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Q: It is 1933. You are in Berlin, Germany. Somehow, you find yourself in a position where you can effortlessly steal Adolf Hitler's wallet. This theft will not effect Hitler's rise to power, the nature of World War II, or the Holocaust. There is no important identification in the wallet, but the act will cost Hitler forty Reichsmarks and completely ruin his evening. You do not need the money. The odds that you will be caught committing this crime are less than two percent. Are you ethically obligated to steal Hitler's wallet?

http://pastebin.com/p7Uu2Pxt

Sweden owed its Baltic neighbours a "debt of honour" for turning a blind eye to post-war Soviet occupation, Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt told his Baltic counterparts. Speaking at a ceremony in Stockholm attended by the prime ministers of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, Mr Reinfeldt spoke of "a dark moment" in his country's history.

As a Finn, I would like to know, when could we expect the same sort of message of support and remorse for Finnish policies toward the Baltic States under Soviet occupation from human rights activist Tarja Halonen, chairman of United Russia's sister party Jyrki Katainen, or Russian state-run gas giant Gazprom's consultant Paavo Lipponen?

http://www.swedishwire.com/politics/10940-sweden-apologises-to-baltics-over-soviet-era

The photo shows General Nguyen Ngoc Loan, arm outstretched, shooting a prisoner who looked like a civilian, though he was actually a Viet Cong guerrilla. The man who was shot was Bay Lop, who had beheaded people, gunned down policemen, and killed the family of one of General Loan’s friends. That does not necessarily justify what Loan did, but when stripped of context, it looked like someone from the South Vietnamese national police gunning down some helpless guy, and that was not the case. Bay Lop was the leader of a sophisticated assassination team that was attempting to knock off all the top leaders [of South Vietnam], and General Loan was on their list.

Police in the Russian city of Kaliningrad (former Königsberg) detained a man dressed as a Wehrmacht soldier in the early hours of the morning on 13 February 2011. The inebriated man, who was detained in the city's central square carrying a replica rifle, claimed he was Thomas von Lieben, Lance Corporal in Germany's wartime Grossdeutschland Panzer Division.

The man was taken to the police station, where it transpired that he was a member of a local military history club. The man had taken part in a reenactment of a WWII battle in Bagrationovsk. On their way back, members of the club had consumed fair amounts of alcohol. Apparently carried away with his role, the man had put on his uniform and began posing for photos...

http://www.klops.ru/news/Proisshestvija/37238/V-centre-Kaliningrada-zaderzhan-vooruzhennyj-soldat-vermaxta.html

The Dancing Plague of 1518 was a case of dancing mania that occurred in Strasbourg in July 1518. Numerous people took to dancing for days without rest, and, over the period of about one month, most of the people died from heart attack, stroke, or exhaustion.

The outbreak began in July 1518, when a woman, Frau Troffea, began to dance fervently in a street in Strasbourg. This lasted somewhere between four to six days. Within a week, 34 others had joined, and within a month, there were around 400 dancers.

As the dancing plague worsened, local physicians announced that the plague was a "natural disease" caused by "hot blood". Instead of prescribing bleeding, authorities encouraged more dancing by opening two guildhalls and even constructing a wooden stage.

The authorities did this because they believed that the dancers would only recover if they danced continually night and day. To increase the effectiveness of the cure, authorities even paid for musicians to keep the afflicted moving.

In Poland, the bras d'honneur became known as the the "Kozakiewicz gesture" (gest Kozakiewicza). Polish pole vault jumper Wladyslaw Kozakiewicz made the gesture to Russian spectators in the stadium during the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow. The crowd supporting Soviet jumper Konstantin Volkov booed, hissed, jeered, and whistled during Kozakiewicz's spectacular performance. Having just secured his gold medal position, Kozakiewicz made the gesture in defiance to the Soviet crowd.

The photos of this incident circled the globe, with the exception of the Soviet Union and its satellites. Kozakiewicz's act received much support in Polish society, which resented Soviet control over Eastern Europe. After the 1980 Olympics ended, the Soviet ambassador to Poland demanded that Kozakiewicz be stripped of his medal over his "insult to the Soviet people". The official response of the Polish government was that the gesture had been an involuntary muscle spasm caused by his exertion.

Computer programmer William Tunstall-Pedoe has calculated that 11 April 1954 was the most boring day since 1900. On that day, a general election was held in Belgium, a Turkish academic was born, and an Oldham Athletic footballer called Jack Shufflebotham died. Apart from that nothing much happened.

Mr Tunstall-Pedoe's computer programme, called True Knowledge, came to its lofty decision after being fed some 300 million facts about "people, places, business and events" that made the news. Using complex algorithms, True Knowledge determined that particular 1950s Sunday to be outstanding in its obscurity.

On 27 November 1810, at five in the morning, a sweep arrived to sweep the chimneys of 54 Berners Street in Westminster, London, -- the home of Mrs Tottenham. The maid informed him that no sweep had been requested, and that his services were not required, and the disappointed tradesman went on his way. A few moments later another sweep presented himself at the door, then another, and another, twelve in all.

After the last of the sweeps had been sent away, a fleet of carts carrying large deliveries of coal began to arrive, followed by a series of cakemakers delivering large wedding cakes, then doctors, lawyers, vicars and priests summoned to minister to someone in the house they had been told was dying. Fishmongers, shoemakers, and over a dozen pianos were among the next to appear, along with "six stout men bearing an organ".

Several dignitaries, including the Governor of the Bank of England, the Duke of York, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Lord Mayor of the City of London also arrived at 54 Berners Street. The narrow streets soon became severely congested with disgruntled tradesmen and onlookers. Deliveries and visits continued until the early evening, bringing a large part of London to a standstill.

Theodore Hook had bet his friend Samuel Beazley that he could transform any house in London into the most talked-about address in a week. To achieve his goal, he had sent out 4,000 letters purporting to be Mrs Tottenham and requesting deliveries, visitors, and assistance. Hook had stationed himself in the house directly opposite 54 Berners Street, and he and his friend had spent an amusing day watching the chaos unfold.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berners_Street_Hoax

Everyone aimed at security: no one accepted responsibility. What was plainly lacking, long before the barbarian invasions had done their work, long before economic dislocations became serious, was an inner go. Rome’s life was now an imitation of life: a mere holding on. Security was the watchword — as if life knew any other stability than through constant change, or any form of security except through a constant willingness to take risks.