A Brief History On September 3, 1976, an American Viking 2 spacecraft landed on the surface of Mars. People have always dreamed of a Mars space expedition, and although this effort did not land any humans on the Red Planet, the fact that the US was able to successfully land a spacecraft on Mars certainly made the prospect of someday landing people on Mars more likely. Digging Deeper Viking 2 landed in an area called Utopia Planitia and was actually the second American spacecraft to land on Mars, the first being Viking 1, on July 20, 1976. The first Earth…
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A Brief History NASA’s planned launch of a new gigantic rocket called Artemis scheduled for August 29, 2022 has been scrubbed due to a problem with an engine, with a new launch date scheduled for September 2, 2022. The launch vehicle is intended to take Americans to the Moon once again, perhaps in 2025 or 2026. (See our other space based articles.) Note: The rescheduled launch for September 2 was changed to September 3, but on September 3 NASA once again rescheduled the launch for September 5. We’ll See! Now they say September 27! Digging Deeper So why call this…
A Brief History On September 2, 1984, Sydney, Australia was the scene of a major shoot-out between rival motorcycle gangs Bandidos and Comancheros. Contrary to the popular opinion that mass shootings only occur in the US, a total of 7 people were killed and 12 were wounded in the incident known as the “Milperra massacre.” Digging Deeper Apparently the answer to our question is that, “Yes, other countries do have motorcycle gangs.” Our previous article, Mass Shooting…in Canada??? tells the story of another such motorcycle gang related mass shooting, this time in Canada. In fact, Wikipedia has an article about…
A Brief History On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland under false pretenses, staging a phony border “incident” that gave them a claim of legitimacy. Little remembered by the public at large, was that Germany had an ally that also took part in that invasion. Digging Deeper No, we are not talking about the Soviet Union, with their infamous “stab in the back” attack on Poland on September 17, 1939, after Germany had invaded. We are referring to Slovakia, a fellow Slavic country with people sharing similar language and cultural traits with the Poles. The Slovak Republic contributed about 50,000…
A Brief History On August 31, 2006, the Norwegian police announced the recovery of Edvard Munch’s famous painting, The Scream, which had been stolen in 2004. A reward equal to around $313,000 US probably helped them catch the thieves, but many other crimes go unsolved. How many crimes? Read the list below to get a sobering idea about how many crimes in the US go unsolved. (Note: Data varies with source.) Digging Deeper Murder- 50% Rape- 30% Robbery- 27% Burglary- 14% Car theft- 12% Arson- 21% Do any of these meager solving percentages surprise you? Which one surprises you the…