Occupying Forces facts
While investigating facts about Occupying Forces, I found out little known, but curios details like:
When France was occupied by the Germans in 1940, Citroen was forced to produce vehicles for the Nazis. They chose to move the fill line on their oil dipsticks lower, causing the trucks to seize under stress from low oil.
Leo Major, a French Canadian soldier in WWII, singlehandedly liberated the Dutch town of Zwolle from an occupying German force, killing and capturing dozens of enemy soldiers in the process.
In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across. Here are 47 of the best facts about Occupying Forces I managed to collect.
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The Parthenon is in such bad condition because occupying Turkish forces used it as a powder magazine which exploded when hit by a Venetian shell in 1687.
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The word "quisling", or a person who collaborates with an enemy occupying force, is derived from a man named Vidkun Quisling, who headed a domestic Nazi collaborationist regime in Norway during the Second World War. His name is now synonymous with the word "traitor".
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The FP-45 Liberator, an extremely cheap single shot pistol developed by the US military to be air dropped in occupied territories during WWII. It was intended for use by resistance forces fighting axis powers.
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The original 1983 V miniseries was inspired by the 1935 novel It Couldn't Happen Here but with American fascists replaced by an alien occupying force to make it easier to market.
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In May 1995, Chinese occupying forces in Tibet abducted six year-old Gedhun Choekyi Nyima (the Panchen Lama) from his home in Tibet. He has not been seen or heard from since.
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Skellig Michael, the island which served as a filming location for the end of Star Wars: The Force Awakens and several scenes in The Last Jedi, was founded by a Gaelic Christian monastery between the 6th and 8th century and remained continuously occupied until abandoned in the late 12th century
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The Supreme Court ruled in 1898 there are only three exceptions to birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment: Those born from foreign leaders or diplomats, on foreign public ships, and from hostile enemy forces occupying US territory.
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When Norway was occupied by the Germans in WW2, the Nazis made the Lebensborn program where Norwegian girls were forced into mating with Nazi officers and having their children. One of the Lebensborn women grew up to be Frida Lyngstad, who was a member of the Swedish band ABBA.
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In WW2, Allied forces landed on Kiska Island, which had been occupied by Japan, who secretly abandoned the island two weeks prior, and so the Allied landings were unopposed. Despite this, after over two days in thick fog, U.S. and Canadian forces mistook each other for the enemy.
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Factors that led to the War of 1812 were foreign trade policies, Native Americans were being armed by the British, U.S. soldiers were being forced to serve on British Navy ships, the British believed that the U.S. wanted to occupy Canada, and the U.S. felt dishonored by the British.
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Once World War II began, all Jews in Germany and countries occupied by Germany were forced to wear a yellow Star of David. This made it easy for the Nazis to target them.
About "comfort women" who were women and girls forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese army in occupied territories before and during World War II. Thousands of women have been abducted or lured with false promises and placed in "comfort stations" as sex slaves for the Japanese soldiers. - source
About "If Day", a fundraising event in Winnipeg, Canada during WW2. Canadian soldiers pretended to be an occupying Nazi force who launched an attack on the city, declared martial law, arrested citizens, burned books, and played Fascist propaganda to simulate Nazi occupation. - source
That, to avoid starvation in Holland in the closing days of the Second World War, the Allies negotiated a ceasefire with German occupying forces to allow the air dropping of food supplies for the Dutch
In 1940 Bugatti was forced to sell his factory to a German, by German forces occupying the region.
During World War II the Netherlands was occupied by the Nazis, and Dutch forces were put under German Command. Many ships of the Royal Dutch Navy fled to the United Kingdom, were they established their headquarters. They fought the rest of the war with the allies.
In 1942 Japanese troops landed and occupied the Aleutian Islands of Attu and Kiska. They were driven out entirely a year later between May and August 1943 by U.S. and Canadian forces. This was the first significant foreign occupation of American soil since the War of 1812.
Iceland was occupied by allied forces during WW2. During some of the 5 year occupation up to 25% of Iceland's population was foreign soldiers. Occasionally called The Lovely War for the economic boom it created, but some were worried about sexual relation between citizens and foreign soldiers.
After 1918 Armistice allied forces made a small geometry mistake when occupying Germany giving birth to a microstate named Free State Bottleneck. It was abolished in 1923.
In September 1945 during the occupation of Japan the U.S censored all discussion of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki because they feared that it would incite "public unrest" against the occupying forces.
When France occupied Holland during the 1800s, they forced Dutch people to have surnames. Some who didn't agree to this showed their disagreement by giving themselves ridiculous last names, resulting in surnames like Nacktgebooren(born naked and van 't Zelfde(of the same).
