KNOW YOUR BEST( PRESENT AND PAST HISTORY)

Nigerian civil war between Nigeria’s federal government and the secessionist state Biafra that lasted from 1967 to 1970. Nigeria became an independent country on October 1, 1960. Abubakar Tafawa Balewa was its first federal prime minister—he had held that position since 1957—and Nnamdi Azikiwe became its president of the Senate, which was a largely ceremonial role. Following a UN-supervised referendum in 1961, the northern part of the Trust Territory of the Cameroons joined Nigeria’s Northern region, while in October the Southern Cameroons united with Cameroun to form the Federal Republic of Cameroon. On October 1, 1963, Nigeria became a republic, with Azikiwe as its president, although, as prime minister, Balewa remained more politically powerful. In Nigeria and its surrounding region, long-standing regional stresses—ethnic competitiveness, educational inequality, and economic imbalance being the most prominent—again came to the fore in a controversial census during 1962–63. In an

 Most of us are familiar with the guillotine, a means of execution and a symbol of the Reign of Terror, a particularly bloody period of the French Revolution. For the revolutionaries, it was the “peoples’ avenger,” the symbol of their righteous anger, while for their opponents, the guillotine represented the uncontrolled violence of the masses. Even today, guillotine imagery is used the world over in art and activism critical of class and wealth disparities.  However, the guillotine was not originally designed as a symbol or even a weapon of class warfare. It was conceived as a practical, simple, and humane means to an inhumane end—a way to put someone to death quickly and cleanly, without the suffering that many other commonly used methods of execution tended to inflict. Beheadings were already an accepted form of execution in the late 18th century, after all, and the guillotine as we know it was not even the first mechanical means to perform the operation. Similar devices were alre

 Humans have a long history of developing inventive ways to hurt each other. There’s seemingly no end to the horrifying torture devices that people have conceived. But one of the most terrifying methods of torture ever created doesn’t require a man-made device at all — it just requires a rat. Many people naturally feel a sense of fear and revulsion toward rats. The animals will chew through nearly anything, including human flesh, and that made them the perfect tools for torture. Especially if the torturer knew how to use them. Various methods of rat torture have been practiced around the world for centuries. From ancient Rome and medieval London to 20th-century South America, this is the grisly history of one of the world’s most chilling torture methods. It’s unclear exactly where and when rat torture first originated, but it was used at least as far back as 60 C.E. in the Roman Empire. Then, according to the Torture Museum, Emperor Nero used the rodents as tools of “justice” agains

  Let's say you're the king of England in the 13th century. You enjoy absolute power and authority, but only if you can keep your grip on the throne, and there are all sorts of plotting pretenders and rebellious radicals keen on toppling your reign and seeing you dead. So, what can you do to scare them off? You can't post a bunch of threatening Tweets (heck, the printing press is still a few centuries away). But maybe, just maybe, you can devise a form of punishment so twisted and sadistic that only a lunatic would even entertain the thought of committing high treason. That's how historians believe medieval monarchs came up with the wildly violent execution method known as hanging, drawing and quartering. If you've seen the film "Braveheart," then you've had a (nauseating) taste of just how torturous and cruel the practice was. The Scottish rebel William Wallace was hanged, drawn and quartered in 1305 (accused of being a traitor to King Edward I) and i

  Boiling someone to death was an unspeakably agonizing endeavor. Though the Roman emperor Nero reportedly killed thousands of Christians with this method long before the Middle Ages, it would also become a popular way of punishing coin forgers, especially in the Holy Roman Empire. Later on in Britain, King Henry VIII introduced the practice of boiling to death as a way to execute people who used poison to commit murder. As one might expect, people sentenced to this punishment were simply placed in a large container of heated liquid, which might be water, oil, wax, or even molten lead. And then they basically got cooked. The sensation of being boiled alive was an absolutely horrific one. The method could be made even worse if the water had yet to reach boiling temperatures by the time the person was submerged. Oftentimes, the limbs and extremities were the first things to burn. After the person’s outer layers began to cook, their organs began to cook as well. The fluids rose in tempe

  Poena cullei , also known as sacking, was one of the most gruesome Roman execution methods. In this method, the guilty person is put in a sack and thrown into the water to be left to die. This punishment is given to people who are guilty of paricide, which means killing their parents. The person would be put alive in a leather sack with several animals, including a dog, monkey, snake, and rooster. The sack would then be tied and thrown into deep water to ensure the person inside the sack died underwater.This method of punishment was first used around 100 BC. However, the initial existence of this method of execution is estimated to have existed a century earlier. At first this punishment was simply putting the snake in a sack. The entry of other animals began after the Roman Empire. The penalty of poena cullei is said to have become famous during the reign of Emperor Hadrian. During his reign, the emperor was said to have had the punishment of putting the convict in a sack with a roo

  William Kidd spent his last days on earth in Newgate Gaol, where on Sunday 18 May 1701, he heard his final sermon, preached by the prison chaplain on the cheerful text, ‘For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ.’ Kidd still hoped for a reprieve, and the others who had been condemned with him for piracy received it – all except one, an Irishman named Darby Mullins.  On the afternoon of 23 May, they were taken, with two Frenchmen who were also to die, from Newgate in two horse-drawn carts, guarded by marshals and led by the Admiralty Marshal and the silver oar which was the Admiralty’s symbol. To the chaplain’s shocked disapproval, Kidd was the worse for drink. At five o’clock, low tide, they reached Execution Dock at Wapping, a few yards below Wapping Old Stairs, in the presence of a large and lively crowd.  There was a permanent gallows for pirates there and after the hanging the corpses were customarily chained to a post on the foreshore, where they were left until

  As the old saying goes, there is more than one way to skin a cat. What about skinning a human? It turns out that in the ancient world there were quite a few ways to execute condemned men and women (skinning being one of them). Here we look at 8 of the most macabre methods for dispatching people in antiquity. Arguably the most famous figure of Ancient Greece is the Athenian Socrates (470-399 BC), executed in old age by being commanded to drink hemlock.  This method of indirect execution was typical of the capital punishment dished out to Athenian citizens. They could be banished into a wilderness to die of exposure or thrown into a chasm to die of their injuries. (Although slaves tended to be beaten to death with clubs). One Greek ruler is alleged to have used something far more sinister, however. In the sixth century BC, Phalaris, the tyrant of Akragas in Sicily, was presented with a device made by the Attic sculptor Perillos. This was known as ‘the brazen bull’. Made entirely of bro

 18 May 2017: a Somali military court has executed a man who was sentenced to death on 14 March 2017 to be involved in a car bomb attack at garden market in Waberi district in Mogadishu.  Addressing reporters at the scene of the execution, a military court official said they executed Mr. Abdulqadir Abdi Hassan by firing squad in Mogadishu.  Mr. Hassan was the driver of the exploded vehicle the court told the reporters. Hassan has been in police custody since the day of the explosion. The Market was bomb on 27th November 2016 killing 15 people while injuring 20 others who were most civilians.  The military court previously executed soldiers charged with murder and suspected Al-Shabaab members convicted of carrying out assassinations against officials and lawmakers in Mogadishu over the past few years.  The UN-backed Somalia’s Federal government has pledged to hold its forces to account for abuses. (Source: Radio Dalsan)

Patrick Gibson had done the right thing his whole life. He joined the army, raised a family, and earned his own money to buy everything he could ever need. But a trip to the grocery store had him seeing red after he spotted a couple’s grocery cart loaded to the max. If anyone knows a thing or two about earning money to pay for things, it’s Patrick Gibson, a soldier in the United States Army. When he was single, he only had to worry about his own needs, but now Gibson didn’t just have himself to think about anymore. Gibson assumed that joining the army would have made life financially easier, but leaving his family behind for months to serve his country was really tough. He kept reminding himself what his father taught him: there was no such thing as a free lunch in this world. But then it became clear that some people didn’t share that same philosophy. When Gibson met Whitney, he realized they were destined to be together, so he popped the question, and before long, he and his wife wel

  Historian hits out at the inaccuracies in the blockbuster starring Harry Styles and Tom Hardy. But while it shows the famous little ships which went to the aid of the British Army and evacuated the French beach between May 26 and June 4 1940, it leaves out the vital role played by brave Birmingham soldiers who remained behind to fight while the rest of the Army retreated. And it doesn’t mention the Massacre of Wormhout, where dozens of prisoners were killed in cold blood. Author Hugh Sebag-Montefiore has thoroughly researched the period for his book Dunkirk: Fight to the Last Man, which has been updated and released as a new audiobook. He says: “It’s a romantic myth to give the Navy and the little ships all the credit for the evacuation. Although they played a crucial role, it is now clear that the evacuation would never have succeeded had it not been for those who remained behind to fight on. This rearguard included the men serving with the 2nd Battalion the Royal Warwickshire Regim

 This is an art piece dedicated to those who died on D-day. It was designed by Andy Moss and Jamie Wardley.  It was created with the help of volunteers. It shows outlines of dead soldiers who died both attacking and defending the beaches of Normandy. The art piece was made in 2013. D-day is one of the most infamous land invasions of all time. It consisted of American, British, Canadian, and other allied troops attacking the heavily defended coast of Normandy, France.  It was divided into 5 different beaches codenamed Juno, Utah, Gold, Sword, and Omaha. The deadliest of all was Omaha. The Germans thought the Allies would land at Calais, as it is closest to Britain, but the Allies chose Normandy to trick the Germans. 9000 men lost their lives. Before the invasion, Allied planes dropped 13,000 bombs at the coastal defenses, but they all missed their targets, especially at Omaha Beach, which led to the highest death toll at 2,400.  The bombs were meant to damage and destroy the coastal def

Poltergeist's ending sees the Freelings encounter multiple skeletons arising out of the ground, skeletons that once in fact belonged to real people. Poltergeist's ending sees the Freelings encounter multiple skeletons arising out of the ground, skeletons that once in fact belonged to real people. When it comes to ghost movies, few command as much respect as 1982's Poltergeist. While there's been a debate ever since its release about who really directed Poltergeist - some involved say credited director Tobe Hooper, other insist it was producer Steven Spielberg - the final product remains great, regardless of who was steering the ship. Set in the quiet California suburb of Cuesta Verde, Poltergeist looks at what happens when the life of a seemingly quite normal family suddenly gets turned upside down by supernatural events. The Freelings find themselves menaced by the spirits of the dead, particularly one dubbed "The Beast," who seek to use their young daught

  Showing disturbed signs from at least the age of 10, 15-year-old Alyssa Bustamante premeditated the murder of her 9-year-old neighbor, Elizabeth Olten, on the 21st of October, 2009 in St. Martins, Missouri. Alyssa was born to a teenage mother, who has a criminal record for petty crimes, drug possession, and a DUI. Alyssa's father was in prison serving a 10-year sentence for assault. Alyssa was described as a violent, depressed, and angry child, always speaking to her friends about the darker side of life: gothic poetry, cutting herself, numerous suicide attempts, and even stated to one friend "I would love to know how it feels to kill someone." It seemed as if the fantasy wasn't enough and she wanted the real thing, so one Friday evening, while other teenagers were out doing what teens do, Alyssa began to dig two graves. That opportunity for murder came to fruition 4 days later, when she spotted her neighbor returning home from her friends house. 9-year-old Elizabet

  A woman said to me,  'It took me years to really know that men cry too.  I took my husband for a super human.  I see him leave the house everyday and come back providing for us.  One day as I have left the house and he was at home,  I remembered that I needed to take something along,  I turned back and headed home. As I got home,  I tried going through the back  door which was closer to the window of our room. I heard my husband crying like a baby asking God to help me get a job so I can help him fend for the family.  He has never complained to me before but that day,  I broke down in tears realizing that my husband has held much of his pains alone"  A young married lady went to her mother and complained that her husband has not always bought  things she wanted from him. The mother asked her,  'How many of those things have you bought for yourself?". She stayed quiet and said,  'But he is my husband?".  The mother replied her,  'Have you ever foun

  During a game of hide-and-seek in Chittagong, Bangladesh, a 15-year-old boy named Fahim found what he thought was the perfect hiding spot: a shipping container. He climbed in, hoping that his friends would never find him. While he was waiting, he fell asleep — and when he woke up, he was locked inside. Fahim spent the next six days inside the container without food or water. And when he finally emerged, he was 2,300 miles from home in West Port, Malaysia. On Jan. 17, 2023, staff at Malaysia’s Port Klang reportedly heard knocking and shouting coming from inside one of the shipping containers that had recently arrived from Bangladesh. They contacted emergency services before opening it, and everyone was dumbfounded when a young, emaciated boy walked out of the box. In the footage, Fahim appears dazed and disoriented, and he cries out to onlookers for food. He was eventually given something to eat and told to sit down while medical personnel examined him. According to the India Times, t

  First photo -The British government planned the evacuation of four million people—mostly women and children—from urban areas, including 1.4 million during the battle of Britain  Second photo -More than 3 million indian kids starved to death in India ( British colony) in 1941 during famine of Bengal . Fates of children of two different continents one belong to Britain and other belong to British colony during WW2. The Bengal famine of 1943 was a famine in the Bengal province of British India (now Bangladesh and eastern India) during World War II. An estimated 2.1–3 million,out of a population of 60.3 million, died of starvation, malaria, and other diseases aggravated by malnutrition, population displacement, unsanitary conditions and lack of health care. Millions were impoverished as the crisis overwhelmed large segments of the economy and catastrophically disrupted the social fabric. Eventually, families disintegrated; men sold their small farms and left home to look for work or to j

  Soviet authorities order the mass killing of Polish officers that became known as the Katyn Massacre. #RememberTheHeroe "The Katyn massacre, a series of mass executions of Polish nationals carried out by the NKVD (People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs) in April and May 1940, was prompted by NKVD chief Lavrentiy Beria's proposal to execute all captive members of the Polish officer corps, dated 5 March 1940, approved by the Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, including its leader, Joseph Stalin.  The number of victims is estimated at about 22,000. The victims were executed in the Katyn Forest in Russia, the Kalinin and Kharkiv prisons, and elsewhere. Of the total killed, about 8,000 were officers imprisoned during the 1939 Soviet invasion of Poland, another 6,000 were police officers, with rest Polish intelligentsia that the Soviets deemed to be 'intelligence agents, gendarmes, landowners, saboteurs, factory owners, lawyers, officials, and priest

  European Atrocities In AfricaC ongo Genocide by Belgium King Leopold 1885 – 1908 After the Berlin Conference of 1884 the 905,000 square miles of the Belgian Congo, now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, became the personal property of King Leopold II of Belgium. His genocidal exploitation of the territory, particularly the rubber trade, caused many deaths and much suffering. Murder and mutilation were common. Failure to meet the rubber collection quotas was punishable by death. The Force Publique were required to provide a hand of their victims as proof when they had shot and killed someone, as it was believed that they would otherwise use the munitions for hunting food. As a consequence, the rubber quotas were in part paid off in chopped-off hands. Sometimes the hands were collected by the soldiers of the Force Publique, sometimes by the villages themselves. There were even small wars where villages attacked neighbouring villages to gather hands, since their rubber quotas were to

 A mysterious history of how Hundreds of people died from botched treatments and infections in Victorian London,  Just like today, tooth decay was an unpleasant part of life, These amateur ‘surgeons’ would use pliers or forceps to extract the rotten tooth - without any anaesthetic to ease the agonising pain. Open wide! Back-street horror of Victorian dentistry exposed in grim photos from a time when a toothache would mean a painful trip to the barber.  In 19th and early 20th Century dentistry was done by barbers and blacksmiths. Tooth decay was common but the 'surgeons' would yank teeth out with forceps. Hundreds of people died from botched treatments and infections in Victorian London. Many people still find a trip to the dentists a daunting prospect now but these horrific Victorian photos reveal a time when getting your teeth fixed was a real life-or-death procedure. Just like today, tooth decay was an unpleasant part of life, but for the most of 1800s and early 1900s, extrac

  In late March 1943, Professor Gerhard Buhtz, forensic medicine specialist from Breslau, oversaw the first exhumations of Polish officers murdered by the NKVD in Katyń. It wasn’t long before the Polish laborers excavating the pits came across two bodies which seemed out of place: one belonged to a 13 year-old boy wearing shorts, sandals and a jacket, the other to a young woman dressed in a military garb. At first, they were thought to be mother and son – which didn’t add up, since this was an execution site for Polish officers, policemen, border guards and public servants, not for families – and less so for children. With time, the puzzle was solved. The woman was Janina Lewandowska, Polish Army pilot and radio operator, and the boy must have been an accidental victim – probably a local child who got too curious about the shooting in the woods, came too close, was spotted and killed as well. Both – 2nd Lieutenant Lewandowska, née Dowbor-Muśnicka, and the lad – were most likely shot on

  During the last roll-call in the history of the German Nazi Auschwitz camp which took place on 17 January 1945, the overall number of prisoners within the entire system of Auschwitz camps and sub camps was 67,012: 48,340 men & 18,672 women. Between 17 and 21 January SS guards led some 56,000 prisoners out of the camps and sub-camps, forcing them to march dozens of kilometres in severe winter condition.  The main march routes led to Wodzisław Śląski and Gliwice, from where the prisoners were transported by train to other concentration camps.  However, some of the prisoners were forced to march all the way to the destination camp.  For example, over 3,000 prisoners from the Neu-Dachs sub-camp (in Jaworzno) were forced to cover the distance of 250 km on foot to Gross-Rosen concentration camp. During the evacuation any prisoners who were too exhausted to continue the march or tried to run away were shot dead by the SS escort.  It has been estimated that around 3,000 people were kille

  Unemployed 26 year old Jesse was convicted of the murder of his aunt, 50 year old Mabel Jennings-Edmunds at her home at 156 York Road, Lambeth on Saturday the 21st of July 1923.  Mabel ran a lodging house at the address and her tenants had become concerned about her disappearance.  They asked Jesse about it and he assured them that she had gone to Sheerness for a holiday with a man named “Reg”. However, another tenant, Mrs. Hannah Morris became suspicious of this story and informed the police.  She also told them that she had heard Jesse and his aunt quarreling and noted that he had a black eye.  The police interviewed all the residents and Jesse made a statement in which he claimed he had killed his aunt after she had been nagging him all day. On the 23rd of July an envelope was fished out of the river Thames by police and found to contain Mabel’s marriage certificate and a letter.  The letter said “To those concerned: You will find my wife in the house, but before you read these li

  Famous picture of Waffen-SS soldier: Walter Ambrusch, during the Battle of the Bulge. The desperation on his face has come to symbolize the state of Germany's exhausted military in 1945. A young soldier from the 1st SS Panzer Division carrying ammunition boxes forward during the Battle of the Bulge after the men had ambushed and completely destroyed the US Army 14th Cavalry Group on the road between Poteau and Recht, Belgium, 18 December, 1944. Ambush at Poteau – Battle of the Bulge, December the 18th 1944.  MG42 Machine Gunner possibly belonging to the 2.Kompanie/1.SS-Panzergrenadier-Regiment/LSSAH, Kampfgruppe Hansen at Poteauer Strasse, Belgium.  Early in the morning an American convoy of the 14th Cavalry Group was ambushed by SS Kampfgruppe “Hansen” .  With help from the heavy fog 'Hansen' achieved complete surprise and forced the allies to abandon their vehicles and pull back to the town of Poteau to set up a hasty defence perimeter.   Many have tried to identify the

Children as young as 13 were hanged from cranes, six at a time, in a barbaric two-month purge of Iran's prisons on the direct orders of Ayatollah Khomeini, according to a new book by his former deputy. More than 30,000 political prisoners were executed in the 1988 massacre - a far larger number than previously suspected. Secret documents smuggled out of Iran reveal that, because of the large numbers of necks to be broken, prisoners were loaded onto forklift trucks in groups of six and hanged from cranes in half-hourly intervals. Gruesome details are contained in the memoirs of Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri, The Memoirs of Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, one of the founders of the Islamic regime. He was once considered Khomeini's anointed successor, but was deposed for his outspokenness, and is now under house arrest in the holy city of Qom. Published privately last month after attempts by the regime to suppress it, the revelations have prompted demands from Irani