Post #370212 by tikipedia on Sun, Mar 30, 2008 8:32 AM

On 2008-03-29 21:46, 1961surf wrote:
The 1914 I believe has some significance
of a year that Duke Kahanamoku won a race or special medal fr Olympics.

It may be the date on the Duke medal refers to a relevant date in his life, but the 1914 date was also on the World War 1 iteration of the Iron Cross.

The date on Iron Crosses refers to the iteration date of the medal (not date it was awarded to a recipient), and there have been 4 dates: 1813 (Napolenoic Wars), 1870 (Franco-Prussian War), 1914 (WW1), and 1939 (WW2).

The 'W' in the original Iron Cross refered to the Emperor's initial (Wilhelm). The crown at top is the Hohenzollern crown. The oak leaves were included in the original two iterations of the medal, but replaced with the 'W' in WW1, and a swastika in WW2. The West German government issued a denazified version of the Iron Cross in 1957, which reinstated the oak leaves in place of the swastika on the 1939 medal.

The Tikipedia
www.tikipedia.com

[ Edited by: tikipedia 2008-03-30 08:36 ]