Valley of the Kings

Valley of the Kings is one of those mystical places that still exist in the world today. An area within Egypt it contains many of the Tombs of the past Kings and Queens. Tutankhamun, Ramses, Seti etc, the remains all are scattered across the vast desert land.

Alot of these were only actually discovered relatively recently in history, with the age of archeologists and adventurers (Indian Jones) the Tombs of those famous historic figures can now be unwrapped and we can learn about ancient Egypt and their people. 

Many of the Tombs are deep down in the ground, through various tunnels and traps. This had meant that a lot of the hidden chambers were kept in excellent condition and far away from the looters hands! The photo above you can see how well preserved the chamber is with the hieroglyphics around the walls. 

Spanish Civil War: 1936 - 1939

 Largely a forgotten war but important non the less. The Spanish Civil war was between 1936-39 and one of the most brutal ever.

Canadian International volunteers in the Spanish Civil War. In 1936, 1700 Canadian volunteers traveled to Spain to fight fascism under Franco. A flavor of what happened there is seen in the recent move Pan's Labyrinth.

Les Miserables 2012 Film

 

 It's been a long time coming but soon we will have Les Miserables the movie. The famous musical is now getting made and will be released this Winter 2012.

A star cast including Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway, Amanda Seyfried etc and produced by Cameron Mackintosh. It promises to be visually stunning and an amazing soundtrack. The trailer which was released this week gives us a flavor of the epic feel to it.

Extended first look of the movie means its a must see the Xmas.

Stalingrad Now and Then (Volgograd)

It has more names than most cities but due to wars, change in countries etc we now have it named Volgograd since 1961. Stalingrad is one of the most famous battles in WW2. It lasted months and is well known for the number of casualties and ultimate defeat of the over stretched Germans on the eastern front.

Snipers played a huge part in this long battle. Moving from bullet / bomb broken building to building, it was an excellent environment to hide and snipe off soldiers from afar. After the war the city was left flattened, the buildings that were left were unstable. One famous building left to this day is:

It is part of a museum tour, where people can safely see first hand a typical war torn building from WW2. Note the bomb ridden roof and virtually every window as bullet marks around it. Snipers snipers snipers! No wonder tunnels and underground safe area's were often used for both soldiers and civilians.

Parody Propaganda posters: Star Wars, Communism downloads.

What with Photoshop and the internet we have a little fad where people are making parody propaganda posters. Generally they are similar to famous WW1 or WW2 with a modern day twist. As we can see from the poster above it has a Star Wars theme.

I really like this one as it is a twist on an original warning us against the perils of Communism poster.

WW2 Propaganda Poster: Comic strip twist

I have posted a fair few Propaganda posters on this blog, virtually half of them warning people not to speak  idle words, showing what can happen if they do so. This by the way of a comic strip pretty much tells us a story of what can happen. Not typical for posters but one assumes people stopped and read the thing or were handed to them in leaflets to read. 

Cliffs of the comic: Geezer tells waiter when he leaves on a ship, someone overheard and tells someone else, that person tell spy and they inform enemy who bomb ship. 

Was idle chit chat such a huge problem or was it just paranoia?

WW1 Propaganda Posters: Careless Talk & Fish mouth

 Another set of two posters that were pretty much the standard in WW1. Keeping ones mouth shut! else the consequences are beyond imaginable.

They did make it rather obvious for people to understand. This time a fish is used getting hooked for opening its mouth, clever stuff.

WW1 Italian Officers Posed Photo 1918

I do like my WW1 photos, you get such a slice of what life was like for these troops just by seeing them. Les just say this bunch of Italian officers look a funny bunch! Alot of them seem to be holding mixing/cooking utensils, either they got called away to get in the photo or they thought it would be interesting posing with everyday items. The man pouring his drink on the right has his fly down and could do with a few more drinks it seems. My favourite is the officer reading the newspaper, chilled very cool sir.

WW1 Propaganda Posters: More Food Advice!

My final post about food advice posters from WW1. I find it amazing there were so many telling people what and what not to eat in those times.

 

So ladies and gentleman buy your food with thought, lol. Make sure you cook it with due care and attention. Correct portions and feed the pets whats left over!

Similar theme, eat less of the important stuff they would prefer the troops to get! No meat for us civvies its all about the corn and rye, sounds delightful. No really.

WW1 Propaganda Poster: Sugar! Sugar Pass the Sugar

Inspired by my recent Cottage cheese poster find I recently found this Sugar poster from WW1. I can see the merit on saving sugar, not throwing it around willy nilly on Fruit or desserts and at least they say only LESS sugar to be used on the important stuff like cake and drinks! lol. What area of peoples  life's were not effected in WW1 & WW2? it seems almost impossible to imagine how little people had in those times, so many resources were needed at the front to keep the troops going.

WW1 Propaganda Posters: Go West Gay men, Funny rations advice

I guess in those days the Pet Shop boys were not about with the flashy videos with muscular men in them. Maybe they got the idea of those videos from this WW1 propaganda poster? Was this a huge pull to get men to sign up for the navy in WW1? I have my doubts.

I have looked  at over 300 propaganda posters from around the world over a number of conflicts but I have never seen one so mental as this. Eat more cottage cheese :P lol. It's protein value is more than various bits and bobs of meat which are rarer and more of a drain on the countries resources. They provide a lovely recipe card with how to you cottage cheese.

On a personal note I found it hard to remember the last time I actually had cottage cheese, we used to have it alot growing up, especially with salads yum yum. A guess would be 10 years ago on my last cottage cheese experience :) maybe I will get a tub from marks & sparks next week.

Tooled up in Stalingrad WW2

Generally we assume everyone in Stalingrad was low on ammo, hungry and dug in a bunker/building somewhere for months on end. Its nice to see these hardy soldiers tooled up and ready for action. Maybe fresh from home coming to the front, tool kits in front and hand held grenades around the waste, saying that they look a bit unhappy..

Shroud of Turin

I have always been fascinated about the Shroud of Turin, its been a very hectic few years for the Shroud what with the advances in carbon dating and such like. It is good imo that no one can say for sure if it was in fact Jesus face on the cloth.

The Kardshians are not the only thing to come out of Armenia

Armiena is a pretty unknown country on the boarder of Europe and Asian. A country with a rich and varied history. This photo shows us a family from the 1890's in typical clothing. Kim and the rest of the Kardashians dont have a patch on this lot.

WW1 Artillery: Howitzer

WW1 and typical battles on the western front like the somme often had large artillery that would pummel the enemys lines 24/7. These machines are not like todays weapons where 1-2 men can fire off huge cannon type devices! Look at the number of men it took to load, hold it in place and fire the thing. 12 men in the picture around the Howitzer :) I bet the kickback on these was deadly if not setup correctly.