Browsing: Travel

A Brief History On May 17, 1970, Norwegian adventurer Thor Heyerdahl’s boat made of reeds in the ancient way set sail across the Atlantic Ocean to prove people from North Africa could have reached the New World by boat. Digging Deeper Heyerdahl, born in 1914, was already famous for his 1947 voyage from South America to Polynesia on his balsa wood raft, Kon-Tiki, proving Native South Americans could have traveled to Polynesia, thus being the source for the population there. Making the nearly 5000 mile trip in 101 days, the Kon-Tiki voyage prompted other adventurers to replicate the voyage, and…

A Brief History On May 12, 1926, just a few days after Richard Byrd allegedly flew over the North Pole, the semi-rigid airship, Norge, did fly over the North Pole with 16 men and a dog, becoming the first men to reach the North Pole.  (Previous efforts have been discounted as failures due to inaccurate navigation or fraud.)  The Italian designed and multinational manned Norge did not get the fame it deserved, so here we list 10 of the most famous aircraft in human history.  Digging Deeper 10. Vostok 1, 1961.  This Soviet space capsule was the first one to carry a…

A Brief History On May 9, 1980, in a scene out of horror movie the freighter MV Summit Venture collided with a support pier of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge that spanned 4.1 miles across Tampa Bay in Florida. Digging Deeper The bridge roadway soared 165 feet above the water built in 1954. In 1971 a parallel span was built to carry southbound traffic only and the older span became northbound only. In a heavy thunderstorm that reduced visibility to near zero, the 580 foot long 19,000 ton Summit Venture bulk carrier blundered into a support pier in the middle of…

A Brief History On April 30, 1961, the Soviet Navy commissioned their first nuclear armed submarine, the K-19, later made famous in the 2002 movie, K-19: The Widowmaker.  Other ships have had movie titles featuring their name, and we have 10 prominent ones listed here. Digging Deeper 10. Battleship Potemkin, 1925. A silent film about the revolt on board the battleship in 1905 that eventually led to the Russian revolution and the overthrow of the Czar.  Considered a propaganda film, it was named by the Brussels World Fair in 1958 as the greatest movie of all time.  Many modern movies…

A Brief History On February 24, 1989, 9 of the 337 passengers on United Flight 811 exited the flight early to their untimely deaths. Digging Deeper Digging deeper, we find the giant Boeing 747 airliner heading for Sydney, Australia, having originated in San Francisco. The giant airplane was only about 16 minutes into its flight after takeoff from its stopover in Honolulu and at about 22,000 feet when a cargo door suddenly and violently popped open! The door was of the kind that swings outward when opened and was secured with electronic latches, possibly the source of the failure.  As the…