Sunday, August 30, 2009

Today In History

On this date in 1939, Hitler had an attack on a German radio station on the Polish border faked, and started the shooting part of World War II in Europe. He'd been winning the war without shooting for a couple of years, but those tactics had stopped working when Chamberlain started to grow a spine. So he decided to find out if all those shiny new guns, planes, and tanks were worth all of the slave labor.

By time all was said and done, between 50 and 100 million people, both civilian and military, around the world would be dead. The world found out what happens when you mate unspeakable evil with science and technology.

World War II is the subject of an almost endless series of movies, documentaries, books, and television shows. Even as the World War II generation slowly dwindles away, we are fascinated by it. Maybe because it was the most critical time in the last century. The politics, technology, morals, and almost everything else that we deal with today has roots in the Second World War.

For those of you who listen to podcasts, Dan Carlin is doing a series called "Ghosts of the Ostfront", which details the fighting on the Russian Front. I recommend it.

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