Today is Remembrance Day/Veterans Day/Armistice Day, called varying things in different countries. In some places it is an official holiday. But 11th of November has an older meaning that pre-dates the end of the First World War.

On this day in 1945 Soviet forces liberated Auschwitz-Birkenau. It was the largest concentration and death camp. 1.1 million people, 90% of them Jews, were murdered there. Today it is an international day of commemoration, to honor the memory of all victims of Nazi extermination.

A few things to keep in mind on International Holocaust Remembrance Day:

1) The Soviet liberation of Auschwitz is a deeply symbolic event, but it is worth noting that allied forces were liberating Nazi camps until May of 1945. Unspeakable suffering and death continued for months

I bring this up because the popular perception of events is informed by primary school practices which present them with clean start and stop dates. Useful for repeating dates, but less useful for having an understanding of what forces you unleash and what it takes to unwind them

When we talk about the lessons of the Holocaust, too many fall into the trap of "if it's not identical to Auschwitz, it's not worth invoking the Holocaust."

The seeds for the Holocaust were laid long before Auschwitz was opened, and the Holocaust continued after its liberation.

2) Every year on this date you can reliably expect a debate on what it is we are commemorating. A small but loud group of people use this date as an opportunity to play suffering olympics. Resist the urge to engage with these fools.

1. This is a thread about the Bristol Beaufighter & how it was the most important (if not the absolute ‘best’) heavy fighter of the SWW. Beaufighter origins go back to the Bristol Type 142 ‘Britain First’ built as a publicity stunt for Daily Mail owner Lord Rothermere in 1935.

2. With a top speed of 278mph, this was considerably faster than the Hawker Fury, which could only manage 207mph. A specification for a fast medium bomber was issued for a revised version of the 142M, named the Blenheim.

3. By the time the war started all-metal monoplane fighters had eclipsed the performance of the Blenheim. Serious shortcomings in operational capabilities of all RAF aircraft were revealed during early wartime aerial activity, leading to heavy losses of aircraft & crews.

4. Lack of defensive armament, armour & self-sealing tanks were added to the problems of looming obsolescence. The huge number of aircraft ordered from shadow factories, along with delays to replacement models, kept the Blenheim in the front line much longer than it should have.

5. Fighter Command had 7 Blenheim IF squadrons at the outbreak of war. These were dual purpose day/night units, but by early 1940 were operating primarily as night fighters. The need to provide cover for east coast convoys led to the formation of 4 ‘trade protection’ squadrons.

Charles Ponzi and the Postal Service

The story of the man who put the 'Ponzi' in 'Ponzi scheme'

/THREAD/

1/ Carlo Pietro Giovanni Guglielmo Tebaldo Ponzi, a.k.a. Charles Ponzi, was an italian swindler and con-artist.

Born in 1882 in Italy, he became notorious for his money-making fraudulent schemes in North America in the 1920s.

2/ He arrived in Boston in late 1903 with $2.50 in his pocket.

After many professional failures, he moved to Montreal in 1907 and started working as a bank teller at Banco Zarossi, where he rose to the position of bank manager.

3/ This is where he first witnessed the bank's scheme, where Zarossi was funding interest payments using deposits from newly opened accounts instead of investment profits.

4/ Ponzi served 3 years in jail for check forgery and returned to the US after his release.

However, he got involved in smuggling illegal immigrants into the country landing in prison for another 2 years, moving back to Boston after that.

1) The Temple of the Divine Claudius was a vast temple complex on Rome's Caelian Hill, overlooking the valley that would later be occupied by the Colosseum. Though almost nothing now remains of the structure, its scale and grandeur once rivalled anything in the city.. #LostRome

2) The 'Claudium' was intended as a sacred complex to revere Claudius and the imperial cult. Construction began soon after the death and deification of the emperor in 54 AD, initiated by his widow Agrippina who was likely responsible for his supposed death by poisoning. #LostRome

3) The sprawling temple complex sat on a gigantic podium that spread across the Caelian Hill, measuring 180 x 200 metres; with towering retaining walls of travertine that raised the structure 20 metres above the valley below. #LostRome

4) The elevated sacred area was likely entered by steps facing the temple on the west side. The temple itself had a projecting hexastyle porch and was surrounded by gardens and a grand portico, probably the 'porticus Claudia' mentioned in Martial's 'On the Spectacles'. #LostRome

5) Statues of both Agrippina and Claudius’ ill-fated young son Britannicus, sculpted in sumptuous dark Egyptian greywacke, were discovered among the ruins on the Caelian Hill in 1651 – and had almost certainly been displayed in the temple precinct. #LostRome

The greatest treasure looted from the Ethiopian people at Maqdala in 1868 isn't in the BL or V&A. The Kwer'ata Re'esu, the most sacred icon of the Ethiopian people, was stolen by a representative of the Queen, later sold by his heirs & remains hidden in a bank vault today. 1/10

The original painting, by an unknown Renaissance master, was brought to Ethiopia in the 16th century and became the talismanic icon of the Ethiopian people, a symbol of Imperial authority. Oaths were sworn on it & it was carried into battle at the head of the Emperor’s army. 2/10

Copes of the Kwer'ata Re'esu icon are ubiquitous in early Ethiopian art - here is one painted in the so-called Second Gondarene style in a late 17th century manuscript. 3/10

Its importance to the Ethiopian people is incalculable. In 1744 it was captured in a battle with Sudanese Muslims & later returned on payment of a ransom. James Bruce, a visitor to Ethiopia in 1768, wrote: "all Gondar was drunk with joy" on the return of the "quarat rasou”. 4/10

After the Siege of Maqdala it was stolen from the Emperor Tewodros' palace by Sir Richard Rivington Holmes of the BM, later the Royal Librarian at Windsor Castle, who took the painting - not for the British Museum or the Royal Collection - but for his own private collection. 5/10