Browsing: Society

A Brief History On September 21, 1942, the first Boeing B-29 Superfortress made its first flight.  This sleek bomber would become the highest technology piston engine powered bomber of all time, as well as the mightiest bomber of World War II.  On top of that, it would also become the first nuclear bomber in history. Digging Deeper Needing a longer range bomber than the B-17 and B-24 “heavy” bombers already in service, especially in case Britain fell to the Nazi’s, American engineers feverishly worked on a new design that could fly farther and carry heavier loads than existing bombers.  The…

A Brief History On September 19, 1692, Giles Corey, age 81, became a footnote in the history of America by becoming the first and only man to be “pressed” to death during legal proceedings.  Caught up in the infamous Salem Witch Trials, Corey and his wife, Martha, were accused of witchcraft when one of the other accused witches, Abigail Hobbs, named the old couple as warlock and witch. Digging Deeper As you may already know, witches convicted during the Salem Witch trials were put to death by hanging, as was Martha Corey, and not by burning as the popular myth…

A Brief History On September 18, 1944, the British submarine, HMS Tradewinds, torpedoed and sank the Jun’yo Maru, a Japanese cargo ship transformed to carry prisoners.  Over 5000 people died in the tragedy, of which 1377 were Dutch prisoners of war, another 64 victims were British and Australian prisoners of war, and 8 were American prisoners of war.  Most of the rest of the victims were Javanese slave laborers, around 4200 of them. Digging Deeper Obviously, the skipper of the Tradewinds did not know the targeted ship was carrying prisoners, as the Japanese did not mark POW ships in any…

A Brief History On September 15, 1966, President Lyndon Johnson, in a now all too familiar response to a mass shooting incident at the University of Texas, called on Congress to enact “Gun Control” legislation that would have absolutely nothing to do with preventing such incidents. Digging Deeper On August 1, 1966, mentally disturbed Charles Whitman killed his wife and mother, then went to the University of Texas where he climbed up to the 28th floor observation deck and proceeded to shoot and kill 14 more people and wound a further 32 before he was finally killed by a police…

A Brief History On September 14, 1954, the Cold War warmed up a little when the Soviet Air Force dropped a 40-kiloton atomic bomb from a Tupolev Tu-4, a nearly exact copy of the U.S. Boeing B-29 Superfortress. Digging Deeper The Soviets often relied on technology from the West to further their own development of products and weapons.  Joseph Stalin jealously craved a modern heavy bomber of his own, so, when U.S. B-29 bombers made emergency landings on Soviet soil, the bombers were interned by the USSR in spite of American demands that they be promptly returned. Reverse engineering to simple…