DAILY ENTERTAINMENT NEWS

1941 – Holocaust: Fifteen hundred Jews from Pidhaytsi are sent by Nazis to Bełżec extermination camp. Below is an extermination camp while on the right is a killing center. Belzec was the first of the Nazi German extermination camps created for implementing Operation Reinhard during the Holocaust. Operating from March 17, 1942 to the end of June 1943, the camp was situated in German-occupied Poland.  Between 430,000 and 500,000 Jews are believed to have been killed by German Nazis at Belzec, along with an unknown number of Poles and Roma. Also, only two Jews are known to have survived Belzec and the war: Rudolf Reder and Chaim Hirszman. The lack of survivors(who could have given testimony) is the primary reason why this camp is so little known despite the enormous number of victims. 

1831 – Nat Turner is arrested for leading the bloodiest slave rebellion in United States history. After his arrest, Turner was taken to the seat of Southampton County, a small town called Jerusalem (present-day Courtland, Virginia). Six days after his capture, he stood trial and was convicted of “conspiring to rebel and making insurrection.” Sentenced to death, Turner was hanged from a tree on November 11, 1831

Statue of Liberty towering over Paris just before it was disassembled and shipped to New York, 1884. The Statue of Liberty underwent a restoration from 1984 to 1986 in New York. This monumental project, a collaboration between the United States and France, aimed to address structural issues and enhance the statue's appearance. The restoration involved replacing the corroded copper skin with new sheets, restoring the statue's iconic golden hue. Extensive work on the iron framework ensured its stability, and the project was completed in time for the statue's centennial celebration in 1986. This ambitious effort not only preserved the Statue of Liberty but also reaffirmed her status as a symbol of liberty, democracy, and the enduring American spirit,  inspiring visitors from around the world and standing as a testament to the commitment to safeguarding this iconic symbol for future generations.

In the 1940s, conjoined twins Margaret Gibb received a kiss from her boyfriend as her sister Mary observed.  In 1966, it was revealed that Margaret had developed bladder cancer, which subsequently metastasized to her lungs over the following year. Despite their health challenges, the twins steadfastly declined any surgical separation. On August 29, 1967, Margaret passed away, and two minutes later, Mary also passed away. They were both 55 years old. Their parents refused to separate them on two occasions, even when medical circumstances seemed to call for it. Despite not gaining as much fame as some other conjoined twins like the Hilton sisters, the Gibb sisters had a significant career in vaudeville and with circuses. After retiring from show business, they opened a gift shop. After closing their shop, they lived a more reclusive life, mainly seen when traveling to and from church.

This shot from Buster Keaton's "The General" (1926) cost $42,000 (equal to $600,000 today). The production company left the wreckage of the train in the Row River, south of Cottage Grove in Oregon. The site became a tourist attraction until 1944 when the wreckage was finally salvaged and scrapped during World War II. "The General" went way over budget, costing $750,000 (equal to $11 million today) in total. Some of the unforeseen costs included "Keaton being knocked unconscious; an assistant director being shot in the face with a blank cartridge; a train wheel running over a brakeman's foot, resulting in a $2,900 lawsuit; and the train's wood-burning engine causing numerous fires. The fires often spread to forests and farmers' haystacks, which cost the production $25 per burnt stack." In the end, the film only made $500,000 at the box office and was panned by film critics. Despite failing financially and losing his ...

The last American slave ship arrived in Mobile, Alabama, in 1860, despite the illegal importation of slaves. On board were approximately 160 West African individuals who had been captured and enslaved.  One of the captives, named Cudjo Lewis, was acutely aware of the potential erasure of his birth culture as he toiled in this new land. However, when he eventually gained his freedom, Lewis took action to preserve his heritage. Using the money he had earned, Cudjo Lewis purchased two acres of land and established a self-sufficient community for the survivors of the last slave ship. This community, known to outsiders as Africatown, aimed to recreate aspects of the West African home from which they had been forcibly removed.  Lewis wanted to ensure that extended families could live together, conversations could be held in regional languages, and traditions that might otherwise have been lost in America could be maintained. Today, Africatown still...

In 1907, a British sailor is seen unshackling an enslaved man who had been chained for three years.    The photo was taken by Joseph Chidwick, a crew member of the HMS Sphinx.  The man in the photos had managed to escape a slave-trading outpost off Oman's coast upon learning of the Royal Navy's presence nearby.   In 2007, this image was gifted to the Royal Navy Museum by Samuel, Joseph Chidwick's son, who shared the following remarks:   "The pictures were taken by my father who was serving aboard HMS Sphinx while on armed patrol off the Zanzibar and Mozambique coast in about 1907. They caught quite a few slavers and those particular slaves that are in the pictures happened while he was on watch.  That night a dhow (sailing vessel) sailed by and the slaves were all chained together. He raised the alarm and they got them on to the ship and got the chains knocked off them. They then questioned them and sent a pa...

7At 2 a.m. on July 11, 1958, newlyweds Richard and Mildred Loving were jostled out of their bedroom by a Virginia sheriff. "What are you doing in bed with this woman?" the sheriff demanded of Richard, a white man.  "I'm his wife," Mildred, a Black and Indigenous American woman replied. The sheriff barked, "Not here you're not."⁠ At the time, interracial marriage was still illegal in Virginia, and the Lovings were arrested for unlawful cohabitation.  Exiled from their hometown for nine years, the couple eventually decided to take the state to the Supreme Court — and in 1967, the historic ruling on Loving v. Virginia decriminalized interracial marriage all across the country.

Dogor was found in the permafrost near the Indigirka River  in eastern Siberia during summer 2018.  It is the body of a two-month-old male canine puppy. The body is remarkably well preserved, and its fur, whiskers, nose and teeth remain intact. The animal has been determined to be 18,000 years old. At first, DNA sequencing was unable to identify the animal as either a dog or a wolf. But it was later identified as an ancient wolf.

This is the last photo that was taken of Mark Twain shortly before he died on April 21, 1910.  Mark Twain as a baby wasn't expected to live since he remained sickly and frail until he was  7 years old.  Even his formal education was limited as his father died of pneumonia (at the age of 49) when he was just 11 years of age.  But these factors did not stop him from becoming a great writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. His last words — written on a note by his death bed — read "Death, the only immortal who treats us all alike, whose pity and whose peace and whose refuge are for all -- the soiled and the pure, the rich and the poor, the loved and the unloved."⁠