Author: Dr. Zar

A Brief History On November 2, 1947, eccentric airplane designer Howard Hughes performed the maiden and only flight of his Spruce Goose (also known as the H-4 The Hercules), the largest fixed-wing aircraft ever built. Digging Deeper Howard Hughes was a veritable renaissance man.   The businessman dabbled in everything from film making to flying.  One of the wealthiest men of his day, he had a net worth of $1.5 billion at the time of his death.  A man of such wealth and such diverse interests is not surprisingly going to sometimes use that wealth for attempting to make his most…

A Brief History On November 1, 1896, a picture showing the unclad or bare breasts of a woman appeared in National Geographic magazine for the first time in the publication’s long history. Digging Deeper National Geographic is one of the world’s most respected and outright useful magazines.  Founded in 1888, the National Geographic Society has expanded to have a magazine with a U.S. readership of 4,125,152 and international readership of 875,962 (as of December 2012) in addition to its own television network and even video games.  The scientific and historical work done by its members have brought about numerous breakthroughs…

A Brief History One of the world’s most widely celebrated holidays occurs today: Halloween! Digging Deeper To begin to learn about Halloween, we encourage you to consider the Top 10 Halloween Symbols and What They Mean and watch the following short video: Now that you know some of the history of the holiday, if you are staying home on Halloween night, you may want to enjoy the Top 10 Funny Halloween Movies. If instead, you are going to a Halloween party and are an adult, you may want to avoid wearing one of the Top 10 Embarrassing Halloween Costumes but might…

A Brief History On October 31, 1944, Dr. jur. Erich Göstl, a member of the Waffen SS, was awarded the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross, to recognize extreme battlefield bravery for losing his face and eyes during the Battle of Normandy during World War II and continuing to fight while blind. Digging Deeper It is easy to dismiss Nazi Germany for its evil war crimes and the popular culture stereotypes of Germans during that dark moment in human history.  Indeed, even this article is not intended to offer any praise to that ultimately failed state, but rather to remember…

A Brief History On October 30, 1961, the Soviet Union detonated the hydrogen bomb Tsar Bomba over an archipelago in the Arctic Ocean in the North of Russia; at 50 megatons of yield, it is still the largest explosive device ever detonated, nuclear or otherwise by humankind! Digging Deeper Roughly a year before the Cuban Missile Crisis threatened to plunge the world into a nuclear world war in which both sides possessed large arsenals of weapons of annihilation, the Soviets showed off their nuclear potential by testing the “Tsar Bomb”. The bomb weighed 27,000 kilograms (60,000 lb) and was 8…