Showing posts with label president. Show all posts
Showing posts with label president. Show all posts

Sunday, March 26, 2017

Less than four months after Hitler's death, a great future US president declared in great secrecy love for the Führer

Wikimedia Commons 
A diary kept by President John F Kennedy as a young man travelling in Europe, revealing his fascination with Adolf Hitler, is up for auction.

Kennedy, then 28, predicted "Hitler will emerge from the hatred that surrounds him now as one of the most significant figures who ever lived".

"He had in him the stuff of which legends are made," he continued.
Kennedy wrote the entry in the summer of 1945 after touring the German dictator's Bavarian mountain retreat.
It is thought by historians to be the only diary ever kept by the 35th US president.

RR AUCTION
The original copy will be auctioned for the first time on 26 April in Boston by longtime owner Deirdre Henderson, who worked as a research assistant for Kennedy while he was a US senator with White House ambitions.

He wrote that Hitler "had boundless ambition for his country which rendered him a menace to the peace of the world, but he had a mystery about him in the way he lived and in the manner of his death that will live and grow after him".

The 61-page diary was kept by Kennedy around four months after Hitler committed suicide.


At the time, the young American was touring Europe as a newspaper reporter after finishing his military service aboard a ship in the Pacific Ocean.

GETTY IMAGES
Nearly two decades later Kennedy would address crowds in West Berlin as US president.

He gave Ms Henderson the diary in order to inform her of his views on foreign policy and national security, she said.

In a description of the auction, she wrote: "When JFK said that Hitler 'had in him the stuff of which legends are made', he was speaking to the mystery surrounding him, not the evil he demonstrated to the world."

"Nowhere in this diary, or in any of his writings, is there any indication of sympathy for Nazi crimes or cause," she continued.
The diary also contains JFK's thoughts about the British election and Winston Churchill, who Ms Henderson called his "idol".

The winning bid is expected to be around $200,000 (£160,000).

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The above post is reprinted from materials provided by BBC . Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

Saturday, January 28, 2017

Secret room of the famous Rushmore

After its completion 75 years ago, the colossal presidential sculpture carved into Mount Rushmore quickly became an American icon. However, few know that hidden behind the hairline of Abraham Lincoln is a doorway to an unfinished chamber originally intended to hold some of America’s most treasured documents.

On Halloween in 1941, the 14-year effort to carve the enormous profiles of four American presidents—George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt—into the southeastern face of Mount Rushmore was finally completed. However, one little-known, but critical, element of Danish-American sculptor Gutzon Borglum’s “Shrine of Democracy Sculpture” was left unfinished and remains concealed from view behind Lincoln’s mighty brow.
Mount Rushmore as carving began with conceptual drawing of Borglum’s idea for a the never-built entablature inserted. (Credit: NPS, Mount Rushmore National Memorial)

Carved into the solid granite wall of a small canyon running right behind the presidential lineup is an 18-foot-tall doorway that resembles the entrance to an ancient tomb of an Egyptian pharaoh. While Nicolas Cage’s character in the movie “National Treasure: Book of Secrets” discovered the entrance to a legendary city of gold inside a cave on Mount Rushmore, no such riches can be found in the actual chamber chiseled into the mountain. Anyone crossing the threshold would discover an empty room approximately 75 feet in length with a 35-foot-tall ceiling. Holes jack-hammered into the walls to hold dynamite for blasting lend a honeycomb effect. Red numbers, perhaps painted by Borglum himself, give instructions for the removal of rocks.


Gutzon Borglum (Credit: Library of Congress)
Borglum had intended for this incomplete chamber to be, in essence, his artist’s statement explaining the meaning of his sculpture—not for present generations but for future civilizations, and even interplanetary visitors, thousands of years in the future. “You might as well drop a letter into the world’s postal service without an address or signature, as to send that carved mountain into history without identification,” the sculptor wrote. While the four faces carved on Mount Rushmore are instantly recognizable even to school kids today, Borglum thought they might one day become as mysterious as Stonehenge. “Each succeeding civilization forgets its predecessor,” he lamented. “Civilizations are ghouls.”

The sculptor’s early plans for Mount Rushmore included next to Washington’s head a massive 80-by-120-foot inscription in the shape of the Louisiana Purchase that would list nine of the most important events in the history of the United States between 1776 and 1906. However, even with the most astronomical of point sizes, the text would not have been legible at great distances, and ultimately logistics required that portion of the mountain to be used for Lincoln’s head. Borglum abandoned the inscription and instead drew up plans to build a repository deep within the mountain that would hold some of America’s most treasured artifacts and documents, such as the Declaration of Independence.


Plans for the Hall of Records. (Credit: Mount Rushmore National Memorial)

The sculptor envisioned a grand, 800-foot-long staircase ascending Mount Rushmore that would lead to a glorious chamber called the “Hall of Records.” “Into this room the records of what our people aspired to and what they accomplished should be collected,” Borglum wrote, “and on the walls of this room should be cut the literal record of conception of our republic; its successful creation; the record of its westward movement to the Pacific; its presidents; how the Memorial was built, and frankly, why.”

Visitors to the Hall of Records would enter through great glass doors over which would be perched a bronze eagle with a 38-foot wingspan and the inscription “America’s Onward March.” A cross pointing to the North Star would be mounted upon the vaulted ceiling, and friezes on the wall would depict “the adventure of humanity discovering and occupying the West World.” An inscription written by John Edward Bradley, who won a national contest sponsored by the Hearst newspapers, would detail the history of the country from its founding through the construction of the Panama Canal. Bronze and glass cabinets in the recesses of the 80-by-100-foot chamber would hold documents such as the U.S. Constitution. There would be busts of more than 20 prominent Americans, ranging from Benjamin Franklin and John Hancock to Alexander Graham Bell and the Wright Brothers.


Workers in the early stages of constructing the Hall of Records. (Credit: Charles D’Emery photo, courtesy of NPS, Mount Rushmore National Memorial)

In July 1938, workers began to cut into the rock on the north wall of a small canyon concealed by the presidential faces to build Borglum’s American shrine. However, a year into the construction, the federal government, which covered nearly all the cost of constructing the monument, tightened the pursestrings and ordered Borglum to stop work on the Hall of Records and focus his full efforts on completing the presidential profiles.

Seven months after the 73-year-old sculptor died in March 1941, Borglum’s son Lincoln led the effort to finish the carving of the four presidents. The Mount Rushmore National Monument was deemed to be complete, although Borglum’s ultimate plan—and the Hall of Records—remained unfinished.


Mount Rushmore under construction. (Credit: NPS, Mount Rushmore National Memorial)

Borglum’s hopes for the Hall of Records were at least partially fulfilled on August 9, 1998, when four generations of his family gathered in the incomplete chamber as 16 porcelain enamel panels inscribed with the words of documents such as the Declaration of Independence, biographies of the sculptor and his presidential subjects and histories of the memorial’s construction and the United States were placed inside a teakwood box and titanium vault that was lowered into the ground and covered by a 1,200-pound black granite capstone inscribed with a quote from Borglum delivered at the 1930 dedication of the carving of Washington. “It’s the end of the creation of Mount Rushmore as my father saw it,” said Borglum’s daughter, Mary Ellis.

It’s one part of Mount Rushmore, however, that few people can see today. Due to safety and security concerns, visitors are prohibited from scaling the mountain to view the Hall of Records.


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The above post is reprinted from materials provided by History . Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.


Thursday, October 27, 2016

Theodore Roosevelt ( The War Hero ) who wrote 35 books and made history at the White House


By  oath of president of 42 years, Theodore Roosevelt became (and remains to this day) the youngest president in US history. Within the Republican Party he was a reformer, seeking to promote conservative ideas of the party in the 20th century. It was later distanced boyfriend and his successor, William Howard Taft, and a candidate in the 1912 presidential election as the candidate of a third party, the Progressive Party, whose leader was.

Theodore Roosevelt served multiple political and non-political roles in American society of the early 20th century the governor of New York, historian, naturalist, explorer of the Amazon basin, lawyer, author, soldier. T. R. It is also famous by the type of personality that brought him to the forefront of American society, energy, interests and achievements on multiple levels, like his masculinity and his appearance of "cowboy" schools.


As  deputy secretary of the US Navy, he championed and prepared (in all respects) for a war with Spain in 1898. He organized and helped command the First Volunteer Cavalry Regiment (with the original, 1-st US Volunteer Cavalry Regiment), so called the Rough Riders during the Spanish-American war. Back in New York as a war hero, he was elected governor of New York in the same year 1898.






He wrote 35 books he has written include topics such as outdoor life, natural history, American frontier, political history, naval history and autobiography.


In 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt adopted the term of the White House as the official name of presidential residence building.

Invenit Mundo presents the main historical significance of October 27th:


1466 - was born humanist scholar Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam known for "Praise of madness" - 1509 (d. July 12, 1536)


Desiderius Erasmus Photo wikipedia.org

1682 - Metropolitan Dosoftei began printing in Iasi, the  (4 volumes), then Byzantine and Slavic sources.

1782 - was born Niccolò Paganini, Italian violinist and composer (d. May 27, 1840)


Niccolò Paganini photo wikipedia.org

1938 - Targu-Jiu opened all conceived by Constantin Brancusi in honor Romanian soldiers who died in the battle of Jiu, including masterpieces of modern art: "Table of Silence", "The Gate of the Kiss", "Endless Column".


Constantin Brancusi photo: wikipedia.org

1990 - A director Jacques Demy died, the creator of French musical; It is known for "Lola" - 1960 and "Ladies of Rochefort" - 1967 (b. July 5, 1931)




1990 - He died actor Ugo Tognazzi, known for his roles in "The tragedy of a ridiculous man" - 1981 "last minute" - 1987 "cage crazy" - 1978 (b. March 23, 1922)





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The above post is reprinted from materials provided by Descopera  . Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

Tuesday, September 20, 2016

'' Scariest prison on Earth ''. Saidnaya prison horrors, of Bashar al-Assad

Saidnaya prison was one of the places where journalists were denied access.

Former prisoners, along with a group of architects, have created a detailed model of the torture house of the president of Syria.

Samer al-Ahmed, a former prisoner, remembers the small hatch on his cell door because he was frequently forced to stick his head through it. Guardian press his neck edge flap, then jumped on his head with his weight, until blood began to drip on the floor.



This is one of the torture methods used in the military prison of Saidnaya, the most famous prison in Syria. Until now, the complex was hidden but a team of architects has created an interactive model as part of the Amnesty International to raise awareness of the hidden stories of the brutal regime of President Bashar al-Assad. The prison is located 25 kilometers north of Damascus, near Saidnaya monastery, where Christians and Muslims have prayed for centuries.

 The new report was released following the death of 17 723 people were in custody Syria since the beginning of the riots in March 2011.

,, When I built the model, I realized that the place is not just incarceration, supervision and torture. The building itself is an architectural instrument of torture, '' said Eyal Weizman director of Forensic Architecture.


To create a clear picture of the prison, the team behind the project Amnesty has interviewed former detainees at the prison Saidnaya, who escaped ganite going to Turkey. Architecture ,, is the path of memories, '' said Weizman. ,, While viewing digital model, witnesses remembered events, obscure, violent and traumatic, '' he added.


Prisoners were constantly blindfolded and forced to kneel, when the guards entered the cell, the prisoners had to cover their eyes so they had to rely on hearing. To determine cell size, the stairs and corridors, Lawrence Abu Hamdan, sound artist, used certain reverberations. ,, Like a sonar sound to light the space around them, '' said Abu Hamdan. Prison is a prison ,, echo, if a person is tortured east like all would be tortured because sound travels through space through drain pipes or vent, '' he added.



Lack of vision and made prisoners to develop their auditory sensitivity, they could distinguish the sound of a belt of an electric cable on the skin, they knew when a man is stabbed, hit the wall were struck.

Another detail is terrifying initiation ceremony,, '' they were taken from a refrigerated truck that were brought to jail beaten with iron rods and cables, generally women were raped.


Two prisoners, and Ahmed Abdou, were held in the first months in a cell of 2.35 meters which sometimes were held and 15 people. They remember that there were many days in a row where there was water and had to drink from the toilet bowl.

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Source: The Guardian