Aint Doing History

The Lavon affair
was a failed Israeli covert operation, codenamed Operation Susannah, conducted in in the summer of 1954. As part of a false flag operation, a group of Egyptian were recruited by Israeli military intelligence to plant bombs inside Egyptian-, -, and -owned civilian targets: cinemas, libraries, and American educational centers. The bombs were timed to detonate several hours after closing time. The attacks were to be blamed on the Brotherhood, Egyptian communists, “unspecified malcontents”, or “local nationalists” with the aim of creating a climate of sufficient violence and instability to induce the British government to retain its occupying troops in ’s Suez Canal zone.

The operation caused no casualties among the population, but led to the deaths of four operatives: two cell members who committed su***de after being captured; and two operatives who were tried, convicted, and executed by the Egyptian authorities.

The operation ultimately became known as the Lavon affair after the defense minister Pinhas Lavon, who was forced to resign as a consequence of the incident. Before Lavon’s resignation, the incident had been euphemistically referred to in as the “Unfortunate Affair” or “The Bad Business” (Hebrew: העסק הביש, HaEsek HaBish). Israel publicly denied any involvement in the incident until 2005, when the surviving agents were awarded certificates of appreciation by Israeli President Moshe Katsav.

RUSSIAN plans for the Western Balkans 1914,

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Alternative west balkans

REPUBLIC OF ZETA
The state is split almost half and half in-between Slavic and Albanian Speakers. Despite this most of the CrneGorans and Albanians have a sense of brotherhood and allegiance to the Nation, having the national mythos based off of the Balsa/Balsic dynasty. Although there are Serbs and Albanians who do not consider themselves part of this "forged" identity, the political parties resembling these views win about 2-5% max. On the Albanian Side most Ethnic Albanians have split off the country after the Yugoslav wars, beforehand the Republic of Albania had been an autonomus province within Zeta. They differences themselves from the other Serbs in their costal culture and overall Venetian influence. Many of the ex Catholic now Orthodox Albanian Speakers for example have formed the only Orthodox Latin rite in the Balkans.

REPUBLIC OF BOSNA
Two thirds of this country are catholic, self identifying as Bosnian, although in the south dual Bosnian and Croatian identity exists, meanwhile the Serbian and Aromanian Communities are Orthodox, not as associated with the Bosnian identity yet fully integrated into the unitary state.

PRESIDENTIAL REPUBLIC OF RASCA
Although it had lost a lot of "historical lands" it holds good relations with the countries in those areas and has a tight economic partnership with them. The people of Rasca are free to move into their churches and are welcomed by the Slavonic church. Which is one and united over most of the Balkans.

UNITED REPUBLIC OF MACEDON
This area was the main battlefield of the Yugoslav wars, many interests clashing. The most brutal massacre is that of Florina, where 1500 Greeks were massacred by the Yugoslav forces. Finally after the Agreement from the ANA(Albanian National Army) and the local government in Skopje, most of the region was stabilized except some southern areas. To this day some regions are not fully Stabilized and are subject to International Intervention, namely UN. The Albanians and Slavs of this region consider themselves both fully Macedonian and not divided from that identity, while the Greeks are divided on their identity, Unitary Macedonian, Local Macedonian...

A famous photo taken in 1940s features the faces of five young African- men, but their identities have remained a mystery for generations.

Local history expert Geoffrey Baer is here with the story behind one of Bronzeville's most enduring images in this encore edition of Ask Geoffrey.

We were able to identify only one of them: the tall, hatless child in the middle is Spencer Lee Readus, Jr. He was 14 when the photo was taken, and he passed away just two years ago at the age of 86.