A Brief History On February 3, 1972, Iran suffered what the Guinness Book of World Records called “the deadliest blizzard in history,” an event known as “The Iran blizzard of February 1972.” Sadly, an estimated 4,000 or more people died in the extreme weather event. Digging Deeper We have almost all experienced the struggles of dealing with extreme snowfall, getting our cars stuck in the snow or sliding all over the road. Trying to drive in a blinding snowstorm is terrifying and dangerous, and people have died just trying to shovel snow from their drives and walks. Some areas of…
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A Brief History On January 26, 1959, the California State Lands Commission posted Chain Island, a 41 acre island in Suisun Bay where the Sacramento River and San Joaquin River meet, for sale with a minimum acceptable bid of $5,226. Digging Deeper An island made much larger than naturally occurring by the dumping of tailings from hydraulic mining up the rivers over the years, California had long intended to “remove” the island by hauling away the dirt and rocks, for use as a source of possible mineral recovery. Alas, removal never happened, and the island sat there in the way…
A Brief History On January 25, 2019, the people of Brumadinho, Brazil, found out how dam failure can be a catastrophe when a mining dam broke and 270 people were killed. The same mining company previously had a dam fail in 2015, at Mariana, Brazil, killing 19 people, far fewer than some other major dam failures. Digging Deeper In the US, the worst dam failure as far as human fatalities, was the South Fork Dam failure in Pennsylvania in 1889, an earthen dam overwhelmed by heavy rains that killed 2,208 people. This dam had failed before! Another US earthen dam…
A Brief History On January 19, 1983, a space traveling chimpanzee named Ham died at the age of 25 at the North Carolina Zoo. Born in Africa and sent to The Miami Rare Bird Farm in Florida, Ham was then acquired by the US Air Force in 1959. Digging Deeper The Air Force obtained 40 chimps to prepare for use as test ape-ronauts prior to sending humans into space aboard Mercury space capsules. After whittling down the candidates, #65 was chosen for the January 1961 flight aboard the Mercury capsule launched by a Redstone Rocket. You may have noticed that…
A Brief History On January 15, 2022, the Kingdom of Tonga, part of the Tongan archipelago in the Pacific Ocean, experienced the spectacular climax of a volcanic eruption that started a couple weeks prior. Digging Deeper The volcanic mountain involved bears the tongue twisting name “Hunga Tonga–Hunga Haʻapai,” a name we believe may be the niftiest name of any mountain we know. Unfortunately, the eruption triggered several tsunamis around the Southwest Pacific, affecting some islands and leaving seven people dead, 19 people injured, and over $180 million in damages. Some of the other mountains that bear beautiful, unusual, tongue twisting,…