A Brief History On June 7, 1975, Sony unleashed a new level of home entertainment on the world when they marketed their Betamax format of videocassette recorders and players. Despite being a superior system, Betamax was quickly eclipsed by the VHS format. Digging Deeper Despite having a pretty good run, videocassette technology is now obsolete, replaced by DVDs and various digital systems and streaming services. Technology that seems innovative and remarkable has a way of fading into the sunset, such as the laserdisc movies that became available in the late 1970s and also faded away. When musical CDs became available…
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A Brief History On June 6, 2023, the Russian army blew up the Ukrainian Kakhovka Dam on the Dnieper River in Southern Ukraine. The dam was breached by the Russians in order to create an obstacle to an expected Ukrainian offensive. Sadly, 58 people were killed in the resultant flooding. Digging Deeper While dams sometimes fail without human help, during war time the destruction of dams is not an uncommon tactic. At other times, dams may be intentionally destroyed for environmental reasons or to prevent a potential accident with an old and or failing dam. An enormous dam removal project…
A Brief History On June 5, 1976, the Teton Dam on the Teton River in Idaho collapsed, a catastrophic failure while it was filling for the first time! Digging Deeper The 3,100 foot long earthen dam soared 305 feet high and was designed to contain over 288,000 acre feet of water. Sadly, its failure cost the lives of 11 people and over 16,000 head of livestock. Unsuitable soil used to construct the dam was blamed for the failure. The killer dam has yet to be rebuilt. Far from the worst US dam related disaster, the Teton Dam failure is dwarfed…
A Brief History On June 2, 2023, a passenger train slammed into a stopped freight train, derailing cars into the path of another passenger train creating a deadly three train wreck that cost 296 lives and injured another 1,200 people. Known as “The Odisha Train Collision” in Eastern India, the wreck was the worst train disaster since the 2004 “Tsunami Train Wreck” in Sri Lanka. Digging Deeper The 2004 train disaster in Sri Lanka happened when a tsunami generated by the Indian Ocean earthquake of 2004 engulfed a coastal train, killing at least 1700 passengers, the biggest death toll of…
A Brief History On May 31, 2003, Air France retired their Concorde supersonic jet airliners after a career that started in 1976. Air France had a fleet of seven of the fast jets, while British Airways also fielded a fleet of seven. An additional six of the so called SSTs were made for non-commercial users. Digging Deeper The first supersonic airliner, the Concorde was costly to operate and to fly on. The only competition ever created was the Russian Tu-144, jokingly called the “Concordski.” The Russian version of supersonic airliner lasted from 1975 to 1978, although cargo versions remained in…