Tag Archives: Hardcore History

The Supernova in the East

The latest episode of Hardcore History is another amazing audio tour through history, even if Dan Carlin himself says he is unqualified and it might not be completely accurate. He’s a great story teller. This one covers the rise of Japan in the early twentieth century and beyond.

Dan’s coverage of the Manchurian Incident reminded me I have to re-read the Tintin story, “The Blue Lotus“. Hergé definitely applied his imagination when recounting how the train track was blown up but I’d never have known about that period of time if I had never read that book.

And similarly, I wouldn’t have known the railway track was barely damaged if I hadn’t listened to Hardcore History!

Logical Insanity in World War II

I started listening to Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History recently and I’m now on episode 42 dealing with the morality of dropping the atomic bombs in World War II.

If you’re at all upset by graphic descriptions of war you don’t want to listen to this or read the following which Dan quoted in the episode.

The heart of the firestorm area; a picture taken by the Germans soon after the attack. The buried vehicles are gutted firetrucks that had to be abandoned because of the heat.
The heart of the firestorm area; a picture taken by the Germans soon after the attack. The buried vehicles are gutted firetrucks that had to be abandoned because of the heat. (source)

The rain of large sparks, blowing down the street, were each as large as a five-mark piece. I struggled to run against the wind but could only reach a house on the corner of the Sorbenstrasse . . . .[We] couldn’t go on across the Eiffestrasse because the asphalt road had melted. There were people on the roadway, some already dead, some still lying alive but stuck in the asphalt. They must have rushed onto the roadway without thinking. Their feet had got stuck and then they had put out their hands to try to get out again. They were on their hands and knees screaming.

Kate Hoffmeister, then nineteen, on the firestorm in Hamburg in 1943 (source)

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