As audiences in the East were used to science finding fantastic new things, it hardly seemed impossible to a person in the 19th century that the country had once been inhabited by giants, or that ancient, incredible civilizations could still lie undiscovered in the vast west. Some newspaper writers were more than happy to simply make great discoveries up, and readers just as happy to take them at their word.
In August of 1944 the allies were rushing to "cork the bottle" of the Falaise pocket. For the men of the First Polish Armored Division, Normandy was not merely a campaign to liberate France; it was a personal reckoning with the regime that had shattered their homeland.