A Brief History On June 25, 1923, Lt. John Richter and Capt. Lowell Smith of the US Army performed the first aerial refueling of an airplane in flight in their DH-4B. Here we list 10 groundbreaking (pun intended) aviation firsts, not necessarily the most important, but hopefully interesting ones. Digging Deeper 10. Sophie Blanchard, 1st Woman Aviation Fatality, 1819. Putting on an exhibition at the Tivoli Gardens in Paris, Blanchard was flying a Balloon and shooting fireworks, which predictably ignited the gas (hydrogen) in the balloon causing it to crash, killing Sophie. Blanchard was also the first woman balloonist and…
Browsing: June 25
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A Brief History On June 25, 1976, the Governor of Missouri, Christopher Bond, signed an executive order rescinding Executive Order 44, better known as “The Extermination Order.” Executive Order 44 had been issued by then Governor Lilburn Boggs (“Lilburn”???) ordering that a force of 400 mounted men be raised to “exterminate or be driven from the state” all Mormons (Latter Day Saints). Digging Deeper Governor Boggs (and many other Missourians) believed the Mormon religion and practices to be an abomination and them to be in open defiance of state laws. He further ordered the amount of men detailed to exterminate the Mormons…
A Brief History On June 25, 1998, the US Supreme Court voted 6-3 to strike down the Line Item Veto Act of 1996. It is said that politics makes for strange bedfellows, and this attempt to stifle congressional pork barrel tactics was an example of just that. Digging Deeper After Democrat Bill Clinton was elected President in 1992, the Republicans mounted a major surge in the mid-term elections of 1994 and achieved their dreamed of majority in congress. One promise these Republicans had made was to enact a line item veto law allowing the President to veto only a specific…
A Brief History On June 25, 1940, the day France surrendered to the Nazis, Germany began planning the invasion of Switzerland in Operation Tannenbaum. Digging Deeper Between June and October of 1940, a plan was worked out that called for German divisions to invade Switzerland from the North and for Italian divisions to invade from the South, with both sides annexing the respective German/French and Italian parts. The operation kept getting delayed, however, and after the Allied invasion at Normandy on D-Day, it was cancelled for good. The Swiss knew the German were planning to invade them. In fact, in…
A Brief History On June 25, 1843, Marie Anne Lenormand, France’s most famous fortune teller and cartomancer (card reader), died. Digging Deeper Born in 1772 and educated at a convent school in Alençon, she moved to Paris sometime between 1786 and 1790 and set up a type of office for clairvoyance. Early clients included the heads of the French Revolution (Marat, Robespierre and Saint-Just). She is said to have predicted their violent demise. Her imprisonment by the Committee of Public Safety which had been created by the National Convention and which formed the de facto executive government during the Reign…