Resumo de Book Of Facts - Reader's Digest

MEN AT TOP-I

TURNING POINT

The Australian archduke Franz Ferdinand might well have escaped assassination in Sarajevo in 1914, and the First World War might not have broken out then ? if his chauffeur had been told of a change of plan. At the beginning of the archduke?s visit to the capital of Bosnia, then under Austrian rule, a bomb was thrown at his car. But it fell into the road and injured the occupants of the car behind. Panicked by the failure, six other would ?be assassins- all members of the bomb thrower?s group- left their posts along the route.
Later, after an official reception in the city hall, the archduke announced that he wanted to go to the hospital to see the injured men. Nobody passed on the message to the chauffeurs, though, so the leading car turned to follow the route originally planned to a museum- and Franz Ferdinand?s driver followed suit.
Realizing the mistake, the governor of Bosnia, who was riding with the archduke, told the chauffeur to turn the car round. The driver stopped and began to reverse- precisely opposite the spot where one of the remaining conspirators, Gavrilo Princip, was standing on the pavement. With his target only a few meters away in an almost motionless open car, Princip could hardly miss. He shot both the archduke and his wife, and was about to shoot himself when he was seized by bystanders. Because Princip was only 19 he escaped the death penalty, but he survived only four years before dying in 1918 of tuberculosis in an Austrian prison.

PHONEY HERO

Senator Joseph McCarthy (1908-57), the scourge of alleged Red traitors in the United States in the early 1950s, exaggerated his war record to further his political career. He had been a ground intelligence officer with a Marine dive- bomber squadron in the Pacific during Second World War, but his campaign literature described him as ?Tail Gunner Joe? and showed him wearing a flying helmet and standing by a bomber?s machine guns. McCarthy did fly some operational missions as a gunner and photographer, but the number he claimed to have flown multiplied over the years ? from 14 in 1944 to 32 in 1951. His commanding officer put McCarthy total at only 11.
McCarthy also boasted that he had ?ten pounds of shrapnel? in his leg. Yet the only injury he received during the war was when he was on his way by ship to the Pacific in 1943. During a ?Crossing the Line? ceremony as the ship crossed the Equator, McCarthy broke a bone in his foot- falling off a ladder.

MAO ON THE MARCH

Mao Zedong (1893-1976), ruler of communist China from 1949 until his death, rose to power largely through his leadership of the Long March during the 1930s. In this, some 100,000 Chinese communists, with their wives and families, marched and fought the staggering distance of 10,000 km from the southeastern part of China to the northern province of Shaanxi to escape from the Nationalist forces of Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-Shek).
The march began in October 1934 and ended in October 1935. Along the way, between 70,000 and 80,000 of the marchers died- including Mao?s younger brother and his two small children.

DEATH BY VIOLENCE

Five of Britain?s Archbishops of Canterbury have died violently. They were: the Saxon prelate Aelfheah (killed by Danes in 1012); Thomas Becket (murdered in 1170); Simon of Sudbury (beheaded by a mob in 1381); Thomas Cranmer (burnt at the stake in 1556); and William Laud (beheaded in 1645).

Resumos Relacionados