io9: World War Ii

In 1940, an English golf club wrote rules explaining proper conduct should Nazi bombs suddenly fall

Cyriaque Lamar — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 08:05:00 PST

Some people take their golf extraordinarily seriously. One such group of die-hards were the proprietors of the Richmond Golf Club in Surrey, England, who drafted an interim set of rules explaining what players must do should Nazi aircraft bomb the greens mid-game. More »

Why World War II spy planes used pink camouflage

Esther Inglis-Arkell — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 12:27:48 PST

World War II marked a time of great innovation, which was sometimes practical and sometimes loony. Those two kinds of innovation came together when great military minds decided that to keep an airplane from being spotted, they needed to paint it pink. Find out why a pink aircraft can get lost in the sky. More »

Disney World War II propaganda cartoon suggested we'd win the war with giant soft-boiled eggs

Cyriaque Lamar — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 08:30:00 PST

Given that Thanksgiving has the reputation for being a day of Herculean food consumption, here's a rather strange World War II propaganda cartoon that visualizes such gustatory excess. In the 1942 short "Food Will Win The War," an overexcited narrator begins yelling about how bridges of butter, flour blizzards, and Brogdingnagian obese children will destroy the German army. Wars are won and lost on tubers the size of the Rock of Gibraltar. The statistics get crazy at 1:40. More »

Check out the first episode of Danger 5, an insane World War II scifi web series

Cyriaque Lamar — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 07:40:00 PST

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Remember Danger 5, the new go-go World War II freakout series from the creators of Italian Spider-Man? The pulpy first episode — about bulletproof She-Nazis — is now online. The second episode hits Monday, November 28 at 9:30 PM EST. I'm already in love with the Colonel. You can find more information about the show at Dinosaur Worldwide. More »

Danger 5, a new deranged spy show from the brains behind Italian Spiderman

Cyriaque Lamar — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 06:45:00 PDT

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If you've never seen faux-superhero exploitation flick Italian Spiderman, get your keister over to YouTube and watch that trash opus right now. More »

When Churchill met Lincoln. Naked.

Esther Inglis-Arkell — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 12:30:00 PDT

Anyone can tell a ghost story. Just throw together a lonely stretch of road, a couple of idiotic teens, and a disappearing hitchhiker. It's harder to make a ghost story that's drenched in historical significance, is clothing-optional, and ends with a Churchillian sting. But it happened. Supposedly. More »

How to find a long-lost sunken battleship — using psychology

Robert T. Gonzalez — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 06:20:00 PDT

NPR's Alix Spiegel has written a must-read article about how a team of cognitive psychologists solved a WWII shipwreck mystery. More »

Scott Westerfeld explains why World War I should be the new World War II

Charlie Jane Anders — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 12:28:21 PDT

Today sees the release of Scott Westerfeld's and Keith Thompson's long-awaited third book in the Leviathan trilogy, Goliath. And we can't wait for a third dose of alternate-history World War I, with all the mechs and genetically engineered airships. (And to celebrate, here's a lovely new piece of artwork. Check out the full version below.) More »

The "unmeltable" weapon that could have changed the course of World War II

Esther Inglis-Arkell — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 07:00:00 PDT

At some point during World War II, loony solutions to practical problems really started to shine. There were pigeon-guided missiles, shark repellent, and giant aircraft carriers made of ice. Well, almost. The ice aircraft carrier was a legitimate plan in World War II, mostly because military intelligence discovered Pykrete, the substance that melts so slowly it might as well be concrete. More »

Allied planes unintentionally changed the weather during World War II

Geoff Manaugh - BLDGBLOG — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 11:10:00 PDT

Allied bombing raids during World War II "inadvertently experimented on the weather" in England by creating massive concentrations of artificial clouds as the planes roared off toward continental Europe. More »

After World War II, they predicted we'd be wearing aluminum dresses and flying plywood airplanes

Matt Novak - Paleofuture Blog — Sat, 14 May 2011 15:35:00 PDT

American companies during World War II often stressed sacrifice in their print advertising. If we can all just be patient, they promised, we'll have more televisions and personal helicopters and push-button kitchens than you can shake a rocket car at. More »

Meet the Land Battleship, the biggest $#@?! tank that never existed

Cyriaque Lamar — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 16:15:33 PST

This absurdly oversized vehicle is the Land Battleship, a juggernaut that supposedly ran over Nazis in World War II. This 1941 illustration from Mechanix Illustrated is, as commenters over at Modern Mechanix astutely point out, an artistic embellishment of real Soviet tanks such as the KV. From now on, I'm just going to refer to all tanks as "land battleships." I already call planes "aero-sedans," so it won't be that difficult. More »

The strangest ways Christmas has been used for psychological warfare

Cyriaque Lamar — Sat, 25 Dec 2010 13:30:00 PST

For decades, militaries have weaponized Christmas songs, symbols, and sentimentality for psychological warfare and propaganda purposes. Here are some bizarre tales about ersatz Christmas cards during World War II, controversial Christmas trees, and decking the halls in the Colombian jungle. More »

Take a behind-the-scenes look at Iron Sky, the upcoming Nazis on the moon flick

Cyriaque Lamar — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 13:45:00 PST

The production team behind the forthcoming Finnish-German-Australian alternate history flick Iron Sky have alerted us to a ton of new behinds-the-scenes features including a production-shot-of-the-day page, a production blog, a director's diary, new set footage, and a sneak peek featurette. More »

Batshit Golden Age comic reveals Hitler's lost superweapon: a robot T-Rex

Cyriaque Lamar — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 17:30:00 PST

In 1943, Clue Comics featured a two-issue arc about the Boy King of Swisslakia, his friendly giant golem, and their arch-rival, a robotic Nazi dinosaur. In short, don't expect this comic to make any damn sense whatsoever. More »

The annals of weather warfare

Geoff Manaugh -- BLDGBLOG — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 07:30:00 PST

Did you know there was an abandoned Nazi weather station on the coast of present-day Canada? Until 1981, almost nobody did. More »

A crazy old comic about Nazis fighting a woolly mammoth

Cyriaque Lamar — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 15:40:00 PST

The sadly out-of-print Weird War Tales furnished readers with oodles of nutty paranormal combat stories. In this obscure yet awesome short, a Nazi regiment fights a woolly mammoth thawed out of glacier...and then they tame it. Hilarity ensues. More »

Maps from 1942 of the never-was Nazi invasion of North America

Cyriaque Lamar — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 10:43:23 PST

These diagrams from the March 2, 1942 issue of Life detailed the Nazi invasion of America shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Check out such alternate reality battles like the bombing of Detroit and invasion of Norfolk, Virginia. More »

A map of all the dumped munitions from World Wars I and II off the coast of Europe

Annalee Newitz — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 15:51:24 PDT

Mines and munitions dumped in the oceans during twentieth century wars could still kill you today. Atlantic inter-governmental organisation OSPAR helped put together this map of dumped munitions in coastal Atlantic waters. It's not pretty. More »

How ghosts, superstitions, and vampires have been used for psychological warfare

Cyriaque Lamar — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 19:55:00 PDT

Military psy ops aren't limited to leaflets, propaganda broadcasts, and Korean pop music. In the past, the US military has played on their opponent superstitions of vampires, ghosts, and astrology. Here are some strange examples. More »

Read the UK's recently released UFO archives, including Churchill's UFO cover-up

Cyriaque Lamar — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 11:34:00 PDT

The United Kingdom's National Archives has unveiled a new slew of UFO-related documents, including papers describing Winston Churchill's cover-up of a UFO sighting during World War II. The Prime Minister massively soft-pedaled the encounter to avoid public hysteria. More »

A Google Earth map of Nagasaki survivors' eyewitness accounts

Cyriaque Lamar — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 08:30:00 PDT

August 9 is the 65th anniversary of the day the US dropped "Fat Man" over Nagasaki. The Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Archive has created a Google Earth map that documents where survivors were in relation to the blast. More »

Curious pro-hygiene propaganda from World War II

Cyriaque Lamar — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 16:00:00 PDT

The National Museum of Health and Medicine has a massive gallery of weird medical photography on their Flickr page, including a large collection of public health posters from World War II. Here are some of the more confounding messages. More »

Anti-STD propaganda posters kept our boys' flagpoles clean

Cyriaque Lamar — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 09:00:00 PDT

Back in the day, venereal disease was the bane of the bored and horny soldier, and military propaganda posters resorted to sensationalist tactics to make privates scared of their privates. Mother Jones has collected some of these stunningly bizarre placards. More »

Could The Man in the High Castle See Things Coming From a Distance?

Josh Wimmer — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 14:00:52 PST

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Philip K. Dick's 1963 Hugo-winning novel is an alternate, Nazi-filled version of what's now our past. But was it an accurate prediction of our present circumstances, too? More »

Rosie The Riveter's Special Engineering Safety Bra

Annalee Newitz — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 08:30:00 PST

During World War II, when American women were entering the workforce, a California company decided that "safety" on the job meant wearing goggles . . . and hard, plastic bras. Here a model shows off the engineer's safety bra. More »

The Allied Forces Battle Nazi T-Rex on Dino D-Day

Lauren Davis — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 06:30:00 PST

After Nazi scientists bring dinosaurs back from the dead, Hitler's occupation of France is bolstered by the might of Tyrannosaurs and Triceratops. It's then up to the US forces to make dinosaurs extinct once again. More »

Photos Reveal the Secret Superhero History of WWII

Lauren Davis — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 06:30:00 PDT

Captain America wasn't the only superhero to fight the Nazis. Agan Harahap offers his own superpowered alternate history of WWII, by adding costumed heroes (and one notable villain) to famous photographs from the war. More »

WWII Leaders Get a Dieselpunk Makeover

Lauren Davis — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 08:40:00 PDT

What if the nations that fought in WWII were led not by mere men, but by diesel-powered cyborgs? It might resemble Sam van Olffen's faux propaganda posters, featuring the likes of Rooseveltron, Stalinator, and Benitobot Mussolinoid. More »

Mid-Twentieth Century Rubber Recycling

Annalee Newitz — Fri, 29 May 2009 08:30:00 PDT

Those aren't missiles. They're actually used beverage containers, made of rubber, which these mid-century factory workers are recycling into devices for fighter pilots in World War II. More »

East Germany's Buried Cyborg Army

Charlie Jane Anders — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 15:30:00 PDT

Here's the first teaser trailer for Cold Storage, a new German movie being filmed right now. It's late 1989 in Berlin, and the East Germans are rushing to destroy evidence of bizarre experiments — dating back to World War II — before the Berlin Wall comes down. But it turns out that the bunker containing the experiments wasn't just sealed to keep investigators out, but to keep something else in. More details about Germans confronting the weight of history, after the jump. More »

Industrial Beauties of the 1940s

Annalee Newitz — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 06:40:42 PST

It's 1942, and these women are in Long Beach, California, inspecting massive pieces of jet wings for cargo transporters. They're real-life Rosie the Riveters, making sure these wings are ready to be assembled on the fuselage. More »