Interesting Facts and Stories

Why does Wales have princes and not kings?

It is well known that the title prince of Wales is the birth-right of the king of England’s eldest son. It is also reasonably well known that English monarchs have seen this office as being within their prerogative to bestow since 1282. In that year, Edward I engineered the death of Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, the last native ruler to be recognised as prince of Wales by the English crown.

What is less well known is how and why Wales found itself as a principality rather than a kingdom.

The key date to consider is 1063, and the key man is Gruffudd ap Llywelyn, the last king of Wales and a ruler who came closer than any other to becoming the figure for Wales that Alfred is to the English, Charlemagne is to the French and Kenneth MacAlpin is to the Scots.

Post-Roman Wales had developed along lines that are comparable to the rest of post-Roman western Europe. The area had become territorially defined during the Roman era, the flexible groupings of kin lands that had developed in prehistoric times coalescing under the empire’s administration then emerging as kingdoms after the legions’ withdrawal. The leaders of those petty kingdoms vied with the early Anglo-Saxon warlords for land and power, but the realistic ambitions of ‘Welsh’ rulers for pan-British domination were brought to an end in the seventh century. With horizons narrowed, four major kingdoms emerged as the dominant entities within Wales: Powys, Gwynedd, Dyfed/Deheubarth and Glamorgan. Below these over-kingdoms there remained a large number of smaller entities, whose rulers clung to royal nomenclature with varying degrees of success.

Read more here...

http://thehistorypressuk.wordpress.com/2012/07/13/why-does-wales-have-princes-and-not-kings/
 
Johann Wilhelm Trollmann (27 December 1907 - 9 February 1943) was a German Sinto boxer (Sinto is the name of a Romani or Gypsy population in Europe).-

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Trollmann became prominent in the late 1920s. On 9 June 1933, he fought for the German light-heavyweight title and although he clearly led by points over his opponent Adolf Witt, the fight was judged "no result". The audience rebelled, and the Nazi officials were forced to acknowledge Trollmann as the victor. Six days later, however, he was again stripped of the title. A new fight was scheduled for 21 July, with Gustav Eder as Trollmann's opponent. Trollmann was threatened that he had to change his "dancing" style or lose his license. Trollmann, of Sinti heritage, arrived the day of the match with his hair dyed blonde and his body whitened with flour, the caricature of an Aryan. He took the blows of his opponent for five rounds before he collapsed.

The persecution of Sinti and Roma in Germany dramatically increased in the following years. Sterilization often prevented their internment in concentration camps, and Trollmann too underwent this operation.

In 1939 he was drafted into the Wehrmacht, and fought on the eastern front. He was wounded in 1941 and was returned to Germany as a result. The Gestapo arrested him in June 1942, and he was interned in Neuengamme concentration camp. He tried to keep a low profile, but the camp commandant had been a boxing official before the war and recognized Trollmann. He used Trollman as a trainer for his troops during the nights. The prisoners committee decided to act, as Trollman's health deteriorated. They faked his death and managed to get him transferred to the adjacent camp of Wittenberge under an assumed identity. The former star was soon recognized and the prisoners organized a fight between him and Emil Cornelius, a former criminal and hated Kapo (a prisoner given privileges for taking on responsibilities in the camp). Inevitably Trollmann won. Cornelius soon sought revenge for his humiliation and forced Trollmann to work all day until he was exhausted, before attacking and killing him with a shovel. Trollmann was just 36 years old.

In 2003 the German boxing federation decided to recognize Trollmann as the winner of the 1933 championship.-

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Memorial in Viktoria Park, Berlin.

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Katharina Henot, (1570 – Cologne, 19 May 1627), was a German postmaster and an alleged witch, burned at the stake for sorcery in Cologne in Germany. She was also the likely first female postmaster in Germany.-

Katharina Henot was head of the post office in Cologne, western Germany, when she was charged with witchcraft, tortured and eventually sentenced to death, despite her protests of innocence, the Kolner Stadt-Anzeigerreported. She was accused, among other things, of causing the illness and death of several people, but it is thought the charges brought against her may have been politically motivated.-

Katharina Henot - Germany's most notorious "witch" - stood accused of having entered into a pact with the devil, conjured up a plague of caterpillars, sown strife and encouraged sexual deviancy. In 1627 she was sentenced to death by torture by the Cologne Court.-

Historians estimate the total of 25,000 women and men were sentenced to death in Germany in the past for having entered into a pact with the devil.-

Three hundred and eighty-five years later, on June 28, 2012, Katharina Henot and 37 other men and women who were victims of witch hunts in the Rhine city, were rehabilitated by the Cologne City Council. The Council was unanimous in its denunciation of “any form of abuse of human dignity and human rights.” Its resolution states that "the Council of the City of Cologne condemns the executions that were carried out at the time."

This is not a legal act – no official lifting of the verdicts – because legally the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation disappeared without a legal successor. So this was a symbolic gesture, a saving of honor and recognition of innocence albeit somewhat late in the day for those concerned. -
 
USS Susan B. Anthony (AP-72) was a transport ship in the United States Navy during World War II.-

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Early in the morning of 7 June 1944, while cruising through a swept channel off Normandy, Susan B. Anthony struck a mine which exploded under her number 4 hold. Immediately, she lost all power, and her rudder went hard left and stuck. By 08:05, holds numbers 4 and 5 were shipping water badly, and the ship took on an 8° list to starboard. In an effort to save his ship, the commanding officer, Commander T. L. Gray, USNR, ordered the embarked soldiers to move to the port side. This human ballast soon brought Anthony back to an even keel.

At 08:22, fleet tug Pinto came alongside, prepared to tow the paralyzed Anthony to shallow water. However, soon thereafter, fires erupted in the engine and fire rooms, and the transport began to settle more rapidly. At this point, the captain concluded that the ship was lost and ordered her abandoned. With Pinto and two destroyers alongside, the troops were evacuated expeditiously and without resorting to fireboats and rafts. Anthony's crew followed closely behind the soldiers.

The last member of the salvage crew hit the water at about 10:00, with Commander Gray soon following. At 10:10, Susan B. Anthony was gone. No one was killed, and few of the 45 wounded were seriously hurt.

The Guinness Book of World Records 2000 has the sinking of the Susan B. Anthony listed as the largest rescue of people without loss of life; all 2,689 people aboard were saved.-
 
Cpl. Arnold H. Heins (1919 – 2007) served in the U.S. Army Air Force during World War II in the South Pacific Theater. He was a Pearl Harbor survivor, at Hickam Field on Dec. 7, 1941, being a member of the 5th and 11th bomb groups.

It had been a long time in coming, but everybody at Hickam Field and elsewhere throughout the Hawaiian Islands knew the war was on its way. It was just a matter of time.

A month or two before the surprise attack, machine gun emplacements were dug at intervals around the perimeter of the field. Old World War I Vickers .30 caliber, water cooled machine guns were mounted in each sand-bagged emplacement.

Even before that, Heins and all the other soldiers at the field were given six weeks of basic infantry training. They were given gas masks and cautioned that a Japanese attack was probably eminent.

“About a week before the attack, when I was on guard duty guarding the planes on the field, they decided to move them closer together so they could guard them more easily. They parked them wing tip to wing tip which was a bad mistake,” he said.

“They were primarily concerned about sabotage. We were told by the duty officer that the situation with the Japanese was getting pretty critical,” Heins said.-

Cpl. Arnold Heins escaped death because he had just gotten off dining room duty at the mess hall at Hickam Field in Honolulu.

A few minutes later an enemy plane scored a direct hit. A bomb struck the building where he had been working. People were killed and injured in the explosion.

“When I got off work I walked over to my barracks a short distance away. I remember walking by an outside clock that read 7:55 (a.m.) As I reached my bunk, on the third floor of our concrete barracks, I heard an explosion out in Pearl Harbor, about a mile away. I didn’t think anything about it. Then I heard a bunch of machine guns going off over by the hangers near by,” Heins said.

“I high-tailed it back down stairs to see what was going on. When I swung open the double front doors of the barracks a Jap Zero was sweeping over the hangers a block away headed right for me with its guns blazing,” he recalled. “He flew over the hangers and over the barracks strafing everything in sight. I saw the red sun insignias on the wings, but it took me a moment to realize they were Japanese fighters.

“It was like the Zero was suspended in the air and everything was in slow motion. One behind the other they flew over and strafed us. We had been told sometime earlier that if we were attacked I should head for the motor pool where I worked. I was running across the parade ground in front of our barracks toward the motor pool when a Zero came by upside down 50 feet off the ground firing his cannon at a B-17 bomber. The bomber went up in flames.”

He dove under a truck parked along the edge of the parade ground on the way to the motor pool to escape the shrapnel and bullets spewing from the attacking planes. Then he realized this wasn’t the place to be hiding from an aerial attack.-

Heins slipped out from under the truck and continued to race toward the motor pool.

“I could see the Jap dive bombers bombing the fleet at Pearl. They would pull up at the last minute and let their bombs fly. Some of the big ships had been hit and had rolled over. The harbor was covered in smoke and flames from the attack.”

About the time I reached the motor pool a flight of 15 or 20 twin engine Jap bombers flew over in vee formation at 5,000 feet. The officer in charge sent me on to the quartermaster’s headquarters.”

“Dive bombers were beginning to drop screeching, terrible sounding bombs on us about the time I got over there. These bombers were getting closer and closer to us. People were hiding in the rafters to get away from them.”

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At the height of the enemy attack, a flight of unarmed B-17 bombers flew into Hickam Field from California oblivious to the raid. Some of the four engine heavy bombers were shot down by enemy fighters and others made forced landings on golf courses and on other islands in the Hawaiian Island chain.

“By 9:30 a.m. or 9:45 a.m. it was all over. People were in a state of shock. I went up to the hanger and it was destroyed. Most of our planes were burning or in shambles. Dead and wounded were all over,” Heins recalled.-

By March 1943 Heins was assigned to the 98th Bomb Squadron, 11th Bomb Group of the 7th Air Force as a mechanic for a B-24 “Liberator.” His unit was sent to the Central Pacific.-

Heins went from Ellice Island to the Gilbert Islands and from there to the Marshall Islands and on to the Mariannas and finally to the Ryukyus and Okinawa.

By war’s end he had amassed enough points that he was back in the States. Heins was in Washington state by VJ-Day.-

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About the time I reached the motor pool a flight of 15 or 20 twin engine Jap bombers flew over in vee formation at 5,000 feet.
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I am unaware of any twin engine bombers being used in the attack on Pearl Harbor, does anyone know if there were?
 
Major Walter "Nowi" Nowotny (7 December 1920 – 8 November 1944) a german fighter ace of World War II, he is credited with 258 aerial victories in 442 combat missions.-

In 1943 Nowotny was the first pilot in history to pass 250 victories and was the top-scoring fighter ace of the Luftwaffe. On 19 October he became the eighth recipient of the Brillanten.-

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In November 1982 a Afghan army convoy broke down in the 3 mile long Salang tunnel north east of Kabul and part of the major supply highway for Russian forces in the area.
A follow-on Russian convoy was also blocked and while they were waiting for the tunnel to be cleared, the drivers left their engines running because of the intense cold.
64 Soviet and 112 Afghan soldiers died of carbon monoxide poisoning.

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1.) Augustus Caesar was born Gaius Octavius Thurinus on September 23, 63 BCE (Before Common Era).
2.) It was during his reign as Roman Emperor that Jesus Christ was born.
3.) Augustus Caesar is regarded as the first Roman Emperor although he was never proclaimed as such.
4.) As adoptive son of Julius Caesar, he was called Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus and later Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus.
5.) Augustus Caesar, as described by historians, was unusually handsome.
6.) He had clear, bright eyes and his teeth were wide apart, small, and ill-kept.
7.) Octavius hair was slightly curly and inclining to golden.
8.) His eyebrows met and his ears were of moderate size.
9.) His nose projected a little at the top and then bent ever so slightly inward.
10.) Augustus Caesar’s complexion was between dark and fair.
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11.) Octavian, unlike Julius Caesar, was short of stature.
12.) Augustus was not his first name. It’s a title that means ‘majestic’.
13.) The title ‘Augustus’ was awarded to him in 27 BCE by the Roman Senate.
14.) Octavianus was a grandson of the sister of Julius Caesar.
15.) He was named in Julius Caesar’s will as his adopted son and heir.
16.) When Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 BCE, Octavianus was only 18 years of age.
17.) A year after Julius Caesar was assassinated – Octavius, Lepidus and Mark Anthony formed the second triumvirate.
18.) The ‘Triumvirate’ was proclaimed as the official government and put to death more than 2,000 people considered enemies.
19.) The Triumvirate defeated Julius Caesar’s murderers in the Battle of Philippi in 42 BCE.
20.) Octavia, the sister of Octavian, married Mark Anthony.
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21.) The Roman Empire was divided into 3; the west was ruled by Octavian, the east by Mark Anthony and Africa by Lepidus.
22.) Lepidus was stripped of power for trying to take territory from Octavian.
23.) Mark Anthony deserted Octavia for Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, thus Octavian and Mark Anthony became bitter enemies.
24.) The combined forces of Cleopatra and Mark Anthony were defeated by Octavius at the Battle of Actium in 31 BCE.
25.) By 29 BCE, Octavius is the sole ruler of the Roman Empire.
26.) The Roman Senate awarded him permanently the title ‘Imperatur’ or Commander-in-Chief.
27.) Augustus Caesar was also acknowledged as ‘Princeps’ or Head of State.
28.) “I found Rome a city of bricks and I left it a city of marbles’ is a popular statement uttered by Augustus Caesar.
29.) His reign is known as the ‘Augustan Age’ – the Golden Age of Roman architecture and literature.
30.) He died at the age of 75 on August 19, 14 CE and was succeeded by his adopted and stepson, Tiberius.
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31.) The month of August, formerly known as Sextilis in the old Roman calendar, was named in his honor.
32.) His rule for 45 years initiated an era of relative peace known as the Pax Roman or Roman peace.
33.) Augustus Caesar established the Praetorian Guard and created official police and fire-fighting forces for Rome.
34.) He was declared a god by the Senate and to be worshipped by the Romans.
35.) The Roman Senate gave Octavian the title Augustus in January 27 BCE. Augustus can be translated as “the illustrious one”.
36.) Augustus was a ruthless person. He ordered the execution of hundreds of his enemies. He even ordered the killing of Julius Caesar’s son with Cleopatra – Caesarion.
37.) His ruthlessness mellowed as he grew old. He is considered the greatest Roman emperor.
38.) The body of Augustus Caesar was buried at the Mausuleum of Augustus in Rome, Italy.
39.) Augustus Caesar’s mother was Atia Balba Caesonia, niece of Julius Caesar.
40.) His father died when he was 4 year old and he was raised by his grandmother and Julia Caesaris, Julius Caesar's sister.
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41.) Augustus’ father was also named Gaius Octavius and had been Governor of Mascedonia.
42.) The first wife of Octaius was Clodia Pulchra. They were married in 43 BCE but separated in 40 BCE
43.) Octavius divorced Clodia and married Scribonia in 40 BCE. She conceived Octavian’s only natural child, Julia
44.) Julia was born the same day that Augustus Caesar divorced Scribonia to marry Livia Drusilla.
45.) Scribonia and Octavian’s marriage lasted for 2 years. In 38 BCE, he married Livia and their marriage lasted until the day he died. -credit goes to http://biographies.knoji.com/interesting-facts-about-augustus-caesar/ (Thanks for so much information about my favorite man in history!)
 
The Hiller Flying Platform, was a unique direct lift rotor aircraft, using contra-rotating ducted fans inside a platform that the single pilot stood upon for lift, and controlled by the pilot shifting his body weight around to tilt the platform.-
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Was development by the US Army and Navy in 1955.-
The military ultimately ruled the platform impractical and it never entered service.-
 
The RMS Empress of Britain was an ocean liner built between 1928 and 1931 by John Brown shipyard in Scotland and in her time, she was the largest, fastest, and most luxurious ship between England and Canada. She was torpedoed on 28 October 1940 by U-32.-

Was the largest liner lost during the Second World War and the largest ship sunk by a U-boat.-

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Fritz Klingenberg (17 December 1912 – 25 March 1945) was a german Waffen-SS officer who served with the 2.SS-Division Das Reich and was a commander of the 17.SS- Panzergrenadier-Division Götz von Berlichingen. -

He was best known for his unorthodox and audacious capture of the Yugoslavian capital, Belgrade for which he was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross.-

Klingenberg was fairly tall, standing over 6 feet 4 inches (1.93 m). A photograph taken at Klingenberg's Knight's Cross presentation ceremony at the Berghof in 1941 shows him standing with Hitler. Klingenberg was apparently tall enough that, according to an aide to photographer Heinrich Hoffmann, Klingenberg was asked by Hoffmann to stand to the side and slightly behind Hitler so as to not dwarf the Führer, who stood about 5 feet 9 inches (1.75 m). The disparity, however, can still be clearly seen in the photograph.-

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The Dornier Do X was the largest, heaviest, and most powerful flying boat in the world when it was produced by the Dornier company of Germany in 1929. Three Do Xs were constructed in total-
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Pausanias of Orestis was personal bodyguard.of Philip II of Macedon's. He assassinated Philip in 336 BC, possibly at the instigation of Philip's wife Olympias, or even his son Alexander the Great. -
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Pausanias killed Philip at the wedding ceremony of Philip's daughter Cleopatra to Alexander I of Epirus, and as he tried to flee to the city gate, tripped on a vine-root and was speared by Attalus (not Parmenios son-in-law), Leonnatus, and Perdiccas, who were also bodyguards and friends of Alexander.
Alexander had Pausanias' corpse crucified, but as soon as he had left Macedon, Olympias built a memorial to the slain man.
The murder was certainly premeditated, as horses were found near where Pausanias had fled.
At the murder trial, two other men, Heromenes and Arrhabaeus, were found guilty of conspiracy with Pausanias, and executed.
Leonnatus, who threw the spear that killed Pausanias, was demoted, possibly under suspicion he was trying to prevent him from being interrogated.-
 
Derek Derenalagi (born 3 October 1974 in Fiji), joined the British Army in 1999.-
In July 2007 he was on a tour of duty in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, when his vehicle was hit by an improvised explosive device (IED) as it travelled to a helicopter landing site.-
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On return to Camp Bastion he was pronounced dead, but whilst preparing his body for a body bag, medical staff found that he still had a pulse.-
As a result of the injuries he sustained, both of Derenalagi's legs were amputated above the knee.
In a coma, he was flown back to the UK where, nine days later, he woke up in Selly Oak Hospital, Birmingham.

Derenalagi is part of the Ministry of Defence's Battle Back programme, funded by the Help for Heroes charity.-
As part of the scheme he took part in a 2009 training camp at the United States Olympic Training Center at Chula Vista, California.-
He competes in the F57 Paralympic disability category for athletes with spinal cord injuries and amputations.-
At the 2012 IPC Athletics European Championships in the Netherlands, Derenalagi won the gold medal in the F57/58 discus.-
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His winning throw of 41.41 metres (135.9 ft) came in the final round of the competition and earned him a score of 826 points, enough to beat Russian F58 world champion and world record holder Alexey Ashapatov, whose throw of 46.85 metres (153.7 ft) scored him 795 points.-

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