From 1932 to 1933, the Soviet Republic of Ukraine experienced a man-made famine that shook the entire state.
Due to the magnitude of this famine it was referred to as the Holodomor which is a term derived from Ukrainian words ‘holod’ meaning Hunger and ‘mor’ meaning Extermination.
You could simply refer to the event as a Hunger Extermination
The famine originated from the decision of the Soviet Leader Joseph Stalin to collectivise agriculture in 1929.
Peasants were forced to relinquish their lands, personal properties and sometimes, even their houses.
Anyone who resisted the order was deported and so were the wealthier peasants.
This collectivisation led to shortage in production , food shortages and disorganisation of rural economy.
Over time, the famine led to lawlessness, theft, lynching and multiple descriptions of instances of cannibalism.
From 1931 and 1934, between 3 to 12 million people died of starvation across U.S.S.R.
Currently, the event is regarded as a genocide by Ukraine and 14 other countries.
Five international organizations regard the event as a crime against humanity
Did you know that lobster was once considered food for the poor?
The crustacean only became popular around the mid 19th century.
The lobster fisheries only flourished after the development of the lobster smack which is a custom made boat with open holding wells to keep the lobsters alive for transport.
Before this period, it was only considered food for slaves, servants or lower members of the society in Maine, Massachusetts, and the Canadian Maritimers.
Hence the name ‘food for the poor’.
It was served in prisons too and it remains a taboo food in the dietary laws of Judaism and certain streams of Islam.
Duplicate of a 100 year old portrait of Louis Braille. Courtesy: Wikimedia commons.
Louis Braille .
Louise Braille was one of the exceptional teenagers in history.
Born on January 4th 1809 in Coupvray near Paris, Louis Braille became blind at the age of 3 as a result of an accident in his father’s workshop.
Despite his condition, young Braille became a notable musician and organist.
At the age of ten (1819) he got a scholarship to attend the National Institute for Blind Children, where he developed an interest in a system of writing exhibited by Charles Barbier.
At the age of 15 (1824), he developed a system of writing specially for the blind named after him till this day.
This was a system of six-dot codes which helped the blind to read and write.
He went further to adapt the system into musical notations.
He is a true model for persons who keep breaking limits and making exemplary impact despite their disabilities.
Bust of Mithridates VI at the Louvre. Picture courtesy: Eric Gaba/ Wikimedia Commons
Father of Empirical Toxicology.
Mithridates VI also known as Mithridates the great was the king of Pontus in Northern Anatolia( 120-63 BC).
He became a king at young age so his mother ruled in his place as regent for a few years.
At about 115 BC, she was deposed and thrown into prison by the young king.
The king was known to be ruthless. After the death of his father Mithridates V in 120 BC, he subjected himself to hardships and difficult times.
PARANOIA AND EXPERIMENTS WITH POISONS:
Due to the fact that the king was always so concious of enemy invasion and attacks, Mithridates VI developed an immunity to poisons by regularly ingesting sublethal doses of poison.
He later invented a complex universal antidote against poisoning.
After 25 years of war with the Romans, Pompey finally defeated Mithridates and threatened to take him away as his trophy but in a bid to escape, Mithridates tried to poison himself to death.
Fortunately or unfortunately, he failed because his body was already relatively immune to poisons.
AFTERMATH / RELEVANCE:
The principle of the modern day Vaccination can be linked to the works of Mithridates.
Hang Son Doong located in Vietnam is said to be the largest cave in the world by volume with a length of approximately 9 Kilometres and a depth of about 150 metres.
FEATURES:
This cave has an internal fast flowing subterranean river . The cave is believed to be about 2 to 5 million years old.
The cave possesses 2 large dolines which were formed by the collapsing of the roof of the cave.
These dolines allow for sunlight to enter some parts of the cave aiding the growth of trees and other vegetations.
SIZE:
Has an estimated volume of about 38.5 million cubic meters (about 1.35 billion cubic feet). In fact, it is said that a New York city block with 40 storey sky scrappers could fit into this cave
All in all, the cave’s interior is so large it could have a Boeing 747 fly comfortably through without it’s wings being in danger.
DISCOVERY / EXPLORATION:
The entrance to this cave was first discovered in 1991 by a local resident of the area named Hõ Khanh but the cave became internationally known in 2009 when a group of Cavers from British Cave Research Association conducted a survey in Phong Na-Kè Bàng.
Picture: Three friends. Courtesy: Library of Congress 1913
MY FRIENDSHIP
My soul chose you, Like the sun chose to light the day with hue. And the moon, the night, Like You, complete my earthly delight.
We have become parallels that finally meet, With you here, we form a perfect lasting skit. Life ellipsis expresses the infinity of this bond, With you, our colors makes the rainbows abscond.
We chose this path, where imperfections be, We chose this path, where faults lies in bits.
We chose this path, where we can unlearn and relearn, And renew our mindset to yield more as we discern.
Because I have called you my friend, What we share we have promised to defend. This singular way, to tell of the how, You make me feel, this is my vow!
Rev. Jim Jones in 1977. Courtesy: Nancy Wong / Wikimedia Commons.
Rev Jim Jones was ordained in 1957 by the Assemblies of God Church.
Initially, his church didn’t have much members. So, he organized some religious programs and invited the popular Evangelist William Branham.
Due to the popularity of Rev. Branham, Jim Jone’s congregation grew immensely .
Soon, he took many members to a Jungle in Guyana and named the place Jones town.
Most of the members were encouraged to sell all their “worldly belongings” and bring the money to Jim Jones or the People’s temple.
Jim Jones was notably against racism but ironically, he was known to read books by Adolf Hitler and Father Divine.
In fact, Jim Jones adopted colored or non-white children. He even advised his followers to adopt orphans from war-torn Korea in the 1970’s.
Soon, Rev. Jim Jones began to enforce his own doctrines. He claimed that he was the reincarnation of Buddha and Ghandi and that he was the second coming of Christ.
He notably said: “if you see me as your God, I will be your God”.
INVESTIGATIONS:
Congressman and representative Leo Ryan who was murdered in 1977 after his visit to Jonestown. Courtesy: US government archives/ Wikimedia Commons.
In 1978, the US Government sent a delegation led by US Representative, Leo Ryan to Jones Town to investigate allegations of human right abuses.
After the delegation had visited Jonestown and was heading back, Jim Jones ordered some of his followers to kill the members of the delegation.
Leo Ryan and some others were killed, while few others survived the attack.
MASS SUICIDE
That same evening, Jim Jones called his followers together and informed them that the government would come to torture them and that the only “escape route” was death.
He openly served his members some drinks which were mixed with cyanide(a poison).
Some members refused to drink initially, but they were either intimidated or forced by other members to drink the poison.
Parents administered the poison to their own children before drinking the poison too. After everyone else had taken the poison including Jim Jone’s wife, Jim Jones shot himself in the head.
A total of 918 people died that day, including 304 children. Because of the graphic nature of the event, the pictures will not be shown here, but can be sourced on Google.
REVIEWS:
While Jim Jones was somewhat of a preacher, it should also be noted that he openly had Atheist or Agnostic tendencies.
He once notably told his followers : “There’s no heaven up there! We’ll have to make heaven down here”.
He also rejected the Bible and denounced a “God of the Sky”.
He was also notably bisexual.
One word almost desribes his life’s work: “horrible”
Author: Injury map. Courtesy of Wikimedia commons.
Are we getting Dumber? Why is the human brain shrinking?
As unbelievably terrifying as it seems it is, the human brain is actually shrinking.
As evolution occurred, the human brain evolved too and became bigger but over 20,000 years ago there has been a reversal as the human brain has decreased from 1,500 cubic centimeters to 1,350 cubic centimeters.
In other words, the brains of Homo sapiens have decreased in size by 10 percent.
Scientists believe that if the human brain continues shrinking at this rate, then it would go back to the size of the brain of our predecessor the Homo eretus which possessed a brain of 1,100cm³.
El Colacho festival, 25th May 2008. Author : Jtspotau. El Colacho, entre Los danzantes, Spain.
El Colacho ( Baby jumping)
This is an old Spanish traditional festival that dates back to 1620.
It is carried out in Castrillo de Murcia a village in the province of Burgos, Spain, to mark the Catholic feast of the Corpus Christi.
The act of El Salto del Colacho is organized by the brotherhood of Santísimo Sacramento de Minerva and it comprises of a week long activities which ends with the devil’s Jump (El Salto del Colacho).
During the event, men dress up as the devil in red and yellow suits and with whips. They jump over infants born during the twelve months of the previous year.
It is said that this ritual cleanses the children from original sin, ensures safe passage through life and guards them against sickness and evil spirits.
The origin of this tradition is unknown.
It is also believed that sin is driven from the whole town in the process.
FESTIVAL:
Parents place their babies on a mattress in the village square. A man dressed in yellow costume symbolizes the devil as he jumps over the babies.
Meanwhile, another man dressed in black walks around, beating a drum.
CRITICISM:
Pope Benedict has asked Priests in Spain to disassociate themselves from El Colacho.
The Pontiff insists that the “Original sin” can only be cleansed through baptism (most preferably infant baptism).
Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun on 14th June 1942. Credit: German Federal Archive. Bundesarchiv, B145 Bild-F051673-0059/cc-BY-SA.
It’s time for some creepy devilish romance.
The German leader Adolf Hitler, was noted to have been in relationships with several women.
First was his half-niece, Geli Raubal. It was rumored that their relationship was “sex dependent”. She killed herself in 1931 by shooting herself on the chest with Hitler’s pistol.
It is noted that two of his previous lovers also committed suicide. A third lover also died of complications, 8 years after she had attempted suicide. Then came the love of his life… A woman named Eva Braun
Relationship with Eva Braun
After Eva Braun met Hitler, she soon attempted suicide in 1932 by shooting herself on the chest (the same way Hitler’s niece had died the previous year).
After several years of secret courtship, Eva Braun married Hitler on the night of 28th-29th April 1945.
Suicide:
On the afternoon of 30th April 1945, as the Russian Red Army was already marching into Berlin, Eva and Hitler bid farewell to their staff.
Then they entered an inner room. Few moments later, some gunshots were heard. A member of staff went into the room and found the dead bodies of Mr and Mrs Hitler. Eva had bitten a cyanide capsule while Hitler had shot himself in the head.
It should be noted that moments before Eva Braun was about to marry Adolf Hitler, she had already known that the German army was losing the 2nd World War.
When a friend asked her why she decided to marry Hitler at such crucial time, she replied: “do you think I would let him die alone? I will stay with him up until the last moment… “
Thus, she sealed her fate with her marriage to Hitler. She was just 33 years old while Adolf Hitler was 56 years old.
There goes the story of Mr. and Mrs Hitler and their strange marriage that lasted for only 40 hours.
Gilles de Rais(1404-1440): The world first serial killer?
Could Gilles de Rais an Breton nobleman, a soldier in the Hundred years’ war and a comrade in arms to the great Joan of Arc be the world’s first serial killer?
With the death of Joan of Arc in 1431, De Rais began to spend more time at his estate. His military career began to fade and his finances were a mess. He soon became concerned with religion and the “salvation of his soul”.
In 1433, he sponsored the construction of a chapel for the “bliss of his soul” and he named it the chapel of the Holy Innocents. De Rais’ finances began to dwindle and as a desperate measure, he began to employ the services of Sorcerers and Alchemists. He believed he could find some spiritual means to revive his dying finances. In the process, children notably began to go missing. Families were distraught and the people of the city were confused.
Gradually, most of these disappearances were traced back to De Rais but the poor people could not confront him because of his high social status. Finally, he ran out of luck after he kidnapped a priest in September 1440. Soon he was arrested and tried on charges of Sodomy, heresy and the murder of over 100 children.
The comrade in question (De Rais), was arrested for more than a hundred gruesome child murders which he confessed to be true.
He confessed to ritualistically torturing the children kidnapped by his servants.
Gilles de Rais was sentenced to death by simultaneous burning and hanging which was carried out on 26th October 1440.
In the face of execution, he appeared regretful and calm which brought him the posthumous title of a “model of Christian penitence” . In fact, for three whole days after his death, people were fasting.
For more than a century after his death, some parents around Nantes commemorated his death by whipping their children, probably to remind them about the horrific nature of the sins from which he had repented.
Today, some scholars argue that Gilles de Rais may have been completely innocent but actually confessed to the crimes due to the fact that he was severely tortured. Some others however, believe that he actually committed the murders.
The Anglo-Zanzibar War holds the record for the shortest recorded war in history.
The war was fought on 27th August 1896 and it lasted between just 38 to 45 minutes.
CAUSE:
This war started off majorly due to the death of the Pro-British Sultan named Hamad Bin Thuwaini. Back then, the British had considerable authority over the Zanzibar sultanate because new Sultans could only be peacefully recognized if they obtained permission to rule from the British consul.
After the death of the Pro-British Sultan, a new Sultan named Khalid bin Banghash broke the protocol by ascending the throne without the permission of the British government.
WAR:
The new Sultan was initially given an ultimatum to either swear allegiance to the British empire or step down from the throne.
He refused to comply with any of the demands.
Finally, on the morning of 27th August 1896, the British Army marched on the royal Palace of zanzibar.
The British Army had also managed to rally some Zanzibar soldiers to their cause.
The rebelling Sultan on the other hand, actually defended his Palace with about 2,800 men, some of whom were civilians, slaves and soldiers.
The British bombardment of the Palace started by 9:02 am and soon ended by 9:46 am. Enough firepower had been unleashed by the stronger British army, which resulted in the death of over 500 Zanzibari. Only one British sailor was wounded.
After ceasefire was declared, the British boldly made a deciding move on the rulership of Zanzibar.
AFTERMATH :
After the brief war, the sultanate of Zanzibar ultimately lost its sovereignty as the British assumed near-total control of the Sultanate.
Today, the ancient and defunct Zanzibar sultanate is now part of Kenya and Tanzania.
Note that Pakistan holds a Guinness record for having the largest volunteer ambulance network in the world.
A man named Abdul Sattar Edhi, once used his own car as a public ambulance.
Soon, other people across the country supported him by either donating or converting their own cars to ambulances too.
The volunteer work was so successful, that this Ambulance service even donated 100,000 dollars and other relief materials to victims of Hurricane Katrina in USA.
They also run a lot of major hospitals in Pakistan and they provide free health care to Cancer patients, homeless children, diabetics, etc.
When we talk about development, we consider USA, Britain and Belgium.
But these are countries that gradually developed over several decades and even centuries of constant hardwork.
Let’s talk about Singapore. Back in 1965, Singapore was one of the poorest nations in Asia.
Its people were hungry, homeless, unemployed and the economy was failing terribly.
A man stepped into the ring of Leadership and he was named Lee Kuan Yew. His economic policies and his drive to tackle corruption caused a massive transformation in this country.
In less than 40 years, Singapore went from being a third world country to a first world country.
On 13th March 2020 in Louisville, USA, Breonna Taylor was sleeping in her house with her boyfriend when 3 white police officers broke in. The police officers claimed that they were on a drug raid.
Because the officers were not wearing a uniform, Taylor’s boyfriend thought they were armed robbers and he fired a single shot from his licensed gun. In return, the police officers opened fire in the house.
A total of 32 bullets were fired. Breonna Taylor died as she was hit by 6 bullets.
She was just 26 years old and she was planning to get married. Apparently, her boyfriend escaped the shootout.
The controversial aspect of Breonna Taylor’s killing was that when her boyfriend was brought in for questioning and he was asked about who fired the first shot.
He initially replied : ” ‘It was her! She was scared!’(he was referring to his girlfriend) . It was later clarified that he was the one who fired the first shot. Secondly, the police officers were never charged for the shootings.
Two of them were simply re-assigned to other departments. One of the police officers was charged, not for Taylor’s death, but for “firing into a neighbor’s apartment”
It was the 2010 FIFA world cup and Ghana was battling with Uruguay in the Quarter finals. Suddenly, Dominic Adiyiah headed the ball beyond the goal keeper.
The goal was certain, but as a last resort, Louis Suarez decided to catch the ball with his hands. Of course, the whistle was blown and Suarez was given a straight red card . He had stopped an imminent goal by playing dirty. A penalty was awarded to Ghana.
Asamoah Gyan was chosen to take the penalty for Ghana.
If he scored, it would have surely meant that Ghana would be the first African nation to ever make it into any World cup semi-finals.
Well, Gyan played the ball and it bounced off the cross-bar. This precious chance was lost.
In fact, Louis Suarez can be seen in the picture above, as he rejoices over Ghana’s penalty miss.
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were an American couple who sold military secrets to the Russians in the 1940’s.
Julius worked as a technician during the popular Manhattan nuclear project in USA. As at then, the USA was the only country with a nuclear weapon.
Through Julius and his wife, the Russians allegedly learnt key steps in the production of nuclear warheads and in less than 4 years, Russia (USSR), became a nuclear power.
The couple were found guilty of espionage in 1951 and then sentenced to death by electric chair. Both Julius and Ethel were executed in 1953 The picture above shows Julius and Ethel Rosenberg as they appear before the grand jury in 1951. (Notice Julius on handcuffs) . When they were executed by the US government on 19th June 1953, Julius died instantly after the first electric shock was administered. His wife Ethel, was not so lucky. She was electrocuted 3 times and she lost consciousness. when the execution doctor discovered that her heart was still beating, she was sent back to the electric chair. After 2 more electrocutions, eye witnesses said that they could see smoke coming up from her head. They were both buried on 21st June 1953. All for an extra 100 dollar pay raise by the Russians, this couple lost their lives.
Welcome to Longyearbyen in Norway. Dead people cannot be buried in this town.
Any dead person would be taken to another city for burial, or simply cremated. This countryside is so cold that if you buried someone, the dead body won’t decompose. In fact, there are still undecomposed bodies of people who died in 1918 from Influenza
Award winning picture of wine in a glass. Courtesy: Jon Sullivan, 2004.
Have you heard about the Auto brewery syndrome?
People with this condition actually get intoxicated and can act like drunkards, just by eating foods rich in carbohydrates
This condition is usually caused by the fermentation activities of some micro-organisms in the gut.
During some tests, it was noticed that some people with this condition even had 6 times more alcohol in their blood, as compared to the amount in the blood of an average drunk person.
Thankfully, this condition is rare. It’s not everyday you get to learn that someone got “drunk”, just by eating a slice of yam
It was 1985 and the election of the new director general of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) was the topic of the day.
Dr. Peter Onu from Nigeria, was the highly recommended candidate for the position. In the heat of elections however, Nigerian head of state Muhammadu Buhari refused to support Peter Onu. Instead, he supported Ide Oumarou, who was notably a Fulani man from Niger republic.
Of course, Peter Onu lost the election. It was the first time ever that a president ever campaigned against his own country, in the history of international affairs. It was a shock to the entire world
DunoPedia 
