Browsing: September 27

A Brief History On September 27, 2001, the chilling reality that a mass shooting could happen anywhere, at any time, became apparent when a deranged Swiss citizen walked into the Zug Canton Parliament building and started shooting Swiss legislators.  By the time the massacre was over, 15 were dead (including the gunman) and 18 were injured. Digging Deeper Switzerland is a relatively peaceful country that has been neutral on the world stage since the Reformation, jealously guarding their neutrality and independence by armed vigilance.  The last major conflicts in Switzerland were the invasion by Napoleon’s French Army and the Civil War…

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A Brief History On September 27, 1956, US Air Force test pilot, Capt. Milburn Apt, flew into history when he piloted his Bell X-2 rocket powered experimental airplane to a speed of 2094 mph, the first man to fly at or over Mach 3 (three times the speed of sound). Digging Deeper Capt. Apt would not live to enjoy his record flight of Mach 3.2, as moments later the rocket plane tumbled out of control, causing Apt to eject. Ejection took place with the pilot inside his encapsulated cockpit, and it was necessary for the pilot to leave the capsule…

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A Brief History On September 27, 1937, the smallest of all sub-species of tiger, the Bali Tiger, native only to the Indonesian island of Bali, went extinct.  Approximately 40 years later, it was joined by fellow Indonesian tiger, the Java Tiger.  Currently, the only Indonesian tiger still among the living is the highly endangered Sumatran Tiger.  Unfortunately, no film was ever made of a Bali tiger, and none were ever displayed in zoos.  The last one was an adult female that was shot. Digging Deeper The various tiger subspecies that have gone extinct or are endangered today are pretty much all victims of habitat…

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A Brief History On September 27, 1944, The Kassel Mission, which resulted in the largest loss by a United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) group on any mission in World War II, was so successfully covered up that even today few non-WWII experts are even aware it occurred. Digging Deeper The USAAF conducted roughly twenty bombing raids over Kassel, Germany from 1942 through 1945.  These raids resulted in severe fires, the deaths of at least 10,000 inhabitants of the city, and the destruction of much of the city center.  Eventually, as the war began to conclude, American and British forces…

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