Photo from the Vestris Disaster shows crew and passengers trying to lower lifeboats from the port side; November 12, 1928
Vestris left New York bound for the River Plate on 10 November 1928 with 325 passengers and crew. A day after leaving New York, the ship ran into a severe storm and developed a starboard list. The following day, the list worsened as cargo and coal bunkers shifted and the ship took on water through numerous leaks.
On 12 November, at 9:56 am, an SOS was sent out giving her position as latitude 37° 35′ N. and longitude 71° 81′ [sic] W., which was incorrect by about 37 miles. The SOS was repeated at 11:04 am.
Between 11 am and noon, while the ship was off Norfolk, Virginia, the order was given to man lifeboats and the ship was abandoned. Two hours later, at about 2pm, Vestris sank at Lat. 37° 38′ N, Long. 70° 23′ W.The rescue vessels arriving on the scene, late in the evening of 12 November and early in the morning of 13 November, were the steamships American Shipper, Myriam, Berlin and USS Wyoming.
While estimates of the dead vary from 110 to 127, Time and The New York Times reported that from the complement of 128 passengers and 198 crew on board, 111 people were killed:
- 68 dead or missing from a total 128 passengers. 60 passengers survived.
- 43 dead or missing from a total of 198 crew members. 155 crew survived.
None of the 13 children and only eight of the 33 women aboard the ship survived. The captain of Vestris, William J. Carey, went down with his ship. 22 bodies were recovered by rescue ships.
Press reports after the sinking were critical of the crew and management of Vestris. In the wake of the disaster, Lamport and Holt experienced a dramatic drop in bookings for the company’s other liners and their service to South America ceased at the end of 1929.
Many inquires and investigations were held into the sinking of Vestris. Criticism was made of:
- overloading of the vessel
- the conduct of the Master, officers and crew of the vessel
- delays in issuing an SOS call
- poor decisions made during deployment of the lifeboats, which led to the two of the first three lifeboats to be deployed (containing mostly women and children) sinking with Vestris and another swamping
- legal requirements governing lifeboats and out-dated life-preservers
- lack of radio sets in nearby vessels at the time
Lawsuits were brought after the sinking on behalf of 600 claimants totaling $5,000,000.
Vestris ’ sinking was covered by Associated Press reporter Lorena Hickok. Her story on the event became the first to appear in The New York Times under a woman’s byline.
(Source)
Dead child on the street in Tampere, Finnish Civil War; ca. 1918
The 1918 Finnish civil war was horrible: about 37,000 people died, most of them Reds.
The war was related to the aftermath of WWI, and to the communist revolution and civil war in the neighboring Russia. In Finland the revolutionary socialist Reds were supported by the Soviets, and the anti-socialist Whites by the German Empire.
The civil war itself lasted only 3½ months with White victory, but still after that more than 11,000 Reds or suspected Reds died in prison camps due to hunger, disease, and executions.
The aftermath of an execution of Social Democrat sympathizers/militiamen, Finnish Civil War, 1918:
The picture is taken May 11th, 1918 in Västankvarn, Inkoo (Ingå).
The incidence is known as Västankvarnin teloitukset (Västankvarn’s executions). During 2-26th May the whites executed over sixty of their prisoners suspected as reds including at least three women (Tekla Åhl (35), Hilja Heino (20), and Hilda Björk (32)).
They all were sentenced to death by Erik Grotenfelt. He also did the killings himself at first, but later it was done by a white Västnyland’s Battalion commanded by Edward Ward. (Grotenfelt committed a suicide in 1919.)
Most of the civil war victims can be found in a searchable online database: The registry of names of the war dead between 1914-1922
Live samples of the measles virus (used to make the measles vaccine) are stored in an incubator at a Pfizer virus laboratory; ca. 1963
Adolf Hitler salutes a parade of his personal bodyguard regiment, the 1st SS Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler; January 30th,1937
President Lyndon B. Johnson holds his dog “Her” by the ears as his other dog “Him” looks on, the White House lawns; April 27, 1964
Him and Her, the most well known of the President Johnson’s dogs, were registered beagles born on June 27, 1963. The President frequently played with the dogs and was often photographed with them. In 1964, President Johnson raised the ire of many when he lifted Him by his ears while greeting a group on the White House lawn.
Her died at the White House in November 1964, after she swallowed a stone. Him died in June 1966, when he was hit by a car while chasing a squirrel on the White House. (Source)
Mechanized Column of the 7th Panzer-Division in France; ca. 1940
Shown here is a mechanized column of the 7th Panzer-Division, commanded by General major Erwin Rommel, on the move during the Blitzkrieg through France in the last days of May 1940. The photo was taken by General Rommel himself.
Antarctica, The crew of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition playing a game of football (or soccer), with the Endurance in the background; ca. 1914-1917)
Skulls left lying on the battlefield after the Battle of the Wilderness – American Civil War; ca. 1864
The 140-kiloton Chagan nuclear test, Soviet Union; January 15, 1965
The 1965 Chagan nuclear explosion was part of Russia’s Nuclear Explosions for the National Economy program. The idea was to use nuclear explosions for peaceful civil engineering projects. The 140 kiloton explosion created a 100 metes (328 ft) deep lake and dammed a nearby river.
Motorcycle Chariot, New South Wales, Australia; ca.1936
More Info:
- Original footage of an Australian police chariot race 1941, in single chariot driver style as the photo (at 0:27):
First original publications I can find are in the 1920’s, though the motorcycles had a rider and a passenger in the chariot.
- Motorcycle Chariot Racing, August 7, 1925 (London, England, UK):
Original caption: A new and novel sport in the form of chariot racing has been introduced in England by F. Mockford of the Sydenham and District Motorcycle Gymkhana at the Crystal Palace, London. The right side of the picture looks right enough, and so does the left, when each is considered separately, but the two together is enough to make the ancient Romans turn in their graves. Credit: Bettmann/CORBIS
- Here is a short clip of original footage from the above race at Crystal Palace, 1925; (the chariots are first seen at 0:28):
[…] The program of police events include chariot races, motorcycle football, mass physical drills, exhibitions by the mounted squad, and “Fighting Crime,” which will be presented by the detective bureau.
- Chariot of 1938 Ben Hur Drawn by Four Motorcycles:
Execution of the women SS Guards of Stutthof concentration camp for “sadistic abuse of prisoners” after on trial by the Polish Special Law Court at Danzig. The women did not seem to take the trial seriously until the end; July 4th, 1946
It was one of the few public executions in Poland after the war. This one was witnessed by about 100 000 people. They had been standing on trucks which drove off (which is why they swing a bit). Among the witnesses were former prisoners of Stutthof.
The second railway station of Bruges; ca. 1890
It was built in 1886, to replace the first railway station that was built in Classical style (the old one was moved to Ronse, because it’s the third oldest in the world).
It was decided in 1899 that this one was a nuisance to the neighbourhood, since it cut off the Western part of Bruges. The works for a new railway station outside the city started in 1910, but were delayed by the first world war. Only in 1936 was the third railway station finished.
Ten years later the second building (this one) was demolished.
An injured survivor of the Hindenburg disaster calmly smokes a cigarette as he is moved to a hospital from the field at Lakehurst, New Jersey; May 6, 1937
Primary source footage that explains the event and info about the Hindenburg here:
Also live commentary of the event, “Oh, the humanity!”:
The Norwegian Arctic exploration ship Fram in ice; ca. 1894
The windmill was actually very practical and a major component of their planning before the trip. It was used to generate electricity to power lighting. Since they were going for so long it helped alleviate the necessity to bring large stocks of oil for lamps especially since space was at a premium.
This ship spent three years 1893-1896 stuck ice trying to get to the North Pole on this expedition. She would later take two additional multi year expeditions into the arctic. She is now a museum ship. She holds the record for getting the furthest north out of any wooden hulled ship. Of course that’s a record that is getting easier and easier to break each year with the receding polar ice caps.
The record of a voyage of exploration of the ship “Fram” 1893-96 (and of a fifteen months’ sleigh journey by Dr. Nansen and Lieut. Johansen):
Vladimir Lenin, he had had three strokes at this point and was completely mute; ca. 1923
Trying to warn people about Stalin by using his eyes alone.
Journalist Ernie Pyle after being killed during the battle of Okinawa; April 18, 1945
This photo apparently only surfaced in 2008. And technically this is apparently on Ie Shima, a small island near Okinawa.
Four-year-old Michael Finder of East Germany is tossed by his father into a net held by firemen across the border in West Berlin. The apartments were in East Berlin while their windows opened into West Berlin; October 7, 1961
His father jumped after him:
His mother had jumped before him:
Escaping on Bernauer Strasse – video of the father jumping (at 00:46).
The soviet occupation zone in Germany (and Berlin) suffered from serious movements of educated individuals from their sectors toward the west throughout the 1950’s. This brain drain encouraged the Soviet Union to begin construction of a “Fascist Protection Wall” that would keep East Germans protected from “Fascism” that the Western Allies had “not eradicated in their sectors. ”
Of course, this wall was only really to keep East Germans from emigrating to the West. The wall later became the Berlin Wall.
These apartments were along Bernauer Straße (Bernauer Street) in Berlin. A line which saddled the border between East and West Berlin. After the wall was first constructed in 1961, many escape attempts were made through these apartment blocks. So much so, that the soviets had to brick up the windows and raid the apartments of the people who lived there. They evicted the people living in those apartments. So what you’re seeing when these people are jumping from the 4th floor are the people who are making a last ditch attempt at the West before all their (relatively safe) options out of East Berlin were gone for good.
These apartments were later torn down and the Berlin Wall that most of us picture in the news reels, and have chunks of in our museums all over the world, was erected.
Here are some historical photos for reference.
Mayor Willy Brandt taking a stroll along Bernauer St. You can clearly see the bricked up windows here; Winter 1963:
Comparison of the area 1963 vs 2011 – (the poles mark the location of the old apartment building that stood on the location in 1961):
Hungarian Jewish children and an elderly woman on the way to the death barracks of Auschwitz-Birkenau, ca. May 1944
“From the chimneys of the Vatican, white smoke rises,
a sign the Cardinals have chosen themselves a Pope.
From the crematoria of Auschwitz, black smoke rises,
a sign the conclave of Gods hasn’t yet chosen,
the Chosen People.
After Auschwitz, no theology:
the inmates of extermination bear on their forearms
the telephone numbers of God,
numbers that do not answer
and now are disconnected, one by one.
After Auschwitz, a new theology:
the Jews who died in the Shoah
have now come to be like their God,
who has no likeness of a body and has no body.
They have no likeness of a body and they have no body.”
– Smoke by Jacob Glatstein
I hope to be remembered for my atrocities! 