JUN 30, 1908: The largest impact event on earth in recorded human history occurs with an explosion in Tunguska over Eastern Siberia. The collision had occured in the early morning hours at 7:14AM in a sparsely populated area, with a crash that felled an estimated 80 million trees in a region of forest (830 sq mi) larger than London. Eyewitnesses & local newspapers described a giant fireball with a long-stretching trail of flame, and noise that was similar to artillery fire that was followed by a thunderous shockwave with an impact that knocked people off their feet and broke windows hundreds of km's away. The explosion's airwaves were detected on seismographs far away in Germany, the UK, Denmark, the Dutch East Indies and also said to have registered in Washington,DC, and nearing the earthquake measuring of 5.0 on the richter scale. The first investigation for scientific analysis of the devastation took place in 1921 led by Russian mineralogist & meteorologist Leonid Kulik and again in 1927 when he was able to reach the remote central blast area where he found a flattened wasteland of scorched trees in a radial pattern. To the surprise of his team, they found no impact crater leading him to believe that a giant meteor or comet had exploded 3-6 miles above the Earth's surface, travelling at a speed of 33,500mph. In 1938, Kulik arranged an aerial photographic survey and expeditions continued into the 1950's & 60's that mostly examined soil from the bogs. With only small fragments collected, over the next century, the enduring mystery of Tunguska would make it one of the most speculated environmental intrigues ever with many believing the explosion was an early atomic bomb with a powerful energy release of force (10-15 megatons) said to be a thousand times more destructive than the Hiroshima bomb which was still 37yrs away. Other more outlandish explanations have theorized that the event was triggered by Nikola Tesla experimenting with a deathray(!) from testing at his Wardenclyffe transmitter tower in New York, a microscopic black hole had passed through the earth's atmosphere, the blast was a volcanic eruption of natural gas, a UFO(!) had crashed and was quickly retrieved by the Russian military who threatened villagers to keep quiet, and/or the military had shot down an incoming missile using a nuclear weapon with the debris causing unintended damage.

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

JUN 28, 1914: In one of the world's most massive defining moments with consequence & repercussion ramifications that would absolutely shape the 20th Century, 19yr old Serbian student Gavrilo Princip (as part of a group of 6 conspirators) assassinates Archduke Franz Ferdinand & his wife Sophie. The heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne was visiting Sarajevo in Bosnia and when Princip was quickly apprehended & severely beaten by police, he told them his shooting was in revenge for the oppression of Serbs. He was acting on approval of a nationalist terrorist secret society named 'The Black Hand' with ties to military intelligence, and the political fallout from the Balkan chain of events would spill over to ripple throughout Europe that resulted in the quick alliances of Britain, France and Russia (who alone was backing the Serbs) joining against the Austrians united with Germany. All of the countries mobilized their armies and by Jul saw the outbreak of WWI underway. From the Great War's opening hostilities came sweeping change such as the conflict becoming global with excursions in the Middle East, Africa, Aisa and the Pacific; the introduction of new weapons such as the flamethrower, use of gas and invention of the tank; women in the workforce; social welfare programs; labor strife; medical advancements; and the use of propaganda to stir public support on the homefront. Exactly 5yrs to the day of Princip's act that plunged already-existing instability into full cataclysm, the 1919 Treaty of Versailles Paris Peace Conference brought a close to what was then the bloodiest conflict in human history. With punishing reparations imposed on Germany that devastated their economy, WWI's end also brought the collapse of 4 once-powerful empires and the redrawing of national boundaries into newly created independent nations, shifted attitudes towards class, and saw the rise of totalitarian ideologies whose problematic impact on international relations (at odds with democracy) would see ever-deepening resentments fuel into an extremism that paved the seeds for future fighting in WWII -- the very anithesis of "war to end all wars". Princip's legacy in geopolitical resonation is immensely profound. He went on trial in Oct 1914 and found guilty of murder & high treason, was sentenced to the maximum of 20yrs imprisonment and only spared the death penalty because of his underage. Said to have been chained to a wall while in solitary confinement, he died behind bars in Apr 1918.

JUN 27, 1905: During both the Russo-Japanese War that began in Feb 1904 from rival imperial quarreling over interests regarding Manchuria and Korea, and the first Russian Revolution beginning in Jan 1905 culminating in the 'Bloody Sunday' massacre of peaceful protestors in St. Petersburg, Russian sailors start a mutiny aboard their battleship Potemkin which is harbored at Odessa in the Ukraine as part of the Black Sea fleet. The ship saw its captain Evgeny Golikov, his 2nd-in-Command Ippolit Giliarovsky, surgeon Sergei Smirnov & 4 more of the total 18 officers killed then tossed overboard as the final breaking point from a number of factors such as a series of losses to the Japanese navy, poorly trained raw recruits, sinking morale, refusal to eat borscht made from rotten meat infested with maggots, and disruption from rioting workers & peasant revolts due to strikes from mass political unrest. As the sailors sympathized more with the uprisings, the eventual mutineers organized a 25-man Committee, and having taken control, ignored issued orders from the Admiralty and outran squadrons sent to stop her. They first headed to Crimea to resupply but were ambushed by a port garrison who captured & killed atleast 22 sailors. On Jul 7, Potemkin was given asylum in Romania and as part of negotiations the ship was half sunk. It was towed back to Sevastopol, renamed Panteleimon, saw service during WWI where it was captured by the Germans in May 1918, had its engines destroyed by the British in Apr 1919 and was finally scrapped in 1923. The mutiny was most famously memorialized in a 1925 silent film that recast the events as the predecessor to the 1917 October Revolution led by Vladimir Lenin's Bolsheviks that forced Tsar Nicholas II out of power and to his abdication. The movie's best remembered/climax scene is the massacre of civilians on the Odessa Steps by Tsarist troops with a baby carriage rolling down amidst the chaos of the fleeing crowd. For its imagery & intercutting, the sequence is regarded as one of the most influential in cinema history. The last survivor of the mutiny was Ivan Beshoff who died in Oct 1987 at age 102 in Dublin, Ireland.

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

JUN 24, 1947: American pilot Kenneth Arnold makes the first widely reported post-WWII UFO sighting in the USA after claiming to have seen 9 silver-colored discs flying in unison near Mount Rainier in Washington state. His description of the shiny craft flying at an estimated 1200m/h became nationwide news with coverage preceeding the later Roswell,NM incident in Jul of alleged recovery of debris from a crashed UFO on a ranch which was quickly attributed to having been a weather balloon that would spawn conspiracy theories for decades about a military cover-up, and later/further involving the secretive Area 51 USAF base in Nevada, and Hangar 18 at Wright-Patterson USAF base in Ohio -- which the authorities have long-stated are research & development facilities but have had many argue are clandestine operational testing grounds involving captured UFOs to reverse engineer their technology and even holding actual alien bodies. The first reaction to Arnold would see a wave of over 800 more reported sightings from the public and he became famous literally overnight resulting in constant phone calls and receiving some 10,000 letters. Directly stemming from him, the press would coin the terms "flying saucer" and "flying discs" as the popular names credited for beginning the first modern era of UFO sightings. Shortly afterwards he was asked by Amazing Stories magazine to investigate 2 cases of harbormen in Tacoma,WA involving supposed fragments of a flying saucer involving strange white metal material. Known as the Maury Island Mystery, when he contacted the Air Force, 2 officers were sent to collect the wreckage and upon returning to their California base, were both killed when their B-25 Mitchell plane crashed in Aug. Arnold began writing & speaking of his experiences for years such as collaborating on articles & books, self-publishing pamphlets, and being interviewed by respected broadcaster Edward R. Murrow & telling him he had another 3 sightings of 9 spacecraft. In Jan 1951, Cosmpolitan magazine accused him of ignitng mass hysteria in a fraudulent manner similar to Orson Welles' famous Halloween radio prank in Oct 1938, the 'War of the Worlds' martian invasion. In 1955, Arnold believed he had witnessed 7 more sightings and began promoting a bizarre theory that UFOs were a kind of sky jellyfish that rather than being physical ships were rather organisms of an animal lifeform indigenous to Earth's atmosphere or interplanetary travel. In 1956, Air Force officer Edward J. Ruppelt (involved with 'Project Blue Book' which was the official systematic government study of UFO phenomena from Mar 1952 to Dec 1969, and has been criticized by detractors for being a deliberate misinformation campaign in service to shady national security) called the Maury Island Mystery "the dirtiest hoax in the UFO history". By 1962, Arnold had briefly shifted to politics first running as Governor of Idaho which he lost and then in 1964, campaigning for Republican Presidential nominee Barry Goldwater who lost to Lyndon B. Johnson. In 1977, Arnold appeared at a convention by Fate magazine that marked the 30th anniversary of his Mount Rainier encounter. He died in Jan 1984.

JUN 23, 1985: Canada's worst ever terrorist attack and incident of mass murder occurs when a planted bomb (out of Vancouver International Airport) on Air India Flight 182 explodes over the Atlantic Ocean and crashes off the Irish coast killing all 329 people on board. Most of the dead were Canadian citizens of Indian descent from Southern Ontario. The flight had originated from Toronto to India via Montreal onto London and was the deadliest single incident of aviation terrorism in history until 9/11. The masterminds are believed to be Inderjit Singh Reyat and Talwinder Singh Parmar, Sikh militants belonging to the Babbar Khalsa extremist group formed in Apr 1978 to advocate for an independent Khalistan in the Punjab by using terrorism, assassinations & bombings. Only 1hr before AIF182, a bomb had exploded at Narita International Airport near Tokyo killing 2 baggage handlers & injuring 4. The bomb was in luggage being transferred to AIF301 that was also out of Vancouver flying to Thailand and would have killed another 177 people. Only a handful of suspects were ever arrested (no less than 8) for AIF182 -- some more than 15yrs later -- and only Reyat (the bombmaker who was extradited from Britain in Dec 1989) was convicted after pleading guilty to mansluaghter in May 1991 and again in Feb 2003 while already serving 10yrs imprisonment. He was released in Feb 2009 but in Sept 2010, he is convicted of perjury for lying on the stand 19 times and was sentenced to 9yrs behind bars. After Reyat is twice rejected on appeal, he is released from a halfway house in Jan 2016. Parmar was initially arrested after the attack in Nov 1985 but released on insufficeint evidence. He slipped back to India and in Oct 1992 was killed in an alleged gun battle while in police custody that some have called a staged encounter to cover-up his having been tortured after supposedly saying he was framed. In Oct 2000, the RCMP arrested 2 more accused in Vancouver (Ripudaman Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri) but both were found not guilty in May 2005 on the grounds of witnesses deemed not credible. The complex AIF182 criminal trial ended in Apr 2005 and at 19 months was the longest & most expensive in Canadian history costing $130 million. On the 20th Anniversary of AIF182 in 2005, Prime Minster Paul Martin attended a memorial service in Ireland with the unveiling of a monument and declaring a national day of mourning. On the 25th Anniversary in 2010, Prime Minister Stephen Harper offered an official apology to the families of the victims. In May 2006, Canada's Supreme Court ordered a Commission of Inquiry into the bombings which was completed & released in Jun 2010. The 4000 page-long published report found that Parmar was the leader of the conspiracy and damningly found that the government had made a "cascading series of errors" by ignoring Indian intelligence warning of the possibility of bombs on Air India flights in Canada just 2 weeks before the crash, not taking action on an Air India telex and security intercepts about time delay devices & threats, overseeing weak airport security, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service's (CSIS) negligence in destroying 156 of 210 wiretaps from informants about the suspects, and the RCMP's failed protection of Indo-Canadian newspaper publisher Tara Singh Hayer who was murdered in Nov 1998 after providing an affidavit in Oct 1995 claimimg Bagri had admitted involvement. CSIS was cleared of any wrongdoing but its new director stated that his Agency had "dropped the ball" during their investigation which was badly bungled. In Jun 2023, a Canadian study found that 9 out of 10 of the population's citizens had little to no knowledge of the attack with only 1 in 5 being able to correctly identify the tragedy as terrorism. The findings also found that 58% of those aged 35 and younger had never even heard of AIF182 meaning only 1 in 10 understand the events of what happened and its aftermath.

JUN 22, 1986: 4yrs after the end of the Falkland Islands War between Argentina and Great Britain, both countries heatedly faced each other in the quarter finals of the 1986 World Cup in Mexico. Argentina won 2-1 and the match is best remembered for the 'Hand of God' goal scored by Diego Maradona that sparked instant controversy. The goal was scored in the 51st minute of the second half with Maradona & English goalkeeper Peter Shilton both beside each other in the penalty box. A kicked pass that came off an opponent (thus keeping Maradona from being called offside) was dropping down and as both jumped forward, Maradona's outstreched arm resulted in his fist touching the ball first instead of his head, which was deliberately punched into the net. Maradona celebrated while the English team protested furiously as the contact was illegal under the sport's rules, but as the referees did not have a clear view of the play (before video review which was only introduced in 2018) the goal was allowed to stand. In the same game, he also netted his team's 2nd goal just 4 minutes later which is known as the 'Goal of the Century' for dribbling past 5 opposing players before scoring. [The victory saw them next face Belgium who was defeated 2-0 and then lastly West Germany who lost 3-2 for Argentina to win the World Cup. Maradona scored 5 goals in the tournament]. The famous captured moment was immortalized in a picture by a Mexican photographer, and in 2005 Maradona confessed on Argentinian TV that he knew the goal shouldn't have counted and when he supposedly offered an apology, it was rejected by Shilton saying it was too late. When news outlets carried the story (heavily modified) a few days later, Maradona denied everything saying he had been misquoted and had infact never asked for forgiveness. In his 2007 biography, he braggingly said of the goal, "What hand of God? It was the hand of Diego!" In a 2019 documentary, he again admitted the wrong only this time brazenly claiming it as symbolic revenge for his country's defeat in the War. For decades after, he and Argentina were still being loudly criticized for their shameless open applause & arrogant praise of the clear blatant cheating but he was nevertheless regarded as one of soccer's greatest players of all time. In a career regarded for his incredible showmanship equally on par with his insolent showboating, Maradona died in Nov 2020 and in May 2022, his game-worn no. 10 'Hand of God' jersey sold at Sotheby's auction for $9.3 million.

LIFEFORCE (1985)
Steve Railsback, Mathilda May, Peter Firth, Frank Finlay, Patrick Stewart, Michael Gothard, Chris Jagger
Directed by Tobe Hooper
Released June 21, 1985 (Happy 40th Anniversary)
Exploring deep in the outer reaches of space is the space shuttle HMS Churchill, comprised of a joint UK/US crew of astronauts. Inside the dust tail of Halley's Comet which they've intercepted as part of their program, the radar spots an enormous needle-shaped alien spaceship in a hidden gas cloud which a small team then board. After finding hundreds of grotesque frozen bat-like carcasses in the cavernous structure, they are stunned to come across the bodies of 3 nude people (1 female, 2 males) preserved in crystalized glass sleep chambers. Still in their suspended state of hibernation, the trio and one bat are brought back to the Churchill for the return to Earth. On the way home however, radio communication is lost for a month and in the frantic attempt to regain contact, mission control at NASA dispatches the Columbia space shuttle on a rescue mission. The Churchill is found gutted by fire with its charred astronauts dead from the blaze. The 3 sealed caskets with their humanoid occupants are found untouched and are taken by the rescuers for extraterrestrial study. Once back in the London HQ of The European Research Space Centre and just before a planned autopsy, the femalien unexpectedly wakes up and she kills a weak guard (with a kiss) and other staff before escaping the Compound. Enter the arrival of arrogantly calm SAS (British Army 'Special Air Service') Col. Colin Caine who quickly launches a womanhunt to capture her. When the guard's shriveled corpse is medically examined, he too in resurrection administers the same fate to a pathologist, and the witnessing doctors are astonished at the confused guard's fully restored health. One week later over in Texas, a crashed escape pod from the Churchill is located containing Col. Tom Carlsen, an American air force officer who is the sole survivor. Carlsen is sent to London as part of a secret British investigation where he gives his account to baffled scientists and national security of the strange discovery. He explains why the crew was found "drained" and how it was he who set the fire afterwards to stop the alien trio, fearful of what would be in store for mankind if they ever set foot on our planet.

Under hypnosis, Carlsen shares a psychic/telepathic link to the femalien and is able to see through her eyes, as she assumes the host body of a nurse, Ellen Donaldson. This naughty nurse however is seen as a redheaded temptress in green poncho who seduces a man in his car. [Again, British girls hiking up their skirts in a fashion lifted from the school of Benny Hill]. Tracking her movements through visions, this leads Carlsen and Caine to The Thorlstone Psychiatric Hospital for the Criminally Insane in Yorkshire. Along with them is a 3rd colleague, Dr. Hans Fallada who is a thanatologist (one who studies death). Reminiscent of Dr. Van Helsing, Fallada says the trio may be the source of earthly vampire legend. Carlsen and Caine think they trap femalien who has absorbed the body of Dr. Armstrong, the hospital manager, while Ellen is revealed to be strongly into S&M and therefore slapped around without any reservations or protest when interrogated for information. But unbeknownst to the pursuers is that they have been set-up in a trick to lure them out of London. As a drug-injected Dr. Armstrong is transported back to London by helicopter, he dies from a hemorrhaging bloodstream leaving his body which materializes into our girl's form (giving a whole new meaning to bloodclot) who escapes again when she spills into a vomit-burst splash(!) By now, the Capital City has been infected with a catastrophic plague resulting in martial law. The 2 male aliens who rose from their siesta and were earlier thought dead from being shot in a fire fight and hit with grenades, have escaped the Lab Facility disguised as soldiers. The seemingly indestructible duo immediately set about turning the population into rampaging soul-suckers who proliferate the cycle of widespread virus into contagion. The outbreak has caused panic and triggered burning, rioting & chaos throughout the city, and not even the Prime Minister (or his secretary for that matter) is safe. And with the military overwhelmed and government collapsed, NASA seriously considers nuking England as a drastic means of quarantine to save the world.

The accumulated "lifeforces" taken by the 2 males are cerebrally siphoned (acting as conduits) to the femalien, who then funnels the massive gathering of nourishing & rejuvenating energy to their huge spaceship which makes its way pronto to hover in orbit directly above London like a beacon. (In a parallel, this is not unlike the docking of the Russian ship, Demeter, in Bram Stoker's Dracula). Dr. Fallada impales one of the males with an ancient sword of leaded iron, and Carlsen tells Caine that back on the Churchill, he was drawn with desire beyond his control to the femalien while she was in her sleep chamber. She is tracked to St. Paul's Cathedral where in a basement crypt, she lies on top an altar; the weaponized Queen feeding her harvesting alien vessel. After telling a shocked and stripped nude Carlsen that they mentally bumped uglies in space (giving a whole new meaning to the cosmic mile high club), like raging hormoned teenagers they makeout like gangbusters. As Caine kills the other male, horny Carlsen in self sacrifice goes for double penetration by impaling himself to femalien with the über sword but she is only wounded. From a rising energy column still surging and reaching high into the sky like a tentacle (with the scene more than a little borrowed from RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK), a huge explosion blows the dome off the Cathedral. With the femalien and Carlsen each still embraced together in lover's union, they are beamed on board the craft with the presumption of he now having fully merged with "the feminine in his mind." Caine is left looking upward as the ship ventures back into space towards Halley's Comet. Based on the 1976 novel 'The Space Vampires' by Colin Wilson, some may remember back in the day how LIFEFORCE was quite commonly and most often referred to as "that naked space vampire chick movie." From every video rental recommendation citing the hot babe with hairy bush whose near entire role is almost completely in the buff (and in rampant full frontal), to top shelf publications, it was an alternative title not undeserving as the voluptuous boobie parade remains the most mentioned and taboo feature characteristic that everybody who sees it will recall.

The femalien is a trance-inducing, gliding literal opiate who is first introduced as sleeping beauty, and debilitates helpless victims with lust before they succumb to ghoulish terror. She can shapeshift by bodyjumping, and like her 2 male companions, can transfer consciousness and blast out any obstacle in their path without breaking a sweat. Her specialty is mesmerizing anyone into a kind of erotic fever dream that renders powerlessness in an aura of phantasmagoria(!) The victims from all 3 are physically depleted of the very essence of their spirit that looks like electric blue sparks of static lightning. Such discharge for the unfortunately damned means their fatal emaciation into a mummified husk of a skeletal zombie-vampiric creature who likewise "drain" in order to sustain themselves. An aspiring French ballet dancer, very attractive 20yr old Mathilda May resembled Alyssa Milano and her subsequent filmography often featured nudity (with one 1994 movie called THE TIT AND THE MOON figuring prominently on the namesake breasts). For a young woman with barely any lines in a mainstream picture to saunter about gracefully in complete undress is blunt, bold & brave, and it's no wonder that May, probably overnight, gained a countless legion of male fans. The 2 boys in Hyde Park who hope to witness the femalien in some lesbian action, are highly & smirkingly representative of any hetero guy's mindset (juvenile or mature) instantly transfixed by a gorgeous bombshell confidently walking around in her birthday suit. Remember nubile Natasha Henstridge strutting around in SPECIES? May is clearly her titillating exotic predecessor. As for sullen overacting Railsback, he's made a career in brooding performances as tormented types teetering on the edge of obsession and instability bordering on full madness. At the time of filming he was best known for playing Charles Manson in the 1976 TV miniseries, HELTER SKELTER.

While it failed in the theatres and was despised by critics (Wilson himself called it "a textbook example of how to make a bad movie"), LIFEFORCE actually stands as one of Tobe Hooper's most exciting offerings, and he clearly went to town. The film's nostalgic popularity amongst the vcr crowd's loyal audience can't be denied. It's slight blend of the first ALIEN mixed with some of the QUATERMASS films also incorporates amazing sfx from John Dykstra (best known for his work on STAR WARS) and solid cinematography. At one point an impressive cast of John Gielgud, Klaus Kinski, Olivia Hussey, and George Peppard had all been tapped for parts but all 4 dropped out. Co-written by Dan O'Bannon, and with grandiose music composed by Henry Mancini, the beginning of the movie also has a basis in reality for Halley's Comet (visible every 75-76yrs) was due to return to our solar system as it did in March 1986. LIFEFORCE is slammed for being somewhat incoherent and inconsistent with its swerving mood swings of mystery into mayhem, but the transitioning territorial havoc and climactic frenzy unleashed by the trio who run amuck isn't really that difficult to follow as the unfolding events (and May's every footstep) are just brought in different subgenre styles. While it doesn't sound like it should, everything meshes well. For all the head-scratching weirdness, imperfections or negative complaints of switching narratives being too complicated, this is a straight-up comic book presented in graphically garish and gross-out live action, rife with a fetish for voyeurism. Some reviewers have analyzed that the diseased "draining" is a subversive dreadful metaphor for both homosexuality and the 1980's AIDS epidemic. Ultimately, the picture overall is an alluring & lurid, high-spirited nightmarish romp of a sci-fi horror yarn spilled into sudden apocalyptic invasion. And in total, has more than enough 'go for broke' ingredients to be a very enjoyable crazy yet cool movie.

JUN 21, 1989: The US Supreme Court in the case of Texas v. Johnson delivers its controversial decision that burning the American flag is not illegal and instead a form of political protest protected by the First Amendment. The ruling stemmed from Communist Youth Brigade activist Gregory Lee Johnson who in Aug 1984 burned a flag outside the Republican National Convention in Dallas. Arrested & charged with vandalism, he was also fined $2,000 and sentenced to 1yr in jail in accordance with Texas law. Defended by legendary attorney William Kunstler, he appealed his conviction twice which was upheld both times until finally reaching the nation's highest court which overruled the judgement. They found that Johnson's actions were symbolic speech to which his First Amendment rights had been violated, and that his actions under the Constitution could not be censored or punished as it did not represent a breach of the peace. The legal verdict invalidated prohibitions on flag desecration which was enforced in 48 of the 50 States, and it was unpopular with lawmakers & the general public alike, and also criticized by President George H. Bush who called any such dispaly "dead wrong". Congress challenged the decision and in Oct, tried to introduce new legislation by way of changing a statute in 1968's Flag Protection Act that would make desecration a federal crime but this provision was again overturned by the Supreme Court in Jun 1990 that kept Texas v. Johnson in place. In the years afterwards that have seen numerous raucous incidents of flag desecrators arrested for protesting during city unrest, marching in the path of racial awakening, and/or demonstrating in opposition to government policy, time & again prosecutors have dropped the charges against the offenders and in some cases have paid financial setlements.

JUN 20, 1942: In one of the most audacious escapes to occur during the Holocaust, Polish prisoner Kazimierz Piechowski and 3 others dressed in SS uniforms, steal a staff car and posing as officers, boldly drive out of Auschwitz -- exactly 2yrs after his arrival. After the German invasion of Poland in Sept 1939, he had tried to flee to France but was captured in Nov trying to cross the Hungarian border. He was sent to a Gestapo prison and forced into a work gang made to clear rubble until he & other deportees were transferred to Auschwitz in Jun 1940. Once there, he was classified as a political prisoner & assigned to bring corpses to the crematorium, and when he saw a list of scheduled executions, this became the catalyst for the escape plan. The 4 men had posed as a work group pulling a freight cart where they went to a motor pool and then a warehouse to change into the uniforms and arm themselves with machineguns & grenades. Once they entered the car (belonging to camp commandant Rudolf Höss), they drove to the main gate where the German-speaking Piechowski in the front passenger seat leaned out of the window for his collar insignia to be seen. He yelled at a guard to open up and the men drove off. The car was found abandonned 37 miles away and having split up, Piechowski first went to the Ukraine but left because of anti-Polish hostility and returned to Poland finding manual labor on a farm. He later made contact with & joined the Polish undergound Home Army. The Nazis arrested his parents in reprisal and they also were sent to Auschwitz where they were murdered. It has been said that the tattooing of prisoners was introduced in response to the escape of the 4. After the the war, Piechowski learned that a security bureau unit from Berlin had arrived at Auschwitz to blast the overseeing administration for how such an incredible breakout by inmates could even be possible. In the post-war years, he attended Gdańsk University, became an engineer and worked in Pomerania but was denounced by Communist authorities for his resistance activities that were deemed anti-Soviet, and again as a political prisoner was sentenced to 10yrs behind bars but only served 7yrs. Viewed by many as a true patriot, after the country's transition to democracy, a humble Piechowski politely declined Poland's highest decoration, the Order of the White Eagle. He modestly said that he felt he didn't deserve the heroic national honor and that while his escape was certainly brave, it didn't merit the distinction of accepting the prestigious award. Quiet til the end, Piechowski died in Dec 2017 aged 98.

Happy Birthday to HEATHER WAYNE