Εμπρός, τέκνα των Ελλήνων, ελευθερώστε την πατρίδα, ελευθερώστε τα παιδιά σας, τις γυναίκες σας, τα ιερά των πατρογονικών θεών σας, τους τάφους των προγόνων σας τώρα ο αγώνας είναι για τα πάντα.
Ο παιάνας των Ελλήνων στη ναυμαχία της Σαλαμίνας, όπως τον αναφέρει ο Πέρσης αγγελιοφόρος στον στίχο 402 της τραγωδίας "Πέρσες" - το σπουδαιότερο αντιπολεμικό έργο του Αισχύλου. Θεωρείται η παλαιότερη σωζόμενη τραγωδία. Επίσης είναι η πρώτη τραγωδία που αντλεί τη θεματολογία της από ιστορικά γεγονότα (και μάλιστα μόνο κατά επτά χρόνια προγενέστερα από την παρουσίασή της στο κοινό): πραγματεύεται την οδύνη των Περσών όταν πληροφορούνται για τη συντριπτική ήττα τους στη Σαλαμίνα.
Dresden, 1945, view from the city hall (Rathaus) over the destroyed city
The bombing of Dresden was a British/American aerial bombing attack on the city of Dresden, the capital of the German state of Saxony, during World War II. In four raids between 13 and 15 February 1945, 722 heavy bombers of the British Royal Air Force (RAF) and 527 of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) dropped more than 3,900 tons of high-explosive bombs and incendiary devices on the city. The bombing and the resulting firestorm destroyed more than 1,600 acres (6.5 km2) of the city centre. An estimated 22,700 to 25,000 people were killed, although larger casualty figures have been claimed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden_in_World_War_II
Μνημείο για τον Πατριωτικό Πόλεμο της Ρωσίας ενάντια στους Γάλλους εισβολείς
Plain memorial of the Patriotic War in the outskirts of Moscow
The French Invasion of Russia, known in Russia as the Patriotic War of 1812 (Russian: Отечественная война 1812 года) began on 24 June 1812 when Napoleon's Grande Armée crossed the Neman River in an attempt to engage and defeat the Russian army On 7 September 1812 the French caught up with the Russian army which had dug itself in on hillsides before a small town called Borodino, seventy miles west of Moscow. The battle that followed was the largest and bloodiest single-day action of the Napoleonic Wars, involving more than 250,000 soldiers and resulting in 70,000 casualties. The French gained a victory, but at the cost of 49 general officers and thousands of men. The Russian army was able to extricate itself and withdrew the following day, leaving the French without the decisive victory Napoleon sought.
German Wehrmacht Panzer IIIs and IVs in the battle of Kursk
The Battle of Kursk was a World War II engagement between
German and Soviet forces on the Eastern Front near Kursk (450 kilometres southwest of Moscow) in the Soviet Union during July and August 1943. Hitler thought that a victory here would reassert Germany's
strength and improve his prestige with allies who were considering withdrawing
from the war. It was also hoped that large numbers of Soviet prisoners would be
captured to be used as slave labour in Germany's armaments industry. The Battle of Kursk was the first time a German strategic
offensive had been halted before it could break through enemy defences and
penetrate to its strategic depths.
German courts, citing the 1961 bilateral agreement concerning enforcement and recognition of judgments between Germany and Greece, and Section 328 of the German Code of Civil Procedure, rejected the decision of the Greek High Court in favor of reparation claims of Distomo victims' relatives, because "Greece does not have jurisdiction with regard to the actions in question, which were sovereign acts by a state (i.e. the German state)". Thus, for the sake of saving money, German courts transferred the massacre responsibility from the SS-units to the German state ...! Impressive ...
In more detail:
In October 1997, the Court of First Instance in Livadia ruled in favor of over 250 relatives of the Distomo massacre victims, ordering the German state to pay approximately €28 million in damages for the 1944 atrocity.
The Greek Supreme Civil and Criminal Court (Areios Pagos) upheld this ruling on 4 May 2000, affirming that Germany could be held liable. The Court rejected Germany’s claim of state immunity, reasoning that such grave violations of peremptory norms (jus cogens) could not be classified as sovereign acts; thus, immunity did not apply.
Despite the victorious ruling, enforcement within Greece was blocked by law: Article 923 of the Greek Code of Civil Procedure requires prior consent from the Minister of Justice to serve a judgment against a foreign state — permission which was never granted.
Germany challenged the decision in German and European courts, which were unfavorable:
- All German courts rejected the claims, citing state immunity and a 1961 bilateral treaty
- The European Court of Human Rights also declined to hear the case in 2011, ruling it inadmissible .
The church where the women and children of Oradour were burnt to death
The Kronstadt rebellion (Russian: Кронштадтское восстание, tr. Kronshtadtskoye vosstaniye) was a major unsuccessful uprising against the Bolsheviks in March 1921. The rebellion originated in Kronstadt, a naval fortress on Kotlin Island in the Gulf of Finland that served as the base of the Russian Baltic Fleet and as a guardpost for the approaches to Saint Petersburg, 55 kilometres away. It was led by Stepan Petrichenko and consisted of Russian sailors, soldiers and civilians. The Bolshevik government began its attack on Kronstadt on 7 March 1921. Some 60,000 troops under command of Mikhail Tukhachevsky took part in the attack. The workers of Saint Petersburg were under martial law and could offer little support to Kronstadt. There was a hurry to gain control of the fortress before the melting of the bay as it would have made it impregnable for the land army. On March 17, the Bolshevik forces entered the city of Kronstadt. On March 19, the Bolshevik forces took full control of the city of Kronstadt after having suffered fatalities ranging from 527 to 1,412. Although there are no reliable figures for the rebels' battle losses, historians estimate that 1,200 to 2,168 were executed in the days following the revolt.
The Massacre of the Acqui Division, also known as the Cephalonia Massacre, was the mass execution of the men of the Italian 33rd Acqui Infantry Division by the Germans on the island of Cephalonia, Greece, in September 1943, following the Italian armistice during the Second World War. About 5000 soldiers were massacred and others drowned or were otherwise murdered. The massacre provided the historical background to the novel Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, which later became a Hollywood film. It was one of the largest prisoner of war massacres of the war, along with the Katyn massacre of 22,000 Poles by (then) German ally Soviets, and one of the largest-scale German atrocities to be committed not by the Waffen-SS but by Wehrmacht troops (specifically, the 1. Gebirgs-Division, an elite formation of the Wehrmacht). The massacre started on 21 September 1943, and lasted for one week.
The subject of the massacre was largely ignored in Italy by the press and the educational system until 1980, when the Italian President Sandro Pertini, a former partisan, unveiled the memorial in Cephalonia.
Round table on the Horizon 2020 space programme at the 2nd FP7 Space Conference in Larnaca, Cyprus.
My expectations from the Horizon 2020 space programme overall:
- Continue support for coordinated space-data exploitation, which did not exist at European level before FP7 and before the establishment of the European Space Policy in 2007.
- Continue support for international collaboration.
- Raise space awareness among citizens.
My suggestions for the support of specific space related topics:
-Development of critical technologies for space exploration and for European non-dependence in space.
-Comprehensive understanding of the consequences of solar variability on planetary magnetospheres / ionospheres / atmospheres and in particular on Geospace and specific space weather products corresponding to needs of our space infrastructure and related services.
-Search for habitable planets outside our solar system.
-Development of hyperspectral imaging technology.
In Moscow for the 50 years anniversary from the launch of Sputnik
At IKI (Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences) with Academician Lev Zelenyi, Director of IKI, and Emmanuel Sarris, Professor of Democritus University of Thrace, under the model of the Mir space station.
Scène des massacres de Scio, Eugène Delacroix, Louvre, Paris
31 March 1822: The Chios massacre begins, lasting for the following four months
The Chios Massacre refers to the slaughter of tens of thousands of Greeks on the island of Chios by Ottoman troops during the Greek War of Independence in 1822.
In March 1822, as the Greek revolt gathered strength on the mainland, several hundred armed Greeks from the neighbouring island of Samos landed in Chios. They began the fight for independence from foreign rule and started attacking the Turks, who retreated to the citadel. Many islanders also decided to join the revolution. However, the vast majority of the population had by all accounts done nothing to provoke the massacre and had not joined other Greeks in their revolt against the Ottoman Empire.
Reinforcements in the form of a Turkish fleet under the Kapudan Pasha Nasuhzade Ali Pasha arrived on the island on 22 March. They quickly pillaged and looted the town. On 31 March, orders were given to burn down the town, and over the next four months, an estimated 40,000 Turkish troops arrived. In addition to setting fires, the troops were ordered to kill all infants under three years old, all males 12 years and older, and all females 40 and older, except those willing to convert to Islam.
Approximately 20,000 Chians were killed or starved to death and 23,000 were exiled or sold into slavery.
There was outrage when the events were reported in Europe. French painter Eugène Delacroix created a painting depicting the events that occurred; his painting was named Scene from the Massacres of Chios.
November 1811 – 200 years ago: The Luddites destroy wool and cotton mills and mechanised looms in Nottingham, England.
The Luddites were a social movement of 19th-century English textile artisans who protested against the changes produced by the Industrial Revolution, which they felt were leaving them without work and changing their way of life. The movement was named after General Ned Ludd or King Ludd, a mythical figure who, like Robin Hood, was reputed to live in Sherwood Forest. The movement emerged in the harsh economic climate of the Napoleonic Wars and difficult working conditions in the new textile factories. The principal objection of the Luddites was to the introduction of new wide-framed automated looms that could be operated by cheap, relatively unskilled labour, resulting in the loss of jobs for many skilled textile workers. The movement began in Nottingham in 1811 and spread rapidly throughout England in 1811 and 1812. Mills and pieces of factory machinery were burned by handloom weavers, and for a short time Luddites were so strong that they clashed in battles with the British Army. Many wool and cotton mills were destroyed until the British government suppressed the movement.
"Machine breaking" was subsequently made a capital crime by the Frame Breaking Act and the Malicious Damage Act of 1812 – legislation which was opposed by Lord Byron, one of the few prominent defenders of the Luddites – and 17 men were executed after an 1813 trial in York. Many others were transported as prisoners to Australia. At one time, there were more British troops fighting the Luddites than Napoleon I on the Iberian Peninsula.
Child laborers in Lancaster Cotton Mill (South Carolina), by Lewis W. Hine
The October Revolution (Russian: Октябрьская революция, Oktyabr'skaya revolyutsiya), also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution, Red October or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917. It took place with an armed insurrection in Petrograd traditionally dated to 25 October 1917 Old Style (O.S.), which corresponds to 7 November 1917 New Style (N.S.).
It followed and capitalized on the February Revolution of the same year. The October Revolution in Petrograd overthrew the Russian Provisional Government and gave the power to the local soviets dominated by Bolsheviks. As the revolution was not universally recognized outside of Petrograd there followed the struggles of the Russian Civil War (1917–1922) and the creation of the Soviet Union in 1922. The revolution was led by the Bolsheviks, who used their influence in the Petrograd Soviet to organize the armed forces. Bolshevik Red Guards forces under the Military Revolutionary Committee began the takeover of government buildings on 24 October 1917 (O.S.). The following day the Winter Palace (the seat of the Provisional government located in Petrograd, then capital of Russia), was captured.
"Stalin" and "Lenin", Red Square, Moscow, October 2007
Franz Liszt, the famous Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher was born on 22 October 1811 in the village of Doborján in Sopron County, in the Kingdom of Hungary. Liszt became renowned throughout Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age and perhaps the greatest pianist of all time. He was also a well-known composer, piano teacher, and conductor who contributed significantly to the modern development of the art. He was a benefactor to other composers, including Richard Wagner, Hector Berlioz, Camille Saint-Saëns, Edvard Grieg and Alexander Borodin.
As a composer, Liszt was one of the most prominent representatives of the "Neudeutsche Schule" ("New German School"). He left behind an extensive and diverse body of work in which he influenced his forward-looking contemporaries and anticipated some 20th-century ideas and trends.
Smyrna (Greek: Σμύρνη or Σμύρνα) was an ancient city located at a central and strategic point on the Aegean coast of Anatolia. Thanks to its advantageous port conditions, its ease of defence and its good inland connections, Smyrna rose to prominence. The ancient city is located at two sites within modern Izmir, Turkey. While the first site rose to prominence during the Archaic Period as one of the principal ancient Greek settlements in western Anatolia, the second, whose foundation is associated with Alexander the Great, reached metropolitan proportions especially during the period of the Roman Empire, from which time most of the present-day remains date.
The Great Fire of Smyrna is the name commonly given to the fire that ravaged Smyrna starting 13 September 1922 and lasting until 17 September 1922. It occurred four days after the Turkish army regained control of the city on 9 September 1922. Turks systematically burned the city and killed Greek and Armenian inhabitants. There is extensive relevant eyewitness evidence from Western troops sent to Smyrna during the evacuation, foreign diplomats/relief workers based at Smyrna and Turkish sources. The fire mainly affected the Greek quarters of the city, taking many lives. Ethnic cleansing soon followed, resulting in the expulsion of most of the Greeks from the city, ending their 3000 years presence in Smyrna.
George Horton was the U.S. Consul General of Smyrna who was compelled to evacuate Smyrna on September 13, arriving in Athens on September 14. He published his own account, in 1926, of what happened in Smyrna and included testimony from a number of eye-witnesses and additionally quoted a number of contemporary scholars. Horton noted that it was not till after the Armenian quarter had been cleared by Turkish soldiers that the Turkish soldiers torched a number of houses simultaneously, on September 13, behind the American Inter-Collegiate Institute. Moreover, they waited for the wind to blow in the right direction, away from the homes of the Muslim population, before starting the fire. This is backed up by the eye-witness report of Miss Minnie Mills, the dean of the Inter-Collegiate Institute:
"I could plainly see the Turks carrying the tins of petroleum into the houses, from which, in each instance, fire burst forth immediately afterward. There was not an Armenian in sight, the only persons visible being Turkish soldiers of the regular army in smart uniforms." This was also confirmed by the eye-witness report of Mrs King Birge the wife of an American missionary, who viewed events from the tower of the American College at Paradise.
Here is an abridged summary of notable events in the destruction of Smyrna described in Horton's account:
* Turkish soldiers cordoned off the Armenian quarter during the massacre. Armed Turks massacred Armenians and looted the Armenian quarter.
* After their systemic massacre Turkish soldiers, in smart uniforms, set fire to Armenian buildings using tins of petroleum, and other flammables, with flaming rags soaked in those flammable liquids.
* To supplement the devastation, small bombs were planted by the soldiers, under paving slabs around the christian parts of the city to take down walls. One of the bombs was planted near the American Consulate and another at the American Girl's School.
* The fire was started on September 13. The last Greek soldiers had evacuated Smyrna on September 8. The Turkish Army was in full control of Smyrna from September 9. All Christians remaining in the city who evaded massacre stayed within their homes fearing for their lives. The burning of the homes forced Christians in to the streets. This was personally witnessed by Horton.
* The fire was initiated at one edge of the Armenian quarter when a strong wind was blowing toward the christian part of town and away from the Muslim part of town. Citizens of the Muslim quarter were not involved in the catastrophe. However, the Muslim quarter did celebrate the arrival of the Turkish Army.
* Turkish soldiers guided the fire through the modern Greek and European section of Smyrna by pouring flammable liquids in to the streets for the fire to consume. These were poured in front of the American Consulate to guide the fire there and this was witnessed by C. Clafun David, the Chairman of the Disaster Relief Committee of the Red Cross (Constantinople Chapter) and others who were standing at the door of the Consulate. Mr Davis testified that he put his hands in the mud where the flammable liquid was poured and indicated that it smelled like mixed petroleum and gasoline. The soldiers that were observed doing this had started from the quay and proceeded towards the fire thus ensuring the rapid and controlled spread of the fire.
* Dr Alexander Maclachlan, the president of the American College, together with a sergeant of the American Marines were stripped and then beaten by Turkish soldiers with clubs. In addition, a squad of American Marines was fired on.
Aristotle Onassis who was born in Smyrna, and who later became the richest man in the world, was one of the Greek survivors of Smyrna. The various biographies of his life document notable and quite sensitive aspects of his experiences during the Smyrna Catastrophe. His life experiences were recreated in the movie called Onassis, The Richest Man in the World and includes Onassis' personal relationship with a Turkish officer.
During the Smyrna Catastrophe the Onassis family lost their substantial property holdings which were either taken or given to Turks as bribes to secure their safety and freedom. They became refugees fleeing to Greece after the fire. However, Aristotle Onassis stayed behind to save his father who had been placed in a Turkish concentration camp. He was successful in saving his father's life. During this period Onassis lost three uncles and one aunt with her husband Chrysostomos Konialidis and their daughter, who were burned to death when Turkish soldiers set fire to a church in Thyatira where 500 Christians had found shelter to avoid Turkish soldiers and the Great Fire of Smyrna
Leningrad (St. Petersburg): Kanal Griboyedova, Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ
70 years ago: The Siege of Leningrad by the German and Finish Armies started on 8 September 1941, when the last land connection to the city was severed. Although the Soviets managed to open a narrow land corridor to the city on 18 January 1943, lifting of the siege took place on 27 January 1944, 872 days after it began. It was one of the longest and most destructive sieges in history and one of the most costly in terms of casualties.
Hitler with Finland's Marshal Carl Gustav Mannerheim and President Risto Ryti; meeting in Imatra, Finland, 200 km north-west of Leningrad, in 1942.
On 15 June 1961, First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party and DDR State Council chairman Walter Ulbricht stated in an international press conference, "Niemand hat die Absicht, eine Mauer zu errichten!" (No one has the intention of erecting a wall!). It was the first time the colloquial term Mauer (wall) had been used in this context...
On Saturday, 12 August 1961, the leaders of the DDR attended a garden party at a government guesthouse in Döllnsee, in a wooded area to the north of East Berlin. There Ulbricht signed the order to close the border and erect a wall. At midnight, the police and units of the East German army began to close the border and, by Sunday morning, 13 August, the border with West Berlin was closed. East German troops and workers had begun to tear up streets running alongside the border to make them impassable to most vehicles and to install barbed wire entanglements and fences along the 156 kilometres around the three western sectors, and the 43 kilometres that divided West and East Berlin.
The barrier was built slightly inside East Berlin or East German territory to ensure that it did not encroach on West Berlin at any point. Later, it was built up into the Wall proper, the first concrete elements and large blocks being put in place on 17 August. During the construction of the Wall, National People's Army (NVA) and Combat Groups of the Working Class (KdA) soldiers stood in front of it with orders to shoot anyone who attempted to defect. Additionally, chain fences, walls, minefields and other obstacles were installed along the length of East Germany's western border with West Germany proper. A huge no man's land was cleared to provide a clear line of fire at fleeing refugees...
Deutsches Bundesarchiv (German Federal Archive), Bild 141-0864
70 years ago: The Battle of Crete (German: Luftlandeschlacht um Kreta; Greek: Μάχη της Κρήτης) was a battle during World War II on the Greek island of Crete. It began on the morning of 20 May 1941, when Nazi Germany launched an airborne invasion of Crete under the code-name Unternehmen Merkur ("Operation Mercury"). Greek and Allied forces, along with Cretan civilians, defended the island.
After one day of fighting, the Germans had suffered appalling casualties and none of their objectives had been achieved. The next day, through miscommunication and the failure of Allied commanders to grasp the situation, Maleme airfield in western Crete fell to the Germans, enabling them to fly in reinforcements and overwhelm the defenders. The battle lasted about 10 days.
The Battle of Crete was unprecedented in three respects: it was not only the first battle where the Fallschirmjäger ("parachute rangers") were used on a massive scale, but also the first mainly airborne invasion in military history; the first time the Allies made significant use of intelligence from the deciphered German Enigma code; and the first time invading German troops encountered mass resistance from a civilian population.
The German forces met fierce resistance on the island of Crete, where the elite Fallschirmjäger suffered almost 7,000 casualties. In light of the heavy casualties suffered by the elite 7th Flieger Division, Adolf Hitler forbade further airborne operations. This decision eliminated the option of a massive airborne invasion of the Soviet Union and further expansion in the Mediterranean saving Malta, Gibraltar, Cyprus, and the Suez Canal from airborne invasion.
General Kurt Student, who directed Operation Mercury and was the commander of the Fallschirmjäger, would dub Crete "the graveyard of the German paratroopers" and a "disastrous victory." Acting as the temporary commander of the island, immediately after the surrender of Crete on 31 May 1941, Student issued an order for a launching of a wave of brutal reprisals against the local population with the Massacre of Kondomari and the Holocaust of Kandanos being typical cases.
Executed Cretan civilians at Kondomari, Crete, 1941
1816 summer temperature anomaly with respect to 1971-2000 climatology
The April 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora was the most powerful volcano eruption in recorded history. Mount Tambora is situated on the island of Sumbawa in Indonesia. At least 6 months and probably about 3 years of increased steaming and small phreatic eruptions preceded the 1815 eruption. A moderately large explosive eruption occurred on 5 April 1815, from which ash fell in east Java and thunderlike sounds were heard up to 1,400 kilometers away. A still larger eruption occurred on 10-11 April 1815, beginning as "three columns of fire rising to a great height" and ultimately ejecting about 50 cubic kilometers of magma. The eruption had a Volcanic Explosivity Index ranking of 7, a super-colossal event that ejected immense amounts of volcanic dust into the upper atmosphere. It was the world's largest eruption since the Hatepe eruption over 1,630 years earlier in AD 180.
The Tambora eruption column lowered global temperatures, and some experts believe this led to global cooling and worldwide harvest failures, sometimes known as the Year Without a Summer.
The Year Without a Summer (also known as the Poverty Year, Year There Was No Summer and Eighteen Hundred and Froze to Death) was 1816, in which severe summer climate abnormalities caused average global temperatures to decrease by about 0.4–0.7 °C, resulting in major food shortages across the Northern Hemisphere and leading to the worst famine of the 19th century.
