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…
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A Brief History This article presents a chronological list of notable events that happened on July 31st. For each date below, please click on the date to be taken to an article covering that date’s event. Digging Deeper On July 31, 1715, one of those events that leads to dreams occurred, when a storm off the coast of Florida sank all 11 Spanish treasure ships heading to Spain from Cuba. On July 31, 1948, the battleship USS Nevada (BB-36) was sunk by a torpedo from a Navy bomber, ending the career of possibly the most battered ship in history. On…
A Brief History On July 31, 2012, Ukrainian gymnast, Larisa Latynina, was passed as the most prolific Olympic Medal winner, when American swimmer Michael Phelps won his 19th Olympic medal. Digging Deeper Larisa dominated Olympic gymnastics from 1956 to 1964, winning 9 Olympic Gold medals and a total of 18 Olympic medals. No gymnast, male or female, has surpassed her total of Gold medals, and her total medal record lasted for nearly 5 decades before broken by Phelps. A remarkable athlete, Phelps won a total of 28 Olympic medals from the 2000 Summer Olympics, in which the 15 year old…
A Brief History This article presents a chronological list of notable events that happened on July 30th. For each date below, please click on the date to be taken to an article covering that date’s event. Digging Deeper On July 30, 1419, The First Defenestration of Prague took place, which of course, means there was a second Defenestration! On July 30, 1864, Union forces exploded 8,000 pounds of black powder in a tunnel underneath Confederate trenches at Petersburg, Virginia, creating a crater 170 feet long and 120 feet wide, and 30 feet deep. On July 30, 1965, President Lyndon B.…
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…