Clouds drifting by

Check out today's Google Doodle. It's about Marie Tharp, tectonic plates, and intercontinental drift.

Godspeed, ma'am. Thank you for everything.*

(*Quoting Paddington.)

With a cameo by Simon Farnaby (from BBC's Horrible Histories and Ghosts.)

Video

The full thing isn't up on YouTube yet, but it's well worth watching. It's so cute!

BBC.

Operation Mincemeat: The Welsh drifter who helped end WW2.
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I like looking at Google's Doodles because I usually learn something new. Today's Google Doodle is in honour of Chiune Sugihara, a Japanese official who tanked his diplomatic career by ignoring the orders from his own government by issuing transit visas to thousands of Jewish people so they could escape the Nazis by travelling via Japan to safety.

~~~
“There was no other way,” said Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara, who was stationed in Lithuania shortly before the outbreak of World War II. On this day in 1939, Sugihara began issuing transit visas to thousands of Jewish refugees, defying direct orders from his supervisors to help the refugees escape via Japan.

“I told the Ministry of Foreign Affairs it was a matter of humanity,” he recalled years later. “I did not care if I lost my job.”

Soon after Jewish families began lining up outside his official residence, pleading for documents to allow them safe passage via Japan to the Dutch island of Curacao, he sent three messages to Tokyo requesting permission, all of which was forcefully rejected. “Absolutely not to be issued any traveler not holding firm end visa with guaranteed departure ex Japan,” read the cable from the foreign ministry. “No exceptions.”

After much soul-searching, Sugihara threw caution to the winds, writing thousands of visas night and day until “my fingers were calloused and every joint from my wrist to my shoulder ached.” His wife supported his risky decision, massaging his tired hands each night so he could keep going until the last minutes of his train leaving Lithuania, handing out visas to Jews at the platform.

Upon returning to Japan, Sugihara paid the price for disobeying orders. His promising foreign service career came to an end, and he struggled to support his family. He received little recognition for his sacrifice until one of the people he saved, now an Israeli diplomat, managed to find him in 1968. A tree was planted in his honor at the Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem, and Chiune Sugihara was declared "Righteous Among Nations." Memorials in Lithuania and Yaotsu, Japan pay tribute to Sugihara and his heroic endeavors that saved untold thousands of lives.
~~~

19 What's the strangest statue you've ever seen?

Hmm. I don't think I've seen any strange statues.

But! I used to pass a strange building on my way to college in Liverpool. The bombed out church (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_St_Luke,_Liverpool) is a ruin. The church was mostly destroyed during WW2, though the shell of the building remains. It's kept as a monument to those lost during WW2.

Photos under the cut.
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I've been trying to watch this. I've read a bit about Victoria and especially her childhood, so I wanted to watch and enjoy this.

I'm rather disappointed. Why on earth have they included a subplot about an ex-prostitute lady's maid? So far, it seems to be a mix between a historical drama and total fiction.

It also seems to be shot in half-light a lot of the time. When they were putting in gaslighting, I was hoping that would brighten it up a bit, but they changed their minds.

I'd love to read more about Victoria's mother though. She was horrendous. She and Sir John Conroy (who ran her household) attempted to break Victoria's will so she'd have to depend on them. When that failed, they spread rumours that she was easily overwrought and feeble-witted.

In case you don't know it, the I Surrender meme is a creative writing challenge. You are given a premise and have to create a TV series around that idea.

lost_spook gave me:

Okay, you have all the might of the BBC at your disposal and a brief to make a big historical drama of a period of your choice! (Up to you whether it's well-researched and faithful or bears no real relation to actual historical facts whatsoever.) Only qualifier is - not something that's been done several times already.

(Sorry. Is that too evil?)

With that, I give you:

Checkmate
A historical drama by Dimity Blue
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I don't know a huge amount about US history, so I hadn't heard of Harriet Tubman until the arguments broke out about her being on the US $20 bill.

This article (Huffington Post) tells why it's so significant that Harriet Tubman will be on the $20 bill.

She also became part of the underground railway, smuggling slaves to freedom. I can't imagine the kind of strength it took for her to not only escape being a slave, but also to return to states where slavery was still accepted in order to help other slaves escape.

She died in 1913. My grandad was born in 1921. It makes me realise that legal slavery wasn't so very long ago.