A Brief History On June 4, 1784, Élisabeth Thible became the first woman to fly in an untethered hot air balloon, soaring for a 4 kilometer trip that took 45 minutes and reached perhaps 5,000 feet above the ground, making her the world’s first female aviatrix. Today, we discus 10 brave women who dared death or severe injury in the quest of a thrill or an accomplishment that other women could be proud of. (Note: 10 is not enough to give dare devil flying women justice, so an additional list of 10 Military Women Aviators will be forthcoming!) Digging Deeper…
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A Brief History On June 1, 2009, General Motors, once the single corporation that most personified America filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, a shocking turn of events for a once mighty company. So iconic was General Motors, that US Secretary of Defense (1953-1957) Charles Wilson, a former CEO of General Motors, has been often misquoted as saying, “What’s good for GM is what’s good for the country.” The real quote was not quite as provocative, but still very telling about the importance of GM to the United States and vice versa. When a US Senator asked Wilson about the conflict…
A Brief History On April 11, 1970, NASA launched their third moon-landing mission from Cape Canaveral, Florida carrying three astronauts. After so many preparations, and failed attempts NASA is finally ready to send Jack L. Swigert, 38, with previous experience from Apollo 7, Jim A. Lovell, 42, he had unbelievable 572 spaceflight hours of experience, and Fred W. Haise, 36, with previous experience on Apollo 8 and 11 on a lunar landing mission. They did incredible things just to train the astronauts and made simulations of every obstacle they might encounter like reduced gravity walking simulator, water landing (which came…
A Brief History On April 4, 1965, Swedish automaker and aerospace manufacturer Saab introduced its upcoming Saab 37 Viggen (Thunderbolt) fighter jet, the most advanced European jet fighter design until superseded by the Panavia Tornado in 1981. The futuristic looking Viggen was distinctive in its “canard” design, a sort of double delta wing layout never before used on a mass produced aircraft. The Viggen replaced the Saab 35 Draken (Dragon) as Sweden’s primary jet fighter. The Draken, introduced in 1955, had been the first fully supersonic jet fighter produced in Europe. Digging Deeper Originally created as an airplane manufacturing company…
A Brief History On April 1, 1970, the Detroit Automobile Comedy Consortium unleashed a sort of automotive April Fool’s joke on the American public by introducing the American Motors Corporation’s entry into the small car market to combat the rise in small car imports from Germany and Japan. The AMC Gremlin was like nothing else American car companies had ever produced, causing cynical Americans to snidely ask new Gremlin owners, “Where’s the other half of your car?” Digging Deeper Built in Wisconsin, Ontario, and Mexico, the Gremlin was pretty much a shortened AMC Hornet, only 161.3 inches long and 70.6…