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The Daring Harriet Quimby, Queen of the Air

**Female Aviator Harriet Quimby**, **1912**

Most everyone knows the name Emilia Earhart, the famous female pilot lost at sea in 1937. But few remember another ground-breaking female aviator named Harriet Quimby. She was famous a decade before, and was an inspiration to, Emilia Earhart.

Today, only aviation buffs know that Quimby was the first American woman to earn a pilot’s license, the first to fly at night, and the first woman to fly solo across the English Channel. Sadly, her short public life as “Queen of the Air” lasted less than a year before she died in a tragic plane crash. Who was this inspirational and daring woman?

Harriet Quimby was born in Coldwater, Michigan, in 1884 and grew up in Arroya Grande, California in a poor family. Her mother taught her self-confidence and encouraged her to believe that she could succeed in any endeavor, regardless of her sex. Harriet relied on her wit and talents to accomplish what few women of her time dared even dream about becoming an aviator. Beautiful and well-poised, many presumed she was from a wealthy family and well-educated. Quimby did nothing to deny these assumptions and carried on the charade her entire life.

Harriet’s public career began in 1902, when she began writing for two San Francisco newspapers, a career few women entered at that time. She drove a yellow automobile around town, quite a unique sight since motorcars were relatively rare at the time. In 1903, at only 20, she moved to New York City where Leslie’s Illustrated Weekly hired her as editor of the women’s page. Unmarried, she lived with her widowed mother in New York City’s Hotel Victoria.

Her love of aviation began in 1910.

She witnessed an international aviation meet flown around New York harbor and the Statue of Liberty. Harriet became captivated by both the flying machines and John Moisant, the young and wealthy pilot who won the race. That evening, she saw Moisant having dinner at the Hotel Astor and boldly asked him to teach her to fly. The man grinned and agreed, primarily due to her attractiveness, not really taking her seriously. However, before she could begin any lessons, Moisant died in a plane crash a week later at a race in New Orleans.

Undaunted, Harriet enrolled in the new Moisant Aviation School, learning to fly Moisant monoplanes, copies of the French Blériots. Quimby took her flight lessons at dawn before her day job at the magazine. Females entering male dominated aviation was absolutely unheard of. In the early 1900’s, women were not supposed to step out of their assigned roles in society. Nevertheless in 1911, after 4 months and 33 lessons, she obtained her pilot’s license in Long Island after two test flights. She became the first American woman and second female ever to receive a pilot’s license.

A newspaper account of the day noted that ‘the Aero Club, despite its misgivings, was forced to make the award owing to the splendid flying of Miss Quimby.’ The press dubbed her the “China Doll” because of her fair skin and petite stature. The ambitious Quimby quickly capitalized on her new fame. After all, pilots could earn as much as $1,000 at an air show performance. Race meet prize money could go as high as $10,000!

Quimby joined the Moisant International Aviators team. She won headlines again by making her public debut at a moonlight flight over Staten Island before more than 20,000 spectators. She earned $1,500, a small fortune at the time. Quimby’s flying had won the approval of her bosses at Leslie’s Weekly. She continued to contribute to Leslie’s and wrote accounts of her flights for the magazine. In September, she beat the leading French aviatrix, Helene Dutrieu, in a cross-country air race.

“The men flyers have given the impression that aeroplaning is perilous work, something that an ordinary mortal should not dream of attempting. But when I saw how easily the man flyers manipulated their machines, I said I could fly too.” -Harriet Quimby

Quimby capitalized on her femininity. Her flight costume was all the rage: trousers tucked into high-laced tan boots, a plum-colored, long-sleeved satin blouse, choker collar and a flying hood – all designed by Quimby herself. This outfit, then considered risqué, soon became a fashion trend. Her fans called her the “Doll Aviatrix” because of her dashing, yet feminine, image. She drew crowds whenever she competed or toured with airshows across the U.S.

A darling of the press, Harriet Quimby’s sparkling personality and graceful elegance earned her praise as ‘lovable,’ ‘irresistible,’ ‘charming’ and ‘intelligent.’ One columnist called her ‘a glamorous, green-eyed beauty.’ She was indeed considered a radical woman in her day – she smoked cigarettes, owned a motor car, flew an aeroplane, traveled alone, and had a career as a writer.

**Harriet Quimby Vin Fiz advertisement**

Passionate about being an aviator, she even went so far as to tout that flying was an ideal sport or even occupation for women. The Vin Fiz Company used Quimby to advertise its new grape soda, Vin Fiz. She appeared in posters, magazines, and billboards in her distinctive purple aviator uniform.

Desiring global fame next, Quimby decided to attempt a crossing of the English Channel.

The feat had already been accomplished by Louis Bleriot in 1909, but never by a woman. Quimby offered Leslie’s magazine exclusive rights to her first-person account of the proposed flight. She obtained a letter of introduction to French aviator Louis Blériot and in 1912, sailed for England. Meeting Blériot in Paris, she convinced him to loan her one of his new 60-hp Blériots for her historic flight.

For Quimby, this would be her first flight in a Blériot, first with a compass, and first across water. A worried group of friends and colleagues saw Quimby off early on Tuesday, April 16, 1912. On a cold spring morning, the adventurous pilot climbed aboard the French Bleriot monoplane, waved to her fans, and began her daring flight from Dover to Calais.

Airborne at 9 AM, Quimby climbed to 2,000 feet before heading out over waters of the English Channel. She caught a brief glimpse of the London Daily Mirror‘s boat, jammed with reporters and photographers, before running into an unexpected fog bank. What should she do now? Turn back or go forward? Even a minor error could send her wandering above the North Sea or the Atlantic.

“In an instant, I was beyond the cliffs and over the Channel. I could not see ahead of me at all, nor could I see the water below. There was only one thing for me to do, keep my eyes fixed on my compass.”

She climbed through the fog to 6,000 feet, seeking clear sky, but found only a skin-shivering cold. Keeping a close watch on her compass, she dropped down to 200 feet for the remainder of the flight. When her plane finally broke clear of the fog, Harriett squinted against the rising sun. She sighed in relief as she could see the shores of France ahead. Harriet sighted a deserted stretch of flat, sandy beach and landed. She was quickly surrounded by excited French fishermen and villagers.

The crossing took a nerve-wracking 59 minutes as Quimby landed 25 miles south of Calais.

Her achievement went largely unnoticed however in the next days’ Paris and London papers. Quimby’s daring feat was overshadowed by the tragic sinking of the RMS Titanic just two days earlier in the North Atlantic. Nevertheless, Harriet Quimby was now the official ‘Queen of the Air,’ and feted in London and Paris before returning to the U.S. a bon-a-fide celebrity.

Quimby was in love with flying and continued performing at air shows and competing in air meets throughout the U.S. She published more than 250 articles in her parallel profession as a journalist. Unfortunately, her short flying career ended weeks later on July 1, 1912, just three months after her Channel crossing.

She had entered the 1912 Harvard-Boston Meet at Harvard Field in Squantum on Dorchester Bay. Monday evening, July 1st, just before 6 pm, with the competitive events of the day over, Harriet took off on a short flight with William Willard, the meet’s wealthy manager. The flight would be a great advertisement for his show as he had invested heavily in it. Harriet never turned down an offer that promised more publicity for herself.

After taking off, they headed east toward the Boston Light. Quimby sat in the front cockpit of a new 70-hp Blériot monoplane, Willard rode in the rear cockpit. Returning from the Light 20 minutes later, the crowd watched as Quimby’s plane descended in a steep glide. Then suddenly, she slanted sharply down and turned hard to the left. The horrified spectators witnessed Willard fall out, clear over the nose of the plane, followed a few seconds later by Quimby herself! Both plunged into the shallow river 1,000 feet below and died instantly.

Harriet Quimby’s flying career had lasted exactly 11 months. She was dead at only 28.

The Boston Globe described the accident as ‘one of the worst tragedies ever to happened at an air meet in America. The sight caused women to shriek and men to turn sick.’ But what caused the tragedy with such an experienced pilot at the controls of a state-of-the-art aeroplane? Was it pilot error?

Earl Ovington, a leading pilot of the day, was one of the first to reach the plane crash. He found that a rudder control wire was caught jammed over the vertical control lever. This design flaw, he concluded, caused the machine ‘to turn left and pitch downward,’ catapulting the occupants out. The Globe noted that John Moisant had been flying a similar monoplane when he too plunged headfirst to the earth at New Orleans. The lack of proper seat belts in aeroplanes was also quickly seen as a factor.

Though a tragic loss, Harriett Quimby’s short and impressive career went on to inspire future, famous women aviators. Elinor Smith was born the same year as Quimby’s daring Channel crossing. Inspired by Quimby, she became the youngest pilot at age 16 and went on to set numerous endurance, speed, and altitude records in the 1920’s. A young Amelia Earhart also was inspired by Harriet Quimby. She became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic before disappearing while attempting to fly around the globe in 1937.

Today, few remember Harriet Quimby, Queen of the Air. Though she was a fearless young woman of ambition, intelligence, and beauty, she is all but forgotten. In 1991, eighty years after her death, the U.S. Post Office issued a commemorative stamp honoring her contributions to aviation. The airmail stamp contains a picture of the aviator, dressed in her purple satin blouse, before a Bleriot monoplane, stating simply “Harriet Quimby: Pioneer Pilot.” In 2004, Quimby was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in recognition of her accomplishments during the dawn of manned flight.

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews click BOOKS.

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Jonathan Wild, London’s First Criminal Mastermind

London Thief-Taker Jonathan Wild — **London ‘Thief-Taker’ Jonathan Wild**

In early 18th century England, Jonathan Wild was a notorious criminal mastermind. He lead a mafia-like empire that included everything from robbery to extortion to blackmail. What makes Wild’s story even more “wild” was that he skillfully played both sides of the coin — crime and law enforcement, profiting as an official Thief-Taker.

In the early 1700’s, London was a city plagued by rampant crime. Mr. Wild brought dozens of thieves and criminals to justice; earning him the title, “Thief-Taker General.” It was a service that garnered him the gratitude of both the public and the authorities. Behind the scenes however, Jonathan Wild was the mastermind of a vast criminal empire involving robbery, fencing, prostitution, protection, and any other crime worth a profit. As the ruler of London’s underworld, he was the Professor Moriarity of his day. Who was this infamous man?

Jonathan Wild was born in Wolverhampton around 1683, the oldest of five children. His family was not wealthy, and at fifteen, he apprenticed as a buckle-maker; then spent seven years learning the trade. While still in his teens, he married an equally young girl and they had a child. But by 24, Wild had grown bored and restless with his small-town, domestic life. He deserted his family and headed to London to find his fortune.

He struggled to support himself for the first two years. Without a steady income, Wild fell heavily into debt and was sent to Wood Street Compter, a debtor’s prison. This ended up being a life-changing event for young Wild. He put his four years in prison to very good use. Wild used it like a university to learn all about crime from his fellow inmates. He also made valuable connections within the London underworld he would use later .

Wild did not remain a regular prisoner for long. His personal charm helped him become a prison “trustee,” allowing him to run errands for the guards. He became so trusted, the guards allowed him to accompany them outside the prison to capture other criminals.

In addition to learning the tricks of the criminal trade, he also met Molly Milliner. At the time, Milliner was labeled a “buttock and file,” a prostitute and pickpocket. Moreover, she knew most of London’s underworld. Wild and Milliner fell in love and developed a romantic relationship in prison, despite the fact they were both married to others.

The pair were released in 1712, and lived together more or less as husband and wife.

Mary and Jonathan set up shop together in Covent Garden, where Wild soon found himself immersed within Milliner’s circle of criminals. They operated a scheme called “buttock and twang.” Mary, playing the prostitute, would entice a lusty customer into a dark alley. Jonathan would then whack the chap with a cudgel and rob him. The semi-conscious men, with trousers about their ankles, rarely gave chase.

This proved to be profitable enough that Wild was eventually able to buy a pub, the King’s Head Inn. Molly managing a brothel of prostitutes from the upper floors. In the pub, Wild catered to thieves and other scalawags. It was there Wild and Milliner started their first scam: an upgraded version of the “buttock and twang.”

While the whores entertained the men, Wild and Milliner would rob them, not just of their coins and jewelry, but also personal letters and diaries. They would then blackmail their victims, offering the return of their items for the price of their silence.

This new scam also proved profitable for the duo. By 1713, at the age of 30, Wild and Milliner moved their residence to Cripplegate, a more respectable section of London. They purchased an all new wardrobe, reflecting their improved status. Wild had enough left over to purchase a Brandy Shop near their new home. This quickly became the site of their second successful scam.

Jonathan Wild moonlighted as a fence of stolen goods, when he developed an even better idea.

He called a meeting of all the thieves he knew. Rather than take their goods to fences or pawnbrokers, why not offer them back to the owners? After a robbery, Wild would approach the victims, saying he was acting on behalf of someone who had inadvertently bought their stolen goods. They now wished to restore them anonymously, for fear of being arrested for fencing. The owner got their goods back, the “benefactor” (thief) got the reward, and Wild got a cut.

The bold Jonathan Wild even opened a formal office in London, offering to retrieve stolen goods for robbed clients – for a fee, of course. When victims came into his office asking for help in getting back a valuable painting or sentimental pocket watch, Wild likely already knew who had it. Business boomed and Wild was soon operating gangs of thieves in the scam.

Molly expanded her prostitution ring and Wild grew into protection and blackmail as well. He became the unofficial King of London’s criminal underworld. His public persona meanwhile was that of a helpful “crimefighter.” Around this time, Jonathan and Molly sadly parted company, and not under business-like circumstances. During a heated argument over shared cuts, Wild cut off Molly’s ear with his sword!

Unperturbed over the loss of Molly, Wild expanded his empire yet again. This time, by taking advantage of the fact that London still had a relatively small police force. Crime had exploded, fueled by London’s population growth. Law enforcement had to adapt, so the police created the position of the “Thief-Taker.” It became sort of an early bounty hunter. They offered financial rewards for anyone who could catch and help convict thieves. The people who stepped forward for the job were a rough sort with deep criminal connections. They were the also kind to often commit crimes themselves.

Few people fit the bill, and were more successful, than Mr. Jonathan Wild.

Wild developed a ring of burglars, thieves and pickpockets that would steal pocketbooks, jewelry, and other valuables. Sometimes, he would turn in the thieves for the reward, sometimes blame a patsy or a rival. Wild would always pretend to have investigated the crime, come into information about stolen items, and offer to broker their return to the original owner. He eventually earned the title of “Thief-Taker General of Great Britain.” He sent more than 120 people to the gallows and personally attended most of the hangings.

By running this third scam, Wild began to earn high regard from English society, who believed that he was catching criminals – instead of actually orchestrating the crime himself. He also took advantage of the press. The first daily newspaper in the England was “The Daily Courant.” Wild published accounts of items he had supposedly “found” with a pawn broker who had been suspicious of the merchandise.

Jonathan Wild enjoyed an arrest-free run for nearly ten years, living in grand style with a much higher-class of mistress this time than Mary Milliner. By 1724 however, cracks began to show in Wild’s empire and the authorities were getting suspicious. Two years earlier, he sent a highwayman, Joseph Blueskin Blake, to jail. Blueskin had informed on his gang and expected the reward. But Wild turned him in instead. When Blueskin was released two years later, he still held a heavy grudge against London’s “Thief-Taker General.” Blueskin teamed up with Jack Sheppard, an infamous burglar, who was jealous of Wild’s criminal empire. Sheppard had been arrested twice and managed to escape from prison twice, making him a sort of underworld folk hero.

Wild tried to recruit him, but Sheppard teamed up with Blueskin instead.

The clever Wild got Sheppard’s wife drunk, found out where he was hiding, and had him arrested again. Sheppard was held in Newgate Prison, with his feet in irons this time, chained to the stone floor. The following month, Blueskin Blake was also arrested. At his trial, Wild himself gave false testimony against him. Enraged, Blueskin attacked Wild in the courtroom with a concealed knife, slashing at Wild’s throat. The scuffle set off a street riot that spread to Newgate Prison. In the confusion of the riot, Jack Sheppard escaped again!

So Wild arranged for his arrest again, and this time, Sheppard was promptly hanged. Wild’s continued pursuit of the well-liked Sheppard did not sit well with London’s criminal class and his control began to weaken.

Because of the spotlight of being Thief-Taker General, Wild stored stolen goods away from his properties. He rented warehouses along the Thames and boats to ship his loot away as needed. Wild had one boat he used to transport items across the channel for sale there, along with goods smuggled back in. His crews was, of course, made of his thieves. When some expensive lace went missing, Captain Roger Johnson deducted the cost from the first mate’s pay. The furious mate then informed on the smugglers to port authorities and Johnson was arrested. Fearing he would turn against him in court, Wild organized a mob of his thugs to break the captain out of jail.

In a rare, sloppy act, Wild himself was at the scene and identified.

Then things got even worse. While Wild was now under attack for orchestrating the riot, the first mate flipped again, time on Jonathan Wild. The first mate knew the exact location of Wild’s warehouses and told the London authorities. A search of the premises found hundreds of stolen items. The police promptly arrested Wild. The British public was outraged. The man who paraded around as a moral crusader was in fact a criminal mastermind?! Daniel Defoe, a British journalist, wrote a pamphlet about the case:

“How infatuated were the people of this nation all this while! Did they consider, that at the very time that they treated this person with such a confidence, he had, perhaps, the very goods in his keeping, and that, perhaps, they had been stolen with that very intention?” – Daniel Defoe

Wild’s trial was a huge spectacle. Defoe noted it was the largest audience he had ever seen at the Old Bailey. Wild was charged with a vast array of crimes. He tried to pin the ownership of the stolen booty on one of his cohorts, but that failed to work. Witnesses came forward that he had started the riot that helped Captain Johnson escape. Wild was found guilty of all his crimes. The overwhelming evidence and public disdain led the judge to sentence him to death.

Depiction of Jonathan Wild being carted off to his hanging. — Depiction of Jonathan Wild being carted off to his London hanging.

The night before his hanging, in his cell at Newgate, Jonathan Wild attempted suicide by overdosing on laudanum. But it only succeeded in making himself sick. The next morning, 24 May 1725, the open cart carrying the condemned man rumbled out of Newgate Prison on a two-mile journey to Tyburn Tree. The trip took three hours past hoards of jeering Londoners. He was pelted with rotting fruit, dead animals, and even feces. The cart, as was customary, made three stops at pubs along the way, so condemned men could drink enough to be drunk at their hanging.

At Tyburn, another crowd waited to watch the downfall of a man once revered, and now reviled. Daniel Defoe wrote that the crowd was the largest ever assembled for a hanging as well. Because of the laudanum and ale in his system, Wild stood in a daze. He did not give any last words before the thick noose was placed around his neck. The hangman, who had been a guest at one of Wild’s weddings, made it mercifully quick. When the horse cart was pulled away, Jonathan Wild dropped and dangled on the end of his rope. He eventually stopped kicking and was dead at the age of forty-two. So ended one of the world’s first major criminal networks, lead by a single ruthless and resourceful man.

Wild, at one point London’s most celebrated Thief-Taker, then its most reviled criminal, was largely forgotten for well over a century. That is, until author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle dropped his name in a novel. He had his famous creation Sherlock Holmes refer to Professor Moriarty a true successor of Jonathan Wild, the once famous Thief-Taker General. A British movie, Where’s Jack, was made in 1969 about Wild and Sheppard’s final confrontation.

Remarkably, one can still see Jonathan Wild for themselves. Go to Hunterian Museum in Lincoln’s Inn Fields in London. Though Wild was buried in St. Pancras Old Church, next to one of his many wives, he was dug up three days later by surgeon anatomists. As a criminal, they were free to dissect his body for learning purposes. When done, they stripped away the flesh and wired up his skeleton. It is still on display at the Hunterian, the remains of the infamous criminal mastermind who once ruled all the thieves of London.

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews, click BOOKS.

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The German Reichstag Fire Sparked Hitler’s Rise to Power

On 27 February 1933, the German parliament building in Berlin, the Reichstag, went up in flames from an arson attack. Adolf Hitler skillfully harnessed the after effects of the Reichstag Fire to seize absolute power. Hitler claimed the fire was a Communist attempt to overthrow the government. He played upon public and political fears of chaos to consolidate his power, cementing the rise of his Nazi regime. As the newly named Chancellor, he used the fire as an excuse to seize absolute control in Germany and ultimately declare himself Fuhrer. All this happened in little over a year.

Germany’s post-World War I democracy began with the Weimar Constitution in 1919. It established an elected president, who appointed a chancellor to lead the elected Reichstag or parliament. Adolf Hitler rose through the ranks to head the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nazis) whose membership exceeded 100,000 by 1928. The Nazis denounced the current government as criminals who had cowardly signed the World War I Treaty of Versailles. They slowly gained strength due to the people’s growing dissatisfaction with their government.

Despite its growth, the Nazis won only 3% of the vote in 1928. But then the Great Depression hit across the U.S. and Europe. The number of unemployed in Germany rose to 6 million (30% of the population). German President Paul von Hindenburg replaced the chancellor, dissolved the Reichstag, and called for elections. The Nazis exploited the economic depression to gain political power. By 1930, they won 18% of the Reichstag and became the 2^nd largest party, after Hindenburg’s Social Democrats, with the Communist party 3rd.

January 1933, Hindenburg reluctantly appointed Hitler as chancellor in the belief that together they could keep the Communists out of power. In March, there would be another series of new Reichstag elections. Hitler and the Nazis set about both campaigning and suppressing any chance of political opposition. In February, Hitler issued the Decree for the Protection of the German People.

It restricted the German free press and ordered the police to ban all political meetings and marches, supposedly for safety reasons. Hitler empowered his own party members as police officers. He enrolled 50,000 Nazi Sturmabteilung (SA) stormtroopers as police. Interior Minister Hermann Göring ordered a raid on the Communist party headquarters in Berlin, falsely claiming they had uncovered leaflets encouraging an armed public revolt.

Then came the 1933 Reichstag Fire.

On the evening of 27 February 1933 around 9 PM, pedestrians walking near the Reichstag building heard the loud sounds of breaking glass. Soon, tall orange flames erupted from the structure. It took Berlin firemen hours until dawn to quash the huge fire. The blaze destroyed the Reichstag’s famous gilded cupola, the main parliamentary chamber, and caused over $1 million (US) in damage.

At the scene, police arrested Marinus van der Lubbe, a 24-year-old unemployed Dutch construction worker with Communist sympathies. Police found the young man outside the building with fire-lighting implements in his possession, out of breath and sweating. Van der Lubbe confessed to setting the fire, saying he did it to encourage a worker’s uprising against the German state.

That night, Adolf Hitler went to see President Hindenburg, saying “This is a God-given signal! If this fire is the work of the Communists, as I believe, then we must crush this murderous pest with an iron fist.”

The Nazi Party used the atmosphere of public panic and terror to their advantage, employing propaganda to blame the Communists. Göring publicly declared that the Communists were planning a national uprising to overthrow the Republic!

By the end of the next day, Hitler had convinced the 86 year-old Hindenburg to sign the “Decree of the Reich President for the Protection of the People and State.” The act declared a state of German emergency and abolished freedom of speech, assembly, privacy and the press; legalized phone tapping and interception of letters and telegrams; and suspended the autonomy of the German states. The decree also allowed the Nazis to arrest and jail their political opponents indiscriminately for any or no reason, labelling them as traitors to the republic.

**The German Reichstag after the 1933 fire.**

That night, Hitler’s SA stormtroopers arrested and imprisoned over 4,000 Communist party members. Ironically, the swift and brutal response to the Reichstag Fire bolstered Hitler’s image amongst the German people as Germany’s strong savior from the dreaded Bolsheviks. With this act, the Nazis were able to complete the journey from democracy to dictatorship.

In March, the general election took place, with a high national turnout of 89%. The Nazis secured 44% of the vote, but not enough to command a majority in the Reichstag. Hitler would take care of that soon enough. Later that month, the new Reichstag met temporarily at the Berlin Kroll Opera House and passed THE ENABLING ACT. The meeting supposedly marked the union of the Nazi Party with Hindenburg’s Social Democrats, but it essentially turned the country over to the Nazis. The Enabling Act gave ALL legislative power to Adolf Hitler.

Given the atmosphere of terror and chaos that followed the Reichstag Fire, plus Hindenburg’s support of Hitler, the proposal seemed legitimate and even necessary to the German people. The Bill passed by 444 votes for, to 94 votes against, on 24 March 1933.

Though Hindenburg and the Reichstag existed, Hitler could now basically govern by decree.

Gleichschaltung was the process of the Nazi Party taking control over ALL aspects of Germany. The Nazis started with the Civil Service, removing anyone of non-Ayran descent. In the judicial system, Hitler removed any judges deemed non-compliant with strict Nazi principles. The so-called People’s Court, created by the Nazis in 1934, replaced the German Supreme Court.

The dually elected 81 Communist deputies in the March elections, were detained indefinitely. Their empty seats left the Nazis largely free to do as they wished. To control cultural policies, the Hitler appointed Joseph Goebbels as Minister for Public Engagement. Goebbels now controlled the national media, film, theatre, and the arts, ensuring that they advocated only Nazi propaganda.

By the end of 1933, all non-Nazi political parties, labor unions, and other social organizations ceased to exist. The Nazis ordered the closure of over 1,600 newspapers. Censorship was heightened, and any person spouting anti-Nazi ideas was arrested. The Nazi SA and SS arrested and imprisoned up to 200,000 people. The first concentration camp, Dachau, was opened in a old World War I munitions factory to handle all the new prisoners. It would soon be filled with Jews.

The final domino to fall was President Hindenburg. World War I hero Paul von Hindenburg died on 2 August 1934 at the age of 87. With Hindenburg gone, there was no longer a controller of Hitler’s power. He was now a dictator. The German military sanctioned a new Hitler law that combined the posts of president and chancellor, cementing his absolute power in Germany as the new Fuhrer.

Who Set the Reichstag Fire?

Many Germans at the time challenged the Nazi propaganda that the arson was a Communist plot. Some diplomats and foreign journalists within Germany suggested that the Nazis had started the fire themselves as a ruse for taking power. German Communist Willi Münzenberg headed an independent investigation that produced The Brown Book on the Reichstag Fire and Hitler Terror, a 1933 bestseller published in Paris. It suggested van der Lubbe was a Nazi pawn.

It included the argument that the Nazis were the real criminals who orchestrated the fire to foment fear and consolidate power. He wrote that, given the extent of the fire and the amount of time needed to set it, there was no way van der Lubbe acted alone inside. He argued that the Communists were not involved; but rather, the Nazis, who investigated the fire, covered up their own involvement.

Later that year, a sensational trial got under way in Leipzig. The confessed arsonist, van der Lubbe, and Ernst Torgler, leader of the Communist Party in the Reichstag, were put on trial. Only Van der Lubbe was convicted, found guilty, and sentenced to death. He was ultimately beheaded in January 1934.

[The German government later exonerated Marinus van der Lubbe in 2008, seventy-five years after his execution by the Nazis.]

Since then, the Reichstag Fire has become something of a metaphor. It is referenced even today by citizens around the world as a cautionary lesson learned – one that calls up images of a manufactured crisis, sowed fears and hatred, followed by a ruthless grab for power.

So was Hitler’s seizure of power the result of political arson or simply taking advantage of an opportune event? Did the Nazis really set the fire, or did van der Lubbe act alone? It’s impossible to know, since those who survived WWII did not talk about the fire during East German Communist rule. One thing is certain, the Reichstag Fire played a critical role in Adolf Hitler and the Nazis rise to absolute power. The German people were now willing to blindly follow their new Fuhrer … even into the hell of World War II and the Holocaust.

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews click BOOKS.

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The 1977 Tenerife Airport Disaster

**Depiction of the Tenerife Airport Disaster in 1977**

On Sunday 27 March 1977, just after 5:00 PM, two 747 jumbo jets collided during take-off on the runway of Los Rodeos Airport in the Canary Islands off the Spanish coast. The collision caused a massive explosion and both aircraft were engulfed in flames. The Tenerife airport disaster remains the deadliest crash in aviation history.

Despite the devastating impact and resulting fire, there were some survivors. Of the 644 people on board the two planes, 583 were killed and 61 somehow managed to survive. The crash of a single passenger airplane is bad enough. How could two 747’s have collided on the same runway? Nearly a dozen mistakes and uncontrollable events lined up for the disaster to occur. The pilots of both planes were experienced, but they both made critical errors that led to the horrific tragedy.

The KLM Flight 4805 from Amsterdam to Gran Canaria was flown by Captain Jacob Veldhuyzen van Zanten and First Officer Klaas Meurs. It carried 14 crew and 234 passengers on departure from Tenerife. The Pan Am Flight 1736 from New York JFK to Gran Canaria was piloted by Captain Victor Grubbs and First Officer Robert Bragg. It carried 16 crew and 380 passengers.

Ironically, neither of the planes should have even been at Tenerife, let alone on the same runway at the same time. So how did the Tenerife airport disaster happen? Both 747’s were carrying passengers heading towards vacations on Grand Canary Island. That Sunday morning, shortly before the arrival of the two jumbo jets, a terrorist group set off a bomb in Grand Canary’s Las Palmas Airport terminal.

A telephoned threat made reference to “bombs,” so all incoming flights were postponed or diverted.

While the search for a second bomb was carried out, incoming aircrafts, including the Pan Am and KLM 747’s were diverted. They landed at nearby Tenerife Los Rodeos Airport to wait until Las Palmas officials gave the all-clear. The search took hours and hundreds of buckled-in passengers now stuck in Tenerife became impatient.

The much smaller Los Rodeos Airport had only one runway, one parallel taxiway, and limited space for aircraft. The diverted aircraft had to park on the taxiway, meaning departing aircraft had to taxi into position around them using the runway. Only two Air Traffic Controllers were on duty, and they had to handle much more traffic than either had ever seen.

Trying not to jam up the airport’s small terminal building, Pan Am Captain Grubbs kept the 380 passengers and 13 crew on board while they waited. After an hour or so, Grubbs invited anyone on board to have a look in the 747’s cockpit. Dozens of curious and bored passengers eagerly accepted the offer. A line of people extended through the second-floor lounge, down a circular stairway into the first-class section.

“They ordered us down without saying why,” Grubbs told frustrated passengers. “We told them that we could remain in a holding pattern above Las Palmas because we had plenty of fuel.” If Pan Am had been allowed to stay in a holding pattern, the ensuing accident would never have happened.

In the KLM plane, Captain Van Zanten had let their 234 passengers leave the airplane and wait in the small Tenerife terminal. While they waited, the KLM cockpit crew worried aloud about their Dutch government’s strict rules limiting overtime for flight crews. Their continuing flight from Grand Canary back to Amsterdam would push that limit. “It could mean serious fines and even a revocation of your pilot’s license,” Captain van Zanten explained to his cockpit crew.

The KLM captain then decided to use the time waiting at the terminal to refuel his plane so he would not have to later at Gran Canary. It was a decision that would later prove disastrous. Just after the refueling began, the tower informed them that Las Palmas airport had reopened. But now, KLM had to wait for the fuel truck to finish.

Several smaller passenger jets were able to taxi around the KLM 747 and onto the runway and leave Tenerife. But Pan Am, parked behind KLM on the apron was too large and had to wait as well. And with the extra fuel, KLM had become thousands of pounds heavier, meaning it would need more runway to get off the ground. Another factor that would prove disastrous in a few minutes.

KLM terminal staff rounded up all the passengers and bused them back to the waiting plane. Meanwhile, an evening fog rolled in and the visibility throughout the Tenerife airport quickly worsened. Los Rodeos Airport frequently suffered from foggy conditions. Drifting clouds reduced the visibility to less than 100 meters (110 yards) on the runway.

In addition to the crew’s visibility, the fog affected the tower’s view as well.

Shortly before 5 PM, the control tower gave KLM permission to start its engines and gave them take-off instructions. They were to taxi and enter the runway at the northwest end, move down the runway, and leave it at exit turnoff C-3 for the adjacent taxiway. From there it could continue to the southeast end of the taxiway, swing back onto the runway, then wait for its final takeoff run back to the northwest. The Pan Am 747 also started its engines, and the tower gave them the same instructions, following behind the KLM plane.

But that’s not what happened. Both cockpit crews got confused about the runway exit they were supposed to take. Neither crew was sure which exit the ground controller had told them to take. C-3 required a difficult maneuver. They would have to turn their huge 747’s 135 degrees to the left to get onto C-3, then turn 135 degrees to the right to get on the taxiway. By comparison, the C-4 turnoff was only a 45 degree turn.

After several back and fourths between KLM and the tower seeking clarity, the airport traffic controller changed his mind. At 4:56 PM, the tower gave the KLM aircraft clearance to taxi the length of the runway and do a 180-degree turn, so that the jet was then facing the direction for take-off.

The KLM crew did as directed, going to the end the runway and completed their turn. In the meantime, the Pan Am 747 was entering the runway on the other end as KLM just had. At 5:02 PM, the Pan Am aircraft was instructed to start its taxi along the runway and exit at C-3. As with KLM, the Pan Am crew was confused. Grubbs and Bragg had trouble believing they weren’t supposed to leave at C-4.

**Paths of the 747s at Tenerife Airport at the time of the crash**

The Pan Am aircraft did not take the third exit, which would have required the two sharp turns and continued to taxi along the runway towards C-4. Copilot Bragg later said the fog was so heavy that they taxied past C-3 without noticing it. The two jumbo jets were now facing each other on the same runway at opposite ends, but unable to see each other through the fog.

Tenerife air traffic controllers could not see the runway and had no ground radar.

At 5:06 PM, the tower gave KLM departure and routing instructions but not takeoff clearance. KLM 4805 read this back and finished with, “We are now at takeoff.” The response from the tower was, “Stand by for takeoff. I will call you.” The KLM crew likely missed part of this critical communication due to radio interference.

At the same time, the Pan Am crew radioed, “We’re still taxiing down the runway, Pan Am 1736.” The overlap in these two messages led to the KLM crew not hearing the critical tower instructions. That transmission should have been audible in KLM’s cockpit, but instead an electronic buzz, or heterodyne, interfered with the transmission. The KLM 747 began its take-off run!

Oblivious to this series of unfortunate events, the passengers inside each plane were adjusting seat backs, putting away personal items and getting ready for the short hop over to Las Palmas. After a several-hour delay, the passengers were finally getting ready to take off to their vacations.

Just as Pan Am passed C-3, KLM’s captain took the action that sealed everyone’s fate: He began his takeoff roll before getting permission from the controller. First officer Klaas Meurs was still finishing a radio confirmation with the tower of their post-takeoff flight instructions. At 5:06 pm, Captain van Zanten released the brake, pushed the throttles, and began accelerating down the runway.

“Stand by for takeoff. I will call you,” the controller had said to him. Apparently van Zanten heard only the word “takeoff.” Yet, even with van Zanten’s decision to begin, there was still one last opportunity to avoid the collision. The flight engineer did not like what he thought he’d heard on the radio. “Is Pan Am still on the runway?” he asked van Zanten, as KLM picked up speed.

Captain Van Zanten apparently didn’t hear him, and seconds ticked by. “What did you say?” the pilot asked. “Is he not clear, the Pan American?” More seconds ticked by. “Oh … yes” van Zanten responded. The last words recorded in the KLM cockpit, just before the crash at 5:07 pm, were a shouted Dutch swear word, when Pan Am suddenly appeared through the fog still taxiing in front of them, “Godverdomme!”

The Pan Am 747 jumbo jet was moving slowly down the runway when the passengers felt a sudden sharp swerve to the left, heading off the runway. Captain Grubbs and first officer Bragg had just seen the KLM 747 speeding through the fog directly toward them. Grubbs tried desperately to get out of the way, heading into the grass next to the runway. They did not make it.

Captain Van Zanten pulled back hard on the yoke and added power in an unsuccessful attempt to take-off and clear the Pan Am 747. Just refueled, the plane was too heavy for such a maneuver. The nose rose in the air and the plane’s tail carved a 68-foot groove in the runway.

The ensuing collision and the jet fuel firestorm that followed killed everyone on board KLM 4805.

**Photo of the Tenerife Airport Disaster of 1977**

The KLM struck the Pan Am 747 at an angle because of that emergency left turn by Captain Grubbs. Some sections of the 747 weren’t as damaged as those that took the full impact of KLM’s fuselage. After both planes came to a rest in pieces, around 100 Pan Am passengers were alive. What followed was a hellish few minutes of evacuation by some of the passengers, and a shocked immobility by others.

The situation inside Pan Am 1736 required immediate escape as fires and smoke filled the cabin. The first people to respond, other than the crew members, were those who had looked at the safety cards and understood the cabin’s layout. Passengers made their way to the exits, only to find that no slides were available because the side of the plane had been ripped apart in the collision. They had no choice but to leap 20 feet down to the runway.

Several less-injured passengers climbed up through a hole in the ceiling, then down to the undamaged left wing. The scene outside was pure chaos. Huge orange flames and massive black smoke roared up from the destroyed Pan Am. The KLM wreckage was burning 400 yards down the runway. Pan Am’s crew and four surviving flight attendants did their best to guide passengers to safety. The Airport immediately launched rescue efforts to save the survivors.

At least 71 people on board the Pan Am plane were able to get away from the burning fuselage. However, several later died of their injuries. Only 61 people survived. The collision and explosion instantly claimed the lives of the 248 passengers and crew on KLM Flight 4805, as well as 335 passengers and crew members on Pan Am Flight 1736.

Following the Tenerife airport disaster, an investigation was conducted to determine the cause. It was found that a series of miscommunications and misunderstandings among the air traffic controllers and pilots contributed to the tragedy. Poor visibility due to the fog also played a role. Los Rodeos Airport was ill-prepared to handle such a large number of diverted aircraft. The investigation revealed that KLM pilot Captain Jacob Veldhuyzen van Zanten made a critical error in attempting to take off without proper clearance.

The investigation highlighted the importance of effective communication and coordination between air traffic controllers and pilots, as well as the need for improved runway safety protocols. As a result, numerous changes were made to international aviation regulations and procedures.

These changes included improved communication systems, increased training for pilots and air traffic controllers, new protocols for responding to adverse weather conditions, and an expansion of runway traffic light systems. In the years after the Tenerife airport disaster, the island’s government completed a new airport—this one with ground radar.

A memorial to honor the victims is the Tenerife Memorial Gardens, located in Los Rodeos Airport, near the site of the collision. It features a tall monument with the engraved names of all the victims. Every year, on March 27th, ceremonies are held there to commemorate the Tenerife airport disaster and honor the memory of those who tragically lost their lives.

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews, click BOOKS

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The Mystery of the Dyatlov Pass Incident

Russian hikers head off to the Dyatlov Pass in 1959 — **Russian hikers heading off to the Dyatlov Pass in 1959**

On February 1959, nine experienced Russian hikers went missing while trekking in Russia’s Ural Mountains. They were ultimately all found dead in Dyatlov Pass with unusual injuries. The Soviet government at the time attributed the cause of death to a “compelling natural force.” But that hardy explains the bizarre frozen corpses that rescuers found. It took more than three months to locate all nine of their missing bodies.

Over the decades since, the strange state of the nine hikers’ cadavers has generated a wide range of theories ranging from avalanches to nuclear weapons testing. Although some theories are more plausible than others, the “Dyatlov Pass Incident” as it is called today, remains an unsolved mystery. For over 60 years, authorities and amateur sleuths have tried to figure out what happened, in a place now called “Russia’s Area 51.”

On 23 January 1959, ten hikers set out for a winter adventure trek through Russia’s northern Ural Mountains, far to the east of the Volga River. It was led by a 23-year-old hiker named Igor Alekseyevich Dyatlov. He led a group of nine, experienced Soviet hikers/skiers, eight men and two women. Most were from the Ural Polytechnical Institute. Their goal was to reach the peak of Mt. Ortorten, leaving from the small village of Vizhai. About five days into the journey, one of the students, Yuri Yudin decided to leave the team due to a sciatica flare-up and headed back.

Igor Dyatlov was studying engineering at the Ural Polytechnic Institute. He planned the trip with eight other students who were all in their early 20s and in excellent physical shape. All of the students were experienced hikers and skiers, as well as Semyon Zolotaryov, a sports instructor in his late 30s, who joined the expedition.

Before Dyatlov left, he told his local sports club that he’d send them a telegram as soon as they returned in about three weeks. But he never sent that telegram, and none of the hikers were ever seen alive again. When February 20 came and went, and there was still no communication from the hikers, a search party was mounted. The volunteer rescue force that trekked through the pass first found their last campsite … but no hikers.

The search party found their abandoned tent on February 26^th.

It was collapsed and covered in snow. Inside, their belongings were more or less undisturbed. The hikers’ boots, clothes and equipment were neatly arranged in the tent. The hikers had left sliced-up food on a plate as if they were preparing to eat. The tent was slashed open, but someone had made the cut from the inside, as if trying to escape.

Eight of the Russian Dyatlov Pass victims before they started the trek. — **Eight of the Russian Dyatlov Pass victims before they started the trek, 1959.**

The rescue team called in military and police investigators to expand the search and determine what had happened to the missing team. By now, the investigators were not very hopeful. The route the hikers had chosen was highly difficult and accidents were common. With the hikers having been missing for so long, investigators expected to find an open-and-shut case of accidental deaths.

Over the next couple of weeks, the search party found the bodies of the first five hikers, spread out over the snowy Dyatlov Pass. Surprisingly, some were in various states of undress and had bizarre injuries, with one appearing to have bitten off part of his own knuckle!

The first two bodies found were students Yuri Doroshenko, 21, and Yuri Krivonishchenko, 23, nearly a mile away from the tent, under a cedar tree next to the remains of a campfire. A medical examiner noted that the two had burned hands. Doroshenko had a “brown-purple” complexion with a grayish foam coming from his mouth. Krivonishchenko had inexplicably bitten off one of the knuckles of his own hand, and it was found still in his mouth.

Despite temperatures of −20 F/-29 C that night, both were shoeless and wearing only underwear.

The searchers then found the bodies of leader Igor Dyatlov and Zinaida Kolmogorova, 22, one of the two women, in a different location, hundreds of feet from the cedar tree. They were apparently trying to head back to the tent when they died. Finally, searchers found the body of Rustem Slobodin, 23, who also appeared to be trying to make his way back to the tent.

Their campsite had been made on the slopes of Kholat Syakhl (Dead Mountain), at about 3,600 feet/1,100 meters. Despite nasty weather and slow progress, their last diary entries found at the tent, reflected high spirits. They even produced a little mock newspaper about the trip, “The Evening Ortoten” which bore the headline: “From now on, we know that the snowmen exist. They can be met in the Northern Urals, next to Otorten mountain.” The ‘They,’ is thought to refer to themselves.

There were eight or nine sets of footprints in the snow, accounting only for the hikers and not another ‘attacking’ party. Many of them were clearly made by people with no boots on their feet. There was no sign of struggle. There was also no sign of animals at the campsite. A snowstorm hit the night of February 2, which is when, based on their diaries, investigators believed they died.

The skiers must have fled their badly damaged tent, cut open from the inside, with all their gear still inside. Why did they die of exposure if they still had access to their gear before going out? They appeared to have left the tent out of their own free will and in a desperate hurry. Zolotaryov fled the camp with his camera, but not his gear. Rustem Slobodin had a small crack in his skull. The investigators discovered no external wounds.

All five students appeared to have died from hypothermia, which can cause an erratic behavior called “paradoxical undressing.” The brain’s hypothalamus malfunctions and the body’s temperature feels like its rising when it’s really dropping. Victims illogically undress even though they are freezing to death. The various stages of undress was therefore somewhat explainable.

While the circumstances were odd, investigators found that all five hikers died from hypothermia.

But this did not explain the strange condition of Doroshenko and Krivonishchenko’s bodies. Slobodin had the skull fracture consistent with someone falling. Kolmogorova had a baton-shaped bruise on her side. These two hikers were also generally under-dressed and wearing some of each other’s clothes. This supported the idea that they’d fled suddenly into the freezing night for some reason, without being properly dressed, despite being experienced hikers.

It wasn’t until the other four bodies were found months later that the mystery only deepened. Three months later, on May 4th, when more of the snow in the area had melted, an Indigenous Mansi hunter discovered the remains of a snow den in a ravine about 250 feet from the original tent encampment. Inside, rescue workers found the bodies of Aleksander Kolevatov, 24, Nikolay Thibeaux-Brignolle, 23, sports instructor Semyon Zolotaryov, 38, and Lyudmila Dubinina, 20, the second woman.

For three of the bodies, the cause of death did not appear to be hypothermia. Thibeaux-Brignolle had a severe skull fracture with fragments of bone in his brain, Zolotaryov and Dubinina had major chest fractures caused by a force comparable to that of a car crash, not one another person could have inflicted. Both Zolotaryov and Dubinina’s eye sockets were empty. Zolotaryov had a twisted neck. Dubinina was also missing her tongue! Who would do this? And why? Did another hiker from the group cut it out?

The four dead seemed to have traded some of their clothing as well; Ludmila Dubinina’s foot was wrapped in a piece of Yuri Krivonischenko’s pants. Semyon Zolotaryov was found wearing Dubinina’s hat and coat. Some of the clothes had cuts in them, as though they were forcibly removed.

Based on the site and from their cameras and diaries, investigators were able to piece together what may have happened. On February 1, the team began to make their way through the Dyatlov Pass towards Mt. Otorten. As they pushed towards the base, they were hit by a snowstorm. Due to low visibility, they lost their direction and accidentally strayed west to the slope of nearby Dead Mountain. To avoid losing the altitude they had climbed, Dyatlov called for camp to be made.

It was on this solitary mountainside of the Dyatlov Pass that all nine hikers would die.

The initial Soviet investigation couldn’t determine that any crime had taken place. It ended up concluding that the hikers had died from a “compelling natural force.” They closed the case a month later in May 1959. Some Russians wondered if the Soviet government was covering up something darker.

The Soviet government speculated that the hikers’ own incompetence caused their demises. Investigators theorized a fast moving, violent avalanche was the culprit. The rumbling snow would have frightened the hikers out of their tents in a state of undress and sent them sprinting for the trees. An avalanche would have been powerful enough to inflict the injuries that killed the second group of hikers.

But the physical evidence of an avalanche just wasn’t there. When investigators found the bodies, there was no evidence that an avalanche had occurred. There was no damage to the tree line, and no debris. Plus the physical terrain wouldn’t have made sense in the Dyatlov Pass.

Early on, some suspected that the hikers’ deaths resulted from an ambush by the local Mansi tribe. A sudden attack would explain the way the hikers suddenly fled their tents and the wounds inflicted on the second group of four bodies. But the Mansi people were peaceful, and the evidence did not support a violent conflict. There was also no evidence of any footprints other than those of the hikers. Plus, the damage done to two hikers’ bodies was similar to a car crash, not a human attack.

Another theory states that the deaths were the result of some argument among the group that got out of hand and turned violent. There was a history of dating between several of the students. But people who knew the ski group well said they were largely a harmonious bunch of friends.

Perhaps most surprising was that the clothes of both Kolevatov and Dubinina contained traces of radiation! It fueled speculation that the hikers had died in some kind of weapons testing incident gone wrong. However, two years before, there had been a plutonium production accident known as the Kyshtym Disaster. One of the two hikers had lived in the contamination zone, and the other had helped with the clean-up effort. So their clothes could have still held traces of radiation.

**Igor Dyatlov, leader of the ill-fated Dyatlov Pass Incident**, **1959**

The Soviets archived and classified the Dyatlov Pass investigation files.

After the fall of the Soviet Union in the 1991, the new Russian government released all the details of the investigation, including photos of the dead. But parts of the case files were found to be missing. With the official theory leaving a lot unexplained, many alternative explanations have been put forward in the six decades since. Hypothermia without an avalanche doesn’t explain the strange condition of the hikers’ bodies.

The Soviet KGB were suspects. The last campsite was located on the pathway from Balikonur Cosmodrone to Chyornaya Guba, a Soviet nuclear testing ground. Some speculated that they drank contaminated melted snow. A 12-year-old boy who attended the skiers’ funerals claimed that the bodies had a “deep brownish tan.” Aliens and UFOs, of course, came into the minds of conspiracy theorists. Some claimed the hikers were killed by a menk, a kind of Russian yeti, citing the “snowmen” referenced in the students’ mock newspaper.

Others point back to the radiation, so the hikers had been killed by some sort of secret radioactive weapons testing. Another group of hikers camped over 50 miles away the same night reported orange orbs in the night sky, supposed missile launches. The sound of a weapon could have drove the hikers from their tents in a panic. Half-clothed, they died from either hypothermia or got caught in the blast and died from their injuries.

But had radiation been significant, it would have appeared on more than just two of the hikers. The corpses’ skin color isn’t surprising given the frigid conditions in which they sat for weeks. Other theories included illicit drug use that caused violent behavior in some of the hikers. Another blamed an unusual weather event known as infrasound, caused by mountain to valley “katabatic” wind patterns. They can lead to panic attacks in humans because the low-frequency sound waves create a kind of earthquake sensation inside the body.

Finally, in 2019, Russian officials reopened the Dyatlov Pass case for a new investigation.

This time, however, they would only consider three theories: an avalanche, a snow slab, or a violent storm. And the case was once again closed with only a vague conclusion that no criminal activity was afoot. Investigators said that the hikers died of hypothermia after an avalanche or similar force pushed them out of their tent and into the cold, freezing half of then and crushing the others.

Two years later, two Swiss scientists claimed to have solved the Dyatlov Pass mystery with their own theory about a special slab avalanche. The slope at the campsite wasn’t steep enough for a traditional avalanche. But it was still possible for a smaller slab of snow to slide down over the tent. They speculated that the hikers ran a safe distance from the tent, some starting a fire and others digging a snow den. The den could have collapsed, causing the severe injuries. Scavenging animals could have selectively eaten the missing eyes and tongue.

To this day, a scientific explanation for the deaths of these nine young hikers remains elusive The Dyatlov Foundation, established by Yuri Kuntsevitch — the child eyewitness at the skiers’ funerals in 1959 — still works to persuade the Russian Federation to reopen the investigation. The mountainside was named the Dyatlov Pass in honor of the lost expedition. A monument to the nine hikers was erected in the Mikhajlov Cemetery at Yekaterinburg. There lay the only people who will ever know the full truth of what happened that snowy Russian night.

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews, click BOOKS.

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The Forgotten USS Akron Airship Disaster

**The USS Akron dirigible airship above San Diego, California**

Most everyone knows of Germany’s Zeppelin the Hindenburg and its infamous destruction by fire in Lakehurst, New Jersey in 1937. But few know that the United States also had an airship fleet of dirigibles at the same time. And one of its members, the USS Akron, met a tragic fate as well, just four years earlier. It crashed into the Atlantic Ocean during a violent storm and killed 73 of 76 on board, more than Hindenburg. What is the Akron’s forgotten story?

The airship began construction in November 1929 by the Goodyear-Zeppelin Company in Akron, Ohio. The design of the Akron, and its sister ship the Macon, were based on the plans of engineer Karl Arnstein. It was a 110 ton, 785-foot-long airship, just 20 feet shorter than the Hindenburg. Unlike the Hindenburg, the USS Akron and its sister ship were filled with nonflammable helium. First Lady Lou Hoover, wife of President Herbert Hoover, christened the rigid airship ZRS-4 “Akron” in its hanger in August 1931.

A month later, on September 23rd, more than 150,000 people gathered at Akron’s Airport to witness a remarkable spectacle. The USS Akron lifted off for the first time and made its maiden flight, with Lt. Cmdr. Charles Rosendahl in command. More than 100 passengers, including the Secretary of the Navy, were given a spectacular bird’s-eye view of Ohio.

With the USS Akron, the U.S. resumed world leadership in lighter-than-air craft. The goal was to demonstrate the value of airships, not only for the military, but for commerce as well. In October, she flew next with her crew of 60 to the Naval Air Station at Lakehurst, N.J. where she was formally commissioned into the U.S. Navy.

By the time the U.S entered World War I in 1917, Germany had already proven the value of rigid airships. Their Zeppelins were notorious for dropping bombs on London at night, from an altitude higher than British airplanes could reach. The U.S. Navy took note and began a program that would eventually commission four rigid airships. The USS Shenandoah became the first dirigible to fly across the U.S. and back in October 1924. Its sister ship the USS Los Angeles made a record 331 flights.

Then a decade later came the more advanced USS Akron and USS Macon.

Over the weeks that followed her commissioning, the Akron amassed 300 hours aloft in a series of flights along the east coast and Mississippi and Ohio River valleys. Front-page newspaper stories and radio news reports kept Americans aware of their every flight. The demonstration flights showed the new airship to the American public, and to congressional and government VIPs. The ship’s range was impressive as it was able to stay aloft for several days and fly thousands of miles without landing.

In May 1932, the Akron made a cross-country flight from Lakehurst to California. She reached Camp Kearny and attempted to moor. Unfortunately, neither trained ground handlers nor specialized mooring equipment was present yet. By the time she reached the airfield, the heat of the sun had warmed her helium, causing lift. Plus the airship was lighter having used 40 tons of fuel during her crossing. The Akron became uncontrollable and began to lift up again! Most seamen on the mooring crew let go their lines. Three did not and were carried aloft. Two lost their grip and fell to their death. The third managed to cling to his line and was hoisted on board Akron.

Akron and her sistership Macon (ZRS-5, still under construction) were regarded as “flying aircraft carriers.” Akron’s squadron of Curtiss Sparrowhawk biplanes were added in July 1932. The Akron for the first time tested the “trapeze” skyhook apparatus for the handling of aircraft while airborne. The pilots carried out historic take offs and “landings” from hangers on the underside of the Akron. That summer, she was given her full complement of three Curtiss Sparrowhawks.

**The USS Akron hanger, trapeze, and bi-wing airplane over open seas.**

During the first months of 1933, Akron made several long distance flights including trips to Cuba and the Panama Canal Zone. Akron also made several shorter publicity flights, including an appearance over the U.S. Capitol at the inauguration of President Franklin Roosevelt on March 4, 1933.

Just eighteen months after its maiden voyage, the airship would meet its tragic end.

The USS Akron departed Lakehurst on the evening of 3 April 1933 on a mission to calibrate its radio detection-finding equipment. The ship was under the command of Frank McCord. Amongst the 76 people on board were several VIPs including Rear Admiral William Moffett, Chief of the Navy’s Bureau of Aeronautics, and Cmdr. Frederick Berry, commanding officer of the Lakehurst Naval Air Station.

As she proceeded on her way, Akron encountered stormy weather, which only grew more severe as she passed over Barnegat Lighthouse at 10:00 PM. Around 12:30 AM off the New Jersey coast on 4 April 1933, wind gusts of terrific force suddenly struck the airship unmercifully. The ship was hit by a series of strong updrafts, then violent downdrafts. The helpless airship rose and then fell sharply in the strong winds. The captain ordered an immediate ascent and the nose of the airship rose.

While attempting to climb, another downdraft befell them and the ship’s tail violently struck the ocean, damaging all the rear fins. With its control surfaces destroyed, the Akron was lost. The rest of the ship crashed down into the churning seas of the ocean. With its superstructure damaged, its helium vented quickly into the clouds. The captain gave the order – All hands abandon ship! The USS Akron did not stay afloat for long and the metal airship quickly sank into the frigid waters of the Atlantic. There were no lifejackets or rafts on board.

The German motorship Phoebus saw lights descending toward the ocean and altered course to investigate, thinking it was a plane crash. Amongst the debris, Phoebus’ men picked up Lt. Cmdr. Herbert Wiley, Akron’s executive officer, unconscious, plus three more men: Chief Radioman Robert Copeland, Boatswain’s Mate Richard Deal, and Aviation Metalsmith Moody Ervin. Despite attempts to resuscitate him, Chief Copeland never regained consciousness and died on board Phoebus.

No one else amongst the remained 76 seamen were rescued. The German sailors did not know that their ship had chanced upon the crash of a massive airship until Lt. Cmdr. Wiley regained consciousness a half hour later. Phoebus then combed the ocean for over five hours in a futile search for more survivors. None were found.

The Coast Guard destroyer Tucker, arrived at dawn and took on board the three Akron survivors and the body of Chief Copeland. The cruiser Portland, destroyer Cole, and Coast Guard cutter Mojave, as well as two Coast Guard planes joined the search efforts that day. Aside from some minor floating wreckage, not a single body was found. Without lifejackets or rafts, the rest of the ship’s passengers and crew had either drowned during the crash into the sea or from exposure to the frigid ocean water.

The cause of the crash is generally attributed to the ship’s commander.

McCord may have relied on incorrect altitude readings from the ships altimeter, rendered inaccurate by the low pressure in the storm. Commander McCord may have thought his ship was higher than it really was, but should have known low barometric pressure would affect the altimeter. It’s equally possibly that McCord inadvertently flew his ship’s tail into the water. With the nose of the ship raised sharply to climb, Akron’s tail may have pivoted into the ocean.

One of the three survivors, Akron executive officer Lt. Cmdr. Wiley, incredibly went on to lead the USS Macon’s crew. Less than three weeks later, the Macon flew for its maiden voyage. Two years later, the Macon would incredibly have its own disaster. Off the California coast in February 1935, excessive winds ripped off its upper fin. This caused it to descend slowly, landing gently in the waters off California. This time, the Macon was equipped with life jackets and rafts — items not onboard the Akron — only two sailors died in that incident.

The sinking of both the Akron and Macon ended the Navy’s fleet of flying aircraft carriers, but not all dirigibles. During World War II, the Navy operated scouting airships in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Mediterranean. Akron’s disaster however spelled the beginning of the end for U.S. rigid airships and the program was scuttled in 1961.

Today, investigators have been able to scour the final resting places of the Akron in the Atlantic and the Macon in the Pacific in the decades since they tragically went down.

President Franklin Roosevelt commented at the time: “The loss of the Akron with its crew of gallant officers and men is a national disaster. I grieve with the nation and especially with the wives and families of the men who were lost. Ships can be replaced, but our nation can ill afford to lose such men upholding to the end the finest traditions of the United States Navy.”

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The Lost Spanish Treasure Fleets

**18th century Spanish Treasure Fleets**

The two biggest, treasure fleet wrecks happened in 1715 and 1733, just 18 years apart. Both were the result of fierce Caribbean hurricanes attacking Spanish bound fleets, loaded to the rafters with silver, gold, jewels, and other colonial treasure. Such treasure fleets were routine in the waters around Florida and Cuba. Nearly every year, from the 16^th to 18th centuries, Spain sent armadas of ships to its Spanish colonies, reaping its ill-gotten treasures. Some of these ships have been discovered and salvaged. Others still remain buried under the Caribbean Sea. How did these fleets meet their terrible ends?

The 1715 Treasure Fleet

Two fleets regularly traveled between Spain and the Americas; La Flota de Tierra Firme and La Flota de Nueva España. The return voyages were always more dangerous as the galleons were heavy and far less maneuverable. They were loaded with their precious cargoes of gold, silver, jewelry, tobacco, spices, and dyes. The crews were often sick as well with tropical diseases caught in the colony. The greatest danger, however, came from the unpredictable Mother Nature. Like today, the warm waters of the South Atlantic created fast, unpredictable, and violent huracanes.

In 1715, Spain had just emerged from the War of Spanish Succession with Britain and France. King Philipe V of France had become Spain’s first Bourbon King. Spain’s treasury was in dire need of finances after the long, expensive war. They desperately needed a shipment of New World treasure to help pay its huge debts.

In the summer of 1715, eleven ships were assembled in Havana harbor. The treasure fleet was made up of the Flota de Tierra Firme, loaded at Cartagena, and of the Flota de Nueva España, loaded a Veracruz. The Flota de Tierra Firme was commanded by Capitán Don Antonio de Echeverz y Zubiza. It consisted of six vessels laden with a chests of silver coins, gold bars, and jewels. His flagship was the Nuestra Señora de la Concepción. The five ships of the Flota de Nueva Espana were under the command of General Don Juan Esteban de Ubilla who commanded the combined fleet as well.

On 24 July 24, 1715, the combined fleet of 12 ships left Havana, headed for Spain via Florida’s east coast. The French warship Griffon, commanded by Captain Antoine d’Aire, sailed with the fleet as the Spaniards were allied with the French. Ubilla was on the capitana (fleet flagship) Nuestra Señora de la Regala. As well as the treasure, the cargo of the combined fleet included tobacco, indigo, dyes and drugs. In today’s money, the shipment would be worth about $200 million.

The fleet had suffered delays, and had been sitting idle for nearly two years waiting for the Succession War to end. Under pressure from the new king, General Ubilla made the decision to leave, even though the hurricane season had begun. His decision would prove deadly, for unknown to the Spaniards, a powerful hurricane was already brewing southeast of Cuba and headed there way.

The treasure fleet left Havana on a beautiful and calm day. The ships followed the east coast of Florida, taking advantage of the Gulf Stream. For the first five days, the voyage was uneventful and gave no indication that a Category 4 hurricane was rapidly approaching them.

But on July 29th, long swells started to appear in the ocean from the southeast. The swells started to make the ships gently dip and roll. Experienced navigators and old hands started to worry. They knew this was the early signs of a tropical storm. The 1715 Fleet was directly in the path an ominous hurricane pursuing it up the Florida Straits

On July 30th, winds began to pick up.

They increased to twenty knots and the sea delivered 10-foot swells. By late afternoon, winds were over thirty knots and the waves now twenty feet. To make matters worse, the approaching storm was relentlessly driving the fleet towards the Florida shore. Captain-General Ubilla gave the order for all ships to head into the wind to stay clear of the reefs and shoals. They would try to outrun the storm. The bulky, heavy galleons were not fast enough though. The winds kept increasing, and by midnight, the ships were barely navigable.

In the very early morning of July 31, the richest Spanish treasure fleet ever assembled was now in grave peril. The fleet was just south of Cabo Canaveral (Cape Canaveral) and in danger of being pushed onto the jagged coastal reefs. The Category 4 hurricane had caught the Spanish Fleet. The storm rapidly grew, reached an alarming strength. Over 100-mph winds, torrential rains, and high waves broke over the fleet of ships. The terrified passengers huddled below decks and could only pray.

Around 4 am on July 31st, in the black of night, the hurricane eye struck the doomed ships. One ship after another was either thrust upon the jagged Florida reefs or capsized by wind or waves. Ubilla’s capitana was crushed on a jagged reef like a balsa wood model. Almost all aboard were killed, including Ubilla himself. The death toll would be staggering.

By dawn the next morning, the beaches were strewn with dead bodies and wreckage. The powerful hurricane had capsized, grounded or destroyed every ship of the Spanish fleet – all the treasure galleons. When daylight came, the full extent of the disaster was visible to the survivors. The wreckage of ships was spread some 20 miles along the Florida coast. 750 were dead, including women and children passengers.

Soaked and shivering survivors were left with little food or fresh water.

For those who had miraculously survived, they were now stranded in on an empty coast infested with disease-carrying mosquitoes and hostile Native Americans. Survivor Admiral Don Francisco Salmon assumed command and immediately surveyed the extent of the damage. He slowly realized that all ships had been wrecked. On August 6th, he sent the Ubilla’s pilot and 18 men in a small surviving launch toward Cuba. It took eleven days for the small boat to reach Havana.

The only ship to survive the storm was ironically the French warship Griffon, Captain Antoine d’Aire had chosen to head towards deeper waters early into the storm. He arrived at Brittany on August 31^st, completely unaware that all the Spanish ships in his fleet had perished.

When Spanish colonial authorities in Havana heard of the terrible disaster, they immediately sent ships north in an effort to salvage the galleons’ treasure and rescue the survivors. Within a few days, several ships were leaving Havana harbor, loaded with salvage equipment, emergency supplies, and a hundred soldiers to guard the precious treasure.

By the time they arrived in Florida, many of the injured had since died. The Spaniards immediately went to work recovering large portions of the treasure. Some salvage success came early as sloops dragged the ocean floor for wreckage and quickly brought up chests of coins, jewelry and gold. By the time the weather turned in the fall, over 5,000,000 Pieces of Eight (silver coins) had been recovered.

News of the disaster swept the Americas and privateers and pirates flocked toward Florida like vultures. The British governor of Jamaica declared open season on the sunken treasure. Spanish salvagers soon faced the additional peril of armed raids. By the end of the next summer, however, everyone was long gone. Winter had obliterated the wreck sites and the Spanish were content with what they had recovered.

But, in fact, a great fortune was still scattered along the ocean floor off the Florida coast.

Over the centuries since, the wreckage site faded from historical memory and the 1715 Fleet would lay undisturbed for 250 years. In the 1960’s, thanks to advances in Scuba, the modern age of treasure hunting began. Some investigated why Spanish coins frequently washed ashore on the Florida coast after strong storms. Spanish archival maps and documents seem to suggest that all 1715 shipwrecks were from Cape Canaveral south to Palmar de Ays (present day Sebastian).

Since the 1960’s, seven of the eleven vessels have been discovered. They’ve been salvaged primarily by a group of 8 lucky treasure hunters calling themselves The Real Eight. Not a single 1715 Fleet shipwreck has been definitively identified though. Names have been attributed by the treasure hunters, based on the amount of gold, silver, jewelry, and artifacts collected.

Four fleet vessels still remain undiscovered.

The 1733 Treasure Fleet

Twice a year in the 17th & 18^th centuries, the marshy Mexican fishing village of Vera Cruz would come to life with activity. Flotas of treasure ships would arrive from Spain with supplies for the colony, but more importantly, leave laden with fortunes in silver ingots, gold coins, pearls, chocolate, and other treasures.

The dangers of Caribbean weather were well known to Lieutenant General Don Rodrigo de Torres y Morales, commander of the 1733 treasure ship armada. His fleet set sail for Spain on 25 May 1733, at the beginning of hurricane season. The first leg of the journey, Vera Cruz to Havana, was uneventful. The fleet didn’t set sail for Spain until July 13th. It was made up of 17 King’s ships, merchant ships, and 2 ships bound for St. Augustine, sailing with the fleet for protection against pirates – 22 ships in all. The combined fortune aboard the fleet amounted to 13 million pesos.

Two days after leaving Havana for Spain, with a year’s collection of New World treasure stuffed below decks, the fleet would encounter a hurricane at the Upper Florida Keys. One day into the voyage, on July 14th, the ships sighted Key West. Sailors noticed that the sky had a “bad appearance” that day. In the evening, the seas and sky slowly became rougher. By the night of the 14th, the armada was nearing the jaws of an unexpected storm.

By dusk on the 15^th, it was clear they were facing a hurricane.

Don Rodrigo, the fleet captain aboard the capitano (flagship) El Rubi Segundo had put up colors instructing the other ships to turn and make for Havana. But it was already too late. Large, heavy Spanish galleons didn’t have any means to make headway against the wind. When winds reached hurricane strength, crews couldn’t put any sail up. By 10:30pm that night, all but one of the ships had lost their masts and rigging to the storm.

The helpless sailors could now see the waves crashing on the nearby reefs they were being driven toward. It would be their turn next. A passenger aboard Nuestra Senora de Las Angustius wrote in a poem, “The ship saw the silver reef … there was only time to sigh, to ask for grace from God. Clouds and waves were like approaching mountains….” The first ship grounded at 8:30 p.m., and pounded upon Little Conch Reef all night. She settled submerged to her decks. Terrified passengers and crew clung to the fallen rigging.

The rest of the fleet would suffer a similar fate. By 11:00pm the next night, the hurricane had passed and the moon came out. A thousand people had barely survived on their wrecked hulks and on the nearby Florida Key islets. At daybreak on the July 16th, the skies were clear and survivors could see Cayo Largo and Cayo Plantacion.

Survivors could also see all the other grounded ships.

Galleon crews had cut away masts and pushed cannons overboard to prevent them from grounding, but to no avail. The San Joseph sank in 30′ of water. Her people crowded onto the raised afterdeck. No one aboard El Rubi Segundo, the capitana [flagship] expected to survive. But her only casualties were two sailors flung into the sea and a one crushed when the ship struck bottom. She was submerged to her decks.

**A Spanish treasure galleon wrecked in a storm upon the reefs.**

Nuestra Senora de Belen grounded 3 miles offshore, broken apart on a reef, her cargo lost. San Felipe grounded a mile offshore of a key, submerged to her deck. All her people survived the storm, clinging to wreckage. Six large galleons with keels broken would never sail again.

San Ignacio broke into four pieces when she struck the reef. Only 14 people aboard her survived. The frigate Florida had but one survivor, a woman who floated ashore on a mast. El Gallo Indiana, the almiranta [rear of the fleet] grounded on beach with four dead, including a child.

Only the La Balandra Pequeno, was still afloat but dismasted, anchored between two sheltering keys. Her cargo of 256 barrels of flour helped keep the shipwreck survivors alive in the days to come. Having somehow lived through the hurricane, survivors now faced survival on the wrecks. Rafts were made from the wreckage of ships. People were towed ashore by surviving ship’s boats. The next day, more rafts were made for more people to go ashore.

Immediately after the storm, a ship was sent from Havana to check on the treasure fleet. That city had also suffered from the hurricane. Before it returned, another Spanish ship came into port on the 21st with shocking news. They had seen 12 large galleons aground off the upper Keys. The governor ordered all ten ships docked in Havana’s harbor sent to the Keys.

Rescue ships arrived just in time.

A day of two more and they might have perished from exposure. Two survivors’ camps were organized, and two makeshift forts of four cannon each were hastily built to protect the recovered treasure. The Spanish rescue ships then began to salvage the huge amount of treasure trapped in the wrecked hulls. It would continue for months.

They managed to refloat the three least-damaged ships with the tides. Over the next year, the Spanish recovered about $12 million of the original $20 million of treasure. After the salvagers recovered as much as they could, the Spanish burnt the exposed ships. One by one, they disappeared from sight beneath the waves.

In 1938, Islamorada fisherman Reggie Roberts asked diver Art McKee to look at an old “cannon wreck” he found. McKee wrote to Spain after he discovered some Spanish coins on the wreck. He received back a salvors’ map of the locations of ships of an entire fleet that had wrecked in the upper Keys in 1733. One of North America’s greatest maritime disasters had been lost to history until that letter from Spain arrived.

They had found the capitana [El Rubi Segundo] near Upper Matecumbe Key. The lucky divers were able to recover most of the treasure aboard. Salvage divers recovered items from the sunken ship over the next 10 years. Additional gold was recovered as recent as 2015. In all they managed to find the Infante, Herrera, Chaves, San Pedro, and San Joseph.

While most of the ships were found in 1733, an elusive few are still missing to this day. Off Florida’s Upper Keys, scuba divers occasional find gold coins or silver ingots, along with cannons and swords. Sometimes a strong tropical storm will wash ashore a silver goblet or piece of gold jewelry for the lucky beach walker. Lurking somewhere beneath the reefs of the Florida Keys still remains a vast fortune in Spanish treasure for the lucky diver.

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews, click BOOKS.

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The Three Lives of Istanbul’s Famous Hagia Sophia

**The Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, Turkey**

The Hagia Sophia in Istanbul is an architectural marvel built over 1,400 years ago when the city was still known as Constantinople. Throughout its very long life, it has served as a Christian basilica for the Byzantine Empire, a grand mosque for the Ottoman Empire, and a renowned museum for Turkey. Though it looks outwardly like a mosque, with its huge dome and four minarets, it was originally built as an Orthodox cathedral by the Emperor Justinian.

The Hagia Sophia served for a over millennium as the focus of worship for both Orthodox Christians and Turkish Muslims, depending on the ruling empire in control of the ancient city. It even had a short stint ruled by the Crusaders. The name Hagia Sophia (Aya sofya in Turkish) literally means “holy wisdom.” How then did such radial changes, basilica to mosque to museum, come about?

When the Hagia Sofia was first constructed, Constantinople was the capital of the Byzantine Empire. This Christian state formed the eastern half of the Roman Empire and continued on for centuries, even after the fall of Rome. The current Hagia Sophia is actually the third building on the site. After moving the capital of the Roman Empire to Constantinople, Constantine the Great realized the city needed of a grand worship space for all its Christians. So he had built a large cathedral, close to his Imperial palace, which was completed in 360 AD.

Rioters burnt that church, with a wooden roof, in the riots of 404. Emperor Theodosius II then ordered the construction of a new church . This Hagia Sophia incarnation, also with a wooden roof, was torched and burned to the ground during the Nika Revolt of 532.

I. CHRISTIAN BASILICA

It was Byzantine Emperor Justinian who ordered the demolition of the second Hagia Sophia. He commissioned two renowned architects Anthemios of Tralles and Isidorus of Miletus to build a third basilica in its place like no other. It would have a massive stone dome, semi-domed altar, golden mosaics, and marble floors and walls.

Hagia Sophia’s dimensions are indeed formidable for such an ancient structure. The dome is 108 ft [33 m] in diameter and its peak stands 180 ft [55 m] above the floor. It actually contains two floors, centered on a giant nave with the great dome towering above it. In order to create a central basilica that represented the entire Byzantine Empire, Emperor Justinian commanded that all provinces to send architectural pieces to be used in its construction.

The marble for the floor and ceiling came from Anatolia in eastern Turkey. Bricks used in the walls came from North Africa. The Hagia Sophia’s 104 columns were imported from the ancient Temple of Artemis in Ephesus. Thousands of craftsmen and workers gathered from across the vast empire.

The central dome rests on a ring of windows, supported by two semi-domes and two arched openings to create the HUGE nave. The walls were originally lined with intricate Byzantine mosaics made from gold, silver, glass, terra cotta and gems portraying scenes and figures from the Christian Gospels as well as images of the emperors (of course).

Interior of Istanbul's Hagia Sophia — **Interior of Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia**

The upper part of the dome was decorated in gold with a massive cross in a medallion at the dome’s summit. The dome was a supported by an ingenious, complex system of vaults and semi-domes. Procopius, Justinian’s court historian, described it as “A golden dome suspended from Heaven. It seems not to be founded on masonry, but to be suspended from heaven by a golden chain.” Beneath the dome are 40 windows allowing sunlight to come through at any time of the day.

This third iteration of the Hagia Sophia was completed in just 5 years in 537, and it remains standing today in Istanbul. To put this in comparison, it took nearly a century for medieval builders to construct the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Emperor Justinian is reported to have said, “My Lord, thank you for giving me the chance to create such a worshipping place. Solomon, I have surpassed thee!”

The Hagia Sophia has two levels, the ground floor and the main gallery above. In Byzantine churches, galleries were used as a means to segregate genders and social classes. So, only if you were a higher class male would you get to experience the glorious gallery. To enter the cathedral’s nave from the narthex, there are nine doorways.

The central, Imperial Door, was reserved exclusively for the use of the emperor.

The two waves of iconoclasm (rejection of religious images) swept the Byzantine Empire between 730 and 843. Religious leaders ordered most of the religious icons within the Hagia Sophia to be obscured. The southwest entrance had a large mosaic of the Virgin Mary holding the Christ Child, flanked by Emperors Constantine and Justinian. All were covered with yellow paint.

Some of the precious mosaics were even destroyed. Unfortunately, few fragments of those originals remain to this day. The cross was promoted as the only acceptable decoration for Byzantine churches. There was concern that the faithful might misdirect their veneration toward the images, rather than to God and Christ alone.

All this was reversed during the reign of subsequent emperors in the 10th century, and icons were reestablished. This gave the opportunity for new mosaics to be placed in the church. The Hagia Sofia therefore remained a work in progress as each new emperor continued to decorate it. A number of mosaics that have been added over the centuries include imperial portraits, imperial families, and the life of Jesus Christ.

When the Crusaders conquered Constantinople in 1204, they converted the Hagia Sophia from an Orthodox basilica to a Catholic cathedral. This lasted only 57 years. In 1261, Michael VIII was crowned emperor and the Hagia Sophia was converted back to an Orthodox church. It was severely damaged during the Crusades, but repaired when the Byzantines once again took control.

As Greek Orthodox was the official religion of the Byzantines, the Hagia Sophia was considered the central church of the faith, and it thus became the place where new emperors were crowned. These ceremonies took place in the central nave, at a large circle of marble and colorful stones in the floor in an intertwining design.

The great church, however, followed the fate of the Byzantine Empire, and its condition declined into the last century before the fall of Constantinople. In the last days of the Empire, those fleeing the approaching Ottoman invaders sought refuge in the Hagia Sophia, praying and hoping for protection and salvation.

II. GRAND MOSQUE

A major change was in store less than 200 years after the Crusades. Byzantine control ended when the Ottoman Empire, led by Emperor Mehmed II, captured Constantinople in 1453. The victorious Ottomans renamed the city Istanbul. The huge Christian cathedral made a strong impression on the Ottoman ruler. “What a dome, that vies in rank with the nine spheres of heaven!” Islam was the central religion of the Ottomans, so he decided to convert it into a grand mosque.

The Ottomans covered the original Orthodox mosaics with Islamic calligraphy. Workers hung large medallion panels on the columns in the nave. They featured the names of Allah, the Prophet Muhammad, the first four Caliphs, and the Prophet’s two grandsons. The mosaic of Christ on the main dome was also covered by gold calligraphy. Other Christian mosaics were covered with whitewash plaster.

The Hagia Sophia itself became the personal property of the Ottoman sultan. No changes could be made without the sultan’s approval. Even Islamic zealots dared not not destroy the Christian mosaics of the infidels, since they belonged to the Sultan. The grand style of the Hagia Sophia, in particular its dome, would go on to influence Ottoman architecture for centuries.

Four thin minaret towers were also added during this period. They served a religious purpose (for the muezzin call to prayer) and stood more than 200 ft (60 m) tall – amongst the tallest ever constructed. Workers also added thick exterior buttresses for structural support following a recent earthquake.

A new nave or mihrab was installed in the wall of the Hagia Sophia, as is tradition in mosques, to indicate the direction toward Mecca. Ottoman Emperor Süleyman installed two bronze lamps on each side of the mihrab in the 14 century. Sultan Murad III then added two marble cubes from the Turkish city of Bergama, dating back to 4 B.C.

In the 19th-century, Sultan Abdulmejid ordered an extensive 2 year restoration in 1847. The supervision was handed over to two Swiss-Italian architect brothers, Gaspard and Giuseppe Fossati. Eight new gigantic medallions designed by the calligrapher Kazasker Efendi were hung inside. They carried the names of Allah, Muhammad, the Rashidun, and Muhammad’s two grandsons: Hasan and Husayn.

III. NATIONAL MUSUEM

The Hagia Sofia remained a grand Islamic mosque for 5 centuries, until yet another major change occurred. In 1935, just before World War II, the Turkish government secularized the building and converted it into a museum. The Turkish Council of Ministers stated that due “to its historical significance, the conversion of the Hagia Sophia, a unique architectural monument of art, into a museum will please the entire Eastern world and will cause humanity to gain a new institution of knowledge.”

Mustafa Atatürk, the first president of the Republic of Turkey, even permitted the restoration of the original Christian mosaics in the Hagia Sophia. The restoration of Byzantine mosaics was particular challenging and controversial since it meant the removal of historic Islamic art added by the Sultans.

In 1985, the building was recognized by UNESCO. During 1990’s, the building’s copper roof cracked, causing water to leak down over the fragile mosaics. This prompted a decade-long project to restore the ancient site. Beginning in 2013 however, some Islamic religious leaders in the country began a campaign demanding the Hagia Sophia be restored as a mosque once again. In 2016, Muslim prayers were again held inside after 85 years. The mosaic of the Virgin and Child in the apse was covered by white curtains.

In July 2020, the Turkish Council of State and President Erdoğan officially reclassified it as an Islamic mosque. This caused concerns in UNESCO about what changes this 4th reclassification would bring to the famous building. The World Council of Churches condemned the decision saying it would create suspicion and mistrust.

Today, it is used by Turkish Muslims for prayer and religious services. All visitors, both Muslim and non-Muslim, are still allowed to enter the grand mosque for free, outside of prayer times. Thankfully, research, repair and restoration work continues to this day. The Hagia Sophia remains an important historical and architectural site for international tourism, a pilgrimage site for Orthodox Christians, and a religious site for Muslims in Istanbul.

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews, click BOOKS

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Podcast: How a Teenage Boy Started World War I

On 28 June 1914, Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie were visiting the picturesque city of Sarajevo in the Balkans. Franz Ferdinand was also the nephew of the Emperor, and heir to the throne as well! The Austro-Hungarian Empire had recently annexed the Balkan provinces, infuriating Serbia. Tensions were high and the fuse for World War I was about to be lit by an unlikely assassin – a teenage boy, Gavrilo Princip.

19 year old Serbian assassin Gavrilo Princip started World War I — **19 year old Serbian assassin Gavrilo Princip**

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews, click BOOKS.

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Rachel Carson, Silent Spring and the birth of the Environmental Movement

**Rachel Carson, author of Silent Spring**

Rachel Carson was a writer, marine biologist, and environmentalist who, in the early 1960’s, alerted the world to the ecological dangers of pesticides and fertilizers. Her best-selling book, 1962’s Silent Spring outlined the environmental dangers of chemical pesticides in particular. It led to a Kennedy presidential advisory commission that endorsed her findings.

Her book ultimately led to a nationwide ban on DDT and other hazardous pesticides. More importantly, it also sparked the global environmental movement and ultimately led to the creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Who was this mild-mannered biologist who accomplished so much?

Rachel Louise Carson was born in 1907 on a farm in Springdale, Pennsylvania, the youngest of three children. Her father was an insurance salesman and her mother worked the farm. Growing up on a farm gave her first-hand experience with nature and wildlife. Her mother bestowed in her a life-long love of nature and the living world. Young Rachel was an introvert and preferred nature to other children. She loved reading the works of Beatrix Potter and even became a published writer herself in a children’s magazine, St. Nicholas, at only 10.

Later, she attended the Pennsylvania College for Women (now Chatham University) in Pittsburgh, graduating magna cum laude in 1929. She then studied at the renowned oceanographic institute at Woods Hole, Massachusetts AND at Johns Hopkins University, where she received a Master’s Degree in Zoology in 1932. This pushed the limit on her family’s finances though. She was forced give up her dream of a doctorate after her father suddenly died. She needed to teach instead to help support her mother and two orphaned nieces.

Carson taught zoology at the University of Maryland for five years before joining the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 1936. She outscored ALL other applicants on the civil service exam and became the second woman hired by the then U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, as an aquatic biologist. She remained there for the next 15 years, writing public radio broadcasts on natural resources during the Great Depression. She was eventually promoted to Editor-in-Chief of all publications for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

In her free time, she turned from dry government writing to lyric prose.

Her first book, Under the Sea-Wind (1941), described marine life in elegant, non-technical prose for the average reader. She retained her government job through the 1940s, in part to help support her mother and family. In 1951, she published The Sea Around Us, a history of the oceans. It became a best-seller, was serialized in the New Yorker, and finally freed her from her financial burdens.

She won a National Book Award for nonfiction which, along with the book’s sales, enabled her to leave her government job in 1953. She moved to Southport Island in Maine. There she could finally concentrate full time on her writing. She also began a long relationship with Dorothy Freeman, a summer resident, that was later rumored to be more than just friendship. After 4 years however, Carson was forced to move to back to Silver Spring, Maryland, to care for her aging mother.

In 1955, she published her 3^rd book, The Edge of the Sea. These 3 books constituted a biography of the ocean and made Carson a famous writer for the common reader. Embedded within all of her works was the viewpoint that humans were themselves but a part of nature. What distinguished them was their power to alter it, in some cases irreversibly for the worst.

Then she received a letter from a friend in Massachusetts about the loss of local bird life after pesticide spraying. It stirred Carson to investigate what was occurring. During the late 1950s, she conducted research into the effects of pesticides on birds, their eggs, and the food chain. What she discovered changed her life forever. Disturbed by the reckless use of chemical pesticides, Carson changed her writing focus to warn the public about the long-term effects of pesticides.

She published in her most famous and influential work, Silent Spring, in 1962.

Rather than introducing readers to nature, the mild-mannered 55-year-old warned they could instead be destroying it. Carson revealed the damaging effects of the indiscriminate use of chemical pesticides. She focused mainly on the insecticide DDT, which had been called “one of the greatest discoveries of World War II.” DDT killed the insects that spread malaria and typhus. It was also routinely sprayed in homes to kill pests AND on crops to kill destructive insects. She vehemently condemned the indiscriminate use of these pesticides.

Carson called for great caution against these “elixirs of death.” She wrote, “If we are living so intimately with chemicals—eating and drinking them, taking them into our very bones—we had better know something about their power.” The launch of Silent Spring, was carefully strategized by Rachel and her politically savvy literary agent, Marie Rodell. It included a selection by the Book of the Month Club.

The public’s first glimpse of Silent Spring came in 1962, when The New Yorker ran three excerpts. By the time it was published, the book was in such high demand that it became an instant bestseller. In the first three months, it sold more than 100,000 copies, and in 2 years, more than 1 million. In it, she called for a fundamental change in the way humans viewed their environment.

**Rachel Carson, environmentalist and author of Silent Spring**

Silent Spring primarily focuses on the environment, but a few chapters detailed their impact on humans as well, including cancer. In it, she challenged the practices of agricultural scientists and the government. She further accused the chemical industry of spreading misinformation, and state and federal officials of blindly accepting industry claims without investigation.

Silent Spring had revealed to the public the dangers of DDT and other pesticides to birds, animals, AND human health. Though the scientific community already knew of the dangers, Carson was the first to make the information accessible and understandable to a new mass audience, the general public. Readers, including middle-class housewives who were using DDT in the homes, were shocked.

She argued “The people have a right to know what they’re being exposed to and what risks are posed.” The book was published at the height of the Cold War, so Carson shrewdly drew a parallel between pesticide contamination and dangers of fallout from the nuclear weapons testing. Carson made the public realize that pesticides could be just as harmful as radiation.

Ironically, Carson had resisted writing the book for years. She knew personal attacks would come from chemical companies as well as the politicians who had accepted their claims. It was to be a classic David vs. Goliath saga. She had uncovered industrial misdeeds and courageously sought to hold powerful officials accountable.

Carson was attacked by both the chemical industry and some in government as an Alarmist.

The reaction from the chemical companies was swift and severe. One spokesperson dismissed Carson’s claims as completely absurd. Others accused her of being a “Communist” and a “Radical.” The president of the company that made DDT said Carson was “not a scientist, but a fanatic defender of the cult of nature’s balance.”

Fortunately, Carson decided the personal risks were worth it. But it came during a time of great personal challenge. She was fighting breast cancer throughout the four years she wrote Silent Spring. In the end though, she gave in to a sense of obligation. She felt she had no choice but to write it. She courageously spoke out to remind people that humans are a vulnerable part of nature, just like the rest of the fragile ecosystem.

Shortly after her book was published, a reporter asked U.S. President John F. Kennedy at a 1962 press conference if the government would look into the long-term effects of chemical pesticides. He responded, “Yes, and I know we already are. I think, particularly, of course, since Miss Carson’s book.”

The book led President Kennedy to create a Presidential Advisory Commission. It helped shape a growing environmental consciousness in the sixties. Senator Ernest Gruening from Alaska, said, “Every once in a while, a book has appeared which has substantially altered the course of history.” Supreme Court Justice William Douglas compared the impact of the book on America to Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

**Rachel Carson, author of Silent Spring testifies before Congress**

Testifying before Congress in early 1963, Carson called for new federal policies to protect human health and the environment. “The human race is challenged more than ever before to demonstrate our mastery – not over nature, but of ourselves.” She was roundly hailed, as “the little lady who started it all.” The New York Times wrote in a front-page story: “The $300 million dollar pesticides industry has been highly irritated by a quiet woman author.”

The following April, 15 million viewers tuned in to watch The Silent Spring of Rachel Carson, a CBS TV special. Carson’s thoughtful responses and calm demeanor, despite her failing health, further bolstered her arguments. She said, “It is the public that is being asked to assume the risks of the pesticide industry. The public therefore must decide whether it wishes to continue on the present road.”

Chemical companies sought to discredit her as a “hysterical woman.”

They pulled their ads from CBS TV. In May 1963, President Kennedy’s Science Advisory Committee issued its report, which validated Carson’s work. The committee called for more research into health hazards related to pesticides. It also urged more restraint in their widespread use in homes and fields. Carson received medals from the National Audubon Society and the American Geographical Society, and induction into the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

The book, TV program, and presidential committee had solidified pesticides as a major public health issue. Rachel Carson had awakened a new environmental consciousness in the world. It set the stage for the establishment of EARTH DAY and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 1970. The U.S. EPA regulated use of pesticides, and banned DDT in 1972.

Carson was a proud participant in the new environmental movement that warned about industrial chemicals, species decline and human cancer. She also worked closely with President Kennedy’s Secretary of the Interior, Stewart Udall and his chief of staff, Paul Knight. She helped craft legislation, environmental strategy, speeches, and worked to get a federal environmental department … that eventually would become the EPA.

Sadly, her work could not continue. Now seriously ill with breast cancer, Rachel Carson was further weakened by radiation treatments and severe anemia. She died of a heart attack in 1964 at just 57, just two years after her book changed the world. She had never married or had children. Her closest friends and colleagues had a quiet, memorial at All Souls Unitarian Church. Her ashes were scattered in the coast of Squirrel Island in Maine, which she loved so much.

In 1973, Carson was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame. New activists carried on Carson’s legacy to reach and inspire large audiences. They have testified before Congress, appeared at international treaty negotiations and organized against the environmental causes of cancer. But more importantly, Rachel Carson inspires a strong environmental movement to this day.

In 1980, President Ronald Reagan posthumously awarded her the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom. Her homes are national historic landmarks, and various scientific and writing awards bear her name. The Sierra Club has a Rachel Carson Society. The University of California named one of its colleges after her in 2016. Two marine research vessels bear her name. And a number of conservation areas in Maine, Maryland, and North Carolina after named after her.

Rachel Carson became a witness for the beauty, complexity and fragility of all life on earth. As our global population increases, and our climate changes, she continues to inspire new generations to protect our precious living environment and all its creatures, both below and above the sea.

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews, click BOOKS.

LOST IN HISTORY

Her love of aviation began in 1910.

Desiring global fame next, Quimby decided to attempt a crossing of the English Channel.

The crossing took a nerve-wracking 59 minutes as Quimby landed 25 miles south of Calais.

Harriet Quimby’s flying career had lasted exactly 11 months. She was dead at only 28.

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The pair were released in 1712, and lived together more or less as husband and wife.

Jonathan Wild moonlighted as a fence of stolen goods, when he developed an even better idea.

Few people fit the bill, and were more successful, than Mr. Jonathan Wild.

Wild tried to recruit him, but Sheppard teamed up with Blueskin instead.

In a rare, sloppy act, Wild himself was at the scene and identified.

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews, click BOOKS.

Then came the 1933 Reichstag Fire.

That night, Adolf Hitler went to see President Hindenburg, saying “This is a God-given signal! If this fire is the work of the Communists, as I believe, then we must crush this murderous pest with an iron fist.”

Though Hindenburg and the Reichstag existed, Hitler could now basically govern by decree.

Who Set the Reichstag Fire?

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A telephoned threat made reference to “bombs,” so all incoming flights were postponed or diverted.

In addition to the crew’s visibility, the fog affected the tower’s view as well.

Tenerife air traffic controllers could not see the runway and had no ground radar.

The ensuing collision and the jet fuel firestorm that followed killed everyone on board KLM 4805.

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The search party found their abandoned tent on February 26th.

Despite temperatures of −20 F/-29 C that night, both were shoeless and wearing only underwear.

While the circumstances were odd, investigators found that all five hikers died from hypothermia.

It was on this solitary mountainside of the Dyatlov Pass that all nine hikers would die.

The Soviets archived and classified the Dyatlov Pass investigation files.

Finally, in 2019, Russian officials reopened the Dyatlov Pass case for a new investigation.

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews, click BOOKS.

Then a decade later came the more advanced USS Akron and USS Macon.

Just eighteen months after its maiden voyage, the airship would meet its tragic end.

The cause of the crash is generally attributed to the ship’s commander.

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The 1715 Treasure Fleet

On July 30th, winds began to pick up.

Soaked and shivering survivors were left with little food or fresh water.

But, in fact, a great fortune was still scattered along the ocean floor off the Florida coast.

The 1733 Treasure Fleet

By dusk on the 15th, it was clear they were facing a hurricane.

Survivors could also see all the other grounded ships.

Rescue ships arrived just in time.

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews, click BOOKS.

I. CHRISTIAN BASILICA

The central, Imperial Door, was reserved exclusively for the use of the emperor.

II. GRAND MOSQUE

III. NATIONAL MUSUEM

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews, click BOOKS

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews, click BOOKS.

In her free time, she turned from dry government writing to lyric prose.

She published in her most famous and influential work, Silent Spring, in 1962.

Carson was attacked by both the chemical industry and some in government as an Alarmist.

Chemical companies sought to discredit her as a “hysterical woman.”

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews, click BOOKS.

The search party found their abandoned tent on February 26^th.

By dusk on the 15^th, it was clear they were facing a hurricane.