Yesterday Today

From Revolutionary War to Korean War to Today, Here’s How Much Troops Were Paid in Every American War

Think it’s hard making it month to month in the barracks on just an E-1 pay? Well, the recruits who won America’s earlier wars had to make ends meet with much, much less to draw on. See how much troops made in each conflict, both in their own currency and adjusted for inflation:

Revolutionary War

**American soldiers in combat at the Battle of Long Island, 1776.**

Privates in 1776 earned $6 a month plus a bounty at the end of their service. That pay would equate to $157.58 today, a pretty cheap deal for the poor Continental Congress. Unfortunately for soldiers, Congress couldn’t always make ends meet and so troops often went without their meager pay.

War of 1812

**The Battle of New Orleans, the last major fight of the War of 1812.**

Pay started at $5 a month for privates but was raised to $8 at the end of 1812. This was in addition to bounties ranging from $31 and 160 acres of land to $124 and 320 acres of land.

That $8 translates to $136.28 in 2016. The bounties ranged from $528.10 to $2,112.40 for terms of five years to the duration of the war.

Mexican-American War

**Mexican-American War, Battle of Buena Vista, 1847.**

Young infantrymen in their first year of service during the Mexican-American War pocketed $7 per month, according to this Army history. That’s $210.10 in 2016 dollars.

Civil War

**Union and Confederate troops clash at the Battle of Franklin in Tennessee, 1864.**

Union privates in 1863 brought home $13 a month which translates to $237.51 in modern dollars. Confederate privates had it a little worse at $11 a month. The Confederate situation got worse as the war went on since the Confederate States of America established their own currency and it saw rapid inflation as the war situation got worse and worse.

Spanish-American War

**An undated photo shows soldiers manning a battle signal corps station during the Spanish-American War. (Photo: Naval History and Heritage Command)**

While Army private pay in the Spanish-American War was still $13 like it had been in the Civil War, a period of deflation had strengthened the purchasing power of that monthly salary. In 2016 dollars, it would be worth $356.26.

World War I

**American soldiers wait on the docks to board a troop ship during World War I.**

A private, private second class, or bugler in his first year of service in 1917 was entitled to $30 a month. In exchange for this salary, which would equate to $558.12 today, privates could expect to face the guns of the Germans and other Axis powers.

World War I was the first war where, in addition to their pay, soldiers could receive discounted life insurance as a benefit. The United States Government Life Insurance program was approved by Congress in 1917 and provided an alternative to commercial insurance which either did not pay out in deaths caused by war or charged extremely high premiums for the coverage.

World War II

**US troops marching into Germany during World War II.**

In 1944, privates serving in World War II made $50 a month, or $676.51 in 2016 dollars. It seems like toppling three Fascist dictators would pay better than that, but what do we know.

Korean War

**Marines rest after making it through the canyon road known as Nightmare Alley during the retreat from the Chosin Reservoir, December 1950.**

The minimum payment for an E-1 in 1952 was $78 a month which would equate to $700.92 in 2016. Most soldiers actually deploying to Korea would have over four months in the Army and so would’ve received a pay bump to at least $83.20, about $747.64 today.

This was in addition to a foreign duty pay of $8 a month along with a small payment for rations when they weren’t provided.

Vietnam War

**American Marines eat rations during a lull in the fighting near the DMZ during the Vietnam War, October 1966.**

E-1 wages were not increased between 1952 and 1958, so Korean War and Vietnam War troops made the same amount of money at the lower ranks — except inflation over the years drove the real value of the wages down. New soldiers pocketing $78 would have a salary that equates to 642.71 now, while those with over four months of service who pocketed $83.20 were receiving the equivalent of $685.56 in today’s dollars.

Persian Gulf War

**US troops march on the Memorial Bridge across the Potomac River toward the Pentagon during National Victory Celebration Parade in Washington, June 8, 1991.**

Grunts who went into Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein were paid the princely sum of $753.90 a month in basic pay, unless they somehow managed to make it to Iraq with less than four months of service. Then they received $697.20.

These amounts would translate in 2016 dollars to $1318.12 and $1,218.98 respectively.

War in Afghanistan and the Iraq War

US Army Pfc. Jacob Paxson and Pfc. Antonio Espiricueta, both from Company B (“Death Dealers”), 2nd Battalion, 6th Infantry Regiment, attached to Task Force 1st Battalion, 35th Armored Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division, on a foot patrol in Tameem, Ramadi, Iraq.

Troops bringing the American flag back to Iraq in 2003 or deploying to Afghanistan in the same time period received just a little more than their Persian Gulf War predecessors, with $1064.70 for soldiers with less than four months of service and $1,150.80 for the seasoned veterans with four months or more under their belts.

In 2016 dollars, those salaries equate to $1377.93 and $1,489.36, a modest increase from the Persian Gulf War.

(This original article was written by Logan Nye and published on WeAreTheMighty.com)

Rarely Seen Color Photos Reveal How Adolph Hitler Spent His Quiet Time

Incredibly rare and undoubtedly risky photos to take of the Fuhrer’s personal office within the Reich Chancellery. Very few have been allowed into the Fuhrer’s official seat of power, and very few photographs were taken within, let alone anybody given permission to bring a camera with them inside.

This is where dictator Adolf Hitler relaxed away from masterminding his war efforts. These rarely seen photos reveal the Fuhrer’s lavish taste for fine furnishings, paintings and sculptures.

The photographs were taken by Hugo Jaeger who served as one of Hitler’s personal photographers between 1936 and 1945. Granted unprecedented access to Hitler’s private moments his through the key hole snaps provide a rare insight into how the dictator lived.

Adolph Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Germany from 1933 until his death in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and then assuming the title of Führer und Reichskanzler in 1934. During his dictatorship, he initiated World War II in Europe by invading Poland on 1 September 1939. He was closely involved in military operations throughout the war and was central to the perpetration of the Holocaust, the genocide of about six million Jews and millions of other victims.

Hitler was born in Austria-Hungary and was raised near Linz. He lived in Vienna later in the first decade of the 1900s and moved to Germany in 1913. He was decorated during his service in the German Army in World War I. In 1919, he joined the German Workers’ Party (DAP), the precursor of the Nazi Party, and was appointed leader of the Nazi Party in 1921. In 1923, he attempted to seize governmental power in a failed coup in Munich and was imprisoned with a sentence of five years. In jail, he dictated the first volume of his autobiography and political manifesto Mein Kampf (“My Struggle”). After his early release in 1924, Hitler gained popular support by attacking the Treaty of Versailles and promoting pan-Germanism, anti-Semitism and anti-communism with charismatic oratory and Nazi propaganda. He frequently denounced international capitalism and communism as part of a Jewish conspiracy.

By November 1932, the Nazi Party held the most seats in the German Reichstag, but did not have a majority. As a result, no party was able to form a majority parliamentary coalition in support of a candidate for chancellor. Former chancellor Franz von Papen and other conservative leaders persuaded President Paul von Hindenburg to appoint Hitler as chancellor on 30 January 1933. Shortly after, the Reichstag passed the Enabling Act of 1933 which began the process of transforming the Weimar Republic into Nazi Germany, a one-party dictatorship based on the totalitarian and autocratic ideology of Nazism. Hitler aimed to eliminate Jews from Germany and establish a New Order to counter what he saw as the injustice of the post-World War I international order dominated by Britain and France. His first six years in power resulted in rapid economic recovery from the Great Depression, the abrogation of restrictions imposed on Germany after World War I, and the annexation of territories inhabited by millions of ethnic Germans, which gave him significant popular support.

Hitler sought Lebensraum (lit. ‘living space’) for the German people in Eastern Europe, and his aggressive foreign policy is considered the primary cause of World War II in Europe. He directed large-scale rearmament and, on 1 September 1939, invaded Poland, resulting in Britain and France declaring war on Germany. In June 1941, Hitler ordered an invasion of the Soviet Union. By the end of 1941, German forces and the European Axis powers occupied most of Europe and North Africa. These gains were gradually reversed after 1941, and in 1945 the Allied armies defeated the German army. On 29 April 1945, he married his longtime lover, Eva Braun, in the Führerbunker in Berlin. Less than two days later, the couple committed suicide to avoid capture by the Soviet Red Army. Their corpses were burned.

Under Hitler’s leadership and racially motivated ideology, the Nazi regime was responsible for the genocide of about six million Jews and millions of other victims whom he and his followers deemed Untermenschen (subhumans) or socially undesirable. Hitler and the Nazi regime were also responsible for the killing of an estimated 19.3 million civilians and prisoners of war. In addition, 28.7 million soldiers and civilians died as a result of military action in the European theatre. The number of civilians killed during World War II was unprecedented in warfare, and the casualties constitute the deadliest conflict in history.

Hitler’s actions as Führer of Germany are almost universally regarded as gravely immoral. Prominent historian and biographer Ian Kershaw describes Hitler as “the embodiment of modern political evil”, and that “never in history has such ruination—physical and moral—been associated with the name of one man”. (Wikipedia)

Rare Vintage Photographs of Iggy Pop & David Bowie on Tour Together in 1977

David Bowie worked with countless artists over the course of his prolific career, but one of his most notable peers and collaborators was Iggy Pop.

They first met in 1971 at Max’s Kansas City, a musical hotspot in New York City, while Bowie was on tour to promote his album The Man Who Sold the World.

Bowie produced and co-wrote a number of tracks on Pop’s 1977 masterpiece, The Idiot, and is often credited with resurrecting Pop’s career in the 1970s after the Stooges broke up.

In 1977, Iggy Pop finally went on a 30-date world tour as a solo act. His backup band included David Bowie on keyboards and backing vocals. That year the two also collaborated on Pop’s second album, Lust for Life, which would become a long-awaited critical and commercial success.

“He was really disciplined,” Iggy Pop said in an interview. “That was at a time when it might be 700 people in Albuquerque, it might be 15,000 at the Garden, it might be 300 people in Zurich, etc. He did a great show every night. I don’t care where it was.”

Naser al-Din Shah Qajar and His 84 Wives: Rare Photographs and the Story of the Iranian Shah and His Harem

In 1842 the 11 year-old heir to the Persian throne received a camera from Queen Victoria of England. The young heir fell in love with the magical contraption. In the following decades he documented his life, revealing to the public eye, what it was never supposed to see.

One of Shah Qajar’s many passions was photography. From his early days he loved to take photos from his childhood, and when he came to power he decided to create the world’s first official photo studio at his court.

In the 1870s, Russian photographer Anton Sevryugin opened a workshop in Tehran. He became official photographer to the Persian court. Sevryugin made a photographic record of Persia, and he was awarded an imperial title for his services.

**Naser Al-Din Shah Qajar and the photographer Sevryugin before a photoshoot.**

The Russian photographer could take pictures of the Shah himself, as well as his male relatives, courtesans and servants. Qajar reserved for himself the right to photograph the harem, in which historians believe he had approximately 100 concubines.

It is known that Naser al-Din Shah developed the photos in a darkroom at the court and kept them in large albums in the Golestan palace, which is now a museum.

**The main entrance to the palace of Gulistan.**

What makes these photographs extraordinary is that Shiia custom of the time forbade the photography of peoples’ faces, especially those of women. Only the most powerful man in the country could afford to break this custom.

**The incomparable Anis al-Doleh was the Shah’s favourite wife. (On the right)**

**Plumpness was one of the main criteria of beauty.**

These photographs of women contradict the conventional depiction of the life in a harem.

The Shah’s wives look quite up to date for their time, and they gaze calmly into the lens, without coquettishness or servility.

**Anis al-Doleh, known as the Shah’s soulmate.**

**The incomparable Anis al-Doleh (sitting).**

You could even imagine that maybe the harem wives enjoyed each others’ company; in some photos picnic parties are shown.

**Naser al-Din Shah Qajar with some of his wives.**

**The inhabitants of the harem didn’t suffer from skinniness.**

From the photographs you can judge the Iranian monarch’s tastes. It’s quite clear that the women didn’t suffer from hunger and were not burdened with physical work. Experts claim that in the Golestan collection there are even nudes, but these have been well hidden.

**Ladies from the harem in ‘shaliteh’ skirts.**

In many of the photos the concubines are pictured in short, opulently decorated skirts called ‘shaliteh’, similar to ballet tutus. This is no coincidence.

In 1873 Naser al-Din travelled to Saint Petersburg on the invitation of Russian Tsar Alexander II. While there, he visited the ballet. According to rumor, he was so charmed by the Russian dancers, that he had his women dressed in similar skirts. Of course, the concubines could only remove their Muslim dress for the camera. On the other hand, this may be just a rumor.

How to Dress Like a Flapper: A 1920s Guide to Good Posture With Julia Faye

In 1928, renowned actress Julia Faye published a “Guide to Good Posture For Flappers” and it is blowing our minds.

The dictionary defines a flapper as – “A young woman, especially one in the 1920s, who showed disdain for conventional dress and behavior.” That is, conventional in the 1920s. The style came around after the first world war, and women were tired of trying to conform to society’s idea of normal – women were gaining more independence, and the face of America was changing!

Flappers were most commonly known for their dancing, drinking, smoking, wearing a lot of makeup, and a love of films. Almost all flappers had bobbed hair, dated frequently, and stopped wearing their corsets (which were social norms in the 1910s).

How to sit correctly #1

No lady should ever sit like Julia does on the left (even a student). In fact no lady would! There are other ways of sitting comfortably while still looking graceful, as Julia does to the right.

How to sit correctly #2

The art of sitting with crossed legs went out for women with the arrival of short skirts. “Don’t do this!” warns Julia. “Cross the feet instead of the legs and you’ll be just as comfortable and twice as feminine!”

How to sit correctly #3

“Never hook your toes behind chair legs, if you would be graceful,” says Miss Faye. All right Julia! To the right is the correct posture.

“Sitting pretty is my name for this pose!” laughs Julia.

How to stand correctly

Don’t stand like you’re hiding a boner. How the well brought up young girl should not stand is illustrated to the left. Well really Julia! But over on the right, this is more like it! Julia Faye demonstrates erect posture and firm balance.

How to stand by a chair

Note the bad lines of Julia’s body on the left and the ungraceful balance of legs and hips. On the right, Julia stands in the correct manner.

A Highly Suggestive French Postcard Entitled ‘How to Eat a Banana!’ From the 1920s

“Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.”
A French postcard from the 1920s shows how to eat a banana from age 18-40. Not sure why not peeling said banana…

A half a century ago, bananas were more delicious. They were creamier with a more delectable tropical fruit taste. When they ripened, they stayed ripe longer instead of swiftly turning to black slime. Since they lasted on the shelf when ripe it was possible to sell them ripe–as opposed to today’s bananas which must be purchased all green and hard and nasty.

French naturalist Nicolas Baudin carried a few corms of this banana from Southeast Asia, depositing them at a botanical garden on the Caribbean island of Martinique. In 1835, French botanist Jean François Pouyat carried Baudin’s fruit from Martinique to Jamaica. Gros Michel bananas were grown on massive plantations in Honduras, Costa Rica, and elsewhere in Central America.

This variety was once the dominant export banana to Europe and North America, grown in Central America, but in the 1950s, Panama disease, a wilt caused by the fungus Fusarium oxysporum, wiped out vast tracts of Gros Michel plantations in Central America, though it is still grown on non-infected land throughout the region. The Gros Michel was replaced on Central American plantations and in U.S. grocery stores by the Cavendish.

By the 1960s, the exporters of Gros Michel bananas were unable to keep trading such a susceptible cultivar, and started growing resistant cultivars belonging to the Cavendish subgroup.

Intimate Snapshots of the Kennedy Family From Nanny Maud Shaw From the 1960s

These photos were owned by the Kennedys nanny, Maud Shaw, who retired from her position in 1965. Shaw was the nanny to Caroline and John Kennedy for seven years, a period which included the administration of President John F. Kennedy.

The photos are part of Shaw’s personal collection of Kennedy mementos. They feature a variety of candid pictures of the First Lady and her two children, including shots at the beach, leading a pony, and other family moments.

The Kennedy family is an American political family that has long been prominent in American politics, public service, entertainment, and business. In 1884, 35 years after the family’s arrival from Ireland, Patrick Joseph “P. J.” Kennedy became the first Kennedy elected to public office, serving in the Massachusetts state legislature until 1895. There was at least one Kennedy family member in federal elective office from 1947, when P. J. Kennedy’s grandson John F. Kennedy became a member of Congress from Massachusetts, until 2011, when Patrick J. Kennedy II (John’s nephew) retired as a member of Congress from Rhode Island.

P. J.’s son Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. had nine children with his wife Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, including John F. Kennedy (who served in both houses of the United States Congress and as U.S. President) and Robert F. Kennedy (who served as U.S. Attorney General and in the U.S. Senate). Other descendants include members of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate, two U.S. ambassadors, a lieutenant governor, three state legislators (one of whom was also in the U.S. House of Representatives), and one mayor.

Their daughter, Eunice, founded the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (part of the National Institutes of Health), and the Special Olympics. Eunice’s daughter Maria Shriver served as First Lady of California. Other descendants of Joseph and Rose Kennedy have been active as lawyers, authors, and activists on behalf of those with physical and intellectual challenges. (Wikipedia)

**Caroline and John F. Kennedy Jr. playing in the sand with friends, May 1962.**

**John F. Kennedy Jr. walking a dog in the park, December 1964.**

**Jackie Kennedy having a picnic with Carolyn Kennedy on the lawn, May 1960.**

**John F. Kennedy Jr. playing in the beach sand, April 1963.**

**President John F. Kennedy in a blue polo shirt.**

**Caroline Kennedy with her dog under the Christmas tree (January 1961).**

**Caroline Kennedy on a rocking horse.**

**Caroline Kennedy with a nun, March 1965.**

**Maud Shaw holding John F. Kennedy Jr. with Caroline Kennedy next to her.**

**Maud Shaw (left) is seated next to John F Kennedy (centre).**

**John F. Kennedy Jr. energetically crawling through a statue (May 17, 1965).**

**Jackie Kennedy leading horse Macaroni ridden by Caroline Kennedy in Wexford, Virginia.**

50 Wonderful Photos Showing Married Couples During the Second World War

Despite many difficulties, the weddings of soldiers in World War II were still very wonderful, allowing us to feel emotionally. The bride’s outfits were sometimes just normal white dresses, but these didn’t make them less beautiful.

Vintage Photos of Male Rock Stars Wearing Sky-High Boots and Platform Shoes in the 1970s

Though a lot of people associate men’s heels exclusively with the disco era, they had actually gained popularity with the mainstream long before John Travolta ever set a hustling foot on a lighted floor. In fact, the heels of Tony Manero’s boogie shoes were actually low compared to some of the men’s styles that came earlier in the 1970s.

Recording and performing artists of glam, rock and soul, like David Bowie, Marc Bolan, Peter Frampton, and members of The Jackson 5 were just a few of the male celebrities that helped popularize the men’s “high heel” trend in the early part of the 1970s.

In those earlier years, very high, block or chunky heels were usually paired with extremely thick platform soles. Later in the decade, however, the height of the heels came down, while the platform soles were thinner, or completely eliminated.

Shoes with sky-high platforms, like chopines, date back to at least the 15th century. And, even modern platform shoes, like the styles we see today, had been in fashion in both the 1930s and the 1960s, before completely taking over in the 1970s.

**An early version of AC/DC with vocalist Dave Evans looking very glam (far left) with Angus (the only one not wearing heels) and Malcolm Young.**

**Marvin Gaye’s signature silver platform boots made by Gaye’s wife, Janis, ca. 1970s.**

**Johnny Thunders and David Johansen of the New York Dolls, 1973.**

**Gene Simmons, his sick platform boots, and KISS’s young minions.**

**KISS walking on the street of New York City, 1976.**

**Unknown rocker, New York City, 1977.**

A Couple Sleeping in a Morrison Shelter Used as Protection From Collapsing Homes During the WWII ‘Blitz’ Bombing Raids

Morrison shelters were a way of protecting people from in their own homes from falling bombs. This was an alternative to the Anderson shelter in the garden and the public shelters.

**The Morrison shelter was an indoor cage that was designed to protect the occupants from the debris if the house was hit by a bomb.**

The Morrison shelter’s official name is the “Table (Morrison) indoor shelter”, it was designed by John Baker and named after Herbert Morrison who was the Minister of Home Security at the time. The idea for the Morrison shelter was fed from the realization that there was a lack of indoor shelters as not enough homes had cellars.

The Morrison shelter measured approximately 6 ft 6 inches (1.98m) long, 4 ft (1.21m) wide and 2 ft 6 inches (0.76m) high. With a steel plate “table” top, welded wire mesh sides, and a metal lath floor. Three tools were supplied with the pack that you built up inside your home and it had 359 parts altogether. A lot of people used the shelter as a table and had bedding inside of it.

**A Morrison shelter in a room setting, showing how such a shelter could be used as a table during the day and as a bed at night. The table cloth is partly pulled back to reveal the sleeping area.**

Derek Lambert describes how this new shelter at first appeared to be a more comfortable option:
When the first savagery of the night attacks faded we left the cupboard under the stairs and moved into a Morrison shelter.

This was a large metal cage a little higher than a dinner table. It had a hefty iron frame with a sheet steel ceiling screwed together with chunky nuts and bolts. Underneath was a crude wire mattress. It was massive and angular and filled the dining room except for a space in front of the fire.

It became part of the house, a foundation almost; we slept in it and on it, we ate from it, we played in it. When the siren sounded we were supposed to dive inside and put up steel mesh around the sides. Thus, according to the theorists, we were protected from falling masonry by the frame and steel ceiling and from flying rubble by the mesh cage.

When the Germans resumed the destruction of such military targets as schools, shops, houses and sleeping cows we spent all night in the shelter…

As the bombs stirred the ground and the shrapnel clattered down the road we fought a quiet battle of cunning for the bedclothes. Feet touched faces, arms swung across chests, elbows elbowed; snores bubbled and spluttered to be silenced by ostensibly accidental blows; fragments of wild dream-talk escaped from the depths of our private lives. Enmity was closer to the surface during those caged nights than at any other time in our well-mannered lives.

The system collapsed after a few weeks. White-faced, shadow-eyed, we decided that for the sake of health and happiness two of us would have to evacuate the shelter. For the next few months my parents slept on top of it while I rolled and stretched and crawled and sometimes slept beneath. When the next lull in the bombing came we crept back to our beds.

Half a million Morrison shelters had been distributed by the end of 1941, with a further 100,000 being added in 1943 to prepare the population for the expected German V-1 flying bomb.