Ikigai Daily
WonderHistory fact1,533 of 1,961

In 1918 nearly 200 American soldiers were trapped behind German lines and being shelled by their own artillery. A homing pigeon called Cher Ami flew 40 km through fire, shot through the breast, to deliver the message that stopped it.

Cher Ami, 1918

HistoryNature

Why it matters

The idea in context

The 'Lost Battalion' had sent two earlier birds; both were shot down. Cher Ami got through despite being hit, arriving blinded in one eye with a leg hanging by a tendon and the message capsule still attached to it. The barrage lifted and 194 men were rescued. Army medics saved the bird and carved it a small wooden leg. Cher Ami was awarded the French Croix de Guerre and is preserved at the Smithsonian, where it has been on display for over a century.

Türkçe

Aynı kart, başka bir dilde.

1918'de yaklaşık 200 Amerikan askeri Alman hatlarının gerisinde kısılmış ve kendi topçularınca bombalanıyordu. Cher Ami adlı bir posta güvercini, göğsünden vurulmuş hâlde ateşin içinden 40 km uçarak bunu durduran mesajı ulaştırdı.
Cher Ami, 1918

'Kayıp Tabur' daha önce iki kuş yollamıştı; ikisi de vuruldu. Cher Ami vurulmasına karşın ulaştı; bir gözü kör, bir bacağı bir kirişe asılı ve mesaj kapsülü hâlâ o bacağa bağlı hâlde geldi. Bombardıman kesildi ve 194 adam kurtarıldı. Ordu sağlıkçıları kuşu kurtardı ve ona küçük tahta bir bacak yaptı. Cher Ami'ye Fransız Croix de Guerre verildi; bir yüzyıldan uzun süredir sergilendiği Smithsonian'da korunuyor.

Source trail

Read beyond the card.

Background reading: Cher AmiAttribution and context are revised when stronger evidence appears. Corrections are welcome through the editorial page.
Open in the iPhone appEditorial method

Related cards

These cards share a subject or mode with the one above. The route is editorial, not personalised.

Q1433
WonderHistory

Amazonian dark earth is fertile, carbon-rich soil shaped by generations of Indigenous land use, where food, fire, waste and settlement became ecology.

Terra preta unsettles the old fantasy of a rainforest untouched by people. In some places, ordinary life left behind charcoal, ceramics, organic waste and managed fertility. The soil is evidence that human presence can damage landscapes, but it can also build them slowly and intelligently.

MIT / Amazonian dark earth researchRead card
Q1437
WonderScience

Dendrochronology reads annual tree rings to date wood and reconstruct past climate, fires, droughts and human building histories.

Each ring is a year of growth, but not every year leaves the same mark. Wet seasons, drought, cold, injury and competition can widen or tighten the pattern. By matching overlapping ring sequences, scientists can connect living trees, old beams and archaeological wood into a calendar that reaches beyond written records.

University of Arizona Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research / National Park ServiceRead card
Next in the open archiveIn twelfth-century Suffolk, villagers found a boy and girl with green-tinged skin who spoke an unknown language and would eat nothing but raw beans. The girl grew up, married locally, and said they had come from a land with no sun.Q1585