A Brief history On July 17, 1955, Anaheim, California watched as Walt Disney dedicated and opened Disneyland, at the time, the premier amusement park in the world. The US has a long history of fine amusement parks, certainly making the US the amusement park capital of the world. Here we list 10 great parks, not necessarily the biggest, but 10 that draw the most people each year, and that we think you would especially enjoy visiting. Digging Deeper 10. Six Flags Magic Mountain, California (Valencia). With 19 roller coasters, more than any other park in the world, this place gives…
Browsing: July
Read More
A Brief History On July 17, 1944, US P-38 fighter bombers dropped napalm bombs on a German Army fuel depot near St. Lo in Normandy, France, one of the earliest uses of napalm. Napalm a mixture of gasoline and a thickening agent (several formulas) is used as a flame weapon that stubbornly sticks to anything it comes in contact with, greatly increasing its lethality against humans and effectiveness in catching things on fire. Digging Deeper One of the iconic products closely associated with the US by the rest of the world, napalm was developed secretly in 1942 during World War…
A Brief History On July 16, 1862 and July 16, 1882, we commemorate the birthdays of 2 significant African-American women, Ida B. Wells (who first developed statistics on lynching in the US) and Violette Neatley Anderson (the first African-American woman to practice law before the United States Supreme Court). In honor of these historic Black American Women, today we choose to highlight the accomplishments of Seven Great Black American Men, people that young Americans can look up to, especially African-American youths. The order listed has no significance. Digging Deeper 7. Booker T. Washington. A multi-faceted man as an educator, author,…
A Brief History On July 16, 1945, Manhattan Project scientists held their breath as the clock ticked down to the first man-made nuclear blast in history. Digging Deeper Over a period of almost six years from its feeble first steps (3 years as a project in earnest), through 130,000 people working on the project and $2 billion taxpayer dollars the finest scientists in the world had developed methods of enriching uranium to a state where its nucleus could be split and creating plutonium, the two materials needed for the two different types of atomic weapons being considered. The uranium device would be…
A Brief History On July 16, 1969, Apollo 11 blasted off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. This spacecraft would take 3 American astronauts to the Moon, landing 2 on its surface and return all 3 safely to Earth, less than a decade after the first manned space flight. The US and Americans have achieved many great things, and here we list 10 of them. Not all significant inventions or achievements are necessarily for humanitarian purposes, some of them are for war. Some, like DDT and the polio vaccines saved millions of lives. We list 10 that we think you…