VIDEO: "The Black Death Never Made Sense - Until Now"

This past December saw the release of research showing that a "a volcanic eruption – or cluster of eruptions – around 1345 caused annual temperatures to drop for consecutive years due to the haze from volcanic ash and gases, which in turn caused crops to fail across the Mediterranean region." This in turn caused a shift in trade with Europe turning to grain imports from the Black Sea region; and, unfortunately, paving the way for the rapid spread of bubonic plague (the "Black Plague" or "Great Dying") into Europe. 

• See also: "A Volcanic Eruption in 1345 May Have Triggered a Chain of Events That Brought the Black Death to Europe"--Smithsonian Magazine. 

The data relied upon in the research comes from tree ring records. But the video below notes that when you know what to look for, you see independent confirmation of the cooler weather and poor crops in other places. (Although I would note that scientists that study the Black Plague have been well aware that cooler weather and poor crops had preceded the plague outbreak in Europe, arguing that this made Europeans--sickened and weakened by weather and poor diet--more susceptible to the plague). 

     The more interesting issue is why there was a major plague outbreak in Central Asia on the western edge of China that spread a devastating plague across half the world to Europe.

    This was not a one-off. A large volcanic eruption in 536 AD (probably in Iceland) also resulted in a significant and disastrous decline in temperatures in Europe with resultant famines. As an article from the University of Melbourne describes it:

    This triggered the coldest decade on record going back two thousand years, causing crop failures from Ireland all the way to China.

    It also provided perfect conditions for the spread of a devastating outbreak of bubonic plague 

    Believed to have originated in China and passed through India, the so-called ‘Plague of Justinian’ arrived in Constantinople in 542 through grain ships from Egypt before engulfing the rest of the Mediterranean, Europe and the Persian Empire.

    By 549, this killer pandemic had destroyed at least a quarter of the population of the Byzantine Empire – perhaps as many as 10 million people. 

Two plagues, nearly 800 years apart, caused by sudden volcanic cooling, originating in western China, and spreading across the known world causing unprecedented numbers of death. 

VIDEO: "The Black Death Never Made Sense - Until Now"
Paul Whitewick (9 min.)

Why Do They Lie To Us? Native American Enslavement

I read a piece published by the New Yorker yesterday, February 26, entitled "The Hidden History of Native American Enslavement" by Geraldo Cadava.  While the facts set out in the piece may be correct, the article overall is a deception because it gives the impression that only Europeans (it focuses on the Spanish) were involved in the enslaving of Native Americans with no mention of the various Native American tribes involved in the slave trade; particularly the Comanche that built a powerful empire based on slavery, the horse trade, and trade in firearms. The article also fails to mention the efforts by the Catholic Church and Spanish authorities to purchase enslaved Native Americans from the Comanche and free them. 

VIDEO: The P38 Can Opener

I don't know if the military still issues the P38, but it was issued to troops through WWII and up into the 1980s at least. They are ubiquitous in Army surplus stores. And they are cheap. Preppers like to keep them stashed in kits and with food stores. Campers will often have them around as well. I keep a few in my kitchen as a backup should our regular can opener break. This video gives a bit of history on the P38, shows how to use them to open cans and how they can be pressed into a few other duties as well. 

 VIDEO: "Not JUST a can opener…| How to use a P38"
Echoes Of The Past (5 min.)

Gun & Prepping News #68

Just some gun and prepping related links that I thought interesting or useful:

• "How to Shoot Faster (and Actually Hit)"--Armory Life.  Advice and drills to help you shoot faster while maintaining acceptable accuracy. An excerpt:

    For me, one of my bigger challenges as an instructor has been helping people with a modest level of proficiency reach the next level. They may very well be safe gun handlers and capable of posting a satisfactory score on a course of fire, but are locked into their comfort zone and are not especially confident when it comes to pushing the gas pedal just a little bit harder.

    By reinforcing combat shooting fundamentals such as grip, index on the target, and trigger management and slowly introducing them to a few different drills, I often see great improvement. The ultimate goal is to set each individual’s mental clock so they can strike that ideal balance between speed and accuracy.

    What follows are a few exercises that I have used over the years to teach people how to shoot faster. Perhaps there is something you can use in this mix to improve your skills. 

• "Physical Fitness; The Foundation of all Training"--Combat Shooting & Tactics. As the author points out: "Again, what good is your rifle marksmanship if you’re not strong enough to carry the weapon and spare mags? What good are your hand to hand skills if a 30 second scuffle leaves you bent over, hands on knees, gasping for air."
• "Escalation of Force: How to Choose the Appropriate Response to Potential Violence"--Organic Prepper.  A big issue with self-defense is that the amount or level of force must be reasonable or proportionate to the threat. An excerpt:

    We’ve all heard the saying, “When your only tool is a hammer, you treat everything like it’s a nail.”  The same is true when your only tool is deadly force.

    Obviously, there are life and death situations in which deadly force is the only possible response if you want to live. When someone bursts into your home waving a gun screaming that they’re going to kill you, when someone in a mask is trying to drag you into a van with dark-tinted windows, when someone is clearly intent on beating the crap out of you until you’re dead – all of these things are situations in which your use of a lethal response is entirely justified.

    But… a lot of situations require more finesse unless you want to risk a) spending the rest of your life in prison and praying you don’t drop the soap or b) waiting for bloody vengeance from your adversary’s friends or family or c) criminal prosecution and civil lawsuits forever and ever until you die. 

This is an important topic so please read this. 

• Mossad Ayoob: "Firearms Refresher" (Part 1 - Handguns) (Part 2 - Shotguns) (Part 3 - Rifles). Just a quick review of basics for each type of firearm: checking your weapon and ammunition, checking if it is loaded, weapons handling and safety considerations, tips for drawing the handgun, ammunition selection, straps and slings for the long guns, and more. Just a good review of the basics, but still some tips or ideas for the experienced shooter. If you are teaching someone about shooting, these would probably be good articles to supplement what is your class or teaching session. 
• Some firearms history: "M1 Garand vs. M1941 Johnson Rifle Debate"--Armory Life.  The Johnson rifle was a semi-auto rifle that competed against the M1 Garand. It used a 10-round rotary magazine and saw some very limited use in the war. However, it was too little, too late and so it never replaced the M1 Garand with US forces. 
• And some more firearms history: "The MAT-49: France's Mid-20th Century SMG"--American Rifleman. At the end of WWII, the French were left with a multitude of different weapons and embarked on a program to standardize what they had. The MAT-49 came out of this.

    ... The MAT-49 was simple and rugged featuring a retractable stock made of heavy gauge wire. With its stock retracted the MAT-49 is just 18 inches long—with its stock extended, it is 28 inches (with a 9.1-inch barrel). 

    A unique feature is the folding magazine well, which tucks in neatly beneath the barrel—allowing a safe, compact carry that was particularly appealing for paratroops and vehicle crews. The magazine well could be quickly folded back into the firing position, and the well provides the forward hand grip. The weapon has a bit of heft, weighing nearly 9.5 pounds with a loaded 32-round magazine.

    There is no manual safety on the MAT-49, rather, there's a prominent grip safety. The gun is blowback-operated, firing from an open bolt, with a cyclic rate of 600 rounds per minute. An experienced shooter can easily trigger single rounds. The MAT-49 uses a 32-round, double-stack, single-feed magazine—spring tension is tight, and the magazine loading tool is essential. There was also a 20-round, single-stack magazine, designed to be more resistant to sand and grit, and this was issued to troops in desert environments. 

• While most of us probably think rifle accuracy begins and ends with free floating the barrel, that is not really correct: "Understanding Barrel Bedding"--Rifle Shooter Magazine.  An excerpt:

There are a number of ways a bolt-action rifle can be bedded. Bull barrels and heavy varmint/target barrels oscillate less violently than sporter-weight ones as a bullet accelerates down the bore and generally shoot just as well when free-floated as they do when bedded. Some competitive shooters, however, have been known to glass-bed the barrel and leave the action floating while others permanently bond the barreled action and stock together by not using release agent. Most sporter, carbine and ultralight hunting rifles, however, respond better to other bedding dynamics.

• Related: "How To Adjust Forearm Tip Pressure"--Shooting Times. The author's experience is that most rifles will do best with a free floated barrel. "But in perhaps less than five to 10 percent of the rifles, I run into one that will not shoot well after my initial accurization work. At that point I look at the possibility that this rifle may need some pressure on the barrel. In these cases a pressure point in the stock may help to stabilize or dampen erratic or nonsymmetric barrel movement."
• Related: "Use of Barrel Harmonics For Rifle Accuracy"--Tactical Link.
• Related: "What are barrel harmonics?"--Gun Tweaks. 

• You can't stop the signal: "Airsoft SCAR SMG conversion gang caught"--Impro Guns. The illicit manufacturers here took Airsoft versions of the SCAR, and replaced the guts and barrel with those for a simple submachine gun. Gave the user a nice stock and appearance. There are some photographs showing how things were fit into the Airsoft shell/chassis. 
• "Luth-AR Globe Charging Handle: Why Didn’t I Think Of That?"--The Truth About Guns.  Something that might be useful for those with arthritis. Essentially a ball like that on the bolt handle of a bolt action rifle attached to one side of the cocking handle for an AR. A lot of the comments complain that the ball would hang up things, but since generations have survived using bolt action guns with a ball sticking off the side on a cocking handle, this seems more an imaginary concern than a real one. You know what really hangs up on things with an AR? The pistol grip and long magazines and weapon mounted lights and the tall sights and stocks shaped like giant hooks. 
• "Choosing Your First Hunting Rifle"--Armory Life.  If you are like me, your first hunting rifle was probably a gift or hand-me-down. But if you are looking at getting your first (or just getting another rifle) this article has some tips and pointers starting with cartridge selection, type of action, the importance of keeping the weight down, what game species you are going to be hunting with it (which, frankly, should have been at the top of the list of considerations), and accessorizing it. 
• Related: "Top 5 All-Around North American Big-Game Cartridges"--American Hunter.  
• Related: "The Top 10 Rifle Cartridges for North American Big Game"--Peterson's Hunting.
• "25 Most Popular Survival Books (My Favourite is #5)"--More Than Just Surviving.  This is originally from 2014 and updated in 2015, but is still probably a pretty solid list. I've read 5 of the first 6 books and several of the books in the remainder of the list. I would note, however, that it is mix of wilderness survival and prepping books. I was somewhat disappointed though that the list did not include Cody Lundin's book, When All Hell Breaks Loose, which I consider the best overall prepping book as it goes over mental/emotional preparation and concerns, then goes into topics of shelter, water, food, sanitation and hygiene, and other topics for someone surviving a major disaster, with the emphasis on people surviving in their homes. 
• "Choosing the Best Water Purification Tablets – Everything You Need to Know!"--Alpha Survivalist. The article says that it is reviewing 5 different brands, but only 4 are discussed. There is a brief overview and review of each brand. The author also discusses historical (mostly military) experience with water purification tablets and practical uses. The article also discusses the three general chemical compounds used in such tablets. But this may be the most important tip of all from the article:

    It makes sense to use multiple water purification methods, you can not be careful enough right? Purification tablets work best when they are paired up with quality water filters like the Lifestraw or the Sawyer Mini.

    Specific protozoa species like cryptosporidium usually have a strong resistance to chemical purifiers, however, they are too big to go through many water filters including the two just mentioned above.

    Always keep this in mind when choosing a purification tablet.

• "Seasonal Changeover"--Tactical Wisdom.  The author, Joe Dolio, discusses what he does with his vehicle bags, get home bags, EDC/Patrol bags, and full ruck as the season shifts from winter/early spring to warmer weather, including updating clothing, checking that MREs and other gear is still current and so on. He expects the readers to be familiar with his recommendations for such kit set out in his book, Baseline Training Manual, but the general concepts are valid no matter your set up.
• "15 DIY Instant Soup Mixes"--Urban Survival Site. This is exactly what it sounds like: some recipes of dry ingredients that can be stored in Mason jars or Mylar bags, needing only the addition of hot water to make soup. He warns that some of the ingredients, such as freeze dried chicken, may be hard to source, however.  
• "36 Cool Ideas For Your Paracord Survival Projects"--Survival Life. Belts, keychains, monkeyfist slungshots, chair, sling, etc. 
• "Frightening reality of California’s homeless epidemic laid bare as disease outbreak could threaten LA"--New York Post. 

    The bacterial disease leptospirosis was found in rats at encampments in the hippie college town of Berkeley, leading health officials there to issue an urgent warning to the homeless to clear out.

Per the article, "Flu-like symptoms such as fever, headache and vomiting appear between five and 14 days. If the infection isn’t detected and treated with antibiotics, it leads to organ failure, internal bleeding, meningitis — and death."

     Officials told them to relocate at least a third of a mile from the “red zone” encompassing several square blocks as soon as possible. The warning comes as authorities attempted remove the encampment last year but were blocked by a federal judge. 

I find it interesting that the judiciary had no problems with locking down the population for a largely imaginary threat, but suddenly find it objectionable to address a real public health threat.  

Ancient Eyptian Scrolls Record Giants

This is interesting: "Long-lost Egyptian scroll fuels debate over real-life biblical giants"--Daily Mail. The article relates:

    The 3,300-year-old document, known as Anastasi I, has been in the museum's collection since 1839 and has recently resurfaced on the Associates for Biblical Research, renewing interest in its possible links to biblical accounts. 

    The papyrus describes encounters with the Shosu people, said to stand 'four cubits or five cubits' tall, up to eight feet in height.   

[snip]

    Associates for Biblical Research highlighted this passage as evidence that the Shosu, who may have been Canaanites, were of exceptional size. 

    'This would mean that the height of those encountered varied from at least six feet eight inches to eight feet six inches,' the researchers wrote.

    'This is particularly interesting when you consider that a main point in the letter regards the need for accuracy.' 

    Other experts noted, however, that the Shosu (or Shasu) are widely understood by historians to have been a nomadic group in the Levant, suggesting the papyrus may reflect military observations rather than literal claims of supernatural giants.    

 Oh no, it fell outside the accepted narrative so the "experts" have to deflect and confuse the issues by interjecting that "giants" must mean "supernatural" rather than just really tall people, especially compared to Egyptians who probably were only around 5 feet or so. 

Weekend Reading

 Some longer or more involved reading:

• Another Weekend Knowledge Dump from Active Response Training.  Some of the more notable links:
• Concealed carry considerations for someone in a wheelchair. The author of this piece preferred a strong side, IWB holster. I knew a guy when I was younger that liked using a fanny pack.
• Greg links to an article entitled "The Self-Aid Imperative: Why Misunderstanding IFAKs Undermines Responder Survival" which discusses why it is a mistake to view the IFAK as a source of supplies for others and not your own first response to an injury.
• An article listing what the author believes to be the 5 best rimfire defensive loads, to which Greg also recommends Federal Punch whether in .22 LR or .22 Mag.
• Pew Pew Tacticals list of the best prepping and survival websites. 
• Downloadable photo-realistic sniper targets. 

• "SHOT SHOW 2026"--Active Response Training. A bunch of Shot Show links with commentary by Greg Ellifritz.
• A little off the beaten track: "Collections: Roman Infantry Tactics: Why the Pilum and not a Spear?" An excerpt:

How would this perform in combat? Older testing by Peter Connolly and newer testing by Tod Todeschini both seem to confirm a maximum effective range of around c. 25-30m or so; as ranged weapons go, these are relatively close-in ones. The shield and even armor penetrating potential of the weapon is considerable: once the point has punched through a shield (or armor), the long shank is thinner than the hole the point has created, allowing the weapon to continue moving with the momentum (and if thrown in a relatively high arc, the weight) of the heavy wooden haft pushing it forward. With long shanks anywhere from 50 to 100cm, that’s enough length for the weapon to potentially punch through a shield and then keep going to strike the man behind it and experiments with reconstructed versions generally seek to back up this application.

• The truth is out there? "Inside the 70-Year Military Investigation of Aliens in Brazil"--Folha de S. Paulo. 
• "The Trillionaires of Mars" by Devon Eriksen. He argues that the first entity to establish a Mars colony will be the universe’s first trillionaire. Mars is the gateway to the asteroid belt. 

    The value of Mars isn’t the balmy weather, the fresh air, or even Deja Thoris in a chainmail bikini. 

    It’s the fact that here you have a planet, where people can live in sealed habitats (above or below the surface), and it’s really, really easy to throw things into space, and get them to and from the asteroid belt.

    In other words, if Earth is the suburbs, and the Belt is the mine, Mars is your industrial zone.

    Hell, you don’t even need to mine asteroids in place.

    Depending on the delta-v cost, you can just attach boosters to your smaller rocks and push them right into Mars orbit. It’s called a Hohmann transfer. But whether you are moving metal from a mobile refinery, raw ore, or entire rocks, cargo is cheap to move in space, at least compared to space launch from Earth’s surface.  

And what will we find in the asteroid belt? An example from the article:

One single asteroid, 16 Psyche, some 140 miles across, has an estimated [mineral] value at today’s market prices of 100 quadrillion dollars. You read that right. That’s roughly 900 times the value of the entire world economy.  

The Soviet's Silenced Revolver: The OTS 38

From Breach Bang Clear: "OTS 38 Revolver: Stechkin’s Suppressed Wheelgun." This was a snub-nosed revolver that shot from a barrel at the bottom of the cylinder (like a Rhino revolver) to mitigate recoil and muzzle climb when a round was fired. There was no sound suppressor to attach, however. Rather it used a special rimless 7.62x42mm cartridge that each acted to suppress the sound. The article explains:

... The sound and flash of each round are fully contained within the cartridge case. Inside the case is a piston. After firing, the piston seals the cartridge’s neck. This eliminates the noise, smoke and flash by acting as a barrier after the round is touched off. In essence, each round acts as its own silencer.

[snip]

 This particular round was designed to be effective at up to 100′, and the sound signature is said to be at 110 dB with no muzzle flash. ...

Ancient Military Barracks From Time Of Ramses II

This article is from the fall of 2024, but still interesting: "These Ancient Egyptian Barracks Paint a Vivid Picture of Military Life During the Reign of Ramses II." From the article:

Researchers have discovered a 3,200-year-old Egyptian fort filled with archaeological treasures. Located at the Tell Al-Abqain excavation site in northwest Egypt, the buried structure contained religious tributes, military barracks and a bronze sword inscribed with the name of the pharaoh Ramses II.

[snip]

Those buildings, or barracks, contained a trove of artifacts, including the necessities and personal effects of the soldiers stationed there during Egypt’s New Kingdom era, a period of prosperity, territorial expansion and peace that lasted from around 1550 to 1077 B.C.E. The barracks show the military power Egypt expended to grow and defend its territory during this time.

[snip]

At the site, researchers also found granaries, cow burials and pottery containing fish bones. In ancient Egypt, cows were “revered as celestial deities” and symbols of “strength, abundance and prosperity,” per the statement. However, these specific burials indicate that soldiers likely ate the cows: The bovine remains were found in an area near an oven, “which confirms that they were probably divided into parts and then stored in silos after drying,” El Kharadly tells Live Science’s Owen Jarus. 

Mark Felton: The Nazi Bell

 The Nazi Bell is a one of those myths that came out of World War II that is a cross between UFO lore and German super-science. In this video, Mark Felton tries to ferret out the origin of the myth. 

 VIDEO: "Die Glocke - Hitler's Anti-Gravity Machine?"
Mark Felton Productions (14 min.)

VIDEO: Dealing With The Dark On The American Frontier

A couple stories of how Daniel Boone dealt with a couple dangerous incidents that occurred at night.

VIDEO: "Daniel Boone In The Dark On The Frontier"
The Deerskin Diary (11 min.)

Weekend Reading

• First up is a new newsletter from Jon Low at Defensive Pistolcraft.  One of the points raised in the newsletter is the concept of giving yourself permission to act in self-defense should the need arise. Quoting from an email from Jeff Boren:

     Every defensive encounter begins with a decision most people never 
consciously make.  

    Not the draw.  

    Not the shot.  

    Not even the recognition of the threat.  

     The first real action happens long before any of that.  It is the internal permission to act.  And if that permission has not already been granted, nothing else matters.  

     Tom Givens says it plainly:  “We carry a gun because we might have to shoot someone.”  That statement resonates because it forces honesty.  Carrying a firearm is not symbolic or theoretical.  It is preparation for a specific, unpleasant possibility.  

     Jeff Cooper described this as lowering the threshold for violence.  Not recklessness.  Not aggression.  A willingness to act decisively when action is required.  That willingness is not created in the moment.  It is a pre-made decision, declared long in advance.  

     Lance Thomas understood this.  After surviving multiple violent encounters, he said, “I refuse to be a victim of violent crime.”  That decision was not formed when the door opened.  It existed long before the first criminal ever walked into his store.  

     That is mindset.   

 You need to make the decision that you will resist a criminal assault even resorting to using a lethal weapon before the incident so you don't freeze if that moment comes. It gives you time to think of the moral implications and what you would be willing to do ahead of time, rather than having that internal debate when someone is breaking into your house, or attacking your wife or kids. This is only a selection from the whole email, so be sure to read the whole thing. 

A point that comes up a couple of times in Jon's newsletter is the importance of the first, cold shot. You draw or split times are meaningless if you are not adept at a cold draw and shot because that may be the only chance you have against an armed killer. One way to measure this is to test a cold shot, measure it, and see how you do. But, as asserted in an article he cites to--"Getting More Out Of 'Cold Performance' Assessments--if you are going to the range and know exactly what is going to happen and what drills you are going to do, is that really a "cold shot"? The author of that article suggests you "optimize the first run of the day by introducing some ambiguity into the evaluation by mixing things up" by, for instance, putting your drills on some 3x5 cards and mixing them up and doing the first one you draw as your "cold" assessment. He has a couple other ideas as well.

There is a lot more that Jon has in his newsletter, so be sure to check it out. For instance, he has compiled a list of upcoming armed self defense classes coming up. 

• Next up is a new Weekend Knowledge Dump from Greg Ellifritz at Active Response Training. Some of the links which caught my attention:
• An article on handheld tactical flashlights. It tells you what to look for in a quality tactical flashlight. Unfortunately, it does not address how to use the flashlight with a handgun. Not to worry, though: In my November 23, 2025 "Gun & Prepping News # 56" I included three articles on using a tactical flashlight with a handgun.  
• A detailed article on the "violin" reload for shotguns.
• An article discussing whether muzzle tape impact accuracy. The reason for taping the muzzle of a rifle (the author uses electrical tape) is to keep water and debris out of the muzzle. I've read in WWII, before one of the big Pacific landings, Marines were issued condoms to put over the muzzles of their rifles for the same purpose. It would probably work today assuming you could find some that were not lubed. Either Spain or Germany had muzzle caps that fit over the muzzle of a CETME or G3 that were designed to be able to shoot off the end if you fired it with the cap on. I bought one and discovered, completely by accident, that it worked exactly as intended. And in answer to the original question, the author found that the muzzle tape did not impact accuracy.
• The UK has selected the GLOCK GR-115 rifle as their official police carbine. Not sure why their police need select fire rifles since it is illegal for most anyone to own firearms. 
• A history of thumb opening knives. My first exposure to the idea of a knife with an attachment for opening with the thumb was a book on survivalism and prepping that mentioned using a "flickit" attachment to a Buck knife. Based on the article, the author's first exposure was similar--ads for those devices in Soldier of Fortune magazine.
• An article compiling the results of tests of the terminal ballistics of the .380. An excerpt that I found useful:

We have concluded that Full Metal Jacket .380 ammunition will always achieve at least 16 inches of penetration in gel with 4 layers of denim and will penetrate intermediate barriers better than .380 Jacketed Hollow Points. If a pistol will feed anything it will feed FMJ. It should penetrate the vital organs of a large man from almost any angle even if it must pass through his arm to reach his chest.

•  Moving away from self-defense and shooting, here is an interesting long read from The War Zone (TWZ): "Did A Mysterious 'Sonic Weapon' Really Aid Delta Force In Capturing Maduro?"
• And while not something to "read", Aeon has a video exploring the Roman road networks.  If the video is accurate, the main highways were much wider than I had imagined. 

JFK Assassination: Evidence Of Second Shooter

 This is actually from a 2023 article from the Daily Mail entitled: "Secret Service agent who was with JFK on day of his assassination breaks silence with claim that blows up the 'magic bullet' theory and suggests there WAS more than one shooter." Paul Landis, "who in 1963 was a young Secret Service agent assigned to protect First Lady Jaqueline Kennedy, said that in the chaos following the shooting, he picked up a nearly pristine bullet sitting on the top of the back seat of the open limousine." 

    It was just behind where Kennedy was sitting when he was killed, he says. Landis says he took the projectile and placed it on the president's hospital stretcher to preserve it for the autopsy investigators.

    That bullet, the first piece of evidence logged in the murder investigation, has for six decades been said to have been found on the stretcher of Texas Governor John Connally, and was hypothesized to have fallen free from a wound to his thigh.

    Landis thinks the bullet may have rolled onto Connally's stretcher from Kennedy's while they were next to each other. 

    It has long been known as the 'magic bullet' -- the bullet that supposedly passed through Kennedy's neck from the rear, then entered Connally's right shoulder, struck his rib, exited under his right nipple, passed through his right wrist and hit his left thigh. 

    But Landis' assertion that it had actually exited Kennedy in his Cadillac could lay waste to the magic bullet theory - and bolster the claim that Lee Harvey Oswald did not operate alone on the day of the murder. 

 [snip]

    The bullet, which had been fired but was nearly fully intact, was positively matched to Oswald's Mannlicher-Carcano through ballistics analysis. 

    But if Landis' claim is true, that suggests the bullet tagged as FBI evidence item 'C1' was not responsible for the injuries to Connolly, and there was no so-called 'magic bullet'.  

 The article goes on to explain that there wasn't enough time for Oswald to get off four shots from his rifle in the time he had, so if there was a fourth bullet, as Landis is saying, there must necessarily have been another shooter--someone that shot Connolly. 

VIDEO: Did World War I Start Because Of One Railway?

 Did World War I start because of a railway? That is what this video argues, noting that Germany had entered an agreement with the Ottoman Empire that would run a rail line from Berlin to Iraq that would have allowed Germany to bypass all the trade and choke points that Great Britain and France would throw up, and threatened the control over the Ottoman's exercised by British and French (read: Rothschild) banks. The video makes the obvious comparison between the situation then and the opposition to the Chinese Belt and Road projects.  

 VIDEO: "How Britain Destroyed The World To Stop One Train"
Cinematic History Tales (16 min.)

VIDEO: From Where The Magi Probably Came

Merry Christmas to everyone. To keep in the mood of celebrating the birth of Christ, here is a video that discusses the probable origin of the magi that came to see the young Christ and provide him with gifts.

VIDEO: "Where the Magi Actually Came From"
Good News Studios (15 min.)

Rich Lowry Labels The Attack On The U.S.S. Liberty A Conspiracy Theory

Rich Lowry, a political columnist, writes at the New York Post that "The latest anti-Israel conspiracy theory is decades old — and stupid as ever." He begins:

    For elements of the anti-Israel right, it’s a time when everything old is becoming new again. 

    So a half-century-old theory that the Jewish state deliberately attacked the USS Liberty during the Six-Day War now has renewed currency. 

[snip]

    The fact is that the devastating Israeli attack on the Liberty, which killed 34 American service members and wounded 171, was a woeful case of mistaken identification. 

Lowry is gaslighting you. A couple of years ago, the Forgotten History YouTube channel did a couple videos about the attack on the U.S.S. Liberty. The first was an overall review of the attack and what happened, while the second was an interview of one of the survivors of the attack. One of the points raised was that Israeli jets had overflown the Liberty and confirmed it was an American ship before Israel commenced its multiple attacks (aircraft and torpedo boats). A 2023 paper, "The USS Liberty Incident: Accident or Intentional Attack," confirms this, relating (footnotes omitted):

On the morning of June 8th, the Liberty reached its position 13 miles off the shore of the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt. During this morning, multiple Israeli reconnaissance planes flew over the Liberty. The first of these flyovers occurred at approximately 6 AM when an Israeli naval pilot relayed to the Israeli naval command that he believed he spotted a “U.S. Navy cargo type ship” with a GRT-5 designation. Israeli Naval command would later confirm that this ship was indeed an American, and they would conduct seven more flyovers before the attack at approximately 1400. 

And (footnotes omitted):

In 2006, the Chicago Tribune released an article discussing the recordings of an EC-121 spy plane that was over the Liberty during her attack. The EC-121 spy plane recorded multiple Israeli messages proving that Israeli pilots knew the Liberty’s nationality. Additionally, analysts aboard the EC-121 also overheard the Israeli torpedo boats mention an American flag. The recordings obtained on the EC-121 directly contradict Israeli claims that a flag was not present on Liberty. While the National Security Agency would release three of these tapes that occurred after the attack, officials and analysts aboard the plane believe that more tapes exist that were captured during the attack. Michael Prostinak, a Hebrew linguist aboard a U.S. Navy EC-121, spoke of these tapes and said, “I can tell you there were more tapes than just the three on the Internet.” 

    The Liberty was built off of a converted freighter and was unarmed but for four .50 caliber machine guns--it obviously was not a destroyer nor capable of shelling targets in the Sinai, the reason Israel later gave for targeting the ship. It was flying an American flag and in international waters. Identification letters and numbering were clearly visible as the account above relates. 

    Moreover, as the paper cited above relates (footnotes omitted):

Multiple senior government officials at the time of the attack would share the survivor’s sentiments of a deliberate Israeli attack, including Secretary of State Dean Rusk, C.I.A. Director Richard Helms, and counsel to President Johnson Clark Clifford. All three would later state in their memoirs that they believed the attack was deliberate and details were left out of the official narratives. 

 While we do not know the motive for the attack, "[m]any of the survivors of the attack and officials, including Adm. Moorer, believe that Israel planned to sink the Liberty, blame Egypt, and draw the U.S. into the Six-Day War." Which would probably explain why the communication antennae were targeted first. 

VIDEO: Armalite AR-16

This video gives an overview of the history of the AR-16 and also does a field strip you can see how it works. It is another .308 rifle, like the AR-10 before it, but with changes due to Armalite having sold the rights to the direct impingement system used in the AR-10 and AR-15, and to make the weapon easier and less expensive for non-industrialized countries to produce. Just as the AR-10 was shrunk to become the AR-15, the AR-16 was shrunk to become the AR-18.

 VIDEO: "AR-16: Armalite's Lost Battle Rifle"
Forgotten Weapons (18 min.)

Interesting: New Theory and Evidence Suggest That The Zodiac Killer and Black Dahlia Murderer Are One And The Same

 From the Daily Mail: "The Zodiac killer and Black Dahlia murderer were the SAME man: Explosive investigation unmasks single suspect behind two of America's darkest murders." Evidence is pointing toward Marvin Skipton Margolis, aka Marvin Merrill, who was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1925, to Russian and Polish parents.It's a lengthy article, so if you plan on reading it, put aside some time. 

VIDEO: The Forgotten Tradition of Christmas Ghost Stories

Occasionally in old Christmas songs and stories you get a hint that Christmas time was once a popular time for telling spooky ghost stories. This video goes over the history of this tradition--how it became a tradition and why it eventually faded away, with Halloween eventually replacing Christmas as the "spooky" holiday. 

VIDEO: "Forgotten Tradition: Chilling Christmas Ghosts"
The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered (15 min.)

Evidence of Ancient Opium Trade

The New York Post reports that researchers found trace amounts of opium in a "22-centimeter alabaster vase was inscribed in four languages — Akkadian, Elamite, Persian, and Egyptian — and dedicated to Xerxes I, whose Achaemenid Empire encompassed Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Levant, Anatolia, and parts of Arabia and Central Asia." This dates the jar to roughly 450 B.C. "The findings reportedly mirror echo findings of opiate remnants in Egyptian alabaster vessels and Cypriot base-ring juglets discovered in an alleged’s merchant’s tomb in Sedment, Egypt," which "dated back between 16th-11th century BCE during Egypt’s New Kingdom."

    These two findings were more than a millennium apart and spanned multiple social strata, leading researchers to deduce that opium could reside in the many alabaster vessels found in Tut’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings.

    In fact, some of these ancient containers also contained dark, sticky material that eluded chemist Alfred Lucas in 1933. They had notably been harvested by ancient tomb raiders, further pointing to the contents’ potential value.

    “We think it’s possible, if not probable, that alabaster jars found in King Tut’s tomb contained opium as part of an ancient tradition of opiate use that we are only now beginning to understand,” said Koh. “It’s possible these vessels were easily recognizable cultural markers for opium use in ancient times, just as hookahs today are attached to shisha tobacco consumption.” 

VIDEO: The National Socialist Book Bans

We all learned in school how evil it was for the National Socialist Workers' Party to burn books, but we never actually learn what types of books they went after other than that the books were "Jewish". This video addresses that question, noting that the categories of books that were burned or banned were: 

• Books pushing homosexual and transgender ideology;
• Communist literature and writings;
• Books that extolled pacifism or antiwar sentiment; 
• Pornographic and degenerate literature.  

 VIDEO: "The Truth About the 1933 National Socialist Book Burnings"
Deleted History (8 min.)