Happy black history Month.

January 1st 1969, Marien Ngouabi was sworn in as the President of Republic of Congo.

But who was he? And why was he assassinated 8 years later after refusing to grant the French the oil region of Cabinda

#Thread

Buckle up, everyone, this story is *wild*.

The 62-year-old Dyatlov Pass mystery, in which nine students died at the hands of an unknown force, has likely been solved thanks to the movie Frozen and gruesome car crash experiments.

Me, for @NatGeo + thread!

In what has become known as the Dyatlov Pass incident, ten members of the Urals Polytechnic Institute in Yekaterinburg—nine students and one sports instructor who fought in World War II—headed into the frigid wilderness on a skiing expedition on January 23, 1959. 1/x

One student turned back after experiencing joint pain.

He never saw his friends again.

2/x

The team made camp on February 1, pitching a large tent on the snowy slopes of Kholat Saykhl, whose name can be interpreted as “Dead Mountain” in the language of the region’s Indigenous Mansi people. Ominous, sure - but these were experienced mountain hikers. 3/x

The nine were never heard from again.

When a search team arrived at Kholat Saykhl a few weeks later, the tent was found just barely sticking out of the snow, and it appeared cut open from the inside. The next day, the first of the bodies was found near a cedar tree. 4/x

So when it first appeared in Normandy, the Sherman Firefly and it's meaty 17 pounder represented an ideal combo of reliable chassis, great gun and devastating firepower right?

Ummm...

Truth is a bit more complex. /1
#WW2 #SWW #History

Deliveries of Firefly to units only commenced in April 1944,
just a few weeks before Overlord & left minimal time for familiarisation.

Armoured Regiments mostly utilised Fireflies on a basis of 1 per troop of 4 tanks. /2

Finally each armoured regiment troop had access to integral, meaty, anti-tank firepower capable of dealing serious damage to any German AFV likely to be encountered. /3

The dual purpose 75mm gun was quite capable of laying down a reasonable HE shell or AP round for dealing with Panzer III or IV.

Firefly's 17 Pounder had.... problems with HE, but excelled at tank killing. So Tigers and Panthers would need to be wary. /4

Firefly's design history dated back to March 1943 when the General Staff published "Policy on Tanks" which effectively stated the majority of tanks should have a good HE weapon and...

[See image below] /5

So. I loved #TheDig. Despite being set in the 30's it evoked a lot of my early fieldwork experience in the 80's and some of the things archaeologists were gushing about are still pay of the experience today. And it also evoked the fantasy that I became an archaeologist to chase>

If you just want to enjoy it, and bask in the glow of archaeologists being happy for once, stop reading here >

Because, being aware of that fantasy, I'm also aware of corrosive elements, things that structure how archaeology works, both practically & in the collective imagination which work against that other fantasy, that my work can 'make a difference' contribute to progressive change>

The primary driver of the story is class & it's connection to skill & to land. EP has the right to the land, the choice to dig, the ownership of the artefacts because she is the landowner. We are meant to cheer along when the coroner decides in her favour>

BB is a man of the land, he literally knows the soil of Suffolk by feel. His skill & sense are central to the story. And they are credited with the discovery, which is the most important part of the process, not the analysis, care or interpretation>

Vijaynagara longbowmen.

Many of them were topless, While many wore Gambesons.
The gambesons they wore were of two types- Half gambeson(only chest), and full Gambeson shirts.

No footwear. A turban/tall helmet for headgear. No armlets.

@zuckmetaverse @prathgodbole @cestlaviepriya @TPeshwa @zhukov45 @SaffronRozario @MumukshuSavitri @prachyam7 @TheEmissaryCo @Hiraethh_____ @logolepsic_ @SailorSaab @monidipadey

This is the field where my grandmother’s family was murdered in April 1943. I met one of the witnesses, a neighbor, several years ago. She said she saw them being marched away, was told by a Nazi to get back inside or risk joining them... 1/#InternationalHolocaustRemembranceDay

My grandmother and her kid sister ran for their lives into the woods. One detail that sticks out from my great aunt’s testimony many yrs later: the sunflower stalks in Grodzisko were so tall you could lay down and hide among them. Presuming the Nazis didn’t bring the dogs. 2/

My grandmother paid a farmer to hide them in the attic of his barn. This was a perilous act. After the war, my grandmother would send the farmer care packages until he died, as a token of her gratitude.

Most of my grandmother’s family were killed in those awful days in 1943.

In testimony my great aunt recorded—amazing to listen to, truly—she remembers being perpetually hungry and freezing. She recalls seeing a cherry tree outside the window of the attic and fainting. She also remembers my her sister’s nightmares, the screams for Eli...

Before they ran for their lives, my grandmother had given away her 3yo son Eli for safekeeping while she hid. After the war, she returned for him, but he was gone. Vanished. No one could say what happened to him.

I have been searching for Eli, my uncle, for two decades.