Yeah, That Happened: Topics in History

[smockery]

I was a sophomore in college and in a physics class when the shuttle went. I remember getting out of class and there was this guy going down the hall announcing it and I thought he was kidding. Then I got to the student union and saw the footage.

[divasahm]

I was 22, law clerking and writing resolutions for the Texas State Senate. Someone came into our office and told us what had happened, and someone else went and got a TV from the conference room. We all stopped and watched the coverage for hours, until the senator who represented NASA headquarters' district in Houston starting sending information about each astronaut and requisitions for memorial resolutions. What I remember most was watching veteran resolution writers--grown men--tear up as they wrote those memorials. Absolutely devastating.

[Witchie]

I was a sophomore in HS. We had a snow day. I was stunned, but naively hopeful that they had somehow survived until they announced it had exploded and all were lost. It was devastating.

[Mutagen]

Last night, NPR ran an absolutely heartbreaking interview with one of the engineers who tried to get NASA to abort the Challenger launch. Link here. I cried listening to it. The tragedy was so needless.

[sardonictart]

I was in a junior high student council meeting when a teacher broke in, announced the tragedy, and then took us all to a room to view the news coverage. I wanted to be an astronaut, and my dad worked on NASA projects when I was little so it hit me hard. Our area's new junior high had just broken ground; it was named Challenger in honor of the shuttle and its crew.

Fast forward to business school where we went over a case study in overcoming groupthink and applying ethics in business. The case study was on the Challenger disaster. I learned so much about the engineers and how the whole system worked and how to keep corruption in management to a minimum.

I really feel for the engineer that NPR interviewed. I don't know how I would live with that either. I hope he finds some peace. Same with the FBI agent in Phoenix that reported on two of the September 11 hijackers (and the Minnesota agents too). The human mind isn't all that rational, and I wonder if they feel guilt too. None of them should, but that's not how it works for conscientious people.

[discoprincess]

I saw this trending on Facebook: German medical records reveal Adolf Hitler had 'micropenis'

New German medical records, which have been unearthed 93 years after they were originally recorded, claim that Adolf Hitler had a micro-penis.

Historians think that this embarrassing penis deformity of Hitler may be the reason behind his rage and lack of sex life during his 56 years, the Daily Star reported.

[snip]
Historians Jonathan Mayo and Emma Craigie said in the new book ‘Hitler’s Last Day: Minute by Minute’ that the Nazi leader, who was well known to have a fear of people seeing him naked and never became a father, kept the dark secret close to him.

They noted that Hitler himself is believed to have had two forms of genital abnormality, an undescended testicle and a rare condition called penile Hypospadius, in which the urethra opens on the underside of the penis.

Personal doctor Theodor Morell, who prescribed Hitler amphetamines, hormones and cocaine on occasion, to hike the leader’s libido, is also said to have recorded the Fuhrer’s penis deformity.

Disclaimer: No disrespect meant at all meant toward those who were victims to his megalomaniac regime...

...


Bwahahahahaha at the schaden of this tidbit on Hitler coming out now!

[chonies]

That's actually rather disturbing--isn't hypospadius a fairly simple fix nowadays?

[sardonictart]

Apparently, the Allied troops knew this little nugget (ha!) of information about Hitler and used to sing about it to this tune. The lyrics go something like this:

Hitler has only got one ball.
Goering has two but they are very small
Himmler has something similar, and
Goebbels has no balls at all.

[eclair]

Yes! My friend's would hold up their grouchy daushchund, Liebchen, and sing this while she howled along. The dad was a WWII vet.

[sardonictart]

Feb 23, 2016 9:11:04 GMT -4 eclair said:

Yes! My friend's would hold up their grouchy daushchund, Liebchen, and sing this while she howled along. The dad was a WWII vet.

I find this hilarious! Apparently, it was really common. I have to ask my mother if she heard the British troops singing it. Hahaha.