Tuesday 19 February 2019

724) Friedrich von Boetticher

Friedrich von Boetticher (1881 -1967). Lieutenant General in the Wehrmacht of Nazi Germany during World War II and military attaché of Germany to Washington, DC from 1933 to 1941. While serving as attaché, he provided many intelligence reports to Berlin documenting the isolationist movement in the United States and the state of military preparedness before Pearl Harbor.

- "... was the office of General Friedrich von Boetticher, a short, thick-bodied figure, sporting a monocle, his red hair standing up in a stiff, brush cut... https://books.google.it/books…

- "Short and plump, his red hair cut in an old-fashioned brush, Boetticher wore a monocle..."  https://books.google.it/books…


723) Frank Knox

 William Franklin Knox (1874 – 1944). American politician, newspaper editor and publisher. He was also the Republican vice presidential candidate in 1936, and Secretary of the Navy under Franklin D. Roosevelt during most of World War II. Knox was mentioned by name in Adolf Hitler's speech of December 11, 1941, in which Hitler asked for a German declaration of war against the United States.

- "A colorful figure at sixty-seven, with an open, pleasant face and reddish hair..."  https://books.google.it/books…

- "Most important of these was Osborn's fellow townsman, an energetic, red-haired young man, editor of Osborn's old newspaper in the Sault, Frank Knox. https://books.google.it/books…

- "... some said he modeled himself after him, with his fierce patriotism, his strong opinions and even his ruddy complexion and bristly red hair."  https://books.google.it/books…



Monday 18 February 2019

722) Charles Budd Robinson

Charles Budd Robinson, Jr. (1871 – 1913). Canadian botanist and explorer.
Robinson worked with the New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) from 1903 to 1908, leaving to become an economic botanist with the Bureau of Science in Manila.
Robinson never returned after leaving on a botanical expedition on December 5, 1913. He was reported as missing on December 11, with the assistant resident of Amboina (now Ambon in Indonesia) writing about the nature of his disappearance. He concluded that Robinson had been murdered. The report states that Robinson had encountered a native boy who had climbed a coconut tree, startling the boy who was not used to seeing a "European". The boy hurried to his village whereupon the locals feared that Robinson intended to do them harm, possibly believing him to be a head-hunter. Six people from the village killed him and sank his body into the sea.

- "While Charles Budd Robinson was collecting plants near a village, the villagers blamed a hairy red devil who resided in the forest for a number of misfortunes. When Robinson, who had red hair and a prominent moustache of the same colour, came out of the forest unexpectedly, the villagers killed him." https://books.google.it/books…

- "At the same time he was collecting in a certain locale several misfortunes befell the local inhabitants and they attributed their bad luck to a red (or red headed) demon in the forest. When Robinson (who was red headed) walked out of the forest, the natives became alarmed and suspicious." http://members.tripod.com/asia_flora/flora_abstracts.htm

- "On December 5, 1913, in a small Butonese village about 10 miles from Ambon, the natives noticed a white man with red hair jumping up and down and shouting “Potong kepalal! Potong kepala!”  http://cms.herbalgram.org/…/issue95/hg95-feat-rumphius.html…


Sunday 17 February 2019

721) Ada "Bricktop" Smith

Ada Beatrice Queen Victoria Louise Virginia Smith, better known as Bricktop, (1894 – 1984). American dancer, jazz singer, vaudevillian, and self-described saloon-keeper who owned the nightclub Chez Bricktop in Paris from 1924 to 1961, as well as clubs in Mexico City and Rome. She has been called "...one of the most legendary and enduring figures of twentieth-century American cultural history".
She was the youngest of four children by an Irish father and a black mother.

- "It was there that saloon life caught her fancy, and where she acquired her nickname, "Bricktop," for the flaming red hair and freckles inherited from her father."  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_%22Bricktop%22_Smith






Saturday 2 February 2019

720) Princess de Lamballe

Princess Marie-Louise Thérèse of Savoy-Carignan (1749 – 1792). Member of a cadet branch of the House of Savoy. She was married at the age of 17 to Louis Alexandre de Bourbon-Penthièvre, Prince de Lamballe, the heir to the greatest fortune in France. After her marriage, which lasted a year, she went to court and became the confidante of Queen Marie Antoinette. She was killed in the massacres of September 1792 during the French Revolution.

- "The red-haired Princess Lamballe had just fallen victim to an antiroyalist mob... https://books.google.it/books…

- "... the leaders of the mob that hacked the Princess de Lamballe to pieces stood over Marie while she took a cast of the severed head, its auburn hair horribly smeared with blood."  https://www.historytoday.com/richard-c…/death-madame-tussaud