Browsing: August

A Brief History On August 2, 1916, the Italian battleship Leonardo da Vinci was sunk in its own harbor at Taranto courtesy of Austrian sabotage.  The mighty battleship was only 2 years old and was sunk by a magazine explosion, a sorry end to a capital ship.  The Italian military and its Roman predecessors have had plenty of notable military triumphs over the years, but seem to have a reputation for disaster despite that.  Here we list 10 Italian Military Disasters or Catastrophes.  (Note: We are tempted to count World War I and World War II as 2 complete disasters…

A Brief History On August 1, 1911, Harriet Quimby of Michigan became the first woman in the United States to be awarded an Aviator’s Certificate by the Aero Club of America (ACA).  She had become interested in aviation and first started flying in 1910 after working as a New York theater critic and screenwriter for 7 Hollywood silent movies, all directed by the famous D.W. Griffith. Digging Deeper Quimby became the first woman in history to fly across the English Channel in 1912, with her great accomplishment overlooked by a public engrossed in the news story of the sinking of…

 A Brief History On August 17, 1966, the US Congress passed the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act, which in conjunction with the Highway Safety Act has greatly reduced traffic injuries and deaths in the United States. Digging Deeper In 1966, traffic deaths in the US reached a staggering 50,894, or 25.9 traffic deaths per 100,000 population, both records at the time.  The creation of the National Highway Safety Bureau (later changed to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) and implementation of safety measures concerning the building and marking of roads, the performance and safety features of cars, and…

A Brief History On August 31, 1854, a seminal moment in the history of illness and scientific application of anti-disease efforts struck the Broad Street area of Soho, London, England, when a severe cholera outbreak began.  Before it was over, 626 people would die of the disease, but scientific study of the outbreak would lead to the saving of millions of lives in the future.  (Note: The neighborhood of the outbreak is now known as Carnaby Street.) Digging Deeper Small outbreaks of cholera had plagued London in 1854, and on August 31 the Broad Street area was hit.  The cholera…

A Brief History On August 31, 1965, fans of super-different airplanes could add another oddity to their list when the Aero Spacelines Super Guppy made its first flight.  A bulbous looking whale of an airplane, the Super Guppy was the successor to the Pregnant Guppy, an equally goofy looking giant cargo plane. Digging Deeper As stated above, the Super Guppy had been developed from the Pregnant Guppy which in turn was based on the C-97 military cargo plane, itself based on the Boeing 377 airliner which in turn was originally based on the B-29 Superfortress bomber.  (It would appear Boeing…