Not seeing any kind of appeal.

Perfect every time.

by Harley Schlanger, LaRouche Organization: From shooting wars to tariff wars to hybrid warfare, the establishment is doing everything possible to hide the truth: that their globalist system is dying and waiting for burial.  There is a growing recognition among leading nations outside of the TransAtlantic region that a new security and development architecture is […]

BREAKING: Senator Ron Johnson reveals Feds are DESTROYING Epstein files, 9/11 files, Covid records and more! Where is Attorney General Pam Bondi!?pic.twitter.com/wpmXVq55Rs — Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) April 21, 2025

Welcome back to our weekly behind-the-scenes glimpse at what’s getting our team talking. Let us know what you think at info@reasonstobecheerful.world. Bus time How do you get more people to opt for mass transit in the sprawling suburbs found across much of North America? According to a Bloomberg CityLab story shared by RTBC Audience Engagement Manager Vignesh Ramachandran, it might be as simple as running frequent, reliable buses. Vignesh says:   This was an interesting read about a Toronto suburb that has found success growing its bus ridership namely by running frequent buses. “With a population of about 700,000, Brampton has 226,500 bus riders on an average weekday,” Bloomberg reports, adding that there was “288 percent ridership growth from 2004 to 2018.” It counters the typical narrative that high urban density or major transit-oriented development is a prerequisite for solid public transit, as Brampton is structured like many North American suburbs. Fuel change Here at RTBC, we’ve reported on how energy-efficient heat pumps are and the key role they are playing in the transition away from fossil fuels. But there is an ironic catch, according to a Grist story shared by Executive Editor Will Doig: The refrigerant that pumps through them can be released as a powerful greenhouse gas. The good news? Alternative refrigerants are on the way. Will says:   Heat pumps are a much more sustainable way to heat and cool homes than most other methods, but as it turns out, they could be even greener. What else we’re reading In Midwest farm country, a tradition of duck hunting has healed the dried-out landscape — shared by Editorial Director Rebecca Worby from the Minnesota Star Tribune How a Funeral Director Brought Wind Power to Rural Missouri — shared by RTBC founder David Byrne from the New York Times Vultures are among the least loved animals. African conservationists are trying to change that — shared by Rebecca Worby from the Associated Press From our readers… This week, RTBC reader Michael Luckett sent us a story about the resurrection of the Southwestern peach. Navajo horticulturist Reagan Wytsalucy is working with the U.S. National Park Service to bring back this particular peach as part of a larger effort to make traditional crops more available to Indigenous communities. According to the Park Service, her research has shown that this peach, which Indigenous peoples grew in orchards in what’s now Canyon de Chelly National Monument for centuries, is more drought-tolerant than modern peaches. Thanks for the tip, Michael! The post What We’re Reading: How a Toronto Suburb Supercharged Its Mass Transit appeared first on Reasons to be Cheerful.

  In our secular age, most of us scoff at the supernatural. Consequently, it is difficult to put ourselves in the mindsets of our medieval counterparts who still lived in a world of unexplored wilderness and unexplained phenomena. God’s natural creation was potentially infinite, allowing for the existence of fairies and goblins, while angels, demons, and saints had the power to create the supernatural, infinitely expanding the realms of possibility. These beliefs were consistent with the cosmology of the day. So, what did people in medieval England think about the supernatural?   The Arrival of Little Green Men Village Sign of Woolpit, England. Source: Wikimedia Commons   Sometime in the 12th century, during the troubled reign of King Stephen, in the village of Woolpit (a mangled version of its original Old English name “Wulf-pytt”), the villagers were bringing in the harvest. Suddenly, they came across two children next to one of the old wolf pits. They tried to speak to them, but their language was strange. Their clothing was completely unfamiliar. But most concerningly of all, their skin was green.   They were taken to the home of a local knight. They initially refused to eat anything but raw broad beans but soon adapted to a normal diet. In time, their skin color changed closer to normal. The boy, unfortunately, grew sickly and died. The girl, however, thrived and, once she learned English, explained that they had come from St Martin’s Land, where the sun never shone and everyone was green. She didn’t know how she arrived in the village.   Walter Map, one of the chroniclers who passed on stories of mythological creatures, from MS 229, c. 1290. Source: Yale University   Some modern scholars have grasped at what they see as “rational” explanations for these kinds of incredible stories. Paul Harris suggested that they were the lost children of Flemish immigrants, and “St Martin’s Land” was simply the nearby village of Fornham St Martin. No medieval chronicler who recorded the incident, however, was able to explain the origins of the children, at least not in such a mundane way. These were not 19th-century folklorists recording local traditions and myths but men writing what they believed to be the facts of the matter. They didn’t feel that they needed to proffer what we could consider “rational” explanations.   There were similar stories of green people and underground realms across the country. A Peak District swineherd reportedly followed a stray sow into an underground land where fields were being harvested. A Sunderland man was kidnapped by three green youths on horseback to a forest kingdom, where he was inveigled to drink a green drink and to join their society. When he did not cooperate, he was robbed of his power of speech as punishment. A Yorkshire peasant, after a night of drinking, came across a crowd feasting inside an old barrow and was again tempted with a drink. He poured away the contents and escaped with the unusually shaped fairy cup, which supposedly ended up in the royal treasury. Walter Map stressed how such “fairy” creatures secluded themselves in secret.   Not Quite Human Orford Castle. Source: Richard Nevell via Open Street Map   Perhaps contemporaries may have initially treated the drunken Yorkshireman’s story with some skepticism, but generally, it was taken for granted that supernatural peoples and lands existed. Green people were just one example. It was also assumed that there were realms above. Gervase of Tilbury tells the story of people leaving a church—he doesn’t state where—and seeing an anchor fall from the sky. Soon after, sailors emerged from the clouds and tried to haul it up.   There were also beings under the water. Similar stories appear in Ireland from the 8th century. One piece of evidence was a wild man caught in nets off the Suffolk coast who did not speak and ate only raw fish. He was imprisoned in Orford Castle before escaping and vanishing into the sea. Although varied, the beings were seen as contiguous by contemporary intellectuals, who grouped them together in their chronicles and books.   There could even be sexual contact between these beings and humans. The green girl of Woolpit grew up and married a man from King’s Lynn. Walter Map tells of a knight in the age of William of Conqueror who comes across a group of tall “fairy” women dancing in woodland and falls in love with one of them. She bears a child who, to Walter’s surprise, becomes a pious benefactor of the church. St. Augustine had written of incubi, demons, and woodland spirits that seduced women. Such creatures were said to be the ancestors of Merlin in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain, who he says are not demons, but part-human and part-angel.   Medieval Cosmology St. Anselm, unknown artist, 16th century. Source: National Portrait Gallery, London   It is modern arrogance to assume that the people of medieval England—and Europe more widely—were stupid or naïve for believing in these beings. The nature and substance of the universe were carefully considered and analyzed by scholars over the centuries. It is best summarized by Anselm, an 11th-century theologian and Archbishop of Canterbury, who said that all events could be categorized into three types: those that depended on God’s power, those produced by nature “through the power God has implanted in it,” and those that came from the will of one of God’s creations. John of Salisbury also wrote that nature was always rational and logical, even if divinely willed. Nevertheless, all accepted that this natural order could be breached, for example, through the miracles of saints. These fit nicely into Anselm’s first category. Other “supernatural” phenomena were harder to categorize.   Accounts had to come from either first-hand experience, reliable witnesses, or some other form of evidence. For example, the evidence that Britain and the world had once been inhabited by giants was proven for writers like Ralph of Coggeshall by giant teeth and a commensurate rib bone found in Essex, plus the bones of a giant’s head in Yorkshire. There were contemporary throwbacks to these giants, such as a man from Wales who was “five cubits” in height. By contrast, a distinction was drawn between these stories and those that Gervase of Tilbury called the “lying tongues” of traveling minstrels. Medieval cosmologies made clear that there were angels, demons, humans, and animals, and great minds worked on categorizing and defining them.   Categorizing the Supernatural A traveling priest meets two werewolves in Ossory, Topographia Hibernica by Gerald of Wales in MS 13 B VIII, c. 1223. Source: British Library, London   These same people struggled to find explanations that were “rational” for these other beings. Some posited that they weren’t “real” in the same sense as other things. Others tried to fit them into the “demon” category. Ralph of Coggeshall thought the Suffolk wild man might be an evil spirit inhabiting a drowned man’s body. Others accepted that there were beings that might not fit into any of the known categories. William of Newburgh believed the green children of Woolpit to be “beyond the power of our weak understanding.”   Walter Map argued that these beings were spirits who followed Lucifer unwittingly during his fall. However, not being malicious or supporting the fallen angel, they instead play light-hearted japes on humanity “so that the truth is concealed by a deceptive and ludicrous semblance.” This was certainly the preferred explanation for creatures such as hobgoblins. They were considered mischievous entities of various forms who were irritating more than threatening and usually banished. In one instance, in the Blackdown Hills in Somerset, they were banished for playing pranks. In Spaldington in Yorkshire, it was for spilling the milk and re-mixing the wheat and chaff. The Portuni were similar, described by Gervase of Tilbury as enjoying traveling with solitary riders and then snatching the reins to drive the horse into a bog.   Elephant and dragon, from Harley MS 3244, c. 1236-1250. Source: British Library, London   This acceptance of the supernatural as a part of everyday life meant that things that we now find fantastical and extraordinary were treated seriously, warranting studious investigation and explanation. Werewolves were one such example of a breach between the separate categories of human and animal, where one shapeshifts into another. Gervase of Tilbury said that werewolves were common in England. Gerald of Wales recounted how the people of Ossory in Ireland had been cursed by a local saint so that two of them had to live for seven years at a time as wolves. The account was taken seriously enough that an assembly was held to discuss whether killing them would be considered a homicide.   There were also stories of women turning into snakes. A manuscript of Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy from the 12th century includes a long discussion over whether the story of Ulysses’ men transforming into animals could happen, with the author claiming that feeding humans with certain foods could cause such an event. Gerald of Wales instead drew on St. Augustine to argue that demons or wicked men could transform the physical appearance of men or animals with God’s permission, but not their true form.   Beasts and Monsters A winged dragon from MS Ludwig XV 4 (83.MR.174), fol. 94, c. 1277. Source: Getty Museum   There were also monstrous animals lurking in the wilderness. Dragons are the most notorious. England was full of accounts of their various types. Some stories follow a form, for example, the multiple stories of a knight and his dog both falling from a dragon’s venom after slaying it.   The arrival of the Vikings at Lindisfarne had, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, been heralded by the appearance of fiery dragons in the sky. The church of Nunnington, Yorkshire features a tomb with the likeness of a knight and his dog who were both killed by a dragon’s venom after slaying it in the nearby Loschy Wood. Some, like the Loshy and Kellington dragons, were serpentine and venomous. Others, like those seen fighting over Waverley in Surrey in 1222 or those that portended the arrival of the Vikings in Lindisfarne in 793, were flying fire-breathers.   Angels and Demons Plaque with Censing Angels, c. 1170-1180. Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York   Angels and demons, of course, were present in England. Both were considered superior to humans in the chain of being, with higher intellects and greater powers over the natural world. The fallen status of demons did not diminish their abilities or superiority. A man from County Durham was pursued home one night by a pack of black dogs. When he looked out his window, they had merged into one enormous dog, who promptly jumped through the window, into his mouth, and possessed him, exorcised only by a miracle of St. Cuthbert. A hermit on Farne was tempted by a devil who shapeshifted through a variety of animals.   William of Corbeil, who was later to be Archbishop of Canterbury, was surrounded on his sickbed by a group of demons who laughed about what they would do to his soul, only to be told by a woman who suddenly appeared—who he later realized to be the Virgin Mary—that Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael would fight them for it. The demons went away but returned, armed, in greater numbers, only to be denied again by the Virgin, who was then replaced herself by the archangels. Others had less renowned guardian angels. One Yorkshire peasant forgot to make the sign of the cross before sleep. He was only saved from two predatory demons by an angel in the form of a glimmering young warrior. “Everyone,” wrote one English priest with the Second Crusade, “has a guardian angel assigned to him.”   Stories such as this should bring home to us that belief in such creatures did not imply stupidity. These beings who did not fit into the orthodox order of the world were held to be true by all, whether they were accomplished clergymen, great kings, valiant knights, or everyday laborers. In fact, the more learned you were, the more you were familiar with the infinite power of God and the history of his works. Consequently, it was not much of a stretch to believe, as Robert Bartlett puts it, that “below the Essex fields, within the Yorkshire barrows, and beyond the Suffolk shore were creatures who lived an alien life of their own.”   Select Bibliography   “The Serpent Legends of Yorkshire,” The Leisure Hour, vol. 72, no. 1375 (May 4, 1878)   J. Carey (1992) “Aerial Ships and Underwater Monasteries: The Evolution of a Monastic Marvel,” Proceedings of the Harvard Celtic Colloquium, 12:16-28.   J. Stephenson (ed.) (1875) Ralph of Coggeshall: Chronicon Anglicanum, Cambridge.   R. Bartlett (2000) England under the Norman and Angevin Kings, 1075-1225. Oxford.   T. Forester (ed.) (2000) Giraldus Cambrensis: The Topography of Ireland, Cambridge, Ontario.   T. Parkinson (1889) Yorkshire Legends and Traditions, as Told by Her Ancient Chroniclers, Her Poets, and Journalists, London.

  On March 18th, 1314, Jasque de Molay, the 23rd Grand Master of the monastic order of the Knights Templar, was burned at the stake on an island in the middle of the river Seine. After years and years of torture, confessions of heresy, and trial, the 23rd Grand Master of one of Christiandom’s most famed military orders was slowly roasted in front of massive crowds in Paris, France.   Some in the crowd must have been confused about this turn of events. Molay was in his late 60s, was a member of the French nobility, a devout Catholic, and along with the rest of his order had pledged his life in defense of Christian lands. And yet, despite all of this, his execution was ordered by a French king and approved by none other than the pope himself. Not because he really was a heretic, but because he owed money to the king who had one of history’s most infamous popes in his pocket—Clement V.   The Vintner Who Became Pope Portrait of Pope Clement V, by Henri Auguste César Serrur, 19th century. Source: Wikimedia Commons   The man who turned a blind eye to the torture and execution of Molay and the other members of his order was born Bertrand de Got to a prominent wine-making family in the Bordeaux region of France. He grew up accustomed to the finer things in life, studying art in Toulouse, and civil law in Orleans, and thanks to his family connections he was handed church office after church office eventually rising to Archbishop of Bordeaux in 1297.   Despite being named to lead the region’s church, he found the arts and enology much more engaging endeavors. Bertrand would have happily continued pruning his vines and decorating cathedrals while ignoring his congregation, but events in far-off Rome soon changed all of that.   For many years the church had been at odds with King Philip IV of France. Philip, who was known as “the Fair” due to his voluminous blond locks, had become embroiled in a costly war with England, and so had decided to raise taxes on the Church in order to fund this ongoing conflict.   This did not sit well with the supreme pontiff at the time Boniface XIII, who had a habit of inserting himself into the political issues of his day and selling church offices (which is why author Dante predicted he would end up in the eighth circle of hell).   Rulers across Europe had quarreled with Boniface XIII, but none had a bigger axe to grind than France’s Philip. When Philip ignored the pope’s official edicts and arrested members of the clergy who opposed his use of church funds for his wars, Boniface XIII responded by issuing the Unam Sanctam, a bull that declared his “total supremacy over earthly rulers.”   Philip IV of France, 1850. Source: Picryl   Needless to say, this didn’t go over well, and the conflict became more and more intense over the ensuing years with Boniface eventually excommunicating the French king and Philip responding by ordering an army to kidnap and imprison the pesky pope.   With all of this going on, it is obvious why, in July of 1304 when Boniface’s successor Benedict XI died, suddenly and quite conveniently if you happen to be a certain French monarch, the College of Cardinals was very concerned about who should be elected next. There was a divide between those who wanted to continue defending the Church’s interests and those who wanted to placate France’s king as a way of de-escalating what they viewed as a nobody-wins scenario.   Eventually, the faction looking to ameliorate the conflict won out and elected Bertrand. This was a bit of a surprise because as an Archbishop he wasn’t even a member of the college. So why did the Cardinals decide to elect someone outside their ranks?   Maybe nobody wanted to put themselves in the office and feel the wrath of Europe’s most powerful monarch, or maybe it was because he was well known to have been a childhood friend of the French king. He became Clement V in 1305 and then almost immediately rolled over and showed Philip his belly.   The King’s Pope The Papal Palace at Avignon, France. Source: Wikimedia Commons   Soon after his election, Clement went to work revoking Philip’s excommunication and almost every single papal decree the king had taken issue with. He reversed the Unam Sanctum, gave away Church lands to the king for a pittance and even moved the seat of the papacy to Avignon so Philip could keep an eye on what the Church was up to.   And if that wasn’t enough, he also consented to having his predecessor Boniface XIII put on trial posthumously for all sorts of likely false crimes. The trial ended when two knights invited anyone who questioned the late pope’s morality to trial by combat and, predictably, there were no takers.   While these moves were obviously questionable and done under what was surely extreme pressure and copious threats, they paled in comparison to what Clement V would do, or rather wouldn’t do, when Philip decided it was time to eradicate the Knights Templar.   The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and the Temple Solomon Jacques de Molay, of the Knights Templar, 19th century. Source: Wikimedia Commons   The Knights Templars were a Roman Catholic military order formed in the early 1100s to provide protection for Christian pilgrims traveling to the Holy Land. Deriving their name from the location of their headquarters atop the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and once being so poor they relied on donations to feed themselves, by the time Clement V had been elevated as the heir of Saint Peter the order had undergone dramatic changes.   Once used as heavily armored shock troops, they were eventually pushed out of the Middle East together when the Muslim world was able to unite under leaders like the legendary Saladin and the Fatimid Dynasty. While its original mission was now impossible, they left with a large and well-established network of castles, forts, and strongholds from which they were able to shift their focus from fighting to finance.   During the crusades, nobles and pilgrims alike could deposit their money at one of the many Templar houses and banks across Europe and receive a letter of credit in return which could be cashed in once they reached the Holy Land in what could be considered an early checking account. Even after the order had abandoned the region, their systems continued to be used and made them insanely wealthy, allowing them to easily pivot into the money lending business, with many of Europe’s biggest monarchs utilizing loans of Templar gold to pay for all sorts of things. And there was nobody taking out bigger loans than their biggest customers—Philip IV.   Arrest of the Templars, 12th-13th century. Source: British Library   Philip had taken out a boatload of loans from Templar-run banks to finance his wars with England, and the receipts were starting to come due. But the French king didn’t have the resources to pay back all those loans, which was of little consequence because he also never had any intention of paying back the money he owed, at least not while he had an ally in the papal robes, and together they hatched one of the most infamous double-crosses in the history of the Church.   In 1306, Clement V, most likely at the behest of his old friend Philip, invited the leaders of the Templar order to France to discuss a new crusade and some other matters. Grand Master De Molay arrived first but many of the others who were invited were arriving from across Europe and were delayed so the entire conference took much longer than expected, providing plenty of time for Philip to execute his plan. He had arrest warrants sent across his kingdom with orders to open them simultaneously on a very specific date and time.   The moment arrived one morning in mid-October as dawn broke. Templars were simultaneously arrested all across France and those who resisted were put to the sword. They faced a plethora of charges including worshiping mummified cats, homosexual relations, spitting on the cross, and even “indecent kissing.” Almost all of these charges were trumped up by Philip as a way to dodge paying what he owed and allowing him to seize Templar-owned lands.   Two Templars Burned at the Stake, illustration from a 15th-century French manuscript. Source: British Library   Once in French custody, Templars were subjected to days of torture, including systematic starvation, burning the soles of their feet, and other acts so horrifying that before long the imprisoned Templars were confessing to all manner of irrational charges. Even when some like De Molay later recanted their forced confessions, before any of them could mount any kind of a defense the king had them burned at the stake as heretics.   Clement V, who could have spoken up on behalf of his faithful defenders, instead became a collaborator, issuing a papal decree that disbanded the order, in large part due to Philip threatening military action. Those who weren’t found guilty made their way into other military orders, and by 1312 the Templars were more or less dissolved along with King Philips’s debts.   To be fair, there are historians who would disagree with this interpretation of Clement’s lack of action. It could be argued that having inherited a deeply divided Church, as evidenced by the revolt of Venice that sprung up soon after he took office, he had no choice but to give into Philip’s demands and betray the Templars in order to hold the Church together.   Regardless of his true motives, the degree to which Clement rolled over for Philip crippled the political clout of the papal office for good and his total acquiescence to Philip meant that Clement V’s name continues to live in infamy, as does the date of the Templars’ unlucky betrayal—Friday the 13th.

  Just south of Washington DC lies a 15,000-acre oasis of piedmont forest that, despite being less than an hour from the nation’s capital, feels like another planet. Every summer, the park’s tall trees and meandering streams welcome thousands of visitors, including hundreds of summer campers who spend their days hiking, learning archery, and making friendship bracelets. Summers have gone on like this for nearly 100 years, with one short deviation. During World War II, the trees and streams played host to a very different kind of “summer camp,” one where the cabins were filled with campers who learned how to make explosives, crack codes, and strangle people with piano wire.   First There Was a Forest Forest Park. Source: The National Parks Service   Once part of an expansive forest that covered most of eastern North America, Prince William Forest was first inhabited by members of the Algonquin-speaking people over 8,000 years ago. They called the area Chopawamsic. Drawn to the area because of its rich resources, the first people of the area lived and hunted in the endless forest of hardwoods like oak, hickory, and chestnut.   As the Indigenous population was reduced by conflict and disease, settlers began to move into the area, and by the early 1800s, there was a sizable community of both Black and white settlers that grew over time thanks to the development of a nearby pyrite mine that operated until the outbreak of the Great Depression.   It was at this point that the federal government began buying up property and displacing the area’s families looking to turn the forest into a recreation area for poor urban youth. As federal agents tried to buy off or run off as many of the original settlers as they could, the Civilian Conservation Corp spent the better part of the 1930s building five separate camps that were managed by different community groups such as the YMCA and the Girl Scouts as well as family camps for impoverished Black families, spaced out around the forest to adhere to Virginia’s segregation laws.   This Recreational Demonstration Area was one of 24 managed by the National Parks Service and probably would have continued to host youth camps for many more years, but then in 1941, something unexpected happened: the Empire of Japan decided to bomb an isolated American naval base in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.   USS Arizona burning at Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941. Source: National Archives   After the US officially entered World War II, the country and all its resources and assets were realigned to support the war effort, including Prince William Forest. The summer camps were relocated, the last of the area’s residents who tried to hold on to their land were removed by force, and the properties and buildings that once made up the camp were turned over to a newly established intelligence agency—the Office of Strategic Services or OSS.   The OSS OSS Insignia. Source: Wikimedia Commons   At the time Pearl Harbor was bombed, US intelligence services were, to put it mildly, a mess. The Army and Navy both had their own intelligence operations going, as did the FBI, and nobody was doing a particularly good job of info sharing.   Since the outbreak of the war in Europe, the US had been mulling over the idea of a clandestine service modeled after Great Britain’s MI6 that combined both intelligence gathering and a commando unit focused on sabotage, disinformation, and guerrilla tactics. After the surprise attack on Hawaii, the mulling stopped, and FDR created the agency in June of 1942, immediately appointing William J Donovan to run it.   William Donovan, 1928. Source: Library of Congress   Donovan was a perfect choice as he was both a battle-tested warrior and a gentleman who easily traveled through the upper echelons of Washington society. His exploits during WWI were the stuff of legends and earned him the nickname “Wild Bill,” while his work for the Justice Department and in politics garnered him a great deal of respect. He also possessed a stalwart moral compass, as evidenced by how he used his connections to save Jews he had worked with as Fascism took hold in Europe. He even argued with FDR against Japanese internment, saying that it addressed a security problem that didn’t exist and would do more harm than good by providing propaganda for the enemy.   Donovan was also the natural choice to run a combined intelligence/special operations service as he had long been researching the idea and had spent the years in the run-up to US entry in the war working closely with his business connections in the UK to create the organizational blueprint that would eventually be used to create it. Today, his ideas and foresight are widely credited for laying the foundation for the Central Intelligence Agency and the entire US intelligence apparatus, which is probably why there is a statue of him at CIA headquarters in Langley.   Prince William Forest Park. Source: Wikimedia Commons   But in 1942, the statues were a long way off, and Donovan moved fast to build his service and recruit members who would be turned into spies and commandos. He enlisted assistants who scoured the country for Americans who could handle the rigors of clandestine service and who had traveled or lived abroad, meaning his recruits were generally men under the age of 30 and a mix of foreign immigrants or those from affluent families and universities.   Eventually, the OSS would employ nearly 13,000 people, but first, they needed to be trained somewhere away from Washington DC, in a place that could obfuscate their activities and that wouldn’t require Donovan to waste time building facilities.   Spy Camp OSS Firearms Instruction. Source: The National Archives   Initially, the idea of turning national parkland into training camps for spies met pushback, but by March 1942, two members of the OSS arrived unannounced at the park to inspect the site and its facilities while a nervous and bewildered park superintendent, unsure what else to do, provided them with the rules of conduct for the park which somewhat laughably reminded visitors to stay on established trails and banned guns and explosives inside the park.   By April, the OSS had officially moved into Prince William Forest and nearby Catoctin Mountain in Maryland, and soon both parks were closed to the public and surrounded by a barbed wire fence and dog patrols protecting the perimeter.   Recruits began to arrive and were immediately placed under strict, almost draconian rules of conduct. All OSS recruits were required to use assumed names in order to protect their identity, were prohibited from gathering in groups of more than four, and were under constant surveillance, even as they slept. All the cabins in the camp were bugged and monitored by teams of psychologists who used what they heard and saw to build profiles for each operative to ensure they were mentally capable of tackling even the most grueling of missions.   Area C Map. Source: The National Parks Service   The OSS camp was subdivided into different areas based on the training that was going on. Cabin camps 1 and 4, or Area C, were where the code breakers and communications operators were trained. In this area, they were trained to crack enemy codes, pass on intelligence even under the worst conditions, and were schooled in the art of “black propaganda,” spreading misinformation or self-defeating messaging that on the surface seemed to come from within enemy organizations. The men in this camp would go on to operate listening stations and outposts across the globe during the war and would play a hand in many of America’s most famous moments, such as Operation Torch and the D-Day landings at Normandy.   Across the park in Area A, the OSS trained men to be commandos and saboteurs. They were instructed in close combat tactics, lock picking, weapons, and how to extract information from enemies through interrogation. Additionally, they used the forest to fine-tune the stealth and camouflage skills, which they would later use to wreak havoc behind enemy lines. To fine-tune these skills, they would take outings to nearby towns where they would perfect their spycraft by practicing it on unsuspecting residents.   Return to the Park Service  Summer Camp, the young men of Camp Lichtman gather in front of the camp administration building. Source: National Parks Service   While the OSS contributed to many Allied victories during the war, it lost the postwar battle in Washington DC. As 1944 wound down and it became clear that victory in both Europe and the Pacific were assured, the OSS was disbanded despite the efforts of Donovan to frame them as an asset to preserving ongoing peace.   By October of 1945, the OSS was effectively disbanded, and the process of turning Prince William Forest back over to the National Park Service began. The park rangers returned and, with the help of nearby army engineers, began the process of reopening the park by removing what the OSS left behind, like some buildings, a weapons range, and even live minefields. Organized camping resumed soon after the war ended, and before long the park looked much like it did prior to the war.   This history and the park’s role in the final Allied victory were largely unknown until 1992, when the National Archives released its records and photographs taken by the OSS. Today, the park celebrates this part of its history through periodic reenactments as well as a “spy camp” for kids held every summer.

The Prince Of Darkness will step onstage for the last time at Birmingham’s Villa Park on July 5