A Brief History On July 11, 1977, civil rights icon, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest US civilian honor. King’s medal was awarded posthumously as he had been assassinated in 1968. Digging Deeper At least 20 of these honors were awarded posthumously, including John F. Kennedy, Thurgood Marshall, John Wayne, Roberto Clemente, Elvis Presley and Babe Ruth. At least 26 recipients were given their Medal of Freedom “With Distinction,” a special version, including then Vice President Joe Biden in 2017. Many recipients earned their Medal by providing civic contribution to the US…
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A Brief History On July 10, 2007, Turkish adventurer Erden Eruç, almost 46 years old at the time, set off on what may be the greatest feat of human endurance and physical performance in history, the solo, only human powered circumnavigation of the Earth. As if this feat was not daunting enough, he threw in making it a point to climb the tallest mountain on each continent as part of his trip! For financial reasons, he ended up journeying on a route that did not include all of the tallest mountains on each continent. Digging Deeper Eruç accomplished this feat…
A Brief History On July 8, 2003, a genuine Elvis Presley tooth that onetime girlfriend of Presley, Linda Thompson, had been keeping was listed for a staggering $100,000 on eBay. To be fair, a lock of his hair and a gold record were included for good measure. Digging Deeper What is the weirdest thing sold or offered for sale on eBay? A human kidney? William Shatner’s kidney stone? Here are a few of the goofy items that have been offered: The burial crypt directly above that of Marilyn Monroe was offered on eBay for $500,000, and got an offer for…
A Brief History On July 2, 1816, a French sailing ship, the Méduse, struck bottom off the coast of Mauritania, dooming the vessel. Digging Deeper A frigate repurposed as a transport, Méduse was abandoned, with about 250 people loading into the ship’s launches and 146 men and a single woman forced to climb aboard a makeshift raft, to be towed by the launches. The crowded and starving people on the raft were cut loose to fend for themselves, resulting in 13 days of terror, with some survivors murdered, others washed or thrown overboard, and some eaten by their raft mates! …
A Brief History On June 30, 1882, the assassin of President Garfield, Charles J. Guiteau, was executed by hanging in Washington, D.C. Guiteau had surrendered at the scene of the crime. Today, we look at what happened to the assassins that killed four US Presidents. Digging Deeper John Wilkes Booth, Confederate sympathizer and assassin of Abraham Lincoln in 1865, was hunted down 12 days later and killed by a US Army soldier when Booth refused to surrender. Leon Czolgosz, an anarchist opposed to William Mckinley’s interventionist policies, shot McKinley in 1901. Czolgosz was swarmed and beaten by bystanders after the…