History

Recent archaeological sites in England offer a whole new perspective on the life and death of the seafarers and marines who built the British Empire in the 18th and 19th centuries. The bones of sailors reveal surprising and shocking facts. Apparently not only seasoned men but also half children did their service in the Royal Navy; according to the investigations, the youngest were no older than 13 years. A forensic archaeologist studies the injuries on bones discovered at the site of an battle and suggests how these people may have died.
Three-hundred-and-fifty skeletons, exhumed from Royal Navy graveyards from the age of Nelson's Navy, are throwing an extraordinary new light on how these sailors lived, fought, outwitted their enemy, and, from the oldest to youngest, suffered for victory. These men were the beating heart of the most victorious fleet in history and never have so many of these sailors' remains been available for forensic investigation.
Six remarkable stories stand out: the child sailor, the top man, the American gunner, the freed slave, the marine and the victim of the sailor's most dreaded disease: syphilis. Broken bones, amputations, injuries from blows with a saber or cutlass, sexually transmitted diseases, but also malnutrition - the list of causes of death is long. There is definitely no tale of seafaring romance. These fighters and sailors sailed the globe as cannon fodder, conquered an empire for the crown, and were themselves forgotten. No longer just bones in a box, the men of Nelson's Navy are back from the dead.

The Nazis had relentlessly persecuted German and Austrian Jews, reducing their rights, expropriating their property, choking off their livelihoods, declaring them parasites, not citizens and on the evening of November 9, 1938 Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass, Hitler unleashed Nazi mobs on Jews in cities and towns all over the newly expanded Germany, beating, burning, raping, killing, hoping to drive them all out of their country. Hundreds of thousands of German and Austrian Jews were now desperate to escape the Nazis. They knew their only hope lay in flight into friendly European countries or across the ocean to the United States.
As WWII begins, Americans are divided over whether to intervene against Germany. Some individuals and organizations work tirelessly to help refugees escape. Germany invades the USSR and secretly begins the mass murder of European Jews.

The Chicago Tribune in late June of '42 reports the mass killing of Jews. Like many other newspapers, the Tribune puts it on page 6 or 7 in a tiny, little article. You either missed it, or if you saw it, you would say the editors don't think this is true. If they thought this was true, this would be on the front pages. Only a few of papers did put the story on the front page, including the Pittsburgh Courier.
The dominant idea in the American government is any act of rescue will be a diversion from the war effort. Both could've been done at the same time. In spite of that, a group of government officials supports and finances rescue operations. Allied soldiers begin to liberate concentration camps and find mass graves. The public sees the sheer scale of the Holocaust.

When he killed Mehmed’s messengers, it was a message from Vlad Dracula that he would not pay his yearly dues anymore and it was clear that Vlad wanted a war against the Otoman Empire. Mehmed II sends Mara to coax Hungarian King Matthias Corvinus into an alliance. Vlad Dracula’s army was less than 30,000 men, but he invaded Bulgaria and started killing Mehmed’s men in 1462. He stole the Ottomans’ uniforms for his further attacks on the empire. Vlad also destroyed many ports that were under Sultan Mehmed II on the Danube.
Mehmed had to cross the Danube in order to reach the capital city of Târgoviște and defeat Vlad. The sultan faced the challenge of transporting 100,000 men across the river. Along with men, he had to transport cannons and horses too. The first unit to cross the river Danube included Mahmud Pasha, who was the most trusted man of Mehmed II. An epic battle along the Danube River looms, and Vlad has the upper hand.

When Mahmud Pasha and his men were crossing the river at night, Vlad Dracula started his first attack on the Ottomans. However, Mehmed II was smart enough to know that Vlad would be waiting for them. Mehmed II counterattacks Vlad’s army, and we see the first great battle here.
After his victory, Mehmed's troops advance into Wallachia, and Vlad employs guerrilla tactics to weaken his rival. At one point, Vlad Dracula released some criminals with tuberculosis and bubonic plague in order to infect the Ottomans. He sent these infected criminals to the Ottoman camp at night, and it is considered a great tactic by the experts because we see Vlad Dracula practicing biological warfare. Meanwhile, a threat lurks in the imperial palace.

Vlad Dracula presses an increasingly desperate guerrilla campaign from the shadows, hoping to demoralize the Ottomans and slow their march north. After chasing Vlad for two weeks, sultan Mehmed II and his invading army find themselves caught in a nightmare come to life deep within the Wallachian forest. Many legends have arisen out of the invasion of Wallachia in 1462. One speaks of Vlad Dracula launching a biological attack against the Ottomans to slow their march to his capital city, Târgovişte. Vlad opened his prisons and released hardened criminals to go amongst the Ottomans with tuberculosis and bubonic plague so that they could infect the enemies.
Vlad Dracula also had carried out a scorched-earth policy against Mehmed II. Along with his hit-and-run campaign from the shadows has left the sultan's troops on edge. As Mehmed's army closes on Târgovişte, tensions flare in the Ottoman camp, where food and water are in increasingly short supply. But Vlad had nowhere to rely on food for himself either and there was nowhere to go anymore. He became a prisoner of his own scorched-earth policy. Radu Dracula closes in to take Princess Anastasia hostage. Anastasia commits suicide when he reach her at Poenari castle.