Photo by Galen C. Dalrymple, copyright 2024. All Rights Reserved.
The first time you ever see an ancient Egyptian temple it mind-bending. But to see it at night is mind-bendingly magical. The contrasts between the light and dark, and the way the hieroglyphs pick up shadows makes them seem to come to life and scamper around the massive columns.
Today’s photo was shot in the Temple of Luxor and shows Rameses II enthroned as if waiting to greet those who come to pay him homage.
If you ever get to Egypt, I highly recommend that you visit some of the temples after hours. Prepare to have your mind blown.
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY: in 1914, ending a bitter coalminers’ strike, Colorado militiamen attacked a tent colony of strikers, killing dozens of men, women and children.
When the evictions failed to end the strike, the Rockefeller interests hired private detectives that attacked the tent colonies with rifles and Gatling guns. The miners fought back, and several were killed. When the tenacity of the strikers became apparent, the Rockefellers approached the governor of Colorado, who authorized the use of the National Guard. The Rockefellers agreed to pay their wages.
At first, the strikers believed that the government had sent the National Guard to protect them. They soon discovered, though, that the militia was under orders to break the strike. On this day in 1914, two companies of guardsmen attacked the largest tent colony of strikers near the town of Ludlow, home to about 1,000 men, women, and children. The attack began in the morning with a barrage of bullets fired into the tents. The miners shot back with pistols and rifles.
After a strike leader was killed while attempting to negotiate a truce, the strikers feared the attack would intensify. To stay safe from gunfire, women and children took cover in pits dug beneath the tents. At dusk, guardsmen moved down from the hills and set the tent colony on fire with torches, shooting at the families as they fled into the hills. The true carnage, however, was not discovered until the next day, when a telephone linesman discovered a pit under one of the tents filled with the burned remains of 11 children and two women.
Although the “Ludlow Massacre” outraged many Americans, the tragedy did little to help the beleaguered Colorado miners and their families. Additional federal troops crushed the coalminers’ strike, and the miners failed to achieve recognition of their union or any significant improvement in their wages and working conditions. Sixty-six men, women and children died during the strike, but not a single militiaman or private detective was charged with any crime. – The History Channel
TRIVIA FOR TODAY: During WWII, the Japanese launched 9,000 “wind ship weapons” of paper and rubberized-silk balloons that carried incendiary and anti-personnel bombs to the U.S. More than 1,000 balloons hit their targets and they reached as far east as Michigan. The only deaths resulting from a balloon bomb were six Americans (including five children and a pregnant woman) on a picnic in Oregon.
Twolfgcd's Blog (Galen Dalrymple) 