Great Unknowns of History

A thread for all the great people, animals, events, groups, or otherwise that possibly aren't as renowned in world history as they should be despite the great things they've done.

My first pick is Maximilian Kolbe, who is also my profile picture.

During WW2, he refused to sign the Deutsche Volksliste when the town his friary was in was captured by the Germans, which would have given him rights similar to those of German citizens in exchange for recognizing his ethnic German ancestry. He continued work at his friary where he and other friars provided shelter to refugees from Greater Poland including 2,000 Jews whom he hid from German persecution in the Niepokalanów friary.

He was arrested in February 1941 on charges of aiding Jews and the Polish underground and was imprisoned in Warsaw. He was deported to the death camp of Auschwitz as a result.

Things took a dramatic turn at the end of July 1941, when a prisoner escaped from Auschwitz. In retaliation, the deputy camp commander picked up 10 men to be starved to death in an underground bunker to deter further escape attempts. When one of the selected men, Franciszek Gajowniczek, cried out, "My wife! My children!", Kolbe volunteered to die in his place, arguing he was a Catholic priest and older than Gajowniczek. The deputy commander accepted the offer.

He died a true Catholic and an honourable man, opposed hatred to the end and subsequently laid down his own life for a man who didn't even know so that children would still have a father.

 

The wee white guy on the keyboards wrote this and loads of other classic tunes, (Michael Jackson's Thriller,Rock With You etc).Hardly anyone knows who he was,hence the name 'The Invisible Man'..

Rod Temperton - genius and unsung hero.

 

I understand they’ve had quite a bit of coverage with the Sky series recently but the firefighters, liquidators and everyone else involved with the clean up of Chernobyl as plenty of people have given their lives for it. Too many people unknowingly walked into the most unknown grim deaths due to ignorance of radiation dangers even though it was pretty well known how dangerous it already was.

 

Warren James, the crown decided to take away our rights regarding the forest and people went into almost starvation. Managed to raise 3000 people, which must have been most of them then, and was sentenced to death. The sentence was changed to being sent to Tasmania and when the sentence was overturned he couldn’t return home and died out there. So proud to be from the same place as he was born.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_James

 

Gid bless him

 

That I am Officially Classed As Sane!!

 

gavrilo princip ,not exactly unknown but the amount of death and destruction caused as a result of that * actions may never be surpassed. if there was one person in history you could eliminate for the greater good hes the one .

 

Think it would have happened regardless of him, he did ignite the spark but the fuel was already there

 

Goering 2nd In The Third Reich Heavily Inspired Animal Rights

And Wrote A Letter To Churchill Warning The Dangers Of The Soviet Union and They Getting The Atomic Bomb!

 

yeah its quite possible but it may never have kicked off ,* knows what the world would look like today

 

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Sea-People

The idea of the Sea People fascinates me, a military force large enough and competent enough to take on empires, across the world, and very little is known about them outwith the fact they existed.

 

The Babushka lady, present at JFKs assassination and was apparently taking photographs, she has never been identified..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babushka_Lady

 

It shows the class of that team that even although it went to extra time they still managed to defeat a world class hearts side and it is worth noting that if there had been more bottled water available at the stadium in Seville for their supporters then there is no way they'd have lost that Europa League final either.

 

Amazing. I still haven't been there and I'm not sure I ever would want to. I'd love to see his cell, though. I learned about him recently and been enamoured with his story ever since.