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Men looking for work during the Great Depression

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January 1937. “Part of the family of a migrant fruit worker from Tennessee, camped near the packinghouse in Winter Haven, Florida.” 35mm nitrate negative by Arthur Rothstein for the Farm Security Administration. (via Shorpy Historical Photo Archive :: Where the Grapefruit Grow: 1937)

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But I only want one job

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The Great Depression, 1929-1933

Men waiting in line for an opportunity at a job during the Depression, 1930.

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WORLD WAR 3 WATCH: What’s the latest news on World War 3? September 1 is the 75th anniversary of the start of World War II. Does that mean anything? Ukraine is almost in a full-scale war with Russian tanks crossing the border. ISIS is hogging the headlines. Latest news, updates, analysis, assessments on World War III for the week ending September 1, 2014.

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Post-mortem photograph of Rasputin showing the bullet wound in his forehead

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This is Rasputin.

History has written him as a witch and demon.

Yet he was more than likely a great mystic and occultist. He was loved by his daughter and never killed anyone. The Poor Loved Him. Stood against Russia’s Involvement World War I. Saved and Healed (Somehow) The Tzar’s Son of Hemophilia. Survived Several Assassination Attempts. He was able to heal and predict the future. He predicted his own death, and the certain fall of the Russian Tzar if it happened, pretty much to the day.

"I write and leave behind me this letter at St. Petersburg. I feel that I shall leave life before January 1. I wish to make known to the Russian people, to Papa, to the Russian Mother and to the Children, to the land of Russia, what they must understand. If I am killed by common assassins, and especially by my brothers the Russian peasants, you, Tsar of Russia, will have nothing to fear for your children, they will reign for hundreds of years in Russia. But if I am murdered by boyars, nobles, and if they shed my blood, their hands will remain soiled with my blood, for twenty-five years they will not wash their hands from my blood. They will leave Russia. Brothers will kill brothers, and they will kill each other and hate each other, and for twenty-five years there will be no nobles in the country. Tsar of the land of Russia, if you hear the sound of the bell which will tell you that Grigori has been killed, you must know this: if it was your relations who have wrought my death, then no one in the family, that is to say, none of your children or relations, will remain alive for more than two years. They will be killed by the Russian people. I go, and I feel in me the divine command to tell the Russian Tsar how he must live if I have disappeared. You must reflect and act prudently. Think of your safety and tell your relations that I have paid for them with my blood. I shall be killed. I am no longer among the living. Pray, pray, be strong, think of your blessed family." written by Grigory Rasputin in a letter to the Tsarina Alexandra, 7 Dec 1916

Rasputin was poisoned, stabbed, shot and thrown into an icy river before eventually dying. He was found three days later. Frozen under the ice they found he was still fighting to live after being thrown in the icy water.

Was he an Evil Guy, a “Mad Monk”? I see nothing to support that! A sex addict and mystic?, yes! But Evil, No! Rasputin is one of the most interesting men to ever live, and was killed before many more could see what else he knew.

Strange guy? Yes.

His only crime I can see is that he was too close to the tzar and the political elite blamed him for bad Tzar decisions, and they killed him. They were scared of his healing and predictions and therefor called him a witch.

……and everybody loves a witch hunt!

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The Room in which the Romanov Family were Shot

The shooting of the Russian Imperial family and those who chose to accompany them into exile occurred in Yekaterinburg on 17 July 1918, in order to prevent them being subsequently used to muster the White forces in the ongoing Russian Civil War.

The family, who were in exile at the time, were awoken, then ordered into a 6×5 meter semi-basement room under the pretext that the family would be moved to a safe location due to impending chaos in Yekaterinburg. The prisoners were told to wait in the cellar room while the truck that would transport them was being brought to the House. A few minutes later, an execution squad of secret police was brought in and  the order given by the Ural Executive Committee [read aloud]:

[Tsar Nicholas II], in view of the fact that your relatives are continuing their attack on Soviet Russia, the Ural Executive Committee has decided to execute you…

Nicholas, facing his family, turned and said “What?.” [The order was] quickly repeated and the weapons were raised. The Empress and Grand Duchess Olga, according to a guard’s reminiscence, had tried to cross themselves, but failed amid the shooting. Yurovsky reportedly raised his gun at Nicholas and fired; Nicholas fell dead instantly. The other executioners then began shooting until all the intended victims had fallen.

Several more shots were fired and the doors opened to scatter the smoke. There were some survivors, [who were] stabbed with bayonets because the shouts could be heard outside. The last to die were Anastasia, Tatiana, Olga, and Maria [the Tsar’s daughters], who were carrying several pounds of diamonds within their clothing, thus protecting them to an extent. However, they were speared with bayonets as well.

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Obit of the Day (Historical): The Romanovs (1918)

Tsar Nicholas II was awoken abrutly at midnight on July 17, 1918. He and his family, wife Alexandra and children Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia, and Alexei, were told to get dressed and move to the basement of the Ipatiev House (aka, “The House of Special Purpose”) where they were being held prisoner by members of the Bolshevik Party.

The seven family members, as well as the family doctor, housekeeper, chef, and a footman, were told that advancing opposition armies had made the upper floors dangerous. The Romanovs and their servants followed the instructions without argument.

They were placd in a smal basement room and Tsar Nicholas, Tsarina Alexandra, and Tsarevich Alexei were given chairs to sit on while they, presumably, waited out the fighting.

Instead, nine armed men walked into the room. The commander of the troops in House Ipatiev, Yakov Yurovsky, then read a statement: “Nikolai Alexandrovich, in view of the fact that your relatives are continuing their attack on Soviet Russia, the Ural Executive Committee has decided to execute you…”

Tsar Nicholas, stunned by the words spoken by Yurovsky, only responded, “What? What?” before Yurovsky shot and killed him. Then the other soldiers opened fire. After a few minutes, the door to the room was opened and the smoke cleared. It was then discovered that several members of the former royal family were still alive. Yurovsky and his men finished the job by bayoneting the surviving Romanov daughters - who were not killed instantly by gunfire because of more than 2 pounds of jewels sewn into their dresses - and then shooting them in the back of the head. (Sources differ on whether Alexei was killed in the first barrage or survived briefly before being murdered.)

The Romanovs were wrapped up, removed from the house and buried behind the house in a forest. The location of their bodies would remain a mystery for decades.

The decision to murder the Romanovs, according to an entry in Leon Trotsky’s journals, came from Lenin himself. A “White” (as opposed to “Red”/Communist) Czech army was approaching Yekaterinburg, where the Romanovs were living, and Lenin feared that if the royal family fell into opposition hands they would become a rallying point for Whites all through Russia. The killing of the children insured that nall immediate heirs were eliminated as well.

The day after the execution a statement was released, not by Lenin or the Bolshevik Party, but by the Ural Regional Soviet who announced the death of the Tsar and his family because of the approaching White army and Nicholas’ “countless, bloody, violent acts against the Russian people.”

Interestingly, the Czech army had no idea that the Romanovs were in Yekaterinburg and were advacing only in order to protect the Trans-Siberian railrod. They took the city only days after the execution.

Sixty-one years after the Romanovs were killed their grave site was stumbled upon. In the grave were only nine bodies, leaving two missing, including the body of Alexei and one of his sisters. DNA and forensic testing confirmed, in 1998, that the bodies in the grave were the Tsar, his wife, the servants, and three of the Romanov daughters. They were given a state funeral attended by Russian president Boris Yeltsin.

Nine years later, another grave was discovered with two additional bodies. Scientists determined that it was Alexei, which they had presumed, and his sister, Maria, solving the final Romanov mystery.

The ages of the Romanovs at the time of the execution were as follows: Tsar Nicholas II, 50 years old; Tsarina Alexandra, 46; Olga. 22; Tatiana, 21; Maria, 19; Anastasia, 17;  and Alexei, 13. 

Sources: eyewitnesstohistory.com, alexanderpalace.org, and Wikipedia

(Image of Nicholas II of Russia with the family, left to right,: Olga, Maria, Nicholas II, Alexandra Fyodorovna, Anastasia, Alexei, and Tatiana. Livadiya, 1913. Portrait by the Levitsky Studio, Livadiya. Today the original photograph is held at the Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia. Courtesy of wikimedia.org)

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 German Red Cross treating the victims of a gas attack

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U.S. soldiers putting on gas masks

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WW1 Propaganda

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Sea-Air-Land (SEAL) team members gather in a meadow to discuss tactics during a field training exercise. Photographer’s Name: PH1 CHUCK MUSSI. Date Shot: 9/1/1987

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East German border guard.

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Soviet Naval Infantrymen with Bayonet-Equipped AKS-74 Rifles.

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*planet explodes* *removes one earbud* what

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i wont rest until ive complained about everything