorist attacks, which begat the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, which begat ISIS, which begat a potential future war with Iran or Syria or even what remains of Iraq.
At the time, however, Bush said standing up to Hussein's Iraq was necessary to protect neighboring Saudi Arabia, a key US ally and the world's largest oil producing country, both then and now.
"The sovereign independence of Saudi Arabia is a vital interest to the United States," said Bush, a Republican.
On Aug. 7, 1990, US troops deployed to Saudi Arabia, the US Navy stationed two aircraft carrier battle groups in the nearby Persian Gulf, and Operation Desert Shield began.
Ultimately, a 34-nation coalition brought some 700,000 troops to the Middle East (about 75 percent were American), over a five-month period, as Hussein continued to threaten Saudi Arabia and Iraqi soldiers committed various atrocities against Kuwaitis.
After Hussein refused to comply with an United Nations resolution demanding Iraqi troops leave Kuwait, the coalition attacked on Jan. 17, 1991, with a massive, continuing aerial assault known as Operation Desert Storm.
A 100-hour ground campaign from Feb. 24-28, 1991, finally removed Iraq's military from Kuwait. Bush immediately declared a cease-fire, declining to keep fighting Iraqi troops back to Baghdad or to go after Hussein.
Then-Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney said Bush absolutely made the right decision to end the war without adding to the 148 US combat deaths and 145 non-hostile casualties. The Pentagon estimates 20,000 to 30,000 Iraqis were killed in the war.
"The question in my mind is how many additional American casualties is Saddam worth? And the answer is not that damned many," Cheney said in a 1992 speech at Seattle's Discovery Institute.
"So, I think we got it right, both when we decided to expel him from Kuwait, but also when the president made the decision that we'd achieved our objectives and we were not going to go get bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq."
In the immediate aftermath, the Gulf War was widely seen as a successful counterpoint to the Vietnam War, and it solidified Bush's argument, originally made in a Sept. 11, 1990, address to Congress, for a US-led "new world order" focused on spreading democracy and capitalism.
The collapse of the Soviet Union on Dec. 26, 1991, seemed to reinforce Bush's vision. But Bush's victories in war and peace were not enough to prevent an economic recession from torpedoing his chances against Democrat Bill Clinton in the 1992 presidential election.
However, not everyone was pleased with the American defense of Saudi Arabia.
One Saudi native, who previously used secretly supplied US equipment and training to help repel the 1979-89 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, told the Saudi king only Muslim fighters should defend the homeland of Mecca and Medina, the two holiest sites in Islam.
That man, Osama bin Laden, was exiled for his criticism. In 1996, bin Laden and the al-Qaida organization he led declared war on the United States for continuing to station troops in Saudi Arabia long after the Iraqi threat was resolved.
Following a series of late 1990s attacks on US embassies and military installations, al-Qaida terrorists commandeered four airplanes on Sept. 11, 2001, and crashed them into the World Trade Center towers, the Pentagon and in a Pennsylvania field — killing 2,977 victims and the 19 hijackers.
In response, President George W. Bush sent troops to root out al-Qaida in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the Middle East.
Bush and Cheney, now vice president, also used the crisis to justify invading Iraq in 2003 and eliminating Hussein for good, even though the Iraqi leader was not affiliated with al-Qaeda and he did not have the weapons of mass destruction Bush claimed Hussein was eager to share with terrorists.
President Barack Obama officially ended the Iraq War in 2011, but the continuing weakness of the Iraqi government and military allowed ISIS, also known as the Islamic State, to take over vast swaths of the country and impose a brutal form of sharia law, complete with regular beheadings and creatively violent mass killings.
Boston University historian and retired US Army Col. Andrew Bacevich said in retrospect Bush's new world order led to greater disorder, as American leaders mistakenly relied on their positive Gulf War experience in choosing to repeatedly engage in military conflicts around the world throughout the 1990s and 2000s.
But unlike the Gulf War, Bacevich explained last year in Wilson's Quarterly magazine, the United States in those conflicts did not follow Gen. Colin Powell's doctrine of only fighting with overwhelming force and a clearly defined exit strategy.
As a result, the nation's military has been stuck fighting ill-defined, unwinnable wars in more places than ever before, and without any actual sacrifice required from civilians other than banal statements about supporting the troops.
"In 1991, a brief, one-sided war with Iraq persuaded Americans, who thought they had deciphered the secrets of history, that the rising tide of globalization will bring the final triumph of American values," Bacevich said. "As Operation Desert Storm recedes into the distance, its splendor fades. But its true significance comes into view."
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It's probably one of the best-known images of World War II, the enduring photograph that captures the last seconds of Leonard Siffleet's life.
The photograph came to light after US troops discovered it on the body of a dead Japanese officer near Hollandia in 1944.
Featured in various newspapers and in Life magazine, it was thought to depict Flight Lieutenant Bill Newton, who had been captured in Salamaua, Papua New Guinea, and was beheaded on March 29, 1943. Even today, the soldier is still occasionally misidentified as Newton.
The soldier, who would become known because of the circumstances of his death, was actually Leonard George "Len" Siffleet.
He was born on January 14, 1916, at Gunnedah, New South Wales, Australia. Siffleet, who loved sports and adventure, moved in the late 1930s to Sydney to search for work. He tried to join the police forces but was rejected for having poor eyesight.
Nevertheless, in August 1940 Siffleet was still called up for military service, and he served in a searchlight unit at Richmond Air Force Base for three months before returning to civilian life. Not long after in September 1941, he enlisted in the Second Australian Imperial Force and joined the 1st Division Signals Company at Ingleburn.
Leonard Siffleet went on a signals course at Melbourne Technical College before he volunteered for special operations in September 1942. He was posted to the Z Special unit. In October 1943 he went to the Z Experimental Station in Cairs, where he would receive further training.
Siffleet was promoted to sergeant on May 5, 1943, and he was assigned as a radio operator in his unit. Not long after his promotion he was transferred to M Special Unit and was sent to Hollandia, Papa New Guinea, with his fellow soldiers.
In mid-September 1943, while part of a team led by a Sergeant Staverman, which included two Ambonese members of the Netherlands East Indies Forces, a Private Pattiwahl and a Private Reharin, Siffleet was underway to Aitape while traveling behind Japanese lines. At some point in October 1943, they were discovered by New Guinea natives and surrounded. Siffleet fired on some of the attackers before fleeing, but he was quickly caught along with his companions.
The New Guinea natives turned them over to the Japanese troops. The men were taken to Malol, where they were brutally interrogated. After being interned there for two weeks, they were moved to Aitape.
On October 24, 1943, Sergeant Siffleet, Private Pattiwahl, and Private Reharin were marched to Aitape Beach. Bound and blindfolded, kneeling before a crowd of Japanese and native onlookers, they were forced to the ground and executed by beheading.
Vice Admiral Kamada, the commander of the Japanese Naval Forces at Aitape, ordered the execution. Yasuno Chikao, who carried out the beheadings, was sentenced to death after the war. The sentence was subsequently commuted to 10 years imprisonment as it was determined he had acted in a subordinate capacity.
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Modern humans have been in the making for over 500 million years.
Back then, vertebrates (animals with a spinal cord or backbone) were the new kids on Earth. Over a long, long time, those early vertebrates gradually evolved into the wildly diverse species with backbones we see all over the world today, including humans.
This animation on Hashem AL-ghalili's YouTube Channel, using graphics adopted from a Dutch picture book, starts with modern humans and condenses the 550 million years of evolution from our earliest ancestors into less than a minute.
The first part, depicting humans evolving from great apes, looks pretty familiar:
Rewinding again, the animation shows acanthostega coming from lobe-finned fish called sarcopterygii (that had fins with bones and muscles). The rapid backwards journey ends with two little wriggling worms, representing the first existing animals.
It's all a reminder that humans have had a long odyssey to get where we are today.
Watch the whole, continuous story of how we got here:
In the grand scheme of things, the Vietnam War tends to get the short end of the stick when it comes to great stories of war — maybe it’s too recent or painful an event to be remembered with the nostalgia associated with World War II.
Regardless, the story of James Nicholas “Nick” Rowe is one that deserves a spot in the limelight, and it might be one you haven’t heard before.
Not only was Rowe a Green Beret during Vietnam, he would also create the Army SERE course, a grueling training course that teaches methods of “survival, evasion, resistance, and escape” for when soldiers are captured by the enemy.
One of the training’s more notorious tasks is learning how to drink snake blood to keep up your calorie intake, so it’s safe to say Rowe was a pretty hardcore guy.
But even the best of the best can get caught by surprise.
While on a mission supporting South Vietnamese irregulars against the Viet Cong, Rowe and his fellow Green Berets walked into an ambush. The men fought valiantly, but after exchanging fire they were overpowered and taken as prisoners. When they reached the POW camp they were separated and locked in cages, entering a living hell that they would endure for the next five years.
It only got worse for Rowe. The Viet Cong knew he was the leader of his unit, and suspected he had information. They were right. Rowe served as the captured unit’s intelligence officer, and possessed exactly the kind of information the Viet Cong desperately needed.
As a result, Rowe had to endure near-constant torture, on top of the already deplorable conditions of the prison. At one point Rowe confessed his “true” position, claiming he was just an engineer, but the VC weren’t going to let him off easy.
They cut the torture to give Rowe engineering problems to solve. Amazingly, despite the fact that he was starving, living in a cage and was not an engineer, he completed it correctly. His torturers were satisfied, and Rowe thought he could rest easy thanks to West Point’s mandatory engineering courses.
He was wrong. Around the same time, a group of American peace activists were on a mission to visit American officers in Vietnamese prisoner of war camps. The goal of the excursion was a little fuzzy, but they essentially wanted to prove that the North Vietnamese’s prison methods were above board. Rowe’s name was on their list of officers to visit, along with the fact that he was a Special Forces intelligence officer.
When the Viet Cong discovered the lie, they forced Rowe to stand naked in a swamp for days on end, leaving him ravaged by mosquitos and dizzy with lack of food or water. They were fed up with this phony engineer and his multiple escape attempts, and decided enough was enough. They gave Rowe an execution date, eager to rid themselves of his antics.
When the day finally came, Rowe was led far away from the camp, when suddenly a group of American helicopters thundered overhead, rustling the jungle trees and giving Rowe the split second of time he needed to break free, fend off his captors and sprint after the helicopters. Amazingly, one of the choppers noticed Rowe waving like a maniac in a clearing, and was able to rescue him from his scheduled death.
Escaping a prisoner of war camp is no easy feat, and many who have made it to freedom recount plotting their escape plans for months, even years, to execute it right on the first try.
This, apparently, was not Airey Neave’s style. Instead of biding his time, the British soldier escaped from World War II POW camps whenever he could, undeterred by failed attempts.
Finally, when he and his friend were caught in Poland after escaping German POW camp Stalag XX-A, he was collected by the Gestapo, who sent him to Oflag IV-C, AKA the Castle of Colditz — AKA the last stop for all troublemaking POWs.
It may look like a summer home fit for the Von Trapp family, but this place was no joke. If you’re doubtful you can read up on some accounts of the “escape proof” castle here.
The castle’s prisoners weren’t as confident in its “inescapable” qualities and instead just came up with ridiculously complex plans of escape.
Unsuccessful attempts involved the construction of a small wooden glider, a network of underground tunnels, and prisoners sewing themselves into mattresses to be smuggled out with the laundry. Tempting as these flashy failures were, Neave decided to take a more theatrical approach to his escape.
After he secretly acquired pieces of a Polish army uniform, he painted the shirt and cap green to resemble a German officer’s ensemble. Then he put on his new duds and strolled out of the prison like a Nazi on his way to Sunday dinner with his girl. What he didn’t anticipate, however, was how reflective the paint would be; once outside, he lit up like a Christmas tree under the guard’s searchlight passed over him. It didn’t end well.
But Neave still thought the idea was pretty awesome, and pulled the stunt a second time a few months later, with an updated “uniform” of cardboard, cloth, and more Nazi-green. He also had a partner in crime this time, another prisoner named Anthony Luteyn, who was also sporting a mock German getup.
During an all-inmate stage production that the prison sponsored and put on, Neave and Lutyen quietly slipped off stage, crawled underneath the floorboards that held the dancing inmates and were right above the guards' headquarters.
From there the pair dropped into the room from the ceiling and acted natural, strolling about and exchanging pleasantries in German as if they were simply visiting officers. Once they had ensured no one was suspicious, they calmly made their exit.
Once outside of the prison, they threw away the homemade German uniforms and pretended to be two Dutch workers on their way to Ulm from Leipzeg, with (fake) papers to prove it. Unfortunately, the phony documents ended up getting the two stopped by German police, but they bought the disguises and sent them to the foreign aid office, believing they were just confused immigrants.
Despite this and other close calls, Neave and Lutven continued their journey — all on foot — until they made it to Switzerland, where they were finally free. Neaves would later work to ensure there were quality escape lines for other POWS in Europe, and would also serve on the Nuremberg Trials.
While the above escapists have steered clear of the old tunnel-digging prison cliche, it’s still an effective method. In fact, US airman Roger Bushell took the wartime tradition a step further by constructing a system of three tunnels in a German Air Force POW camp at the height of World War II.
The tunnels, nicknamed “Tom”, “Dick”, and “Harry,” were each 30 feet deep. This way, Bushell hoped, they wouldn’t be detected by the camp’s perimeter microphones. Each tunnel was also only about two feet wide, though there were larger sections that contained an air pump and a space full of digging supplies. Pieces of wood were used to ensure the stability of the tunnel walls.
Electric lighting was installed and attached to the prison’s electric grid, allowing the diggers to work and travel by lamplight 10 yards under the ground’s surface. The operation even advanced far enough to incorporate a rail car system into their tunnel network, which was used to carry tons and tons of building materials back and forth during the 5-month construction period.
Just as the “Harry” tunnel was completed in 1944, the American officers who had toiled over the escape route were moved to a new camp. The rest of the prisoners attempted an escape about a week later on March 24, but they had unfortunately miscalculated where their tunnels would end.
Initially believing the secret tunnel would dump them inside a forest, they emerged to realize that they were short of the tree line and completely exposed. Still, over 70 men crawled through the dark, dank tunnels to the other side, rushing to the trees once they surfaced. Tragically, on March 25th, a German guard spotted the 77th man crawling out of the tunnel, leading to the capture of 73 of the men, and later the execution of 50 of them.
Only three would survive and make it to freedom, but the escape had gone down as one of the most elaborate in history.
You didn’t really think we were going to just breeze by that wooden glider story, did you?
There have been plenty of wacky escape methods, but none as bold or sophisticated as literally building yourself a two-man wooden plane.
At least, this was the plan. Jack Best and Bill Goldfinch were similar to Neave in their can-do, slightly certifiable approach to escape. The men were pilots, and decided that the best way to bust out of the German castle was to do what they did best: fly. Or, more accurately in this case, glide. The Colditz castle was built atop a large cliff, perfect for launching a secret and probably highly unstable aircraft.
Goldfinch and Best began building the glider’s skeleton in the attic above the prison chapel, figuring the height would give it enough time to glide across the Mulde river, which was situated about 200 feet below the building.
To keep the Germans from walking in on the construction, the pair built a false wall out of old pieces of wood, the same stuff they constructed the glider out of. The plane was mostly made up out of bed slats and floor boards, but the men used whatever material they could get their hands on that they thought the Germans wouldn’t miss. Control wires were going to be created from electrical wiring that was found in quieter sections of the castle.
Though the operation was deemed moot before it could ever be carried out (the Axis released the prisoners before it could be flown), we felt this almost-escape deserved some recognition because by many accounts, it would have worked. In 2000, a replica of the Colditz glider was constructed for a documentary entitled “Escape from Colditz”, and was actually flown successfully at RAF Odiham.
It gets even cooler, though. Best and Goldfinch were able to watch the whole thing go down, and witness their “escape” firsthand.
The average American family may be getting smaller and smaller, but the houses have grown bigger than ever. In the last 40 years, the single-family American house has expanded in area by 61%.
If four decades could make such a difference, imagine what the houses must have been like 400 years ago.
To do that, check out a new infographic put together by the Brooklyn-based design studio Pop Chart Lab. The graphic features 121 hand-drawn American houses of various eras, giving a glimpse of the history of American houses from 1600 to today:%20(1).jpg)
The houses fall under seven broad architectural categories, represented by color codes: Colonial, Vernacular, Romantic, Victorian, Eclectic, Modern, and Neo-Eclectic.
Those categories are further broken down into 40 groups ranging from 17th century Postmedieval English houses to 19th century Tudors, all the way to the McMansions of the 1990s.
It's interesting to notice the differences — both subtle and obvious — in the way the roofs, facades, and porches have been designed over the years. All those details say much about the influence of land availability, climate, family size, and resources on the way we built houses in different eras.
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One of the most significant US intelligence operations in modern history took place in the heart of Soviet Moscow, during one of the most dangerous stretches of the Cold War.
From 1979 to 1985, a span that includes President Ronald Reagan's "evil empire" speech, the 1983 US-Soviet war scare, the deaths of three Soviet General Secretaries, the shooting-down of KAL 007, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the CIA was receiving high-value intelligence from a source deeply embedded in an important Soviet military laboratory.
Over a period of several years and 21 meetings with CIA case officers in Moscow, Adolf Tolkachev, an engineer overseeing a radar development lab at a Soviet state-run defense institute, passed the US information and schematics the revealed the next generation of Soviet radar systems.
Tolkachev struggled to convince the CIA he was trustwory: He spent two years attempting to contact US intelligence officers and diplomats, semi-randomly approaching cars with diplomatic license plates with a US embassy prefix.
When the CIA finally decided to trust him, Tolkachev transformed the US's understanding of Soviet radar capabilities, something that informed the next decade of US military and strategic development.
Prior to his cooperation with the CIA, US intelligence didn't know that Soviet fighters had "look-down, shoot-down" radars that could detect targets flying beneath the aircraft. Thanks to Tolkachev, the US could engineer its fighter aircraft — and its nuclear-capable cruise missiles — to take advantage of the latest improvements in Soviet detection and to exploit gaps in the enemy's radar systems.
The Soviets had no idea that the US was so aware of the state of their technology. Tolkachev helped tip the US-Soviet military balance in Washington's favor. He's also part of the reason why, since the end of the Cold War, a Soviet-built plane has never shot down a US fighter aircraft in combat.
Pulitzer Prize-winning author David E. Hoffman's newly published book "The Billion Dollar Spy" is the definitive account of the Tolkachev operation. It's an extraordinary glimpse into how espionage works in reality, evoking the complex relationship between case officers and their sources, as well as the extraordinary methods that CIA agents use to exchange information right under the enemy's nose.
It's also about how espionage can go wrong: In 1985, a disgruntled ex-CIA trainee named Edward Lee Howard defected to the Soviet Union after the agency fired him over a series of failed polygraph tests. Howard was supposed to serve as Tolkachev's case officer. Instead, he handed him to the KGB.
Business Insider recently spoke with Hoffman, who won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize in general nonfiction for The Dead Hand, an acclaimed history of the final decade of the Cold War arms race.
Hoffman talked about some of the lessons of the Tolkachev case. Successful espionage, he said, is like a "moonshot," an enormous effort that only works when cascades of unpredictable variables are meticulously kept in check.
And as Hoffman notes, his book is a unique glimpse into how such an incredibly complex undertaking unfolds on a day to day basis.
"You can read a lot of literature about espionage but rarely do you get to coast along on the granular details of a real operation," Hoffman says, in reference to the over 900 CIA cables relating to the Tolkachev case that he was able to access. "That’s what I had."
The archive, along with the scores of interviews Hoffman conducted in researching the book, yielded unexpected insights into the realities of spycraft: "I was really surprised by both the sort of quest for perfectionism" among the agents who handled the Tolkachev case, says Hoffman, "but also by the enormous number of things that can and did go wrong."
The interview has been edited for clarity and length.
BI: Your book the story of a CIA triumph: They run this source in the heart of Moscow for 5 or 6 years and get this bonanza of intelligence. But it’s also a story of organizational failure — about how this asset was eventually betrayed from within the CIA’s own ranks.
Is there a message in these two interrelated stories about the nature of intelligence collection and the challenges that US intelligence agencies face?
David E. Hoffman: On the first point, I think the big message, which is still very valid today, is the absolutely irreplaceable value of human source intelligence.
We live in an era when people are romanced by technology, the CIA included. Between what you scoop up from people’s emails and what satellites can see and signals intelligence, there always seems to be a new technological way to get various kinds of intelligence.
But this book reminded me that there is one category of espionage that is irreplaceable, and that is looking a guy in the eye and finding out what the hell is going on that isn’t in the technology — that can't be captured by satellites. Satellites cannot see into the minds of people. They can’t even see into a file cabinet.
Even in the cyber age, it seems to me that you still have to get that particular human source, that spy that will do what nobody else will do: to let you sort of bridge the air gap, plug in the USB thumb drive if that’s necessary, to tell you something that nobody has written down ...
Tolkachev was that kind of human source, an absolutely sterling example of someone who could bring stuff that you couldn’t get any other way.
The second point is, you called it institutional dysfunction but I think there’s a larger factor here which is counterintelligence ...
[Intelligence] cannot simply be a matter of collection. You also have to have defenses against being penetrated by the other guys.
We live in a world where the forces of offense and defense are in perpetual motion. Counterintelligence is part of that. And counterintelligence is what really failed here.
I think it was also institutional dysfunction in the way they treated Howard. That wasn’t a counterintelligence problem so much it was a sort of incompetence: They fired a guy, they said get lost, and he was vengeful.
But I also think that — maybe not particularly in this case but just generally — the CIA did not value counterintelligence highly enough for a long time. Really the events that followed Tolkachev — [Aldrich] Ames [see here], [Robert] Hanssen [see here], that whole period of the 1985-86 losses [see here] — were a failure of counterintelligence ...
There were really some big vulnerabilities there. In the end Tolkachev was exposed and betrayed by a disgruntled, vengeful fired trainee. But there were other losses soon to follow that were caused by essentially not having strong enough counterintelligence in place.
BI: It's interesting how much the success of the operation had to do with these agents understanding Tolkachev's state of mind based on these very short meetings that would be spaced months and months apart.
And from that they would have to build out some kind of sense of who this guy was. From the looks of it they did so fairly successfully for awhile.
DEH: That’s my toughest question. Espionage at its real core is psychology. You're a case officer, you’re running an agent — what is in the soul of that man? What’s in his heart, what motivates him?
These are all questions that you have to try to answer for headquarters but also for yourself, in trying to play on his desires and understand them. Sometimes it can be a real test of will as you saw in this particular narrative. This psychological business can be very difficult ...
A couple of times early in the operation Tolkachev revealed his deep antipathy towards the Soviet system. He said I’m a dissident at heart, he describes how fed up he is with the way things were in the Soviet Union.
He gives only a very very skimpy factual account of his wife’s parents travails, but I was able to research them in Moscow and discovered that his wife grew up without her parents. Her mother was executed and her father was imprisoned for many years during Stalin’s purges. And Tolkachev was bitter about that.
He also came of age in the time when [Nobel-prize winning author Alexander Solzhenitsyn] and [Nobel Peace Prize-winning physicist and activist Andrei Sakharov] were also sort of coming of age as dissidents.
All of that rumbled around behind these impassive eyes. It's not as if he handed over a book saying, I’m a dissident and here’s my complaint. Instead he handed over secret plans and said, I’m a dissident and I want to destroy the Soviet Union.
This psychological war and test of nerves of constantly trying to read a guy is really the most unpredictable and most difficult part of espionage. In this case, I’m not sure it was always successful.
The case officers did grasp that Tolkachev was determined. He expressed this sort of incredible determination, banging on the car doors and windows for 2 years to get noticed.
And when he’s working for the CIA he gives them his own espionage plan that takes years and multiple stages that he had mapped out. He’s a very, very determined guy. But what’s driving that isn’t always clear to the case officers.
BI: How does Tolkachev’s story fit in to the larger story of the end of the Cold War arms race?
I don’t think you could make the extravagant claim that he ended the Cold War or that he ended the arms race. But that's not to minimize what Tolkachev did do. One of the things I discovered was how uncertain we were about Soviet air defenses in that period at the end of the Cold War ...
There was always a funny thing going on with the Soviet Union. They had a lot of resources and were a very large country and the state and the military industrial complex was a big part of it. They always built a lot of hardware.
In fact they had a huge number of air-defense fighters and bases positioned all around their borders. [Air defense] wasn’t such a big deal for us but for them, the enemy was at their doorstop, right in Europe. They also had the world's longest land borders. They had a lot to defend.
The US saw all the deployments but there was also evidence that Soviet training was poor, that the personnel who manned all these things were not up to it, [and] that there was a goofy system where pilots were told exactly what to do by ground controllers and had very little autonomy.
The intelligence about whether the Soviets had look-down shoot-down radar was very uncertain. Some people said no, they don’t have it, some said yeah. And here’s were Tolkachev stepped into the breach.
Within a few years of his work, we knew exactly what they had and what they were working on. Tolkachev was also bringing us not only what ws happening now but what would be happening 10 years from now. A
nd if you think about it in real time, if you were in the Air Force and thinking about how you were going to deal with Soviet air defenses, getting a glimpse of their research and development 10 years ahead was invaluable ...
There was also a fine line between [air defenses] and the nuclear issue. There were two aspects to strategic nuclear weapons that depended on air defenses and the kind of stuff Tolkachev brought us.
One was obviously bombers. In the early days of the Cold War [the US had] a high altitude strategy. B-52s would fly at a very high altitude and bomb from 50,000 or so feet.
Then we made a switch and we decided that the Soviets' real vulnerability was at low altitudes. And it’s true. They did not have good radars at low altitude ...
The strategic cruise missile scared the living daylights out of the Kremlin, because they knew they could fly right under their radars.
BI: Much of this book consists of reconstructions of scenes that were top-secret for many years but that you put together through researching the cable traffic and conducting interviews.
What do you see as the biggest challenge of writing about these dark spaces in American national security?
There are all kinds of missing jigsaw pieces in these narratives that we think we know, say, about terrorism, or about WMD. One of the things you find out if you're one of those people who go with a pick and shovel at history and try to unearth rocks and tell stories is that pieces are missing — tiny little pieces, and also important things.
In this story there were a bunch of gaps that I had to report. I had enough to tell the story, but you never feel at the end that you know the whole story …
I still think there are big parts of what Tolkachev meant that are still in use and that are legitimately still classified. Even though this case is three decades old, it’s quite likely that some of that stuff is still considered pretty valuable intelligence.
SEE ALSO: The CIA built a secret and groundbreaking mobile text-messaging system in the late 1970s
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