Workers Of Wood

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In 1933, a beautiful, young Austrian woman took off her clothes for a movie director. She ran through the woods, naked. She swam in a lake, naked. Pushing well beyond the social norms of the period. The most popular movie in 1933 was King Kong. But everyone in Hollywood was talking about that scandalous movie with the gorgeous, young Austrian woman.

Louis B. Mayer, of the giant studio MGM, said she was the most beautiful woman in the world. The film was banned practically everywhere, which of course made it even more popular and valuable. Mussolini reportedly refused to sell his copy at any price.
The star of the film, called "Ecstasy," was Hedwig Kiesler. She said the secret of her beauty was "to stand there and look stupid." In reality, Kiesler was anything but stupid. She was a genius. She'd grown up as the only child of a prominent Jewish banker. She was a math prodigy. She excelled at science. As she grew older, she became ruthless, using all the power her body and mind gave her.
Between the sexual roles she played, her tremendous beauty, and the power of her intellect, Kiesler would confound the men in her life including her six husbands, two of the most ruthless dictators of the 20th century, and one of the greatest movie producers in history. Her beauty made her rich for a time. She is said to have made - and spent - $30 million in her life.

But her greatest accomplishment resulted from her intellect, and her invention continues to shape the world we live in today.
You see, this young Austrian starlet would take one of the most valuable technologies ever developed right from under Hitler's nose. After fleeing to America, she not only became a major Hollywood star, her name sits on one of the most important patents ever granted by the U.S. Patent Office. Today, when you use your cell phone or, over the next few years, as you experience super-fast wireless Internet access (via something called "long-term evolution" or "LTE" technology), you'll be using an extension of the technology a 20 year-old actress first conceived while sitting at dinner with Hitler.
At the time she made Ecstasy, Kiesler was married to one of the richest men in Austria. Friedrich Mandl was Austria's leading arms maker. His firm would become a key supplier to the Nazis. Mandl used his beautiful young wife as a showpiece at important business dinners with representatives of the Austrian, Italian, and German fascist forces. One of Mandl's favorite topics at these gatherings - which included meals with Hitler and Mussolini - was the technology surrounding radio-controlled missiles and torpedoes.
Wireless weapons offered far greater ranges than the wire-controlled alternatives that prevailed at the time. Kiesler sat through these dinners "looking stupid," while absorbing everything she heard. As a Jew, Kiesler hated the Nazis. She abhorred her husband's business ambitions. Mandl responded to his willful wife by imprisoning her in his castle, Schloss Schwarzenau. In 1937, she managed to escape. She drugged her maid, snuck out of the castle wearing the maid's clothes and sold her jewelry to finance a trip to London.
(She got out just in time. In 1938, Germany annexed Austria. The Nazis seized Mandl's factory. He was half Jewish. Mandl fled to Brazil. (Later, he became an adviser to Argentina's iconic populist president, Juan Peron.)
In London, Kiesler arranged a meeting with Louis B. Mayer. She signed a long-term contract with him, becoming one of MGM's biggest stars. She appeared in more than 20 films. She was a co-star to Clark Gable, Judy Garland, and even Bob Hope. Each of her first seven MGM movies was a blockbuster. But Kiesler cared far more about fighting the Nazis than about making movies.

At the height of her fame, in 1942, she developed a new kind of communications system, optimized for sending coded messages that couldn't be "jammed." She was building a system that would allow torpedoes and guided bombs to always reach their targets. She was building a system to kill Nazis. By the 1940s, both the Nazis and the Allied forces were using the kind of single frequency radio-controlled technology Kiesler's ex-husband had been peddling. The drawback of this technology was that the enemy could find the appropriate frequency and "jam" or intercept the signal, thereby interfering with the missile's intended path.
Kiesler's key innovation was to "change the channel." It was a way of encoding a message across a broad area of the wireless spectrum. If one part of the spectrum was jammed, the message would still get through on one of the other frequencies being used. The problem was, she could not figure out how to synchronize the frequency changes on both the receiver and the transmitter. To solve the problem, she turned to perhaps the world's first techno-musician, George Anthiel.
Anthiel was an acquaintance of Kiesler who achieved some notoriety for creating intricate musical compositions. He synchronized his melodies across twelve player pianos, producing stereophonic sounds no one had ever heard before. Kiesler incorporated Anthiel's technology for synchronizing his player pianos. Then, she was able to synchronize the frequency changes between a weapon's receiver and its transmitter. On August 11, 1942, U.S. Patent No. 2,292,387 was granted to Antheil and "Hedy Kiesler Markey," which was Kiesler's married name at the time.
Most of you won't recognize the name Kiesler. And no one would remember the name Hedy Markey. But it's a fair bet than anyone reading this post of a certain age, will remember one of the great beauties of Hollywood's golden age - Hedy Lamarr. That's the name Louis B. Mayer gave to his prize actress. That's the name his movie company made famous. Almost no one knows Hedwig Kiesler – a/k/a Hedy Lamarr - was one of the great pioneers of wireless communications. Her technology was developed by the U.S. Navy, which has used it ever since.

You are probably using Lamarr's technology, too. Her patent sits at the foundation of "spread spectrum technology," which you use every day when you log on to a wi-fi network or make calls with your Bluetooth-enabled phone. It lies at the heart of the massive investments being made right now in so-called fourth-generation "LTE" wireless technology. This next generation of cell phones and cell towers will provide tremendous increases to wireless network speed and quality, by spreading wireless signals across the entire available spectrum. This kind of encoding is only possible using the kind of frequency switching that Hedwig Kiesler invented..........

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Chris Noel was an American actress, singer, and radio host who gained prominence during the Vietnam War era for her work entertaining American troops stationed in Vietnam. She became known as "The Voice of the Vietnam War" for her radio show called "A Date with Chris," which aired on the Armed Forces Vietnam Network (AFVN).
Noel traveled to Vietnam multiple times between 1966 and 1971 to perform for the troops, often at great personal risk, as she would fly into combat zones to entertain soldiers. Her radio show, "A Date with Chris," provided a connection to home for many soldiers and was a source of comfort and entertainment during a challenging time.
In addition to her radio work, Noel appeared in several films and TV shows during the 1960s and 1970s, although she is perhaps best remembered for her contributions to the morale of American troops during the Vietnam War.
After the war, Chris Noel continued her career in entertainment and also became an advocate for veterans' issues, including PTSD awareness and support for Vietnam veterans.
Overall, Chris Noel played a significant role in boosting the morale of American troops during the Vietnam War through her radio show and personal appearances, earning her the gratitude and admiration of many veterans.

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After returning from the war in Europe, actor turned war hero Colonel Jimmy Stewart chats on the phone in his father’s hardware store while his father speaks with a customer in 1945. Besides all the usual hardware goods, the store also boasted the actor turned war hero’s “Philadelphia Story” Oscar on display.
Stewart won his Oscar for his work in the Philidelphia Story prior to joining the war effort. After taking the award in 1940, his father phoned him and said “I hear you won some kind of award. What was it a plaque or something? Well, you better bring it back here and we’ll put it in the window of the store.”
The Oscar would be displayed there for 25 years alongside other family awards and military medals. Stewart would become the first major American movie star to enlist in the United States Army to fight in World War II and was one of very few Americans to rise from the rank of Private to Colonel in less than five years. As a result of the 20 combat missions he flew over Germany as leader of a squadron of B-24’s, Colonel Stewart was awarded two Distinguished Flying Crosses and the Croix de Guerre.

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In U.S. history, we remember that famous ride that would warn the colonies that the British were coming.
The Colonel needed someone he could trust, someone brave enough, someone who could ride a long distance, through the darkness, from 9 p.m. to dawn, someone who could fight off enemy combatants, to alert the Colonial militia to the approach of British forces.
So, the Colonel chose the "best man for the job." He chose Sybil Ludington, his 16-year-old daughter. Sybil Ludington was born on this day, April 5, 1761.
This month, on April 26, 1777, her father asked his young daughter to take the dangerous ride.
On the night of April 18, 1775. Revere made his famous ride and history remembers him well, because of the famous poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who would tell the tale, saying:
"Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere . . ."
But, many people do not know about the four other riders, who warned their communities of the approach and movement of the British forces.
The five heroes (including Paul Revere) were Samuel Prescott, Israel Bissell, William Dawes, and, the one who I am dedicating this post to, Sybil Ludington, who at that time was only 16 years old.
On the night of April 26, 1777, Colonel Henry Ludington chose his daughter to take that famous ride in history.
Sybil set out at 9 p.m. that night in the rain to warn the colonists at Danbury, Connecticut of the approach of the British. She would make a journey double to that of Revere (totaling 40 miles), riding through Kent to Farmers Mills and then returning back home again.
During her famous ride, she gathered her father's troops, knocked on doors and warned the countryside of the British troops’ incoming attack - and, she fought off a highwayman with a long stick.
By dawn, she was exhausted, damp from the rain, but had accomplished her mission warning the colonists and bringing together 400 soldiers ready to march and drive the enemy troops from the area.
She would later be commended by George Washington for her heroism. Each April since 1979, the Sybil Ludington 50-kilometer footrace has been held in Carmel, New York. The course of this hilly road race approximates Sybil's historic ride, and finishes near the statue which was erected in her honor on the shore of Lake Gleneida, Carmel, New York.
So, when you hear the tale of Paul Revere this month, remember about the other riders, one of which was the courageous Sybil Ludington.