Browsing: May

A Brief History On May 25, 1521, the famous imperial general assembly known as the Diet of Worms was concluded by the Edict of Worms, an order by Holy Roman Emperor Charles V that declared the Protestant reformer Martin Luther an outlaw.  Worms, Germany is not the only place with a name that sounds “funny” in English, and here we list 10 such places.  Stay tuned for sequel lists as there are many more! Digging Deeper 10. Worms, Germany.  Through the years, this city of 80,000 people has been the scene of many “diets.”  Not gatherings where slimy annelids were feasted on,…

A Brief History Last year, on May 23, 2014, we ran a list of 10 Favorite Guns of The Gangsters.  This year, we offer the counterpart, and list some of the most popular weapons of Law Enforcement officials.  A few decades ago, the list would have prominently featured revolvers such as the S&W Model 10 and the S&W Model 36, but time and fashion have changed things a bit.  Most police agencies frown on rimfire calibers as less reliable than center fire, and calibers less than .32 ACP are just too anemic for anything other than last ditch panic weapons. …

A Brief History On May 23, 2006, Chooseco published an updated version of The Abominable Snowman as the first of their reissues of the Choose Your Own Adventure gamebooks from the early 1980s so dear to this author’s heart. Digging Deeper Bantam Books published the original series from 1979 (the year of this author’s birth) to 1998.  As such, I grew up reading these books and still have most of them on shelves in my personal library.  If you have children aged 10 to 14, I strongly encourage you to share these volumes with them as a way of getting them…

A Brief History On May 18, 1953, 46-year-old Jackie Cochran, a world famous female racing pilot, while flying a Canadian Air Force F-86 Sabre over Rogers Dry Lake, California at a record speed of 652.3 mph, took the plane in a dive, causing the tell-tale “sonic boom,” thereby becoming the first woman to pilot an airplane at a supersonic speed.  Not only was she the first woman to fly supersonic, in 1961, while piloting a Lockheed F-104 Starfighter, she became the first woman to fly at Mach II (twice the speed of sound)!!! Digging Deeper Born in 1906 as Bessie Lee Pittman, Jackie Cochran,…

A Brief History On May 28, 2012, a malware program called “Flame” was announced to have been targeting computers in various Middle Eastern countries, mainly Iran.  Iranian and International cyber security teams investigating problems with Iranian government and commercial computers discovered the malware, which also was affecting other countries, including various Arab nations along with Israel and Sudan, although some reports of Flame related infections have come from Europe and North America. Digging Deeper This fiendish program not only stole all available information and kept on reporting new information, but also turned computers into Bluetooth centers that gathered nearby Bluetooth…