On the 4th of July 1989, a strange incident would occur in Europe. Over the course of an hour, various air forces would be put on high alert as a Soviet MIG-23 flew across central Europe. What wasn’t known, until after the aircraft had been intercepted and visually identified, was that this MiG-2...

Throughout the latter half of the 19th century, there was a strong temptation toward communism in the West. And this persisted through the first half of the 20th Century, even as evidence grew of the huge failures within the Soviet Union and China. Despite the damning evidence from communist stat...

Schubert’s Ave Maria, perhaps the best known of his over 600 songs, here played in an arrangement for violin solo by the youthful virtuoso Jascha Heifetz, then only 19.
Recorded in 1918 by Victor Records on a heavy 78 rpm disc, it was only recorded on one side; the other was left blank. It sold f...

Willem Mengelberg and the New York Philharmonic, 1925.
An early electric recording of this famous overture by an old-school Wagnerian conductor. It’s a good example of the late nineteenth-century approach to this music, all storm and melodrama. Mengelberg was regarded in his day as one of the gre...

Supermarine's Spitfire is undoubtedly one of the iconic fighters of WWII, and continues to garner support from warbird enthusiasts worldwide. 22 distinct major versions of the Spitfire were developed to meet the operational demands of the war. Australia's involvement with the Spitfire began in th...

The concept of brainwashing is often discussed, but rarely understood. Originating from the Chinese term Xinao, which literally means ‘wash brain’, the word first entered circulation in the west in the 1950s. However, to this day, few understand the origins of brainwashing, and to what purpose it...

A highly dramatic orchestral fantasy written in the old grand manner, and not as famous as it used to be, it can still be exciting and highly evocative in a good performance. This one is exceptional, with just the right orchestral balance, and very full sound just a few years before the age of th...

An old-fashioned overture of the kind that was loved by American summer town bands a century ago, played by Arthur Pryor’s band in 1908. Pryor was a trombone virtuoso who had played in Sousa’s band. The recording was made acoustically, that is with no electric amplification and with the whole ban...

Amid the fierce battle for Groningen in World War II, two brothers, Fred and Stanley Butterworth find themselves on the front lines, their bond tested by the horrors of war as they fight for freedom and each other in a city under siege.

During 1944, it became obvious that the war in Germany would soon be over. Allied leadership believed there needed to be a post-war plan. Other individuals also had similar ideas. Responsible for such a plan would be two powerful individuals: US Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau Jr. and ...