A Brief History On March 9, 2020, we take a look at some of today’s technology that is not celebrated the way some previous inventions have been. Virtually everyone knows that Edison invented the light bulb and Bell invented the telephone, but we ask, who knows the inventor of the touch screen? Who invented the computer chip? Who came up with GPS? Today we take a few selected modern devices and tell you a little about how they came about. What would you add to this list? (Note: Not being scientists ourselves, some of the technology in this article is…
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A Brief History On March 6, 1975, entranced Americans were glued to their television sets to watch the first mass public showing of the infamous “Zapruder Film” that depicted the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. According to US Government reports, a single gunman acting alone, Lee Harvey Oswald, used a World War II surplus Italian bolt action rifle that he bought mail order. The 6.5×52mm caliber Carcano Model 91/38 cost Oswald only $19.95 (plus shipping) and it even included an attached riflescope! Today we take a look at 10 guns that will live in infamy. …
A Brief History On March 5, 1872, George Westinghouse patented the air brake, a system for use with railroad trains. Prior to his invention, the brakes on trains had to be operated by a brakeman individually turning a large brake wheel on each car. With the Westinghouse system, the engineer could have all the cars in his train brake at the same time, allowing for safer train travel and longer trains. Air brakes also revolutionized the trucking industry, as prior to their adoption the use of trucks in mountainous terrain was rather dangerous. Like many other unsung inventions, air brakes…
A Brief History On March 2, 1962, Wilt Chamberlain, center for the Philadelphia Warriors, scored an National Basketball Association (NBA) single-game record of 100 points against the New York Knicks. To put this in perspective, at that time, the only other player to have scored 70 or more points in a single game was Elgin Baylor with 71 points. This performance put Chamberlain so far ahead of any other scoring flurry that he was truly in a class by himself. In the 53 years since then, no other player has approached his record, with the closest effort being Kobe Bryant’s…
A Brief History On February 21, 1245, the first known Bishop of Finland, Thomas, confessed to charges of forging a Papal letter and torturing a man to death, among other felonies, and was allowed to resign his post. Far from an isolated case, many church and religious leaders over the centuries have proven to be crooks, hypocrites, con artists, charlatans, sexual predators and profiteers, among other nefarious tendencies. Many religious leaders have been the driving force behind terrorist activities, have been collaborators with brutal regimes, helped persecute and murder people of other religions, have covered up wrong doing by others,…