A Brief History On July 10, 2007, Turkish adventurer Erden Eruç, almost 46 years old at the time, set off on what may be the greatest feat of human endurance and physical performance in history, the solo, only human powered circumnavigation of the Earth. As if this feat was not daunting enough, he threw in making it a point to climb the tallest mountain on each continent as part of his trip! For financial reasons, he ended up journeying on a route that did not include all of the tallest mountains on each continent. Digging Deeper Eruç accomplished this feat…
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A Brief History On July 2, 1816, a French sailing ship, the Méduse, struck bottom off the coast of Mauritania, dooming the vessel. Digging Deeper A frigate repurposed as a transport, Méduse was abandoned, with about 250 people loading into the ship’s launches and 146 men and a single woman forced to climb aboard a makeshift raft, to be towed by the launches. The crowded and starving people on the raft were cut loose to fend for themselves, resulting in 13 days of terror, with some survivors murdered, others washed or thrown overboard, and some eaten by their raft mates! …
A Brief History On June 19, 2005, the United States Grand Prix in Indianapolis, Indiana, suffered a mass exodus when 14 cars running on Michelin tires withdrew from the race due to tire failures by the French tire giant. Only six cars remained to race on Bridgestone tires. Digging Deeper Michelin and Bridgestone combine with Goodyear to make up more than half of all tire sales in the world each year. Each tire company pours millions of dollars into research to make their tires with the best wet and dry traction, best heat resistance, best gas mileage, least noise, longest…
A Brief History On June 18, 2023, the deep-sea submarine Titan imploded 3,500 meters beneath the surface of the Atlantic, killing the crewman and the four tourists aboard. The Titan was a commercial sub designed to take tourists to visit the resting place of the RMS Titanic, which sank in 1912 Digging Deeper If you think ticket prices at Disney World are expensive, try the regular price of a seat in the Titan at $250,000, or the discount price of $150,000! Regardless of price, sometimes tourism goes bad, such as when a tourist airliner or helicopter crashes, a cruise ship…
A Brief History On June 17, 1940, the British passenger liner converted to wartime duty, the RMS Lancastria, was sunk off the coast of France by German Junkers Ju 88 bombers as she headed to England with military and civilian evacuees from mainland Europe. The death toll was massive, with 3,000 to 7,000 dead. Incredibly, 2,477 people survived the sinking, one of the largest number of survivors from any shipwreck ever. Digging Deeper Stories of ships sinking usually focus on the number of lives lost, but seldom are the number of survivors celebrated. Some instances of huge numbers of people…
