“100 Great Mysteries of Russian History” Nikolai Nepomnyashchiy. “100 Great Mysteries of Russian History” Nikolai Nepomnyashchy About the book Nikolay Nepomnyashchy “100 Great Mysteries of Russian History”

ANCIENT INVENTORS

On Easter 1900, a group of Greek sponge fishermen were returning from their traditional fishing grounds in North Africa to their home on the island of Symi, near Rhodes, when a storm struck. Caught by the current, they eventually ended up on the almost uninhabited rocky island of Antikythera, located northwest of Crete, say N. Thorpe and P. James in the book “Ancient Inventions”. While fishing for sponges, they discovered a huge sunken ship and on it a pile of bronze and marble statues. The fishermen reported their discovery to the authorities. In November, together with archaeologists, they returned to Antikythera and worked on the wrecked ship until September 1901.
When the finds were carefully cleaned of the layers formed over many years of being under water, several tiny bronze fragments were found with an inscription in Greek. Soon other parts were discovered, and after some time - a whole set of gears, some of which had inscriptions.
From the very beginning, these finds caused controversy among archaeologists, some of them insisted that the found mechanism was too complex to belong to a sunken ship, dating back to the 1st century, judging by the pottery. BC e. Experts were also divided into two camps when determining the purpose of the item. Some argued that the remains belonged to an astrolabe, an instrument for measuring longitude and latitude in astronomy, while others argued that they belonged to a planetarium, a device for projecting the movement and orbits of planets. Neither side would yield, the dispute proved intractable, and the purpose of the Antikythera mechanism remained a mystery.
In 1951, Yale University professor Derek de Solla Price became interested in the Anti-Kythera mystery and spent the next 20 years meticulously studying the subject using X-rays. In the end, he collected the surviving parts and thus established the true purpose of the device.
The Antikythera mechanism turned out to be a complex calculating device for calculating the calendar of the Sun and Moon. One revolution of the main wheel corresponded to the solar year, and the small wheels showed the position of the Sun and Moon and the appearance of the most important stars. The wheels were in a wooden box, the holes in which were opened in order to observe the mechanical miracle inside. The device, along with the statues, was probably part of the cargo and did not serve as a navigational aid for the ship's captain.
This discovery confirmed some literary evidence that ancient Greek scientists experimented with such complex mechanisms for astronomical observations.
Several years after the ship sank off Antikythera, the Roman jurist Cicero (106-43 BC) wrote that his friend and mentor, the philosopher Posilenius, “recently made a globe, which, when rotated, shows the movement of the Sun, stars and planets day and night exactly as they appear in the sky.” He also noticed that the great Archimedes had earlier invented a model that imitated the movements of the celestial bodies. It was even suggested that it was the Archimedes mechanism that was found among the wreckage of a sunken ship.
It seems that calendars with gears, although less complex, were known from about 1050 AD. e. and in the Islamic world. One of these calendars, designed by the astronomer Abu Said al-Sijji, showed the phases of the Moon and the movement of the Sun in relation to the signs of the zodiac. Such instruments were the forerunners of astronomical clocks in medieval Europe. Professor de Solla Price believes the Antikythera discovery will change our understanding of ancient Greek technology. The people who made this device could build almost anything they wanted. They had technology, but it was not preserved, unlike the huge marble buildings, sculptures and constantly rewritten literary works about high culture.

On Easter 1900, a group of Greek sponge fishermen were returning from their traditional fishing grounds in North Africa to their home on the island of Symi, near Rhodes, when a storm struck. Caught by the current, they eventually ended up on the almost uninhabited rocky island of Antikythera, located northwest of Crete, say N. Thorpe and P. James in the book “Ancient Inventions”. While fishing for sponges, they discovered a huge sunken ship and on it a pile of bronze and marble statues. The fishermen reported their discovery to the authorities. In November, together with archaeologists, they returned to Antikythera and worked on the wrecked ship until September 1901.

When the finds were carefully cleaned of the deposits formed over many years of being under water, several tiny bronze shards were found with an inscription in Greek. Soon other parts were discovered, and after some time - a whole set of gears, some of which had inscriptions.

From the very beginning, these finds caused controversy among archaeologists, some of them insisted that the found mechanism was too complex to belong to a sunken ship, dating back to the 1st century, judging by the pottery. BC e. Experts were also divided into two camps when determining the purpose of the item. Some argued that the remains belonged to an astrolabe, an instrument for measuring longitude and latitude in astronomy, while others argued that they belonged to a planetarium, a device for projecting the movement and orbits of planets. Neither side would yield, the dispute proved intractable, and the purpose of the Antikythera mechanism remained a mystery.

In 1951, Yale University professor Derek de Solla Price showed interest in the Antikythera mystery and spent the next 20 years carefully studying the subject using X-rays. He eventually collected the surviving parts and thus established the true purpose of the device.

The Antikythera mechanism turned out to be a complex calculating device for calculating the calendar of the Sun and Moon. One revolution of the main wheel corresponded to the solar year, and the small wheels showed the position of the Sun and Moon and the appearance of the most important stars. The wheels were in a wooden box, the holes in which were opened in order to observe the mechanical miracle inside. The device, along with the statues, was probably part of the cargo and did not serve as a navigational aid for the ship's captain.

This discovery confirmed some literary evidence that ancient Greek scientists experimented with such complex mechanisms for astronomical observations.

Several years after the ship sank off Antikythera, the Roman jurist Cicero (106-43 BC) wrote that his friend and mentor, the philosopher Posilenius, “recently made a globe, which, when rotated, shows the movement of the Sun, stars and planets day and night exactly as they appear in the sky.” He also noticed that the great Archimedes had earlier invented a model that imitated the movements of the celestial bodies. It was even suggested that it was the Archimedes mechanism that was found among the wreckage of a sunken ship.

It seems that calendars with gears, although less complex, were known from about 1050 AD. e. and in the Islamic world. One of these calendars, designed by the astronomer Abu Said al-Sijji, showed the phases of the Moon and the movement of the Sun in relation to the signs of the zodiac. Such instruments were the forerunners of astronomical clocks in medieval Europe. Professor de Solla Price believes the Antikythera discovery will change our understanding of ancient Greek technology. The people who made this device could build almost anything they wanted. They had technology, but it was not preserved, unlike the huge marble buildings, sculptures and constantly rewritten literary works about high culture.

It is only through the chance discovery of small objects, such as the amazing device from the ship that sank at Antikythera, and the amazingly surviving works of Heron and other Hellenic scientists, that we can get an idea of ​​​​the engineering art of the golden age.

Heron of Alexandria was obsessed with various devices and automatic mechanisms. In addition to the first steam engine, Heron designed mechanical puppet theaters, a fire engine, an odometer, a self-filling oil lamp, a new type of syringe, a topographical instrument similar to a modern theodolite, a water organ, an organ that sounded when a windmill was running, etc. A number of ingenious devices are described them in detail in a series of textbooks in the 1st century. n. uh, amazing.

His money-depositing machine, like many of his other miracles, was intended for use in temples. The idea behind the mechanism was that the believer would put a 5-drachma bronze coin into the slot and in return receive some water for ritual washing of the face and hands before entering the temple. At the end of the day, the priestesses could pick up donations from the machine. Something similar is done in some modern Roman Catholic cathedrals, where people put change into machines to light electric candles.

The ancient apparatus worked as follows. The coin fell into a small cup, which was suspended from one end of a carefully balanced rocker. Under its weight, the other end of the rocker rose, opened the valve, and holy water flowed out. As soon as the cup dropped, the coin slid down, the end of the rocker with the cup rose, and the other fell, closing the valve and turning off the water.

Heron's ingenious mechanism may have been partly inspired by the idea of ​​a device invented three centuries earlier by Philo of Byzantium. It was a vessel with a rather mysterious mechanism built inside that allowed guests to wash their hands. Above the water pipe was carved a hand holding a pumice ball. When a guest took it to wash his hands before dinner, the mechanical arm disappeared inside the mechanism and water flowed from the pipe. After some time, the water stopped flowing and a mechanical hand appeared with a new piece of pumice prepared for the guest. Unfortunately, Philo did not leave a detailed description of how this exceptional mechanical marvel worked, but it appears to have been based on the same principles as the automaton.

About 2000 years ago, Heron invented automatically opening doors for the temples of the Egyptian city of Alexandria.

In addition, Heron was also a specialist in organizing public spectacles. His design of automatic temple doors was a gift to the Egyptian priests, who for centuries had used mechanical or other miracles to bolster their power and prestige.

Using relatively simple mechanical principles, Heron invented a device that would open the doors of a small temple as if by invisible hands when the priest lit a fire on the altar opposite him.

In a metal ball hidden under the altar, the fire heated the air. It, expanding, pushed water through the siphon into a huge tub. The latter was suspended on chains by a system of weights and pulleys, which rotated the doors on their axes when the tub became heavier.

As the fire on the altar died down, another amazing thing happened. As a result of the rapid cooling of the air in the ball, water was sucked into the siphon in a different way. The empty tub returned upward, setting the pulley system back into motion, and the doors were solemnly closed.

Another design described in the writings of Heron is a horn that sounded when the doors of the temple were opened. It played the role of a doorbell and a burglary alarm.

There is no doubt that the system of automatic doors described by Heron was indeed used in Egyptian temples and perhaps elsewhere in the Greco-Roman world. The inventor himself made passing reference to an alternative system used by other engineers: “Some of them use mercury instead of water, since it is heavier and is easily separated by fire.” What Heron meant by the word translated as “disconnects” is still unknown, but the use of mercury instead of water in mechanisms similar to Heron’s design certainly made them more efficient.

MURDER OF LADY DEE?
(Based on materials from I. Izgarshev)
She was perhaps the most revered in the world at the end of the 20th century. a woman. And therefore her death gave rise to many legends and versions. Someone places all the blame for the death of 36-year-old Princess Diana on the paparazzi, who haunted the princess. Lady Diana, by the way, was considered the most photographed woman in the world. And, apparently, she was not at all against it. Like any woman, she was not indifferent to attention. According to another version, the main culprit of the tragedy is the drunk driver of the Mercedes car in which the princess and her friend were driving. The most daring newspapermen claim that the disaster near the Alma Bridge is nothing more than a carefully planned murder of a princess who was very much in the way of certain forces.
Well, we are ready to accept and discuss several versions of what happened. And you yourself have to determine the degree of plausibility of a particular point of view. Our story is based on fresh materials that appeared in the media immediately after the tragic death of Lady Di. And we will start by introducing the characters.
Lady Diana, Princess of Wales is the former wife of the heir to the English throne, Prince Charles. Despite the fact that after the divorce from Charles Diana ceased to be a member royal family, people's attention and love did not leave the princess.
Dodi al-Fayed is a 42-year-old Egyptian billionaire, heir to his father Mohammed al-Fayed's enormous fortune. By the way, my father played a significant role in this story.
Monsieur Paul is the driver of the Mercedes car in which the princess and her companion crashed.
Trevor Rhys-Jones is a bodyguard who survived the disaster.
A car accident in a tunnel near the Alma bridge became a denouement long history, the beginning of which dates back to the time Princess Diana met the Egyptian Dodi al-Fayed. By the time they met, Diana was already divorced from Prince Charles and was experiencing the betrayal of her next friend - officer James Hewitt, who sold the details of his intimate relationship with Diana to the British writer Anna Pasternak.

THE DECLASSIFIED DEATH OF THE “GREAT HELMER”
(Based on materials from G. Egorov)
In the fall of 1976, in the 202nd building of Zhongnanhai, the ancient residence of the emperors of China, one of the most famous and great revolutionaries of the 20th century, Chairman Mao Zedong, passed into oblivion.
The leader was weakening literally before our eyes. He had not distinguished objects for a long time and reacted only to the change of day and night. Two nurses fed him broths. To ensure that food entered the stomach, they carefully turned the body of their beloved leader on its side. But sometimes food still penetrated the trachea, and this resulted in excruciating pain - tears appeared in Mao Zedong’s eyes. Later he developed bedsores, which never disappeared until his death. The already incoherent speech turned into barely audible and indistinct sounds.
For two months the Chairman communicated with those closest to him only through notes. Sometimes he resorted to the help of an interpreter, played by Zhang Yufeng, who was more than a personal secretary. There were many secretaries, Zhang - only one.
This was Mao Zedong's last love. The “Great Helmsman” met her during one of his many trips around the country - the girl occupied the position of conductor of a special brigade serving the leader’s personal train, which seemed like the ultimate dream for many Chinese women. The 18-year-old beauty charmed everyone with her huge innocent eyes and snow-white skin, unusual for Asia. Mao Zedong could not resist her charms. And the uneducated guide, having been in the leader’s bed, gradually pushed aside other contenders for the body of the ruler of the Celestial Empire and over time became one of his most trusted persons. After 1974, only Mao's personal physician could enter his office at any time of the day. Everyone else, even his wife Jiang Qing, not to mention the members of the Politburo, could contemplate the deity only with the permission of this domineering, capricious and poorly educated woman.
All dictators, no matter what lifestyle they lead, no matter what brilliant doctors they surround themselves with, get sick like the most mere mortals. Mao, who was distinguished by his good health, began to decline when he crossed the 65-year-old mark. In 1958, the Chairman's personal physician, Li Zhisui, discovered all the signs of incipient paranoia in him. One day it seemed to the leader that the water in the swimming pool of the residence where he was staying was poisoned. A little later, during another trip around the country, Mao, in a conversation with a doctor, noticed that there was something bad in the guest house where they lived, moreover, it was simply poisonous. Paranoid phenomena accompanied the Chairman for the rest of his life - his behavior, even in the most ordinary everyday situations, became more and more often inadequate.
Mao Zedong often suffered from bronchitis. But if doctors fought this disease quite successfully, then the rash found on the genitals of a prominent figure in the international communist and labor movement was more difficult to cope with. And not because there were no necessary drugs, but because Mao did not consider this disease to be serious and worthy of attention.

WERE THE AMERICANS NOT ALLOWED TO GO TO THE MOON?
(Based on materials from A. Volkov)
The biggest hoax of the 20th century. some researchers call American flights to the moon. In their opinion, there is a number of irrefutable evidence that American astronauts did not land on the surface at all natural satellite Earth...
American engineer Ralph Rene was once shown on Russian television. It was this man, one of the elite group of Americans with the most high level intelligence, perhaps, was one of the first to draw attention to some of the oddities that were present in films and photographs about the lunar epic. A thorough study of available photographic and film documents allowed Rene to confidently state in his book about the Apollo program: “There was no landing on the Moon. All photographs and films are fake. Filming took place in a pavilion on Earth.” British researchers David Percy and Mary Bennett came to a similar conclusion, who believe that the footage of the film that shocked all earthlings was filmed not on the Moon, but in Hollywood... Our researchers and journalists also had a hand in exposing the American hoax with landings on the Moon - Over the past two years, a number of articles have been published on this topic.
What is the main evidence given in favor of the version that the Americans did not go to the Moon?
Here are the most common ones.
1. In the film about the moon landing, the American flag sways slightly, as if from the wind, but this simply could not happen where there is practically no atmosphere.
2. The speed of falling of pebbles flying out from under the wheels of the lunar rover, on which astronauts rode on the Moon, is the same as on Earth, although the force of gravity on the satellite of our planet is 6 times less.
3. There are no stars in all lunar photographs, although they should shine much brighter in the lunar sky than on Earth. Debunkers of the “lunar deception” believe that it was very difficult to simulate a real picture of the starry sky in the conditions of the pavilion, so the stars were simply “removed”...
4. Shadows cast from objects on the Moon with one light source - the Sun - should fall in one direction, but in some photographs shadows are cast in several directions, as if from special lighting devices that could have been in the filming pavilion, but not at all on the moon.
5. The filming equipment used by the astronauts raises great doubts. Some researchers generally believe that it was impossible to shoot anything with it, others draw attention to the lack of frame shake, which is typical for shooting with a small handheld camera. In general, many agree that the filming was carried out using professional large-sized equipment in the pavilion.
These are just a few pieces of evidence cited to prove that there was no American landing on the Moon. In general, there are more than a dozen various incidents and inconsistencies with photographic and film documents, and they are quite serious. The clumsy attempts of NASA specialists to somehow explain the “punctures” noticed by meticulous researchers also arouse suspicion. So, they explained the vibrations of the flag by the existence of a special motor... But no motor is visible in the photographs, and it is unlikely that it existed. There is also evidence that some “lunar” photographs were retouched after the comments were made, and unnecessary shadows were removed from them...
Is it really true that there was no American landing on the Moon?
It is difficult to imagine that such a grandiose lunar exploration program, in which hundreds, or even thousands of people and enormous material resources were involved, was an ordinary bluff. The Americans still flew to the Moon, otherwise... Firstly, the deception would have been easily revealed, because the American Apollos were probably monitored by Soviet surveillance services. Secondly, the Americans nevertheless brought samples of lunar soil, which corresponded in composition to the sample delivered by the Soviet automatic station. They installed a laser reflector on the Moon, which was later used by scientists different countries. Perhaps the whole question is how many landings on the lunar surface were there, maybe not six, but one or two? The blunders with photo and film documents about the landing on the Moon can actually be explained by the fact that they were filmed on Earth, because the US astronauts did not have the conditions for filming on our space neighbor... Most likely, the Americans were simply not allowed to go to the Moon...
Let us remember that at first the Americans simply flew around the Moon. Apparently, it was during this flight that the sensational fact that our closest cosmic neighbor was inhabited was already precisely established. This fully explains the reason that the first astronauts left a sign on the Moon with the inscription: “We come in peace on behalf of all mankind.” Why leave such a message on a lifeless planet? I will not cite a message from an American astronaut, intercepted by radio amateurs, about huge objects located on the Moon, from which earthlings were monitored. UFOs repeatedly accompanied the Apollo missions. It is quite possible that the inhabitants of the Moon created such an environment for the Americans that filming an idyllic picture of cosmic triumph was out of the question. Maybe the Americans were even directly shown the door... In such conditions, all the filming carried out on the Moon, of course, was classified and a “linden” had to be urgently made. The Apollo program was not completed to the end. Perhaps only its performers know about its real achievements.
Mysterious and further fate astronauts after flights to the Moon. Over the course of a year, 11 people involved in the Apollo program died under mysterious circumstances... Adherents of the “lunar hoax” version believe that these people did not want to keep the secret of the moon landing hoax. Perhaps these people were removed, but because they did not want to remain silent about the meeting with aliens on the Moon. The surviving astronauts, to one degree or another, turned to religion or parapsychology; it seems that the lunar epic had such a strong impact on them that it became a turning point in their lives.
According to foreign researchers, as a result of fulfilling all lunar programs In the United States, there are from 140 to 150 thousand photographs of various mysterious objects and structures on the surface of the Moon. In 1970, George Leonard, in his book There's Someone Else on Our Moon, analyzed numerous photographs that NASA had access to. On them he discerned not only numerous artificial structures, but also obvious giant mechanisms that seem to be developing lunar minerals... Towers, transparent domes, pyramids, mysterious signs - all this can be seen in photographs of the lunar surface. American ufologist Fred Steckling in his book “We Discovered Alien Bases on the Moon” writes: “We were assured of the complete lifelessness of the Moon, but the data tells a different story. Decades before space age Astronomers mapped hundreds of strange “domes,” observed “cities that grow,” and single lights, explosions, and geometric shadows were noticed by both professionals and amateurs. The Apollo astronauts observed volcanic eruptions and recorded lunar earthquakes." The Moon turned out to be not only a living planet with volcanic processes, but also inhabited by another civilization, which clearly surpasses us in its technical capabilities. Fred Steckling and his son in November 1970, using a telescope in the Archimedes crater, observed three huge cigar-shaped objects about 22 km long and 5 km wide; they remained in the crater for several hours and then flew away. In Japan, an amateur astronomer used a telescope to photograph objects maneuvering over the lunar surface with a diameter of up to 20 km...
Looks like ours solar system is being actively explored by someone, and perhaps our presence on the Moon and nearby planets may not be to the taste of someone. Quite a significant number of terrestrial spacecraft have mysteriously stopped working, especially in the Mars region.
Americans in Lately moved on to the creation of small-sized and cheaper space probes. Probably, it is easier for such devices to get past the barrier of the aliens “supervising” the Earth? Maybe the program star wars"was aimed primarily at an extraterrestrial enemy? The American Lunar Prospector spacecraft, which recently discovered water on the Moon, is a military satellite. What are its true tasks? Maybe reconnaissance?
In the light of various publications and testimonies of foreign researchers, the interesting series “Dark Skies”, which television pampers us with, no longer seems like science fiction, because its main idea is that all the latest events in earthly history are in one way or another connected with aliens...

GAGARIN'S LAST FLIGHT
On March 27, 1968, Yu.A. died in a plane crash. Gagarin and instructor pilot V.S. Seryogin. They were performing a routine training flight. To find out the causes of the disaster, an authoritative commission was created, in whose work, among others, Dr. technical sciences, laureate of USSR State Prizes S. Belotserkovsky and USSR pilot-cosmonaut, twice Hero Soviet Union, Candidate of Technical Sciences, laureate of the USSR State Prize A. Leonov, whose materials are used in this story.
“Their death was a complete surprise,” say members of the commission. - It would seem that everything was provided for: the flight was carried out on a well-tested, very reliable UTI MiG-15 fighter training aircraft. The inspector was the unit commander - an experienced, well-trained test pilot 1st class Seregin, and Gagarin himself was ready for much more difficult flights than the one they performed. And yet a disaster happened...
Two different services were equally represented in the government commission investigating the disaster. One was responsible for investigating the training, organization, safety and readiness of pilots; the other is for aviation equipment, its reliability, proper operation. In addition, a group of scientific and technical experts was formed - both permanent and invited for consultations on individual issues. The objectivity of the investigation was utmost.
Strictly speaking, absolutely indisputable, reliable causes of the disaster have not been established. Therefore, it was indeed very difficult to give a clear explanation of what happened.
As a result, a passive way out of a difficult situation was formed by itself - a position of silence. It was convenient and did not require active action from anyone.
Since then, among people far from aviation and astronautics, and sometimes, to be honest, related to them, but possessing a rich imagination, not adequately supported by conscientiousness, various kinds of speculation have often arisen and are arising. Rumors and false versions from time to time either subside or begin to circulate with new strength. This is the price of the costs that have to be borne when reliable, truthful information is missing.
We knew Yuri Alekseevich and Vladimir Sergeevich well. For one of us, these were unique students at the Air Force Academy. NOT. Zhukovsky, for another - the most faithful comrades and close friends. We spent almost 20 years carefully studying all the circumstances of their death. And now the time has come to talk about everything connected with the last flight of Gagarin and Seregin.
Who hasn’t thought: why didn’t they save Gagarin? Why wasn't he banned from flying?
For those who knew him closely, the answer is clear: perhaps he would have remained alive, but he would have only ceased to be Gagarin.
Here is what Yuri Alekseevich wrote on the pages of Komsomolskaya Pravda in May 1963: “At all times and eras, it has been the highest happiness for people to participate in new discoveries. Is it possible to deprive a person of happiness? After all, a living person is not a monument. I don’t want to be a monument.”
And he flew, jumped with a parachute, and did a lot of training on simulators. A pilot and astronaut, he understood perfectly well how dangerous his work, his profession, was. And the danger was not hypothetical. Gagarin was very upset by the death of Vladimir Mikhailovich Komarov, whose understudy he was. But this could not force Gagarin to move away from his favorite work.

THE MURDER OF JOHN KENNEDY: THE END OF THE INVESTIGATION IS NEVER DONE
John Fitzgerald Kennedy was shot and killed on November 22, 1963 at 12:30 p.m. while driving in Dallas, Texas. Two shots rang out one after another, one of which seriously wounded John B. Connally, the governor of Texas, who was sitting in the car next to the president. Both bullets were fired from the sixth floor of a warehouse building located 63 meters from the road along which the presidential motorcade was following.
According to the Warren Commission, witnesses noticed where the shots came from. Fitter Howard L. Brennan and a fifteen-year-old apprentice also saw the shooter. Fifteen minutes after the murder, a description of the perpetrator was broadcast to all police patrol cars, and then heard on radio and television: “White male, about thirty years of age, slim build, height - 1.78 m, weight - 75 kg.”
45 minutes passed after the assassination of the president, and on one of the streets of Dallas, an unknown man shot and killed police officer J.D. Tippit. There were also eyewitnesses here. They described the perpetrator as follows: “A white male, about thirty years of age, 1.73m tall, dark-haired, slim, wearing a white jacket, white shirt and dark trousers.” They also saw how the criminal ran away: he rushed through the parking lot, where his jacket was later found, then ran along the street and, without buying an entrance ticket, slipped into the cinema. There he was detained by the police, and he tried to defend himself with a revolver, but to no avail. This man turned out to be Lee Harvey Oswald, 24 years old.
Subsequent examination showed that the revolver taken by the police from Oswald was the same weapon with which policeman Tippit was shot. The jacket found in the parking lot belonged to Oswald.
When the police brought Oswald to the police department, they were just about to send a squad of officers to the boarding house where Oswald lived to immediately detain him and search his room. The reason was this: Oswald worked in the very warehouse building from which the president was shot, and when a check of workers and employees began just a few minutes after the assassination attempt, Oswald could not be found anywhere, although he was seen at work immediately after the assassination attempt.
The police interrogated him for twelve hours; Oswald steadfastly denied any involvement in the death of Officer Tippit. Nevertheless, at the beginning of eight o'clock in the evening he was charged with the murder of Tippit.
He has not yet been charged with the assassination of President Kennedy. After 7 p.m., Oswald was introduced to reporters, and one of the reporters asked him if he had killed the president. Oswald replied: “No. I was not accused of this. In fact, no one has told me this yet. I only heard about it here, when journalists in the hall asked me this question.” And just before that he said, “I really don’t know what this is about. Nobody told me anything except that I was accused of killing a policeman. I don’t know anything about everything else.”
Around midnight, Captain Fritz signed an indictment charging Oswald with the murder of President Kennedy. Thirty-six hours later, on Sunday, November 24, at 11:21 a.m., Oswald, about to be taken to the county jail, was shot and killed by 52-year-old bar owner Jack Ruby in front of millions of television viewers and in the presence of scores of journalists. Ruby fired a .38 Colt that hit Oswald in the lower abdomen. Oswald fell to the floor and, according to Warren's report, "quickly lost consciousness." Seven minutes later, Oswald found himself in a Parkland hospital, where, without regaining consciousness, he died at 13:07.
Jack Ruby was arrested, charged with the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald, and on March 14, 1964, was found guilty and sentenced to death. He said, and nothing else could be proven, that he shot Oswald in a fit of depression, outraged by the assassination of the president.

UNKNOWN VICTIMS OF THE BATTLESHIP "NOVOROSSIYSK"
(Based on materials from A. Aderekhin)
"Novorossiysk", formerly "Giulio Cesare" - "Julius Caesar", was one of the largest ships of the Italian fleet and went to the Union for reparations in 1949. In the mid-1950s battleship Novorossiysk was the flagship of the Black Sea Fleet.
Deputy Head of Yeisk seaport Anatoly Samko was an eyewitness to the worst tragedy in post-war history Navy countries…
In 1955, 19-year-old Anatoly Samko did his military service as a foreman of a diving boat of the 407th Special Purpose Rescue Division of the Black Sea Fleet.
On the night of October 29, 1955, Sergeant Major Anatoly Samko was sleeping with his comrades on a boat stationed at the Konstantinovsky Ravelin, when suddenly the duty officer ran along the boats shouting: “Combat alert!”
“It’s somehow ingrained in us that anxiety is only educational,” says Samko. - Well, we’re getting up neither shaky nor weak. And the duty officer runs back: “God damn it!.. There, the sailors in Novorossiysk are dying!..” Then everyone immediately woke up. They were in such a hurry that when they equipped the diver, they even forgot to put a sweater on him...
About twenty minutes later, the emergency rescue service diving boat approached the battleship. It was already “pecked”, its bow was in the water, its stern was raised. It was 100 meters to the shore, the depth was 18–20 m. A fuss began: the boat was either given the command to approach and even give up, or to move away...
On October 28, 1955, as Samko recalls, “Novorossiysk” stood on the outer roadstead, carrying out educational assignments. At about 10 p.m., the battleship came closer to the shore and stood on its barrels.
At approximately 1:30 a.m. on October 29, an explosion occurred on the battleship. He was deaf; he did not even wake up many of the sailors sleeping on neighboring ships.
However, it later turned out that the force of the explosion was terrible: a hole was formed in the bottom of the Novorossiysk, from side to side, 5–6 m wide, with a total area of ​​about 150 m2. Eight decks were breached, the upper deck bulged slightly...
Admirals urgently gathered on the Novorossiysk, including the commander of the Black Sea Fleet, Vice Admiral V. Parkhomenko, a member of the military council, Vice Admiral N. Kulikov, and Rear Admiral Nikolsky.

THE SECRET OF THE AMBER ROOM
In February 1945, with a successful salvo from the shore of the Vistula Lagoon, Major Rough's battery sent a German sleigh train under the ice. The captured driver told the major that the Amber Room from the Russian palace was on the sunken sleigh. As proof, the prisoner took the major to the castle, which once belonged to the grandson of William the Second, and showed him the walled door. Having broken through the masonry, we went down to the basement and found crystal chandeliers. The prisoner claimed that the Amber Room had been here quite recently. The chandeliers just couldn’t be taken away in a hurry.
Soon Major Grubaugh was wounded, and then forgot this story. Much later, he read that before the war there was such an Amber Room in Pushkin, which the Germans took to Königsberg, and ours are still looking for. Königsberg and the Vistula Lagoon are nearby. The retired major began sending out letters: “I am the man who drowned the Amber Room...” Vasily Dmitrievich Zakharchenko, at that time, seized on the “Rough version” Chief Editor"Technicians for youth." Organized by "V.D." The Soviet-Polish expedition probed the Vistula Lagoon with sonars. Nothing was found there. Nothing at all. The bottom of the bay was plowed by trawls a long time ago.
On January 30, 1945, in the area of ​​​​the Bay of Danzig, the submarine S-13 under the command of Alexander Marinesko torpedoed the superliner Wilhelm Gustlow. Among the 5–6 thousand Germans who drowned along with the Gustlov, there were dozens of crews trained for the newest submarines. They never left their bases in Hamburg and Kiel with new crews: the Germans did not have enough time to prepare them.
The Gustlov was considered an extremely reliable ship (who would have thought that Marinesko would hit it with three torpedoes on board at once?!). He left Danzig with a strong convoy, and left forever: the mass exodus of Germans from the Baltic states had already begun. Undoubtedly, in addition to military cargo, the Gustlov also exported valuables. The Poles, who witnessed the loading of the superliner, recalled some boxes that were too light for their size: the weight was neither metal nor porcelain, but paintings were quite possible. Or amber panels?
In 1956, Polish divers examined the Gustlov and discovered that someone had already been on the liner. There were holes in the hull with characteristic traces of a gas cutter, and the armored safe in the superstructure was opened.

NAZI MILITARY BASE IN ANTARCTICA?
(Based on materials from S. Zigunenko)
In the early spring of 1945, Hitler approved the Valkyrie 2 project, which provided for the concealment of the most valuable, secret, esoteric relics of the Third Reich. Among them was an ancient spear, now known as the Spear of Cassius Longinus. According to legend, it was made from the mysterious “heavenly metal” in the 3rd millennium BC. by a certain Tubal Cain and had amazing properties.
At one time this spear belonged to King Solomon, and in the 1st century. BC. fell into the hands of Julius Caesar, who, for some heroic deed, handed it over to his best centurion. One of the descendants of the centurion was Cassius Longinus, who, with the help of this spear, interrupted the torment of Jesus Christ on Golgotha.
Since then, according to tradition, someone who wields a spear is capable of fantastic deeds. They also said that “those who own it and understand the forces it serves hold in their hands the fate of the world in the name of Good or Evil.”
The spear fell into the hands of Charlemagne, who founded the “First Reich”. For a whole millennium it passed from one emperor to another, until Napoleon put an end to the “First Reich”. By this time, the spear of Cassius Longinus ended up in Vienna, in the Habsburg palace.
Hitler learned about this legendary spear in his youth. He repeatedly visited the museum, which became the former royal palace, and spent hours looking at the display case with the relic.
When Austria was annexed to the Fatherland, the Fuhrer immediately appeared at the royal palace and demanded that the holy spear be handed over to him.
In 1938, Germany suddenly showed special interest in Antarctica. In 1938–1939 two Antarctic expeditions were organized. Airplanes of the Third Reich produced detailed photographs of vast previously unknown territories. They dropped several thousand metal pennants with swastikas, thus “staking out” the lands that were called “New Swabia.” The expedition commander, Captain Ritscher, arriving in Hamburg on April 12, 1939, reported:
- I completed the mission entrusted to me by Marshal Goering. For the first time, German planes flew over the Antarctic continent. Every 25 km our planes dropped pennants... We covered an area of ​​​​approximately 600,000 km2. Of these, 350,000 km2 were photographed, and as a result we have a fairly detailed map of this area...
But why did Germany need distant and cold Antarctica?
In 1943, Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz shed some light on this problem, declaring publicly: “German submarine fleet is proud of having created Shangri-La for the Fuhrer on the other side of the world - an impregnable fortress.” But then no one gave due importance to the words of the Commander-in-Chief of the Third Reich Navy.

WAS JOSEPH STALIN KILLED?

The death of Joseph Stalin is one of the most intriguing mysteries of the 20th century. Although official version she was a natural, many of her circumstances seem too strange to fit into this version. Therefore, more than one researcher has questioned it. A. Avtorkhanov speaks categorically about the murder of Stalin as a result of a carefully organized conspiracy. In a more cautious form, the same idea is expressed by E. Radzinsky. Potential killer conspirators who were with him at the moment before his sudden illness are also known. These are Beria, Malenkov, Khrushchev and Bulganin.
Well, now let’s try to figure out what really happened in those March days of 1953, which turned out to be the border between two eras in the history of our country. What was the political situation in last years Stalin's life and were there people interested in his physical elimination?
The Great War ended victoriously Patriotic War. The post-war devastation has been overcome. A “socialist camp” was created. The Soviet Union, a powerful world power possessing nuclear weapons, successfully opposes the North Atlantic bloc led by another world power - the United States of America.
Stalin is at the zenith of glory and power. His power and authority are limitless. There can be no talk of any opposition. It is dangerous to express your own opinion even when discussing purely business issues. Stalin's entourage hangs on his every word, vying with each other to guess the leader's thoughts. Every speech by any speaker, from a simple miner to a minister, any textbook begins and ends with toasts in honor of Stalin.
However, according to a number of serious studies, Stalin in the last years of his life was preparing a global action to destroy his entire immediate circle, shooting down the overstayed generation. And this is quite likely. And if this is so, then a conspiracy should have arisen with almost one hundred percent inevitability. The Stalinist entourage of that time was not the Bukharins, Zinovievs and Kamenevs, who meekly put their heads under Stalin’s ax, and even consoled themselves with the thought that “this is how it should be” for the party. They went through all the fires and waters with the leader, they knew his worth very well and would not have given up without a fight, and in order to save their own lives, they could have taken the most extreme measures (not all, of course, but a significant part).
Stalin belonged to that type of tyrant rulers for whom the periodic destruction of his surroundings was a style, a principle of activity. At one time, he put the entire “Leninist guard” under the ax (with the exception of literally a few). Why did he do this?
In the mass consciousness, as well as among politicians and researchers, there is a fairly widespread opinion about Stalin as some kind of evil maniac, who, solely due to his pathological suspicion and suspiciousness, destroyed the best Bolshevik-Leninists (this is often evident, for example, in the statements of Khrushchev). This is the other extreme in assessing Stalin’s personality, which has nothing in common with reality. Stalin was not a maniac or paranoid. He was a sober, prudent and pragmatic politician. All his actions (and even more so global actions) are carefully thought out and planned operations pursuing very specific political goals. And the destruction of the “Leninist Guard” is also part of the leader’s overall strategic plan.

DID BAIRD FLY TO THE NORTH POLE?
People are wrong to think that lies have short legs and that they won’t get you far. In life it happens the other way around. So in the case of the famous American polar explorer and Navy officer Richard Evelyn Byrd, the legs of the lie were both moderately long and moderately strong: they helped Byrd to quickly make a career. He became an admiral. Even today they talk about it in schools when they study polar expeditions; Even today, all reference books, including the third volume of the latest edition of the Brockhaus Encyclopedia, say that on May 9, 1926, Richard E. Byrd, together with Floyd Bennett, was the first to fly by plane from Spitsbergen to the North Pole and back. But in fact, this heroic achievement, which the whole world admired, this national triumph, which became the first and main step in Byrd’s career, this sensational show, staged just three days before the Norwegian Raoul Amundsen, the Italian Umberto Nobile and fourteen of them comrades for the first time in history (and this is already an undoubted fact) reached the North Pole on an airship; this epoch-making flight has never happened. Baird and Bennett simply lied.
It was “the biggest and most successful deception in the history of polar exploration,” writes a former foreign correspondent for the New York Herald Tribune and Newsweek editor Richard Montague. In this book, dedicated to the first flights across the oceans and poles, Montagu not only theoretically proves that Byrd and Bennett could not reach the North Pole at all, but also directly exposes them in lies. So, there is now no doubt that Byrd and Bennett did not reach the Pole.
However, lies never die. Adherents of historical legends, trying not to pay attention to the “small flaw,” continue to meticulously protect the image of the great adventurer, scientist, soldier, an image that once again, in 1957, made the rounds of almost all the newspapers that reported the death of this outstanding man ( Baird died at the age of 68 from heart disease.) The whole world expressed sympathy when this “man of cool and measured determination” (so said in the obituary published in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung), when this owner of more than seventy orders and highest decorations, numerous honorary doctorates, when this “last representative the older generation of polar explorers left their endless snowy scene” (as the Internationale Biographische Pressedinst put it).
And Richard Evelyn Baird really achieved a lot in his life. He led seven large polar expeditions: two Arctic and five Antarctic (including one of which involved thirteen ships, fifteen aircraft, and 4,000 people). He conducted aerial photography of more than five million square meters earth's surface. During the expedition of 1939–1941. he discovered that the south magnetic pole had moved about a hundred miles westward since 1909 (when Englishman Ernst Henry Shackleton first reached it). He survived an entire winter in Antarctica alone in a small hut at -50°C. And finally, on November 29, 1929 (together with Bernt Balchen) he was the first to fly over the South Pole - this is not the entire list of feats he accomplished. The Internationale Biografiche Pressedinst says: “Here at the South Pole, Baird dreamed of storing in frozen form all those surplus foods that now simply go to waste or whose storage costs the American government $350 million annually. After all, he was convinced that the steak or sandwich he left behind still had excellent taste decades later.” In 1955, Richard Byrd, an admiral and pilot, already at an advanced age, was appointed responsible for organizing and planning all American Antarctic expeditions. In this regard, we have already talked about nuclear power plants that could partially “melt” the South Pole for industrial purposes. The time for the glorious Fokkers that helped out during the first expeditions has already passed. The speed was constantly increasing. In 1929, Baird's steamship spent exactly 44 days on the road; in 1956, his plane covered the same distance in 15 hours. During the International Geophysical Year (1957/58), as much as $20 million was allocated for the expedition.

MYSTERY OF KIROV'S DEATH
(Based on materials from Doctor of Law Yu. Orlov)
On December 1, 1934, in Leningrad, in the Smolny building, a prominent figure in the Bolshevik Party, the first secretary of the Leningrad Regional Committee, Stalin’s comrade-in-arms and favorite, Sergei Mironovich Kirov, was shot from a revolver. And although the circumstances of the murder and its direct perpetrator - a certain Nikolaev - were known from the very beginning, it remains one of the most mysterious crimes of the 20th century. At numerous political trials in the 1930s. organizing the murder of Kirov (along with other fantastic crimes such as preparing the murder of Stalin, Molotov, etc.) was blamed on almost every accused.
In 1961, at the XXII Congress of the CPSU, Khrushchev, completing his report, returned to the circumstances of the death of Kirov, saying that there was a lot of strange and unclear things in this case, hinting at some role of Stalin in it. On his instructions, a special Commission of the CPSU Central Committee was created to investigate this matter. After working for several years, studying mountains of documents and interviewing several thousand people, the high commission did not come to any definite conclusion, and the results of its activities were never published. The question remains open to this day. Actually, two versions are expressed and investigated - whether Nikolaev was a lone terrorist or just an executor of a conspiracy organized by Stalin. (The official, Stalinist version, later confirmed in political trials, that the murder was organized by the “Trotskyist-Zinovievist terrorist center” cannot be taken seriously, if only because all these trials, as is known, were found to be falsified in court, and the convicted rehabilitated.)
Let us consider these two versions sequentially. Let's start with Nikolaev.
So what kind of personality is this? Nikolaev Leonid Vasilyevich, young party member (born in 1904), primary education (6 classes of city school and elementary Soviet party school). From the age of 16 in the Komsomol, from the age of 20 in the party. Participated in Civil War. Then he was a worker, holding minor technical positions in the Komsomol and various state and party institutions. He never stayed anywhere for long (in 15 years of work, he changed 11 places). In April 1934 he was expelled from the party for violating party discipline, but in May he was reinstated with a severe reprimand and entered into his personal file. He has been unemployed since April of the same year. He refuses the positions offered, goes to the authorities complaining about injustice and callous attitude towards him. He “catches” Kirov several times when getting him into the car. Expresses thoughts about the degeneration of the party. In short, at the time of the crime he was a complete loser. By character - mentally unstable, nervous, quarrelsome, prone to hysteria.
Let's ask ourselves a question - could Nikolaev, due to his psychological make-up, decide to commit such a crime? Quite. This kind of unpredictable personality is capable of anything, and those driven to despair are capable of the most senseless and absurd actions. (And Nikolaev, it seems, was really on the verge of despair - a family of 4 people could not live long on his wife’s modest salary alone.)
Could Nikolaev be a tool in someone’s hands? Also without any doubt. Such people, suggestible and weak-willed, can easily be manipulated by stronger individuals, using them for their own purposes, which they may not even suspect.

100 great mysteries of Russian history Nikolai Nepomniachtchi

(No ratings yet)

Title: 100 great mysteries of Russian history

About the book Nikolai Nepomnyashchiy “100 great mysteries of Russian history”

Russia, the sleeping beauty, has been a mystery to the whole world for centuries. Many prominent writers and scientists both in the country and abroad tried to understand the features and patterns of its historical path. The entire history of Russia is full of unsolved mysteries - be it the era Ancient Rus', Moscow kingdom, Russian Empire or the Soviet Union. The reader is offered original versions, the results of research by scientists, local historians, and journalists. The authors of the presented materials prove the authenticity of the Veles Book, trace the fate of Anna Yaroslavna, Queen of France, analyze information about the missing library of Ivan the Terrible and about the elder Fyodor Kuzmich, who may have lived the first half of his life as Emperor Alexander I, talk about expeditions that went in search of mysterious lands, unique inventions and mysteries of the Soviet space program.

On our website about books you can download the site for free without registration or read online book Nikolai Nepomnyashchy “100 great mysteries of Russian history” in epub, fb2, txt, rtf, pdf formats for iPad, iPhone, Android and Kindle. The book will give you a lot of pleasant moments and real pleasure from reading. Buy full version you can from our partner. Also, here you will find the latest news from the literary world, learn the biography of your favorite authors. For beginning writers there is a separate section with useful tips and recommendations, interesting articles, thanks to which you yourself can try your hand at literary crafts.