London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a 50-mile (80 km) estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a major settlement for two millennia. The City of London, its ancient core and financial centre, was founded by the Romans as Londinium and retains boundaries close to its medieval ones. Since the 19th century, “London” has also referred to the metropolis around this core, historically split between the counties of Middlesex, Essex, Surrey, Kent, and Hertfordshire, which largely comprises Greater London, governed by the Greater London Authority. The City of Westminster, to the west of the City of London, has for centuries held the national government and parliament.
London, as one of the world’s global cities, exerts strong influence on its arts, commerce, education, entertainment, fashion, finance, health care, media, tourism, and communications, and therefore has sometimes been called the capital of the world. Its GDP (€801.66 billion in 2017) makes it the biggest urban economy in Europe, and it is one of the major financial centres in the world. In 2019 it had the second-highest number of ultra high-net-worth individuals in Europe after Paris and the second-highest number of billionaires of any city in Europe after Moscow. With Europe’s largest concentration of higher education institutions, it includes Imperial College London in natural and applied sciences, the London School of Economics in social sciences, and the comprehensive University College London. The city is home to the most 5-star hotels of any city in the world. In 2012, London became the first city to host three Summer Olympic Games.
London’s diverse cultures mean over 300 languages are spoken. The mid-2018 population of Greater London of about 9 million[5] made it Europe’s third-most populous city. It accounts for 13.4 per cent of the UK population. Greater London Built-up Area is the fourth-most populous in Europe, after Istanbul, Moscow and Paris, with 9,787,426 inhabitants at the 2011 census. The London metropolitan area is the third-most populous in Europe after Istanbul’s and Moscow’s, with 14,040,163 inhabitants in 2016.
London has four World Heritage Sites: the Tower of London; Kew Gardens; the combined Palace of Westminster, Westminster Abbey, and St Margaret’s Church; and also the historic settlement in Greenwich, where the Royal Observatory, Greenwich defines the Prime Meridian (0° longitude) and Greenwich Mean Time. Other landmarks include Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, Piccadilly Circus, St Paul’s Cathedral, Tower Bridge and Trafalgar Square. It has numerous museums, galleries, libraries and sporting venues, including the British Museum, National Gallery, Natural History Museum, Tate Modern, British Library and West End theatres. The London Underground is the oldest rapid transit system in the world. (Wikipedia)
Golders Green RoadThe Freemasons, Hampstead HeathHampstead High StGt Russell StGates of the British MuseumHampstead Heath ExtensionMuseum TavernSt Giles CircusBetter Books – Charing Cross RdLiverpool St StationCompendium BookshopThe Good MixerHampstead HeathLondon, HampsteadSt. James Park, LondonStreet scene of LondonCharing Cross StationHampstead High Street, Hampstead, LondonSouth End Green, Hampstead Heath, LondonHampstead HeathPunctual DeparturesWestern AveWestern AveGolders Green RoadBloom’sLondonBritish MuseumThe City
The Katyn massacre[a] was a series of mass executions of nearly 22,000 Polish military officers and intelligentsia carried out by the Soviet Union, specifically the NKVD (“People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs”, the Soviet secret police) in April and May 1940. Though the killings also occurred in the Kalinin and Kharkiv prisons and elsewhere, the massacre is named after the Katyn Forest, where some of the mass graves were first discovered by Nazi forces.
The massacre was initiated in NKVD chief Lavrentiy Beria’s proposal to Joseph Stalin to execute all captive members of the Polish officer corps, which was approved by the Soviet Politburo led by Stalin. Of the total killed, about 8,000 were officers imprisoned during the 1939 Soviet invasion of Poland, another 6,000 were police officers, and the remaining 8,000 were Polish intelligentsia the Soviets deemed to be “intelligence agents, gendarmes, landowners, saboteurs, factory owners, lawyers, officials, and priests”. The Polish Army officer class was representative of the multi-ethnic Polish state; the murdered included ethnic Poles, Ukrainians, Belarusians, and Jews including the chief Rabbi of the Polish Army, Baruch Steinberg.
The government of Nazi Germany announced the discovery of mass graves in the Katyn Forest in April 1943. Stalin severed diplomatic relations with the London-based Polish government-in-exile when it asked for an investigation by the International Committee of the Red Cross. The USSR claimed the Nazis had killed the victims, and it continued to deny responsibility for the massacres until 1990, when it officially acknowledged and condemned the killings by the NKVD, as well as the subsequent cover-up by the Soviet government.
An investigation conducted by the office of the prosecutors general of the Soviet Union (1990–1991) and the Russian Federation (1991–2004) confirmed Soviet responsibility for the massacres, but refused to classify this action as a war crime or as an act of mass murder. The investigation was closed on the grounds that the perpetrators were dead, and since the Russian government would not classify the dead as victims of the Great Purge, formal posthumous rehabilitation was deemed inapplicable. In November 2010, the Russian State Duma approved a declaration blaming Stalin and other Soviet officials for ordering the massacre.
The falsified Soviet version of the events has become known as the “Katyn lie”, a term coined in reference to the “Auschwitz lie”. (Wikipedia)
Officials examine the exhumed remains of the Katyn massacre. 1943.The paper ordering the Katyn Massacre.Exhuming the victims of the massacre.A skull exhumed during investigation into the Katyn massacre.The mummified skull of an officer killed during the Katyn massacre.An examination of exhumed soldiers in 1943.The bodies of the Polish officers in mass graves. All were shot in the back of the head execution-style.Photo from the 1943 exhumation of a mass grave of polish officers.The true story of the Katyn Massacre was hidden for decades.Victims of the Katyn massacre.
Mounted on my favorite horse, my … lariat near my hand, and my trusty guns in my belt … I felt I could defy the world.
— Nat Love in The Life and Adventures of Nat Love, 1907
Thousands of black cowboys drove cattle up the Chisholm Trail after the Civil War, but only Nat (pronounced Nate) Love wrote about his experiences. Due to this, Love’s exploits would make him one of the most famous black cowboys in post-Civil War America.
Nat Love was born in June 1854 as a slave on Robert Love’s plantation in Davidson County, Tennessee. His father was a slave foreman on the plantation’s fields, and his mother the head of its kitchen. He was looked after primarily by an older sister when he was young, but she, like her mother, worked in the kitchen so Nat basically looked after himself. Despite the fact that black literacy was banned by law, Nat learned to read and write as a child with the help of his father, Sampson.
When slavery ended, Love’s parents stayed on the Love plantation as sharecroppers, attempting to raise tobacco and corn on about 20 acres, but Sampson died shortly after the second crop was planted. In order to keep the farm going for his family, young Nat took another job on a neighboring farms to help out. During this time he developed a keen skill for breaking horses which would soon come in handy to him. After a period of working extra odd jobs in the area Nat won a horse in a raffle, and then promptly sold the beast back to its original owner for $50. He would use this money to leave town and, at the age of 16, after leaving his family in an uncle’s care, he headed West.
Nat’s first stop was Dodge City, Kansas where he came across the crew of the Texas Duval Ranch (located on the Palo Duro River in the Texas Panhandle). Having just brought a herd to the Kansas railhead, the Cowboys were having a leisurely breakfast when Nat decided to join them. In the range-cattle industry 25 percent of cowboys were black. Usually former slaves many black men had gained experience in cattle handling and horse-breaking. While discrimination was still prevalent, it was not as bad as other industries and a black man was able to generally be treated equal to white men in terms of pay and responsibilities. So it was a not un-toward of Nat to present himself to the trail boss asking for a job. The trail boss agreed to give the young man a job if he was able to break a tough horse called “Good Eye”. The wildest horse in the outfit, Nat would later say it was the toughest ride he’d ever had. But ride the horse he did and was given the job with the Duval Ranch at $30 a month.
According to his autobiography, Love fought cattle rustlers and endured inclement weather. He trained himself to become an expert marksman and cowboy, for which he earned from his co-workers the moniker “Red River Dick.” He soon became known as one of the best all-around cowboys in the Duval outfit. Eventually he became a buyer and their chief brand reader. In this capacity, he was sent to Mexico on several occasion and soon learned to speak Spanish fluently.
By 1872, After three years with the Duval Ranch, Love decided to head off to Arizona, where he went to work for the Gallinger Ranch on the Gila River. There he traveled many of the the major western trails, sometimes working in dangerous situations in Indian battles and fighting off rustlers and bandits. He wrote in his autobiography that while working the cattle drives in Arizona he met Pat Garrett, Bat Masterson, Billy the Kid, and others as well as seeing a soon-after view of the Custer battlefield in 1876.
In the spring of 1876, the Gallinger outfit were given a herd of three thousand steers to deliver to Deadwood, South Dakota. When they arrived there on July 3rd, the locals were busy preparing for a 4th of July celebrations. One of the many organized events included a “cowboy” contest with a $200 cash prize to the winner. Love entered the contest and he subsequently won the rope, throw, tie, bridle, saddle, and bronco riding contests, thus taking with him the grand prize. It was at this rodeo that he claims friends and fans gave him the nickname “Deadwood Dick.” He became known as DD all over the West, “entering into dime novels as a mysteriously dark and heroic presence”, says his autobiography.
Love writes that in October 1877 he was captured by a band of Pima Indians while rounding up stray cattle near the Gila River in Arizona. He claimed in his autobiography: “I carry the marks of fourteen bullet wounds on different parts of my body, most any one of which would be sufficient to kill an ordinary man, but I am not even crippled.” Several of the aforementioned bullet wounds were received in his fight with the Native Americans while trying to avoid capture. Love wrote that his life was spared because the Indians respected his heritage, a large portion of the band themselves being of mixed blood. The Pima nursed him back to health, wishing to adopt him into the tribe. In spite of the warmth shown to him, Love writes, he stole a pony and escaped into west Texas.
By 1889 Nat had decided to leave the cowboy life and settle down and get married. The next year he took a job in Denver, Colorado as a Pullman porter on the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad. As such, he worked on the routes west of Denver and moved his family several times to Wyoming, Utah, and Nevada before finally settling down in southern California.
In 1907, Nat Love published his autobiography, The Life and Adventures of Nat Love, Better Known in the Cattle Country as “Deadwood Dick.” “Written with an air of braggadocio, Love’s story is, in places, of questionable veracity. Nevertheless, it is a charming first-hand account of the life of one cowboy that emphasizes the necessity of cooperation and camaraderie in the performance of work on the trails, ranges, and ranches of the cattle kingdom,” writes American Black History. Love spent the last part of his life as a courier and guard for a Los Angeles securities company.
Nat Love, America’s most famous black cowboy, passed away at age 67 in 1921 in Los Angeles, California.
Reclining on bunk beds while sucking on opium pipes, these haunting photos provide a rare glimpse into life in America’s 19th century opium dens that prompted the country’s first crackdown on drugs.
Established by the Chinese and arriving in the US via ships, the first opium dens sprung up in San Francisco’s Chinatown during the 1840s and 1850s, and were soon being used by people from all walks of society.
The opium rush was at its most prevalent during the 1880s and 1890s, which coincided with the rise of the temperance movement.
Its popularity eventually resulted in a string of legislative measures being introduced to try and stamp out the addictive craze, including the Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906 and Smoking Opium Exclusion Act in 1909.
Two women and a man smoking in an opium den in Chinatown, San Francisco, circa 1890.Chinese migrants smoke opium at a boarding house in San Francisco in the late 19th century.An opium den in San Francisco circa 1890, one of many such establishments that opened in the city’s Chinatown.A rare photo showing a close-up of a user preparing a ‘pill’ of opium for the pipe.An adolescent smokes opium in San Francisco’s Chinatown in the 1880s, one of thousands of addicts in the USA at the time.Opium smoking was brought to America by the rush of migrants during the California Gold Rush. These two men were pictured in San Francisco in 1898.Two women are tended to as they lie in beds in one of the more upmarket dens in New York in around 1899.A Chinese immigrant puffs on a pipe while holding a cat in a 1900 image that became a best-selling tourist postcard in San Francisco.A pair of Chinese men pose for the camera while smoking opium in New York in 1909.A forlorn-looking white woman stares at an opium pipe in New York in around 1910.A Chinese-American man hangs an elaborate scroll with Chinese characters on a wall in a den in Hop Alley in Denver, Colorado, in around 1912.The craze swept the nation in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, This woman smokes opium in her own home in San Francisco circa 1920.Western men and women of upper and middle class means began to frequent dens like this one in New York in 1923.Smartly dressed opium smokers lounge around in an opium den in New York in 1925 as the drug craze swept the country.Four well-to-do white women lie around a Chinese man, all clearly intoxicated, in New York in 1926.
Patricia Campbell Hearst (born February 20, 1954) is an American author and actress, and granddaughter of American publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst. She first became known for the events following her 1974 kidnapping by the Symbionese Liberation Army. She was found and arrested 19 months after being abducted, by which time she was a fugitive wanted for serious crimes committed with members of the group. She was held in custody, and there was speculation before trial that her family’s resources would enable her to avoid time in prison.
At her trial, the prosecution suggested that Hearst had joined the Symbionese Liberation Army of her own volition. However, she testified that she had been raped and threatened with death while held captive. In 1976, she was convicted for the crime of bank robbery and sentenced to 35 years in prison, later reduced to 7 years. Her sentence was commuted by President Jimmy Carter, and she was later pardoned by President Bill Clinton. (Wikipedia)
Patty Hearst was kidnapped on February 4, 1974. Hearst grew up in wealth and privilege as the daughter of Randolph A. Hearst, chairman of media conglomerate Hearst Corp., and Catherine Hearst, a University of California regent. Hearst’s grandfather was famed publisher William Randolph Hearst.Hearst was abducted at gunpoint from the apartment she shared in Berkeley with her fiance, Steven Weed, pictured with Hearst. A radical group called the Symbionese Liberation Army, or SLA, took credit.A car at the Berkeley Police Department on February 5, 1974. Police said Hearst was blindfolded and thrown into the trunk of the car.Hearst’s autobiography details her abuse at the hands of the SLA. In it she says she was kept locked in a closet for 57 days, as well as subjected to radical rantings, physical abuse and rape. Eventually she was offered the choice of joining the SLA or being killed. The SLA released a tape announcing Hearst’s alignment with the SLA, including taking the name Tania. A photo of her holding a gun in front of the SLA’s seven-headed cobra emblem was also released.On April 15, 1974, the SLA robbed a Hibernia Bank branch in San Francisco. Security cameras captured this image of Hearst in the robbery.Assault rifle in hand, Hearst joins DeFreeze in robbing a San Francisco bank on April 15, 1974. It was her first crime as a professed SLA member.Four days after the robbery, the FBI released this wanted poster, featuring Hearst, far right, as a material witness, and SLA members suspected of taking part in the heist. Leader Donald DeFreeze is at top left.Hearst was arrested in San Francisco on September 18, 1975, 18 months after the kidnapping.The exterior of the Symbionese Liberation Army house, at 1827 Golden Gate, where Hearst was held in the closet is seen on February 16, 1976.At her trial for bank robbery, Hearst said she had been brainwashed by the group and feared for her life, but a jury found her guilty. She was sentenced to seven years in prison.Hearst was released on bail on November 19, 1976, while her attorneys appealed her case. Here, she is reunited with her parents, Catherine and Randolph Hearst in their San Francisco home on November 20, 1976. The appeal was denied and Hearst returned to prison.After Hearst served nearly two years in prison, President Jimmy Carter commuted her sentence in early 1979. Here, she mugs for the camera at the Federal Correctional Institute at Pleasanton, California, on January 31, 1979.Hearst holds up the executive grant of clemency as she leaves prison on February 1, 1979. With her is her fiance and former bodyguard, Bernard Shaw.Hearst is walked down the aisle by her father, Randolph Hearst, at the Navy chapel at her wedding to Bernard Shaw in April 1979.
They were known as the Seven Dwarfs of Auschwitz and subjected to sick genetic experiments by Nazi doctor Josef Mengele. But, miraculously, all seven members of the Jewish Ovitz family survived their horrifying ordeal at Hitler’s infamous death camp.
The Ovitz siblings
The Ovitz family was a family of Romanian Jewish actors/traveling musicians who survived imprisonment at the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II. Most of them were dwarfs. They were the largest family of dwarfs ever recorded and were the largest family (twelve family members from a 15-month-old baby to a 58-year-old woman) to enter Auschwitz and to survive intact.
The Ovitz family, from the village of Rozavlea in Transylvania, was the largest recorded family of dwarves: a dwarf father who sired 10 children, seven of them dwarves. Perla, born in 1921, was the youngest. In that remote part of Romania in the early 20th century, it was difficult for anyone to eke a living from the land and livestock, and impossible for someone standing less than 3ft tall.
The Ovitzs (from left): Elizabeth, Perla, Rozika, Frieda, Franziska and Avram.
Throughout history, dwarves had been entertainers, often part of a circus or vaudeville show. But the Ovitzs wanted the stage all to themselves. They appropriately named their musical ensemble the Lilliput Troupe, and for 15 years had a flourishing career in central Europe. Their two-hour show consisted of popular hits of the day, skits and music. Perla had a tiny, four-string pink guitar that looked like a toy, her sisters Rozika and Franziska played on quarter-sized violins, Frieda struck on the cimbalom, Micki played both a half-sized cello and accordion, while the energetic Elizabeth took on the drums. Their elder brother Avram was the scriptwriter, actor and general manager.
The Ovitzs lived a communal life in one big house in the village. When any one of them got married, the spouse moved in and joined the enterprise. While the dwarves basked in the limelight, the average-height family members worked behind the curtains as stagehands and wardrobe mistresses. It was the only all-dwarf ensemble with a full show of their own in the history of entertainment.
When the Nazis came to power, the Ovitzs were doubly doomed: under the Aktion T-4 euthanasia programme, the Germans set out to kill people who were physically or mentally disabled, whose lives were considered “unworthy of living”, “a burden on society”; and, as Jews, the Ovitzs were the target of the Final Solution.
Though the Ovitzes were observant Jews, they obtained papers which omitted the fact that they were Jewish and continued going on their tours until 1944. In May , 1944 all twelve family members were deported to Auschwitz.
The Ovitzs leaving Auschwitz-Birkenau in May 1944.
On 19 May 1944, they were brought to the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp because they were Jews. But, by a twist of fate, their disability played for them. It was rare that one person from an entire family survived the camp, let alone two, but all 12 members of the Ovitz family – the youngest a baby boy just 18 months old, the oldest his 58-year-old dwarf aunt – emerged alive.
Hoping to please Mengele by finding him oddities among the incoming prisoners, the Auschwitz guards immediately woke the sleeping doctor when they discovered the Ovitz family on the inbound train.
Dwarf Elizabeth as ChaplinPerla (right) and Elizabeth Ovitz: as the five sisters and two brothers were all good-looking and musically gifted, the stage seemed the perfect career.
Dr. Josef Mengele was on a twisted quest to study human genetics. Several doctors stationed at Nazi concentration camps were pursuing similar research, utilizing the horrifyingly endless stream of soon-to-be executed prisoners as test subjects.
Of these doctors, Mengele was the absolute worst and his experiments on humans were arguably the most nightmarish incidents in World War II’s annals.
Nazi Josef Mengele, the notorious Angel of Death.
Mengele particularly wanted to prove that Germans were genetically superior to the groups being killed at the concentration camps. His “proof” stemmed from collecting “evidence” that Jews, gypsies, and other ethnic groups possessed degenerative DNA and its subsequent physiological traits. He considered dwarfism one of these indicative traits and had been collecting the single dwarfs that were occasionally shipped to his camp on the Nazi death trains.
The Jewish Ovitz family of dwarfs quickly became his pet project. He saved all of its members (and several of their Romanian neighbors who claimed to be relatives) from the gas chambers. But only to force them to endure a series of horrific and humiliating experiments.
Wanting to spare the group of dwarfs (because they were harder to find than other kinds of test subjects, such as twins), Mengele arranged to have special living quarters built for them, so they could be monitored. To keep them healthy for his human experimentation, he arranged for them to have more hygienic living conditions, better food and their own bedclothes. Mengele even allowed them to keep their own clothes, and forced the taller members of the group to carry the dwarfs to the experimentation sites.
Not only were they allowed to keep their own clothes, but Mengele preferred that they dress up for their “appointments” with him, stage make-up and all. To the regular prisoners of the camps, the costumed dwarfs being escorted around the blood-soaked facilities seemed like hallucinations.
Over the course of their time at Auschwitz, all of the members of the family (short and tall, blood-related, related by marriage, and fake related) were subjected to almost daily blood tests, bone marrow sampling, blinding chemical tests, constant teeth and hair pulling, ear drip torture, and repeated showcases where they were stripped in front of audiences and researchers during lectures and analysis.
Things were even worse for the women and children of the family. They were subjected to additional gynecological and developmental inventorying.
Eighteen-month-old Shimshon Ovitz was put through the worst ordeals because he had taller parents and was prematurely born; Mengele drew blood from the veins behind his ears and from his fingers. The Ovitzes also witnessed two newcomer dwarfs being killed and boiled so their bones could be exhibited in a museum. Mengele also filmed them; this film was not found after the war, and it is possible that he kept it when he fled.
They expected to be killed after Mengele had finished his experiments, but they lived to see the liberation of Auschwitz on January 27, 1945. The Red Army took them to the Soviet Union where they lived in a refugee camp for some time before they were released.
The Ovitzes traveled on foot for seven months to their home village. They found their home looted, moved first to the town of Sighet and later to Belgium. In May 1949, they immigrated to Israel, settled in Haifa, and began their tours again, being quite successful and packing large concert halls. In 1955, they retired and bought a cinema hall.
Descendants of the dwarf men of the family were born taller; the women did not become pregnant due to their small pelvises. The firstborn of the dwarfs, Rozika Ovitz, died in 1984 at the age of 98. The last adult dwarf survivor of the family, Perla Ovitz, died in 2001.
The last survivor in the family, Perla Ovitz, died in 2001.Until the end, she kept recounting her family’s tale, encapsulating all the helplessness and painful absurdity of this experience, which she could not possibly explain to herself and to the world, in a single sentence: “I was saved by the grace of the devil.“
Pan American World Airways, commonly known as Pan Am, was the largest international air carrier based in the U.S. from 1927 until 1991. The airline has always had a place in popular culture as a kind of standard bearer for luxury and excellence.
If you’ve ever seen a photo gallery of “what flying was like back in the 1950s/60s/70s” your initial reaction is either awe (if you weren’t jetting around the country back then) or incredulity, since you were jetting around the country back then and know that most of those photos have little relation to reality.
Flying back in the era before the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 — in coach — wasn’t a whole lot different than today. Sure, the seats were a bit wider, you had some more leg room, meals were gratis, but then again the air in the cabin was a toxic stew of cigarette smoke. Flying in first class – even domestically – was a different matter.
Today domestic first class means free drinks, free (perhaps edible) food, and a seat that might not leave you with a chronic back condition. While deregulation played a large role in driving down quality and prices, this ‘golden age’ of luxe airborne lounging was largely brought to an end by the Arab embargo induced oil crises of the 1970s. In an ironic twist, if you’re looking to have a drink in a 1970s style airborne lounge today, the Middle Eastern carriers Etihad and Emirates are your best options.
Back in the early 1970s it wasn’t just absolutely over-the-top Middle Eastern carriers who offered this sort of lounge experience (with all the smoke in the air, showers no doubt would have been appreciated). When the first Boeing 747 took to the skies in 1970, its iconic upper deck presented airlines with an interesting conundrum: initially the space wasn’t certified by the FAA to carry passengers during takeoff and landing. While certification came quickly enough, in this era, competing for passengers meant providing unique amenities. Therefore many airlines decided to convert the space into lounges, typically, but not always for premium fare passengers. Here are some photos of the glamorous flying lounges from between the late 1960s and early 1970s.
At 2:30 on 9 March 1916, several hundred troops under the command of Francisco “Pancho” Villa crossed the border separating the United States and Mexico and attacked the small Army garrison at Columbus, New Mexico. The raid was a surprise to the still sleeping men of the 13th Cavalry, who were responsible for patrolling the border around town.
After about two hours of fighting, and a brief pursuit of Villa’s men into Mexico by Major Frank Tompkins, the attacking bands dispersed into the deserts of Chihuahua. Due to the work of a telegraph agent in town, the public heard about the raid almost as it was happening, and within twenty four hours, President Woodrow Wilson decided to send the U.S. Army into Mexico. Known as the Punitive Expedition and led by Brigadier General John J. “Black Jack” Pershing, the goal of the campaign was to capture Pancho Villa and those men responsible for the raid.
The Columbus raid was a minor skirmish in a much bigger conflict. The Mexican Revolution began in 1910 as a revolt to remove Porfirio Díaz, the aging dictator of Mexico, from power, but as revolutionary factions fractured, the war became a large scale political and social revolution that transformed the republic. Villa was the head of one of the most powerful of these factions, but his fortunes declined after breaking from the Constitutionalists, led by General Venustiano Carranza. When Wilson recognized Carranza as the legal president of Mexico in October 1915, Villa became enraged. This resentment boiled over into a series of attacks on U.S. citizens in Mexico by Villa’s forces, culminating in the attack on Columbus.
The Punitive Expedition was comprised of 4,800 men from the 7th, 10th, and 13th Cavalry, 6th Field Artillery, the 6th and 16th Regiments of Infantry, the 1st Aero Squadron, and medical personnel. The 10th Cavalry was an African American regimen. Known as buffalo soldiers, these troops were mostly led by white officers, with the exception of Major Charles Young, who was one of only three African American officers in the U.S. Army. The expedition entered Mexico on 15 March 1916 in two columns, one led by Pershing that crossed the border at Culberson’s Ranch and a second that crossed near Columbus.
Pershing’s column arrived first at Colonía Dublán and then split into three provisional squadrons, all of which went south on different paths to pursue Villa and his forces. One of these provisional squadrons composed of soldiers of the 7th Cavalry and led by Col. George A. Dodd rode to the town of Guerrero on the hunt for Villa. Left without reliable guides, the 7th Cavalry spent the night of 28 to 29 March traveling a circuitous route to the town, arriving at about 0800. Villa had been shot in the leg during a skirmish in Guerrero on 27 March and was taken to a home in the area, where he stayed before leaving in the direction of Minaca at daybreak on 29 March. Dodd skirmished with retreating Villistas, but did not see Pancho Villa himself. The expedition was never closer to capturing Villa.
While the three provisional squadrons pursued Villistas, the column that entered Mexico from Columbus was divided into four “flying columns,” so named because they were small, highly mobile, and expected to provide for themselves materially in the field. As these squads combed Chihuahua, Pershing moved his main base of operations further south to San Geronimo and then to Satevó to be closer to the cavalry. These columns were assisted by the 1st Aero Squadron, which was mostly tasked with delivering messages and doing reconnaissance. This was the first major Army operation in which planes were used in the field, and the expedition revealed serious deficiencies in the eight Curtiss JN-3 biplanes that the squadron brought to Mexico. Besides their inadequate number, the planes had difficulties flying in Chihuahua’s high elevations, heat, wind, and sand. By April, all of the planes had been grounded.
On 12 April, one of these flying columns under the command of Maj. Tompkins, supported on each flank by squadrons riding further north, decided to go to the town of Parral after contracting for supplies and fodder. Upon their arrival, General Ismael Lozano, who was in charge of local Mexican government forces, requested that Tompkins depart, while a mob of civilians formed. Tompkins refused, and asked Lozano to provide him with a spot to camp. On the way to this camp, his squad skirmished with government forces, called Carrancistas, and with civilian members of the mob. This clash precipitated a diplomatic crisis that led Wilson to order Pershing to move his headquarters back north to Colonía Dublán and give up the active pursuit of Villa. Flying columns were replaced by squads that patrolled a grid around Dublán.
Still, small skirmishes between Pershing’s forces, Villistas, and Carrancistas continued even after the end of active pursuit. After another raid north of the border on the tiny settlement of Glen Springs, Wilson ordered the National Guard to mobilize to protect the border. Units from Arizona, Texas, and New Mexico came first, but when their numbers proved small, Wilson ordered the National Guard to send troops from the rest of the nation. Eventually, over 100,000 National Guard spent the next several months training along the border. In Mexico, a patrol squad led by Captain William T. Boyd was ordered to do reconnaissance in the area of Ahumada. On the way there, Boyd insisted on passing through the town of Carrizal even after being denied permission by Carrancistas. This led to a skirmish in which nine troops were killed and twelve were wounded. In addition, twenty three soldiers were taken prisoner.
The fallout from this action led to the establishment of a joint Mexican-U.S. commission to negotiate Pershing’s withdrawal and orders for the expedition to stay in the vicinity of Colonía Dublán. The soldiers of the Punitive Expedition ceased patrolling, but they kept busy until their withdrawal on 5 February 1917 drilling and training. In the end, Pershing did not capture Villa, but he did receive valuable experienced that served him in his role as leader of the American Expeditionary Forces in WWI.
Paris is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 square kilometres (41 square miles). Since the 17th century, Paris has been one of the world’s major centres of finance, diplomacy, commerce, fashion, gastronomy, science, and arts. The City of Paris is the centre and seat of government of the region and province of Île-de-France, or Paris Region, with an estimated population of 12,174,880 in 2017, or about 18 percent of the population of France. The Paris Region had a GDP of €709 billion ($808 billion) in 2017. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit Worldwide Cost of Living Survey in 2018, Paris was the second most expensive city in the world, after Singapore and ahead of Zürich, Hong Kong, Oslo, and Geneva. Another source ranked Paris as most expensive, on par with Singapore and Hong Kong, in 2018.
Paris is a major railway, highway, and air-transport hub served by two international airports: Paris–Charles de Gaulle (the second-busiest airport in Europe) and Paris–Orly. Opened in 1900, the city’s subway system, the Paris Métro, serves 5.23 million passengers daily; it is the second-busiest metro system in Europe after the Moscow Metro. Gare du Nord is the 24th-busiest railway station in the world, but the busiest located outside Japan, with 262 million passengers in 2015. Paris is especially known for its museums and architectural landmarks: the Louvre received 2.8 million visitors in 2021, despite the long museum closings caused by the COVID-19 virus. The Musée d’Orsay, Musée Marmottan Monet and Musée de l’Orangerie are noted for their collections of French Impressionist art. The Pompidou Centre Musée National d’Art Moderne has the largest collection of modern and contemporary art in Europe. The Musée Rodin and Musée Picasso exhibit the works of two noted Parisians. The historical district along the Seine in the city centre has been classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1991; popular landmarks there include the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris on the Île de la Cité, now closed for renovation after the 15 April 2019 fire. Other popular tourist sites include the Gothic royal chapel of Sainte-Chapelle, also on the Île de la Cité; the Eiffel Tower, constructed for the Paris Universal Exposition of 1889; the Grand Palais and Petit Palais, built for the Paris Universal Exposition of 1900; the Arc de Triomphe on the Champs-Élysées, and the hill of Montmartre with its artistic history and its Basilica of Sacré-Coeur.
Paris received 12.6 million visitors in 2020, measured by hotel stays, a drop of 73 percent from 2019, due to the COVID-19 virus. The number of foreign visitors declined by 80.7 percent. Museums re-opened in 2021, with limitations on the number of visitors at a time and a requirement that visitors wear masks.
The football club Paris Saint-Germain and the rugby union club Stade Français are based in Paris. The 80,000-seat Stade de France, built for the 1998 FIFA World Cup, is located just north of Paris in the neighbouring commune of Saint-Denis. Paris hosts the annual French Open Grand Slam tennis tournament on the red clay of Roland Garros. The city hosted the Olympic Games in 1900, 1924 and will host the 2024 Summer Olympics. The 1938 and 1998 FIFA World Cups, the 2007 Rugby World Cup, as well as the 1960, 1984 and 2016 UEFA European Championships were also held in the city. Every July, the Tour de France bicycle race finishes on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées in Paris. (Wikipedia)
Dutch photographer Ed van der Elsken was part of the scene in Paris at the time, and in 1956, he published a ground-breaking photobook called Love on the Left Bank. His gritty, sexy, black-and-white photos of bohemian life in Paris captured a reckless, carefree, decadent and hedonistic love for life.
