A Brief History On March 27, 1794, the United States Congress authorized the building and purchase of a fleet of 6 frigates, ships that would become the core of what became a standing US Navy, a naval fighting force that would eventually rule the oceans for many decades, ruling the waves from World War II to the present. Digging Deeper After fighting and winning the American Revolutionary War against the greatest military power in the world, Great Britain, the US fought valiantly at sea with a tiny Navy against the greatest naval power in the world, albeit with the help…
Browsing: March 27
A Brief History On March 27, 1999, Lieutenant Colonel Dale Zelko of the US Air Force became the first pilot of a stealth fighter or bomber ever shot down, in fact, the only time a warplane with stealth capabilities has been shot down. Digging Deeper While flying a Lockheed F-117A Nighthawk on a bombing mission over Yugolslavia, Zelko had the misfortune of having his supposedly undetectable light bomber detected by supposedly obsolete radar systems and shot down when the Yugoslav air defense crews fired a battery of anti-aircraft missiles (probably about 5) at his plane, one of which exploded near…
A Brief History On March 27, 1975, work began on the construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System. More than just an 800 mile 48 inch diameter pipe, the vast system includes 11 pumping stations and hundreds of miles of smaller pipes that feed the big pipe. The US has undertaken many great construction projects, and here we list 10 of them. We would like to know what projects you think should have been on this list and which should not have. Digging Deeper 10. Trans-Alaska Pipeline System. Overcoming objections by environmentalists and working in the frozen north presented quite a…
A Brief History On March 27, 1915 the woman history has come to know as Typhoid Mary was placed into involuntary quarantine for the rest of her life! Digging Deeper Mary Mallon born in Ireland and moved to the US at age 15. Mary moved from job to job, mostly as a cook and everywhere she worked people would get sick and sometimes die. In 1906 one of the families sickened with typhoid fever hired a private investigator who discovered the common factor in several typhoid outbreaks. That factor was Mary! Now that Mary was identified she was asked to…
A Brief History On March 27, 1998, the little blue pill known as Viagra was approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of the United States, giving aphrodisiacs such “Spanish Flies” a run for their money. This prescription drug to defeat male impotence quickly went mainstream and, along with the other erectile dysfunction drugs Cialis and Levitra, remains a hot commodity to this day. Thanks to pharmacology, all these newly virile men can take their restored vitality to their local strip clubs and admire the beautiful dancers with confidence. While there, they can reflect on the music being played and perhaps debate which songs are the…
