Summit Gist

This would absolutely freak me out. 2 years ago, A snake bit Mara Jo Thomas of Princeton, Kentucky right on the face.   It barely missed her eye.    So, how did this happen?     As you see, the non-venomous serpent made it up to her patriotic door decoration — maybe just resting in the shade.     Mara Jo was inside when her 13-year-old daughter who was outside spotted the snake and screamed.     Mara Jo ran out the door and … POW.     The snake struck — hitting her just above the right eye.     She never saw it coming.     That had to hurt.     Still, she kept her cool, took a snapshot of the snake, gathered up her three kids and went to the hospital.         The good news: She’s fine.     Mara Jo’s husband promptly removed the snake — again it was non-venomous.    But, that doesn’t matter.    If that was me I would have collapsed from a heart attac...

During the late summer of 1600, the Fushimi Castle in Kyoto, Japan, was besieged. Here, a garrison of 2000 men led by Torii Mototada held out for 11 days against an overwhelming force of 40 000 men led by Ishida Mitsunari.  Constant chaos and civil war had raged for 150 years when the Sengoku-period was in its final years. It wouldn't take long until the country entered more peaceful times(Edo-period) when Tokugawa Ieyasus unified all of Japan under his rule and established the Tokugawa shogunate after defeating his biggest rival, Ishida Mitsunari.  Torii Mototada was loyal to Tokugawa Ieyasu and they both engaged in a series of battles against Ishida Mitsunari and his allies that would lead up to a large and final clash, The Battle of Sekigahara, in october 1600. The siege of Fushimi Castle was one of the battles fought prior to that.  Torii knew that a battle at this place would end in defeat, but chose to stay and defend the castle to delay Ishida and his army. This ga...

An unidentified American soldier, shot dead by a German sniper, clutches his rifle and hand grenade, March 1945, Coblenz, Germany. You could hear bombing from the Battle of the Somme all the way from London (~300 miles / 480 kilometers) and according to some testimonies, soldiers had to rely on their.watch to know if it was day or night. because.everything was on fire all the damn time. It's hard to even wrap your mind around it, the deadliest day in the war saw the French lose.27,000 soldiers (on August 22, 1914) and some of those who survived the early days of the war still had 4 years of fighting ahead of them. It's crazy that some Germans wanted another go at it only 20 years later and it's a wonder most survivors didn't completely break.down afterwards (though PTSD was starting to get documented, it seems surprising that not everyone was totally shell-shocked after getting through those battles). My great grandfather was at Passchendaele, aged 17, toward the end of...

Execution of Hisao Tani, implicated in the Nanjing Massacre Hisao Tani (谷 寿夫, Tani Hisao, 22 December 1882 – 26 April 1947) was a lieutenant general in the Imperial Japanese Army in the Second Sino-Japanese War who was convicted of war crimes. Forces under his command committed the 1937 Nanjing Massacre. Tani was tried in the Nanjing War Crimes Tribunal and executed In July 1937, the IJA 6th Division was assigned to the Japanese China Garrison Army, and immediately began combat operations in the Second Sino-Japanese War starting with the ongoing Battle of Beiping–Tianjin. Afterward, it participated in Beiping–Hankou Railway Operation. In October 1937, the division was re-subordinated to IJA 10th Army and attacked the Chinese troops concentration at Hangzhou Bay. By December 1937, it shifted west to join the IJA 18th division and IJA 114th division in the Battle of Nanking and ultimately in the Nanjing Massacre Returned to Japan at the end of 1937, Tani became commander of the Ce...

The US pilot who shot and killed a Japanese pilot mid fall with his pistol, 1943 Despite what you think, this is a real story and it is even more unbelievable and badass than you think. Owen J Baggett was a US pilot, who was flying a B-24 bomber to destroy a bridge in Burma, however his plane and squadron was attacked by at least 13  Japanese Ki-43 Hayabusa fighter planes and a fight in the sky took Place Bagget's B-24 was heavily damaged due to it's big size and slower speeds. The fuel tank of the B-24 was shot and the aircraft went on fire.... Read story  Bagget and his crew just jumped out with a few mere seconds to spare before the B-24 blew up. Little did he know, Bagget would make history in just a few minutes.  While falling in the air, Baggett deployed his parachute. Roughed up and parachuting through an aerial battle, Baggett continued his decent through the fight but remembered a disturbing fact. Japanese planes had a tendency to shoot or crash into US pilots pa...

Wilson Chinn, a freed slave from Louisiana, poses with the equipment used to punish slaves. Anti-slavery activists have used such images to raise awareness against the practice. 1863 "Slavery As It Is" is a book written about 1840 and was basically the first major abolitionist book in America. Rather than preach about the badness of slavery, it was a detailed collection of hundreds of stories with evidence like clippings from southern newspapers. They described devices like this that The slaves in pain for a month or more as a punishment. If a slaves tried tiki run away, they would clamp this in for a month or longer. Even permanently. It was designed to make the slave miserable, and if they died, that was a problem on one hand, but it served as a deterrent to other slaves. This is a pretty good article I found. If you google his name, you will find other similar articles. Photos were published in Harper's as propaganda. What I haven't found yet is what happened to hi...

Does this photo really show Belgians hanging a child in the Congo? The caption reads: “This is in 1908. Belgians reading the Bible before hanging a 7 year old black child in the Congo under King Leopold. The boy was hanged because his father did not produce enough wheat for the colonialists." check comment for more details “Atrocities were mostly committed against adults -- women were kidnapped and men were killed. visit link to continue reading and see more photos. DOES THIS PHOTO REALLY SHOW BELGIANS HANGING A CHILD IN THE CONGO? A photograph shared thousands of times in multiple posts shows a black child standing on a platform, surrounded by white men holding a rope. Captions claim the picture shows Belgians preparing to hang a child in the Congo in 1908. However, US military historians told us the men’s clothing suggests they are American soldiers. We’re still trying to track down the source of this image. Can you help? The photo has been shared on Facebook, for example in thi...

Officers Yoshitaka Kawane and Kurataro Hirano stand as they are sentenced to death for causing the deaths of up to nearly 20000 prisoners during the Bataan Death March. The victims, who had to walk 65 miles, were offered almost no food or water. Anyone who stopped was usually killed (Tokyo, 1948) The Bataan Death March Depictions of the march, by survivor Ben Steele The court documents for Kawane and Hirano (it specifies what kinds of atrocities the officers presided over). The case was heard in front of an American military tribunal as part of the Yokohama War Crimes Trials. It.was one of the most high-profile cases. For those curious about their positions and ranks: Yoshitaka Kawane was an IJA Major General; Kurataro Hirano was an IJA Colonel. In addition to the victims of the march, Kawane and Hirano were also found guilty of contributed to the deaths of thousand of American and Filipino POWs in Camp O'Donnell, the destination of the march. After reviewing the case, U.S. officia...