A hundred years ago today, the Philadelphia Evening Public Ledger, April 13, 1915, shows this British soldier fraternizing with this Belgian civilian. According to the paper, she is amused by his French pronunciation.
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Today is the 70th anniversary of Elbe Day, April 25, 1945. On that day, U.S. Army Lt. Albert Kotzebue and three other men in his reconnaissance platoon crossed the Riber Elbe. There, they met forward elements of the Red Army under the command of Lt. Col. Alexander Gardiev. The arranged photo shown above was taken shortly thereafter, and shows Lt. William Robertson of the U.S. Army and Lt. Alexander Silvashko of the Red Army.
Russian commemorative coin, 1995. Wikipedia, Photo by Банк России. Original uploader was Permjak at ru.wikipedia.
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Armenian Genocide Martyrs Monument, Montebello, California, by ai pohaku (http://www.flickr.com/photos/oceanblue/7030149861/) [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons
Then they will deliver you to tribulation, and will kill you, and you will be hated by all nations because of My name. – Matthew 24:9
The association of Mount Ararat and Noah, the staunch Christians who were massacred periodically by the Mohammedan Turks, and the Sunday School collections over fifty years for alleviating their miseries—all cumulate to impress the name Armenia on the front of the American mind. — Herbert Hoover.
The first genocide of the twentieth century struck your own Armenian people, the first Christian nation, as well as Catholic and Orthodox Syrians, Assyrians, Chaldeans and Greeks. Bishops and priests, religious, women and men, the elderly and even defenceless children and the infirm were murdered.
The remaining two were perpetrated by Nazism and Stalinism. And more recently there have been other mass killings, like those in Cambodia, Rwanda, Burundi and Bosnia. It seems that humanity is incapable of putting a halt to the shedding of innocent blood. It seems that the enthusiasm generated at the end of the Second World War has dissipated and is now disappearing. It seems that the human family has refused to learn from its mistakes caused by the law of terror, so that today too there are those who attempt to eliminate others with the help of a few and with the complicit silence of others who simply stand by. We have not yet learned that “war is madness”, “senseless slaughter”
Today is the 100th Anniversary of the start of the Armenian Genocide. A hundred years ago, hundreds of Armenian intellectuals were rounded up in Constantinople and executed. Over the next year, as many as 1.5 million Armenians would die at the hands of the Ottoman Turks. The genocide is being remembered today, but what is lost in many of the accounts is the fact that it was the Christian Martyrdom of more than a million saints.
The Armenian Genocide was very much a case of Christian martyrdom. In some sense, Armenia can be thought of as the first Christian nation, having been converted by St. Gregory the Illuminator in 301 A.D. But during St. Gregory’s evangelization of the country, he encountered many Christians. It is believed that three of Christ’s disciples, Thaddeus, Bartholomew, and Jude, successfully preached the Gospel and were martyred there. Indeed, there’s even one tradition (probably apocryphal) that holds that the “there were some Greeks” of John 12:20 were actually Armenians who returned to spread the Gospel. But in any event, the Christian heritage of Armenia is one of the oldest in the world, and it was clearly a primary reason for the genocide almost 1900 years later.
In 1916, the British Parliament published the “Blue Book” documenting the events of the Armenian Genocide. The report was entitled The Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, 1915-1916 : Documents Presented to Viscount Grey of Falloden by Viscount Bryce
Among the massacred were two monks, one of them being the Father Superior of Sourp Garabed, Yeghishe Vartabed, who had a chance of escaping, but did not wish to be separated from his flock, and was killed with them.
(p. 96).
In some cases safety was bought by professing Mohammedanism, but many died as martyrs to the faith.
(p. 102).
Sirpouhi and Santukht, two young women of Ketcheurd, a village east of Sivas, who were being led off to the harem, by Turks, threw themselves into the river Halys, and were drowned with their infants in their arms. Mile. Sirpouhi, the nineteen-year-old daughter of Garabed Tufenjjian of Herag, a graduate of the American College of Marsovan, was offered the choice of saving herself by embracing Islam and marrying a Turk. Sirpouhi retorted that it was an outrage to murder her father and then make her a proposal of marriage. She would have nothing to do with a godless and a murderous people; whereupon she, and seventeen other Armenian girls who had refused conversion, were shamefully illtreated and afterwards killed near TchamliBel gorge.
(p. 325).
‘No, I cannot see what you see, and I cannot accept what I cannot understand.’ So the ox-carts came to the door and took the family away. The wife was a delicate lady and the two beautiful daughters well educated. They were offered homes in harems, but said: ‘No, we cannot deny our Lord. We will go with our father ‘
(p. 354).
In a mountain village there was a girl who made herself famous. Here, as everywhere else, the men were taken out at night and pitifully killed. Then the women and children were sent in a crowd, but a large number of young girls and brides were kept behind. This girl, who had been a pupil in the school at X., was sent before the Governor, the Judge, and the Council together, and they said to her: ‘Your father is dead, your brothers are dead, and all your other relatives are gone, but we have kept you because we do not wish to make you suffer. Now just be a good Turkish girl and you shall be married to a Turkish officer and be comfortable and happy.’ It is said that she looked quietly into their faces and replied: ‘My father is not dead, my brothers are not dead; it is true you have killed them, but they live in Heaven. I shall live with them. I can never do this if I am unfaithful to my conscience. As for marrying, I have been taught that a woman must never marry a man unless she loves him. This is a part of our religion. How can I love a man who comes from a nation that has so recently killed my friends? I should neither be a good Christian girl nor a good Turkish girl if I did so. Do with me what you wish.’ They sent her away, with the few other brave ones, into the hopeless land. Stories of this kind can also be duplicated.
(p. 355).
The men were finally convinced of the uselessness of their efforts when one of the younger and prettiest girls spoke up for herself and said: ‘No one can mix in my decisions; I will not “turn” [change her religion], and it is I myself that say it’
(p. 357).
Mr. A. F., a colporteur, had been willing to embrace Islam, but his wife refused to recognize his apostasy, and declared that she would go into exile with the rest of the people, so he went with his wife and was killed.
(p. 378).
Again and again they said to me: ‘Oh, if they would only kill me now, I would not care; but I fear they will try to force me to become a Mohammedan.’
(p. 403).
When we consider the number forced into exile and the number beaten to death and tortured in a thousand ways, the comparatively small number that turned Moslem is a tribute to the staunchness of their hold on Christianity.
(p. 413).
And how are the people going? As they came into B. M., weary and with swollen and bleeding feet, clasping their babes to their breasts, they utter not one murmur or word of complaint; but you see their eyes move and hear the words: ‘For Jesus’ sake, for Jesus’ sake !’
(p. 478).
Let me quote from W. Effendi, from a letter he wrote a day before his deportation with his young wife and infant child and with the whole congregation—”‘ We now understand that it is a great miracle that our nation has lived so many years amongst such a nation as this. From this we realize that God can and has shut the mouths of lions for many years. May God restrain them! I am afraid they mean to kill some of us, cast some of us into most cruel starvation and send the rest out of this country; so I have very little hope of seeing you again in this world. But be sure that, by God’s special help, I will do my best to encourage others to die manly. I will also look for God’s help for myself to die as a Christian. May this country see that, if we cannot live here as men, we can die as men. May many die as men of God. May God forgive this nation all their sin which they do without knowing. May the Armenians teach Jesus’ life by their death, which they could not teach by their life or have failed in showing forth. It is my great desire to see a Reverend Ali, or Osman, or Mohammed. May Jesus soon see many Turkish Christians as the fruit of His blood.
Before the girls were taken, the Kaimakam asked each one, in the presence of the Principal of the College, whether they wanted to become Mohammedans and stay, or go. They all replied that they would go. Only Miss H. became a Mohammedan, and went to live with G. Professors E. and F. F. had been arrested with other Armenians, but in the name of all the teachers some £250 to £300 were presented to the officials, and so they were let free.
(p. 370).
It should be remembered that their were righteous Muslims.
Fâ’iz el-Ghusein, a Bedouin of Damascus, wrote this:
Is it right that these imposters, who pretend to be the supports of Islam and the Khiidfat, the protectors of the Moslems, should trangress the command of God, transgress the Koran, the Traditions of the Prophet, and humanity? Truly, they have committed an act at which Islam is revolted, as well as all Moslems and all the peoples of the earth, be they Moslems, Christians, Jews, or idolators. As God lives, it is a shameful deed, the like of which has not been done by any people counting themselves as civilised.
It is the responsibility not only of the Armenian people and the universal Church to recall all that has taken place, but of the entire human family, so that the warnings from this tragedy will protect us from falling into a similar horror, which offends against God and human dignity.
References
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It’s a relatively trivial matter to hook up two telephones so that you can talk from one to another. Virtually any old telephone can be used, and it’s simply a matter of placing a battery (the voltage is not critical) in series. So if you need to hook up two telephones to talk, it’s about as easy as it gets.
It’s more difficult, however, to figure out a way to make the other telephone ring. The telephone itself operates off DC. The ringer sounds when an AC voltage is applied. And there’s no particularly simple way of generating that AC voltage. The easiest way to solve the problem is to run a second circuit with a bell, buzzer, or light. If you want to talk to the other station, you push a button, a bell (separate from the phone) sounds at the other end, and the other person picks up the phone.
The ingenious arrangement shown above shows a way to wire it all up so that a single circuit can handle both the bell and the telephone line. When one station wants to call, he pushes the button to signal the other station. Then, both sides put the switch on position 2, and they can talk. This circuit, and all the details for constructing it, are found in the April 1966 issue of Radio Constructor, a British electronics magazine.
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75 years ago today, April 22, 1940, FM radio came to Milwaukee, when W9XAO came on the air at 1:00 PM on 42.6 megacycles. The station was owned by the Milwaukee Journal, and was the sister station of WTMJ, the paper’s standard broadcast station. According to the April 21 issue of the newspaper, the station was “the first FM station west of the Alleghenies.”
The paper used a number of pages touting the advantages of FM radio. Of course, listeners would require a new set to tune in the new band, and a number of manufacturers and retailers advertised their sets. The least expensive model was Stromberg-Carlson model 525-H for $59. This radio was actually a tuner only. It could be plugged in to the phonograph jack of an existing radio.
The station at some point received a commercial license and operated under the call letters W55J. After the war, the station moved to 102.1 on the modern FM dial with the call sign WTMJ-FM, but ceased broadcasting in 1950. WTMJ-FM returned to the air in 1958, on 94.5 MHz. The station is currently still owned by Journal Communications, but now uses the call sign WLWK-FM.
Don Stanley
The first full-time announcer at W9XAO was Don Stanley, who came to Milwaukee from KGLO in Mason City, Iowa. He went on to become a west coast announcer for NBC radio and television from 1946-1992.
Edit: See correction in comments below. Stanley came to Milwaukee from Madison, WI, and not from Mason City. His daughter has created this Facebook tribute page.
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OneTubeRadio.com is running its first ever contest. The winner will receive a copy of the book U-Boats Against Canada: German Submarines in Canadian Waters
During World War II, German subs operated in Canadian waters, as far up the St. Lawrence River as 172 miles from Quebec City. They sank ships, laid mines, and even set up a secret weather station in Labrador. My earlier post about that weather station was based largely upon this book. The book is very well written. It reads like a novel, but is extremely well researched with extensive footnotes.
The book is out of print, but you will receive a used copy (a former library book from Wheaton, Illinois) in excellent condition. To enter, simply follow these two steps:
The contest ends at 11:59 PM Central Time on April 25, 2015.
Measuring the speed of sound with an oscilloscope.
In an earlier post, I gave some ideas for young mad scientists to employ for science fair projects. Another idea comes from the pages of the April 1966 issue of Radio Constructor, a British electronics magazine. The article explains two methods of experimentally measuring the speed of sound. One of those methods requires an oscilloscope, but the other one requires only an AC voltmeter.
Measuring the speed of sound with an AC voltmeter.
Fortunately, the young experimenter of today can duplicate either of these experiments quite easily. For the version of the experiment requiring an AC voltmeter, most modern digital multitesters would be very suitable, and they are often available for next to nothing. The following examples are currently available at Amazon:
Harbor Freight often has multitesters on sale, or occasionally for free. They’re also available inexpensively at WalMart.
The oscilloscope is more expensive, but still a lot less expensive than 1966. For example, this USB Oscilloscope
The only other equipment required is an audio signal generator (for which you could easily use your computer’s sound card) and an audio amplifier, such as this one
Using either method, it’s fairly simple to measure the wavelength of the audio signal. Since the frequency is known, it’s then an easy matter to calculate the speed of sound, which would be frequency times wavelength. The possibilities for using this as part of a science fair project are unlimited. For example, it would be possible to measure the speed of sound under various conditions, such as with differing barometric pressures or altitudes. By waterproofing the speakers, it would be possible to measure speed of sound in water, and compare it to the value in the air.
In any event, your poor teacher is probably tired of seeing paper mache volcanoes, and will probably be quite impressed at your abilities.
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Seventy years ago, April 1945, Popular Mechanics carried a feature about the War Department’s Signal Center in Washington and its radio station, which bears the call letters WAR. The article noted that the station at this nerve center of the War Department handled 8-9 million words per day, with direct hookups to forces throughout the world. The WAC operator shown here is overseeing tapes on an automated code sending machine. At the other end of the circuit is the station at Bougainville shown below.
The call sign WAR is heard on the airwaves at least once a year during the annual Armed Forces Day Cross-Band Communication Test when the station, along with other military stations, makes contact with amateur operators.
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Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.
We are relatively new members of Samaritan Ministries. I’ve written about our experiences previously, and you can find those posts here. They are an alternative to health insurance. Instead of sending premiums to an insurance company, we instead learn of medical needs experienced by other members and have an opportunity to help them with those needs. In exchange, we know that if we have a need, we have the assurance that other members will help us.
It’s similar to insurance, but it’s really more like how the early Church worked:
All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.
We recently had our first opportunity to experience this through Samaritan. As new members of Samaritan, our first two monthly payments were made to the ministry’s office to cover administrative expenses. Each year, we will make one of our monthly payments to the home office. Making those payments seemed a little bit like insurance.
But this month, we got a taste of what the early Church experienced: Giving to someone who had need. This month, we were asked to make our payment to a woman in the Western U.S. who had broken her hip. We were given her name and a short description of her need. We were asked to send our payment directly to her, which she will use to pay her medical bills. Presumably, many other members were also asked to send a payment to her this month. And we were also asked to pray for her.
We didn’t gather with her in the temple courts, nor did we break bread in her home. We couldn’t, because we are far away. Other members of the Body of Christ filled those roles. What we were able to do was bear part of her financial burden, which would have been overwhelming for one person, or one family, or even one congregation.
We were also able to pray for her. I shared her first name with my own congregation, and we all prayed for her. We’re in another part of the country, and we’re probably a different denomination. But we were still able to do what Paul told the Galatians to do: “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” Gal. 6:2 (NIV). And that is much easier to do with Samaritan than it was with insurance.
If you do decide to join Samaritan Ministries, I would appreciate if you would consider indicating on your application form that I referred you. (Or, of course, if someone else recommended Samaritan, mention their name instead.) There’s a box where you can check how you learned about Samaritan. If my information proved helpful, I would appreciate if you would include my name, Richard Clem. On the first page, you can check the box “Friend/referral (somebody told me)” and/or “Internet,” and write in my name. In the interest of full disclosure, if you do include my name as a referral, then I will receive a credit of $180.
Please also pray for the woman whose need we shared. It wouldn’t be appropriate for me to give her name, but the giving of your prayers would be appreciated.
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Kate Smith
Seventy years ago, rationing was in effect for most meats, dairy products, sugar, and even some canned vegetables. Therefore, meals required careful planning. CBS radio personality and singer Kate Smith took the time in the April 1945 issue of Radio Mirror to explain the rationale behind the rationing rules. For example, she notes that 2 billion less pounds of meat would be produced in 1945 than had been produced in 1944. But the needs of servicemen and commitments to the Allies hadn’t changed. Therefore, those two billion pounds would have to come from the civilian supply.
Despite the seriousness of the situation, she reminds the readers that there was no excuse for preparing a meal that didn’t measure up to pre-war standards. “The trick lies in your own ingenuity–in how well you can learn to plan menus around the foods that, although restricted in variety, are still available to us in sufficient quantity.”
With that in mind, she presents the following menus. As you can see, they lean heavily on eggs. Since she assumes that most of the lunches will be eaten from a lunchbox, most consist of sandwiches, and the dessert is generally left over from the prior evening’s meal.
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