All What's You Should Know

The execution of the Russian ex-Tsarist Romanov family, July 17, 1918. Today 105 years ago, in the early hours of July 17, 1918, Russian ex-Tsar Nicholas, his wife and five children were executed by Bolshevik revolutionaries in the Ipatiev House basement in Yekaterinburg. On March 15, 1917, upon the outbreak of the Russian February Revolution, Tsar Nicholas II abdicated the Russian throne, ending 304 years of the House of Romanov's reign over Russia. On March 20, 1917, the new Russian Provisional Government decided to hold the Romanov family under house arrest at the Alexander Palace near St. Petersburg. The Romanov family, consisting of Tsar Nicholas, his wife the Empress Alexandra, their four daughters Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia and their son Alexei, was eventually moved to Tobolsk in Western Siberia in August 1917. In April 1918 they were moved again to the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg, where they were essentially imprisoned and kept under strict conditions by Bolshev...

U.S. soldier playing dead inside a French Renault FT-17 tank knocked over on its side, 1918. Photograph belonging to @drakegoodmanofficial. Today I'll write about the French tanks of the First World War, namely the Schneider CA-1, the Saint-Chamond and the Renault FT-17. Inspired by the British Mark tanks, the French arms producer Schneider took the lead for the production of the first French tank in 1916. They developed the Schneider CA-1 tank, which saw action first in the French Nivelle Offensive in April 1917. The Schneider CA-1 was designed to open passages for the infantry through barbed wire and destroy German machine gun nests, with a 75 mm cannon as well as 2 machine-guns. However, it suffered from poor mobility, insufficient fire-power, a cramped interior, and vulnerability to German artillery. Nevertheless, they were used by the French all the way up until September 1918. The second tank built by the French was the Saint-Chamond, first deployed in May 1917. The Sai...