Today, October 28, marks the anniversary of one of the most important days in the history of the world, yet few people remember it’s significance. But the Greeks do, and they celebrate OXI day, every year.

The day was October 28, 1940. At dawn that morning (4:00am), after a party in the German embassy in Athens, Mussolini (through Emanuele Grazzi, the Italian ambassador in Greece) issued an ultimatum to Greek Prime Minister Ioannis Metaxas to surrender, or face open war with Italy.

Metaxas, a career military officer and more importantly a proud Greek, was not inclined to acquiesce to Mussolini’s demands (surprise!), thus touching off the beginning of the Greco-Italian War and a series of unbelievable events that would eventually neutralize Italy, cripple Germany, and cost 1,000,000 Greek lives.
Read the rest of this entry »

Twitter Comments

	marinic RT @johnpoz: OXI Day: How a Greek of Diaspora celebrates in the USA October 28th http://onemansblog.com/oxi
	Re-Tweet | Reply | View Tweet

	danielgmax RT @johnpoz: OXI Day: How the Greeks Helped End World War II http://onemansblog.com/oxi
	Re-Tweet | Reply | View Tweet

	wordpressascms RT @johnpoz: OXI Day: How the Greeks Helped End World War II - http://onemansblog.com/oxi oops thought you said geeks :)
	Re-Tweet | Reply | View Tweet

	johnpoz OXI Day: How the Greeks Helped End World War II - http://onemansblog.com/oxi
	Re-Tweet | Reply | View Tweet

As we each go off this fine Monday to begin the work week I just thought it might be nice to take a look at someone with a legitimately hard job.

Here is a lady, filmed in Germany, who rides around doing crazy bicycle stunts all day. So the next time you’re feeling a little overworked and stressed out, just think about this lady standing on the seat of her bike while riding circles in front of an auditorium full of people.

And incidentally, at first I was thinking that this must be some sort of weighted bicycle in order to have such great balance, but if you just watch how quickly she manipulates the bike you quickly realize that this is just an ordinary bike. Fascinating!
Read the rest of this entry »

I think this guy’s shirt says it all…

Thanks to Peggy for sending me this video of a stunt pulled off by Improv Everywhere, whose slogan is “we cause scenes”. The setup is that 207 people all walking through Grand Central Station in New York all freeze in place at the exact same second, and hold still for a full 5 minutes.

Most interestingly, it’s inspired people in 28 other cities in 13 countries to stage their own freeze mission. Thousands people worldwide in places like Romania, Poland, Italy, Germany, Sweden, and New Zealand have come together to make time stop for five short minutes. Below is a roundup of all of the videos of the various global freeze events.
Read the rest of this entry »

Wow, Panoramas.dk is one of the greatest sites I’ve ever come across. It features a number of three dimensional panoramas which allow you to virtually look around a given space. This is a technology that can only flourish on the Web since you cannot move around inside a static photograph.

There are virtual reality panoramas of the Eiffel Tower, Carnival in Rio, a Camel Carts in Bikaner India, a human Zoo, an ariel view of Sydney Australia and even the Apollo Moon Landings.

The site can be a little difficult to navigate so I compiled the following list of several I enjoyed.
Read the rest of this entry »

Now, I know someone is going to accuse me of making up this silly post about beer just so I could post this photo online.

So? Is that a problem?

Anyway, the inspiration for this post was actually a pile of little known beer facts. Enjoy:
Read the rest of this entry »