Browsing: December

A Brief History On December 23, 2013, Mikhail Kalashnikov, Soviet designer of the AK-47 assault rifle and its entire family of spin-off products, died at the age of 94 in Izhevsk, Russia.  Before his death, he wrote to the Russian Orthodox Church about his personal doubts about having designed guns that killed so many people. In fact, about 100 million of his guns have been made, more than any other design.  Is Kalashnikov the “greatest firearms designer?  We list a few others to compare him with. Digging Deeper Samuel Colt, who perfected the revolver, and of him is said, “God…

A Brief History This article presents a chronological list of notable events that happened on December 22nd.  For each date below, please click on the date to be taken to an article covering that date’s event. Digging Deeper On December 22, 69 AD, the reigning Emperor of Rome, Vitellius, was captured and murdered on the Gemonian Stairs in Rome, proving once again how dangerous it was to be a Roman Emperor. On December 22, 1880, English writer George Eliot, author of such novels as Adam Bede and Silas Marner, died at the age of 61 of a throat infection and…

A Brief History On December 22, 1975, President Gerald Ford ordered a national stockpile of oil, or petroleum if you prefer, be created in underground storage located in Texas and Louisiana.  The stockpile would consist of as many as 714 million barrels of oil and would be there if a national crisis mandated its use. Digging Deeper During the October 1973 Arab-Israeli War, Arab and Muslim oil producing countries followed Saudi Arabia’s lead to embargo oil from nations aiding Israel, most notably the United States.  International oil prices soared from an average of $3 per barrel to $12 per barrel…

A Brief History This article presents a chronological list of notable events that happened on December 21st.  For each date below, please click on the date to be taken to an article covering that date’s event. Digging Deeper On December 21, 1898, the chemical element radium (Ra) was discovered by Pierre and Marie Curie who had isolated it from uranium. On December 21, 1936,  the Nazi German concept of a “schnellbomber” (fast bomber) that could outrun most fighter planes took to the air when the prototype Junkers Ju-88 made its first flight, achieving a remarkable (for the time) speed of 360…

A Brief History On December 21, 1988, the giant Soviet cargo jet, the Antonov An-225 Mriya, made its maiden flight.  Heavier than any airplane before or since, and with a wingspan longer than any production aircraft, the An-225 was intended to carry mass quantities of military cargo, outsized items, and to transport the Buran-class orbiter space vehicles. Digging Deeper Built as an enlargement of the already large An-124, only a single flying copy of the An-225 was ever completed.  A second airframe was started, but not finished. The dimensions of the An-225 were 84 meters long, an 88.4 meter wingspan,…