Browsing: Lists

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 12, 1932, the lifeless body of Charles Lindbergh Jr. was found, about 6 weeks after he had been kidnapped from his crib. The kidnapping and murder of the child of “Lucky Lindy,” the first man to fly across the Atlantic Ocean non-stop was called at the time “The Crime of The Century.” (Remember, at that time Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls had not yet been made!) History has been marked by abductions of famous people and by famous abductions of people. Here we list 10 of the most notable kidnappings. Digging Deeper 10. Adolf…

A Brief History On May 11, 1862, Confederate sailors sunk their own ship, the CSS Virginia, in the James River outside of Norfolk, Virginia to avoid capture by Union troops.  Ships have been intentionally sunk by their own crews for a variety of reasons, usually to avoid capture by the enemy, sometimes after battle damage and sometimes while the ships were perfectly sound. At times, even whole fleets were scuttled.  German U-boats would be scuttled when forced to the surface and unable to continue the fight to avoid capture of sensitive encoding equipment, let alone the boats themselves, a common…

A Brief History On May 11, 1862, the CSA ironclad, CSS Virginia, was scuttled in the James River to avoid capture by Union forces. The Virginia had formerly been the USS Merrimac and had fought the USS Monitor in the first battle of ironclad armored ships.  Over its long and illustrious history, the US Navy has lost a variety of vessels, and here we list some of the most famous of those losses. Digging Deeper 10. Bonhomme Richard, 1779. Starting life as a French merchant ship named Duc de Duras built in 1765, she was given to the fledgling US Navy to fight the…

A Brief History On May 10, 1865, President of the Confederate States of America, Jefferson Davis, was captured by Federal troops in Georgia. Many Americans in the North consider Jeff Davis to be the worst kind of traitor, while many Americans in the old Confederacy drive around with bumper stickers that read “My President is Jeff Davis.” Whether someone is a freedom fighter or a traitor is relative depending on the perspective of the observer, which is why JD does not make the list. Others have been accused and even executed as traitors, such as Mata Hari, who turned out…