A Brief History On January 14, 1950, the MiG-17 Soviet jet fighter made its first flight, a plane that would go on to become the 3rd most produced jet fighter in aviation history. (With 11,060 built, only the MiG-15 and MiG-21 outnumbered it.) Digging Deeper A single engine high subsonic fighter, the MiG-17 was known by its NATO designation Fresco. It was basically an upgraded MiG-15, simple, rugged, reliable, and packing a punch of 2 X 23 mm cannons and 1 X 37 mm cannon, heavier armament than the 6 X .50 caliber machine guns typically found on early US…
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A Brief History On January 13, 1942, automobile pioneer and magnate Henry Ford of the Ford Motor Company patented the plastic automobile. This innovative car was built mostly of soybean derived plastics around a tubular metal frame, and for good measure ran on ethanol instead of gasoline! Digging Deeper Ford’s futuristic car was not built for production, but later cars would be made of fiberglass and plastic bodies (notably Corvette, Saturn, Lotus and Studebaker Avanti), and today we are seeing increased use of carbon fiber in auto construction. Henry Ford did not invent the automobile, but his innovations and aggressive…
A Brief History On January 12, 2006, during the ceremony associated with the final day of the Hajj (annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca), 362 Muslim pilgrims were stampeded to death in a sudden movement of the vast crowd. The Stoning of the Devil takes place in Mina, outside of Mecca. Digging Deeper The annual Hajj gets enormous crowds of Muslims from around the world to Mecca in Saudi Arabia, with as many as 500,000 people crossing one small bridge in only an hour! This sort of crowd density is highly dangerous and even minor crowd movement often results in large…
A Brief History On January 11, 2003, Illinois Governor George Ryan commuted the death sentences of 167 convicted murderers in Illinois prisons due to the scandal of Chicago Police Detective Jon Burge having allegedly tortured confessions out of the then suspects. Digging Deeper Burge, a Vietnam Veteran and US Army soldier who earned a Bronze Star and Purple Heart in Vietnam had joined the Chicago Police Department in 1970 while only 22 years old. Burge had a spectacular police career, becoming a Detective in 1972 and promoted to Lieutenant, gaining command of a Violent Crimes unit, then Bomb and Arson…
A Brief History On January 9, 2015, a southern African funeral in the country of Mozambique was the horror scene of a mass (believed intentional) poisoning in which 75 people died and another nearly 200 were hospitalized. Reports said the mourners were poisoned when they drank beer that had been spiked with crocodile bile (There is such a thing?). Digging Deeper People from the villages of Chitima and Songo were at the funeral drinking the traditional beer brewed for the occasion, a concoction of sorghum, corn, sugar and bran with a type of yeast unlike that used in European brewing. …