Thread by @DavidCranmerUn1

A variant of the phrase (as "smoking pistol") was used in the Sherlock Holmes story, "The Adventure of the Gloria Scott" (1893).

https://twitter.com/peterdaszak/status/1402963510028640256

The case is referenced by Holmes once more in "The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire" when Holmes consults an index of his past exploits for references to "vampires" and remarks on "the Voyage of the Gloria Scott" listed under "V". It is also mentioned in passing in "The Adventure

of the Musgrave Ritual" as Holmes recounts to Watson his early cases when he first became a detective.

The XYZ Affair was a political and diplomatic episode in 1797 and 1798, early in the presidency of John Adams, involving a confrontation between the United States and

Republican France that led to the Quasi-War. The name derives from the substitution of the letters X, Y, and Z for the names of French diplomats Jean-Conrad Hottinguer (X), Pierre Bellamy (Y), and Lucien Hauteval (Z) in documents released by the Adams administration. In October

1799 Napoleon's brother Lucien Bonaparte was appointed President of the Council of Five Hundred. In August 1941, following quarrels between the Ministry of Economic Warfare and the Ministry of Information over their relative responsibilities, SO1 was removed from SOE and became

an independent organisation, the Political Warfare Executive. PWE included staff from the Ministry of Information, the propaganda elements of the Special Operations Executive, and from the BBC. Its main headquarters was at Woburn Abbey with London offices at the BBC's Bush House.

As the Political Warfare Executive was a secret department, when dealing with the outside world it used the cover name Political Intelligence Department (PID).
After D-Day most of PWE's white propaganda staff transferred to the Psychological Warfare Division (PWD/SHAEF) of SHAEF.

At the end of World War II PWE were tasked with the re-education of German prisoners of war. As with different types of propaganda, PWE used the same 'white', 'grey', and 'black' classifications for German POWs. Prisoners classed as 'black' were considered dangerous ardent Nazis,

with anti-Nazis classed as 'white' and regular non-political soldiers classed as 'grey'.

Left to right: Lieutenant General Omar N. Bradley, Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay, Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, General Sir Bernard Montgomery, Air Chief Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory and Lieutenant General Walter Bedell Smith

Eisenhower transferred from command of the Mediterranean Theater of Operations to command SHAEF, which was formed in Camp Griffiss, Bushy Park, Teddington, London, from December 1943; an adjacent street named Shaef Way, and a gate into the park called Shaef Gate, remain to this

day.[1] Southwick House was used as an alternative headquarters near Portsmouth. In February 1945, it moved to Reims and, on 26 May 1945, SHAEF moved to Frankfurt. SHAEF also controlled substantial naval forces during Operation Neptune, the assault phase of Overlord, and two

tactical air forces: the US Ninth Air Force and the RAF Second Tactical Air Force. Allied strategic bomber forces in the UK also came under its command during Operation Neptune.

In 1914, the citizens founded the University of Frankfurt, later named Goethe University Frankfurt

The IG Farben Building served as the headquarters for the US Army's V Corps and the Northern Area Command (NACOM) until 1995. It was also the headquarters of the CIA in Germany. During the early Cold War, it was referred to by US authorities as the Headquarters Building,

United States Army Europe (USAREUR); the US Army renamed the building the General Creighton W. Abrams Building in 1975.[1] It was informally referred to as "The Pentagon of Europe."After World War II, the IG Farben Building served as the headquarters for the Supreme Allied

Command and from 1949 to 1952 the High Commissioner for Germany (HICOG). Notably Dwight D. Eisenhower had his office in the building. It became the principal location for implementing the Marshall Plan, which supported the post-war reconstruction of Europe. The 1948 Frankfurt

Documents, which led to the creation of a West German state allied with the western powers, were signed in the building.[In 1995, the US Army transferred the IG Farben Building to the German government, and it was purchased by the state of Hesse on behalf of the University of

Frankfurt. The IG Farben Building was developed on land known as the Grüneburggelände. In 1837, the property belonged to the Rothschild family. It was part of the "Affensteiner Feld", an area in the north of today's Frankfurt Westend District. The name Affenstein derives from an

ancient Christian memorial that once stood here on the road outside Frankfurt. It was known as the "Avestein" as in Ave Maria but in the local Frankfurt dialect it was called the "Affe Stein". In 1864, the city's psychiatric hospital was erected on the site.[3] Here, Dr Heinrich

Hoffman hired Alois Alzheimer to work in the hospital, where they both explored progressive methods of treating the mentally ill. At the reflecting pool behind the building, the "Am Wasser" sculpture of a naked water nymph was moved during the American occupation. The nymph was

moved to the Hoechst chemical company in Frankfurt/Hoechst at the request of Mamie Eisenhower (the general's wife), who deemed it inappropriate for a military installation. The statue has since been returned to its original location.

Hoechst AG (German pronunciation: [ˈhøːkst])

was a German chemicals then life-sciences company that became Aventis Deutschland after its merger with France's Rhône-Poulenc S.A. in 1999. With the new company's 2004 merger with Sanofi-Synthélabo, it became a subsidiary of the resulting Sanofi-Aventis pharmaceuticals group.

In 1930, the administration of the then fourth-largest company in the world was transferred to the new IG Farben Building in Frankfurt's West End, designed by Hans Poelzig. The Höchst factory declined further in the next few years.

In 1938 Frankfurt came upon the chance to purchase a 58 hectare area between Bockenheimer Landstraße, Unterlindau, Staufenstraße and Reuterweg at a very reasonable price, which had previously belonged to the well-established Jewish Rothschild family, land which the Nazi

government had put into probation. Although the 1950 selling price was later improved, the return of a third of this area was demanded to be returned as part of the Rothschild inheritance. After this, approval of the construction of a multi-storey development on the Rothschild's

returned land was received (they sold it to Schweizer Zürich-Versicherung and Berliner Handelsgesellschaft) and office towers were established directly opposite the old opera house. The next work, his epic closet drama Faust, was completed in stages. The first part was published

in 1808 and created a sensation. Goethe finished Faust Part Two in the year of his death, and the work was published posthumously. Goethe's original draft of a Faust play, which probably dates from 1773–74, and is now known as the Urfaust, was also published after his death.

Light spectrum, from Theory of Colours. Goethe observed that with a prism, colour arises at light-dark edges, and the spectrum occurs where these coloured edges overlap.

Many of Goethe's works, especially Faust, the Roman Elegies, and the Venetian Epigrams, depict erotic passions and acts. For instance, in Faust, the first use of Faust's power after signing a contract with the devil is to seduce a teenage girl.

Goethe was a Freemason, joining the lodge Amalia in Weimar in 1780, and frequently alluded to Masonic themes of universal brotherhood in his work,[91] he was also attracted to the Bavarian Illuminati a secret society founded on 1 May 1776. On 1 May 1776 Johann Adam Weishaupt

founded the "Illuminati" in the Electorate of Bavaria. He adopted the name of "Brother Spartacus"

founded the "Illuminati" in the Electorate of Bavaria. He adopted the name of "Brother Spartacus"After the expulsion of Königsberg's German population at the end of World War II, the University of Königsberg where Kant taught was replaced by the Russian-language Kaliningrad State

University, which appropriated the campus and surviving buildings. In 2005, the university was renamed Immanuel Kant State University of Russia. The name change was announced at a ceremony attended by President Vladimir Putin of Russia and Chancellor Gerhard Schröder of Germany,

and the university formed a Kant Society, dedicated to the study of Kantianism. He is currently the chairman of the board of Nord Stream AG and of Rosneft, after having been hired as a global manager by investment bank Rothschild, and also the chairman of Hannover 96.

In a move meant to signal a deepening alliance between Schröder and Prime Minister Tony Blair of the United Kingdom,[11] the two leaders issued an eighteen-page manifesto for economic reform in June 1999. Titled "Europe: The Third Way"

Schröder sent forces to Kosovo and to Afghanistan as part of NATO operations.[38] Until Schröder's chancellorship, German troops had not taken part in combat actions since World War II. In May 2019 at WORLD.MINDS in Belgrade, 20 years to the day after the bombing of Belgrade by

NATO troops, Schröder stated unequivocally that in retrospect, if he had to make the decision again, he would authorize the aerial bombardment of the former Yugoslavia again.

Schröder's plans after leaving office as Chancellor and resigning his Bundestag seat included resuming his law practice in Berlin, writing a book, and implementing plans for twin pipelines for Gazprom, Russia's leading energy company. He was subsequently retained by the Swiss

publisher Ringier AG as a consultant.[63] Other board memberships include the following:
•Herrenknecht, Deputy Chairman of the Supervisory Board (since 2017)[64]
•Nord Stream, Chairman of the Shareholders' Committee (since 2006)[65]
•CargoBeamer, Member of the Advisory

Board
•N M Rothschild & Sons, Member of the European Advisory Council (since 2006)[66]
•Hannover 96, Chairman of the Supervisory Board (2016-2019)[67]
•TNK-BP, Member of the International Advisory Board (2009)[68]