Natzweiler-Struthof was a Nazi concentration camp, on formerly French soil, that mainly housed resistance fighters. Although it didn't start out as a death camp, many died through forced labour and malnutrition, before it started executing people later in the war.
Natzweiler
Fact of the Day
According to FIFA, football was played in Han-dynasty China (206 BCE - 220 CE): players kicked a leather ball filled with feathers into a net supported by bamboo rods.
Quote of the Day
"Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.
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~ Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)
On This Day
1092 Lincoln Cathedral, for 249 years supposedly the tallest building in the world, was consecrated. The diocese was the largest in England, stretching from the Thames to the Humber.
1215 King John, in an attempt to win Londoners to his side during his dispute with the barons, granted Londoners the right to elect their own mayor. It didn't do him any good: they opened the gates to the barons shortly afterwards.
1386 The Treaty of Windsor between England and Portugal was signed, ratifying the oldest European alliance still in force.
1662 The first recorded Punch and Judy show was performed in Covent Garden, London.
1671 Anglo-Irish officer and 'noted bravo and desperado', Thomas Blood, attempted to steal the Crown Jewels from the Tower of London. He was caught but was pardoned by Charles I and given land in Ireland worth £500 a year.
1926 Americans Richard Byrd and Floyd Bennett announced they'd flown over North Pole, and became national heroes. However, this has since been called into question, thanks to testimony of friends and the discovery of Byrd's diary.
1941 British captured the German sub U-101 and thus the enigma machine with current codes. US film U-571 claimed it as a US victory.
1945 The Channel Islands were liberated after five years of Nazi occupation.
1955 West Germany joined NATO.
1994 Nelson Mandela was chosen by the African National Congress party to become South Africa's first black president after the end of apartheid.