Christopher Wren

Christopher Wren was born on October 20, 1632 at East Knoyle in Wiltshire, England.

Wren, portrait c.1690 by John Closterman

FAMILY

His father, also Christopher Wren, was at that time the rector of East Knoyle.

In 1635, Christopher Wren snr was appointed Dean of Windsor by Charles I and the family moved to Windsor.

His mother Mary died in 1643 sometime after giving birth to Christopher's youngest sister Francesca.

The family were staunch royalists and Christopher's father saved the records of the Order of the Garter and King Edward III's sword when Windsor chapel was ransacked by Cromwell's men in the Civil War.

Christopher's royalist family were hit badly by the Civil War. His Uncle Matthew, who was Bishop of Ely, was held for 18 years in the Tower of London.

CHILDHOOD

Young Christopher spent his early years at Windsor Castle where his father was Dean. He used to play there with the future Charles II.

Christopher attended Westminster School for an unknown period of time. His headmaster there, realizing he had a boy genius, let him do his own thing as he realised he didn't need to be taught.

In his school holidays Christopher set to work as an inventor. He devised among other things an instrument for turning salt water into fresh water and a pen for writing in the dark.

Christopher entered Wadham College, Oxford on June 25, 1650, where he studied Latin and Aristotelian physics.

Wadham College, By Andrew Gray -

He graduated B.A. in 1651, and two years later Christopher received his M.A.

SCIENTIFIC CAREER 

One of the greatest minds of his age, Wen was killed in astronomy, geometry, and physics. In his younger days Wren was known more as a celebrated mathematician.

His academic career was centred at Oxford, where he was a member of both Wadham and All Soul's Colleges.

In 1657 Wren was appointed Professor of Astronomy at Gresham College, London and four years later he was elected Savilian Professor of Astronomy at Oxford. In 1662, he was one of the founding members of the Royal Society.

As an Astronomer, Wren observed Saturn for many years. He also made a globe of the Moon, which he presented to Charles II.

Christopher Wren was interested in medicine. His experiments at Oxford included anatomical dissection, looking for veins and arteries. His experiments involving vivisection of dogs seem horribly cruel. Wren produced one of the first anaesthetics by injecting opium into the pooches prior to dissecting them. However, by doing this he proved that organs could be removed from the body without endangering life.

As an anatomist Wren prepared the drawings for Thomas Willis' Cerebri Anatome, He was also a geometer (Issac Newton classed him among the best), a physicist who impacted studies, a meteorologist, and a surveyor. In addition, Wren also made microscopic studies of insects.

ARCHITECTURAL CAREER 

Wren developed an interest in architecture following his studies of physics and engineering. His first architectural design was the chapel at Pembroke College, Cambridge, which he was commissioned to do by his uncle the Bishop of Ely in 1663.(His Uncle Matthew had been freed from the Tower of London following the Restoration).

Wren was sent to the French capital by King Charles II to take a look at the grand rebuilding of Paris. During his visit he studied "the most esteem’d fabricks of Paris" in particular the French and Italian baroque styles.

Nine days after the Great Fire of London in 1666 Wren prepared a plan for rebuilding the city which he presented to King Charles II. In it he removed the crowded alleyways which were a fire and health hazard. All new streets would have one of three widths - 90,60 or 30 feet.

Wren's plan for rebuilding after the Great Fire of London

The plan didn't proceed any further but in 1669, the King's Surveyor of Works died and Wren was promptly installed. He was given responsibility for rebuilding the city, a post he held for over 45 years. Wren rebuilt 52 London churches including St Paul's Cathedral. His favourite church design of the ones he did was St Paul's, Piccadilly.

King Charles II rejected Christopher Wren's first plan for St Paul's, it was deemed too modest and Wren was so upset at it being turned down he wept. The king also rejected his second scheme as it was not thought "stately enough" but accepted Wren's third design in the English Baroque style.

The 1677 monument designed by Wren and Robert Hooke to mark the Great Fire is still Europe’s highest freestanding stone column.

Among Wren's other designs were the library at Trinity College, Oxford, the Royal Naval College, Greenwich, Chelsea Hospital and the south front of Hampton Court Palace.

Wren often worked with the same team of craftsmen, including master plasterer John Groves and wood carver Grinling Gibbons.

The the oldest academic building still in continuous use in the United States: the College of William and Mary's Wren Building, was modeled by Sir Christopher Wren.

LATER CAREER 

Wren was knighted on November 14, 1673, following his departure from the Savilian chair in Oxford. In honor of Wren's knighthood, Edward Pierce carved a famous bust of the great architect.

He served twice as a MP. Wren sat for Plympton Erle during the Loyal Parliament of 1685 to 1687. Over a decade later he was elected unopposed for Weymouth and Melcombe Regis at the November 1701 general election. He retired at the general election the following year.

Wren did not grow rich despite serving seven monarchs.

Christopher Wren by Godfrey Kneller 1711

MARRIAGES 

Wren's appointment as Surveyor of the King's Works in early 1669 persuaded him that he could finally afford to take a wife. On December 7, 1669 the 37-year-old Wren married his childhood playmate, the 33-year-old Faith Coghill at London's Temple Church.

Faith bore him two children, Christopher and Gilbert (who died in infancy in 1674).

Faith died of smallpox on September 3, 1675.

Wren got remarried in 1677 to Jane Fitzwilliam, but she died two years later of tuberculosis in September 1680, having born him two children Jane and William. "Poor Billy" born June 1679, was developmentally delayed.

Jane was buried alongside Faith and Gilbert in the chancel of St Martin-in-the-Fields. Wren was never to marry again.

BELIEFS 

Wren was a freemason and devout Anglican who always put humanity at the heart of his worldview. He was also a staunch royalist.

DEATH 

The 90-year-old Wren caught a chill which worsened over the next few days. He died on February 25, 1723 seated in a chair after dinner (taking his afternoon rest) at his house in St James Street, London. A servant who tried to awaken Wren from his nap found that he had passed away.

Wren was entombed inside St Paul's. His epitaph engraved by his son Christopher contains the words "Si Monumentum requins circumspice".  (If you seek his monument look around).

Crypt of St. Paul's Cathedral, Wren's memorial on the left

Wound

In medicine, a wound is a type of physical injury in which skin is torn, cut or punctured (an open wound), or where blunt force trauma causes a bruise (a closed wound). In pathology, it specifically means a sharp injury which damages the dermis of the skin. A mortal wound is one that leads directly to the death of the victim.

TREATMENT

If you are stung, immerse the wound in water at 40C (104F) to disperse the poison.

Wounds on your tongue or in your mouth heal twice as fast as wounds on other parts of the body.

Ancient Greeks and Romans used aluminium salts as astringents for dressing wounds.

FAMOUS WOUNDS IN HISTORY

The Battle of Shrewsbury was fought on July 21, 1403, between the army of King Henry IV of England and a rebel army led by Henry "Harry Hotspur" Percy from Northumberland. The king's 15-year-old son Prince Henry was injured during the battle when an arrowhead lodged in his cheekbone. His father's surgeon, John Bradmore, washed the wound with honey which acted as a disinfectant over a period of several days, then used a metal device like an oversized corkscrew to pull out the arrowhead using a rawplug technique. The wound was then flushed with white wine, which again acted as a disinfectant. Six weeks later the prince’s face had healed, but it left Henry with permanent scars, evidence of his experience in battle.

Before his conversion, the founder of the Jesuits, Ignatius of Loyola, took part in the Battle of Pamplona fighting the French. A cannonball shattered his right leg and the fracture was badly repaired meaning Ignatius' surgeons were forced to break his leg again to set it correctly. He was left with a permanent limp.

During a long and painful convalescence from his painful leg wound, Ignatius meditated and read about the lives of the saints. Inspired by their heroic lives, he committed himself to a spiritual life.

St Ignatius Loyola wearing leg splints, by De Favray

Henry VIII of England had a jousting accident in 1536, in which he suffered a leg wound. The accident reopened and aggravated a previous leg wound he had sustained years earlier, to the extent that his doctors found it difficult to treat. The wound festered for the remainder of his life and became ulcerated, thus preventing him from maintaining the level of physical activity he had previously enjoyed.

The author of Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes, served on the galley Marquesa during the Battle of Lepanto fought between the Holy League and the Ottoman Empire. Cervantes fought bravely on board a vessel, and suffered three gunshot wounds all together, in his chest and left arm. It was "for the greater glory of the right" he said of the wound to his left arm which rendered it useless for the rest of his life.

In 1824 William Beaumont, a US army surgeon stationed at Fort Mackinac, came across Alexis St Martin, a young Canadian trapper who had received an accidental gunshot wound through the side. St Martin's wound had only partially healed, and through an opening in the stomach wall, Beaumont was able to observe the workings of the stomach by dangling various foods on silk threads into the man's insides. He thus employed him and for ten years was able to study digestion directly.

In the American Civil War's Battle of Shiloh, there was a strange phenomenon of soldiers having wounds that glowed in the dark. This was because their wounds were infected with a type of luminescent bacteria.

Lieutenant-General Sir Adrian Paul Ghislain Carton de Wiart was a British Army officer who served in the Boer War, and both World Wars. He was shot in the face, head, stomach, ankle, leg, hip, and ear, as blinded in his left eye, and tore off his own fingers when a doctor declined to amputate them. 

Ernest Hemingway's successful career as a best-selling author was overshadowed by numerous injuries throughout his life. a small sample of the wounds Hemingway suffered during his life include a finger gashed to the bone in an accident with a punching ball, laceration of arms, legs and face from a ride on a runaway horse through a deep Wyoming forest, and a car accident resulting in a broken arm.

FUN WOUND FACTS

Paper cuts sting because paper leaves behind chemicals that irritate the wound and, since the cut doesn't bleed a lot, it stays open longer.

Your bruise turns colors because your body is breaking down and reabsorbing the hemoglobin that leaked from your broken blood vessels.

Bruising or open wounds are the most frequent injury diagnoses in every USA state except Colorado, where falling is the most common injury.

Worship music

In the late 1960s young adults involved in the Jesus Movement began simple writing songs of worship to God in a folk style where the guitar rather than piano or organ was the lead instrument. These songs were adopted by Christians who worshipped in charismatic churches and by the mid-seventies they were regularly being incorporated into church services.

These contemporary worship songs were published by record labels, such as Maranatha! Music, which was based in California, and by the 1980s the most popular ones were being included in standard denominational hymnals. At first the mainstream denominations tended to use them only during services aimed at young people as many of the older generation complained they were simplistic and repetitive. However by the 1990s many of these churches were incorporating them in all their services with instead of the traditional organ or piano accompaniment, mixed instrumental bands that utilized the musical talents of members of their congregations.

a modern worship team By David Ball

Worship choruses such as "Shine, Jesus, Shine" by Graham Kendrick, "Shout To The Lord" by Darlene Zschech or "10,000 Reasons" by Matt Redman have become as well known to the modern Christian as traditional hymns such as "Amazing Grace" were to the mainstream Christian over the previous two hundred years.

Worm

A worm is a term properly used for various elongated limbless creatures. Zoologically worms include the flat worms such as flukes and tapeworms; the roundworms or nematodes such as the potato eelworm and the bookworm, an animal parasite; the marine ribbon worms or nemerteans; and the segmented worms or annelids. The earthworm is an annelid.

Slow worm

Worms are little more than intestines surrounded by muscles. Plant material goes in the mouth and waste emerges from the tail. They breathe through their skin.

Halicephalobus mephisto is a species of nematode, among a number of other roundworms, discovered by Gaetan Borgonie and Tullis Onstott in 2011. It was detected in ore recovered from deep rock fracture water in several gold mines in South Africa 0.9 km (0.56 mi), 1.3 km (0.81 mi), and 3.6 km (2.2 mi) under the surface of the Earth. It is the "deepest-living animal" ever found, able to withstand heat and crushing pressure, and the first multicellular organism found at deep subsurface levels.

Christmas tree worms are tube-building polychaete worms belonging to the family Serpulidae. They have eyes on their gills, and are probably the only animals on the planet that possess gill eyes.

Red and white Christmas tree worm By Nhobgood Nick Hobgood

In 1979 giant sea worms about 3 metes / 10 feet long, living within tubes created by their own excretions were discovered 2450 metres/ 8000 feet beneath the Pacific, north east of the Galapagos Islands.

The world's largest worm is the 5ft-long giant gippsland worm, known as 'nature's plough'. It lives in Australia.

When most worms are cut in two, only the half with the head survives. The tail half continues to wriggle for a few minutes to distract predators, allowing the head to escape.

A square yard of organic soil just six inches deep can hold up to 500 worms.

The silkworm is not a worm – it is a caterpillar.

All areas of North America that were covered in ice in the last Ice Age were devoid of worms before European colonization. If you've even encountered an earth worm north of the 45th parallel, it's almost guaranteed to be an Asian or European species.

In July 2018, Russian scientists collected and analysed 300 prehistoric worms from the permafrost and thawed them. Two of the ancient worms revived and began to move and eat. One is dated at 32,000 years old, the other 41,700 years old.

The WG6-S and WG8-L "Worm Getter" worm probes were manufactured by Handy Marketing Company in the 80's and 90's. They were sold to fishermen for the collection of earthworms for bait. The product sent an electric shock through the top layer of soil forcing the worms to surface, but had to be recalled in 1993 after over 30 people died using it.

A 10-year-old broke the worm charming world record in 2009, raising 567 worms during Britain's World Worm Charming Championship.

World Wide Web

The World Wide Web, commonly known as the Web, is a publicly available information system on the internet. It allows documents to be identified by Uniform Resource Locators (URLs, such as https://www.example.com/). They may be connected to other documents by hypertext links, enabling the user to search for information by moving from one document to another.

The internet and the World Wide Web are not the same thing: the internet is a huge network of computers; the World Wide Web is a means of accessing and sharing information across it.

English computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee developed and implemented the World Wide Web. While working at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), near Geneva, Switzerland, Berners-Lee became frustrated with the inefficiencies and difficulties posed by finding information stored on different computers. He published a formal proposal on November 12, 1990 to build a "Hypertext project" called "WorldWideWeb" (one word) as a "web" of "hypertext documents" to be viewed by "browsers". Berners-Lee chose the name "World Wide Web" because he wanted to emphasize that, in this global hypertext system, anything could link to anything else.

The NeXT Computer below was used by Berners-Lee at CERN and became the world's first web server

By Coolcaesar at the English language Wikipedia,

Alternative names for the World Wide Web that Berners-Lee considered included "Information Mesh," which he discarded as it looked too much like "Information Mess."

Berners-Lee wrote the first web browser in 1990 while employed at CERN. The browser was released outside CERN in 1991, first to other research institutions starting in January 1991. On August 6, 1991, the web went live, with the first page explaining how to search and how to set up a site.

A Universal Unitarian, Berners-Lee gave his invention to the world for free. He declared that he wanted to make the web available for the whole world in the same way his church is available to the whole world.

Tim Berners-Lee, has one regret: adding the double slash // to URLs. In retrospect, he says, it was totally unnecessary.

Tim Berners-Lee By John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, photo by Scott Henrichsen

Mosaic, created by Marc Andreessen and Eric Bina, was the first widely-used web browser. It was first released on January 23, 1993 and was instrumental in popularizing the World Wide Web.

In 1994 a camera was trained upon a lonely fish tank within the as yet unknown company Netscape. It transmitted live images of the fish tank to the emerging new landscape known as the World Wide Web. It was the second live camera on the web and is the oldest camera site still in existence.

As the web's popularity quickly accelerated, the church began to look into ways in which it could utilize it to preach the Gospel. In 1997 the first virtual Christian church, the International Church of the Web was founded and by the end of the decade churches were beginning to develop their own websites. By the middle of the 2000s a surfer could access audio and video sermons or even embark on their own Bible College course, all via the net.

 The initial version of the Firefox web browser was released by the Mozilla Organization on September 23, 2002. It was originally called Phoenix, but was renamed to Firefox shortly before its release. Firefox quickly became popular with users for its speed, security, and add-ons. It is now one of the most popular web browsers in the world.

The first Internet Evangelism Day was held in April 2005.

Seven people across the world hold keycards with the power to restart the World Wide Web in the event of a catastrophic event. Out of these seven, only five are needed to come together at a secure location in the United States to put together the DNSSEC root key from the fractioned code.

The blink tag in html was first implemented by drunk Netscape engineers as a joke.

It takes longer to say "www" than it does to say "World Wide Web" because of all the syllables.

Food during World War II

Because of general food shortages during World War II, the British were encouraged to "Dig On For Victory" and grow their own fruit and vegetables.

Because of rationing, the British people were forced to rustle up dreary meals from spam, powdered egg (eggs were rationed to one person per week) and home-grown vegetables.

Food was often very scarce in occupied Europe and many went hungry. Luxuries such as shellfish and venison disappeared, everyday foods like fresh vegetables, oranges and bananas became unobtainable.

In the United States, rationing meant the government limited each American to 28 ounces (1.75 lbs) of meat per week plus restricting the amounts of butter, cheese, eggs and sugar each household was permitted. As a result sales of convenience and prepared foods increased in both the UK and US and techniques of dehydration extended to eggs and other foods.

Oven meals, in which all the meal was prepared in the oven at one time, became popular because they conserved fuel.

Source Food For Thought by Ed Pearce

World War II

World War II was a global war involving fighting in many parts of the world and many countries. Most countries fought in the years 1939–1945 but some started fighting in 1937. Most of the world's countries, including all the great powers, fought as part of two military alliances: the Allies (Britain, the Commonwealth, China, France, the USA and USSR) and the Axis Powers (Germany, Italy and Japan).

PRELUDE 

In 1938 German Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party annexed Austria and occupied Sudetenland under the Munich agreement with British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. Chamberlain had naively thought that the nice Mr Hitler would stick to their agreement and stop at Sudetenland.

After annexing Czechoslovakia. Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany invaded Poland in 1939 thus precipitating World War II.

Just before the war, Germany and the Soviet Union signed a peace agreement. The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact was a neutrality pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed in Moscow on August 23, 1939 by foreign ministers Joachim von Ribbentrop and Vyacheslav Molotov, respectively, agreeing that they would not attack each other for ten years. It also divided Poland between them.

Joachim von Ribbentrop and the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, after signing the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, 

OPENING HOSTILITIES 

World War II is generally said to have begun on September 1, 1939 with the invasion of Poland by 1.5 million German troops and subsequent declarations of war on Germany by France and the United Kingdom.

British reporter Clare Hollingworth broke the news of Hitler invading Poland. The British embassy didn't believe her until she held a telephone out of the window of her room to capture the ongoing sounds of war. Hers was the first report the British Foreign Office received about the invasion of Poland.

The first death in World War II was Franciszek Honiok, a German of Polish descent. The Gestapo murdered him and left his body at a radio station that the Gestapo, dressed in Polish uniforms, attacked. The body helped "prove" Polish aggression to justify Germany's invasion of Poland the next day.

From late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan.

After Germany invaded and defeated France, Belgium and the Netherlands in May 1940, the British Army found itself trapped in northern France standing alone against Germany.  King George VI, issued a call to the nation for a National Day of Prayer. The British Christians flocked to the churches. A week later their troops were successfully evacuated from Dunkirk and helped by a curious decision made by Hitler to hold his troops back and not attack the British army. The last of the British army left on June 3, 1940.

DUNKIRK-D-DAY 

France surrendered to Nazi Germany on June 22, 1940, just six weeks after the Nazis launched their invasion of Western Europe. Hitler had France surrender in the same railway carriage at the same spot as France and Britain made Germany surrender in World War I.

In July 1940 Germany's Luftwaffe aircraft began the Battle of Britain, large scale attacks on British ports, aircraft factories and civilian targets. It was intended as a preliminary to the German invasion plan Operation Sea Lion, once the Luftwaffe had air superiority over the UK. Again in early September King George VI called the nation to prayer, again many flocked to the churches and the Luftwaffe's failure to overwhelm the RAF forced Hitler to postpone and eventually cancel Operation Sea Lion.

On June 22, 1941, the Nazis broke the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact when they and the other European Axis powers launched an invasion of the Soviet Union. By December 1941 the Germans were within 40 kilometres/25 miles of Moscow.  However, after two months of fighting in increasingly harsh weather, the exhausted German troops were forced to suspend their offensive. This allowed the Soviets to begin a massive counter-offensive that pushed the German troops 100–250 kilometres (62–155 mi) west.

German soldiers during the invasion of the Soviet Union by the Axis powers, 1941

The Egyptian passenger steamship Zamzam was sailing from New York with 202 passengers including 140 missionaries of 20 different denominations bound for various mission fields in Africa. On April 17, 1941 the German auxiliary cruiser Atlantis, mistaking the Zanzam for a British Q-ship or troop transport was mistakenly attacked and sunk it in the South Atlantic. However, all the missionary passengers managed to abandon ship and were miraculously delivered.

On December 7, 1941, Japan attacked the United States at their Pearl Harbor naval base in the Pacific and the two wars became one.

Within 24 hours of the Pearl Harbor attack, Japan successfully invaded the Philippines, the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), much of New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Guam, and other strategic areas All over the Western Pacific.

The Second Battle of El Alamein was fought between October 23 and November 11, 1942 near the Egyptian railway halt of El Alamein. "Let us pray that the Lord mighty in battle will give us the victory" prayed General Montgomery, the commander of the Allied forces prior to the battle. The battle resulted in the first major victory for the Western Allies; the Germans were forced to retreat back to Tunisia, a significant turning point in the Desert Campaign.

A mine explodes close to a British tank 

Later, Germany and Italy were defeated in North Africa and then, decisively, at Stalingrad in the Soviet Union. More civilians died in the battle of Stalingrad than the nuclear attacks on both Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.

German Me-264 bombers were capable of reaching and bombing New York City, but leaders decided it wasn't worth the effort.

The only known armed German military operation on North American soil during World War II was the installation of a covert weather station in northern Canada. Wetter-Funkgerät Land-26 was erected by a German U-boat crew in Northern Labrador in October 1943.

In June 1943 the British and Americans began a strategic heavy bombing campaign against Germany, which carried on for the rest of the war. Konstanz was one of the few towns in Germany left untouched by the Second World War. Instead of blackout, the city would leave all its lights on at night in order to fool Allied bomber crews into thinking that it was part of nearby neutral Switzerland.

Key setbacks in 1943, which included a series of German defeats on the Eastern Front, the Allied invasions of Sicily and Italy, and Allied victories in the Pacific, cost the Axis its initiative and forced it into strategic retreat on all fronts.

The Western Allies invaded German-occupied France when 156,000 US, British, and Canadian troops landed on the Normandy beaches on June 6, 1944.

American troops approaching Omaha Beach, during D-Day, 

Among the first soldiers wearing German uniforms captured at Normandy, were several Koreans. They had been forced to fight for the Japanese until captured by Russian troops, then captured by German troops who sent them to Normandy, where Americans captured them.

THE END IN EUROPE 

After the Allies invaded France at D-Day, they headed towards Germany on the Rhine River, while the Soviets kept closing in from the East.

When Allied troops reached the Rhine River in 1945, a popular thing to do was to "pee" in it. The two most prominent persons to do so were Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and U.S. General George Patton, who had himself photographed in the act.

By February 1945 the Soviets had reached the German border. The Battle of Berlin began on April 16, 1945 when the Soviet Red Army launched a massive offensive against the German capital of Berlin. The Soviets were able to quickly overwhelm the German defenders, 

Hitler committed suicide in his Berlin bunker on April 30, 1945. 

By May 2, Berlin had been captured. The Battle of Berlin was a major turning point in World War II. It marked the end of the German war effort in Europe, and led to the eventual defeat of Nazi Germany. 

The Battle of Berlin was a costly battle for both sides. The Soviets suffered over 80,000 casualties, while the Germans suffered over 50,000 casualties. The city of Berlin was also heavily damaged, with much of it destroyed by the fighting.

Five days after Hitler's suicide, on May 5, 1945, American and German soldiers fought together against the Nazi SS to free prominent French prisoners of war from Itter Castle. It is believed to be the only battle in the war in which Americans and Germans fought together as allies.

Field Marshal Sir Bernard Law Montgomery accepted the total and unconditional surrender of the German forces in the Netherlands, northwest Germany including all islands and Denmark on May 4, 1945 at Lüneburg Heath, east of Hamburg. The surrender preceded the end of World War II in Europe and was signed in a carpeted tent at Montgomery's headquarters on the Timeloberg hill at Wendisch Evern.

Victory in Europe Day, generally known as VE Day (United Kingdom) or V-E Day (US), is celebrated across Western European states on May 8. The day celebrates the formal acceptance by the Allies of World War II of Nazi Germany's unconditional surrender of its armed forces on Tuesday, 8 May 1945, marking the end of World War II in Europe.  The term VE Day existed as early as September 1944, in anticipation of victory.

Victory Day is a significant celebration that honors the triumph of the Soviet Union over Nazi Germany in 1945. The Soviet government officially proclaimed this victory on the morning of May 9, immediately after the signing ceremony held in Berlin. In 1965, Victory Day was designated as a non-working day in specific Soviet republics. Since the formation of the Russian Federation in 1991, May 9 has been officially recognized as Victory Day, and it is observed as a non-working holiday, even if it happens to fall on a weekend. In such cases, the following Monday is also designated as a non-working day to commemorate the occasion.

THE PACIFIC WAR 

Japan, which aimed to dominate Asia and the Pacific, was at war with China by 1937, though neither side had declared war on the other.

In December 1941 Japan attacked America's Pearl Harbor naval base and declared war on the USA and Britain.

Rapid Japanese conquests over much of the Western Pacific ensued. They were perceived by many in Asia as liberation from Western dominance; this resulted in the support of several armies from defeated territories.

The extent of Japanese military expansion in the Pacific, April 1942 By Createaccount 

The Battle of the Coral Sea was fought between May 4-8, 1942. During the battle, United States Navy aircraft attacked and sunk the Japanese Imperial Navy light aircraft carrier, Shōhō. The battle marked the first time in the naval history that two enemy fleets fought without visual contact between warring ships. It was the first battle of World War II in which the Allies were able to stop a major advance of the Imperial Japanese Navy.

The Axis advance in the Pacific was halted in 1942 when Japan lost the critical Battle of Midway.

Alaska was the only part of the United States that was invaded by the Japanese during World War II. The territories were the island of Adak and Kiska in the Aleutian Chain.

Following a massive bombardment, 35,000 U.S. and Canadian troops stormed ashore on Kiska in the Alaskan Aleutian Islands. Twenty-one troops were killed during the operation, and it would probably have been worse, but Japanese forces had already withdrawn, ending the campaign in the islands.

In August 1945 the Americans dropped atom bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki forcing the surrender of Japan.

The Japanese Instrument of Surrender was signed by Japanese Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu on behalf of the Japanese Government, ending World War II in the Pacific on September 2, 1945.

Japanese foreign affairs minister Mamoru Shigemitsu signs the Japanese Instrument of Surrender 

SOLDIERS EXPERIENCES 

The youngest U.S. serviceman of record was 12-year-old Calvin Graham, who served in the U.S. Navy. He was wounded and given a dishonourable discharge for lying about his age, but his status was later changed by an act of Congress.

The highest rated American killed was Lt. Gen. Leslie McNair, killed in a bombing raid by the U.S. Army Air Corps.

The last U.S. Marine killed was a prisoner of war in Japan. He died when rescue flights dropped food and supplies, and a package came open during descent, its contents fell out, and he was killed by a can of Spam that hit him on the head.

CIVILIAN LIFE

During World War II, Britain drafted women, starting with 20-30 year old singles, and eventually employing almost 90% of all single women and 80% of all married women in essential war work in roles such as mechanics, engineers, munitions workers, air raid wardens, bus and fire engine drivers.

The war brought great numbers of women into industrial work, which led to greater freedom in dress. More women went into business, and they adopted dresses that were simple and easy to maintain.

During World War II shorts and slacks became common because they permitted free movement and were safer to wear near machinery.

A popular style for men and boys in the World War II period was the snug, waist-length battle jacket worn by Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower. The garment was readily adopted for sports activities.

The UK's worst civilian disaster of World War II was at Bethnal Green Tube station on March 3, 1943, when 173 people — 27 men, 84 women and 62 children — were crushed to death after crowds rushed into the station's bomb shelter as an air-raid warning was sounded.

In Britain during the Second World War there was a Ministry of Food campaign which used the slogan, "potatoes are good for you." This was so successful that a new campaign started saying "potatoes are fattening."

After the U.S. entered World War II, the actress Carole Lombard went to her home state of Indiana for a war bond rally, selling over $2 million worth of war bonds. She wanted to return home quickly (it was rumored that she had heard Gable was having an affair) so flew home.

On January 16, 1942, Lombard, her mother, and 20 other people were killed when the plane crashed outside of Las Vegas. She was 33. President Franklin D. Roosevelt posthumously awarded Lombard the Medal of Freedom as the first woman killed in the line of duty in World War II.

FIRSTS 

The first German soldier killed in the war was killed by Japanese troops in China in 1937.

The first American serviceman killed was by the Russians in Finland, 1940.

On the evening of March 16, 1940, fourteen German Luftwaffe bombers flew 550 miles over the North Sea to the British Naval base at Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands, Nineteen of the bombs fell on targets which had no military significance. One of them killed a 27 year-old County Council employee, James Isbister – becoming the first civilian to be killed in a German bombing raid on the UK in World War II.

The first German bombs of World War II to fall on England were dropped on Chilham and Petham, in Kent on May 10, 1940. The bombs were dropped by a force of 12 Heinkel He 111 bombers, which were part of a larger attack on shipping in the English Channel. The bombs caused some damage to property in the two villages, but there were no casualties. 

The attack marked the beginning of the Blitz, a sustained bombing campaign by the German Luftwaffe against targets in England that lasted for eight months. The Blitz caused widespread damage and loss of life, but it failed to break the morale of the British people.

STATISTICS 

During the Second World War, the chaplain's department has had the highest causality percentage in the British army. Ten per cent of the chaplains who bought Christ's message to the soldiers on the front line never returned home to Britain.

World War II deaths By Oberiko at English Wikipedia, 

49% of German military losses happened in the last 10 months of the Second World War in Europe.

In World War II only one percent of the pilots accounted for thirty to forty percent of enemy fighters shot down in the air. Some pilots didn't shoot down a single enemy plane.

German Submariners had the highest casualty rate of all forces in World War II - 70% died in service.

More U.S. servicemen died in the Army Air Corps than did Marines. While completing the required 30 missions over enemy territory, an airman's chance of being killed was 71 percent.

AFTERMATH 

In an effort to maintain world peace, the Allies formed the United Nations after the Second World War. It replaced the League Of Nations, which had been so ineffectual in preventing war.

Germany was divided into two countries called the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) and the German Democratic Republic (East Germany).

Most eastern and central European countries fell into the Soviet sphere, which led to establishment of Communist-led regimes, with full or partial support of the Soviet occupation authorities. this included East Germany, which became a Soviet satellite state.

Post-war border changes in Central Europe and creation of the Eastern Bloc By Mosedschurte

The Holocaust was a genocide in which Nazi Germany systematically killed six million Jews during World War II. Its aftermath left millions of Jewish refugees for whom the British Mandate of Palestine became the primary destination. In 1947 The United Nations General assembly adopted the UN Resolution to divide Western Palestine between the Jews and the Arabs and The Jewish state of Israel was proclaimed the following year.

On March 10, 1974, a Japanese soldier, Second Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda was found on the island of Lubang in the Philippines, having held out, unaware that World War II had been over for nearly 30 years. Onoda had been ordered to stay on the island and continue the fight, and he refused to surrender until he received orders from a superior officer. For years, he survived by foraging for food and supplies and engaging in occasional skirmishes with local residents and police. It wasn't until 1974 that he was finally convinced to surrender and return to Japan.

The Japanese pilot who attacked a town in Oregon during World War II returned years later to present his family’s 400-year-old samurai sword to the city as a symbol of regret.

Britain incurred so much debt fighting World War II that it didn't make its final loan payment until 2006.

Sources Compton's Encyclopedia, Leavenworthtimes

The American soldier's diet during World War 1

Three special-purpose rations came into general use in World War 1 for the American soldier.

(1) The trench ration to be used during trench warfare consisted mainly of canned roast beef, corned beef, salmon, and sardines plus potatoes and white bread which could be either prepared as a hot meal, or eaten straight out of the can.

(2) The reserve ration, was carried by a soldier on his person for when regular food was
unavailable. A typical pack consisted of a one-pound can of corned beef, two half pound tins of hard bread, and some sugar, and salt.

(3) The "iron" ration, was a packaged unit of concentrated food carried by the soldier in an pocket sized can to sustain life during emergencies when all other sources had run out. It consisted of three cakes of a mixture of beef powder and cooked wheat and three small chocolate bars.

Also in their ration packs was chewing gum which they would share around with their French and British allies. As a consequence the gum was popularised in Europe.

The limited and standardized diet of meat, potatoes, and white bread served to American soldiers during World War I played an important role in uniting American food tastes into a more traditional British style.

Source Food For Thought by Ed Pearce

World War 1

World War I was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from July 28, 1914 to November 11, 1918. More than 70 million military personnel participated, making it one of the largest wars in history.

The major world leaders of World War I were all cousins. Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany, King George V of England, and Czar Nicholas II of Russia. Their grandmother was Queen Victoria.

An estimated nine million combatants and seven million civilians died as a direct result of the war with losses exacerbated by technological developments and the tactical stalemate caused by trench warfare.

Royal Irish Rifles in a communications trench, first day on the Somme, 1916

OPENING HOSTILITIES

On June 28, 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austrian throne, was assassinated at Sarajevo by a Serb. World War I started exactly a month later on July 28, when Austria declared war on Serbia.  The first shots were fired the following day at 01.00 by the Austro-Hungarian river monitor SMS Bodrog on Serbian defenses near Belgrade.

Russia felt it necessary to back Serbia and as Russia mobilized, Germany declared war on Russia in support of Austria-Hungary. France ordered full mobilisation in support of Russia on  August 2.

Germany wanted to take a shortcut to France through Belgium. When this was refused, German forces invaded Belgium. Adhering to the terms in the 1839 Treaty of London, the United Kingdom declared war on Germany on August 4, 1914, in response to the latter's invasion of Belgium.

The first battle of World War 1 took place on August 16, 1914, just twelve days after Germany’s unsatisfactory reply to Britain’s 1914 ultimatum over Belgium. It consisted of a British steamer, HMS Gwendolen, firing a single shot at  its German rival, the Hermann Von Wissmann, on Lake Nyasa (now Lake Malawi) in Africa, and taking the captain "prisoner." The two captains had been drinking buddies for years, and weren't about to let the war ruin it.

On August 22, 1914, a British cavalryman fired in anger during combat, the first time that had happened on mainland Europe since the Battle of Waterloo 99 years earlier.

The German advance reached within a few miles of Paris but an allied counterattack at Marne drove them back to the River Aisne; the opposing lines then settled to trench warfare. The World War 1 Western Front stalemate had began.

In the East, the Russians had attacked the Germans. The Russians at first pushed back the Germans, but then the Germans defeated the Russians at the Battle of Tannenberg, which was fought between August 17 and September 2, 1914. The battle ended with the almost complete destruction of the Russian Second Army.

German infantry during the battle of Tannenberg By Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-R36715

By September 16, 1914, the Allied Powers had made significant gains in the German African colonies. Togo and Cameroon were both in Allied hands, and German Southwest Africa (Namibia) was under siege. German East Africa (Tanzania, Rwanda, and Burundi) was the only German African colony that was not under Allied control.

The first bombing expedition took place in early October 1914  when British planes, taking off from Dunkirk, bombed Cologne railway station and destroyed Germany's latest Zeppelin in its shed at Düsseldorf.

On November 1, 1914, The Ottoman Empire entered World War I on the side of the Central Powers, which included Germany and Austria-Hungary. This opened up the Middle East front, as The Ottoman Empire controlled much of the region at the time. 

The Ottoman entry into the war had a major impact on the Middle East. British and French forces were forced to divert troops away from the Western Front to fight in the Middle East. This helped to prolong the war and led to millions of casualties.

The Germans disguised one of their ocean liners as the British ship, the RMS Carmania and sent the disguised ship to ambush the British ones. Unluckily, the first ship it encountered on September 14, 1914 was the real RMS Carmania, which promptly sank them.

1915 -1917 

By the end of 1914, the Western Front settled into a battle of attrition, marked by a long series of trench lines that changed little until 1917 (the Eastern Front, by contrast, was marked by much greater exchanges of territory).

Trenches of the 11th Cheshire Regiment at Ovillers-la-Boisselle, on the Somme, July 1916

Encouraged by the Allied invasion of Turkey in April 1915, Italy joined the Allies and declared war on Austria-Hungary on May 23, 1915. Fifteen months later, Italy declared war on Germany.

World War I was the first major war in which airplanes, submarines or (U-boats) and tanks were important weapons.

German fighter pilot Kurt Wintgens became the first person to shoot down another plane in aerial combat in 1915.

Germany built 360 U-boats during the First World War, which destroyed more than 11,000,000 tons of Allied shipping.

The first tanks were made by the British Royal Navy and French motor manufacturers during World War I as a way of attacking enemy trenches The use of tanks in a surprise attack in the Battle of the Somme by the British caused fear among the German soldiers but their small numbers and poor reliability prevented them from making much difference.

British Mark I male tank near Thiepval, 25 September 1916

The Battle of the Somme commenced on July 1, 1916, and ended on November 18, 1916. The battle was named after the French River Somme where it was fought.

During the Battle of the Somme, a German corporal named Adolf Hitler was wounded in the left thigh when a shell exploded in the dispatch runners' dugout. He returned to the front at the beginning of March 1917.

Overall, more than 1.5 million people either died, were wounded or went missing during the Battle of the Somme. It was the bloodiest battle in World War I, especially from the point of view of Britain.

The Battle of Verdun was the longest battle of World War I. It started on February 21, 1916 and ended on December 18, 1916 when the French defeated German forces around the city of Verdun-sur-Meuse in northeast France. With a duration of 303 days it was the longest battle in human history.

During World War I, opposing sides sat in trenches for years on end, blasting each other to oblivion. After a horse ran loose into No Man's Land and got shot, French soldiers had the idea of replacing it with a fake papier-mache horse with a sniper inside. He also had a telephone wire so he could message back to the trenches on enemy movement. The ploy was discovered after three days.

The British fired giant stink bombs at the German trenches, which smelled terrible but were harmless. This was done to compel the Germans to put on gas masks, which made them less effective fighters, prior to an assault.

After the sinking of seven US merchant ships by submarines, the American President, Woodrow Wilson, called for war on Germany on April 2, 1917, which the US Congress declared four days later

1918

Continuing discontent with the cost of the war led to the creation of the Soviet Socialist Republic, and Russia's signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany on March 3, 1918, ending Russia's involvement in the war.

The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk allowed the transfer of large numbers of German troops from the East to the Western Front, resulting in the German March 1918 Offensive. The operation commenced on March 21, 1918 with an attack on British forces near Saint-Quentin. German forces achieved an unprecedented advance of 60 kilometres (37 miles).

The Allies appointed Ferdinand Foch Supreme commander the following month, but by June the Allies had lost all gains since 1915 and Germans were on the Marne.

By mid-1918 trained American forces had begun arriving at the front in large numbers; ultimately the American Expeditionary Force would reach some two million troops.

Two American soldiers run towards a bunker.

The Allied counteroffensive, known as the Hundred Days Offensive, began on August 8, 1918, with the Battle of Amiens. By now the American Expeditionary Force was present in France in large numbers and invigorated the Allied armies. The Allies pushed the German troops back after their gains from the Spring Offensive. The Germans eventually retreated to the Hindenburg Line.

In Italy, at Vittorio Veneto, the British and Italians finally defeated the Austrians on November 3, 1918. Their victory marked the end of the war on the Italian Front and secured the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Italian cavalry reaches Trento on 3 November 1918 

German captivation began with naval mutinies at Kiel, followed by uprising in major cities. Kaiser Wilhelm abdicated, and on November 11, 1918 the Armistice was signed.

SOLDIER'S EXPERIENCES 

English soldiers were nicknamed "Tommies" during World War I because the example name on the forms soldiers were required to fill out was Thomas Atkins, the U.S. equivalent of John Smith.

Conditions on the Eastern Front got so bad that wolves would start attacking groups of soldiers. This led to a temporary truce between Germans and Russians so they could deal with the wolves attacking them.

The first and the last British soldiers to die in World War I are coincidentally buried only 5 meters apart.

Mikhail Krichevsky was the longest-living veteran of World War I. When he died in 2008 at age 111, he was the last surviving veteran of the Tsar's army.

CIVILIAN LIFE 

By 1918, British food stocks were dangerously low because of German submarine attacks. To deal with the shortage of meat, the government ordered restaurants to have two meatless days per week.

Meanwhile back in the US, because of food shortages, the food administrator, Herbert Hoover called for one meatless, two wheat-less and two pork-less days each week. Americans planted gardens and developed new recipes for cakes containing no eggs or butter and served wheat-free and meat-free meals.

Towards the end of World War I a short haircut for women, called the bob, was considered scandalous but gained popularity because of its practicality for women working outside the home.

The war was a contributory factor in the 1918 influenza epidemic, which caused between 50 and 100 million deaths worldwide.

STATISTICS 

One out of every three British males between the ages of 17 and 35 was killed in World War I.

World War I had an overall casualty rate of 57.5%. The Russian, French, and Romanian Armies had casualty rates of over 70%.

World War I: Mobilized forces per total population (in %). By Radom1967 

THE ARMISTICE 

The armistice between the German Empire and the Allies was signed at 5 am in a railway carriage in the Forest of Compiègne of France on November 11, 1918. It came into force "at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month."

On November 11, 1918 on the last day of World War I , General Pershing sent American troops to fight the Germans to "teach them a lesson" even though he knew an armistice was signed. Over 3,000 Americans were killed, wounded, or captured.

The last French casualty of World War I, Augustin Trébuchon, was killed 15 minutes before the ceasefire at 11 o'clock when he attempted to tell his fellow soldiers that hot soup would be served after the armistice took effect.

The last soldier to be killed during World War 1 was at 10.59am on November 11, 1918 when American Henry Gunther charged a German road black. Knowing of the closeness of the ceasefire, the Germans tried to wave him away, but he went on firing, so the Germans shot him.

At 4:50 a.m. French Army clerk Henri Deledicq finished typing the peace treaty that would end World War I. He had put the carbon paper in backwards. Ten minutes later, in a railroad car in France, military leaders signed copies of an armistice that were completely unreadable.

The German High Seas Fleet surrendered to the Royal Navy on November 21, 1918, ten days after World War I had ended. 70 German warships met well over 100 allied warships and sailed into captivity. It was the largest gathering of warships in close company in history.

AFTERMATH 

After four years of blood and carnage with numerous pointless losses of life, the First World War ended in 1918. The ordeal of war accelerated disbelief among men and in Britain, church and chapel would never regain the hold they had before 1914.

Liberal thinking, which emphasized the progression of man, took a battering as well. The many atrocities and barbarous acts revealed that man is at heart a depraved, sinful creature who without God's grace would be lost.

In 1919 Karl Barth (1886-1968), a young Swiss Theologian, began working through the problems posed by the World War and the failure of liberal theology to account for such a dark episode in human history. The outcome of this was The Epistle to the Romans, which opened the way for a revival of orthodox Protestantism based on the Bible.

The Treaty of Versailles, which formally ended the First World War, was signed in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles Palace on June 28, 1919. Germany surrendered Alsace-Lorraine to France, large area in the east to Poland, and made similar cessions to Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Denmark and Lithuania.

Germany also agreed to pay a huge amount of reparations for war damage. The English economist John Maynard Keynes thought it was a great mistake to force such harsh measures on the German people, but his advice was ignored. After the war, Germany set up the Weimar Republic, which suffered an economic collapse, with the hyperinflation of its currency. Later, when Adolf Hitler became Chancellor he overruled the treaty.

Germany finally finished paying off debts from reparations required in the post-World War I Treaty of Versailles in 2010 - 92 years after the end of the war.

The Treaty of Lausanne was signed in 1923 to settle the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire, establishing the boundaries of modern Turkey.

Australian journalist Edward George Honey first proposed the idea of a moment of silence to commemorate The Armistice of World War I in a letter to a London newspaper in May 1919, As a result in the United Kingdom and other countries within the Commonwealth, a two-minute silence is observed as part of Remembrance Day to remember those who lost their lives. In the United States the memorial day was called Armistice Day and is now Veterans Day.

Unresolved rivalries at the end of the conflict contributed to the outbreak of World War II about twenty years later.