#Royal Italian Army

[carbone14]

Prototype du char Fiat-Ansaldo M11/39

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"REVIEWS ARMY BUT IS ALL FOR PEACE," Kingston Whig-Standard. June 14, 1933. Page 1. ---- Mussolini looks like a stern soldier here, as he reviews troops in Rome. In regulation uniform, he takes seriously the job of responding to salutes of passing regiments. But in diplomatic negotiations, he's all for peace.

[nocternalrandomness]

Italian Army showing off their A129 Mangusta Attack Helicopter at the 2003 Royal International Air Tattoo

[fdelopera]

America owes its independence to Haym Salomon, a Sephardic Jewish Patriot

A Jewish American Hero

by Yosef Kaufmann

October 17, 1781. An eerie silence takes hold over the battlefield outside Yorktown, Virginia. After weeks of non-stop artillery shells and rifle fire, the rhythmic pounding of a drum is all that is heard. Through the wispy smoke that floats above the battlefield, a British officer can be seen waving a white flag. General Cornwallis has surrendered Yorktown, ending the last major battle of the American Revolution. The surrender of Yorktown and the nearly 8,000 British troops convinced the British Parliament to start negotiating an end to the war. On September 3, 1783, the treaty of Paris was signed. The war was over.

If not for Haym Salomon, however, the decisive victory at Yorktown never would have happened.

Haym Salomon was born in Leszno, Poland, in 1740. In 1770, he was forced to leave Poland for London as a result of the Partition of Poland. Five years later, he left London for New York City, where he quickly established himself as a broker for international merchants.

Sympathetic to the Patriot cause, Haym joined the New York branch of the Sons of Liberty, a secret society that did what it could to undermine British interests in the colonies. In 1776, he was arrested by the British and charged with being a spy. He was pardoned on condition that he spend 18 months on a British ship serving as a translator for the Hessian mercenaries, as he was fluent in Polish, French, German, Russian, Spanish and Italian. During those 18 months, Haym used his position to help countless American prisoners escape. He also convinced many Hessian soldiers to abandon the British and join the American forces.

In 1778, he was arrested again and sentenced to death for his involvement in a plot to burn the British Royal fleet in the New York Harbour. He was sent to Provost to await execution, but he managed to bribe a guard and escape under the cover of darkness.

He fled New York, which was under the control of the British army, and moved to Philadelphia, the capital of the Revolution.

He borrowed money and started a business as a dealer of bills of exchange. His office was located near a coffee house frequented by the command of the American forces. He also became the agent to the French consul and the paymaster for the French forces in North America. Here he became friendly with Robert Morris, the newly appointed Superintendent of Finance for the 13 colonies. Records show that between 1781 and 1784, through both fundraising and personal loans, he was responsible for financing George Washington over $650,000, today worth approximately over $13 million.

By 1781, the American congress was practically broke. The huge cost of financing the war effort had taken its toll. In September of that year, George Washington decided to march on Yorktown to engage General Cornwallis. A huge French fleet was on its way from the West Indies under the command of Comte De Grasse. The fleet would only be able to stay until late October, so Washington was facing immense pressure to lead an attack on Yorktown before then.

After marching through Pennsylvania, with little in the way of food and supplies, Washington’s troops were on the verge of mutiny. They demanded a full month's pay in coins, not congressional paper money which was virtually worthless, or they would not continue their march. Washington wrote to Robert Morris saying he would need $20,000 to finance the campaign. Morris responded that there was simply no money or even credit left. Washington simply wrote, “Send for Haym Salomon.” Within days, Haym Salomon had raised the $20,000 needed for what proved to be the decisive victory of the Revolution.

Haym’s chessed continued after the war. Whenever he met someone who he felt had sacrificed during the war and needed financial assistance, he didn’t hesitate to do whatever he could to help.

He was also heavily involved in the Jewish community. He was a member of Congregation Mikveh Yisroel in Philadelphia, the fourth oldest synagogue in America, and he was responsible for the majority of the funds used to build the shul’s main building.

He also served as the treasurer to the Society for the Relief of Destitute Strangers, the first Jewish charitable organization in Philadelphia.

On January 8, 1785, Haym died suddenly at the age of 44. Due to the fact the government owed him hundreds of thousands of dollars, his family was left penniless.

His obituary in the Independent Gazetteer read:

Thursday, last, expired, after a lingering illness, Mr. Haym Salomon, an eminent broker of this city, was a native of Poland, and of the Hebrew nation. He was remarkable for his skill and integrity in his profession, and for his generous and humane deportment. His remains were yesterday deposited in the burial ground of the synagogue of this city.

Although there is little proof, many believe that when designing the American Great Seal, George Washington asked Salomon what he wanted as compensation for his generosity during the war. Salomon responded “I want nothing for myself, rather something for my people.” It is for this reason that the 13 stars are arranged in the shape of the Star of David.

[just-my-latest-hyperfixation]

Eddie Munson's family dinner

Written for the @steddieholidaydrabbles, day 23

Prompt: Uncle Wayne adopts Steve

Rated: M

CW: nudity

Tags: Modern AU; Rockstar Eddie; Royal Steve; Established relationship

Notes: Continued from days 11 and 14. I can't get this AU outta my head, halp!

Eddie can't recall the first time he saw Steve. 

In all likelihood, he was two years old and Steve a tiny, wrinkly baby. His face was all over the news in the days and weeks following his birth, after all. Cradled in his mother's arms, staring bleary-eyed into the world as newborns tend to do - only that in his case, the entire world was staring back. The birth of the King's and Queen's first child had been long-awaited after all, a once-in-a-generation event. 

In the years that followed, Steve was always just … kind of there. A strange-but-familiar boy who kept popping up on TV and the front pages of magazines, living a life so different they may as well have been from different planets. 

Eddie still remembers fixing dinner in the trailer's tiny kitchen one night, news droning in the background. 

"Poor kid," Wayne grumbled. 

Eddie, sixteen and a giant shithead at the time, paused in putting the plates down on the table and glanced up to follow his uncle's gaze to the TV. 

"Oh yeah, woe is him. Must be so fucking hard, living in a palace. Having an army of servants to wipe your ass and shit." 

On the TV, the Prince sat between his parents at some sports event or other, a tiny carbon copy of his father with his Italian suit and carefully styled hair. Clapping at all the right times, face a polite, empty mask of a smile.

Wayne huffed. "Ain't no kid deserve that kinda shit. Always under scrutiny, paraded around like some trained dog." 

Eddie rolled his eyes and changed the topic and they didn't talk about it any further. 

*

Wayne's plates are still the same ones that Eddie was putting on the table all those years ago. Eddie has offered time and again to buy something new, but the stubborn old shit won't have it. Insists that Eddie already bought him a whole-ass house with the money from that first record deal, a car after the second, he won't die of a chipped plate or ten, thank you very much. He'll just have to get him new ones for Christmas, he guesses.

"This is delicious, Mr Munson," Steve is saying. He's sitting next to Eddie, back ramrod straight, elbows at a perfect angle, dissecting the meatloaf with careful precision. 

Like some trained dog. 

"My mom's recipe," Wayne hums, but then he sets down his own cutlery, expression serious. "Now … what are your intentions with my nephew?" 

Eddie flushes about twenty shades of crimson. Incidentally, so does Steve. 

"I …" he sputters, all traces of composure suddenly gone. "Well, I like Eddie a lot." 

"I figured …" Behind Wayne's beard, his mouth twitches. "Seeing how you're wearing his clothes and all." 

Steve blinks down at himself. They make sure to keep it low-profile when they're together. The paparazzi never sleep, after all, and they've both had their fair share of run-ins with the fuckers in the past. Which is why he's wearing a red-and-black flannel he stole from Eddie, faded and soft from too many cycles in the wash. Eddie wants to burn all the Italian suits in the world, wrap him up in soft and comfy clothes always. 

"Um …" Steve says. 

Wayne smiles. 

"Relax, son, I'm pulling your leg." If he notices how Steve tenses at the word son, he graciously ignores it. "Now are ya gonna take my boy's hand, or what?" 

Steve gapes. 

"Might as well," Eddie winks, takes the knife from Steve’s limp fingers and entwines their hands. "He'll just keep nagging until he gets what he wants." 

Their gazes lock and Steve smiles. Not a mask. The real one. The one where his eyes light up and he looks five years younger. The one that Eddie is rapidly becoming addicted to. 

He turns back to eating his dinner one-handed and remembers another boy, a boy from a very different planet, getting coaxed out of his shell over the same plates, the same meatloaf. 

Fuck the plates, he decides. Wayne is getting a whole damn kitchen for Christmas, whether he likes it or not. 

*

"He's a great guy, your uncle," Steve mutters into Eddie’s chest later that night. They're all curled up in Eddie’s bed and he's naked except for the flannel. He claims it's to ward off the cold air seeping in through the open window, and Eddie isn't about to argue. Not when the sight does things to him. 

"Sort of thought he was gonna hate me," Steve continues, and Eddie hums quizzically. 

"Why's that?" 

"Hm, let's see …" Steve's brow crinkles in mock-thought. "He raised the guy who wrote two top-ten songs about how much the monarchy sucks, that could've been a hint." 

"Nah," Eddie chuckles. "Guy would've adopted you as a kid, if he could've. He's always loved you, way-" 

Large hazel eyes blink up at him and the words get stuck in his throat. 

Because he hasn't said it yet, even though he's rapidly coming to accept that it's true. 

Way before I did.

"And apart from that," he says instead, "if you marry me, I'll be a princess. What parent doesn't want that for their kid?" 

"Hold your horses," Steve grumbles, but his eyes are sparkling again. "We can't get married if your uncle adopts me." 

"Shame," Eddie quips and presses him down into the pillows. "Would've loved to wear a tiara on stage, that sounds like a killer look."

Eddie doesn’t recall the first time he saw Steve, but he doesn’t really think it matters. Not when he gets to see the real him now, with no-one else watching. Blushing and naked, lips kissed pink, glowing with happiness.

It's an image he's sure he won't forget.

Part 4

All my holiday drabbles

[linguisticdiscovery]

Ways English borrowed words from Latin

Latin has been influencing English since before English existed!

Here’s a non-exhaustive list of ways that English got vocabulary from Latin:

early Latin influence on the Germanic tribes: The Germanic tribes borrowed words from the Romans while still in continental Europe, before coming to England.

camp, wall, pit, street, mile, cheap, mint, wine, cheese, pillow, cup, linen, line, pepper, butter, onion, chalk, copper, dragon, peacock, pipe, bishop

Roman occupation of England: The Celts borrowed words from the Romans when the Romans invaded England, and the Anglo-Saxons later borrowed those Latin words from the Celts.

port, tower, -chester / -caster / -cester (place name suffix), mount

Christianization of the Anglo-Saxons: Roman missionaries to England converted the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity and brought Latin with them.

altar, angel, anthem, candle, disciple, litany, martyr, mass, noon, nun, offer, organ, palm, relic, rule, shrine, temple, tunic, cap, sock, purple, chest, mat, sack, school, master, fever, circle, talent

Norman Conquest: The Norman French invaded England in 1066 under William the Conqueror, making Norman French the language of the state. Many words were borrowed from French, which had evolved out of Latin.

noble, servant, messenger, feast, story, government, state, empire, royal, authority, tyrant, court, council, parliament, assembly, record, tax, subject, public, liberty, office, warden, peer, sir, madam, mistress, slave, religion, confession, prayer, lesson, novice, creator, saint, miracle, faith, temptation, charity, pity, obedience, justice, equity, judgment, plea, bill, panel, evidence, proof, sentence, award, fine, prison, punishment, plead, blame, arrest, judge, banish, property, arson, heir, defense, army, navy, peace, enemy, battle, combat, banner, havoc, fashion, robe, button, boots, luxury, blue, brown, jewel, crystal, taste, toast, cream, sugar, salad, lettuce, herb, mustard, cinnamon, nutmeg, roast, boil, stew, fry, curtain, couch, screen, lamp, blanket, dance, music, labor, fool, sculpture, beauty, color, image, tone, poet, romance, title, story, pen, chapter, medicine, pain, stomach, plague, poison

The Renaissance: The intense focus on writings from classical antiquity during the Renaissance led to the borrowing of numerous words directly from Latin.

atmosphere, disability, halo, agile, appropriate, expensive, external, habitual, impersonal, adapt, alienate, benefit, consolidate, disregard, erupt, exist, extinguish, harass, meditate

The Scientific Revolution: The need for new technical and scientific terms led to many neoclassical compounds formed from Classical Greek and Latin elements, or new uses of Latin prefixes.

automobile, transcontinental, transformer, prehistoric, preview, prequel, subtitle, deflate, component, data, experiment, formula, nucleus, ratio, structure

Not to mention most borrowings from other Romance languages, such as Spanish or Italian, which also evolved from Latin.

Further Reading: A history of the English language (Baugh & Cable)

[godinvent]

So I saw this post about how in the books, Dracula is actually an old man and I always imagined Dracula looked like older Christopher Lee, who played him while he was a kid. While looking him up I accidentally discovered that Christopher Lee was the coolest person in the universe and there is a non-zero chance he was actually Dracula in real life

Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee CBE CStJ (May 27th 1922 - June 7th 2015), Sir because he was knighted in 2009 for his charity and his contributions to cinema

So first of all, I saw that he actually knew 8 LANGUAGES (English, Spanish, French, Swedish, Italian, German, Russian and Greek) and was also a staggering 6 feet 5 inches in height. Born in Belgravia in London, one of the most Dracula sounding places I’ve ever heard of, here’s some insane facts about him

•His father, Lieutenant Colonel Geoffrey Trollope Lee of the 60th King's Royal Rifle Corps, fought in the Boer War and World War 1

•His mother, Countess Estelle Marie (née Carandini di Sarzano) was an Edwardian beauty who was painted by Sir John Lavery, Oswald Birley, and Olive Snell, and sculpted by Clare Sheridan

•Lee's maternal great-grandfather, Jerome Carandini, the Marquis of Sarzano, was an Italian political refugee

•Jerome’s wife was English-born opera singer Marie Carandini (née Burgess), meaning that Lee is also related to famous opera singer Rosina Palmer

•His parents would divorce when he was four and his mother would marry Harcourt George St-Croix Rose, banker and uncle of Ian Fleming, making the author of the James Bond books Lee’s step cousin. Fleming would then offer him two roles as the antagonist in the film adaptations of his books, though he was only able to land the antagonist role in The Man With the Golden Gun. It’s believed his role in the film is significantly better and more complex than his book counterpart, played as “a dark side of Bond”

•His family would move and they lived next door to famous silent film actor Eric Maturin

•One night, before he was even 9 years old, he was introduced to Prince Yusupov and Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich, THE ASSASSINS OF GRIGORI RASPUTIN, WHOM LEE WOULD GO ON TO PLAY MANY YEARS LATER

•Lee applied for a scholarship to Eton, where his interview was in the presence of the ghost story author M.R. James, who is considered one of the best English language ghost story writers in history and who widely influenced modern horror

•He only missed by King’s Scholar by one place by being bad at math, one of the only flaws God gave him

•Due to lack of working opportunities, Lee was sent to the French Riviera and stayed with his sister and her friends while she was on holiday, and on the way there he stopped briefly in Paris with journalist Webb Miller, a friend of his step father. Webb Miller was an American journalist and war correspondent and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the execution of the French serial killer Henri Désiré Landru, also known as BLUEBEARD. He also helped turn world opinion against British colonial rule of India

•While staying with Miller he witnessed Eugen Weidmann’s execution by guillotine, the last public execution ever performed in France

•Arriving in Menton, Lee stayed with the Russian Mazirov family, living among exiled princely families

•When World War 2 began, Lee volunteered to fight for the Finnish Army against the Soviet Union in the Winter War, and a year later, Lee would join the Home Guard. After his father died, he would join the Royal Air Force and was an intelligence officer and leading aircraft man and would later retire as a flight lieutenant in 1946

•While spending some time on leave in Naples, Lee climbed Mount Vesuvius, which erupted only three days later

•After nearly dying in an assault on Monte Cassino, Lee was able to visit Rome where he met his mother’s cousin Nicolò Carandini, who had fought in the Italian Resistance Movement. Nicolò would later go on to be the Italian Ambassador to Britain. Nicolò was actually the one to convince Lee to become an actor in the first place

•Oh yeah Christopher Lee was seconded to the Central Registry of War Criminals and Security Suspects where he was tasked with HELPING TRACK DOWN NAZI WAR CRIMINALS

•Lee’s stepfather served as a captain in the Intelligence Corps

•He was actually told he was too tall to be an actor, though that would honestly help him considering one of his first roles was as The Creature in The Curse of Frankenstein

•He was cast in Captain Horatio Hornblower R.N (1951) as a Spanish captain due to not only his fluency in Spanish but also he knew how to fence!

•Lee’s portrayal of Dracula had a crucial aspect of it which Bela Lugosi’s didn’t have: sexuality, a prime aspect of the original novels.

•While being trapped into playing Dracula under Hammer Film Productions, Lee actually hated the script so much that he would try his best to sneak actual lines from the original novel into the script

•Ironically, he was rejected from playing in The Longest Day because “he didn’t look like a military man”

•Christopher Lee was friends with author Dennis Wheatley, who “was responsible for bringing the occult into him”. He would go on to play in two film adaptations of his novels

•His biggest regret in his career is not taking the role of Sam Loomis from Halloween when offered to him

•Christopher Lee was the only person involved with the Lord of the Rings movies to have actually met J.R.R Tolkien

•When playing Count Dooku, he actually did most of the swordsmanship himself

•Christopher Lee was the second oldest living performer to enter the Billboard Top 100 charts with the song “Jingle Hell” at 91 years old. After media attention, he would get No. 18, and Lee became the oldest person to ever hit the Billboard Top 20 chart

I really am leaving some stuff out here and I may go on

[captain-price-unofficially]

Infantry of the Royal Italian Army firing their Colt-Browning M1895 machine gun at the enemy during the Second Battle of the Piave River. Italian Front, 1918.

[olympic-paris]

THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY

based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more …

September 17

1730 – Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben (d.1794), also referred to as the Baron von Steuben, was a Prussian-born military officer who served as inspector general and Major General of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. He is credited with being one of the fathers of the Continental Army in teaching them the essentials of military drills, tactics, and disciplines. He wrote the Revolutionary War Drill Manual, the book that served as the standard United States drill manual until the War of 1812.

In Germay, in 1776, he was alleged to be homosexual and was accused of improper sexual behavior with young boys. Whether or not Steuben was actually intimate with other men is not entirely known, but the rumors compelled him to seek employment elsewhere.

On September 26, 1777, the Baron, his Italian greyhound, Azor (which he took with him everywhere), his young aide de camp Louis de Pontière, his military secretary Pierre Etienne Duponceau, and two other companions, reached Portsmouth, New Hampshire and by December 1, was extravagantly entertained in Boston. Congress was in York, Pennsylvania, after being ousted from Philadelphia by the British advance. By February 5, 1778, Steuben had offered to volunteer without pay (for the time), and by the 23rd, Steuben reported for duty to General George Washington at Valley Forge. He served as George Washington's chief of staff in the final years of the war.

Two of the General's soldiers, William North and Ben Walker, were to von Steuben's liking. He legally adopted both men, and they lived together until the Baron's death, at which time they shared in his estate.

The Lafayette Park Memorial

Many places are named in his honor, including Steubenville, Ohio. His monument by Albert Jaegers in Washington, DC, across the street from the White House in Lafayette Park, is perhaps one of the most homoerotic sculptures in America. Make sure and pay a visit the next time you're in town. You will not regret it.

1904 – Sir Frederick Ashton (d.1988) began his career as a dancer but is largely remembered as a choreographer.

Ashton was born at Guayaquil in Ecuador, in the artistic neighbourhood called Las Peñas, the original founding site of the city. When he was 13 he witnessed a life-changing event when he attended a performance by the legendary Anna Pavlova in the Municipal Theatre in Lima, Peru. He was so impressed that from that day on he knew he would become a dancer.

In 1919 he went to England to attend Dover College and then to study under the famous Leonide Massine and established a working relationship with the ballet troupe belonging to Marie Rambert and Ninette de Valois. Rambert discovered Frederick's aptitude for choreography and allowed him to choreograph his first ballet, The Tragedy of Fashion in 1926, starting a tremendously successful career as a choreographer.

He began his career with the Ballet Rambert which was originally called The Ballet Club, but he rose to fame with The Royal Ballet, becoming its resident choreographer in the 1930s. His version of La Fille mal gardée was particularly successful. He worked with Margot Fonteyn among others. His broad travesti performances as one of the comic Ugly Stepsisters in Sergei Prokofiev's Cinderella were annual events for many years.

The choreographer's emotional life focused on the unattainable and the unsuitable, and it often wreaked havoc in his ballet company, as when, in the case of the heterosexual Michael Somes (Fonteyn's principal partner), the beloved enjoyed and exploited favoritism to the point that other dancers signed a petition of protest.

Ashton, like so many other famous gay men of his epoch, including Cecil Beaton and Noël Coward, was necessarily discreet, but he was not closeted. The British high society in which he moved enjoyed the scintillating company.

Ashton was a member of the circle of gay men who surrounded Queen Elizabeth, the late Queen Mother, whom he taught to tango. When she heard that Ashton, a formidable mimic, did imitations of her, she allegedly retaliated by imitating his own queenly manners.

In 1962, he was knighted for his services to ballet. He died in 1988 at his home, Chandos Lodge, in Eye, Suffolk, England.

1926 – Curtis Harrington (d.2007) was an American film and television director whose work included experimental films, horror films, and episodic television. He is considered one of the forerunners of New Queer Cinema.

His memoir, Nice Guys Don’t Work in Hollywood, was recently published by Drag City. The original manuscript was disinterred from a special collection in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and carefully edited by Lisa Janssen, a Chicago-based poet, archivist, and film buff.

For Harrington, the romance with movies began early. He was stirred as a child by the sight of Mr. Death wilting a bouquet of flowers with his breath in Death Takes a Holiday (1934).

Growing up in Beaumont, California, with parents who gave him leeway to pursue his creative interests, Harrington discovered a soul mate in Edgar Allan Poe, and began his film career at 14 with an abbreviated version of “The Fall of the House of Usher.” The director plays both the death-haunted Roderick and his twin sister, Madeline.

Greatly influenced by Maya Deren, co-creator (with Alexander Hammid) of the trance classic Meshes of the Afternoon (1943), he completed a cycle of 16 mm shorts, several of which – Fragment of Seeking (1946), Picnic (1948), On the Edge (1949) – are now regarded as prime examples of West Coast experimental filmmaking. His friendship with Kenneth Anger, director of Scorpio Rising (1963) and author of the notorious bestseller Hollywood Babylon, fueled an appreciation for the mystical and provided occasion to participate, if only peripherally, in the Southern California occult explosion.

Although he enjoyed unfettered creative license during this period, the pressure to conform weighed heavily on the young filmmaker. The conservative postwar climate was an unlikely breeding ground for the deeply personal, highly stylized "film poems" created by Harrington and his contemporaries. His status as an outsider was no doubt intensified by his orientation as a gay man – a subject on which Harrington remains subdued throughout the memoir. "This seemed perfectly natural to me," Harrington writes of his teenage attractions. "It did not occur to me to attach any sense of guilt or shame to my activities." A screening of Fragment of Seeking and Anger’s Fireworks (1947) stunned an audience of Los Angeles intellectuals with its potently surreal evocations of homoerotic desire. "Everyone in the room was too shocked to say a word," Harrington recalls.

The true turning point in his career was the extraordinary Night Tide (1961), a gently haunting fable about a sailor (an uncharacteristically shy Dennis Hopper) who falls in love with a mermaid impersonator (Linda Lawson). Night Tide was distributed by Roger Corman, who in due course offered Harrington two directing assignments: Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet (1965) and Queen of Blood (1966). Harrington was given the task of repurposing a couple of Russian science fiction films to which Corman had acquired the rights.

In the following years he went on to direct a series of B-movies in the horror genre TV series and Made-for-TV movies including The Killer Bees (1974).

At 75, he managed to summon the remainder of his creative vigor to make Usher (2002), a self-financed short film that brought his career full circle. "I went all the way back to the story that had haunted me so early in my life,"

1928 – Roddy McDowall (d.1998) was born in London on to a Scottish father and an Irish mother. His mother, who had herself aspired to be an actress, enrolled him in elocution lessons at the age of five; and at the age of ten he had his first major film role as the youngest son in Murder in the Family (1938). Over the next two years he appeared in a dozen British films, in parts large and small. McDowall's movie career was interrupted, however, by the German bombardment of London in World War II. Accompanied by his sister and his mother, he was one of many London children evacuated to places abroad.

As a result, he arrived in Hollywood in 1940, and the charming young English lad soon landed a major role as the youngest son in How Green Was My Valley (1941). The film made him a star at thirteen, and he appeared as an endearing boy in numerous Hollywood movies throughout the war years, most notably Lassie, Come Home (1943), with fellow English child star and lifelong friend Elizabeth Taylor, and My Friend Flicka (1943).

By his late teens, McDowall had outgrown the parts in which he had been most successful. Accordingly, he went to New York to study acting and to hone his skills in a wide variety of roles on the Broadway stage.

McDowall was praised for his performance as a gay character in Meyer Levin's Compulsion (1957), a fictionalised account of the Leopold-Loeb murder case; and he won a Tony award for best supporting actor as Tarquin in Jean Anouilh's The Fighting Cock (1960).

After a decade's absence, McDowall returned to Hollywood, and over the last four decades of his life he appeared in more than one hundred films, encompassing a wide range of genres from sophisticated adult comedy to children's fare, from horror to science fiction, usually as a character actor. He also made regular character appearances on TV in such series as the original Twilight Zone, The Carol Burnett Show, Fantasy Island and Quantum Leap.

His best known appearances include those in The Subterraneans (1960), Midnight Lace (1960), Cleopatra (1963), The Loved One (1965), Inside Daisy Clover (1965), Planet of the Apes (1968) and its various sequels, Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971), The Poseidon Adventure (1973), Funny Lady (1975), and Only the Lonely (1991). His last film role was the voice of Mr Soil, an ant, in A Bug's Life (1997).

Although McDowall never officially came out, the fact that he was gay was one of Hollywood's best known secrets. It is a tribute to his characteristic discretion and the respect with which "Hollywood's Best Friend" was regarded by his peers that his homosexuality was never really an issue or used against him in his six decades in the entertainment business.

Roddy is offered a hot sausage by Tab Hunter

McDowall died of cancer at his home in Studio City, California, on October 3, 1998. At the time of his death, he held several elected posts in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and was a generous benefactor of many film-related charities.

1965 – Bryan Singer is an American film director. Singer won critical acclaim for his work on The Usual Suspects, and is especially popular among fans of the sci-fi and comic book genres, for his work on the first two X-Men films and Superman Returns.

Singer was born in New York City. He was adopted by Norbert and Grace Singer and grew up in a Jewish household in New Jersey. He attended West Windsor-Plainsboro High School South, then studied film making at New York's School of Visual Arts and later the USC School of Cinematic Arts in Los Angeles. Actors Lori and Marc Singer are his cousins.

Singer is openly bisexual, and has said that his life experiences of growing up as a minority influenced his movies. In October 2014, it was confirmed he was expecting a child with actress Michelle Clunie. The couple's first son was born on January 5, 2015.

Singer is also executive producer and directed the pilot and first episode of highly regarded TV medical drama House.

Singer is said (or rumoured) to be involved in a number of possible or 'in development' projects at present including: a Superman Returns sequel; a remake of Logan's Run; a Warner Bros. film called U Want Me 2 Kill Him? about a 14-year old British boy who was charged with inciting his own murder, a reimagining of Battlestar Galactica, and a film of Augusten Burroughs' Sellevsion.

In April 2014, Singer was accused in a civil lawsuit of sexual assault of a minor. According to the suit filed by attorney Jeff Herman, Singer is alleged to have drugged and raped actor and model Michael Egan in Hawaii and Los Angeles in the late 1990s. On May 22, 2014, Singer's attorney presented evidence to Federal District Judge Susan Oki Mollway stating that neither Singer nor Egan were in Hawaii at the time. In early August 2014, Egan sought to withdraw his lawsuit.

In May 2014, another lawsuit was filed by attorney Jeff Herman on behalf of an anonymous British man. Both Singer and producer Gary Goddard were accused of sexually assaulting "John Doe No. 117." According to the lawsuit, Goddard and Singer met the man for sex when he was a minor and engaged in acts of "gender violence" against him while in London for the premiere of Superman Returns. The charge against Singer in this case was dismissed, at the accuser's request, in July 2014.

1975 – Jade Esteban Estrada, born at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, is a successful Latin pop singer, comedian, choreographer, actor, political commentator, and human rights activist. Out Magazine called him "the first gay Latin star."

As a young boy, he participated in extracurricular school activities and sang in the school choir, where he first noticed that his talent captivated audiences. Through the encouragement of his choir instructor he began to take voice lessons and eventually moved to New York where he worked as an assistant to Tony award-winning actress Zoe Caldwell.

Estrada appeared in the German production of Starlight Express and also worked as a dancer for Seventeen Magazine. After two popular appearances as a transgender singer/dancer on NBC's The Jerry Springer Show, he won the attention of Latin TV personality Charo and worked as her choreographer and lead dancer. He gained international recognition in 1998 when he released his first Latin pop single, "Reggae Twist" on the Brooklyn-based Total Envision Records label. He later turned his attention to solo theater and stand-up comedy.

His recordings include Fabulous Gay Tunes Vol.2, and Being Out Rocks.

1991 – Scott Hoying is an American singer, musician and songwriter who came to international attention as the baritone of the a cappella group Pentatonix and one-half of the music duo Superfruit. As of June 2021, Pentatonix has released eleven albums (two of which have been number ones) and two EPs, have had four songs in the Billboard Hot 100, and won three Grammy Awards as "the first a cappella group to achieve mainstream success in the modern market". As of November 2021, Superfruit's YouTube channel has over 2.4 million subscribers, and over 444 million views.

Hoying is openly gay and resides in Hollywood. He began dating model Mark Manio in 2017. They got engaged in the Bahamas on April 13, 2022, and were married in Santa Barbara, California on July 7, 2023. Their wedding was officiated by singer-songwriter Christina Perri.

2001 – Paul Holm, the partner of Flight 93 hero Mark Bingham is presented with the folded American flag.

[barbucomedie]

Assault Armour of 5th Engineer Regiment from the Kingdom of Italy dated around 1915 on display at the Heeresgeschichtliches Museum in Vienna, Austria

The 5th Engineer Regiment of the Royal Italian Army fought on the Italian Front against the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The Engineer regiments were responsible for maintaining the mechnised transport and supplies lines of the army as well as mining battalions. Armour for the engineers would have protected them while working but it proved to be too cumbersome and heavy for practival use.

Photographs taken by myself 2022

[scotianostra]

On August 17th 1424 French and Scots troops suffered defeat at the Battle of Verneuil.

Scots have a long history with France, the first official alliance dates back to the start of The First War of Scottish Independence

First agreed in 1295/6 the Auld Alliance was built on Scotland and France’s shared need to curtail English expansion. Primarily it was a military and diplomatic alliance but for most of the population it brought tangible benefits through pay as mercenaries in France’s armies and the pick of finest French wines.

In the poet William Dunbar’s, poem “Dirige to the King” he extols to James IV the selections of those wines….

‘To drink withe ws the new fresche wyne That grew apone the revar Ryne, Fresche fragrant claretis out of France, Off Angeo and of Orliance,’

Shakespeare’s ‘Henry V’ rightly portrays the Battle of Agincourt in 1415 as one of England’s greatest military victories. For the French it was a disaster that led to the near collapse of their kingdom. In their darkest hour the Dauphin turned to the Scots, England’s enemy, for salvation. Between 1419 and 1424, 15,000 Scots left from the River Clyde to fight in France. In 1421 at the Battle of Bauge the Scots dealt a crushing defeat to the English and slew the Duke of Clarence.

Honours and rewards were heaped upon the Scots army by the French. The Earl of Douglas was given the royal Dukedom of Touraine and the Scots army lived well off the land, much to the chagrin of the French peasantry. Their victory was short lived however; at Vernuil in 1424 a Scots army of 4,000 men was annihilated. As mercenaries they could have expected no mercy and those who were captured were dispatched on the spot. Despite their defeat, the Scots had brought France valuable breathing space and effectively saved the country from English domination.

Many Scots continued to serve in France. They aided Joan of Arc in her famous relief of Orleans and many went on to form the Garde Écossais, the fiercely loyal bodyguard of the French Kings, where they were at the very heart of French politics. And of course our Monarchs daughters married into the Royal Family of France, most notably, Margaret Stewart, from yesterday’s post and the most famous of all Mary Queen of Scots.

Many Scots mercenaries settled in France although they continued to think of themselves as Scots. One such man was Beraud Stuart of Aubigny: a third-generation Scot immigrant, Captain of the Garde Écossais from 1493-1508, and hero of France’s Italian wars. To this day both he and other Scots heroes of the Auld Alliance are celebrated in Beraud’s home town of Aubigny-sur-Neve in an annual pageant.

Of the battle itself it was later described as a ‘second Agincourt’ and Scotland’s future military prospects were damaged by the deaths in battle of two leaders - the Earl of Douglas and the Earl of Buchan. The defeat saw an end to Scotland’s participation as a nation in the Hundred Years’ War, although individual mercenaries stayed on to fight alongside the French.

This was a particularly brutal battle, Scots were slaughtered rather than being taken prisoner after the English had won the battle. The French had not adhered to the rules of the battle, chivalry was a big thing in those days, added to that Scotland was meant to be at peace with England at this time and this annoyed the English, a truce between England and Scotland had come into effect on the 1st May (I believe) which meant that the Scots would no longer fight with the French- but there was a loophole allowing Scottish forces already in France to stay. The English were offended at the Scottish presence. It seems that the English side and the Scottish forces, arrayed before the battle, hurled challenges, presumably with insults, at each other: this was to be a fight to the death, and the Scottish- oath breakers- did not deserve proper chivalric protocol. No quarter was given those Scots attempting to surrender were cut down and virtually the entire Scots force falling on the battlefield. The Scots stood their ground and died where they fought. A contemporary account said this of the aftermath…..

“… there a horrible spectacle to see on the battlefield, the corpses in high, tightly packed heaps, especially where the Scots had fought. No prisoners were taken among them, and the heaps held the bodies of the dead English soldiers all mixed up with theirs.” (Thomas Basin, Bishop of Lisieux):

[carbone14]

Soldats italiens du Corps des Troupes Volontaires (CTV) – Bataille de Guadalajara – Guerre civile espagnole – Mars 1937

Photographe : Hans Georg von Studnitz

©Bundesarchiv - Bild 183-2006-1204-510

Le Corps des Troupes Volontaires (Corpo Truppe Volontarie) était le nom du corps expéditionnaire italien envoyé par Benito Mussolini en Espagne entre 1936 et 1939 pour soutenir le général Franco et les forces nationalistes durant la guerre d'Espagne.

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"CANADIAN AMBULANCE MEN: Canadian casualties on the battlefield north of Valguarnera received prompt and efficient attention from the well-trained men of the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps. Here, medical orderlies administer preliminary treatment before taking the wounded men to field dressing stations." - from the Regina Leader-Post. August 17, 1943. Page 16.

[praesidiummilitum]

A good book about WW1 Royal Italian Army Assault Troops to be released soon...

[whencyclopedia]

Siege of Tobruk

The siege of the port of Tobruk in Libya (April to Dec 1941) by Axis forces during the Second World War (1939-45) lasted 242 days and became a symbol of Allied resistance. Besieged by land but still supplied by sea, Tobruk was of vital strategic significance to both sides in the Western Desert Campaigns. Two attempted breakouts failed to lift the siege, but neither could the Axis troops led by General Erwin Rommel (1891-1944) break the defenders' resistance. It was not until a third Allied offensive, code-named Crusader, that Rommel was finally obliged to withdraw.

The Battle for North Africa

Into the second year of WWII, the Allies, then principally British and Commonwealth forces, were particularly keen to protect the Suez Canal from falling into the control of the Axis powers of Germany and Italy. The loss of the canal would effectively cut the British Empire in half. North Africa was also strategically important to both sides' wish to control and protect vital Mediterranean shipping routes. The island of Malta was also crucial in this role and holding the island fortress (then in British hands) was another reason to control potential airfields in the North African desert. Finally, North Africa was the only place where Britain could fight a land war against Germany and Italy and so hopefully gain much-needed victories that would encourage the British people after the debacle of the Dunkirk Evacuation and the horrors of the London Blitz. For all of the above reasons, a series of desert battles ensued, which are collectively known as the Western Desert Campaigns (June 1940 to January 1943).

At first, the British Army, with Operation Compass, won a series of victories against poorly equipped Italian forces, and Tobruk was captured in January 1941. From February, the Axis presence in North Africa was considerably boosted by the arrival of German troops such as the elite Deutsche Afrika Korps (DAK) with superior armour, weapons, and training compared to both the Italians and the Allies. Things improved further for the Axis powers when General Rommel took over command of Axis forces in North Africa. Rommel's official orders were to contain the Allies and focus primarily on defence; these he blithely ignored and immediately went on the offensive. Rommel, besides capturing two British generals, gained El Agheila in March 1941, then Mersa Brega on 1 April, Benghazi on 4 April, and El Mechili on 7 April as he moved in on the port of Tobruk in Cyrenaica (modern-day Libya), vital if he was to protect his left flank when he conducted his planned invasion of Egypt to take the Suez Canal.

Rommel's two persistent problems were insufficient manpower and a lack of supplies (especially food, fuel, and ammunition), but his opponents were beset with similar logistical challenges and, in addition, were severely hampered by poorly-trained troops, poor equipment, poor multi-arms cooperation, and poor commanders who could not cope with Rommel's tactics of using his armour with speed and audacity. Rommel's tactics more than compensated for his numerical inferiority in men and tanks compared to the Allies.

WWII North Africa Campaign, 1940-1943

Simeon Netchev (CC BY-NC-ND)

Mastering logistics remained the key to success in the desert war, though, and whoever controlled the port of Tobruk had a distinct advantage over the enemy. The commander of the Allied Middle East Forces, General Archibald Wavell (1883-1950), was ordered to hold the port at all costs. With the war going badly for the Allies everywhere else, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (1874-1965) was particularly anxious that North Africa did not contribute to the already sorry catalogue of defeats. The Allies did have the advantage that although Rommel's armour was closing a ring around Tobruk on land, the port could still be supplied by sea thanks to the Royal Navy's presence in the Mediterranean. A disadvantage was that Wavell was obliged to send some of his force to participate in the ongoing campaign in Greece.

Continue reading...

[thatscarletflycatcher]

the fiction project in your tags, is that Percival and Nadine? could you tell me a bit more about them? I’m newer here so I don’t really know them yet 🙈

Hi!! Yes :D

Don't worry, I don't think I ever wrote a public post about it, other than answering ask games and rambling in tags? XD Thank you :3

The story is set in England after the end of WWII. After spending most of the war as a WAAF (female branch of the Royal Air Force) Nadine has got a job with the Royal Mail, and goes as postmistress to the town of Avensley. Avensley is a small village near a market town, and it takes its name from the river Avensley, across which sits Avensley Hall, the seat of the squires of Avensley for centuries (listen, I can have one "Hamleys of Hamley since the times of Queen Anne" Gaskell joke. As a treat). Avensley Hall is at this point in time a rundown property; the old squire (as people still called them out of habit) and his wife died on a London raid, their daughter married a diplomat and is abroad, and the son, Percival, an architect, is the only one who remains at the hall, with his housekeeper. He was in the army, lost a leg in action in the middle of the Italian campaign, and now lives life as a semi-recluse at home. He has been mentally scarred by his experiences on the front and the sudden loss of his parents, and so between both ailments it's very difficult for him to do anything but linger on.

As you can imagine the story is mainly a romance XD and I'm shamelessly writing against tropes I dislike and around others I have a NUANCE take on, because... my story, I do what I want :P Nadine, for example, is a war widow; she fell in love with and rushed to marry a pilot, to 'chase away the ghost of death' that he felt about him, but he still died on a raid soon afterwards. James, the pilot, was a good man and a good husband BECAUSE THE EX DOESN'T HAVE TO BE EVIL. Anyways, she experiences a lot of shame because her family advised against it and she rejected the advice in a very... proud manner, so she's now estranged from them.

There's of course other characters at play, because part of the story is about how important community can be to a person's healing, and we all love the 'lovable and irritating neighbours in a village' trope (?) so you get the constable and the parson and the gossips and the inn/bar keeper and... and... there's the late postmaster's widow who for obvious reasons doesn't easily like Nadine and the niece that comes to live with her... there's an Italian architect, Giancarlo Domicelli (again, I am allowed the puns), who met Percival during the war (when Percival was in a field hospital where Giancarlo helped as a POW) and befriended him...

That's the general gist of it. The story is told mainly through letters Nadine sends her best friend, another ex-WAAF now married to a doctor and living in Dover, and letters Percival writes to his sister Eleanor.