A Brief History On September 17, 1978, Battlestar Galactica, an American science fiction television series, created by Glen A. Larson, that began the Battlestar Galactica franchise debuted on television. The Battlestar Galactica, the namesake of the series, is an example of a large, fictional, capital military spacecraft. Frequently called space battleships and space cruisers, these spacefaring warships most often found in science fiction play similar roles to contemporary warships, although real spacecraft are used for military purposes.1 They may fight slow-paced battles across vast distances with long range guided weapons, never attaining visual contact,2 or fast-paced, relatively close range combat with unguided weapons and combat maneuvering.3 Smaller “space fighters” are fictional spacecraft analogous to fighter aircraft. Space fighters…
Browsing: September 17
A Brief History On September 17, 1939, only a couple weeks after World War II in Europe began, the German U-boat, U-29, sunk the British aircraft carrier HMS Courageous with two of the three torpedoes fired striking the unlucky carrier. Courageous sank with 519 of her crew going down, becoming the first aircraft carrier ever sunk by a submarine. Here we list all the aircraft carriers ever sunk in combat by submarines, a dangerous prey as carriers are inevitably well protected by escorting ships. Note that no aircraft carrier has been sunk in combat from any source since the end…
A Brief History On September 17, 1862, the same day that the bloodiest one day battle in American military history was fought (Antietam, or Sharpsburg) the civilian population of suburban Pittsburgh was touched by the worst civilian disaster of the Civil War when the Allegheny Arsenal blew up, killing 78 workers, mainly women (down to 15 years old). Digging Deeper A cartridge making industrial plant, the Allegheny Arsenal employed over a thousand workers and supplied the Union forces fighting in the Western half of the conflict. Cartridges at the time consisted of greased paper containing a charge of black powder…
A Brief History On September 17, 1991, model Stephanie Seymour starred in the first of two music videos for the hard rock band Guns N’ Roses. Stephanie was also the girlfriend of its lead singer, Axl Rose, and became such after he had spotted her on the cover of a Playboy magazine and contacted her. There have been many cases of a portrait, picture or magazine cover of a woman fascinating a person in such a way that it led to an action. This article spotlights 10 such cases. Digging Deeper 1) Anne of Cleves (1515-1557) After the death of…
