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This is a photograph of an East German soldier helping a little boy cross the newly erected Berlin Wall the day it was built, August 13, 1961. A boy who’d gotten left behind in the chaos of people fleeing and families caught on different sides of the border. The soldier is young, and his eyes, looking warily over his shoulder, are full of fear. And yet, he persisted.

Despite being given orders by the East German government to let no one pass into East Berlin, the soldier helped the boy sneak through the barbwire. It was reported that the soldier was caught doing this benevolent deed by his superior officer, who removed the soldier from his unit. Hopefully, his punishment was minor and he wasn’t imprisoned or shot. Descriptions of this photo come with the caveat that “no one knows what became of him”.

But how did this little boy end up on the opposite side of the wall from his parents? According to Checkpoint Charlie Museum in Berlin, one of the boy’s parents, his father, was with the boy in West Germany visiting relatives while the rest of the boy’s family was at home in the East.

The prohibition against crossing sectors did occur overnight thus separating this family. The father believed that the boy should grow up with his mother, so he had the boy walk to the fence where this soldier lifted him across.

East German soldier helps a little boy sneak across the Berlin Wall, August 13, 1961.
 
Harry Houdini was born on March 24, 1874 in Budapest, Hungary, with the name of Ehrich Weisz. He was one of six children and the son of Rabbi Mayer Weisz and his second wife, Cecilia Steiner.

At 17, Ehrich, now known as Harry Houdini, left his family to pursue his magic career. As a stage name, Ehrich Weiss became Harry Houdini by adding an ‘i’ to the last name of his idol, French magician Robert Houdin. Harry is simply an Americanized version of his nickname, Ehrie. At 17, Ehrich, now known as Harry Houdini, left his family to pursue his magic career. By the age of twenty, Harry had been performing small acts throughout New York. He soon married and joined a circus where he began to develop and perfect his escape tricks.

Through the years, Houdini gained fame after repeatedly escaping from police handcuffs and jails. Harry was even given certificates from various wardens for escaping from their prisons. After making his name in America, Harry toured Europe, where he expanded his repertoire by escaping from straitjackets and coffins. Eventually, Harry was able to accomplish his dream of having a full show dedicated to his magic.

n his later years, Harry took his talent to the film arena, where he both acted and started his own film laboratory called The Film Development Corporation. Years later, Harry would receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In addition, Harry showed interest in the field of aviation and was the first person to ever fly over Australian soil.

In the 1920s, Harry became interested in the occult, specifically in debunking mediums and psychics. His training in magic helped him expose frauds that scientists and academics could not. He chronicled his time investigating the occult in his book, A Magician Among the Spirits.

In 1926 Houdini died as a result of a ruptured appendix, after suffering a blow to the abdomen by university student J. Gordon Whitehead. Houdini refused to seek medical help and continued to travel, eventually succumbing to peritonitis on October 24, 1926 at the age of 52.


 
Professional frogman Courtney Brown tows a 55-foot scale model of the sunken liner Titanic during work on the film Raise the Titanic! (released in 1980.) The screen version of the best-selling novel by Clive Cussler dramatizes an attempt to raise the 46,000-ton wreck of the Titanic, which is 2 1/2 miles down on the floor of the North Atlantic. The model is described as "an exact replica costing $5,000,000."
(This replica ship still exists, rusting in bushes beside a water tank at the Malta Film Studios, visible on Google Maps.)

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A shrill whistle sounds as the train powers towards the Cumbrian hills. Black clouds of smoke and steam drift past the windows and the beat from the locomotive’s three cylinders is clearly audible as it builds up speed in order to take on the fearsome Shap Summit on the West Coast Main Line. The date of August 11, 1968, the day of the last steam passenger train in Britain.

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Concorde on a lap of honour around the country and across the world, with crowds flocking to see it. On 24 October 2003, Alpha Golf flashed overhead in the afternoon sunlight one last time, on the way to do the final circuit over London, before drifting down through the pink sky.
 

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