Most Viewed The Infographics Show Videos of 2021 - Compilation

20 year old takahiko ino was prepared to die it was april 28 1945 and he was making the final preparations for his first mission as a pilot in the japanese army a mission that was designed to be his last once he took off there would be no turning back he had been trained to suppress his emotions and convinced to die for the honor of his country he and his fellow kamikaze pilots had been ordered not to return instead they were embarking on a one-way mission that would only end when they had crashed their planes into the side of an american battleship in a suicidal mission that he had been told would bring honor to his family and glory to him and yet the young student couldn't help but wonder what if a kamikaze pilot survived by 1944 after nearly five years of brutal and bloody warfare across europe world war ii had started to turn to the favor of the allies in the european theater after the d-day invasion they had repelled the nazis from france in the west and with the help of the russians the allies were giving them hell on the eastern front too it seemed like only a matter of time before the nazis surrendered but the war was not yet over for the allies particularly for the us who had entered the war late and would go on to fight countless battles against the japanese long after the war in europe was over the u.s had tried to stay out of the war but japan had forced their hand when on december 7 1941 they launched a surprise attack on pearl harbor in hawaii prompting the us to enter the war in full force some of the bloodiest battles of the entire war would take place in the seas and sky of the pacific theater in the final years of the war as the u.s turned their attention to making japan pay for pearl harbor facing the full might of the u.s military machine the desperate japanese needed a new way to fight the americans and so the legendary kamikaze was born the word kamikaze means divine wind a reference to a fabled moment in ancient japanese history when an unexpected typhoon saved japan from a horde of mongol invaders in 1281 the us though had another name for these fanatical fighters they called them bacca bombs from the japanese word baca which means idiot since the kamikaze planes were relatively easy to shoot down as they barreled directly toward the u.s ships the us military couldn't wrap their minds around what would drive so many young japanese men to sacrifice their lives in such a spectacular and final way still the kamikaze were able to inflict some serious damage on the us and her allies though only about one in five kamikaze pilots managed to hit their targets they succeeded in sinking 34 ships and damaging hundreds of others over the final years of the war during the fierce battle of okinawa alone kamikazepads were responsible for the deaths of 5 000 us navy seamen the greatest loss of life in a single battle in the history of the us navy the kamikaze tactics were also an effective form of psychological warfare every kamikaze mission was a suicide mission and none of the thousands of kamikaze pilots who took to the air at the end of world war ii were expected to return from their first and final flight the u.s and her allies could not believe that so many young japanese men were willing to take such drastic actions to defeat their enemies and they lived in constant fear of the next desperate kamikaze attack history remembers the kamikaze as fanatics who were honored to die for their emperor and their country but those who survived tell a somewhat different story in writing his 2008 book on the kamikaze dangers hour author maxwell taylor kennedy had expected to find a story of fanaticism and fervent ideology among the kamikaze but he was surprised by what his research uncovered he found that the kamikaze were not unlike their american counterparts and their patriotism and self-sacrifice calling them extraordinarily patriotic but at the same time extraordinarily idealistic by design kamikaze pilots were not intended to survive their first and only mission and yet most of what we know about the kamikaze comes from those who survived and lived to tell their stories so what happened if a kamikaze pilot survived some like hisau horyama never had the chance to fulfill their glorious final mission and live to share the real story of what drove thousands of kamikaze pilots to undertake their suicidal missions toriyama was 21 years old in late 1944 when he was pulled from his artillery battalion to join a new elite force of airmen japan was losing the war and the kamikaze were an essential part of their last-ditch effort to turn the tide in their favor kamikaze missions were flying up until the very minute that the war ended on august 15 1945 young horyama was a devoted subject of his emperor and he relished the opportunity to have his moment of glory in the name of his beloved country koryama had completed his training and was preparing for his final glorious mission when the news came down that the japanese had surrendered and the war was over though he was grateful that the emperor had ended the war he was also regretful i felt bad that i hadn't been able to sacrifice myself for my country he told reporters in 2015 at the age of 92 my comrades who had died would be remembered in infinite glory but i had missed my chance to die in the same way i felt like i had let everyone down how were the japanese able to convince so many young men in their prime like horiyama to willingly and even enthusiastically give their lives for their country in these suicide missions in short they were trained to die an excerpt from the kamikaze training manual illustrates just how thoroughly these young men were indoctrinated it reads when you eliminate all thoughts about life and death you will be able to totally disregard your earthly life this will also enable you to concentrate your attention on eradicating the enemy with unwavering determination meanwhile reinforcing your excellence and flight skills honor is an extremely important part of japanese culture and kamikaze training focused on reinforcing this ideology and convincing these young men that their sacrifice would bring glory to them in the afterlife and honor to their families who they were leaving behind most believed that emperor hirohito and the nation of japan were one in the same and they were conditioned to be willing to die for him they were trained to suppress all emotions and made to believe that they had been specially chosen for this sacrifice a great honor in japanese culture in some cases emperor hirohito himself would visit the kamikaze training school attending their graduation ceremonies on a symbolic white horse and personally requesting their services as kamikaze pilots during their training the pilots would practice the daring moves that would be required to complete their missions repeatedly flying their planes almost vertically toward the ground to simulate crashing into an enemy target before sharply reversing course just before crashing these exercises prepared them for the day when they would follow through on their dive and plummet to glory and certain death their intense training was incredibly effective in convincing thousands of young japanese men to sacrifice their lives for their country and die for a worthy cause by the end of world war ii at least 2 500 pilots had given their lives in kamikaze missions many history books put the number closer to four thousand at the end of their training kamikaze pilots were given a slip of paper with three options on it they could either volunteer passionately simply agree to volunteer or they could refuse in theory anyway many survivors claim that those who refused were simply told to try again and to pick the right answer next time by the end of the war the japanese were desperate for troops up until that point university students had been exempt from military service but by 1944 many young scholars like takahiko ina found themselves drafted into japan's new elite force of kamikaze pilots 20 year old ina had been studying economics at the prestigious wasida university when he was pulled from school and thrust into kamikaze training japanese culture places a high value on the first born sons and thus they were exempted from the ranks of kamikaze to protect their family lines ina as a younger son certainly had his reservations about his kamikaze mission but he welcomed the opportunity to bring honor to his family on a level uncommon for younger sons ina completed his training volunteered to give his life for his country and prepared to die but fate had other plans for him by the late stages of the war the depleted japanese were not only lacking troops but were using out of date and damaged aircraft that had been stripped down and adapted for kamikaze missions these ageing planes would turn out to be enos salvation on his first attempt his plane failed to take off and ina suicide mission was over before it had even begun his second attempt made it off the ground but engine troubles forced him to make an emergency landing before he got anywhere close to his target during his third and final attempt more engine troubles forced him to land in the sea and ina and his two crew members had to swim to a nearby island where they were stranded for two and a half months by the time they were rescued the war was over and ina would never again have to prepare for certain death though the kamikaze trained to die not all of them did those who returned fell into one of two groups those who were forced to abort their missions due to mechanical troubles weather or failure to locate targets and those who were unable to go through with their mission out of fear the two groups were treated very differently by their superiors those like ina who were able to prove that they had returned for reasons beyond their control were not punished the japanese could not afford to lose any pilots so these kamikaze simply prepared to try again those who had backed out though were shamed and punished physically and mentally still the depleted japanese could not afford to lose even these reticent pilots and the punishment was limited to ensure that the pilot could make another attempt even under these extraordinary circumstances though the japanese military's tolerance had its limits surviving kamikaze pilots recall the fate of one pilot who returned from a total of nine final flights each time unable to go through with his mission after his ninth attempt he was finally executed for cowardice to combat this natural tendency to pull out at the last minute the japanese implemented a number of strategies designed to encourage pilots to go through with their deadly mission pilots flew in a squadron in the hopes that peer pressure would ensure pilots followed through with their mission and kamikaze were even given some liquid courage prior to takeoff to help them ease their doubts some say that the planes were loaded with only enough fuel for a one-way trip to ensure there was no hope of returning and each pilot was made to compose a will and a letter to their families prior to their last flight the japanese kamikaze pilots of world war ii went down in history as the fanatical and deranged samurai of the skies committed to dying for the honor of their emperor and country and willing to give their lives for glory in reality though they were not given any real choice in the matter with most agreeing to volunteer at the risk of dishonoring their families and being sent to die in dishonor anyways on the front lines of battle in a desperate last-ditch bid to turn the war back in their favor the japanese sent thousands of young men in their prime to die on suicidal kamikaze missions despite this few kamikaze did return from their missions and lived to tell their stories thanks to them we know that the kamikaze were not all fanatical or deranged but instead were desperate and afraid of dishonoring their families if a kamikaze survived ow you're just going about your day when suddenly you're hit with a wave of pain what's your body trying to tell you and why does it have to hurt you to do it here are 20 things you never knew about pain number 20 pain is your body's warning system remember as a kid when you decided to touch the stove your hand only glanced it for half a second before you pulled it away in pain and wound up with a blister and a stinging lecture from mom about safety this was a case where pain was very useful as soon as you touch something that could hurt you your pain receptors kicked in and sent the very strong message that you should stop before you caused more serious damage this nerve signal indicates to the body that it should withdraw from a dangerous stimulus immediately and avoid it in the future saving you a lot of future pain but not every pain serves a useful purpose number 19. what the hurt there's another kind of pain that just seems to linger even when there's nothing on the surface causing it this is called chronic pain and it lasts more than three to six months it can be caused by problems in the body's various systems but it's most often caused by the nervous system something gets damaged and the brain or spinal cord sends signals to a part of the body that indicates something's wrong here solving or relieving chronic pain can be tricky and sufferers often spend a lot of time visiting doctors to try to find the right combo of therapy or medication to make their pain finally go away but there's another cause for chronic pain and it comes for all of us number 18. what's eating grandma have you ever heard your grandparents complaining about their back or their knees or well everything probably and there's a reason for that chronic pain tends to come with age that's because just like your car or computer our bodies wear out after a while but getting new parts isn't as easy as going to the store joints are particularly vulnerable to this because the cartilage and muscle use to make sure everything moves smoothly wears out before the bone does which can make swinging the knees or other parts a lot rougher and more painful thankfully doctors can now implant artificial joints so grandparents everywhere can start dancing the night away with less pain but can pain actually be a sign of something good number 17 feel the burn if you've ever lifted weights or tried to break your own record on the track you probably know that you can feel pretty rough afterwards your muscles are cramping up it can be hard to move and you just want to lie down and watch some tv for a while but after a little it passes and you actually feel stronger this is because working your muscles causes a build up of lactic acid which makes them tighten up and more painful to move it relieves itself after a while and they wind up stronger in the long run just be careful you're not overdoing it if you're spending hours in bed because it's too painful to move after a workout you might be going too hard too fast but that's not the only workout related pain number 16 hip to the burn have you ever gone for a run and suddenly the front of your hip starts hurting this doesn't always come with running too hard and it doesn't seem like there's a recurring injury but it's painful enough to stop you in your tracks this is the hip flexor region and it can be caused by a number of things it can be the sign of a more serious problem like a stress fracture or a hernia but it's most often a hip flexor strain which is often caused by overuse or lack of proper stretching the best way to avoid this is to rest take some anti-inflammatories if you need them and do exercises to increase your mobility before you get back on the track but sometimes the pain isn't as straightforward sometimes it's not the hip sometimes it's above it in the side a pain called a side stitch it's most common during running but can happen during any intense activity like swimming or horseback riding it's not caused by any specific injury but it's common enough that it affects two-thirds of runners per year the paint is usually gone by the time the athlete gets it checked out but while it's going on it's an intense shooting pain that can stop an athlete in their tracks so what causes it serious shooting pain in the side can be a sign of a major problem like appendicitis but in most cases the pain of a side stitch disappears quickly after the athlete stops running most sports medicine experts believe the cause is an irritation of the abdominal lining or the ligament surrounding the diaphragm and can be relieved by stopping breathing deeply and putting some pressure on the area but one other factor can affect it it's been proven to happen more often to people who eat or drink something sweet before running you might want to cut out that pre-workout cola running can cause pain no surprise but what about homework number 15 it's all in the wrist you're typing away on that report that's due well best not to look at that then suddenly a shooting pain in your wrist hits you and your fingers seem to be getting numb that's going to make it difficult to type this is one of the most common repetitive stress injuries and it doesn't hit athletes but office workers carpal tunnel syndrome happens when the median nerve gets compressed as it sends signals from the wrists to the fingers it can be linked to rheumatoid arthritis but the most common cause is repetitive work involving the wrists it can be alleviated by injections and splints but surgery is an option for more serious pain but what about pain that isn't there at all number 14 ghosts spooky when someone has an amputation be it due to chronic issues or a sudden injury at least they don't have to worry about pain there anymore they can get a prosthetic and move on with their life right not always many amputees find themselves experiencing serious pain in their limb even though the limb isn't there anymore over 80 percent of amputation patients report feeling some strange sensation in their missing limb which indicates it's a common response to an unusual nerve stimulus and the body has to adjust its nerve reactions before this bizarre response resolves itself it's not the only case where pain involves psychological stimuli number 13 calm down already pain is largely a physical response to your body either sending or receiving messages but it has a mental element too it causes you stress which leads to frustration and fear this is especially common with chronic pain where it's not clear what's actually causing the pain or how to stop it the problem is stress can actually heighten the body's pain response and make it more difficult to focus and solve the problem if you doubt this try solving a math problem while getting shocked with a joy buzzer repeatedly one of the best ways to cut down on pain though might be surprising number 12 get smoked you know what causes stress pain you know what many people use to relieve stress smoking the problem is it's doing the exact opposite of relieving pain smoking is actually a serious risk for people with chronic pain caused by conditions like fibromyalgia that's because smoking decreases the blood flow going to joints and can actually delay the healing of injuries that's why doctors will often tell people not to smoke before or after surgery it can also interfere with some medications so it may be time to think about quitting but that's not the only unexpected thing that can enhance pain number 11 what's for lunch one of the biggest culprits in chronic pain is inflammation while this redness and swelling is actually a sign of your body healing in most circumstances it can be too much of a good thing causing consistent pain and difficulty with moving and it can actually be caused by what you eat processed in fried food and refined grains and sugars can lead to increased inflammation as can alcohol definitely a downside for those looking to drink their pain away but for those looking to reduce inflammation healthy fats and proteins and many fruits and vegetables can help but one unlikely thing that can actually help relieve pain number 10 get moving we know the last thing you want to do when you're in pain is to get up the couch is awfully inviting and there are a lot of shows to binge watch on your 30 streaming services but studies have proven that sitting or lying down while in pain can make the pain worse when you actually do have to get up the pain may be too intense instead of waiting for moving to become essential it's best to keep moving and change position occasionally especially since moving can produce the pain killing brain chemicals called endorphins giving you a similar effect to many pain medications but if you're looking to relieve pain there's another more exciting way number nine get busy few pains are harder to get rid of than a migraine these chronic headaches can make it impossible to focus on anything and the last thing you want to do is be active but one type of activity may have an unexpected benefit if you've got a ready and willing partner the best medicine for a migraine may be a roll in the hay while it might not be a natural activity after all how many times has someone said not tonight i have a headache but a majority says that sex relieves their symptoms during a migraine attack and the culprit is the same endorphins that are released by exercise but sometimes the cure is worse than the pain number eight that stings remember when you skinned your knee as a kid it hurt and then your folks said they had to clean it and then they used rubbing alcohol now that sets your knee on fire why the heck does rubbing alcohol hurt so much does its job but the problem is that the cutter scrape exposes the nerve cells under the skin these are the cells that usually have the job of detecting extremely hot temperature when exposed to alcohol their pain threshold gets lowered and it's not the alcohol that causes the pain but your own body temperature they're doing their job a little too well and that's not the only time something good betrays you and causes pain number seven there's nothing like an ice cream cone on a hot summer day or a slurpee or italian ice you're digging into the frozen treat when suddenly ow it's like a jackhammer going off in your brain you've fallen prey to the notorious brain freeze but your brain hasn't actually frozen this condition actually called sphenopalatine ganglia neuralgia happens because the pain receptors in your mouth are linked to the ones in your forehead thus the signals get crossed and when your mouth gets the news that something's too hot it gets transmitted to the brain oh well that ice cream still looks pretty good but some food could cause more lasting pain in the past number six pass the meat usually kings had access to doctors who can help them avoid or treat many common diseases but one disease was so common to royals that it became known as the disease of kings gout this painful disease which involves serious pain and swelling in the joints was caused by a buildup of uric acid in the blood a condition caused by too much rich food and drink that wasn't something peasants had to worry about but this disease wasn't new evidence of it has been found in the bones of tyrannosaurus rex who definitely had a meat-heavy diet but not everyone experiences the same pain number five war of the sexes you've probably seen men and women handle pain differently maybe dad cursed up a storm after hitting his thumb with a hammer while mom finished her dinner before washing out that burn but there's actually a biological difference in the way men and women feel pain and surprisingly it's the women who feel more pain studies show that women have more nerve receptors than men and report being in pain to their doctors more often this has led to a common problem where some doctors dismiss women when they report being in pain after all they've never felt the same thing everyone feels pain differently and some doctors have adapted number four rate your pain rate your pain that probably give it a zero it stinks but rating pain usually means ranking it on the scale of how severe it is a tool that more doctors have begun using it's especially useful for child patients who may not be able to describe their symptoms effectively or chronic pain sufferers scales can vary with some meant for kids even using different types of frowny faces but most have a similar purpose if someone rates their pain on the low end of the scale they can usually go about daily activities only mildly bothered someone on the high end may not even be able to get out of bed but some animals have unusual relationships with pain number three snake bitten it's one of the deadliest animals in the world the black mamba this venomous snake packs a powerful potentially fatal bite so one would assume it's pretty painful when this creature bites you right wrong the black mambas venom actually contains pain relieving compounds that may be more effective than morphine scientists are working on developing it as a painkiller as long as they can separate it from the toxic parts and hey for one of the most venomous snakes in the world he actually looks pretty friendly but some animals don't feel pain in a normal way either number two not your average rat the naked mole rat is atypical in a lot of ways it's a small bald rodent that is mostly blind and lives underground in large colonies that resemble insect societies in some ways they also don't seem to have the same pain receptors as humans despite being mammals studies show they don't feel pain when affected by acid or chili peppers this has gotten scientists pretty interested in how these critters can provide human pain relief and they're not the only animals who lack certain pain receptors the 2005 report said lobsters don't feel pain when boiled a relief to diners everywhere even if it's still hotly debated but a very small number of people are in the same boat number one feeling no pain it's a very rare genetic mutation with a number of people worldwide including a cluster in a swedish village having the bizarre medical condition that makes them unable to feel pain while they can tell temperatures their pain receptors don't work making them uniquely vulnerable a too hot piece of metal can turn into a third degree burn if the body doesn't warn you to pull away a painful stress fracture in the leg can go undetected in someone without pain until it suddenly breaks these people have to keep on top of their health like no one else because their body doesn't give them warning signs your pain is like an alarm clock no one is happy to see it but it's better than the alternative there's more to men than just their penis do you think we'd get through this video without talking about the weird things the male sex organ does only time will tell if you've ever been awoken by a snoring partner it was most likely a male that's because sleep studies have found that men tend to snore more than women some research studies have hypothesized that this is because men tend to have more abdominal body fat than women whether this is the result of drinking too much beer or just not working out enough it's something to be assessed on a case-by-case basis the american academy of sleep medicine found that about 40 of men are habitual snorers this is almost twice the percentage of women which the study found was closer to 24 so if you're a male who is woken up by snoring there's a good chance you were the snorer and woke yourself up dental hygiene is important for both males and females but did you know that men's teeth are larger on average than women's this might not be super surprising but the reason why is actually pretty crazy all of the teeth in the male mouth tend to be larger than in females however there is one set of teeth that are almost always larger and sharper in men the pointy canine teeth can be significantly larger in a man's mouth when you think about it in evolutionary terms this makes sense our closest relatives the chimpanzee use their canines to assert dominance in a group by pulling back their lips in a threatening way to show off their teeth in this display of power the canines are always the most prominent in our distant past human ancestors most likely had a hierarchy within their social group similar to that of which we see today in modern apes therefore males who had larger canines were more intimidating and dangerous this was less important for the females of the species so there is no evolutionary pressure for them to evolve larger teeth hair can be a touchy subject for men whether it's because early hair loss is embarrassing or because they want a luxurious beard men are obsessed with their hair but one weird fact is that men typically have darker hair than women do when you think about it you probably know more blonde haired women than men this is not surprising since when men go through puberty they produce higher amounts of melanin than women melanin is one of the pigments responsible for skin hair and eye color more melanin normally results in darker traits since men tend to produce slightly more melanin than women this most likely plays a role in them having darker hair on average we've all heard the saying that someone has thick skin meaning that not a lot bothers them but men actually have thicker skin men normally generate more testosterone than women one side effect of this is that men's skin is slightly thicker testosterone can stimulate the growth of skin cells more skin cells means thicker skin in fact men's skin tends to be about 25 percent thicker than the skin of females this is not an insignificant number and the difference between male and female skin does not just stop there men also have tougher skin than women whether this was an evolutionary adaptation to help them in fending off dangerous animals or fighting for dominance in their social circle is unclear but tougher skin might have been an advantage to men earlier in our species history thicker and tougher skin could be just a byproduct of more testosterone but it also might have helped men survive one last weird fact about men's skin is that it actually has the ability to slow the aging process what we mean by this is that if men are careful about how they treat their body the signs of aging will be reduced men lose collagen density slightly slower than women do resulting in less wrinkles and sagging as they get older the fact that a man is getting older doesn't change but the looks associated with aging can be less significant in men than in women this is only true if men take care of their skin we're not talking about using moisturizing products but by reducing sun related damage by wearing sunscreen and making sure to be careful while shaving to reduce nicks and other damage to the skin if men are smart about how they treat their skin it will last much longer and allow them to maintain their rugged good looks a bit longer we did our best to stay away from the penis but there are too many weird facts about it to not include in the video so here we go all men are born with foreskin around the tip of their penis depending on the culture they're raised in or preference of the parents the skin can be removed or circumcised but what is the foreskin of the penis actually for the answer is pretty weird the foreskin itself is a double layer of skin and a mucous membrane that covers the head of the penis when it's flaccid the foreskin most likely served as some form of protection for the penis in the distant past before humans developed clothing it may have prevented dust or other outside particulates from entering the urethra or perhaps it was a shield against unpleasant bug bites on the sensitive head of the male member as of right now we do not know exactly why men have foreskins however the world health organization has found some interesting and scary facts about this weird part of the male body according to the wh uncircumcised men have a higher risk of contracting hiv this is because the cells called langerhans cells found in the mucus under the foreskin are highly susceptible to the hiv virus these cells allow the virus an entry point into the body where it can begin to target a man's white blood cells and dismantle their immune system the who found that men who are circumcised have a reduced risk of contracting hiv by 60 percent and the weird facts about the foreskin don't stop there circumcision of the piece of skin dates all the way back to the artwork in egyptian tombs from around 2300 bce the removal of the foreskin became common as a rite of passage in jewish and muslim religions long ago but it was in the 1800s that foreskin removal got real weird during the 1800s circumcision gained favor in the realm of public health it was claimed that by removing the foreskin a man could be relieved of antisocial behavior or even paralysis the foreskin was also blamed for decreasing a man's sexual pleasure and therefore was often removed even though none of those benefits of removing foreskin are true this strange piece of male body definitely gives you something to think about whether a man has a foreskin or not the shape of the penis is the same and this shape has some surprising and weird functions the head of the penis is shaped in a way that may serve an evolutionary benefit for males scientists know that in certain primates males often compete to have sex with the same female to pass on their dna to the next generation humans are no different in the evolutionary scheme of things the head of the penis is actually pretty good at extracting another male sperm from the female's reproductive system think of it as a kind of plunger the mushroom shape of the male penis allows the head to scoop out rival sperm and give its own sperm a better chance at reaching the egg this fact is also supported by scientific studies in the journal of evolutionary psychology one study found that the shape of the human penis was optimal for depositing sperm into the vagina while simultaneously displacing rival sperm researchers at the university of albany took things a step further and created artificial penises of different shapes to see what was best at scooping out rival sperm their findings were not entirely surprising the shape of an average male penis did an excellent job at flushing out the sperm that was already in the vagina and thereby allowing the male's own sperm to have a better shot at impregnating a female men's bodies create some weird substances but none is stranger than semen what makes this body fluid so unique is the journey that it takes to be created when a man ejaculates the substance that comes out of the urethra is called seaming you may be surprised to learn that semen actually isn't made up of very much sperm in fact only about one to five percent of the liquid is made up of the sex cells semen itself isn't even created in the testicles like you might think three different areas of the male body are needed to generate and mix together all the components of semen sperm is created in the testes and when a man ejaculates it begins its journey through the seminal vesicles where a yellowish fluid is mixed in this substance is what around 70 percent of the semen is actually made of after the seminal vesicles the liquid passes through the prostate where a fluid containing enzymes and other molecules is added just before ejaculation the fluid goes through the bulbourethral glands which secrete lubrication to allow the sperm to pass out of the urethra so the journey of semen is a pretty wild one our final weird fact about the male body is something that many men have experienced and is quite painful for those of you who wonder if men get yeast infections like females do the answer is yes oftentimes yeast infections are associated with pain in the female urinary tract but men can experience this as well a buildup in bacteria in the urethra can cause massive discomfort in men if you're a male or female who has never had a yeast infection consider yourself lucky yeast infections are more common in men who are uncircumcised so removing that piece of skin covering the penis may have even more health benefits but even circumcised men can get yeast infections like in women male yeast infections come with a rash discharge and pain in the urethra luckily for men the same medication that works for females can cure them as well if you thought yeast infections were a weird situation that only happened to females think again the male and female bodies are much more similar than they are different you hear the echo of a gunshot people all around you begin to scream in panic you run and dive for cover as you breathe heavily trying to get your bearings you look down you've been hit a pool of blood begins to soak through your shirt how does getting shot feel let's find out we've all seen someone get shot in the movies or television shows but do these depictions have it right according to the cdc in 2017 around 40 000 people died from gun related deaths in the united states alone however many people also survive being shot and when they tell their story and what it feels like there are several commonalities that being said everyone is different some people have really high tolerances for pain while others not so much the sensations felt from being shot are most certainly connected to the location of the bullet wound the size of the bullet and the person themselves but let's look at different accounts and see what most have in common many gunshot survivors remember the initial penetration of the bullet the strange thing is they don't remember feeling any pain at first this is surprising since you think a searing hot chunk of metal ripping through your skin muscle and nerves would be excruciating however for the most part survivors of gun wounds tend not to notice they've been shot until they see blood one gunshot survivor remembers the impact of the bullet feeling like someone had thrown a small pebble at her the bullet hit her in the side and all she remembers was being in shock but not feeling any initial pain this may be surprising at first but this is not uncommon with people who have been shot many people recount that within the first few moments of being hit by a bullet they didn't feel anything at all once the brain realizes that the body's been injured and it could be life-threatening it goes into survival mode the brain dumps adrenaline into the bloodstream which causes the body to increase blood pressure and heart rate expand air passages to the lungs and maximize energy output this allows the body to reach super human levels and maintain homeostasis even under intense circumstances the body obviously can't keep this heightened energy level up forever but it does allow the body to continue functioning even if it's been mortally wounded the lack of pain is also connected to the size of the bullet larger bullets create larger holes and tend to inflict more pain however you'd think a smaller caliber should still cause severe pain but the body's able to do amazing things under life or death circumstances a smaller bullet such as a nine millimeter that doesn't break apart on injury will cause a lot less pain than a large bullet that tears apart into shrapnel bullets that break apart within the body can rip through surrounding tissue and muscle around the initial entry point this causes widespread damage and pain in the affected area the more damage caused the more pain signals will be sent to the brain the more excruciating the injury will be once the initial shock starts to wear off the body begins damage control many gunshot victims remember feeling a burning sensation this is pretty universal among survivors some people describe the burning sensation as feeling sort of like an intense bee sting however the initial burning does not decrease just intensifies so it feels like being stung by a bee with a never ending stinger like a needle just continuously being pushed into your body the burning sensation seems to start the same when the bullet penetrates the skin the person feels an impact but the burn doesn't start immediately in fact many gunshot survivors remember feeling numb as the bullet enters their body they can feel pressure but it doesn't hurt then a numbness sweeps across their entire body radiating from the point that the bullet entered from as the numbness and shock begin to fade it's replaced by the burning sensation other than feeling like a never-ending bee sting some people have described the burning sensation as being incredibly hot like someone was sticking an iron poker that had just come out of a fire into their body other gunshot survivors explained that the burning sensation feels like someone is jamming their finger into a raw blister the burning has also been described as an incredibly intense sunburn that's concentrated on a single point of the body or like someone is taking a bunch of needles and just sticking them into them except it's as if each time the needle enters the body it's just continuously being pushed further and further in with no end to this sensation the burning seems to begin at the point of entry but then radiates outward this may be a small piece of shrapnel ripping through the nerves but one thing is clear for most people who have been shot the burning sensation is what is felt after the brain becomes aware that the bullet has entered the body again every person's body is different and therefore will react in different ways to intense trauma like being shot soldiers that have been shot have recounted that they've had a very different experience from a bullet ripping through them most agree that when the bullet enters the body there is an initial period of no pain at all but that doesn't last long instead of a slow burning the bullet wound goes from a slight pressure to excruciating pain the reason that soldiers may experience a more intense pain is because they most likely have been shot by a higher caliber bullet from a rifle the ammunition in guns used in military warfare are probably not the same weapons that civilians are shot by during senseless acts of gun violence this is not always true but it would seem that being shot by an assault rifle versus a pistol with a small caliber bullet would correlate to a more intense pain one soldier who was shot says the initial shock wore off after a few seconds of a bullet entering his stomach then the pain immediately began he remembers it feeling like being hit by a sledgehammer in the stomach over and over resulting in the worst incontinence possible however with his intense pain he saw that a warm numbness flowed through the rest of his body and eventually he blacked out on the other end of the spectrum some people who have been shot say there was no pain at all they didn't feel a burning sensation they didn't feel like they'd been ripped open they felt nothing this could just be based on the person but there are actually a few accounts of people being shot and saying they didn't feel much pain one man who was shot in the calf by a 22 caliber bullet said it didn't hurt he chalks this up to the bullet being small it also probably had to do with where he got shot as there are no vital organs in the calf being shot in different areas of the body seemed to account for different sensations but what about being shot in the head you may be surprised to find that surviving a gunshot wound to the head is not as uncommon as you might think you might also expect that being shot in the head would be excruciating but this isn't necessarily the case either one man was accidentally shot in the head by his wife while he slept now accidentally shooting someone in the head seems unlikely but that is the story the wife stuck to either way while her husband slept the gun went off and the bullet rips through his skull when the man awoke he didn't even know he'd been shot instead he complained to his wife of a massive headache the headache was so bad the man asked his wife to drive him to the hospital which she did according to the victim it wasn't until the nurse at the hospital informed him that he had been shot in the head that he realized what had happened at this point the wife ran out of the hospital to avoid being charged with attempted murder however this is not the only account of someone being shot in the head and surviving there are a few commonalities between survivors of gunshot wounds to the head the first is the intense headache that accompanies the bullet penetrating the skull this is not surprising as they now have a piece of metal lodged in their brain the other commonality is a ringing sound most people who have been shot in the head and survived say they hear a constant ringing in their ears some describe the ringing as a unique sound unlike anything they've ever heard before it's so intense and loud it drowns out almost all other noise other survivors describe it as a really loud buzzing like having bees inside your ears and yet others describe it like the ringing of a bell in your head regardless of the description of the ringing everyone agrees that it is incredibly loud and persistent there also seems to be an initial ping sound from being shot in the head the ping then starts to intensify into the ringing which lasts anywhere from hours to days or weeks later the ringing isn't painful per se it's just really loud and annoying most gunshot survivors say the most painful part of being shot is the recovery process the initial gunshot wound for a mini seems to be a burning sensation but that's nothing compared to what happens if they survive the gunshot they're rushed to surgery and depending on where the bullet entered the operation to remove the bullet and mend the wound is excruciating many gunshot survivors say that the recovery and rehab process after being shot is much worse than the getting shot itself one survivor even described how when she was operated on the doctors couldn't find the bullet initially and they didn't want to go digging around in her body looking for it so they decided to leave the bullet in the survivor had to have multiple surgeries in order to recover from the gunshot and during one of them the bullet had actually been pushed close to the surface of the skin she remembered the bullet was practically poking out of her body until she convinced one of the surgeons to remove it many gunshot wounds take months to heal this means that for a long period of time survivors are in constant pain from their body healing and yet the pain of recovery isn't even the worst part for many gunshot survivors it's the psychological trauma that haunts them for the rest of their lives that causes the most pain most people who are shot end up with ptsd they're typically sent to counselors and therapists to help them work through the traumatic experience but this does not always help being shot does not mean they're afraid of being around guns or loud noises but even things that are unrelated to being shot might set off a sense of fear and terror for many with the help of medical professionals and counselors the ptsd can go away but for some it doesn't and they have to live the rest of their lives with the disorder getting shot is never pleasant whether it's a burning sensation intense pain or psychological trauma it is something that stays with you for the rest of your life the sensations associated with being shot depend on the person the type of bullet and where the bullet entered many people who survived being shot never fully recover after beer number one the teenage jeffrey dahmer already a budding alcoholic sits in his hideaway fantasizing about a male jogger he often sees running down the street for some strange reason his attraction to this fully grown man is somehow connected to the thrill he gets from dissecting roadkill young dahmer has no idea how his obsession with collecting bones and cutting apart dead animals will be intertwined with his lust he opens another beer and then another and so on until he's drunk he peers through the window of his hut there's a blue sky above a blue jay perches on the branch of a tree and lets out its unmistakable screech he scrunches a beer can and opens another nature he thinks while looking at the bird i must be a freak of nature he's aware that something could be wrong with him he wants to kill he knows it's not right but it's a feeling he just can't push back he gets his baseball bat and waits behind a bush for the jogger to run down that same route again young jeff doesn't know what he'll do not really maybe he'll knock him out he thinks and then keep the body it just so happens that the man didn't jog that day these were the warped thoughts of a boy that would become known as the milwaukee monster a deserving epithet if there ever was one dahmer's atrocious crimes not only shocked the nation but his actions have perplexed medical science he may have been a monster but dahmer was also soft-spoken intelligent and strange as it sounds he came across as a likeable guy that's perhaps one reason why it took so long to arrest him he almost operated in full view of the cops he was hardly a mastermind when it came to concealing his crimes in fact it's as if sometimes he wanted to be caught and yet it took so long we might ask how the killer was caught but in dahmer's case another question needs to be asked how didn't anyone realize he was a distressed and messed up kid he came from a broken family a family that was likely a little more broken than documentary films have made out his mother it seems was what you might have called the overbearing type of matriarch she was moody often depressed argumentative and she wanted constant attention this kind of behavior does not bode well for children in the family she was a wreck and by the time dahmer was old enough to go to school she was spending most of her days in bed the household wasn't much fun at all for young dahmer especially since his father was away so much of the time when he was back the parents argued all the time this is something that affected dahmer deeply more so after his mother tried and failed to take her own life but by the time she was pregnant with another child she wasn't much better so this could have been the genesis of a killer in the making but then a lot of kids grow up in chaotic households and they end up just fine many serial killers experience extreme physical violence from their parents when they're young but with dahmer it was more being put on the sidelines as his mother fell apart that seemed to bother him he didn't like being abandoned and that may explain his utter depravity later in life after he was arrested he always said his parents blustery relationship didn't make him the way he was but it would be hard to deny it shaped his very peculiar personality his father was an analytical chemist and unbeknownst to him it was teaching his son some things about science which would lead to some of the grisliest crimes the usa or the world for that matter had seen in modern times he taught his son how to bleach and preserve bones something dahmer evidently took on board even at such a young age sometimes the two of them would look around the garden and under the house for dead animals when they found one the father would show his son how you could bleach the skin and connective tissue from an animal young dahmer was obsessed with this but not in a way his father thought jeff loved the end product a pile of shiny bones these he and his father used to call fiddlesticks later in life a forensic psychiatrist named carl wallstrom asked dahmer if he ever tortured animals as a child hurting defenseless animals is often said to be something serial killers in the making do it's about control about living out sadistic fantasies dahmer told wahlstrom a story he said when he was in grade school the teacher asked his class to bring something in the next day dahmer brought a tadpole at the end of the day the teacher gave that tadpole to another kid in class dahmer was absolutely infuriated so much so he went around to that kid's house there he saw the tadpole in an aquarium he poured gasoline in it and set it on fire after telling that story dahmer turned to the psychiatrist and said if you want to call that torturing animals i tortured animals his parents moved around when they were together they argued all the time the kid got hardly any attention less so after his brother was born it gave him plenty of time to think to go out exploring the nearby woodlands he'd find dead animals and dissect them in the backyard shed once he even impaled the dog's head on a stick and stuck it in the forest near his house we won't get into everything here but as his father later admitted there were signs that weren't seen dahmer was quiet sometimes moody he had a shed full of animal parts he spent much of his free time looking for roadkill but his parents as consumed as they were with their own disagreements failed to see those signs this was a kid who likely could have been fixed but instead his problems were being ignored in 1978 just a few weeks after he graduated high school he took his first life he was living alone at this point in his parents old house he picked up a hitchhiker named stephen hicks just a young man himself at 18. the two went back to dahmer's place to drink some beer dahmer later said that he found his new friend attractive but when the conversation turned to attractive girls and how to meet them he became aware that there'd be no love for him for a few years he'd known he was gay when they were both drunk and the other guy said he wanted to leave dahmer went over to a set of weights he picked up a large dumbbell walked over to the guy who was sitting in a chair with his back to him and he whacked him over the head he subsequently strangled him stripped him used his body for sexual gratification and like the dead animals he'd been so obsessed with dissected him dahmer buried the body but a few weeks later he dug it up he then methodically stripped the bones of their flesh and dissolved what he could in acid the solution that was left over he flushed down the toilet as for the bones that were left he crushed them with a sledgehammer and then threw the fragments around in a nearby forest after the murder he tried his hand at higher education but his persistent drinking wasn't exactly conducive to attaining good grades he soon dropped out and joined the united states army just prior to his 19th birthday we won't go into everything that happened in the army but it's reported that he drugged and molested soldiers while stationed in germany this is something that became known much later his drinking habits never really diminished and by the time he was just shy of 22 he was discharged from the army at this point in time his father and stepmother had seen how alcohol was destroying his life that's the main reason why they sent him to live with his grandmother in west allis wisconsin she'd always had a calming effect on dahmer and they'd hoped she'd guide him out of the darkness this worked to some extent but after being fired from a job he started drinking a lot again and acting out his fantasies this started by exposing himself to women and children something he was arrested for at age 22 he paid 50 after being charged with indecent exposure soon after he landed a job at a mixer at the milwaukee ambrosia chocolate factory but his mind was far from settled it was at this time he started thinking about control again how he might enact his lurid fantasies on someone who could not say no at first he stole a mannequin and used that but his grandmother was somewhat disturbed by the fact that he had one of those things stuffed into his wardrobe she made him throw it out so dahmer even more frustrated was now looking for a human doll to play with it was around that time that he started frequenting the local gay bars and discos although his favorite places for finding men were bath houses he met men and at times he had some good times with them but he was never content because of the fact that they also had some control if that's confusing this is what he said after his arrest i trained myself to view people as objects of pleasure instead of people his solution was to ply people with alcohol remember he could drink a lot so they would usually be the first to reach the point of passing out he also dropped sleeping pills into their drinks when they weren't looking it's thought he did this at least 12 times after meeting people in bath houses he would wait until they were out and then he would have his way with them these were not murders but the crimes were heinous in themselves what's strange is that dahmer was never arrested likely because no one pressed charges he was though banned from the bath houses when he was 26 yet again he was charged with indecent exposure he got a one year probationary sentence for that had anyone been able to join a few dots dahmer's actions certainly would have portrayed a man on the edge a dangerous man but as things went those dots were spread far and wide and the only person that regularly saw him was his grandmother nonetheless dahmer knew that to satisfy himself he had to take a different course than exposing himself in public and drugging men he met in saunas that's when he got the idea to go back to his old ways how to keep the dead how to conceal the dead to do what he wanted to to the dead he began his killing spree he said the first murder of this new era was an accident it happened in 1987 when dahmer was 27. he said he woke up in a hotel and the guy was dead beside him in the bed with blood coming from his mouth dahmer left the hotel got his hands on a large suitcase and then transported the body back to his grandma's house there he dismembered it and got rid of most of it he kept the head which he boiled so he could keep the skull for his own sexual gratification he killed again much in the same fashion drugging strangling and then dismembering bodies often keeping skulls when he was done with those skulls he'd pulverize them with a hammer and disperse the fragment someplace did his grandmother know something strange was going on she actually asked him to leave not being too fond of him always bringing men back to his room she even complained about the foul smells in the house a consequence of human decay but she never once thought her grandson was a killer he didn't stop he couldn't stop he killed more and as his addiction got worse he took more risks he later said he found his fifth victim so attractive that he kept the head intact and preserved it he kept some of the other body parts too he flayed the corpse in his grandmother's bathtub got rid of the parts he didn't want and stored the rest in his room in 1989 two days after his 29th birthday he was given five years probation in one year in the house of correction for a sexual assault he spent some time behind bars but was allowed to work too almost exactly a year after his sentencing he returned to his grandmother's house to pick up his things the most valuable to him being the human remains at his new apartment he started again he picked up male prostitutes he drugged people he met in bars when they were unconscious he strangled them sometimes he'd pose with their dead bodies sometimes he'd sleep with them often he'd take photos with them one time he talked to a severed head while dismembering other parts of the body all the time this was going on he told his probation officer how horribly he felt that he was lonely and depressed that he often thought about taking his own life he even alluded to his depraved sexuality but strangely nothing ever came of it to most people he seemed like a nice enough guy with a few problems on his mind believe it or not residents of the apartment complex where he lived had told their landlord they were tired of listening to all the noises coming from that one flat they said they often heard loud crashes like heavy objects falling they said a guy in there even used a chainsaw in the middle of the night they also couldn't stand the terrible smells coming from that apartment what smelled like dead animals no one put two and two together it was as if dahmer was invisible untouchable then in 1991 something straight out of the darkest kind of horror story happened dahmer had lured a teenager to his apartment this time not only subdued the guy with drinks and pills but when the victim was almost out he drilled a hole in his skull and injected hydrochloric acid into the hole it was dahmer's belief that by putting the acid into the so-called executive suite the part of the brain called the frontal cortex he could turn him into a living zombie he could have someone forever but that person wouldn't rot like all of his other victims he left the young man alone on the couch in his zombified state drank some beer and then went to a bar when he returned home he hoped his zombie would still be there he wasn't dahmer looked for him and saw three women standing over him as he crouched in the street looking awfully worse for wear dahmer tried to convince the women that he was the youth's friend but they knew something was wrong they told dahmer they'd called the cops the police turned up quite quickly but after hearing dahmer tell them he was the boyfriend of the youth they believed him even when the women told them dahmer had tried to kidnap the kid and it was evident he was bleeding from a certain orifice a cop said to one of the women shut the hell up they wrote it down as a domestic dispute as you'll see this interaction in the street would later cause problems for the police this is yet another time dahmer should have been caught given his background this was one hell of a big clue the cops walked dahmer and the allegedly drunk boy back up to his apartment where one of the police noticed a really foul odor little did he know that it was the decomposing body of a previous victim when the cops were gone dahmer injected more hydrochloric acid into the head of the youth this time it killed him he killed again and he took his trophies again with another man he tried injecting water into the brain that didn't create a zombie either there were more murders and more of dahmer doing despicable things with body parts at this time bits of people were piling up in that apartment police still hadn't linked any of the missing people to dahmer then he met 32 year old tracy edwards this changed everything he lured edwards to his apartment too but after struggling to get one handcuff on him edwards became suspicious he noticed not only an oil drum but a disgusting smell pervading the place dahmer also had a tape of the exorcist part 3 playing suffice to say things didn't look good he knew he had to talk his way out of this dahmer then grabbed the knife he told edwards he wanted to take photos with him he put his head against edward's chest saying something about his heartbeat and then in a calm tone said he was going to rip that heart out and eat it time passed however mostly because edwards was able to keep a conversation going when he had his chance he punched dahmer in the face and made a run for it out on the street naked almost hysterical he jumped in front of a police car shouting at the cops he said a crazed man had threatened to kill him he showed them the handcuffs still attached to one of his hands he told them he'd been captive for five hours this time the cops took it seriously they had no idea they couldn't have any idea of what they were about to find first was a knife then one of them opened a drawer and pulled out some photographs he almost fell back in shock there were pictures of bodies some dismembered lying in certain poses the cop went over to his partner and said these are for real they then wrestle dahmer to the floor whereupon dahmer managed to squeeze out the words for what i did i should be dead once in restraints he showed them why he opened the fridge door inside was a human head personnel from the milwaukee county medical examiner's office were soon on the scene working with the milwaukee police department to photograph the apartment they found a bunch of tools that could be used for dismembering bodies they also found seven skulls some of them painted elsewhere there were four human heads three partially skeletonized bodies a human heart and what was described as large muscle fillets packaged in plastic bags they found a little food and so it looked to them that dahmer had been eating the bodies the so-called fillets were all frozen just like little packages of pork so there were the body parts there were the drugs he used to sedate people there were the photos and there were the tools dahmer had used forensic pathologists were soon able to say what the cause of death was with some of the victims and they were able to make identifications they discovered the skulls into which dahmer had drilled understanding what kind of injury that it caused at this point no one knew much about dahmer but when questioned he told police he tried to create zombie sex slaves by lobotomizing his victims he didn't deny what he'd done and instead gave information that helped police identify his victims out of the 11 bodies found in his apartment four could be identified with fingerprints other victims ids were at the apartment the rest could be identified through dental records later activists say the reason the police work had been shoddy was because of the fact that the victims had been gay the majority of the victims had also been african-american on top of that some people said because most of the victims had been poor it was a case of the less dead gone missing meaning police don't work as hard when the victims are folks who live on the margins of society but it was the 14 year old who police had helped dahmer take back to his apartment that really got the public angry that's why there were headlines like this anger building over role of police in dahmer case the boy was laotian two of the women who tried to help him were black which led people to say the white police officers hadn't paid enough attention to them out of some harbored racism they believed dahmer instead who as you know killed the kid shortly after the cop later defended himself saying there was just nothing that stood out or we would have seen it i've been doing this for a while and usually if something stands out you'll spot it there just wasn't anything there on february 15 1992 dahmer was sentenced to 15 consecutive life terms in prison another life sentence was later added on in total he killed 17 people at the end of 1994 while serving time in prison dahmer was attacked by a man in the bathroom of the gym he was bludgeoned with a metal bar to the point of death and he did die shortly after in the hospital the guy that killed him also in for murder later said dahmer didn't make a single noise throughout the assault when dahmer's mother was approached by the media she said now is everybody happy now that he's bludgeoned to death is that good enough for everyone for a lot of americans it was a fitting end to a terrible story the black death surged unstoppably throughout eurasia for years killing people in painful excruciating ways within days of infection almost no one who caught it stood a chance by the time it was done about a third of the world's population lay dead so how did this deadly widespread contagion finally end europe in 1347 famines tuberculosis smallpox beheadings stds old age seemed like the least common way for anyone to die at the time even giving birth gave you good odds of ending up in the grave in this time of generally widespread disease and danger no one could have imagined a plague which would undo all the other plagues thus far and was about to make its horrific entrance of course europeans had heard of the great pestilence that was spreading through the middle east in asia however in a situation that thankfully would never be repeated again they just kept going about their business hoping the problem would fix itself before really affecting them and yet one day undeterred by state lines the bubonic plague made its european debut 12 ships from the black sea docked in the sunny sicilian port of messina and people working on the docks went to greet the sailors and get the cargo that's when they noticed something odd most of the sailors were dead and the few who remained alive were covered in disgusting black boils hemorrhaging blood and pus no one knew exactly what was going on but getting all the ships and boil covered sailors as far away from messina as possible seemed like a good call to where they didn't really care sicilian authorities told the death ships to leave the port unfortunately it was already too late not only was the bubonic plague one of the most virulent contagious diseases known to man and thus had probably already spread to some dock workers in the brief contact they had with the sailors the flea-ridden rats that had originally infected the sailors had already abandoned the ship scurrying their way right into the cobblestone streets of messina from messina the plague spread through italy up to france germany and even london within the year even in the time of such slow arduous travel the black death tore its way through the continent with unimaginable force and speed between 1346 and 1353 the black death killed a higher proportion of the world population than any other singular event in history it killed 25 million people in europe in a period of four years and over this climax of its spread is estimated to have destroyed 75 million lives worldwide keep in mind this was during a time when the entire global population was estimated to be around 380 million some estimates even put the plague's total death toll higher at around 200 million and global population estimates higher as well however even the minimum death count is horrifying to comprehend it took 200 years for the world to rebuild its population to pre-plague levels we assume part of the reason for the lengthy repopulating process was that seeing boil-covered humans and death all around you for years is bound to have an effect on your sex drive but for the world population to bounce back that meant the black plague had to end so how did it did it just run its course or did people start getting better at stopping the spread and fighting it the answer is actually nuanced as is most scientific and medical issues despite what your self-diagnosis with webmd might tell you many experts have an explanation they favor most but they also agree that the black plague ended as a result of a combination of factors first of all the extreme deadliness of the black plague proved to be a part of its eventual undoing the disease killed so many people so quickly that at some point it ran out of victims when the bubonic plague struck a person they quickly fell grievously ill symptoms included fevers of 100 to 106 degrees fahrenheit nausea vomiting severe joint pain and headaches the most unique symptoms of the plague were bubos that gave it its name large egg-shaped boils that oozed pus and blood charming people who usually felt ill became confined to their homes and died within three to eight days over 80 percent of all those infected died thus the odds once you caught the disease were not great this is why highly deadly pathogens have a way of wiping themselves out a disease that kills so many so fast eventually reduces its own chance of spreading and therefore surviving at some point there were literally just not many people left to kill and not that dense a population to work through eventually when people wised up to the fact that staying away from the sick would help them survive see the second reason the plague ended was because people started trying to prevent its transmission doctors initially had no good advice to give the population this was a previously unknown disease and also most doctors at the time thought that leeches help the depression unless gwyneth paltrow is your medical professional we generally expect better medical advice and treatment these days for an example of doctor's opinions about the disease during that era one plague doctor stated his belief that instantaneous death occurs when the aerial spirit escaping from the eyes of the sick man strikes the healthy person standing near and looking at the sick he wasn't exactly wrong about the ease of transmission and the fact that the bubonic plague could be spread via the air but his reasoning as to how and why was uh suspect however despite the horrific state of medicine at the time people eventually realized that the more they came into contact with others the more likely they would be to catch this deadly new disease so people started escaping the big dense cities of europe and going to the countryside however the plague carried by fleas on rats and livestock followed them out there as well so more stringent measures were taken store owners closed up shops and stayed home priests wouldn't administer last rites doctors refused to see patients and given our previous statements this was probably for the best and cremation became extremely popular in order to both minimize the existence of plague carrying bodies and also save space as corpses quickly filled up mass graves tragically people were even forced to leave their sick and suffering family members behind to have a shot at escaping the plague thomas malkitis a history professor at depaul university explains that people had no real understanding of how to fight it other than trying to avoid sick people that's why in italy where the disease had first infected europe they decided to start a new practice in the venetian-controlled port city of ragusa incoming sailors were kept on their ships in isolation for 30 days eventually the isolation period increased to 40 days which in italian was called quarantino this led to the origin of our current word that we've become way too depressingly familiar with quarantine the practice worked as incoming cases of bubonic plague were greatly reduced even with quarantine procedures however what was to be done about the fleas and rats transmitting the disease these two animals still carried the bacteria known as yercena pestis that spread the plague well most european cities decided that greatly improving their sanitation procedures would help in this regard as it does in most regards actually it turns out that the cleaner a place is the less fleas and rats tend to congregate there as most students discover after freshman year in their college dorms people also strive to improve their personal hygiene which help to keep even more fleas at bay again we're unsure why this wasn't a thing before but apparently people learning to wash their hair more than once a month was the tiniest of silver linings to the horrific mass death of the plague so the deadliness of the plague itself combined with quarantine procedures and better sanitation helped curb the spread of the black death what was the final factor that helped put a stop to it in 2010 researchers collected dna from mass graves of black plague victims and found that the dna of the bacteria was vastly different from the current form of the plague it was a far deadlier strain of the disease as we said before highly fatal pathogens must eventually find a way to be less deadly in order to keep their own reproduction going so the evolution of bacterial dna helped lessen the deadliness of the bacteria but that's not the only way dna transformation helps stop the plague it turns out human dna mutations also helped it lose momentum apparently a certain dna mutation that has been shown to help protect against hiv and humans today first appeared in a widespread way in the population in the 1300s the most likely reason a widespread fatal epidemic the disease didn't cause the mutation it simply disproportionately affected those without it leaving more of those with the mutation to pass down their genes a combination of all these factors stopped the plague in its tracks unfortunately people at the time also tried to end the black death in several ill-advised and horrifying ways many believe the plague was in fact god punishing the population for their sins therefore they would have to demonstrate repentance and devotion to god in order to escape the curse for some reason some believe the best way to do this was to hunt down and kill anyone they deemed sinful or heretic when these people ask themselves what would jesus do their answer apparently was massacre large groups of people especially jewish populations demonstrating that they clearly missed the entire point of their religion other less terrifying but equally ineffective remedies involved doctors telling plague patients to bathe in rose water or vinegar to help cleanse the disease out this worked about as well as anyone would expect which is to say not at all turns out rosewater does little to stop bacteria with an 80 kill rate though the black death peaked in the years of 1346 and 1353 it by no means went away after that smaller outbreaks would resurge for hundreds of years with the last notable one being the great plague of london in 1665. some believe the great fire of london in 1666 helped put a stop to the disease's spread as it burned many of the rats and fleas carrying it but most historians and medical experts dispute that story however this last big iteration of the disease did inspire the well-known children's nursery rhyme ring a ring of roses londoners thought holding a posey of flowers up to their nose would help protect them from the plague this explains the lyric pocket full of posies a tissue a tissue we all fell down refers to people falling ill and needing tissues and then dropping dead the original lyrics in fact were we all fall down dead in case you needed further proof that the original versions of children's stories and rhymes were all deranged today the bacteria that caused the black death still exists but it's now treatable with antibiotics about seven cases of bubonic plague are reported in the us every year and around one thousand to three thousand worldwide mostly on the african continent meaning you have a higher chance of dying by a lightning strike than the plague these days it's a warm sunny day in august 1944 hans eppinger is sitting in his office jotting down some notes in a well-worn book he pushes his spectacles further up the bridge of his nose exhales and puts down his pen just a few feet away are a group of emaciated romani people there are subjects his human guinea pigs some of them are already close to death so dehydrated that they're on all fours licking water that was just used to mop the floor suddenly the door to their head opens in walks effinger pointing with his finger he says you you and you come with me they won't be seen again that was the sea water torture experiment we just talked about and as you'll see today it was just one of many infinitely appalling experiments that happened in those camps number five thirst let's finish that story we just started eppinger was an austrian physicist whose name among many others is written in the annals of human depravity he was employed by the nazis during the second world war to conduct odious experiments on human beings at the doc out concentration camp eppinger used mainly romani people a nomadic group sometimes referred to as gypsies a term they don't like back in the war about 90 of them were chosen for the water experiments these weren't exactly technical the nazis wanted to know what would happen if you deprived someone of food and drinking water and they had to survive on sea water how long would it take to die what would happen during the passage of death in the war this could happen to one of their pilots we know the answer thanks to a survivor of those camps named joseph shulfing he watched the experiments with his own eyes saying later the victims were so desperate they licked the floor and sucked on damp rags the outcome was the people usually died prudence demanded that chopin kept his mouth shut about this with him not even showing sympathy to the victims when any german soldiers were around he also pretended not to seek anything he later noted that he'd seen another worker in the camp take too much interest in an experiment and for that he was sent straight to the gas chamber the experiment was related to how humans deal with extreme low pressure number four the doctor of death the low pressure experiments were conducted by a man often called a monster this was sigmund rasher an ss doctor of death whose depravity seemed to know no limits he'd been a pilot in the luftwaffe and that made him think about the effect of high altitude on pilots the problem was as he wrote in a letter to nazi ss boss heinrich himmler it wasn't exactly easy to get people to sign up for experiments he wrote that he'd already tried using monkeys but that didn't go down too well he needed humans he told himmler stating that the experiments would likely end their life no problem replied himmler humans he got and during the spring and summer of 1942 he rounded up a bunch of prisoners at doc out camp one by one he told him to enter a pressure chamber once they were in rasher played around with the pressure making it so low that it corresponded with being at a very high altitude he would then quickly change the pressure in an attempt to see what it might be like for a german pilot parachuting from a plane without any oxygen according to reports the people used in these experiments were mostly poles and russians some of them died and some of them survived when rasher told himmler about this the boss said if they survive then spare them the gas chamber just give them life in prison rasher then quickly wrote back reminding himmler who these people were some of those letters survived the war here's part of one rashford wrote to himmler in april 1942 only continuous experiments at altitudes higher than 10 and a half kilometers resulted in death these experiments showed that breathing stopped after about 30 minutes while in two cases the electrocardiographically charted action of the heart continued for another 20 minutes he said after four minutes the people started to wiggle and move their head around a minute later they would cramp up in various parts of their body then their breathing would become rapid and at around 10 minutes they lost consciousness at around the 30 minute mark the subjects would only be taking about three slow breaths per minute death came soon after he wrote this in may of the same year after relative recuperation from such a parachute descending test that had taken place however before regaining consciousness some experimental subjects were kept underwater until they died you can see just how little concern these people had for human life but it gets even worse rasher likely following the orders of luftwaffe chief surgeon eric hipkey experimented on people just to see how cold you could make them these were called the freezing experiments they wanted to know what would happen if a german pilot survived his fall from the sky and landed in the freezing cold ocean how best to warm someone up who had hypothermia in a world not eclipsed by evil you couldn't conduct such an experiment on humans rasher used people from the doc out camp this time putting prisoners in a tank of freezing cold water for up to three hours others he made stay outside in the cold weather while they were naked throughout their ordeal they were monitored to see the effects of cold on the human body one experiment was called warming up after freezing to the danger point in a letter shown at the nuremberg trials himmler gives his approval of the warming up experiments signing off kind greetings heil hitler the victims were almost frozen to death and they were warmed up but we're not talking about being given a blanket and a steaming cup of tea they were immersed in hot water sometimes boiling water this was of course a massive shock to the system and some people subsequently died warming up by water was not a good way to treat people suffering from hypothermia was the conclusion so himmler told rasher to go and ask fishermen who worked in the cold north sea what they would do himmler reportedly said that a fisherwoman could take her half-frozen husband into bed and revive him in that manner after that romani people were frozen half to death and then placed in between two warm romani women they had to be naked of course the victims were monitored throughout and if they died autopsies were performed you can see the actual reports they state if a person is immersed in water at five degrees celsius it can usually be tolerated for an hour when they raise the temperature to 15 the victim could tolerate the water for four to five hours the reports also state that even after the people were taken out of the water their temperature would continue to drop they often died soon after even when revival attempts were made we now know about such things as rewarming shock and the after drop effect and we know you should not warm a hypothermic person up using warm water but back then the science wasn't up to speed the reports state that people whose body temperatures were reduced to 25 degrees celsius and then warmed up to 28 degrees celsius died no number was written down as to how many died one report just said they all died they usually died anywhere between 53 and 106 minutes of cooling but then those were the water experiments only during the trials two people who said they witnessed these experiments said 80 to 90 percent died they said they saw only two people actually get through the experiment but noted that they became mental cases as a result finally the same doctor conducted what was called the blood coagulation experiments basically the nazis wanted to know if you took a pill made from beet and apple pectin would the blood clot after being shot therefore possibly saving the life of a soldier again in a normal world you could never conduct this experiment on humans but the nazis simply used victims of the camps they shot them and gave them the drug what's even worse is sometimes they amputated people's limbs this was an attempt to try and duplicate a person losing a limb on the battlefield due to a bomb they made it as real as possible removing limbs sometimes without giving the victim any kind of anesthetic after that they got the blood clotting drug in his notes rasher wrote the tests of this medicine showed no failures under most varied circumstances this got back to hitler himself who was impressed with the experiment as for what happened to the dead it was later revealed that rasher had a thing for human skin using it to make handbags gloves slippers saddles pants and other items he sometimes sold these things to his colleagues according to the book medicine ethics and the third reich since those reports were released to the world scientists have said that rasher lied in them and there were many contradictions and inaccuracies the nazis also realized he lied at times rasher was arrested in 1944 on the order of himmler after it was revealed he'd kidnapped three children he was accused of scientific fraud and even murdering his assistant he ended up being a prisoner himself at dachau and then in 1945 he was executed by firing squad okay now for something very short but extremely terrifying number three head injury this account of one single experiment was told by a holocaust survivor named martin small who wrote that one day he and another prisoner were working at the house of a nazi doctor named dr wickman he said the doctor took off somewhere so he did some looking around and at one point found himself looking into a locked room by a window outside the house in his own words he said i placed my hands on the ledge and put my face to the window i was not prepared for what was inside and at first sight i could not find words to interpret what i was looking at i put my hand in my mouth as if trying to muffle my own outburst i nearly vomited 60 years later i still cannot erase the vivid terrible image okay so what was he looking at he described seeing a young boy strapped to a chair above him was a mechanized hammer that struck the boy over the head every few seconds it wasn't hard enough to break the skull but you can only imagine what it must have felt like after say an hour a day two days more the guy said the boy was already driven mad not dead but not there either he said the same doctor had actually saved him from being killed by another nazi so he was surprised he was torturing a little boy in the worst kind of way i dropped to my knees in sickness and disgust and i trembled he wrote it's hard to imagine a human doing that to another human but of course you're about to hear something even worse sorry that's just the way it's gonna be with this show number two surgery surgery it's an important thing during a time when many men are being shot to pieces on the battlefield the best surgeons practice of course but who do you practice on besides victims on your own side the answer for the nazis was prisoners at the ravensbrook concentration camp without any anesthesia at all people had their bones removed their nerves pulled out their muscles plundered all in the name of medical experimentation the nazis had two reasons for this firstly they wanted to know if you remove something how does it regenerate if at all secondly they were interested in seeing how transplants worked they didn't seem to give a damn about making people disabled and putting them through what must have been the worst kind of pain just imagine being tied down and having parts of you removed that happened to a woman two times and she survived to tell the story her name was yada kaminska and she said she was a young girl and she was sent into surgery and they did something to her that led to crippling pain she didn't exactly know what they did but said after she was grievously injured and suffered from infections it's hard to say how many people were mutilated like this but research shows there was a lot of victims trying to claim compensation after the war there were photos too such as the one of a polish woman named bogavilla babinsko trobolska she had a bit of her leg removed the national institutes of health wrote that in all there were 27 759 known victims made up of many nationalities with about twice as many male victims as female victims the people suffered all manner of injuries and many died reports state that some of the victims were called the rabbits by the nazis given the nature of the experiments some are cut deeply so it can be seen how quickly infections ensued sometimes the nazis would rub dirt cloth fibers wood shavings and even broken glass into the open wound this was to accelerate the speed of infection the victims were then given experimental drugs to see if the infection could be dealt with the nih wrote they operated on barbara pitersick five times in 1942 alone causing left lower limb paralysis at 16 years of age she was the youngest of the rabbits in another account nazi professor gebhardt used 24 polish women for an experiment he wanted to see what would happen if you cut the blood flow off in a limb and so he just tied something really tight around a part of their limb the result of course was the area became necrotic experimental drugs were subsequently administered to the women nazi reports that were on earth said in one experiment 13 people died from gangrene while six others were taken out and shot so they could never tell anyone about what had happened to them there's data to back all this up so as unbelievable as it sounds it happened there are names and photographs of survivors another nih report stated the surviving victims were permanently disabled both physically and psychologically four of the surviving polish women maria broel platter yadui gido varaswava karolevska and maria kushmerchuk testified during the doctor's trial and exhibited the scars on their legs then there was dr ludwig stumpfigger he was partly responsible for bone graft experiments using the tibias of victims in some cases the tibia would be harvested and then transplanted to another victim who also had their tibia removed during those same experiments they did something called myomectomy that's removing the skeletal muscle and as you know nerves were also taken out again there are names and survivors and photographs one such person was named varaslava karaleska she went through six separate surgeries each involving the removal of bone muscles and nerves she testified later describing how people were slaughtered and how she was experimented on this is what she said happened to her after she passed out from pain i regained my consciousness in the morning and then i noticed that my leg was in a cast from the ankle up to the knee and i felt a very strong pain in this leg and the high temperature i noticed also that my leg was swollen from the toes up to the groin the pain was increasing in the temperature too and the next day i noticed some liquid was flowing from my leg one day she and other rabbits stood in line to be executed a german officer asked her why do you stand so in line as if you were to be executed she replied the operations are worse for us than executions and we would prefer to be executed rather than to be operated on again she explained in her testimony what had happened after the final operation i stayed in the hospital six months i was in bed i could not stretch my legs i could not move them i could not walk either a doctor named fisher later admitted to taking off entire limbs saying he was just following orders he wrote of one limb removal i was ordered to go to ravensbruck and perform the operation of removal on that evening i asked doctors gebhardt and schultz to describe exactly the technique which they wished me to follow in the sworn affidavit a czech doctor named dr zedenka nidhidova niedla wrote high amputations were performed for example even whole arms with shoulder blades or legs were amputated these operations were performed mostly on insane women who were immediately killed after the operation by a quick injection of epipen that's a kind of barbiturate that can kill in high doses she said 11 people died or were killed during these operations and she also stated that pain relievers weren't administered to the victims we know this because she wrote after operations no one except ss nurses were admitted to the persons operated on whole nights they lay without any assistance and it was not permitted to administer sedatives even against the most intensive post-operational pains okay so this is a really depressing show but you all know the expression that history is doomed to repeat itself if we don't study it we need to know the facts you need to know that the nazis purposely gave people malaria they tested mustard gas on prisoners they gave tetanus to others and they conducted many awful experiments to see how people could be sterilized they even poisoned people to the point of death or actual death and they burned people to see how bomb blasts work out for victims but even after hearing all that there's one thing that sticks out number one twins these were called the twin experiments the nazis were obsessed with twins and so they captured about 1500 sets and imprisoned them in auschwitz about 200 of them survived so that's how we know what happened they separated them so they could monitor what happened to each twin without them knowing the same was happening to their sibling again they did ad hoc surgeries on them even trying to change their eye color using dyes this was mostly the work of dr joseph mengele and karen magnussen the latter made it clear how she thought writing this in 1943 this war is not just about the preservation of the german people but it's about the question which races and people should live on in the future on european soil the jew who enjoys life as a host in our country is our enemy even if he does not actively engage with weapons in this fight but why change the eye color which was very painful by the way the reason was just to see if they could one survivor said mengele looked at her mother and saw what he said were perfect aryan features and blue eyes but her eyes were brown which didn't impress the doctor his thoughts try and change them survivor jonah locks said she saw mengele remove one twin's organs without giving him any anesthetic others said he sometimes just killed twins by giving them injections to the heart megala was obsessed with what he might have called pure blood and so he was obsessed with twins and genetic inheritance after all the nazis wanted to create a super race partly and wrongly based on frederick nietzsche's concept of the superman even forced people to have sex to see what the child might look like if indeed one was born as a result of the forced encounter a survivor later said he did this with a male dwarf and a romani woman listen to this from a jewish doctor who was a prisoner himself but had to work with mengele his name was miklos niesli he said he worked on many experiments sometimes they'd just kill twins at the same time just to see if the autopsy revealed they were similar on the inside he wrote in auschwitz camp there are several hundred pairs of twins and their deaths in turn present several hundred opportunities one twin who survived was ava moses core she wrote that mengele tried to make boys into girls and vice versa in her own words she said he wanted to discover a way to change girls into boys and boys into girls many of these details i learned 40 years later such as the twin teenage boys who had some of their private parts cut off in mengele's quest to see if he could turn them into girls she also said that when kids died in the camp the doctor became very angry but it wasn't because he was concerned for people's welfare she wrote these deaths meant the loss of valuable guinea pigs for his medical experiments but perhaps the worst thing sometimes that sounds like a disgusting horror movie was his experiment related to sewing people together yeah you heard that right joseph mengele tried to attach twins together in an attempt to make them conjoined he used romani children for this it sounds so outrageous you could understand people thinking it's not true but again there's evidence although not much in this case we have at least one piece of evidence and again it's from the twin eva moses core we'll let her tell you in her own words what she saw a set of gypsy twins was brought back from mengele's lab after they were sewn back to back mengele had attempted to create a siamese twin by connecting blood vessels and organs the twins screamed day and night until gangrene set in and after three days they died somewhere far out in the atlantic a reinforced american destroyer squadron out on patrol comes under fire the first few shots are off target but as american crews scramble to their battle stations the fire becomes much more accurate the uss breckenridge takes a direct hit right on her bow twisting metal and killing dozens of sailors the high atlantic waves pour into her from the giant hole left behind and within minutes she begins to sink in the distant horizon the attackers are visible to us navy spotters there's the telltale puff of multiple large caliber guns firing simultaneously on several of the enemy vessels 28 seconds later 30 hundred pound shells smash into the american formation the results are devastating and hundreds more american lives are lost in seconds the destroyers are all but helpless in the onslaught their four inch guns can't hope to match the massive range of the enemy battleships and the only real hope they have is their torpedoes but that means getting closer and braving heavy enemy fire with few options left the american ships turn into their enemies with grim determination hoping to make use of their torpedoes there's no air cover for the destroyer squadron most of america's carriers have long ago been sent to the bottom of the atlantic and those that survive are held in reserve in the pacific in a desperate last stand to hold the japanese off the california coast likewise most of america's battleships have long ago been lost to the major naval engagements of 1942 and 1943 overwhelmed by a superior enemy with better planes ships and guns and more of all three of those the u.s navy has been able to do little but put up enough of a fight to discourage an invasion of the homeland until now as the destroyers steam toward their target ships being lost one by one under the withering enemy fire the full complement of the enemy formation at last comes into sight rows of battleships supported by several squadrons of destroyers and at the rear aircraft carriers for establishing air dominance several spotter planes have been launched and have allowed the enemy to accurately direct the fire of the battleships below onto the americans but the carriers haven't even bothered to launch their torpedo planes they don't need to the last line of american defense in the atlantic shatters and breaks in its suicidal attack the joint british and german task force protecting the largest invasion fleet ever assembled by mankind continues on its path to the american east coast in the late 1930s as hitler began to ramp up his ambitions to create a new german reich it was clear he had one major problem the united states taking on france and britain would be difficult though all of his advisors were confident neither nation was prepared for war and could be defeated but if the united states were to once more throw its weight behind the allies as it had in world war one then hitler's dreams of conquering europe could be at serious risk russia too would be problematic but once his western flank was secure shifting superior german firepower to the russian front would be simple hitler's spies assured him that the red army was fundamentally weak stalin's great ideological purges and paranoia both had resulted in the extermination of many of the red army's best officers what remained was a ragtag force of mostly conscripts led by officers whose primary qualification wasn't battlefield experience but rather loyalty to stalin the united states was the ultimate thorn in hitler's side even if the nation remained neutral hitler's dream of german superpowered him only meant that it would eventually be put into direct competition with the us a nation that german observers were quick to point out was well on its way to becoming the dominant industrial and economic power in the world despite the great depression having leveled the us economy the potential was nonetheless there its navy alone had grown by almost 100 ships by the time of germany's invasion of poland it was obvious germany would either have to face america today or defer the conflict to a post-war era when it had consolidated power in europe however postponing the conflict meant that the united states could continue to grow in power while germany depleted itself in combat potentially giving america an insurmountable lead better that the us be dealt with now while germany was still strong but how exactly first american naval might would have to be neutralized or at least heavily occupied a modern industrial power protected on both sides by vast oceans the united states enjoyed the best strategic position of any major nation in human history it could easily engage in trade with both the european and asian world while being protected from both sides by the sheer size of the oceans at either coast america knew this too which is why in the 20th century it had begun a sizable investment in its navy which now rivaled the legendary british royal navy in might it had also worked to deter any european expansion of power into its hemisphere of the world the united states would tolerate no threat based on the southern or northern spheres of american continents the german navy wasn't big enough to take on the americans alone its navy was more focused on controlling the baltic sea and already faced incredible difficulty in doing so thanks to the british and french navies what was needed was an ally with a strong navy of its own and japan afforded just such an opportunity if the united states could be distracted in the pacific not only might it be deterred from joining the european war but when the time came to bring the fight to american shores the us would have to split its fleets between the pacific and atlantic but japan would never be able to support an actual invasion of the american homeland which is what would be needed to truly neutralize the threat that the u.s posed to german dreams of superpowered him it simply wouldn't be economic or realistic to ship german troops and equipment all the way to the pacific where it could be escorted to the american coast by japanese ships instead it would have to be an atlantic power that aided the german effort and the only nation that had the naval might to challenge and destroy the american navy great britain but how could britain be persuaded to join its bitter enemy in a fight against the united states well if britain could be defeated quickly enough or at least made to suffer heavily then perhaps hitler could coerce the british to view america as the enemy opposed to its own colonial interests it was no secret that the american president franklin roosevelt and his vice president harry truman were both no fans of european colonialism already talks amongst american leadership echoed a sentiment that if the u.s were to aid the allies it would only do so with the assurances that many of britain and france's colonies would be liberated in the post-war period with british colonies providing much of its industrial and economic power surely england could be convinced that opposing the u.s was in its own best interests after all hitler had no plans to take hold of the british isles themselves britain could be allowed its independence and even given favorable trading status with the new german reich in exchange for helping it crush america however even before a naval invasion by a joint german british fleet could commence american industrial power would have to be pounded into submission and that was a hell of a challenge considering new york was 4 000 miles from berlin german engineering genius however could solve that issue enter the america bomber a massive long-range strategic bomber which could take off from airfields in france and deliver several tons of bombs to the american east coast with competition from several different manufacturers hitler's dream of seeing new york city in flames and harman goring's ambition to stuff the mouth of arrogance across the sea would finally come true the die was cast hitler finally had a plan to crush america and ensure uncontested germans superpowered them in the age to come there was just one problem none of hitler's plans were even remotely realistic first gaining british cooperation was exceedingly unlikely at best had hitler actually succeeded in forcing britain to surrender before american intervention perhaps the royal navy could have been wrangled for his effort to destroy american naval might as part of an unconditional surrender however the us entry into the war in 1941 all but ensured that britain would continue to resist and a cross-strait invasion was still an impossibility for the german army even without american reinforcements waiting to greet them on british soil secondly hitler's dream of a bomber capable of reaching u.s soil was pure fantasy not only were the engineering challenges of such a long-range bomber incredibly difficult to overcome and expensive but german bombers would be put into the same position that allied bombers would face themselves later in the war forced to attack a heavily defended target with no fighter escorts the savage mauling american bomber crews faced over europe at the hands of the luftwaffe due to a lack of long-range fighter made it clear that hitler's plan to bomb the u.s was destined for disaster even if the technical challenges were overcome however the nail in the coffin for hitler's plan to bomb the us came when portugal led the use of the azores to the allies denying germany desperately needed airfields in the atlantic the truth is that other than a hazy ambition to attack the us at home hitler never truly had a plan to invade the us that was remotely realistic in a conversation with the japanese ambassador in 1942 hitler admitted that he did not yet know how to defeat the united states surely a troubling line of conversation coming from the wartime ally that dragged japan into a one-on-one deathmatch with america in the pacific now you need to go watch could the us defend from an invasion of the homeland or click this other video instead

Channel: The Infographics Show

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Id: SX4Ymu4_pHk

Length: 91min 51sec (5511 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 17 2021