Obituaries

[Smaland]

A nurse who was photographed being kissed in Times Square in New York to celebrate the end of the second world war in 1945 has died, aged 91.

Story in the Guardian on-line

[Smaland]

Obituary at the American Conservative website

Wikipedia article on Sobran

[Smaland]

Richard Holbrooke, U.S. Diplomat. Image posted at conorsg.wordpress.com

Holbrooke's death is a significant blow to the Obama administration just days before it is scheduled to announce the latest review of US policy in Afghanistan. He was a central member of the team seeking to steer the US on a course of gradually reduced involvement in the country and transfer of responsibility towards the Afghan military forces.

Full story

[Óttar]

Now maybe we can have a more sensible policy of making a giant crater out of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

[Smaland]

Arness portrayed the title character in the U.S. TV series Marshall Dillon. The name of the series was later changed to Gunsmoke, which ran for a total of 20 seasons. Image displayed at luckypuppyoddfacts.com


Image from the opening credits of Marshall Dillon. Image displayed at realitytv.it

When “Gunsmoke” premiered in 1955, it was considered a new breed of “adult western,” with well-drawn characters and complex plots that, despite its name, took the show beyond outlaws and gunfights.

“What made us different from other westerns,” Mr. Arness told the Associated Press in 2002, “was the fact that ‘Gunsmoke’ wasn’t just action and a lot of shooting; they were character-study shows."

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[Smaland]

Realising the airship was only moments away from disaster, Mr Nerandzic then made the heroic decision to put his own life on the line to save those of his passengers.

Hovering 2m above the ground he yelled for the three passengers to jump from the gondola to safety below.

Heroic Pilot Sacrifices His Own Life to Save Passengers

U.S. pilots who have done something like this in combat have been awarded the Medal of Honor, more than once.

[Smaland]

A photo of Mr. Pīnups (center), made some time after he came out of hiding. Image displayed at www.gramata21.lv. This web page also contains an account of Mr. Pīnups' life, written by one of his relatives in the Latvian language. The Google translation is quite rough, but you can get the gist of what it's saying.

Although he passed away four years ago, Mr. Pīnups deserves to be noticed and remembered, because he faithfully endured torment and hardship for so long. He was rewarded by living to see a free and independent Latvia in his later years.

The Forest Brothers (also: Brothers of the Forest, Forest Brethren; Forest Brotherhood; Estonian: metsavennad, Latvian: meža brāļi, Lithuanian: miško broliai) were Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian partisans who waged a guerrilla war against Soviet rule during the Soviet invasion and occupation of the three Baltic states during, and after, World War II. Similar anti-Soviet Eastern European resistance groups fought against Soviet and communist rule in Bulgaria, Poland, Romania, Croatia and western Ukraine.
...
Pīnups ... became a legal citizen again only in 1994. He went to the forest in 1945 as a member of resistance organization called "Don't Serve to the Occupant Army". Jānis Pīnups never had a Soviet passport and his legal status was nonexistent during the era of Soviet occupation. His hideaway was located in forest of Pelēči Parish. In 1994 a new passport of Republic of Latvia was issued to Jānis Pīnups and he had said that he was waiting for a moment when he could see Riga as the capital of a once more independent Latvia.

(From the Wikipedia article about the Forest Brothers)

[Smaland]

"Otto von Habsburg in 1936." Photograph: Imagno/Getty Images

Otto von Habsburg, who has died aged 98, bore the oldest and most eminent dynastic name in European history and could, according to genealogists, trace his ancestry back to the sixth century. The pretender to the defunct thrones of Austria, Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia (now part of the Czech Republic), he pursued a democratic postwar career as a member of the European parliament and a fervent advocate of European union.

Full story

[Smaland]

Maybe I'm wrong, but I still feel that he was fired because Penn State needed a fall guy.


Photo: Wikipedia

On November 5, 2011, former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky was arrested on 40 counts relating to sexual abuse of eight young boys over a 15-year period, including alleged incidents that occurred at Penn State. A 2011 grand jury investigation reported that then-graduate assistant Mike McQueary told Paterno in 2002 that he had seen Sandusky abusing a 10-year-old boy in Penn State football's shower facilities. The grand jury report would later detail that McQueary saw Sandusky sodomizing the boy. According to the report, Paterno notified Athletic Director Tim Curley the next day about the incident, and later notified Gary Schultz, director of business and finance, who oversaw the University Police. Schultz's role is the center of the debate over whether Paterno did or did not do enough.

Wikipedia article on Paterno

[Smaland]

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