A Brief History On August 4, 1987, the Federal Communications Commission officially removed any obligation of television and radio media to present controversial issues in an even and “fair” manner when they rescinded the Fairness Doctrine. Digging Deeper Much has been made of the blatant cheerleading by mass media for one side or the other in recent years, making so called news programs more partisan than just information. Calling the media “biased” and “fake news” has become an allegation by all sides of every issue anytime the media does not agree with a point of view. The Fairness Doctrine originated…
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A Brief History On August 2, 1870, the Tower Subway opened for passenger traffic in London, England, the first ever underground tube type railway commonly called a “subway” in the US and “the tube” in the UK. Digging Deeper Not to be confused with a fast food store, a subway is a rail train for carrying passengers in underground tunnels. Using coal or wood powered steam engines, or even gasoline or diesel engines to power the train would be problematic underground. The Tower Subway was propelled by a cable system with no onboard propulsive power. Most subways today are electric…
A Brief History On August 1, 1977, former USAF and CIA pilot, Francis Gary Powers, died when his news helicopter crashed in Encino, California. Powers became famous worldwide when his U-2 spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union in 1960, causing a scandal and sensation during the Cold War. Other pilots have achieved high levels of fame, and today we ask, “Which pilot is the most famous?” Digging Deeper Some nominees include: Orville Wright, the first powered flight in 1903. Manfred von Richthofen, aka, The Red Baron, leading World War I (WWI) fighter Ace, serving in the Luftstreitkräfte…
A Brief History On July 30 and 31, 2012, Northern and Eastern India suffered massive electrical blackouts leaving 400 million people without electricity on July 30th and an even more incredible 620 million people without juice, but luckily only for about a day. Digging Deeper The previous blackout record, as measured by number of people denied use of electricity, had been 230 million people, again in India, in 2001. While the scope of the outage in these cases is immense, the length of time people are denied electric power most affects them. In the summer of 2022, part of Ohio…
A Brief History On July 28, 1854, the USS Constellation was commissioned, a sloop-of-war, the last sail-only warship for the US Navy. The second US Navy ship of the name, the first was built in 1797 and was scrapped in 1853. Digging Deeper While seeking to strengthen the US Navy, economics mattered and the Navy sought to save money by using available stocks of Oak and to eschew the use of an expensive steam engine. Constellation would be economical to build and to operate. With a length of 191 feet and a beam of 43 feet, Constellation displaced 1400 tons,…