A Brief History On April 2, 1863, Southern women in Richmond, Virginia were at their wits end and had had enough, or more accurately had NOT had enough, because they and their families were starving for lack of food (aka, bread).  Rioting in the Confederate capital ensued, with men, women and children destroying property and looting stores.  Bread riots had become all too common in the American South during the Civil War (what my Southern friends call “The War of Northern Aggression.”), and the Richmond riots were the worst.  (See our article “10 Goofy Named Riots” for more riot history.)…

A Brief History On April 1, 1970, the Detroit Automobile Comedy Consortium unleashed a sort of automotive April Fool’s joke on the American public by introducing the American Motors Corporation’s entry into the small car market to combat the rise in small car imports from Germany and Japan.  The AMC Gremlin was like nothing else American car companies had ever produced, causing cynical Americans to snidely ask new Gremlin owners, “Where’s the other half of your car?” Digging Deeper Built in Wisconsin, Ontario, and Mexico, the Gremlin was pretty much a shortened AMC Hornet, only 161.3 inches long and 70.6…

A Brief History On March 31, 1918, Daylight Saving Time (DST) went into effect for the first time.  For the first time, Americans would be told to “Spring Ahead!” and clocks across the nation had to change by 1 hour in advance.  First things first!  The term is “Daylight Saving Time,” NOT “Daylight Savings Time.”  (This common error seems to drive some people absolutely nuts, so if you have a bit of the devil in you, go ahead and add the unnecessary “S” and watch the fireworks begin.) Digging Deeper The idea of changing the clocks is to get an…

A Brief History On March 29, 1927, the British once again invaded the United States, this time to make war on the land speed record!  In the first instance of a foreign power making such an attempt at Daytona Beach, Florida, a Sunbeam 1000 Horsepower car became the first automobile to exceed 200 mph with a run of 203.79 mph.  The name of the car, “1000 Horsepower,” was not the only odd thing about the speedster, as it was also nicknamed “The Slug!” Digging Deeper Powered by 2 aircraft engines, one positioned in front of the driver and the other…

A Brief History On March 28, 1933, the first known incident of an airliner airplane being taken down by the actions of a passenger occurred when the City of Liverpool (airplanes, trains and the like used to have names like ships are named), a biplane operated by Imperial Airways was taken down because of a fire set by a passenger.  Ever since then, terrorists, saboteurs, and  assorted criminals have taken down airliners, usually with bombs, but also by commandeering the plane and flying it into the ground or other object, most notably the aerial hijackings of September 11, 2001 in…