In World War I Imperial Germany faced the daunting task of fighting Great Britain, France, and Russia (replaced in 1917 by the United States) at the same time. Mindful of the unfairness inherent in passing judgment in hindsight, we can usefully ask whether Germany might have won the war even against these odds had it not made too many serious mistakes. “What if?” history of this sort can help us understand better what actually happened, and it can provide precautionary lessons for the future. Here is a list of key German mistakes, omitting errors at the battlefield level, in this colossal human tragedy.
By all accounts, Nazi Germany made serious errors in waging the Second World War that kept it from achieving much greater success, though whether it could have won the War remains open to doubt, given the American effort to develop nuclear weapons. Also, Japanese mistakes need to be taken into consideration. At any rate, asking “What if” questions about German strategy can help us better understand what actually happened.
Here is a list of key German mistakes that can guide our thinking about the many lessons we can learn from this greatest of wars (not included are significant errors at the battlefield level such as at Dunkirk and Stalingrad). Of course, this list assumes that Germany’s decision to go to war in the first place and with the goals it had for doing so made sense. I thank my students for their contributions to the list.1
When Japan went to war against the United States in 1941, its chances of winning were slim, indeed. But it is worth asking what steps Japan might have taken, or what mistakes it might have avoided, to increase the likelihood of greater success and possibly even victory.
April 4, 1968. Civil rights leader Martin Luther King was killed by a single bullet as he stood on the second floor balcony outside his hotel room in Memphis.1 The shot came from high on his right, not on a horizontal trajectory from the rooming house behind the hotel of the alleged assassin, James Earl Ray. Ray, a mediocre shot, would have needed to stand on the edge of the common bathroom tub to see out the window, and a wall (since conveniently removed) would have kept him from aligning the rifle. Ballistics, forensics, and medical evidence all rule him out. The House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded that there had been a conspiracy, with Ray as the patsy.
Critical researchers have argued that the federal government, especially FBI or perhaps CIA, carried out the assassination
June 8, 1968. Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in the crowded “pantry” (actually, a food preparation area) of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles after his primary election victory.1 His alleged killer, 24-year old Palestinian-American Sirhan Bishara Sirhan, never got close to Kennedy. He fired shots that hit five bystanders as Kennedy supporters struggled to subdue him; but none of his shots hit Kennedy. The fatal shot behind Kennedy’s ear came from just 1-3 inches away, according to Thomas Noguchi MD, who performed the autopsy.
August 4, 1962. Celebrity actress Marilyn Monroe died in her bedroom in Los Angeles (or in the guest house near her house, from which she was carried back to her bedroom).1
On April 27, 1996, 76-year old William Colby, former director of the CIA, disappeared from his vacation home on the water at Rocky Point, Maryland. Colby had spent the day at a marina fixing his sloop. He returned home after 6 pm, phoned his wife, who was visiting her mother in Texas, and told her he was tired and would eat supper, then go to bed. He watered his trees, met with his gardener and his visiting sister around 7:15 pm (sunset was at 7:57), and fixed himself a meal. The next day there was no sign of him. Eventually, a neighbor phoned the police. They found his supper half-eaten. The computer and radio were on. His canoe was missing.1
By the next day a full-scale search with helicopters and divers was under way.
The Theory of the Reversing Earth was a key component of Immanuel Velikovsky’s Venus theory in which he contended that close passages of Venus caused Earth to topple over four times during the Bronze Age catastrophes. Now we have a Revised Venus Theory that corrects inadequacies of the original theory and provides a cause of the inversions as well as approximate dates (2200, 1628, 1210, and 820 BC), an array of new evidence, and a link to the great mass extinctions of prehistory. Viktoria Nagudi interviews Kenneth J. Dillon of Scientia Press. 9 Likes, 0 Dislikes.
In his Worlds in Collision (New York: Macmillan, 1950), Immanuel Velikovsky argued that Venus emerged as a red-hot comet from Jupiter and passed Earth every 52 years, causing the Bronze Age catastrophes, before settling into its current orbit. His claim set off a controversy in which his theory was rejected and stigmatized. But over the years, new findings have changed the picture. Here are eight new reasons to accept a Revised Venus Theory, based on the evidence and reinterpretation in The Knowable Past (2nd edition, Washington, D.C.: Scientia Press, 2019).
Metatarsalgia, pain in the metatarsal/forefoot area, is a common foot problem. In milder cases, it can be managed with pads, supportive footwear, adequate rest, NIAIDs, and other remedies. However, some cases become more severe over time. They cause considerable pain and undermine mobility. Among the treatments that help manage the syndrome, prolotherapy has won a number of adherents. It involves injections of dextrose, often mixed with an anesthetic. The injections stimulate natural healing. But prolotherapy is not necessarily the best option.
Historian and scientific researcher Kenneth J. Dillon discusses his theory The Outer Solar System Origin of the Terrestrial Planets (OSSO). OSSO explains how Mercury, Earth, the Moon, and Mars originated outside the orbit of Saturn, then were pulled inward by Jupiter’s gravity. Tidal friction heated them to incandescence, then they tidally locked to Jupiter and were separated, moving as comets into their present orbits. See also https://www.scientiapress.com/outer-solar-system-origin.
Halotherapy (HT, from Greek halos=salt) uses dry aerosol microparticles of salt and, in one version, minerals to treat respiratory diseases. HT seeks to replicate the conditions of speleotherapy (from Greek speleos=cave), a treatment that has been practiced in old salt mines of Eastern Europe since the early 19th Century.
Halotherapy belongs to the category of the physical therapies–non-drug treatments of diseases, many associated with the spa treatments of Eastern Europe. In the former Soviet Union, medical researchers engaged in a concerted effort to develop physical therapies in order to avoid the costs and side effects of drug therapy as well as microbial and tumor resistance. Russia has become a world leader in developing and testing new and increasingly effective physical therapies.