At eight on the evening of June 16, 1944—not long before dusk on the tenth day after the Allied invasion of France–the Gestapo dragged 28 French resistance fighters from the cells where they had been incarcerated, tortured and interrogated at Montluc prison, Lyon. Handcuffed in pairs, the men were thrust onto an open truck and [...]
Archive for the ‘France’ Category
History heroes: Marc Bloch
Posted: 10 November 2011 in C20th, Crime, Economic history, France, Historians and historiography, History heroes, War0
Amazons: inside the King of Dahomey’s all-woman army
Posted: 23 September 2011 in Africa, C18th, C19th, France, WarIt is noon on a humid Saturday in the fall of 1861, and a missionary by the name of Francesco Borghero has been summoned to a parade ground in Abomey, the capital of the small West African state of Dahomey. He is seated on one side of a huge, open square right in the center [...]
Some experiments with severed heads
Posted: 25 January 2011 in Belgium, C18th, C19th, Crime, Curiosities, France, MedicalEarly on the morning of 18 February 1848, two men and a woman walked into the square in front of the Porte de Hal, in Brussels, where a public execution was due to take place shortly after dawn. They were there to conduct a ground-breaking scientific study, and, by prior arrangement with the Belgian penal [...]
