Prof Frank McDonough

PHOTO OF THE DAY. Hollywood icon, James Dean, walking in the rain in Times Square, NYC (1955). 📷 Dennis Stock

FACT OF THE DAY. 8 February 1950. East German State Security Service (SSD), which everyone called the Stasi, was officially founded by law. It spied on its own citizens on a massive scale. It was considerably more pro-active and extensive than even the Gestapo.

PERSON OF THE DAY. 8 February 1931. James Dean was born in Marion, Indiana, USA. He was a cultural icon of 1950s teenage disillusionment as expressed in his most celebrated film Rebel Without a Cause. His 2 other most well known films were East of Eden and Giant.

1850.

PHOTO OF THE DAY. The life of a tree (1910). 📷 google images

FACT OF THE DAY. 7 February 1964. The Beatles arrived at JFK airport in New York City for the 1st time amid scenes of unprecedented teenage fan hysteria. A huge publicity drive by their Capitol Record Company had preceded their arrival under the slogan: “The Beatles are coming.”

PERSON OF THE DAY. 7 February 1812. Charles Dickens, the most popular novelist of the Victorian era, was born in Portsmouth. He created some of the world’s best-known fictional characters including David Copperfield, Ebenezer Scrooge, Mr Pickwick, Oliver Twist, Fagin and Miss Havisham.

PHOTO OF THE DAY. Manchester United star Bobby Charlton in a Munich hospital after the air disaster (1958). 📷 Getty images

FACT OF THE DAY. 6 February 1958. 8 Manchester United players, known as the “Busby Babes” were among the 23 people who were killed in the Munich Air Disaster. The British European Airways (BEA) plane slid off the runway, crashed through a fence and into house on its 3rd attempt to take off.

PERSON OF THE DAY. 6 February 1952. Elizabeth II (aged 25) succeeded to the British throne, following the death of her father George VI. At the time Princess Elizabeth was staying at the Royal hunting lodge in Kenya and soon returned to London to take the Royal Oath.

PHOTO OF THE DAY. Artist L.S. Lowry on Wellington Steps, Stockport (1962). 📷 Crispin Eurich

PERSON OF THE DAY. 5 February 1938. Jewish lawyer Hans Litten died in Dachau concentration camp (aged 34). He cross-examined Hitler in a 1931 trial. Hitler was so rattled by the experience he sent Litten to a concentration camp in 1933. Badly treated for years, he committed suicide in Dachau.

FACT OF THE DAY. 5 February 1924. BBC Radio electronically generated time signals or “pips” were broadcast from the Greenwich Observatory for the 1st time. They were Invented by the Astronomer Royal Sir Frank Watson-Dyson and are still played before news bulletins on BBC Radio 4.

PHOTO OF THE DAY. Joan Crawford (left) and Bette Davis on the set of the film Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) 📷 Milton Greene

FACT OF THE DAY. 4 February 1945. Allied leaders Roosevelt (USA), Churchill (GB) and Stalin (USSR) met at Yalta. The “Big Three” discussed the post-war fate of Germany and the rest of Europe and reiterated their non-negotiable demand for “Unconditional Surrender” from Germany.

PERSON OF THE DAY. 4 February 1983. Karen Carpenter died (aged 32) from heartbeat irregularities, brought on by Anorexia Nervosa. She was part of the sibling pop duo Carpenters along with her brother Richard. She’s regarded as one of pop’s greatest vocalists and a talented drummer.

PHOTO OF THE DAY. Buddy Holly walking through the centre of Chesterfield with his manager’s wife (1958). 📷 google images

PERSON OF THE DAY. 3 February 1821. Elizabeth Blackwell was born in Bristol, UK. She was 1st woman to receive a medical degree in the United States and the 1st woman on the UK Medical Register of the General Medical Council.

FACT OF THE DAY. 3 February 1959. Rock ‘n’ Roll star Buddy Holly (aged 22) was killed in a plane crash in Clear Lake, Iowa, USA. Also killed were 2 other rock ‘n’ roll stars: Ritchie Valens (aged 17) and J. P. (“The Big Bopper”) Richardson (aged 28). Pilot, Roger Peterson (aged 21) also died.

Thanks Greg 👍

A powerful, comprehensive and humane synthesis of the Nazis' genocide of the Jews is both accessible and all too timely, says ROGER MOORHOUSE The Hitler Years: Holocaust THE HITLER YEARS 1933-1945 by Frank McDonough Apollo, 416 pages, E35 After covering the Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany, it was perhaps inevitable that Frank McDonough - one of the country's foremost historians of the Third Reich - would turn his attention to the Holocaust, the defining atrocity of Hitler's odious reign. One might ask what more can be said about one of history's most studied geno-cides, and to some extent one would be right. But what McDonough presents is a lucid, comprehensive and thoroughly accessible synthesis that aims to explain both how and why the Holocaust unfolded as it did, while never losing sight of the horror or its human element. McDonough moves chronologically from the Nazi seizure of power in 1933 through the gradual radicalisation of race policy during the 1930s to the wartime escalation that ultimately led to the Final Solution. At each stage he provides the political context for the decisions made, and explains the ideological currents and social pressures involved. In doing so he creates a narrative that flows as well as it informs, charting the evolution of Nazi race measures from legal discrimination to ghettoisation and extermination. One core strength lies in McDonough's integration of the human experience. Though it is grounded in political and institutional history, the book incorporates the voices of victims, eyewitnesses and perpetrators throughout, drawn from diaries, letters and postwar legal testimony. Such accounts are never permitted to dominate the text, but they nonetheless provide a vital emotional and moral texture, reminding the reader - often with visceral immediacy - that every policy shift had devastating human consequences. Overall, this is a hugely compelling. authoritative and empathetic work. It presents a clear, well-structured a…

Congrats to @fxmc1957.bsky.social on an excellent review (in BBC History Magazine) for his new history of the Holocaust

PHOTO OF THE DAY. The last photo of Buddy Holly, 2 February 1959. 📷 Mary Gerber

PERSON OF THE DAY. 2 February 1940. David Jason was born in London. He’s best known for his roles as Derek “Del Boy” Trotter in the BBC1 comedy sitcom Only Fools and Horses, Detective Inspector Jack Frost in A Touch of Frost and Granville in Open All Hours, and Still Open All Hours.

FACT OF THE DAY. 2 February 1979. Former Sex Pistol Sid Vicious (Simon John Ritchie) died of a heroin overdose in New York (aged 21). His mother, Anne Beverley found him dead. On the previous day he was released on $50,000 bail pending trial for the murder of former girlfriend Nancy Spungen.

PHOTO OF THE DAY. Londoners go about daily life in Fleet Street as smoke rises after the explosion of a German V1 flying bomb (1944). 📷 google images

PERSON OF THE DAY. 1 February 1901. Clark Gable was born in Cadiz, Ohio, USA. His best known role was as Rhett Butler in the Hollywood film Gone With The Wind, uttering the famous line to Scarlett O’Hara: “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn,” in response to her question: “Where shall I go?”

FACT OF THE DAY. 1 February 1865. US President Abraham Lincoln signed the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution which abolished slavery.

PHOTO OF THE DAY: The Children's Fountain statue in bomb ravaged Stalingrad (1942). 📷 Emmanuil Yevzerikhin

PERSON OF THE DAY. 31 January 1606. Guy Fawkes (aged 35) jumped to his death while in the process of being hanged for treason. Fawkes, along with 12 other English Catholics, were part of the famous Gunpowder Plot of 1605, a plan to kill King James I by blowing up the House of Lords.

FACT OF THE DAY. 31 January 1943. German Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus surrendered to the Red Army at the Battle of Stalingrad. He was the 1st German Field Marshal to surrender in battle. Hitler had expected him to commit suicide. Two days later, the remainder of the 6th Army gave up.