163 obscure facts from the depths of WWII history. Even Mike might not know these.
Before becoming Prime Minister, Winston Churchill graduated from Sandhurst military academy, fought in Cuba, India, Sudan, and South Africa. He was captured by the Boers during the Second Boer War and dramatically escaped from a POW camp in Pretoria …
Seven years before WWII, 23-year-old Marian Rejewski used permutation group theory to reverse-engineer the German Enigma machine without ever seeing one. He and colleagues built replica machines and the Bomba code-breaking device. In July 1939 they s…
Polish mathematician Marian Rejewski — age 23 — applied pure permutation theory to break the German Enigma cipher in 1932, seven years before the war began. The Polish Cipher Bureau built replica Enigma machines and the 'Bomba' — the first machine de…
Like the ancient Greek soldier who returned from Thermopylae, Polish tank commander Colonel Stanislaw Szczęsny Grzmot-Skotnicki (his actual surname, 'Grzmot' meaning 'Thunder') led the 9th Lesser Poland Uhlans through the September 1939 campaign. Whe…
Before WWII reached America, Nazi agent Fritz Julius Kuhn led the German American Bund — a pro-Nazi organization of 25,000 members in the United States. He was so bold that he held a pro-Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden in 1939 with 20,000 attende…
London stockbroker Nicholas Winton organized the rescue of 669 Jewish children from Czechoslovakia in 1939. He chartered trains, forged documents, found British foster families - all independently. His wife discovered the truth in 1988 in a scrapbook…
Nicholas Winton was a London stockbroker who organized the rescue of 669 mostly Jewish children from Czechoslovakia on the eve of WWII. He chartered trains, forged documents, and found British foster families — all on his own. The operation was kept …
On September 1, 1939, the Polish cavalry charged German infantry at Krojanty. Initially successful, they were forced to withdraw when armor appeared. A German propaganda officer described it to Italian reporters as proof that Poles charged tanks with…
During and after WWII, the 'Monuments Men' recovered over 5 million art objects stolen by the Nazis. But most people don't know about French art curator Jacques Jaujard, who secretly moved the Louvre's entire collection — including the Mona Lisa, Ven…
When Germany invaded Poland, the Polish cryptologists who had broken Enigma were evacuated east. Three of them — Rejewski, Rozycki, and Zygalski — made it to France and continued working from PC Bruno, a chateau near Paris. When France fell in 1940, …
Portuguese consul Aristides de Sousa Mendes issued visas and passports to over 30,000 refugees fleeing France in 1940, including up to 10,000 Jews, in direct violation of Portugal's Circular 14 which forbade issuing visas to Jews. He personally told …
Brigadier John Malcolm 'Mad Jack' Churchill fought throughout WWII armed with a longbow, a Scottish broadsword, and bagpipes. He sounded the bagpipes to lead his men into battle in France. He killed an enemy with his bow and arrow (possibly the last …