Many Americans know the V-2 rocket mainly as the beginning of the space program. That was Wernher von Braun's dream from the beginning, but the Nazi war machine saw it as a very important weapon. During World War II, the rockets were built at a concentration camp called Dora, where prisoners were used for slave labor.

The system of exploiting slave labor to assemble missiles began in 1943. It expanded dramatically after the August 1943 bombings of Peenemünde by the British Royal Air Force. The widespread destruction led the Nazi leadership and the missile staff to move underground and use forced labor. The chosen site was a mine/fuel depot near the town of Nordhausen in Thüringen. Slave laborers from the Buchenwald concentration camp came to extend the tunnels for an underground V–2 factory called Mittelwerk. The new concentration camp outside the tunnels was code named Dora and was later renamed Mittelbau. More than 60,000 prisoners were interred at Dora. Some of them built 6000 V–2 rockets between August 1943 and April 1945. They experienced squalid housing, starvation diets, and draconian discipline with frequent executions.

Tens of thousands of prisoners died at Dora. Others were sent off to death camps as their usefulness faded. When the US Army liberated Dora in 1945, they found 750 workers and 3,000 corpses.

Following combat units were teams associated with various American intelligence groups intent on capturing German technology and experts. The US Army collected parts of 100 V–2s from the underground factory and, under a larger program best known as Paperclip, brought more than 125 German V–2 missile engineers, scientists and technicians to America. The Army interrogated them to determine their involvement in Nazi organizations and war crimes. However the Army wanted their expertise for the Cold War, so officers sometimes consciously overlooked or buried incriminating information.

Similarly, the US–led Dora war crimes trial at Dachau in 1947 led to no heightened American understanding, in large part because the US media had lost interest in such trials. The Dachau proceeding tried guards, kapos and the Mittelwerk general director, but its convictions narrowly focused on individual cruelty to prisoners. US Army Ordnance shielded its German missile engineers from public scrutiny by preventing Wernher von Braun, the leader of the group, from traveling to Germany to testify. Afterwards the Army classified the trial records as secret to guard information about Mittelwerk.

The story of slave labor at Dora accompanies a photographic exhibit at the University of Alabama at Huntsville. The extensive website also includes many links to outside sources. Warning: some photographs may be disturbing. Link -via Metafilter

(image credit: Walter Frentz)

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We first posted the HumanCar back in 2006. Inventor Chuck Greenwood has been working steadily ever since to bring his dream of an eco-friendly human-powered car to the market. In this latest video, he test drives the Imagine_PS, an electric hybrid that combines human and electrical power. Link -Thanks, Chuck!

34-year-old Robin Joshua Hood was arrested in Denver after leaving a store without paying for three baseball caps he took. Police then found "injection devices" that Hood says he uses for heroin.

Officials say Hood found a wallet in downtown Denver and assumed the identity of the owner.

As Hood told investigators after his arrest, he was wanted out of Denver for drug violations and didn't want to be arrested on a Denver arrest warrant.

Hood used the name he had stolen, which was blacked out in court documents, when issued a summons in Denver for shoplifting.

Given the circumstances, what's the possibility that Robin Hood isn't his real name, either? http://www.denverpost.com/ci_14391684 -via YesButNoButYes

The user-generated website There, I Fixed It often showcases how people use duct tape to fix anything. An engineer at NASA submitted photos of how duct tape is put to work on the International Space Station! See more pictures and the explanation at the site. Link

Vancouver is a city, but the community of Whistler, where the winter Olympic skiing events are actually held, is shared with native wildlife. A family of lynx was spotted hanging out near the luge track, and on Wednesday a lynx crossed the downhill skiing track.

The lynx is a large cat - weighing up to 30 pounds and reaching 26 inches in height - that roams forests of the northern United States and Canada. And take it from a Canadian - downhiller Manuel Osborne-Paradis - the lynx is no cuddly outdoor friend when you're speeding down an icy slope at 70 mph.

"Get out of the way," he said. "Oh, wow. You do not want to get close to that."

The downhill session was already on hold because of fog, and no skiers linked with lynx. Still, officials issued a warning over the race radio in case someone was on the course. The lynx had its own agenda and hopped over the barriers lining the perimeter to retreat to the forest.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/10/AR2010021003345.html -via Digg

(image credit: AP/Gero Breloer)

National Geographic shows us a 330-year-old book that describes the fear of what we would call zombies or vampires. De Masticatione Mortuorum, Latin for "The Chewing Dead", discusses the customs of the time for preventing corpses from rising up and eating the living. A portion is translated to English:

Our Common People attempt to avert the danger of chewing by placing under the chins of the dead a portion of recently excavated earth, lest they perhaps open their mouths and chew on the attached bands...

Others, who do not consider this a sufficiently safe measure, before the mouth of the dead is closed, also place a stone and a coin in the mouth, so that in the event that it begins to chew within the grave, it would find the stone and coin and would abstain from chewing. Which fact was witnessed in its time in a multitude of places in Saxonia by Gabriel Rollenhagen: Book IV Mirab. Peregrinat chapter 20, n. 5 in Kornmann.

The book is part of this Tuesday's episode of National Geographic Explorer called Vampire Forensics. Link -via Buzzfeed

I saw my first curling match a couple of days ago. What a strange sport it is that has people walking on the ice in shoes! If you are as confused as I was, check out the mental_floss guide to the rules and strategy of curling. This article even explains why they yell so much! Link

Artist Jim Tierney designed new colorful retro covers for Jules Verne books, including Around the World in 80 Days, Journey to the Center of the Earth, From the Earth to the Moon, and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Rough sketches and rejected illustrations are included in the post. Link -via Metafilter

A team of archaeologists on the Greek island of Crete found a tool way older than what they expected to find. Thomas Strasser of the University of Providence and his crew hoped to find artifacts dating back as far as 11,000 years. The five-inch axe they uncovered was something completely different.

Knapped from a cobble of local quartz stone, the rough-looking tool resembled hand axes discovered in Africa and mainland Europe and used by human ancestors until about 175,000 years ago. This stone tool technology, which could have been useful for smashing bones and cutting flesh, had been relatively static for over a million years.

Crete has been surrounded by vast stretches of sea for some five million years. The discovery of the hand ax suggests that people besides technologically modern humans—possibly Homo heidelbergensis—island-hopped across the Mediterranean tens of thousands of millennia earlier than expected.

More digging unearthed a total of 30 hand axes plus other tools at nine locations on Crete. The rock terraces the tools were taken from are thought to range from 45,000 years old to 130,000 years old.

"I was flabbergasted," said Boston University archaeologist and stone-tool expert Curtis Runnels. "The idea of finding tools from this very early time period on Crete was about as believable as finding an iPod in King Tut's tomb."

It was thought that humans earlier than Homo sapiens were incapable of long deliberate sea voyages. Link

(image credit: Thomas Strasser)

Butch Bakery offers manly cupcakes for manly men who love cupcakes. Each cupcake is covered in a chocolate disk decorated in manly styles, like wood grain or camouflage. The flavors are manly as well, like the Driller: maple cake with chocolate ganache and bacon bits. Or the Old Fashioned, which is orange-soaked whisky cake with a lemon curd filling. Or the B52, which is a Kahlua-soaked vanilla cake with Bailey's bavarian filling. Twelve manly flavors are offered. Link -via Gorilla Mask

Nick Waters watched a "chick flick", or a movie targeted to women, every day for 30 days with his wife, and wrote a review for each one. He says he did it to better understand the opposite sex. His wife of seven years, Nicci, was thrilled. So what did he learn?

"Love is tender," says Waters, summing up what he took from the 30 films. "And any real relationship is based on forgiveness, compassion and vulnerability."

Unfortunately, the movies he chose to watch are no older than 2007. Link to story. Link to movie reviews. -via Buzzfeed

Is there something special about the theme to the TV show Law & Order that particularly affects dogs? See thirty-five different dogs singing along to the opening credits. Yes, thirty-five of them. Link -via Metafilter

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Better than dominoes any day! Tim Fort set off 2,250 sticks in this awesome world-record stick bomb {wiki} chain. -via Boing Boing

Ken Bannister, founder of the International Banana Club Museum, is selling out. The price of the museum has dropped from $45,000 to only $15,000! Before you snap up that bargain, be aware that the museum includes only the banana artifacts but no real estate, as the museum has been housed in rented space.

Bannister told the Victorville Daily Press that he decided to liquidate the collection after the Hesperia Recreation and Park District told him that he would no longer be able to rent space at the Harrison Exhibit Building in Hesperia, California where Bannister exhibited his thousands of banana goodies. He did not have another location set up and does not want to put the items in storage.

The Guiness Book of World Records says that the museum is the world's largest collection devoted to any one fruit. Since the 1970s Bannister has done many interviews on his unique collection and has appeared on television shows including the "Tonight Show" featuring Johnny Carson. Bannister hopes that someone or some company will buy the museum and display it somewhere.

Link to story. Link to auction. -via J-Walk Blog

New York City has big plans for Coney Island. The Brooklyn neighborhood will soon have new thrill rides and other amusements designed to bring back the glory years when Coney Island was known as "the People's Playground" after years of decline.

Luna Park at Coney Island will open on Memorial Day weekend with 19 rides. Among them will be the Air Race, which sends riders swinging and soaring around a control tower. It will be the ride's global debut.

Also promised are games, live entertainment, and concessions including Nathan's Famous hot dog stand, which opened in 1916, pioneering America's concept of fast food.

By the summer of 2011, Scream Zone at Coney Island will offer two roller coasters, go-carts and a human slingshot launching people more than 200 feet into the air.

Other plans include shopping centers, restaurants, movie theaters, hotels, and 5,000 new housing units for the area. http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iSlMm8ZtPhwWEzvFcJhHICzt1OHQD9DTIT180 -via Fark

(image credit: AP/NYC Economic Development Corp.)