KNOW YOUR WORLD (past and present)

Maria "Masha" Bruskina was a Belarusian Jewish teenage nurse and a communist martyr to the anti-fascist resistance during the early years of World War II, as well as a niece of the sculptor and Soviet MP Zair Asgur.  While volunteering as a nurse, she cared for wounded Red Army soldiers, and assisted them in escaping then Nazi-occupied Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic. For this, she and 11 other communists of the anti-fascist underground were imprisoned, tortured, and when the teenagers refused to reveal any secrets, was publicly executed by the German Wehrmacht. She volunteered as a nurse at the hospital in the Minsk Polytechnic Institute, which had been set up to care for members of the Red Army wounded while defending what was then the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic against the planned genocide of the indigenous Slavic peoples by 3.8 Million Nazi and Finnish troops, a military escalation that remains the largest land invasion in history. In addition to c

The massacre of over 1,000 slave labourers – the largest number of whom were Poles – occurred in the town of Gardelegen on 13 April 1945, less than a month before the surrender of Nazi Germany brought the war in Europe to an end. As Allied forces advanced, the Nazi SS had been moving concentration camp prisoners towards the interior of the Third Reich. One such group was being transported from the Mittelbau-Dora and Hannover-Stöcken camps. After the transport stopped in Gardelegen, over 1,000 of the prisoners were – with the help of the local population – herded into a barn that was then sealed and set on fire. Those who tried to escape were shot dead. While the perpetrators had then hoped to destroy evidence of the crime, the rapid advance of the US 102nd Infantry Division – which arrived just one day after the massacre – meant that Allied forces discovered and documented the remains of the victims and were able to interview 11 prisoners who had survived. The condition of the bodies m

A young Vietnamese girl escorts an American POW after his plane was shot down near Hanoi, October 5th, 1967. The event took place on September 20, 1965 in Vietnam. After a US Air Force F105 was hit. The American pilot parachuted to escape but was later captured by Vietnamese guerrillas. The United States faced various challenges in the Vietnam War, contributing to its ultimate withdrawal and loss. Factors include guerrilla warfare tactics used by the Viet Cong, the lack of clear objectives, difficulties in navigating the complex political landscape of Vietnam, anti-war sentiments at home, and the inability to secure meaningful support from the South Vietnamese government.  Additionally, the war highlighted the limitations of conventional military strategies against a determined insurgency in a challenging terrain. At the heart of the conflict was the desire of North Vietnam, which had defeated the French colonial administration of Vietnam in 1954, to unify the entire country under a si

The Crucifixion was an ancient execution method, in which the criminal's hands and feet were bound or nailed to a wooden, cross-like structure. It wasa capital punishment reserved for slaves, traitors, "heretics", and usually the worst of criminals. It became widespread during the reign of Alexander the Great, but it still remains in occasional use in some countries. There were various methods of performing the crucifixion. Usually, the prisoner had to drag the crossbeam of his cross, weighing around 100 pounds, to the place of execution. Subsequently, his outstretched arms were bound to the crossbeam, or sometimes nailed through the wrists, and the crossbeam was raised and fixed to the already standing upright post. Death was usually caused by overall exhaustion or by heart failure. Sometimes, to shorten the victim's suffering, his legs were shattered using an iron club, so that subsequent asphyxiation soon ended his life.

John 'Babbacombe' Lee famously dubbed the man they could not hang' was accused of the murder of Miss Emma Anne Whitehead Keyse. In the early hours of November 15 1884 in the hamlet of Babbacombe, Devon, Emma Keyse was discovered brutally murdered.  Her throat was slit, she had three wounds to her head John " Babbacombe" had also attempted to burn the body. He was sentenced to be hanged at Exeter Prison on 23 February 1885. When John was about to be executed however, He was sentenced to be hanged at Exeter Prison on 23 February 1885.  When John was about to be executed however, the noose was tied around his neck but when the executioner pulled the lever to remove the floor beneath him to hang him, it stayed up. The executioner then tested the door and it worked so led john up again. Again however it did not work and the miraculous process was achieved for the third time also It's nearly 140 years since a gruesome murder in Torquay - and yet still today the stor

In the heart of Montana's rugged terrain, a unique chapter in American education unfolded during the 19th and early 20th centuries.  It was an era when one-room schoolhouses dotted the landscape, serving as beacons of learning for remote communities. These humble structures, with a single teacher at the helm, provided a foundation for countless young minds, fostering a sense of unity, resilience, and camaraderie among students of all ages. Montana's pioneer single classroom education system epitomized the spirit of the frontier. In a world far removed from the bustling cities, students from various grades shared the same space, their desks forming a microcosm of society.  Older children took on mentorship roles, guiding their younger peers, while the teacher, often the sole source of formal education, juggled the diverse needs of the classroom. The curriculum was simple yet robust, covering reading, writing, arithmetic, and practical life skills. Beyond the textbooks, these one