The Story of an Indian King Who Bought Rolls Royce Cars and Used Them For Garbage in the 1930s

The world’s most famous car brand Rolls-Royce is also associated with Rajasthan. A famous buyer of this car was the Maharaja of Alwar. He always bought three automobiles at a time.

One day during his visit to London, Maharaja Jai Singh was walking in casual dress on Bond Street. He saw a Rolls Royce showroom and went inside to inquire about the price and features of their cars. The showroom salesmen thought he was a poor Indian. They insulted him and showed him the way out.

After this insult, Maharaja Jai Singh came back to his hotel room and asked his servants to call the showroom that the Maharaja of Alwar was interested in purchasing a few cars.

After a few hours, the Maharaja reached the Rolls Royce showroom again but in full royal regalia wearing his royal costume. The showroom had a red carpet on the floor to welcome the Maharaja and all the salesmen bowed before him with respect. The Maharaja purchased all the six cars that they had at the showroom at that time and paid the full amount with delivery costs.

After reaching India, Maharaja ordered municipal department to use all those six Rolls Royce cars for cleaning and transporting city’s waste.

The world’s number one Rolls Royce cars were being used for transportation of Alwar city’s waste. The news spread all over the world and the reputation of Rolls Royce Company became a laughing stock.

Maharaja Jai Singh

Whenever someone used to boast in Europe or America that he owned a Rolls Royce, people used to laugh saying, “which one? The same that is used in India for carrying the waste of the city?” After the severe damage to reputation, sales of Rolls Royce cars dropped rapidly and the revenue of the company showed a decline.

The Rolls Royce company owners sent a telegram to the Maharaja in India offering apologies and requested him to stop transportation of waste in Rolls Royce cars. Not only this, they also offered six new cars to the Maharaja free of cost. When Maharaja Jai Singh observed that the Rolls Royce company had learnt a lesson, he stopped using those cars for carrying municipal waste.

(via Indiatvnews)

60 Vintage Photographs Document Daily Life of Hitler Youth Members During the 1930s

On the night of January 30, 1933, Nazis in Berlin celebrated the appointment of Adolf Hitler as Chancellor of Germany by conducting massive torchlight parades. Hitler Youth units were among those in the columns passing under the watchful gaze of Hitler and Paul von Hindenburg, the elderly president of Germany.

Within two months, Hitler acquired dictatorial powers resulting from the Enabling Act passed by the Nazi-controlled Reichstag. Hitler's acquisition of power meant the Hitler Youth and all other Nazi organizations now had the official power of the State on their side. The period of Nazi Gleichschaltung (forced coordination) immediately began in which all German institutions and organizations were either Nazified or disbanded. Hitler Youth Leader Baldur von Schirach now sought to eliminate all 400 of the other competing youth organizations, large and small, throughout Germany.

On April 3, 1933, Schirach sent fifty Hitler Youths storming into the Berlin offices of the Reichs Committee of German Youth Associations, an organization representing nearly six million German children involved a huge array of youth programs. Staff members inside the building were told to continue working and were simply informed they were now under the authority of the Hitler Youth. Thus the majority of Germany's youth organizations had instantly been placed under Schirach's control.

Many leaders among the conservative and nationalist youth groups willingly joined ranks with the Hitler Youth. Others, such as the Communist and Jewish youth organizations were quickly disbanded. Various Protestant groups were pressured by the Nazis to join and soon yielded. Offices of the Socialist Workers' Youth were also raided. Other groups were prevented from holding any gatherings by order of the police and Nazi storm troopers under the pretext of being a "public nuisance." Within months, most of the competing political and religious youth organizations in Germany vanished.

The only major holdout was the Catholic Youth Organization due in part to the international clout of the Church and an agreement (Concordat) that had been signed between the Vatican and Hitler's government protecting Catholic institutions in Germany. In Catholic sections of Germany, high ranking Nazis could still be found at Sunday mass along with groups of Hitler Youths in uniform and Hitler Youths serving at the altar wearing their uniforms beneath altar boy robes.

On June 17, 1933, Hitler promoted Schirach to Jugendführer des Deutschen Reiches (Youth Leader of Germany). Schirach was now answerable only to Hitler, with all youth activities in Germany placed under Schirach's sole command. In July, Schirach dissolved the old Reich's Committee of German Youth Associations since it no longer served any purpose.

Members of Hitler Youth giving the Nazi Party salute on their bicycles, near Berlin, Germany, 1932.

Members of Hitler Youth in march, Potsdam, Germany, 1932.

Members of Hitler Youth receiving rations at a camp near Potsdam, Germany, 1932.

Hitler Youth members playing tug of war while donning helmets and gas masks, 1933.

A Hitler Youth marching band resting near Lustgarten, Berlin, 1 May 1933.

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40 Amazing Dust Bowl’s Photographs Taken by Dorothea Lange During the 1930s

The Dust Bowl, also known as the Dirty Thirties, was a period of severe dust storms that greatly damaged the ecology and agriculture of the U.S and Canadian prairies during the 1930s; severe drought and a failure to apply dryland farming methods to prevent wind erosion caused the phenomenon. The photography of Dorothea Lange is as closely associated with American farmers’ struggle against drought and dust in the Depression era. The photographs show the devastation that drove the Dust Bowl refugees to leave their homes and migrate to California. They also depict the lives of these families on the road west.

Documentary photographer Dorothea Lange (1895–1965) is best known for her work during the 1930s with Roosevelt’s Farm Security Administration (FSA). In the midst of the Great Depression, Lange brought her large Graflex camera out of the studio and onto the streets. Her photos of the homeless and unemployed in San Francisco’s breadlines, labor demonstrations, and soup kitchens led to a job with the FSA.

From 1935 to 1939, Lange’s arresting FSA images—drawing upon her strength as a portrait photographer—brought the plight of the nation's poor and forgotten peoples, especially sharecroppers, displaced families, and migrant workers, into the public eye. Her image “Migrant Mother” is arguably the best-known documentary photograph of the 20th century and has become a symbol of resilience in the face of adversity.

Lange’s reports from the field included not just photographs, but the words of the people with whom she’d spoken, quoted directly. “Something is radical wrong,” one told her; another said, “I don’t believe the President knows what’s happening to us here.” Lange also included her own observations. “They have built homes here out of nothing,” she wrote, referring to the cardboard and plywood “Okievilles” scattered throughout California’s Central Valley. “They have planted trees and flowers. These flimsy shacks represent many a last stand to maintain self-respect.”

Family walking on highway, five children. Started from Idabel, Oklahoma. Bound for Krebs, Oklahoma. Pittsburg County, Oklahoma. In 1936 the father farmed on thirds and fourths at Eagleton, McCurtain County, Oklahoma. Was taken sick with pneumonia and lost farm. Unable to get work on Work Projects Administration and refused county relief in county of fifteen years residence because of temporary residence in another county after his illness.

A Dust Bowl farm. Coldwater District, north of Dalhart, Texas. This house is occupied; most of the houses in this district have been abandoned.

Drought-stricken farmer and family near Muskogee, Oklahoma. Agricultural day laborer. Muskogee County.

Wagoner County, Oklahoma.

The highway going West. U.S. 80 near Lordsburg, New Mexico.

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Rare and Beautiful Photos of 18-Year-Old Freshman Madonna at the University of Michigan in 1976

Before Madonna donned that iconic conical bra and wore a rosary around her neck because she said she liked the feeling of a naked man between her bosom, Madonna Louise Ciccone was actually looking pretty sweet. Here's a collection of rare and beautiful photos of a young Madonna at age 18 taken by Peter Kentes in 1976.

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Marilyn Monroe’s Handwritten Turkey-and-Stuffing Recipe From the 1950s

If you happen to be a huge fan of the legendary Marilyn Monroe and also love cooking, here is a handwritten checklist by Marilyn for the Thanksgiving Day.

In detail, Marilyn explained how she prepared a turkey dinner, with all of the extras. The notes, which feature in Fragments, a collection of her letters and musings from 1943 to her death in 1962, show that Marilyn had a passion for cooking.

It has to be noted that Marilyn Monroe has written two cookbooks in the 1950s, which were sold off at an auction of her personal effects in 1999.

The recipe is dated around 1955 or 1956 when Marilyn was living in New York with her husband, the playwright Arthur Miller.

For the Stuffing

• No garlic
• Sourdough
• French bread – soak in cold water, wring out, then shred
• For chicken giblets – boil in water 5-10 mins
• Liver – heart then chop
• 1 whole or ½ onion, chop & parsley / four stalk celery, chop together following spices – put in rosemary
• Thyme, bay leaf, oregano, poultry seasoning, salt, pepper,
• Grated Parmesan cheese, 1 handful
• 1/2lb – 1/4lb ground round – put in frying pan – brown (no oil) then mix raisin 1 ½ cuops or more
• 1 cup chop nuts (walnuts, chestnuts, peanuts)
• 1 or 2 hard boiled eggs – chopped mix together

To Prep the Bird

• Salt & pepper inside chicken or turkey – outside same and butter
• Sew up clamp birds put chicken or turkey in 350 oven
• Roasting chicken – 3or 4lbs or larger
• Cooks 30 min to 1lbs
• Brown chicken or pheasant (vinegar, oil, onion, spices) – let cook in own juice
• Add little water as you go
• ½ glass vinegar – put in when half done
• Cooks 2 hours
• Put potatoes
• Mushroom – button canned
• Peas – fresh

Rare Color Photographs Captured Everyday Life Inside Berlin's Marienfelde Refugee Transit Camp in 1961

Marienfelde refugee transit camp in Marienfelde, Berlin, was one of three camps operated by West Germany during the cold war for dealing with the great waves of immigration from East Germany, especially between 1950 and 1961. Refugees arriving in West Berlin were sent to the center where they received medical treatment, food, identification papers, and housing until they could be permanently re-settled in the West. Below are some of rare color photographs that capture daily life inside Berlin's Marienfelde refugee transit camp in September 1961.

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Street Scenes of London in the 1960s

A small collection of wonderful color of street scenes of London in the 1960s

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