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Certain buildings and constructions support the enormous weight of the past because it was there where events of great historical significance occurred, and in some cases still occur. The exact place where Julius Caesar was assassinated or the Pentagon are some of them. Or the Kremlin: Would Stalin’s double walk through its halls?
The father of all assassinations. Until today, the sacred area of ??Largo di Torre Argentina, in the center of Rome, has been the heritage of a colony of 90 cats that will now have to live with visitors to the recently opened archaeological site, the exact spot where Julio’s murder took place. Cease. Less than a kilometer from there there is another marked place, Trajan’s Column raised in homage to one of the great emperors and urban planners of the Roman capital.
The fortress of the Iberians. The Romans had something to do with the end of the Iberian city of Ullastret (Girona), which was abandoned after the Second Punic War. Although the site has been investigated for decades, in excavations that have revealed its imposing walls, it has not been until now that the monumental gate that gave entrance to the most important Iberian city of which there is evidence in Catalonia has been discovered. .
Center of military power. Like a kind of great modern castle, the Pentagon is the place where hundreds of decisions are made every day that affect the defense policy of the United States and the rest of the world. Many operations have been conducted from there and other situations would have also been dealt with that, fortunately, did not take place, such as an attack by the Warsaw Pact against NATO. This is the story of a mammoth building built in record time.
famous balconies. The balcony of the Eibar town hall, that of the Generalitat or the Barcelona town hall, or the Puerta del Sol in Madrid are today places of passage that in their day were the main scene of the arrival of the Second Republic. A book by the historian Francisco Sánchez Pérez reaffirms the fairness of the April 1931 elections, because, indeed, there are still those who doubt it.
A large network of shelters. Almería has one of the largest anti-aircraft complexes of the Civil War. Under the subsoil of the Andalusian city there is a network of shelters connected by tunnels with a length of more than four kilometers and with capacity for tens of thousands of people. This video from your town hall gives an idea of ??the excellent state of conservation of this infrastructure open to the public.
When tourists only had one day. Before tourism became an avalanche, it was a matter of minorities. In 1965, the NO-DO gave an account of Barcelona Tourist Day. In it, a group was entertained with all the artillery of the time (the tablao could not be missing) which culminated with a visit to a department store (seen on the twitter account of El Boig de Can Fanga). A time to remember or perhaps to forget. However, the idea of ??attracting tourists to the city was much earlier.
Doubles and impostors. US defense sources explained last weekend to The New York Times that it was difficult to establish the whereabouts of Yevgueni Prigozhin, because the leader of the Wagner Group has doubles to confuse his enemies, which, by the way, are not few. The same has been said of Vladimir Putin, although the origin of such information is Ukrainian espionage.
In any case, the use of doubles, for propaganda, security or to confuse the opponent, has been a historical constant. In his day in the West it was taken for granted that Saddam Hussein used them, despite the fact that after his fall this rumor was denied by his personal doctor. The same was said of Franco –although without confirming- or of various communist leaders. Who there is confirmation of is Stalin, one of whose doubles was Felix Dadaev, a former juggler and dancer, who recounted his experiences as look-alikes of the Soviet leader in a book in 2008.
Another confirmed case is that of the actor M. E. Clifton James, who in 1944 was contacted by Lieutenant Colonel David Niven (indeed, the movie star) to pose as General Montgomery and confuse German espionage in Operation Copperhead. The resemblance is impressive.
Naturally, before the existence of photography, the profession of impostor was much easier. In Antiquity, for example, after the death of Nero, the existence of up to three individuals was reported who, taking advantage of the late emperor’s popularity, claimed to be the deceased sovereign. One of them was even known to play the lyre. His adventure ended fatally.
