DIREWOLVES AS PETS

The extremely (and rightfully so) popular Game of Thrones on HBO featured feuding kingdoms in a dark and bloody medieval fantasy world. The sigil of House Stark (who were the good guys in the series--although there weren't that many of them left by the end) is that of a direwolf. In the show, a direwolf is essentially a gray wolf on steroids and is renowned for its strength, intelligence, and ferocity. Each of the five Stark children was given a direwolf puppy who grew up to protect loyally its respective master and who could be relied upon to rip out the throat of an attacker—a service which had to be rendered more often than you might think.

Early in the series, the direwolf named Lady, who was the pet of Sansa Stark, was put to death. However, the actress portraying Sansa (Sophie Turner) grew so fond of Lady during the brief time that Lady was on set that she adopted Lady in real life.

Lady (whose real name is Zunni) and her associates in the show are not actually direwolves. They are Northern Inuit dogs who look like wolves. However, Northern Inuits cannot be relied upon to rip out throats whenever necessary. They are one of the most loveable and gentle breeds around, and it is unlikely that one would ever harm a human. That does not mean, however, that they cannot be incredibly stubborn and try to be the alpha dog over their owners, and they need masters who can devote a lot of time to them along with opportunities for a lot of daily exercise. Ironically, because it is possible that there is some wolf blood in their recent lineage, some local governments have sought to ban ownership of them.

Direwolves are not just fantasy creatures. Real dire wolves (generally spelled as two separate words when not used in a Game of Thrones context) actually existed. Most became extinct about 10,000 years ago, although some paleontologists believe that a population may have existed in Arkansas as late as 2000 BC.

Subsequent to preparing but prior to releasing the above factoid, I was gobsmacked to find out on April 7, 2025, that Time Magazine revealed that a company named Colossal Biosciences had recreated three viable dire wolves which are at an undisclosed 2,000 acre location in the northern United States. Colossal compared the gene sequence from fossilized dire wolf bone fragments (one 13,000 years old, the other 72,000) with those of a modern gray wolf. It then modified the gray wolf sequence in twenty different places to accentuate the dire wolf traits, implanted the resulting eggs in large dogs, and produced one female and two male wolves with thick white fur (eh, perhaps the illustration on the top of the factoid is not totally realistic), large bodies, and other dire wolf characteristics. As for their suitability as pets--probably not. They are already showing wolf-like tendencies to avoid people rather than dog-like tendencies to run up to a human for a belly-rub. Wolves generally make bad pets; huge wolves in a pack of only three without any parents to teach them how to act like wolves could be highly unpredictable and may not be the best choice to bring you your slippers or rescue Timmy in the well.

Finally, can these be legitimately called dire wolves, or are they still "only" gray wolves, albeit genetically modified? I don't know. You decide.

Photo by Robert Clark for TIME

THE REBELLIOUS NEPHEW

View image | gettyimages.com

Herman Goering’s (pictured above) many duties during World War II included commanding the Luftwaffe and serving as the Deputy Führer under Adolf Hitler. He was no small-time Nazi-come-lately.

Werner Goering achieved notoriety as Herman’s nephew. Werner was raised as a Mormon after his father emigrated to Utah. During World War II, Werner joined the U.S. Army Air Force and become a B-17 pilot.

Civilian and military intelligence officials were very concerned about the above familial connection. They thoroughly investigated Werner and could find nothing to indicate that he was anything other than a loyal American and a very competent pilot. Nonetheless, they were still fearful about putting him in a position where he could, either voluntarily or involuntarily, be captured in Germany. At best, the propaganda potential for the Germans in such an event would be immense; at worse, Werner would intentionally land his bomber in Germany, cooperate with his uncle, and share classified information.

Notwithstanding the above, Werner flew 49 missions over Europe before the war ended. What he did not know was that his co-pilot, Jack Rencher, had been recruited by the FBI. Rencher, an expert pistol shot, was under standing orders to execute Werner if it ever appeared possible that Werner could be captured by the Germans. On one particularly bad mission, Rencher was concerned that the aircraft would not be able to make it back to England and was about to complete his assignment. Fortunately, they were able to reach home safely after all.

Werner and Rencher developed a great deal of respect for each other and remained good friends until Rencher’s death in 2010, notwithstanding the fact that after the war Rencher told Werner about the special assassination assignment.

Ironically, although Werner (and everyone else) believed for most of his life that he was Herman Goering’s nephew, recent investigation reveals that he was not. Apparently, Werner’s father had fostered the rumor that he was Hermann Goering's brother merely to gain respect by association from the Salt Lake City German community at an earlier time when his purported sibling was revered as a decorated World War I ace and had not yet pursued his new career as a despot and war criminal.

For more information about the travails of Werner, please read Stephen Frater's book  Hell Above Earth: The Incredible True Story of an American WWII Bomber Commander and the Copilot Ordered to Kill Him. 

  

THE DISNEYLAND DISQUALIFICATION

The current dictator of North Korea, Kim Jong-Un, was not originally slated by his father, Kim Jong-Il, a/k/a "Dear Leader, Who is a Perfect Incarnation of the Appearance That a Leader Should Have" (his actual title) to serve as Kim Jong-Il's successor in that office. That privilege had been reserved for Kim Jong-Un's older half-brother, Kim Jong-Nam (pictured below).

Unfortunately for Kim Jong-Nam, he was caught trying to go to Disneyland Tokyo with a forged passport in 2001. He was exiled to the People's Republic of China and had since traveled to numerous countries in the world. His wanderlust may not have been as much a product of a playboy lifestyle as a desire to avoid assassination attempts--especially since his brother had no problem condemning their uncle to death and executing him--according to some reports, by machine gun fire, according to others, by feeding him to starving dogs. Anything is possible in North Korea.

This just shows that you really have no idea with whom you might be rubbing shoulders at Disneyland.

On February 13, 2017, Kim Jong-Nam was killed by poison in Malaysia. You are not paranoid when someone really is out to get you.

View image | gettyimages.com

THE COW KILLER

The velvet ant is not actually an ant but is instead a wasp. The female of the species is wingless and looks like a corpulent ant wearing a fuzzy red (or yellow) and black Hudson Bay blanket; the male has wings, can fly, and often bears little resemblance to the female.

When pregnant, the mama velvet ant will enter the lair of other species of wasps or bees which live in dens in the ground and lay her eggs near the host bug larvae, which will then become the food of the future baby velvet ants.  She will also kill the adult host bug.

The female velvet ant is not aggressive (see previous paragraph for a possibly contrary opinion from other wasps or bees) and relies on her bright color and, if molested, a loud chirping sound to deter potential predators. However, if these methods do not work, she will hulk out and go medieval on her attacker multiple times with a huge stinger.

The female velvet ant is also known as the "cow killer," as her sting is so painful (3.0 on the Schmidt Sting Pain Index) that it was once believed to have been powerful enough to dispatch even a 1,500 pound bovine.  The boy velvet ant, who has no stinger, will nonetheless act like he does have one and will usually be able to bluff his way out of dangerous situations.

PENNIES FROM HEAVEN

One common hypothesis is that if one were to drop a penny from a great height, such as the Empire State Building, it would be as lethal as a bullet should it strike someone on the ground. Well, would it? Unlikely, unless you can do the experiment in a vacuum. Because of the shape of the coin and its low mass (about 2.5 grams), it would quickly be affected by the air and achieve a terminal velocity (i.e. the velocity where it stops accelerating due to the resistance of the atmosphere) at only about 25 mph (40 kph). Rifle bullets, on the other hand, usually have muzzle velocities exceeding 1700 mph (2700 kph) and are generally configured to minimize air resistance.

In 1964, I tested the penny hypothesis by tossing out a cent from the crown of the Statue of Liberty. Instead of plummeting straight down, the coin kept flipping over and over and leisurely descended with a gentle curve to the right--notwithstanding the fact that the coin was heavier, at 3.1 grams, than its modern 2.5 gram counterpart.

In recounting this tale from my misspent youth, I am not advocating that others experiment by throwing money from tall structures. I am older (and marginally wiser) and realize that some coins, such as this one, could inflict injury if dropped from high altitudes.

Speaking about the effect of air on coin trajectories, some cowboy movies and books feature sadistic gunslingers loading a black-powder shotgun using silver dimes instead of pellets on the theory that they will be able to inflict unusually grievous injury with the money shot. Based on the reports by those who have tried the dime experiment* (at least those who have tried it and not have had the shotgun blow up in their hands), a load of dimes can cause serious carnage against a target. Unlike our previously-mentioned penny, the dimes are traveling at speeds far in excess of terminal velocity when they leave the barrel. While the presence of air will quickly slow them down (as well as cause them to veer in unpredictable trajectories), they would be devastating at short ranges. However, unless you are hunting for werewolves, silver dimes are probably not as effective or accurate (or as cheap) as regular buckshot.

*Notwithstanding the availability of YouTube videos on employing unusual projectiles in a shotgun, I cannot endorse the concept of experimenting with homemade firearm loads, as the aforementioned grievous injury (i.e. death, blindness, or maiming) will be inflicted on the shooter from the slightest miscalculation--especially with modern high-pressure smokeless nitrocellulose-based powder.

HOW CHICKENS INFLUENCED THE JAPANESE PICKUP TRUCK MARKET

By IFCAR (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

In the early 1960s, several European countries imposed tariffs on chickens from the USA. As a result, one of the first things Lyndon Johnson did when he was sworn in as President was to sign a bill authorizing retaliatory tariffs against foreign countries on the importation of brandy, industrial starches, dextrin (used in envelope glue), and finally, a 25% tariff on foreign-made pickup trucks. The tax on trucks was intended primarily to suppress the importation of Volkswagen light trucks, as Germany was one of the prime chicken tariff offenders, but the law applied to trucks from all foreign countries.

Thoughout the 1960s, foreign pickups were much smaller (and more fuel efficient) than American-made trucks but, because of the tariff, cost nearly the same. Gas was cheap and plentiful, so there was no incentive to purchase a foreign truck, and very few persons did so.

However, after the gas crisis started in 1973, small trucks suddenly became more desirable. Subaru, in an attempt to crack the US market, imported a vehicle called a "Brat." which was a small truck with two plastic chairs in the bed. Because of the additional seating, the vehicle was legally classified as a passenger car and could be imported without paying the tariff. Most purchasers would take five minutes to unbolt the chairs, discard them, and then be the proud owner of a normal small pickup truck. A few demented souls (and I personally know one of them) would insist that a seat is a seat and that a passenger should be happy to sit out in the bed in 40 degree rain while the truck was going 70 MPH down the interstate.

The tariff is pretty much of a joke these days, as foreign manufacturers now actually make the trucks in USA factories or, in some cases, import them with the bed separated from the rest of the vehicle (thus making them only truck components, which are not subject to the tariff) and then bolting the bed on after it passes through Customs.

Of course, with President Trump's current ping-pong ball approach to tariffs, any factoid regarding them is probably outdated as soon as it is released. Perhaps Congress should reconsider its prior decisions to delegate so much of its power to levy tariffs to the Presidency.

THE PECULIAR NAGANT REVOLVER

Most revolvers, Hollywood and novelists notwithstanding, cannot be effectively equipped with a silencer at the muzzle, as part of the sound and fury of the explosion is expelled to each side of the handgun where there is a gap between the cylinder and the barrel, as illustrated by the following photo:

The exception is the Belgian-designed Russian-made seven-shot M1895 Nagant revolver, which has a unique mechanism which shoves the cartridge forward from the cylinder into the barrel itself. This configuration prevents any gases or flames from escaping except at the muzzle where they belong and where they can be suppressed by a silencer. It also increases the velocity of the bullet, as none of the energy from the blast is being dissipated out of the sides of the weapon. 

The Nagant was made from 1895 through 1945 and saw intensive use in World Wars I and II. It is renowned for being extremely rugged, extremely reliable, and extremely slow and awkward to reload. It also features one of the hardest triggers to pull of any sidearm made. Due to both its suitability for a silencer and the practices of the Stalin regime in general, probably more Soviet subjects were killed by the revolver than were enemy soldiers. Nagants, along with an American-made Colt M1911 and a German-made "broomhandle" Mauser, were the handguns used on the Russian royal family in 1918.

The Nagant revolver depicted below is one of many fascinating items which had been displayed a few years ago within a special series of exhibits on World War II at the Eisenhower Presidential Library, Museum and Boyhood Home in Abilene, Kansas. The museum also has as part of its standard exhibits quite a few unusual and interesting small arms from that conflict.

MOONBOWS

 

Arne-kaiser, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Moonbows are the same as rainbows except that the moon, instead of the sun, is the source of light.  They are very rare due the fact that all conditions have to be exactly right in order for them to be visible.  The only two places on earth where there is any reasonable chance of finding one on a regular basis are at Cumberland Falls near Corbin, Kentucky or at Victoria Falls in Zambia.

Due to the low level of illumination, the human eye usually perceives the moonbow as pure white.  However, if a time-lapse photo or a photo with high-speed film is taken, the full colors of a normal rainbow will be visible in the picture.

THE SAGA OF THE APOLLO 13 CAPSULE

View image | gettyimages.com

Oldsters among us as well as connoisseurs of Tom Hanks movies will recall the saga of the Apollo 13 lunar mission of 1970, which was crippled by an oxygen tank explosion 200,000 miles from earth (which is a bad place in general to have explosions on your vessel). Through incredible ingenuity, resourcefulness, and courage on both the part of Mission Control and the Apollo 13 astronauts, the crew finally was able to return safely to earth four days later after orbiting around, but not landing on, the moon. The only injury suffered was that of astronaut Fred Haise, Jr., who developed a dehydration-provoked urinary tract infection resulting from the necessity to ration drinking water severely after the explosion.

You would think that this mission would have been a source of pride for NASA, considering the heroic rescue of the astronauts against overwhelming odds. However, NASA was embarrassed by the fact there was an explosion in the first place and a failure to complete the mission's objective to land on the moon. NASA therefore refused to allow the display of the Apollo 13 capsule within the United States. As a result, the main part of the capsule itself (named "Odyssey") resided for many years in the Musée de l'Air et de l'Espace in Paris, while some 80,000 sub-components were sent all over the world for research or for display. Finally, however, NASA relented. The Cosmosphere (Hutchinson, Kansas's leading aerospace museum--and one definitely worth visiting) acquired the Odyssey through the Smithsonian Institute and, after a 12-year long quest for the 80,000 sub-components and a subsequent restoration, now has it on display.

Astronaut John Swigert was a last-minute addition to the crew after one of the other astronauts had to be scrubbed for medical reasons. Swigert, in his rush to get ready, failed to file his tax returns prior to embarking on the mission. When the capsule splashed down on April 17, the crew was transported to nearby American Samoa, where Swigert was handed a 1040 form with orders to complete same.

For the official NASA description of the events which occurred on the Apollo 13 mission, please click here.

THE PRODUCTION OF SPAGHETTI

COPYRIGHT BBC

You may recall the infamous April Fool's prank promulgated by the Daily Telegraph in London in 2008 which introduced the world to the Olympic sport of Poodle Grooming. However, this was not the first time that British media has tested the gullibility of its customers on April 1.

For another prime example, one only has to watch the BBC's broadcast of the Swiss Spaghetti Harvest of 1957. In this report, the BBC filmed pastoral clips of Swiss spaghetti farmers harvesting their crop from their orchards and preparing the freshly-picked noodles for the annual spaghetti festival. The viewers also learned that the dreaded spaghetti weevil posed a major threat and that Swiss production was of course eclipsed in volume by that of the major spaghetti farms of the Po Valley in Italy.

Approximately 8 million Brits watched the program on April 1, 1957. The relative novelty at that time of television in Britain, the lack of familiarity with pasta by most Brits in the 1950s, and the narration of the program by respected broadcaster Richard Dimbleby all contributed to many viewers believing the story to be true and calling the station for information on how to grow their own spaghetti trees. The BBC told them to "place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best."

THE GLORIOUS FLYING TEAPOT

Twin brothers Francis Stanley and Freelan Stanley started manufacturing steam-driven automobiles in 1897 and formed the Stanley Motor Carriage Company in 1902.  Their vehicles were popularly known as "Stanley Steamers" or "The Flying Teapot." The engine had only 15 moving parts, and the car had no clutch, transmission, or gearshift lever. It was not picky about fuel, and the driver could heat the water into steam using either kerosene or gasoline (and probably many other flammable substances) with equal aplomb. The brakes were not always the greatest, but the operator could also slow down by throwing the car into reverse.

Despite the common perception that a steam car would look like a huge boiler being hauled around at snail-like speeds, the Stanley Steamers resembled other autos of the era, except that there was no exposed radiator.  At a time when many cars could not exceed 40 mph (60 kph), a standard Stanley Steamer could hit 75 mph (121 kph) in both forward or reverse.  The Stanley brothers eagerly participated in racing, and their vehicles racked up spectacular wins, with one of its cars achieving the world land speed record in 1906 of 127.6 mph (205.4 kph). The following year, another Steamer reached an estimated and unofficial 150 mph (240 kph) before it crashed at Daytona.

The Stanley brothers intentionally kept production low, to a peak of about 1,000 units a year.  They personally interviewed potential customers and would not sell a car to anyone they believed was not worthy.  They had an admirable warranty, which simply consisted of fixing anything broken on the car free for the life of the vehicle.

The brothers maintained a policy that they would personally attend the funeral of anyone killed in or by one of their vehicles.  This philosophy lapsed after they sold their company in 1917, but lamentably, they followed it one more time in 1918, in differing roles, at the funeral of Francis Stanley, who died in a Steamer.

The company produced its last car in 1924.  Although its products were superior to gasoline-driven cars in many ways, the high cost of  a Steamer ($3,500 vs. $500 for a Model T Ford), the introduction of electric starters on previously hand-cranked gasoline cars, a loss of performance due to increased body weight with the later models, and the fact that a driver had to warm the Steamer up for 20 minutes before using it all proved to be fatal to sales. Not even the fact that it had a cool steam-powered horn which sounded like a railroad locomotive whistle was able to save it.

The surviving brother went on to establish the Stanley hotel in Colorado, where he remained until his death at the age of 91 in 1940.  A stay at this hotel in 1974 by Stephen King was the inspiration for the haunted Overlook Hotel in his novel The Shining.

If you want the easy-to-use instructions on how to start, drive, and maintain The Flying Teacup, look at the owner's manual here. To see one of several videos of Jay Leno operating one of his Steamers, click here.

By Stephen Foskett (Wikipedia User: sfoskett)
[GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html),
CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) ,
 via Wikimedia Commons

HITLER'S MESSERSCHMITT BLUNDER

Public domain USAF Museum Wikimedia Commons

The first practical jet airplane was the German Me-262, which was placed into service in 1944. As a fighter aircraft, it was light years ahead of all of its competitors and was absolutely lethal against heavy bombers, such as B-17s and B-24s, which had virtually no defense against it due to its high speed and powerful 30 mm cannons and/or rockets. In fact, United States Army Air Force General Carl Spaatz in September of 1944 was considering abandoning all bombing raids over Germany due to the threat posed by this new Messerschmitt. Such a decision could have had a profound negative effect on the prosecution of the war.

American fighter pilots, including ace Chuck Yeager, quickly learned that the only chance they had to destroy an Me-262 was to hover near a German airstrip and nail the jets when they were either on the ground or when they were at a reduced speed during takeoffs and landings. 

Unfortunately for the Germans, and fortunately for the rest of the world, Hitler decreed that only one out of every fifty Me-262s could be employed as a fighter. The rest had to be used as bombers, a role for which they were not nearly as well-suited. As a result, only very few of them ever had an opportunity to wreak havoc on Allied aircraft.

My father, who was in the U.S. Army Medical Corps in Europe during WWII but almost never discussed his experiences there, did describe one time an incident when a Me-262 strafed his convoy. The pilot was so skilled that he put rounds in each vehicle except for the three ambulances in the middle which had red crosses painted on their tops.

Several years ago, the visionary group Legend Flyers manufactured four or five new Me-262s for enthusiasts (very wealthy enthusiasts, as the price per plane probably exceeded $2 million by a wide margin). These were very close duplicates of the WWII product except for the substitution of more reliable landing gear and General Electric J-85 jet engines in place of those based on the original German design. To see one of these aircraft in flight, click here.

A few of the original 1,400+ Me-262s which were built by the Nazis still survive in museums.

THE DELETERIOUS EFFECTS OF PASSING GAS

One of the major by-products of the internal-combustion engine is water vapor. In the 1930s, German aeronautical engineers devised a scheme to collect, condense, and retain the water from the engine. Further, they strove to have collected at any given moment the exact same weight of water equivalent to the weight of the fuel burned.

Can you figure out why they would want to do this? The answer is below. You just have to scroll through the picture of the cats to get to it.

The answer is, of course, for use in dirigibles. The dirigible was a rigid bag of lighter-than-air gas (the Germans used highly-inflammable hydrogen) holding suspended below it a passenger gondola and an engine (or engines) with propellers to shove the whole thing forward. If the weight of the fuel burned by the engines was not replaced, the whole contraption would eventually get lighter and fly too high. It was much easier, safer, and less expensive to compensate for the lost weight of the fuel with an equivalent amount of water rather than trying the alternative of bleeding off hydrogen--especially since there would often be the risk of sparks from static electricity present.

The below photo of the dirigible Hindenburg illustrates why one would want to avoid as much as possible messing with the hydrogen and static electricity. The Hindenburg, by the way, did not have a water-recovery system and had to rely upon dropping water ballast that had been loaded prior to flight. It also purged 1 million to 1.5 million cubic feet (28 million to 42.5 million liters) of hydrogen gas per each flight across the Atlantic.

If you wished to see how long it takes to disable by fire a dirigible filled with hydrogen, click here. 

THE SWIMMING DEAD

From USFWS

They are in fact in real life animated rotting corpses which engage in homicidal frenzy and are obsessed with only one thing. It is not, however, eating brains--it is sex. 

Salmon from the Pacific migrate from the ocean into the stream in which they were born in order to spawn. The journey is not a pleasant one. The male salmon's jaw grows into a tooth-filled hooked weapon, called a kype, so that he can go medieval on other male salmon. Their color changes from a bright ocean silver to red or random streaks of purple or black. Their flesh and muscles deteriorate and fall off as they encounter rocks and waterfalls. By the time a salmon makes it to its spawning area (if it gets that far), much of its body will be moldy and rotten and the spines will be sticking out of its fins. These gangrenous tattered beings are piscatorial versions of the ghouls so vividly depicted in movies and TV, and their decay rivals the special effects from Hollywood. They usually do not survive past this first spawning.

It is for good reason that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service describes them in this video as "Zombie Fish--The Swimming Dead."

From USFWS

THE PINKO REDHEAD

In 1953, Lucille Ball's career was skyrocketing. The I Love Lucy TV show featuring her and her husband, Desi Arnaz, was an unqualified hit. On January 19 of that year, she gave birth to her first son, and on that same night CBS ran an episode showing her character also giving birth (well, actually, it revealed her going into the hospital with a large abdomen and ending up with a baby--in 1953, TV did not display the actual birthing process). This was such an newsworthy event that it eclipsed coverage of Eisenhower's inauguration, and the episode retained for five years the record of having the most viewers for a single show.

During the summer, she and her hubbie made the movie The Long, Long, Trailer which achieved great commercial success (and rightfully so, even though my wife doesn't like it for some inexplicable reason).

Then, on September 6, 1953, newspaper and radio gossip columnist Walter Winchell dropped a bombshell. He announced that Lucy was a Commie, as evidenced by the fact that she registered as such in the 1936 election. This revelation occurred during the height of McCarthyism, and the American public breathlessly waited for CBS to give her the axe.

There are some sacred cows that not even the House Un-American Activities Committee dare assault. Lucy calmly explained in a press interview that she declared herself a Communist only to please her grandfather and that she never believed in the Marxist doctrine. Her husband proclaimed that the only thing red about Lucy was her hair, and not even that was real. All was forgiven as a result, and Lucy escaped the trashing of her career that was the fate of many other leftists (either actual or perceived) in the entertainment industry.

And Walter Winchell? What sort of retribution fell on him for hurling dirt at America's most beloved comedienne? Well, after a sagging career, he did achieve renewed fame as the narrator of the extremely popular TV series The Untouchables from its inception in 1959 to its last show in 1963. The Untouchables was the product of Desilu Studios, which was owned and managed by Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz.

THE BLOODY CAREER OF CHARLES R. DREW

Dr. Charles R. Drew was instrumental in perfecting techniques for storing and preserving blood and plasma so that it could be used later for transfusions. In 1939, he established the Blood Transfer Betterment Association, which was a program where plasma could be collected in the USA and shipped to Britain for use by soldiers and civilians. This system eventually was adapted by the American Red Cross when Drew became its director. Drew's techniques saved countless numbers of lives during World War II. These results were in sharp contrast to those obtained in World War I, where millions of men bled to death because transfusing stored blood was not then an option.

Ironically, Drew himself died of exsanguination as a result of a car accident in North Carolina in 1950. According to a common myth, Drew, who was black, was refused a life-saving transfusion in a whites-only hospital. However, all actual witnesses to the event, including Drew's fellow passengers, agree that the medical staff aggressively tried to save Drew's life but could not administer a transfusion because of the nature of his injuries.

For more information about Dr. Drew, please click here.

THE BLACK BOOK

Bundesarchiv, Bild 101III-Alber-178-04A / Alber, Kurt / CC-BY-SA [CC
BY-SA 3.0 de (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.en)],
via Wikimedia Commons

"The Black Book" is the informal name of a list of 2820 names of prominent politicians, artists, scientists, writers, and other persons of note living in Great Britain in 1940 and who for some reason or the other were bothersome to the Nazis. It was compiled by Walter Schellenberg (see above photo) of the SS. It was intended to be a reference guide for German troops on whom to arrest immediately once they invaded England. Twenty thousand copies were printed, but only two examples are known to have survived Allied bombings and exist today. One of them is in the Imperial War Museum in London.

One name not on the list is that of the former King Edward VIII, who had abdicated the throne in 1936. He was perceived, perhaps correctly, to be sympathetic to the Nazis, and the Germans hoped to recruit him as a puppet ruler during their occupation of the United Kingdom.

The list was not completely infallible and included a few persons who had previously died or emigrated from Great Britain.

Some of the names on the list, according to Wickipedia as well as the memoirs of Schellenberg, are the following:

Max Aitken, Lord Beaverbrook

Sir Norman Angell, Labour MP awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1933 

Margery Corbett Ashby, feminist

Robert Baden-Powell, founder and leader of Scouting (the Nazis regarded Scouting as a spy organisation) 

Edvard Beneš, President of the Czechoslovakian government in exile 
Vera Brittain, feminist writer and pacifist

Violet Bonham Carter, anti-fascist liberal politician. Cryptically referred to as "an Encirclement lady politician" 

Neville Chamberlain, former prime minister 

Sydney Chapman, economist 

Winston Churchill, Prime minister (well, duh)

Marthe Cnockaert, First World War spy

Claud Cockburn, journalist 

Seymour Cocks, Labour politician (whose name undoubtedly caused him much grief when he was a youth at boarding school)

Chapman Cohen, secularist writer and lecturer

Lionel Leonard Cohen, lawyer

Robert Waley Cohen, industrialist

G. D. H. Cole, academic

Norman Collins, broadcasting executive

Edward Conze, Anglo-German scholar

Duff Cooper, Cabinet Minister of Information 

Noël Coward, actor who opposed appeasement and was an armed forces entertainer, homosexual, and connected with MI5 

Charles de Gaulle, Free French leader 

Sefton Delmer, journalist 

Anthony Eden, Secretary of State for War 

Conrad O'Brien, SIS/MI6 Agent ST36, Agent Z3 for Dansey's Z Organization 

E. M. Forster, author 

Sigmund Freud, founder of psychoanalysis and a Jew (died September 23, 1939) 

Willie Gallacher, trade unionist 

Sir Philip Gibbs, journalist and novelist 

Victor Gollancz, publisher

J. B. S. Haldane, geneticist and evolutionary biologist and Communist 

Ernst Hanfstaengl, German refugee. Once a financial backer of Hitler, he had fallen from favor and had fled Germany in 1937 

Aldous Huxley, author (who had emigrated to the USA in 1936) 

Alexander Korda, Hungarian-born British producer and film director 

Harold Laski, political theorist, economist and author 

Megan Lloyd George, politician

David Low, cartoonist 

F. L. Lucas, literary critic, writer and anti-fascist campaigner 

Jan Masaryk, foreign minister of the Czechoslovakian government in exile 

Jimmy Maxton, pacifist politician 

Naomi Mitchison, novelist 

Gilbert Murray, classical scholar and activist for the League of Nations

Harold Nicolson, diplomat, author and diarist

Vic Oliver, Jewish entertainer, originally from Austria. Married to Winston Churchill's daughter Sarah 

Ignacy Jan Paderewski, pianist, former Prime Minister of Poland 

Nikolaus Pevsner, German-born architectural historian 

J. B. Priestley, anti-Nazi popular broadcasts and fiction 

Hermann Rauschning, German refugee and once personal friend of Hitler who had turned against him 

Paul Robeson, African-American singer/actor with strong Communist affiliations 

Bertrand Russell, philosopher, historian and pacifist 

C. P. Snow, physicist and novelist 

Stephen Spender, poet, novelist and essayist 

Katharine Stewart-Murray, Duchess of Atholl 

Lytton Strachey, died 1932, writer and critic 

Sybil Thorndike, actress

Gottfried Reinhold Treviranus, politician, former German minister 

Beatrice Webb, socialist and economist 

Chaim Weizmann, Zionist leader 

H. G. Wells, author and socialist 

Rebecca West, English suffragist and writer 

Ted Willis, dramatist

Virginia Woolf, novelist and essayist