A Brief History On June 9, 1973, Secretariat, often called “Big Red,” won the final round of horse racing’s Triple Crown, the Belmont Stakes, by an unprecedented and unequaled 31 lengths!  In fact, Secretariat won the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness, and the Belmont all in record times that still stand 50 years later! Digging Deeper Secretariat was a big, strong horse, 16 ¾ hands high and weighing in at 1155 pounds.  With a stride of 24 feet 11 inches, he could cover ground at a top speed of 49 miles per hour carrying a jockey, even faster if unburdened.  His…

A Brief History This article presents a chronological list of notable events that happened on June 8th.  For each date below, please click on the date to be taken to an article covering that date’s event. Digging Deeper On June 8, 1949, the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four by English writer Eric Blair, writing as George Orwell, was published, telling a story of a dystopian future where an intrusive government controls all, sees all, and wages never ending war. On June 8, 1959, the US Navy teamed up with the United States Post Office Department to attempt to resurrect the concept of sending mail…

A Brief History On June 8, 1959, the US Navy teamed up with the United States Post Office Department to attempt to resurrect the concept of sending mail via rocket or missile. Digging Deeper The submarine, USS Barbero, was employed to launch a Regulus cruise missile, normally armed with a nuclear warhead but this time carrying Post Office containers, from the Atlantic Ocean to Naval Station Mayport in Florida. The 22-minute flight of the missile accurately delivered the commemorative “mail” enclosed, each piece addressed to President Eisenhower and other government officials.  While the test was technically successful, no such program…

A Brief History This article presents a chronological list of notable events that happened on June 7th.  For each date below, please click on the date to be taken to an article covering that date’s event. Digging Deeper On June 7, 1769, frontiersman and American legend Daniel Boone first laid eyes on the forests, hills and valleys of Kentucky, and this epic moment in US History is commemorated by the Kentucky Historical Society as National Daniel Boone Day each year on June 7th. On June 7, 1892, Homer Plessy, an African-American, was arrested for refusing to vacate his seat in…

A Brief History On June 7, 1938, the government of Nationalist China, at war with the Japanese invaders in the Second Sino-Japanese War, destroyed the embankments of the Yellow River, creating a massive flood in order to halt the advance of the Japanese Army. Digging Deeper The event called “The 1938 Yellow River Flood” was part of a war strategy of “scorched earth” policy, leaving little or nothing for the invaders to use in their conquest.  Described as the “largest act of environmental warfare in history,” the resulting flood killed between 500,000 and 900,000 Chinese civilians and created about 3…