Ingrid Newkirk (born June 11, 1949) is an animal rights activist. She started People For the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) in 1980 with Alex Pacheco. It is the world's biggest animal rights organization. In 2007 HBO showed a documentary called "I Am an Animal: The Story of Ingrid Newkirk and PETA".
In 2010 Jezebel called Newkirk 'The Worst Person in the World'.
Body armour
Modern body armour (personal armour/armor or body armor) is protective clothing. It is designed to absorb and/or deflect slashing, bludgeoning, and penetrating attacks.
It was first used to protect soldiers, today it is used to protect riot police, private security guards and bodyguards. There are two different types of armour. There is regular non-plated personal armor used by most police, security guards and bodyguards. There is also hard-plate reinforced personal armor, which is used by combat soldiers, police tactical units and hostage rescue teams.
Armour is certainly very ancient, but it was little used in infantry warfare for quite a long time, with the exception of helmets. From about the 18th century to the Vietnam war, men fought relatively unprotected. The weight and cost of effective armour meant it was no longer practical to have infantrymen armoured.
The invention of carbon fibre, modern hard ceramics and various plastic compounds are suitable for light armour which is effective in many circumstances. Kevlar, Technora and Nomex are Aramids, which are long-chain aromatic polyamides. They are used to make bullet resistant vests and bullet resistant face masks. The PASGT helmet and vest used by United States military forces since the early 1980s both have Kevlar as a main component, as do their replacements. Most of these items have padding on the inside to act as shock-absorbers, and to increase comfort during while being worn.
So, with the lighter weight and increased stopping-power of personal armour, the modern soldier is once again protected against most of the weapons of the day.
In December 2009, during the War in Afghanistan, a British soldier in southern Helmand Province, survived a shot to the back during an operation to clear insurgents from a village, protected by the body armor kit he was wearing.
Warsaw Uprising
In 1944, the Polish resistance Home Army (). rebelled against Nazi occupation of Warsaw. This rebellion is known as the Warsaw Uprising () today. The resistance Home Army wanted to free Warsaw from Nazi Germany. The resistance army fought against German troops for 63 days. After that, there was no chance of winning, so they surrendered. German troops killed many civilians in the city. After the uprising, the city of Warsaw was destroyed almost completely. At the time of the uprising, the Red Army was stationed on the other side of the river Vistula, which runs through the city of Warsaw. As of 2021, the question, why these troops did not take part in the fighting, is unclear. Historians have given several theories.
The Uprising was the largest attack done by any European resistance movement of World War II. The Slovak National Uprising, which happened from 29 August to 28 October 1944. is comparable,
At the same time as the attack, the Soviet Union's Red Army got close to the east of the city and the German forces retreated. However, the Soviets stopped moving forward. This allowed the Germans to destroy the city and defeat the Polish resistance.
The Warsaw uprising began on 1 August 1944. It was part of a big plan, Operation "Tempest". Operation Tempest started when the Soviet Army got near Warsaw. The goals of the Polish resistance were to push the German troops out of the city. They also wanted to free Warsaw before the Soviets arrived. This would help the Polish Underground State to take control of the city.
At the start of the battle, the Polish resistance got control over most of central Warsaw. By 14 September, Polish forces under Soviet command captured the east bank of the Vistula river.
Winston Churchill asked Stalin and Franklin D. Roosevelt to help the Polish troops, but the Soviets would not help. Churchill sent over 200 drops of supplies by air. The US Army Air Force sent one drop of supplies by air.
About 16,000 members of the Polish resistance were killed and about 6,000 were badly wounded. In addition, between 150,000 and 200,000 Polish civilians were killed. The Germans also found many Jews the Poles were hiding.
More than 8,000 German soldiers were killed or went missing, and 9,000 were wounded. During the fighting in the city about a quarter of Warsaw's buildings were destroyed. After the surrender of Polish forces, German troops destroyed 35% of the city.
By July 1944, Poland had been occupied by Nazi German troops for almost five years. The Polish Home Army was loyal to the Polish government in London. It had planned to attack the Germans. Germany was fighting a group of Allied powers, led by the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United States.
At the start, the plan of the Home Army was to join with the invading forces of the Western Allies as they freed Europe from the Nazis. However, in 1943, the Soviets were about to reach the pre-war borders of Poland before the Allied invasion of Europe got very far.
The Soviets and the Poles were both enemies of Nazi Germany. But they had different goals. The Home Army wanted a democratic capitalist Poland that was allied with the West. The Soviet leader Stalin wanted to make Poland a communist country that was allied to the Soviet Union.
The Soviets and the Poles did not trust each other. Soviet partisans in Poland often disagreed with Polish resistance troops that were allied to the Home Army.
Stalin stopped all Polish-Soviet relations on 25 April 1943 after the Germans told the world about the Katyn massacre of Polish army officers. Stalin refused to admit that he ordered the killings.
The Home Army commander, Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski made a plan on 20 November, called Operation "Tempest". On the Eastern Front, local units of the Home Army were to attack the German "Wehrmacht" and help Soviet troops.
On 13 July 1944 as the Soviet attack crossed the old Polish border, the Poles had to make a decision. They could either start to attack the Germans, which might not be supported by the Soviets, or do no attacks and be criticized by the Soviets.
The Poles were worried that if Poland was freed from German occupation by the Red Army, then the Allies would not accept the Polish government in London after the war.
When the Poles saw the actions of the Soviet forces, they realized they needed to make a decision. In Operation "Ostra Brama", NKVD forces shot or arrested Polish officers and forced lower ranks to join the Soviet-controlled Polish forces.
On 21 July, the Home Army decided to launch Operation "Tempest" in Warsaw soon. The plan was intended as a way of showing Poland was its own country and as an attack against the German occupiers. On 25 July, the Polish government-in-exile (against the views of Polish Commander-in-Chief General Kazimierz Sosnkowski) approved the plan for an uprising in Warsaw.
In the early summer of 1944, German plans required Warsaw to be the defensive centre of the area. The Germans wanted to hold on to Warsaw no matter how many losses they had. The Germans had built fortifications and sent many new troops to the area. This slowed after the failed '20 July plot' to kill Adolf Hitler. The German troops in Warsaw were weak and did not feel confident.
However, by the end of July, German forces in the area had new troops sent to them. On 27 July, the Governor of the Warsaw District, Ludwig Fischer, called for 100,000 Polish men and women to build fortifications around the city. The inhabitants of Warsaw did not follow his demand.