History 2024, November

One of the first were Russian engineers, who in 1708 proposed to Peter the Great to test an explosive device, which was a barrel of water in which a hermetically sealed powder charge was kept. A wick came out - at the moment of danger they lit it and threw this device into the hearth of the fire. In another

In the initial period of the Great Patriotic War, communication in general, and in particular encrypted communication, was carried out with great problems. Marshal Vasilevsky described the situation as follows: "From the very beginning of the war, the General Staff experienced difficulties due to the constant loss of communication channels with the fronts and armies." Also

Before the attack on the Soviet Union, the Nazis conducted a large-scale operation to prepare sabotage and reconnaissance groups to disrupt communications between the units of the Red Army. Historian Yuri Dolgopolov writes: “From the very beginning of the war, sabotage groups of the Germans, including in wire communication lines and

Paradoxically, in the USSR, speech encoders appeared before the technique for classifying text telegraph messages. The pioneers in this area were still engineers from Ostechbyuro, who were the first to create a layout of a disk encoder. The first copies of operating encryption machines, differing in many respects

In fact, the obligation to raise the alarm at the sight of uncontrolled fire was first imposed on traditional day and night guards. When exactly this happened, no one will say for sure. But in ancient Greece and the Roman Empire, guards changing every three hours were trained to signal alarms when

Most specialized information sources both in Russia and abroad mention foreign electromechanical encoders. The USSR also has significant achievements in this area, but for certain reasons we know little about this. And there is something to tell about, especially since the encryptors

Outside of Rome, the duties of protecting cities from fires were assigned to associations of artisans, who received the names of fabers. In particular, historians mention such units in Aquincum and Savaria, which are located on the territory of modern Hungary. They consisted of blacksmiths, weavers

Like many other pre-war theoretical developments of the leadership of the Red Army, the system of government communications in combat conditions showed itself not from the best side. In particular, the overhead HF communication lines were located near railways and highways, which were among the priority

Rome, founded in 754 BC e., were built from clay, later from wood and already at the time of its heyday - from brick and marble. The streets in Rome were narrow due to dense buildings, so fires were a real disaster for the townspeople. Everyone tried to arrange housing just behind the defensive walls

EIS-3 (Egorov-Ilyinsky-Staritsyn) - the device, which became serial in 1937, was intended for encryption of radiotelephones. The device was of the "masking" type, based on a simple inversion of the transmitted signal. Additionally, a high-pitched disturbing tone was fed into the communication channel. Listen

The first developments in the USSR in the field of cryptographic protection of information date back to the beginning of the 20s. They were aimed at encrypting the speech signal. The developments were based on the principles of single-sideband modulation of electrical sound signals, heterodyne frequency conversion, registration of speech signals on

The speculators in the Leningrad market had a very ambiguous position. On the one hand, they sometimes took the last crumbs from the needy (children, the elderly, the sick), but on the other hand, they provided vital calories to residents dying of dystrophy. And Leningraders understood this perfectly well, when for

The cryptanalytic confrontation of World War II became a typical example of a battle of minds with a famously twisted plot. Here is a detective, a thriller, and a spy thriller in one set. On June 4, 1941, the British got hold of the German ship Gedania, which the Germans had no idea about for a long time

Doenitz's "Arctic Wolves" used radio intercepts of communications from the Soviet fleet to work in the Arctic. Fascist submarines were in the Barents, White and Kara Seas, as well as in the mouth of the Yenisei, in the Ob Bay, the Laptev Sea and off the coast of Taimyr. The main target, of course, were civilians

In besieged Leningrad, with the onset of the most severe time, people involved in food production became the real "aristocrats". It was they who stood out from the crowd of hungry Leningraders with their well-fed appearance, healthy skin tone and expensive clothes

Since 1941, the 10th Intelligence Directorate of the British Navy, which was directly responsible for protecting the communications of British ships, made several changes to the ciphers of the Navy, which, however, only slightly complicated the tasks of the Nazi cryptanalysts. So, already in the spring of 41, the Germans managed to decipher

Leningraders were just outraged by those who openly profited from the tragedy of the city: “How disgusting are these well-fed, magnificent white‘ coupons ’, who carve cards from starving people in canteens and shops and steal bread and food from them. This is done simply: "by mistake"

Money as such was worth almost nothing. It was almost impossible to buy bread in the Leningrad market of the period under review for rubles. About two-thirds of the Leningraders who survived the blockade indicated in special questionnaires that the food source, due to which they survived, was food exchanged for

At the forefront of medicine As mentioned earlier, the main damaging factor on the fields of World War II was firearms. So, in the Battle of Borodino, the proportion of such wounded in hospitals was about 93%, of which from 78% to 84% were with bullet wounds, the rest were amazed

Underestimated Art In the previous part of the story about the first steps of Russian perlustration, the state councilor and outstanding codebreaker Christian Goldbach was mentioned, who became famous for successfully exposing the Marquis de La Chetardie. This Frenchman was actually conducting subversive activities in St. Petersburg

Adepts of Racial Hygiene In the short century of eugenics' existence, its followers managed to organize only three international congresses. Two of them were held in New York in 1921 and 1932, which clearly indicates the world leader in this field. Harry Laughlin Eugenics at the beginning of the 20th century was divided into

Career before Chernobyl The screenwriters of the western "Chernobyl" presented the great scientist Valery Legasov as a deeply reflective person, but in many respects devoid of a solid inner core. It is not true. Back at school, as a high school student, Valery showed considerable initiative, than even

Fashionable eugenics The ideology of the inevitable degradation of mankind became the real mainstream of the beginning of the 20th century in enlightened European countries, including Russia. A new scientific direction, eugenics, was supposed to save the day. Based on the evolutionary teachings of Darwin and just now

The Hard Craft of the Perlustrator The era of "black offices" in Russia is usually associated with the period of the 17th-19th centuries, when a whole staff of employees worked for secret state needs. Moreover, they were highly qualified professionals in their field. They didn't just have to discreetly open and read

The nature of injuries and injuries In the first part of the story, the main attention was paid to the organization of military medicine in the Russian army at the beginning of the 19th century. Now we will focus on the peculiarities of wounds, the provision of prompt medical care and the sanitary work of physicians

The tragedy of the beginning of the war In order to understand how the tactics and strategy of Russian artillerymen have stepped forward by the summer of 1944, it is necessary to remember in what state our "god of war" was three years earlier. Firstly, the shortage of both standard artillery systems and ammunition. Major General

Military Medicine Jacob Willie The famous order of Napoleon Bonaparte on the "Great Army", dated June 22, 1812, contained the following lines: “Soldiers … Russia has sworn to an eternal alliance with France and vowed to wage war with England. She now breaks her vow … She confronts us with a choice: dishonor

Hygiene and Sanitation In the first part of the history of military medicine of the First World War, special attention was paid to the incorrect strategy of treatment and evacuation of the wounded. Throughout the war, the vicious doctrine of "evacuation at any cost" prevailed, which cost the Russian army many lives of soldiers and officers

A squad of insects is ready for battle! The effectiveness of the use of insects is very ambiguous. On the one hand, they can cause serious epidemics and kill a lot of people, and on the other, they can be terribly scary. This is most likely what happened about two thousand years ago, when the Romans abandoned the fortress of Hart in Mesopotamia

The Eighth Ball In 1954, the US Department of Defense Biological Weapons Development Center Fort Detrick embarked on a multi-year and top secret operation, codenamed "White Coat." Obviously, American researchers were haunted by the "successes" of the infamous

From Injury to Recovery Let's trace the path of a wounded Russian soldier on the fronts of the First World War. First aid at the front to the fighters was provided by orderlies and paramedics, most often it was the imposition of bandages. Further, the wounded followed to the forward dressing point, where the shortcomings in the imposition of

Hirt's Initiative One of the key figures in the creation of a monstrous collection of skeletons of Jews, Slavs and Asians was the anthropologist and anatomist August Hirt. The future war criminal was born in 1898 in Mannheim, Germany, and with the outbreak of the First World War, he volunteered for the army. There Hirt received

Dioxin Chronicles Americans were among the first to invent the use of herbicides, which cause plants to shed their foliage, for military purposes. Development went back to the Second World War, but the real plans of the Yankees were born only by the 60s. In Indochina, the American armed forces clashed almost

Fight against invisible enemies From the very beginning of the war, trains with evacuated civilians from the western part of the country began to arrive in Stalingrad. The city's population totaled more than 800 thousand people, which was twice the pre-war level

Save Stalingrad In 1942, Stalingrad was hell on earth. The director of the Stalingrad Medical Institute and a participant in the battle, A. I. Bernshtein, said in this regard: “I will never forget this bombardment at the crossing. Hell is drawn to me by the resort in comparison with what

"Life is short, we must hurry" The main reason for the arrest of Nikolai Vavilov was the confrontation with the agronomist Trofim Lysenko, who began to spread his ideas to all biological sciences

Evacuation and Vaccination Since ancient times, the war against epidemics went hand in hand. If a person survived on the battlefield, then he had a high probability of contracting a serious infectious disease. The epidemics also brought great suffering to the civilian population. These are primarily acute intestinal infections

Dissecting the White Matter The culprit in this whole story is the American railroad worker Phineas Gage, who in 1848 received a steel bar in the head in an accident. The rod entered the cheek, unbolted the medulla, and exited in front of the skull. Gage

Food norms It can be said with confidence that the food allowance of the Red Army soldiers made them the most "satiated" in the entire USSR. They were inferior only to naval sailors and pilots. And the point here is not in the excellent quality and quantity of the soldiers' diet, but in the half-starved existence of the rest

Thessaloniki front. The Forgotten Page of the First World War. The Motley Front Whoever was on the forgotten Salonika front of the First World War! French, British, Serbs, Italians, Greeks, Algerians, Moroccans, Senegalese, Macedonians, and in August 1916 the Russians were added to them. On the other