In the mid-2000s she was instrumental in convincing the governing bodies of Wimbledon and the French Open to award men and women equal prize money

This month Venus Williams finds herself on unfamiliar ground—that is, not on the well-manicured grass of the All England Club outside of London, competing in what would have been her 23rd career Wimbledon.

Canceled for the first time since World War II because of the coronavirus pandemic, the storied tournament is where Williams, 40, became bona fide tennis royalty.

“When the season starts, I will be ready,” Williams wrote to her fans on Twitter in late March. “Can’t wait. Can you?”

Williams, who turned pro in 1994 at only 14, made her Wimbledon debut in 1997, and in 2000 she won her first singles crown, defeating fellow American Lindsay Davenport.

Four singles titles, six doubles championships with her sister Serena Williams and an Olympic gold medal later, Williams says it’s challenging to pick a favorite memory from Centre Court.

“The first time was an overwhelming experience, and obviously super special for me,” she tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue. “The 2012 Olympics stand out as of one of the most interesting experiences of my career, but all those doubles wins are so special to Serena and me.”

The victory that she calls her proudest professional accomplishment, however, did not take place on a court. In the mid-2000s she was instrumental in convincing the governing bodies of Wimbledon and the French Open to award men and women equal prize money.

“That was something we had been working on since the 1960s,” says Williams. “It was long overdue.”

Recently, Williams has been using this same can-do attitude to condemn police brutality and promote racial equality. On June 8, she posted a heartfelt message on Instagram. “Just as sexism is not only a ‘women’s issue,’” she wrote in a call for unity, “racism is not only a ‘black issue.’”

Venus Williams. Zebe Haupt

“We need to make sure lives are saved and preserved—to me, that’s number one,” Williams tells PEOPLE. “We change that by recognizing and giving a voice to what’s happening in our world. We also need to address other invisible faces of racism, from how we hire to whom we cast on television shows.”

For her part, Williams has been using her recurring Instagram Live #CoachVenus workouts as fundraisers for the Equal Justice Initiative, matching all donations to the nonprofit, whose goal is to end mass incarceration and excessive punishment, challenge racial and economic injustice, and protect basic human rights.

“I’m passionate about creating opportunities for Black youth at a grassroots level, especially with tennis and education,” explains Williams, who learned the game from her father, Richard, on public courts near her childhood home in Compton, California. “It’s important for me to help give minorities, disadvantaged youth and Black children the opportunity to play sports and have an education—just as I was given those opportunities. In turn, that gives them the opportunity to be excellent.”

Williams credits her mother, Oracene Price, with inspiring her on and off the court.

“Throughout my career, my mom has challenged me to pursue my creative side,” says Williams. “Her support and encouragement is what led me to realize my love for fashion and design and to get degrees in those fields.”

Despite a shifting tournament schedule, Williams has plenty to keep her busy, between V Starr Interiors, the design company she founded in 2002, and EleVen by Venus Williams, her lifestyle brand that recently introduced an eco-conscious skincare line in partnership with cosmetics brand Credo.

“I’m incredibly fortunate to have someone like her in my life who pushes me to be better than my best self,” says Williams. “That’s the meaning behind EleVen—always working to be an 11 out of 10.”

The 13-year and 17-year broods that will emerge from underground this spring will be appearing together for the first time in 221 years.

This spring, Brood XIII and Brood XIX of periodical cicadas will emerge together for the first time since 1803. JanetandPhil via Flickr under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 DEED
Billions of cicadas from two different broods will emerge this spring in a rare, buzzy natural phenomenon that hasn’t happened since 1803.

The insects belong to two distinct populations of periodical cicadas: one that surfaces from underground every 13 years and another that emerges every 17 years. The last time these specific groups—called Brood XIII and Brood XIX, respectively—lined up their cycles and appeared at the same time, Thomas Jefferson was president, reports NBC News’ Denise Chow.

Though some cicadas surface every year, periodical cicadas spend most of their lives underground before emerging en masse every 13 or 17 years to mate and start the cycle over again.

Any pair of broods may occasionally overlap and emerge in the same year. But these specific groups—Brood XIII (also known as the Northern Illinois Brood) and Brood XIX (or the Great Southern Brood)—only appear simultaneously once every 221 years, making 2024 an especially exciting period for entomologists and bug aficionados alike.

The next time the broods align again will be in 2245.

“Nobody alive today will see it happen again,” says Floyd W. Shockley, an entomologist and collections manager at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, to the New York Times’ Aimee Ortiz. “That’s really rather humbling.”
Brood XIII (blue dots) and Brood XIX (red dots) will likely overlap in central Illinois and eastern Iowa. Gene Kritsky / Mount St. Joseph University

The two broods will also overlap geographically: Though at least some of the cicadas will emerge across the Midwest and Southeast, members of both groups are expected to converge in parts of central Illinois and eastern Iowa.

All told, scientists estimate more than one trillion cicadas will be buzzing around a 16-state area, with the greatest numbers emerging in forested regions and urban green spaces. Lined up end-to-end, one trillion cicadas would span 15,782,828 miles—long enough to cover the distance to the moon and back 33 times, per the New York Times.

Cicadas typically appear above ground once soil temperatures reach 64 degrees Fahrenheit. In some places, that could occur as early as late April, and the insect spectacle will likely continue on a rolling basis through May and June.

Once they crawl onto the surface, the nymphs will ditch their exoskeletons—leaving crunchy cicada-shaped shells in their wake—and start flapping their wings. They’ll spend the next six weeks or so making their cacophonous mating calls so they can lay their eggs before they die. In the meantime, they’ll also provide a smorgasbord for birds—and give caterpillars a brief respite from predation in the process. Later, when the cicada eggs hatch, nymphs will emerge and tunnel underground to start the broods’ cycles anew.

The rare, synchronized event should be finished by early July, meaning residents of affected states will once again be able to enjoy some peace and quiet. Cicadas’ mating songs can reach nearly 100 decibels, which is similar to the sound intensity of a chainsaw or a motorcycle.

“It’s pretty much this big spectacular macabre Mardi Gras,” says Jonathan Larson, an entomologist at the University of Kentucky, to NPR’s Clare Marie Schneider. “It’s a lot of singing, lots of paramours pairing up and then lots of dying.”
Cicadas are beneficial to their habitats. Gene Kritsky / Mount St. Joseph University
The broods are expected to draw some bug-curious travelers to the overlapping emergence areas in the Midwest. But some residents of those regions may be less than enthusiastic about the multi-week onslaught of bugs.

“I’ve talked to half a dozen people already who want to go on vacation and come into the area to seek the cicadas,” says Gene Kritsky, a biologist at Mount St. Joseph University and the author of A Tale of Two Broods: The 2024 Emergence of Periodical Cicada Broods XIII and XIX, to NBC News. “In years past, I’ve also helped people plan vacations to leave while the cicadas are here.”

Some of those tourists will be scientists hoping to study everything from the bugs’ range to their reproductive behaviors. For instance, entomologists are curious to know whether the two groups will interbreed, which could possibly lead to the creation of an entirely new brood.

As for people living in the emergence zones, scientists recommend simply leaving the cicadas alone—and, if possible, cherishing this once-in-a-lifetime spectacle. Cicadas don’t carry diseases, bite or sting, and their presence benefits the broader ecosystem. For example, when they tunnel up from underground, they help aerate the soil. When they shed their exoskeletons and, later, die, their bodies provide nutrients to plants. They also naturally prune trees when laying eggs in their branches.

The dual emergence will be like “having a David Attenborough special in your backyard,” Kritsky tells NPR.

“If you’re lucky enough to live in an area where these things are going on, get your kids out there,” he adds. “Watch this.”

It may be almost impossible to imagine today, but not long before the Nazi campaign against Britain got underway, Hitler mused that England might capitulate to Germany without putting up much of a fight at all.

Apparently he underestimated Winston Churchill, the British prime minister, much the same way he would later underestimate Josef Stalin, when he invaded the Soviet Union in 1941.

Britain wasn’t about to give up control of the skies easily, quietly or quickly. Although Germany had the Luftwaffe, which was equipped with excellent aircraft, when up against the fighter planes of the Royal Air Force (RAF) it was no contest.

German Heinkel He 111 bombers over the English Channel. 1940. [Bundesarchiv, Bild 141-0678 CC-BY-SA 3.0]

Nonetheless, Hitler ordered the bombing of Britain to commence on July 10^th, 1940, and the two countries fought almost constantly until October 31^st, when victory went decidedly to Great Britain. It became known as the Battle of Britain, an aerial campaign that was, in some respects, a fight for Britain’s very soul as a military champion on the right side of history.

By the time the conflict subsided, almost 3,000 civilians had lost their lives.

It was a gruelling campaign for both sides. But the RAF had Spitfires and Hurricanes and skilled pilots to steer them, and it wasn’t long before Germany’s fantasies of an easy fight evaporated like so much dust in a sandstorm.

The Battle of Britain is not only an example of the RAF’s skill. It was the first battle fought solely in the air, a battle that cost Germany more than 1,500 fighter planes. Hermann Goering, chief of the Luftwaffe had mistakenly, just like his boss, thought that Britain would be quickly and easily defeated.

He soon realized Germany was in for the fight of its life, a fight that of course it wound up losing, in 1945 when it completely surrendered to the Allies.

 

A still from camera-gun film taken from a Supermarine Spitfire Mark I of No. 609 Squadron RAF, flown by by Pilot Officer J D Bisdee, as he dives on a formation of Heinkel He IIIs of KG 55 which had just bombed the Supermarine aircraft works at Woolston, Southampton. 1940. [© IWM (CH 1826)]

A still from camera gun film shows tracer ammunition from a Supermarine Spitfire Mark I of No. 609 Squadron RAF, flown by Flight Lieutenant J H G McArthur, hitting a Heinkel He 111 on its starboard quarter. These aircraft were part of a large formation from KG 53 and KG 55 which attacked the Bristol Aeroplane Company’s works at Filton, Bristol, just before midday on 25th September 1940. [© IWM (CH 1823)]

Messerschmitt Bf110 fighter of Zerstörergeschwader 76 heavy fighter squadron over the English Channel, Aug 1940. These were the first fighters with the shark’s mouth that inspired the RAF in Africa and the AVG in China.
 

A flight of German Do-17 Z bombers of Kampfgeschwader 3 over France or Belgium, possibly en route to Britain, September-October 1940. [Bundesarchiv, Bild 101I-343-0679-14A / Gentsch / CC-BY-SA 3.0]

Supermarine Spitfire Mark Is of No. 610 Squadron based at Biggin Hill, flying in ‘vic’ formation, 24 July 1940. [© IWM (CH 740)]

Hawker Hurricanes of No 1 Squadron, Royal Air Force, based at Wittering, Cambridgeshire, followed by a similar formation of Supermarine Spitfires of No 266 Squadron, during a flying display for aircraft factory workers, October 1940. [© IWM (CH 1561)]

A still from camera-gun film taken from a Supermarine Spitfire Mark I of No. 609 Squadron RAF, flown by by Pilot Officer J D Bisdee, as he dives on a formation of Heinkel He 111s of KG 55 which have just bombed the Supermarine aircraft works at Woolston, Southampton. The rearmost aircraft of the leading ‘staffel’ receives a burst of machine gun fire from Bisdee, as shown by the streaks of light from the tracer bullets. Its port engine is also on fire. [© IWM (CH 1827)]

A still from camera-gun film taken from a Supermarine Spitfire Mark I, flown by the Commanding Officer of No. 609 Squadron RAF, Squadron Leader H S Darley, as he opens fire amongst a formation of Heinkel He 111s of KG 55 which have just bombed the Supermarine aircraft works at Woolston, Southampton. [© IWM (CH 1829)]

A still from camera-gun film taken from a Supermarine Spitfire Mark I of No. 609 Squadron RAF, flown by Flying Officer Tadeusz “Novi” Nowierski (formerly Polish Air Force) as he closes in on a formation of Dornier Do 17Zs of KG3 south-west of London at approximately 5.45 pm on 7 September 1940, the first day of the Blitz. Tracer bullets from the intercepting Spitfires can be seen travelling towards the enemy aircraft which were heading back to their base after bombing East London and the docks. [© IWM (CH 1820)]

A Dornier Do-17 medium bomber dropping a string of bombs on London. 20 September 1940.
 

A portrait of Air Vice Marshal Sir Keith Park while commanding RAF squadrons on Malta, September 1942. In Germany, he was supposedly known as “the Defender of London”. [© IWM (CM 3513)]

A Spitfire aircraft going down after being hit by a German Heinkel III in a dog fight. [© AWM 044727]

A Spitfire pilot of No. 610 Squadron recounts how he shot down a Messerschmitt Bf 110, Biggin Hill. September 1940. [© IWM (HU 104450)]

Bf-109 after an emergency landing on its way back to France across the English Channel. 1940. [Bundesarchiv, Bild 101I-344-0741-30 Röder CC-BY-SA 3.0]

Bomb with sign Extra-Havanna für Churchill. August 1940. [Bundesarchiv, Bild 101I-342-0615-18 Spieth CC-BY-SA 3.0]

British fighter Supermarine Spitfire flies in front of the cab of the German Heinkel He 111.
 

British pilots running towards their fighters (Spitfires) on the air-raid alarm.
 

Camera gun footage of a Ju 87 Stuka being shot down by an RAF fighter, 1940. [© IWM (C 2418)]

Destroyed German bomber Heinkel HE 111 [Av Franz Hollerweger CC BY-SA 2.0]

German Do 17 bomber and British Spitfire fighter in the sky over Britain. December 1940. [Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1969-094-18 Speer CC-BY-SA 3.0]

German Heinkel He 111 flying towards their targets in the United Kingdom.
 

German Heinkel He 111s which went into service in 1937. Some 6000 Heinkel He 111s were built but were found to be a poor match for Hurricanes and Spitfires during the Battle of Britain.
 

German Officer examines the bullet holes on the fuselage of Heinkel He 111. The damage was caused by 7.69mm machine guns of British aircraft. [Via]

Ground staff refueling a Messerschmitt Bf 110. [Bundesarchiv, Bild 101I-404-0521-19A Koster CC-BY-SA 3.0]

Hawker Hurricane Mk I aircraft of No 85 Squadron, Royal Air Force on patrol during the Battle of Britain. [© IWM (CH 1510)]

Hawker Hurricane Mk Is of No. 242 Squadron during the Battle of Britain, 1940.
 

Hawker Hurricanes of No. 85 Squadron RAF, October 1940. [© IWM (CH 1500)]

Heinkel HE-111 aircraft of the Luftwaffe being shot down during the Battle of Britain. [Canada. Dept. of National Defence Library and Archives Canada PA-]

Hurricanes of No. 85 Squadron in flight in search of the enemy, October 1940. [© IWM (CH 1499)]

Sergeant Schnell Siegfried of the 4.JG2 Squadron presents the marks of victories on the tail of his Messerschmitt fighter Bf 109E. [Via]

KG 76 on their way to the target, 18th August 1940.
 

Pattern of condensation trails left by British and German aircraft after a dog fight. [© IWM (H 4219)]

Spitfire pilots pose beside the wreckage of a Junkers Ju 87 Stuka, which they shot down as it was attacking a Channel convoy, 1940. [© IWM (CH 2064)]

Supermarine Spitfire Mark Is of No. 610 Squadron based at Biggin Hill, flying in ‘vic’ formation, 24 July 1940. [© IWM (CH 740)]

Supermarine Spitfire Mk VBs of No. 131 Squadron RAF being prepared for a sweep at Merston, a satellite airfield of Tangmere, Sussex. June 1942. [© IWM (CH 5879)]

The Crew and a ground staff of the Luftwaffe prepare the start of the bomber Junkers Ju-88. [Bundesarchiv, Bild 101I-402-0265-03A Pilz CC-BY-SA 3.0]

The front of a Heinkel He-111 medium bomber in flight during a bombing mission to London. November 1940.
 

Another Article From Us: The Grave of a WWII Hero Has Finally Been Located

 

Two Dornier Do 17Z of the KG76 Squadron on London’s West Ham sky.

Yetunde Price was murdered on Sept. 14, 2003, in Compton

Photo: SGranitz/WireImage

The gunfire that killed Yetunde Price early on Sept. 14, 2003, seemed to come from nowhere — cracking through a window of her white SUV and hitting her in the back of the head.

Rolland Wormley, later described alternately as Price’s boyfriend and fiancé, was behind the wheel that night and recalled the shooting as a burst of chaos during their drive back from Compton, Calif., to Price’s half-a-million dollar home in Corona some 40 miles to the east.

“I’m trying to get through this. I’m trying to get away, I’m trying to get her to safety,” Wormley told the Los Angeles Times in 2003. “Once I get to Long Beach Boulevard, I see the back window is shattered. I look to the right and said, ‘Baby, are you all right?’ I look at [Price], and there was blood everywhere.”

Frantic, Wormley took Price to his mother’s house not far away, where she called 911. Price was pronounced dead at an area hospital not long after. She was 31.

She was the oldest sister of Serena and Venus Williams. She’d been shot about a mile and a half from the tennis courts where her younger sisters learned to play the sport that made them stars.

“When [Venus and Serena] received the calls from all of us here, they were saying, ‘Are you sure this is correct?’ They couldn’t believe it,” a spokeswoman for the family told PEOPLE in the days after Price died.

This account of Price’s slaying and its subsequent investigation — a 15-year-old homicide thrust again into the spotlight by the release of her killer, according to authorities — is based on previous PEOPLE reporting as well as articles from the Associated Press, the L.A. Times and the New York Times.

NEW YORK, NY – AUGUST 25: Serena Williams and Venus Williams attend Rafael Nadal, Serena Williams and Venus Williams Hold A Virtual Tennis Tournament at Lotte New York Palace on August 25, 2016 in New York City. (Photo by Sylvain Gaboury/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images)

The Williams’ sister’s sudden death sent shockwaves through the close-knit family. Venus got the news in New York City, where she was visiting for Fashion Week. Serena was in Toronto filming for the cable series Street Time and, by one account, became visibly distraught when she learned her sister had been fatally shot. Both flew to L.A., where they were joined by mom Oracene (who had Price in a previous relationship), and their dad, Richard.

In those first hours and days afterward, however, it remained unclear exactly what happened, with witnesses giving differing accounts that suggested there had been an altercation before the shooting that involved Price and Wormley.

In fact, investigators would learn the gunman had opened fire on their vehicle as they drove down the boulevard by a suspected drug house. Wormley maintained the attack was unprovoked, though prosecutors argued the shooting was revenge against another gang.

Apprehension of the accused was no less fraught: While one of the alleged shooters was taken into custody within hours, the second, Robert Edward Maxfield, was not caught until January 2004, following months of tracking by law enforcement.

Maxfield, whom police said was a member of the Southside Crips, was arrested in a raid in Athens, Calif. He was unsuccessfully tried twice for murder before pleading no contest to a lesser charge just before the start of his third trial. (A no-contest plea essentially has the same effect as a guilty plea, but the defendant does not admit the accusations against them.)

* Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Click here to get breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases in the True Crime Newsletter.

In April 2006, nearly three years after Price was shot, Maxfield was sentenced to 15 years in prison for voluntary manslaughter, with credit for the time he had already served behind bars.

In March 2018, he was released on parole. Then, he was arrested again in Compton for allegedly violating his parole. Efforts to reach him directly or a previous attorney in his case were unsuccessful.

Speaking generally, a spokesman for the state’s Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation told PEOPLE that someone who violates their parole then goes before a judge could have their parole revoked, at which point they would be sent back to jail.

The DOC’s Luis Patiño confirmed that the possible parole violation was being investigated.

Al Seib/Los Angeles Times via Getty

California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation

Meanwhile, in the wake of Price’s killing, the Williams family grieved and healed — slowly. “She was a wonderful person,” Serena said in 2004. “We’re dealing with it however we can. Some days are better than others.”

Serena appeared at Maxfield’s court hearings for the first time when he was sentenced in 2006. According to the Times, she told him that, while she hadn’t planned to speak “because it’s too hard for me,” she felt it was more important to say how “unfair” Price’s killing had been “to our family.”

“Our family has always been positive and we always try to help people,” she said.

In an interview with PEOPLE in 2007, Serena said it was “still hard” for her to talk about.

“Yetunde and I were so close; she changed my diapers,” Serena said. “But I finally came to an acceptance of things.”

‘She Meant a Lot to Us’

Price, a nurse, mother of three and part owner of a modest hair salon, also worked as a personal assistant to Serena and Venus, keeping track of their appointments and the like, even joining them at Wimbledon. But she also led a largely independent life in California.

In an interview with PEOPLE in August 2003, shortly before she died, Price seemed to have no regrets about steering clear of the slipstream of her famous kin. “They’re still my sisters,” she said. “We don’t get into the fame thing too much when we’re all together as a family.”

Price lived in a comfortable home in an upscale neighborhood in Corona. According to locals, she doted on her three kids, two boys and a girl, all of whom were under the age of 12 when she was killed. On the evening before the shooting, Price and her children visited with friends across the street. She watched part of the Oscar De La Hoya boxing match before making sure the kids would be taken care of and heading off with Wormley on her fatal trip.

Wormley told the L.A. Times that he had been at a picnic, and she came to pick him up after he lost track of time that night.

Jerritt Clark/Getty

Years later, Price’s spirit remains strong both in her family and the community where they grew up. Serena and Venus opened the Yetunde Price Resource Center, in Compton, in late 2016.

“We definitely wanted to honor our sister’s memory because she was a great sister; she was our oldest sister, and, obviously, she meant a lot to us,” Serena said then, according to The Root. “And it meant a lot to us, to myself and to Venus and my other sisters as well, Isha and Lyndrea, that we’ve been wanting to do something for years in memory of her, especially the way it happened, a violent crime.”

“Basically, how does the family react? If her kids didn’t have my mom and us, it could be really devastating,” Serena said. “But we had such a great system that they’re doing pretty good. We just felt like people that didn’t have that opportunity to fall back on; what could they do? And that’s kind of how this resource center came about.”

“We are entering a new era of science investigations from our nearest neighbor in space.”

Illustration of a radio telescope inside a crater on the moon’s surface. (Image credit: Volodymyr Vustyansky)

Space scientists are eager to protect the option of doing astronomy from the moon.

There are plans in the works to place astronomical hardware on the lunar landscape such as super-cooled infrared telescopes, a swath of gravitational wave detectors, large Arecibo-like radio telescopes, even peek-a-boo instruments tuned up to seek out evidence for “out there” aliens.

Yes, the future of lunar astronomy beckons. But some scientists say there’s an urgent need to protect any moon-based astronomical equipment from interference caused by other planned activities on the moon, ensuring they can carry out their mission of probing the surrounding universe.

To that end, efforts are ongoing to scope out and create policy in conjunction with the United Nations in the hope of fostering international support for such protections.

Related: Gravitational wave detectors on the moon could be more sensitive than those on Earth

Global agreements

This action plan is spearheaded by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). The IAU brings together more than 12,000 active professional astronomers from over 100 countries worldwide.

Richard Green is chair of the IAU group specific to looking at the issues of staging astronomy from the moon. He is also an assistant director for government relations at Steward Observatory, run by the University of Arizona in Tucson.

The IAU working group is aiming to collaborate with a number of other non-governmental organizations to protect the option of doing astronomy from the moon, Green tells Space.com.

A number of participants in the IAU working group are spectrum managers from radio observatories, strongly linked to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and ITU’s World Radiocommunication Conference, a treaty-level forum to review and revise, if necessary, radio regulations and global agreements regarding use of the radio-frequency spectrum and the geostationary-satellite and non-geostationary-satellite orbits.

The working group members want to maximize the range of protected frequencies, “including the very low frequencies needed to study the early universe and auroral emissions from planets,” Green says.

Equitable access

The other approach, says Green is for protection of sites on the moon that might be suitable for cooled infrared telescopes or gravitational wave detector arrays.

“We have common cause with those who want to protect historical legacy sites and even those who want dedicated sites for extracting water or minerals,” Green says. “We imagine that the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space is the venue in which some process can be developed to claim a site for protection and to resolve competing claims.”

The IAU Astronomy from the moon working group has space law and policy experts who can provide a strong basis for that approach, Green says.

“Of course, the main goal is to conduct astronomical observations that can be uniquely done from the moon,” Green explains. The working group is embracing the expertise of principal investigators of lunar missions or concepts for missions.

Doing so, Green says, can help engage the astronomical community in prioritizing sites of extreme scientific interest and take in issues of conducting science in an environment for which “equitable access” is anchored in the spirit of the United Nations 1967 Outer Space Treaty.

(Image credit: Volodymyr Vustyansky)

Clearly required

A thumbs-up approval of the IAU initiative is Ian Crawford, a professor of planetary science and astrobiology at Birkbeck College, London.

“My own view is that a subset of lunar locations, for example specific polar craters and key far side locations, need to be designated as ‘Sites of Special Scientific Importance’ and protected as such, Crawford told Space.com.

A possible model, Crawford suggests, might be the Antarctic Specially Protected Areas (ASPAs) as defined in Annex V of the Environmental Protocol to the Antarctic Treaty.

“In any case, international coordination is clearly required so United Nations involvement appears entirely appropriate,” Crawford says.

Private partnerships

NASA is working with several U.S. firms to deliver science and technology to the moon’s surface by way of the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative.

Given the uptick in future CLPS-enabled robotic lunar exploration, we are about to the see the first NASA-funded science payloads landed there in over 51 years — since the Apollo 17 human moon landing in December 1972, says Jack Burns, professor emeritus in the department of astrophysical and planetary sciences at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

One payload, for which Burns serves as co-investigator, is called the Radio Wave Observations on the Lunar Surface of the photoElectron Sheath (ROLSES). If successful, it would be the first radio telescope on the moon and situated at the lunar south pole. ROLSES is to be emplaced there in February via the Intuitive Machines Nova-C lunar lander’s IM-1 mission under the CLPS partnership.

Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission-2 lander, which will carry the Lunar Surface Electromagnetics Experiment-Night (LuSEE-Night) to probe the “dark ages” of the early universe.  (Image credit: Firefly Aerospace)
This will be followed in two years by the Lunar Surface Electromagnetics Experiment-Night, or LuSEE-Night, slated to fly in 2026 aboard the Firefly Aerospace Blue Ghost Mission-2 lander. This endeavor is also part of the CLPS undertaking and Burns is a science team member of the LUNAR far side experiment.

LuSee-Night is a radio telescope that will look into the never-before seen dark ages of the early universe — a time before the birth of the first stars.

Science fact

With this potential and promising burgeoning of radio astronomy from the moon, Burns says “it is essential that we now develop international agreements to protect the far side of the moon for radio astronomy as it is the only truly radio-quiet site in the inner solar system.”

Burns emphasizes that radio observations from the moon are no longer science fiction but science fact.

“We are entering a new era of science investigations from our nearest neighbor in space,” Burns says.

The Battle of the Bulge – also known as the Ardennes Offensive – was Germany’s last-ditch attempt at mounting a full-scale attack on the Western Front. The engagement, occurring from December 16, 1944 to January 28, 1945, was one of the bloodiest of World War II. The following are photos that show just how intense the fighting was.

 

Photo Credit: History Archive / Universal Images Group / Getty Images

Battle of the Bulge

Photo Credit: CORBIS / Getty Images
The Battle of the Bulge involved well over one million combatants, with the intent being to prevent the Allies from accessing the Port of Antwerp, in Belgium. The Germans also hoped to break through the Allied lines and encircle the soldiers. Once this was achieved, the Führer hoped to force a peace treaty, independent of the Soviet Union, that heavily favored the Axis powers.

Following the D-Day landings, the Allies broke through Normandy and quickly advanced across Europe. While this surprised the Germans, it also caused the Allied troops to outrun their own supply chains. Just before the Battle of the Bulge began, they were exhausted, low on resources and spread thin. This prompted military leaders to halt their advance in the Ardennes, to allow the men to rest, resupply and bulk up with reinforcements.

Given the harsh terrain and dense forest, the Allies didn’t expect the Germans to launch an attack. Their lack of guard, as well as aerial reconnaissance being hindered by increasingly poor weather, meant the enemy could launch a surprise assault. They did so on December 16 with over 406,000 troops, more than 2,000 military vehicles, and 4,224 pieces of artillery and ammunition.

Echoing their earlier efforts, the Allies surprised the Germans with how effectively they defended against the attack. The rugged terrain that aided in their element of surprise also worked against them in that the Allies used it to their advantage. Before long, the Wehrmacht soldiers found themselves stuck.

By December 22/23, the fighting had reached as far as Foy-Nôtre-Dame, where the German troops became trapped in a narrow corridor. To make matters worse, the poor weather had finally lifted, allowing the virtually unopposed Allied air support to attack them and their supply lines.

By mid-January, the battle was lost for the Germans, who’d exhausted their efforts in Western Europe. The casualties were insurmountable, with between 67,000 and 100,000 suffered on the German side and the American total sitting near 81,000.

US infantrymen in the Ardennes

Photo Credit: Tony Vaccaro / Getty Images
According to the US Army Center of Military History, approximately 500,000 American soldiers participated in the Battle of the Bulge. They were vastly outnumbered by the enemy, with the Department of Defense saying the ratio of US to German troops was five to one.

Tanks and the Battle of the Bulge

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The Battle of the Bulge was the final large-scale battle in Western Europe to feature tanks, and the dense forest and rough terrain definitely didn’t make it easy for them to be used. The Germans, in particular, threw much of their armored might at the Allies to little-to-no avail.

Among the most successful to feature in the fight was Cobra King, an M4 Sherman “Jumbo” that broke through the Germans in Bastogne over Christmas and provided much-needed relief to the besieged members of the 101st Airborne Division.

Villages and towns reduced to ruin

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Several Belgian towns and villages were reduced to ruins over the course of the Battle of the Bulge, including St. Vith, which was at the center of a heated engagement between the German 5th and 6th Panzer Armies and the US VIII Corps from December 16-21, 1944.

Up against the two strongest units the Germans had positioned in the Ardennes, the Allies didn’t stand a chance. While the defeat took several days longer than the deadline of December 17, the Wehrmacht forces were able to secure a win.

Prisoners of war (POWs)

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As can be expected during wartime, prisoners of war (POWs) were taken during the Battle of the Bulge. Records state that about 30,000 Germans were taken prisoner by the Allies during the engagement, making up a significant portion of their casualty total. On the flip side, approximately 23,000 American soldiers were captured by the Germans during the fighting.

On the lookout for snipers

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As with every other battle that occurred on land during the Second World War, both sides had to be on the lookout for snipers, whose expertise with a rifle could take out soldiers without their location ever being known.

One sniper to see action during the engagement was Ted Gundy, who served with the US 99th Infantry Division.

Celebrating Christmas amid the fighting

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Just because they were in the middle of a fierce battle doesn’t mean the Americans didn’t celebrate Christmas. The above photo shows members of the 101st Airborne Division sitting around a makeshift Christmas dinner during the Siege of Bastogne. The next day, the Germans encompassing the town were defeated by the US Third Army.

Airborne troops participated in the Battle of the Bulge

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Innumerable airborne troops participated in the Battle of the Bulge, including the US 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions. They engaged the Germans in some of the fiercest fighting of the engagement, with much of their encounters resulting in house-to-house combat.

Fighting in harsh weather conditions during the Battle of the Bulge

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As aforementioned, the weather conditions were particularly harsh in the Ardennes region, and it took a while for the snow and strong winds to stop battering the troops. According to the Associated Press, there was “about 8 inches of snow on the ground and an average temperature of 20 degrees Fahrenheit (about minus 7 C.).”

While the poor weather initially helped the Germans in the early days of the Battle of the Bulge, it eventually caused them issues. What’s more, when it finally cleared, the Allies were able to call in reinforcements, which allowed them to secure a hard-fought victory.

Dropping supplies over Bastogne

Photo Credit: U.S. Army Signal Corps Photographer / Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain
The Siege of Bastogne cut off members of the 101st Airborne Division from their comrades, and the poor weather meant that the Allies couldn’t resupply or perform ground attacks. When the German hold on the town was broken on December 26, 1944, the Americans were once again able to drop supplies.

Camouflaging into the snow

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Given the Battle of the Bulge was fought in December and January, it’s not surprising that the troops had to navigate the snow-covered terrain. The powdery precipitation can be difficult to camouflage against, given typical military uniforms are green and brown, but some tactics were used to varying degrees of success, including snow camouflage capes, as seen above.

Operation Bodenplatte

Photo Credit: United States Army Air Forces / Air Force Historical Research Agency / Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain
Operation Bodenplatte was launched as part of the Battle of the Bulge on January 1, 1945. The aim was to devastate the Allied air strength in the Low Countries, but it wound up crippling the Luftwaffe. Issues abound, with the Germans losing about 40 percent of their aircraft, many to friendly fire. What’s more, 143 pilots were killed or deemed as missing in action (MIA), while another 21 were injured and 70 were taken as prisoners of war.

The Allies fared much better. They only completely lost 250 aircraft. Approximately 150 of the ones that were damaged were easily repaired, meaning they were back in the skies within a week of the aerial assault.

British soldiers fought alongside the Americans

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While the majority of the discussion centers around the American soldiers who fought in the Battle of the Bulge, the fact remains that there were British troops present, as well. Approximately 55,000 – including the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion – fought in the engagement.

George Patton and Anthony McAuliffe during the Battle of the Bulge

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Serena Williams has competed against Venus Williams dozens of times, but she says she never looks forward to meeting her sister in a match

Photo: Matthew Stockman/Getty

has faced off against her big sister Venus Williams dozens of times professionally since their childhood days playing tennis in Compton, California. But despite her impressive track record, Serena says Venus is her greatest opponent.

“She’s the toughest player I ever played in my life, and the best person I know,” Serena told ESPN in an on-court interview after she defeated her sister at the U.S. Open quarterfinals Tuesday night. “So it’s going against your best friend and going against, for me, the greatest competitor in women’s tennis.”

Serena triumphed over her big sister in a 6-2, 1-6, 6-3 win in the tournament at Arthur Ashe stadium in New York. Venus, 35, fought hard in the emotional three-set match and Serena appeared to hold back tears as she served the 107 mph ace that ended the match (and landed her in Thursday’s semifinals against Roberta Vinci).

The two then met at the net and embraced. With her arms around her younger sister, Venus whispered, “so happy for you,” the Associated Press reports.

Serena holds a 16-11 lead over Venus in overall professional competition, and although they’ve met in competition 27 times, Serena says she doesn’t look forward to playing her big sis.

“The only player in the draw I don’t want to play, not only because she’s my sister, but for me she’s the best player,” Serena said, according to CNN. “She has beaten me so many times.”

Serena’s 16 victories over Venus include nine Grand Slam encounters and three out of five U.S. Open matches, CNN reports. The win on Tuesday is a big deal for the no. 1 ranked tennis star, as it brings her just two matches away from a calendar year Grand Slam – a feat that hasn’t been accomplished since 1988.

But Serena tells ESPN that her win in the quarterfinals was not just for her.

“This was a big moment for Venus and I,” Serena said. “It’s a Grand Slam, so we both want to do the best we can.”

The 35-year-old Venus made similar statements to the AP, speaking highly of Serena.

“That would be huge, not just for me, but for my family, just for what it represents and how hard we have worked and where we come from,” Venus said of the historic calendar Grand Slam her sister may achieve. “But at the same time, if it doesn’t happen, it’s not going to make or break you.”

“She has nothing to prove. She’s the best ever.”

Two separate teams of scientists have taken quantum teleportation from the lab into the real world. Researchers working in Calgary, Canada and Hefei, China, used existing fiber optics networks to transmit small units of information across cities via quantum entanglement — Einstein’s “spooky action at a distance.”

(Credit: asharkyu/Shutterstock)

Stepping Outside the Lab

According to quantum mechanics, some objects, like photons or electrons, can be entangled. This means that no matter how far apart they are, what happens to one will affect the other instantaneously. To Einstein, this seemed ridiculous, because it entailed information moving faster than the speed of light, something he deemed impossible. But, numerous experiments have shown that entanglement does indeed exist.

The challenge was putting it to use. A few experiments in the lab had previously managed to send information using quantum entanglement. But translating their efforts to the real world, where any number of factors could confound the process is a much more difficult challenge.

That’s exactly what these two teams of researchers have done. Their breakthrough, published in two separate papers today in Nature Photonics, promises to offer important advancements for communications and encryption technologies. Both experiments encode a message into a photon and send it to a way station of sorts.

There, the message is transferred to a different photon, which is entangled with a photon held by the receiver. This destroys the information held in the first photon, but transmits the information via entanglement to the receiver. When the way station measures the photon, it creates kind of key — a decoder ring of sorts — that can decrypt the entangled photon’s information. That key is then sent over an internet connection, where it is combined with the information contained within the entangled photon to reveal the message.

The two experiments weren’t able to transmit very much information — the Calgary experiment was the quickest, and they only managed 17 photons a minute. The Hefei experiment was able to guess the state of the photons with better accuracy, however. While the Calgary researchers succeeded about 25 percent of the time, the Hefei researchers were right at most 50 percent of the time, due to their inclusion of an extra, albeit time-consuming, step in the process.

Because both methods possess their own advantages, they will likely each form the basis for further research. Nevertheless, both teams were able to use existing telecommunications infrastructure to accomplish something that had only been done in the lab before — a big step forward. The Calgary team sent photons over a distance of about 4 miles, while the Hefei team spanned almost 9.

Beam Me Up Scotty?

This isn’t teleportation in the “Star Trek” sense — the photons aren’t disappearing from one place and appearing in another. Instead, it’s the information that’s being teleported through quantum entanglement. The teleportation moniker is used because the initial message sent is destroyed when the photon carrying it gets measured, and it is only the information that gets teleported from one place to another.

One of the largest hurdles for both teams to overcome was the tendency of fiber optic cables to stretch and compress due to temperature changes. While this doesn’t matter for regular telecommunications, for quantum communication, the photons that are sent must arrive at precisely the same time. Both teams of researchers used additional complex data inputs to ensure that their photons were arriving exactly the same as they started out.

Quantum teleportation over long distances has actually been accomplished before — in 2012, a team of researchers from Austria sent information almost 90 miles between two of the Canary Islands using lasers. Using lasers to send information can work in some situations, but adverse environmental conditions can disrupt the signal. This is why the internet today consists of a network of fiber optic cables instead.

Quantum teleportation’s biggest application will likely be as a means of encrypting information. Because the two photons communicate with each other by entanglement, there’s no way for an outsider to read them. To decrypt a message, you would need the key, which is sent over the internet. Even if you intercepted the key, you would still only have half of the puzzle — to fully read it, you would need the entangled photons themselves.

The process could even theoretically be used to create a network of quantum repeaters to stretch the networks capabilities between cities and countries, New Scientist writes. Someday, the same spooky action that frustrated Einstein could be delivering your emails.

Schwerer Gustav or Hitler’s giant gun was a fearsome weapon of war.

A distinctive feature of artillery of the Second World War were cannons of every increasing size and caliber. One other such weapon was the 914 mm Little David, constructed for the American army. It was intended to be used for attacking Japanese bunkers at the end of WWII. This mortar was the biggest in the world, but it was also never used in combat. The Japanese surrendered before its deployment.

Schwerer Gustav was conceived prior to the beginning of WWII when Hitler demanded its construction as a precursor to the invasion of France. It was to aid the German Army in penetrating the Maginot Line. Its construction missed the invasion of France but it did take part in some actions throughout the war. After years of development and construction, the weapon’s impact on the war was very small in the greater scheme of things. As impressive as the weapon was its fate was far from honorable.

In the following article, we will explore its precursors, conception and birth, lackluster history and ultimate fate during it’s brief, yet explosive life.

Grandfathers of the Schwerer Gustav

Enormous siege guns are nothing new to war. They have been employed in some form or other since the late middle ages. A great example would be the impressive 890mm Tsar Cannon employed by the Russians around 1586. This weapon weighs in at 39 tonnes and could fire rounds of 771 kgs. It is made of bronze and is actually a piece of art. The sheer size of the weapon itself, not to mention its ammunition rendered it somewhat useless in actual battle. It is suggested that the weapon was actually crafted more as a prestige piece than a weapon of war. This gun is currently on display outside the Kremlin along with some ornamental cannon balls.

Tsar Cannon [Image Source: Wikimedia Commons]

The Tsar cannon was not the largest caliber weapon pre 20th century, however. The British built a huge 42-tonne gun that could fire 914 mm exploding shells over 4km. This amazing weapon was called the “Mallet Mortar” and each projectile weighed in at around 1.25 tonnes. The Brits produced only two of these weapons and they were never fired in action. They were test fired of course but never used in anger.

Usage of these canons in the 20th century began with the Big Bertha (also known as the “Fat Bertha”) during World War I. Big Bertha proved its effectiveness against older fortifications by destroying several Belgian and French forts. However, these cannons were almost useless against newer constructions built of concrete reinforced with steel. This led to decreased usage of the 420 mm Big Bertha howitzers.

Mallet’s Mortar [Image Source: Wikimedia Commons]

Stay on target

The German military industry wasn’t discouraged and new grand cannons were developed despite the Big Bertha’s failure. Karl-Gerät, also called Thor (like the Viking thunder god) and Mörser Karl, were developed between 1937 and 1940. These were self-propelled siege cannons that utilized 600 mm wide barrels. They fired projectiles weighing between 1250 and 2170 kilograms. These big guns had relatively short firing ranges of “just” 10 km with the lightest shell, but it was used with varying success between 1941 and 1945.

Railway guns

Although this impressive weapon is termed a railway gun its sheer size severely restricted its movement between deployment. The gun was actually transported in sections and assembled on site. This prevented the piece from being transported assembled. The gun could be broken down into five units. These were the breech ring and block, the barrel in two pieces, the barrel jacket and cradle and trunnions. The rest of the mounting was split lengthwise for movement between battle sites. All components were transported on special flat wagons except for the bogies that could be transported on their own wheels.

True railway guns were a large artillery piece mounted on a specially designed railway wagons. The Krupp group built many such pieces for the German War effort during both world wars and smaller pieces often formed components of armored trains. In general, there is little if no need to dismantle the weapon which can be transported in whole between combat zones.

They are also not a 20th Century invention. The very first gun used in anger was utilized during the American civil war. They involved the use of a banded 32-pounder Brooke Naval Rifle mounted on a flat car and shielded with a sloping casemate. Such weapons were used during the Battle of Savage’s station. Railroad guns also had applications in the French and British Armies during the 19th century.

American civil war railroad gun [Image Source: Wikimedia Commons]

Back to Schwerer Gustav

All well and good but let’s get back to the largest cannon ever used in battle. Schwerer Gustav shell was 800 mm or 80 cm in diameter. This baby was a railway gun developed by the Krupp family company who also developed the Big Bertha cannons in WWI.

It was designed in the 1930’s in order to destroy the strongest defensive facilities of their time – the Maginot Line in France. This defensive line was built by the French along the frontier with Germany and consisted of different obstacles, concrete bunkers and fortifications, and weapons installations. The desired specification was that the cannons should be able to destroy 1-meter thick layers of steel or 7-meter thick walls of reinforced concrete. Fate changed its plans when the war began. The Wehrmacht invaded France by passing through Belgium, thus circumventing the Maginot Line and conquering France without the necessity of destroying the defensive line.

According to Wikipedia, Schwerer Gustav weighed in at around 1350 tonnes and was capable of firing 4.8 metric ton heavy projectiles at a distance of 47 km with a muzzle velocity of 820 m/s. Schwerer Gustav damage was incredible! Although not used to fulfill their initial purpose, the Gustav super cannons were transported to the Eastern front and participated in the Fall Barbarossa (Operation Barbarossa in German). During this operation, the cannon was used for the siege of Sevastopol. After that, it was transported near Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg) and started preparation for the siege, but the operation was canceled. The gun was sadly later destroyed in order to avoid its capture.

Birth of the Schwerer Gustav

This impressive weapon has its origins during 1935 as part of the Wehrmacht study which examined the kind of armaments needed to penetrate the newly completed defenses of France.

At the commencement of the Second World War, Hitler was eager to extend his power into western Europe. His ambitions included the annexation of France. Learning from lessons made during the Great War, the French had fortified their border with Germany. The Maginot Line was an impressive barrier of steel and concrete that for all intents and purposes should’ve been impenetrable. This defensive structure dominated French military thinking during the inter-war years. This thinking was its great strength and as it turned out its fatal flaw.

Unable to keep up with modern advancements in warfare, the Maginot line would later prove to be useless when the German launched their blitzkrieg assault on the French through Belgium. This tactic had been honed during the Spanish Civil War and proved devastatingly effective throughout the early stages of the war.

Forging the Schwerer Gustav

But we are getting ahead of ourselves. At the time, the breaching of the line was a possible strategy to adopt and as such Gustav Krupp was approached to provide ballistic data for such a hypothetical weapon. Gustav was a leading German steelworks and armaments manufacturer. This request was met partly as a propaganda stunt and partly as a design exercise. In 1936, Hitler himself visited the factory and again asked Gustav the same question in person.

Krupp was able to provide the Fuhrer with an extensive and accurate answer based on their earlier calculations and assured Hitler that although it would be difficult, it was a distinct possibility. It can be argued that he may have bought into the national socialist movement or was fully aware of non-compliance owing to the fate of Hugo Junker. In either case, Krupp took a gamble and set his design team to work on a concept model for the weapon.

In early 1937, Gustav was in a position to show his designs to Hitler. The project was approved and 10 million Marks were set aside for the project with one request. The gun must be ready by the spring of 1940 for the attack on the Maginot Line.

Missed deadlines aren’t always bad

The weapon’s construction proved even more difficult than first anticipated. The barrels forging was a particularly difficult endeavor. The stipulated deadline came and went without the gun being delivered. As fate would have it, its intended use was superfluous as the German war machine simply outflanked the defensive line of the French. Other than Hitler, German High Command didn’t really miss the lack of this super weapon.

Towards the end of 1940, the barrel was finally ready and was test fired in 1941. The gun’s carriage was also ready for deployment. The entire assembly was taken to the Rugernward range on the Baltic coast for complete assembly and test firing to be witnessed by Hitler himself. On completion, the weapon was given as a present to the German war effort by Gustav and it was named in his honor. Whether this “gift” was out the goodness of his heart or fear for his life will never be known.

Deploying the Schwerer Gustav

Gustav finally went to war during the siege of Sevastopol in July of 1942. The gun’s assembly took a total of three weeks using a workforce of 1,420 men. Fully assembled the weapon was 43 meters long, 7 meters wide with the axis of the barrel a mere 7.5 meters about the track. Bejesus!

The weapon actually required a special four-track section to be laid to put the gun in place. The inner tracks accommodated the bogies with the outer tracks needed for the gun’s actual assembly.

“Various parts of the mounting were then built up on top of the bogies; the barrel was assembled by inserting the rear half into the jacket and then fitting the front half on and locking everything together with a massive junction nut. The barrel was then fitted into the cradle and the whole assembly hoisted up and lowered onto the mounting. After this, the breech ring was fitted to the end of the barrel by another huge nut and the 20-ton breech block slid into place.” – WorldWar2DataBase

Schwerer Gustav firing range

After the labor of love that is the weapon’s assembly, the gun was ready for action. Gustav began its assault on the Soviet fortifications of Sevastopol, lobbing 4.7-tonne high explosive shells deep within the besieged city over a range of some 47 kilometers. The gun could also unleash 7-tonne concrete piercing shells over a range of 37 kilometers away. One such shell was reported as penetrating 100 feet into the earth before detonating in an underground ammunition store. During the siege, around fifty of their shells were unleashed on the city.

After the siege Gustav seems to have trundled out of the sight. It was intended to be used during the siege of Leningrad but the Russians repelled the Germans before the weapon could be prepared. The only other recorded use of Gustav was in 1944 when it fired 30 shells into Warsaw during its aborted uprising, but this might also not be true. Conflicting reports seem to indicate that the rebellion was crushed prior to deployment of the gun.

“After that Gustav vanished. Numerous reports of its discovery in pieces, it’s scrapping, its capture or abandonment have been suggested but none of them standup to very close examination; spare barrels and ammunition were found, but the gun itself was never seen again (Despite some reports that it was found wrecked on its special train by a US army unit in Bavaria at the end of the war). It seems likely that it was simply scrapped sometime during late 1944.” – WorldWar2DataBase

Feeding the gun

A gun of any kind is useless without something to fire. The Schwerer Gustav was no exception. She could accommodate two type of ammunition. High explosive and armor piercing. These shells were monsters in their own right.

The high explosive option had a weight of around 4.7 metric tonnes. They were unleashed with a muzzle velocity of 820 m/s and a maximum range of 48 km. These shells housed around 700kgs of explosive and on impact could create a crater 9.1 meters wide and 9.1 meters deep! Wow!

The armor piercing option was equally as devasting. They were around 3.6 meters long, weighed in at around 7.1 metric tonnes and were lobbed at a muzzle velocity of around 720 m/s. These shells, being heavier had a shorter range of around 38 km and explosive weight of 250 kg. They could penetrate 7 meters of reinforced concrete at maximum elevation. Their main body was made of chrome-nickel steel that was fitted with an aluminum alloy ballistic nose cone.

Dora shell [Image Source: Wikimedia Commons]

Schwerer Gustav and Dora, one or two guns?

Certain sources claim that two of these weapons were built, Gustav and its sister Dora. This may not be true. Some sources claim that German artillery crews had a different idea to the weapon. This was the less honorific nickname of “Dora”. It is for this reason that for many years it was believed there were two of these weapons when in fact they were the same piece.

Other sources seem to indicate that there were, in fact, two such weapons built and deployed by the Germans. These sources also indicate that Dora became operational in 1942 and was used in the siege of Stalingrad.

“Wreckages of two gun carriages were documented 80km apart, Dora at Grafenwöhr and Gustav north of Auerbach – by US and Soviet troops respectively.” – Quora

There are some images of captured pieces floating around with American troops posing on top of the barrel, they are compelling but seem to be of a smaller caliber. But they are clearly much smaller and lower caliber than Gustav mega guns, most likely K 12 guns. In either case, the weapons were destroyed by the Germans in March and April of 1945 to prevent their capture.

Interesting applications of the Schwerer Gustav

Germany also had plans of building something that would be described as a “self-propelled fortress”. The project was called Landkreuzer P. 1500 Monster and was to be powered by 4 submarine diesel engines. It was planned to be armed with a Schwerer Gustav as the main cannon with two smaller 150 mm howitzers in support. The armament would have also included several 15 mm machine guns for air defense.

The basic concept was for the main gun to be mounted on a self-propelled platform. This was most likely tank tracked legs supported the superstructure. The gun itself would be fixed, making the system technically a self-propelled gun platform rather than a super heavy tank or indeed a fortress.

If built, this beast of war would have totaled 42 meters in length, 18 meters wide and been 7 meters tall. It had a total weight of around 1,500 tonnes. The weapon was proposed on the 23rd June 1942 by the German Ministry of Armaments and realized, at least in concept by Krupp. The project was finally canceled in 1943.

The fate of the great gun(s)

Many conflicting reports and records exist about the late war fate of Hitler’s super guns. Most sources claim that on the 14th April 1945, this great weapon was destroyed before the arrival of the US troops. The Germans “figured” it was better to prevent the weapon’s capture than

Most sources claim that on the 14th April 1945, this great weapon was destroyed before the arrival of the US troops. The Germans “figured” it was better to prevent the weapon’s capture than allow it to be captured by the Allies. Its ruined “carcass” was found on the 22nd April 15 kilometers north of Auerbach and 50 kilometers southwest of Chemnitz. The weapon was apparently studied by Soviet engineers and transferred to Merseburg in the Autumn of the same year. No record of the weapon is known after this time.

Dora, if she existed, is said to have been transferred to Grafenwohr where it was destroyed in late April of 1945. American troops discovered the wreckage sometime after and the debris was scrapped during the 1950s.

Such an inglorious end to this superweapon.

Schwerer Gustav: The final word

The weapon had cost an eye-watering 10 million German marks with the ammunition costs lost to history. For that, the German war machine was rewarded with the demolition of a few Soviet and Polish defenses and one ammunition dump. This hardly seems a fair trade given the cost of the project, much like the Death Star in Star Wars. That may be missing the point, however. Its very existence would have made for great propaganda and morale boost to axis forces. You could also argue that the very hint of the presence of the weapon in a theater of war would have had very powerful psychological effects on enemy troops. But, it most certainly was not a cost-effective weapon.

Venus Williams lost to Elena Dementieva in the 2004 Nasdaq-100 QF

Venus Williams was at the receiving end of many a tirade during the early years of her career over accusations of feigning injuries.

At Indian Wells in 2001, Williams who withdrew ahead of a match against her sister was targeted unfairly while Elena Dementieva called her an actress for taking a medical break in 2004.

Venus Williams, who appeared to injure her ankle in the second set of the Nasdaq-100 Open quarterfinal against Dementieva, eventually lost 3-6, 7-5, 6-7.

https://youtu.be/zq5bD3mHCtk

“After the medical break I was thinking she was a good actress because she was moving so much better than before,” Dementieva stated after the match.

Williams’ grimace after an on-court fall did little to convince her Russian opponent who opined that the California-born player’s movement remained unaffected.

“On her face it looked like she had something very painful, but then she started to move very well,” said Dementieva who lost two points after Williams’ break.

Williams, however, contested Elena Dementieva’s claims vehemently arguing that she clearly twisted her ankle as a result of the fall before taking a nine-minute injury break.

“Maybe I should talk to her. I clearly twisted my ankle and I had issues there. But if that’s the way she feels, that’s fine,” Williams declared.

“These days, to be a champ and to be a winner, you have to play under all circumstances and I think that’s what I did. I just tried to ignore it,” she added.

Elena Dementieva was vocal about the Williams’ sisters on more than one occasion, making startling predictions like she did at the 2001 Indian Wells Open.

“I think Richard will decide who’s going to win tomorrow” – Elena Dementieva after losing to Venus Williams in 2001 Indian Wells QF

Elena Dementieva in action at Indian Wells
Elena Dementieva made the headlines back in 2001 for declaring that Venus Williams’ father Richard would decide the outcome of an upcoming Indian Wells match.

Dementieva made the astonishing assertion after Venus Williams defeated her 6-0, 6-3 to set up a match against sister Serena Williams in the semifinals of the 2001 Indian Wells Open.

“I mean, I don’t know what Richard thinks about it. I think he (Richard) will decide who’s going to win tomorrow. But it looks like Serena because I saw a little bit of this match, she played extremely well. I think she will be in the final,” Dementieva claimed.
Venus Williams was quick to trash Dementieva’s statements, saying rumours were more exciting than the truth.
“No, it’s not a true opinion at all. Everyone makes their own comments. That’s how rumors get started. I guess rumors are more exciting than the truth,” said Williams in response.
As it turned out, Venus Williams pulled out of the Indian Wells semifinal just before the match was scheduled to begin, citing a foot injury.

Serena Williams was booed by the crowd during her title clash against Kim Clijsters since fans believed that Venus Williams’ last-minute withdrawal was manipulated by her father Richard.