Association

[flora3223]

[heartsings77]

Psalm 127:3-5 ESV Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one's youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them! He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.

Ephesians 6:4 ESV Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

Proverbs 22:6 ESV Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.

[dangerousthingobservation]

Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor

[fordlibrarymuseum]

With the signing of the United States Constitution on September 17, 1787, the founding fathers approved for the people of this Nation an effective plan of self-government, which has, with its subsequent amendments – including the Bill of Rights – preserved the principles of the Declaration of Independence. It is the responsibility of the citizens of the United States to uphold, support and defend those ideals.

– President Ford’s Proclamation for Citizenship Day and Constitution Week, 1976 

Constitution Day and Citizenship Day commemorates the signing of the Constitution, and encourages people to learn more about their rights and responsibilities as citizens of the United States.

The Constitution is on permanent display year round at the U.S. National Archives in Washington, DC. Read the full transcription of it on the National Archives website. Explore additional resources for learning and teaching about the Constitution from the National Archives Education Updates blog.

Image: President Ford’s Citizenship Day and Constitution Week, 1976, Proclamation

[stillunusual]

The Katyń Massacre The Katyń massacre was the mass murder of approximately 22000 Polish nationals carried out by the Soviet secret police (NKVD) in April and May 1940. The massacre was prompted by a proposal (dated 5th March 1940) from Lavrentiy Beria, Minister of Internal Affairs of the Soviet Union, to execute all members of the Polish Officer Corps who had been captured and imprisoned by the USSR during the Nazi-Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939. This official document was approved and signed by the Soviet Politburo, including its leader Joseph Stalin. As well as approximately 8000 Polish army officers, the victims of the Katyń massacre included 6000 police officers and thousands of Polish university lecturers, teachers, doctors, lawyers, civic leaders, politicians, government officials, priests and other members of the “bourgeoisie” who had been targeted for arrest following the Soviet occupation of eastern Poland. By physically eliminating Poland’s military and civilian elites, Stalin wanted to decapitate the Polish nation and ensure it was much less able to resist the enforced Sovietisation of the occupied Polish territories. Most of the victims were interned at three Soviet camps (Kozielsk, Starobielsk and Ostaszków) before being taken to NKVD mass murder sites, where they were executed and buried in mass graves. The graves of the Kozielsk prisoners were discovered in the Katyń forest in 1943. The exact fate of the other victims and the location of their graves was not confirmed until five decades later. After the discovery of the Katyń grave site the USSR denied responsibility for the massacre and tried to blame it on the Germans - and continued to lie about the killings for 50 years until finally admitting Soviet guilt in 1990. However, neither the Soviet government nor successive governments of Russia have ever permitted a full investigation of the massacre, and none of the perpetrators of this war crime were ever brought to justice.

[margi-again]

[celebratingamazingwomen]

Eleanor Holmes Norton (b. 1937) is a lawyer and politician. She is a non-voting Delegate to the US House of Representatives, as well as a devoted civil rights activist.

She studied law at Yale, and later worked as the assistant legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union. In 1977 she became the first female Chair of the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and in 1990 she co-founded the African-American Women for Reproductive Freedom organization.

[celebratingamazingwomen]

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) is a writer most famous for her 1852 novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which depicted the harsh life of African Americans during that time. The book became highly popular and influential all over the United States, energizing the abolitionist movement to which its author belonged.

In 1868 she became one of the first editors of Hearth and Home, one of a few new publications for women, and also argued continuously for female emancipation and extended rights. Her most important work still remains a very popular and widely-studied piece of literature today.

[morbidology]

On Halloween night in 1974, eight-year-old Timothy O’Bryan returned home from trick-or-treating in Pasadena, Texas, eager to enjoy his candy. Moments later, he collapsed and died after eating a Pixy Stix laced with cyanide. It had been given to him by his own father, Ronald Clark O’Bryan.

Facing mounting debts and desperate for money, O’Bryan had taken out life insurance policies on his children and planned to kill Timothy for the payout. To disguise his actions, he handed out other poisoned candies to nearby children, though none of them were consumed. His shocking betrayal shattered the sense of safety surrounding Halloween, fueling decades of urban legends about tampered candy.

O’Bryan was convicted of capital murder and executed by lethal injection in 1984. Outside the prison, college students gathered wearing Halloween masks, cheering as the man nicknamed “The Candy Man” met his fate.

[morbidology]

This is the last photograph of Regina Walters, snapped by her killer. In the image, she stands in an abandoned barn, wearing a black dress and heels she never owned, her hair roughly cut, her face frozen in terror. The photo was taken by Robert Ben Rhoades, a long-haul trucker and sadistic serial killer who turned his 18-wheeler into a mobile torture chamber.

Regina was just 14-years-old when she ran away from her Texas home in 1990 with her boyfriend, Ricky Jones. The couple hitchhiked, and at some point, they crossed paths with Rhoades. He murdered Ricky almost immediately, dumping his body along a highway in Mississippi. Regina, however, he kept alive, torturing her for weeks as he travelled cross-country.

Rhoades was methodical and cruel. He photographed Regina in various states of distress, documenting her fear for his own pleasure. That final photo in the barn was taken moments before he killed her. Her body was later found in that same building in Illinois, her neck broken.

Rhoades was eventually arrested after another would-be victim escaped. He’s serving multiple life sentences.

[morbidology]

In January 2019, 18-year-old Berfin Özek's life changed forever when her ex-boyfriend ambushed her and threw sulphuric acid at her face as she was returning home from school. The attack in Iskenderun, Hatay province, left her severely disfigured and blind in one eye.

Casim Ozan Çeltik was arrested the same day and imprisoned, initially receiving a 13 and a half year sentence. Özek spent four months hospitalised and has since been confined indoors, as her injuries are severely affected by sunlight.

The case took an unexpected turn in 2021 when Özek married her attacker following his release. This decision sparked intense public criticism and debate across Turkey about domestic violence, victim-blaming, and the cycle of abuse.

[morbidology]

On the night of 18 December, 1994, Alison Botha was attacked near her home in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. She had returned to her flat around 1AM after dropping off a friend when a man armed with a knife forced his way into her car. The attacker was later identified as Frans du Toit, who soon picked up an accomplice, Theuns Kruger.

The two men drove Alison to a remote area outside the city, where they repeatedly assaulted and raped her over several hours. Afterward, they attempted to kill her by slitting her throat multiple times and stabbing her in the abdomen. Believing she was dead, they left her at the scene.

Despite catastrophic injuries, including a severed windpipe and exposed intestines, Alison managed to survive. She held her wounds together and crawled to a nearby road, where she was discovered by a passing motorist.

Alison was able to give police a detailed description of her attackers, which led to their arrests. Both du Toit and Kruger were convicted of attempted murder, rape, and kidnapping, and each received a life sentence without the possibility of parole.

[morbidology]

This 11-year-old girl was taken to hospital after a large mass protruded from her back. When she was examined, it was discovered that the growth contained recognisable structures including a mammary gland, scapula, humerus, and two fingers, as well as a sac secreting mucosal fluid.

She was diagnosed with fetus in fetu, a rare condition in which a malformed twin develops within its sibling.

[morbidology]

The only publicly released photograph of Marilyn Monroe after her death shows her lying in bed at her Brentwood home on August 5, 1962. Monroe was 36-years-old when she died, with her death caused by a barbiturate overdose.

[morbidology]

A photograph showing the survivors of the Andes flight disaster. A human spine can be seen in the snow to the right of the survivors.

Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 was carrying 45 passengers, including members of a Uruguayan rugby team, their friends and family, when it crashed into the Andes mountains on the 13th of October, 1972. Upon impact, the fuselage of the plane broke apart, and many passengers were killed instantly.

However, a group of survivors, consisting of 27 individuals, managed to endure in the harsh, freezing conditions of the Andes for an astonishing 72 days before being rescued. They faced numerous challenges, including injuries, avalanches, and extreme hunger.

In order to survive, they consumed the bodies of their fellow passengers.

[putalahueacom]

[putalahueacom]

La polidactilia (del griego poly, «muchos» y daktylos, «dedo») es un trastorno genético donde un humano nace con más dedos en la mano o en el pie de los que le corresponde (normalmente un dedo más).