A Brief History On May 25, 2001, American mountain climber, adventurer, author, and speaker, Erik Weihenmayer, became the first blind person to reach the top of Mt. Everest in Nepal. A year later, he added to his collection of fantastic feats by becoming the 150th person to scale each of the “Seven Summits,” the tallest mountain on each of the continents. Digging Deeper Weihenmayer suffered from a degenerative eye disease as a child, resulting in his vision loss by his teen years. A high school wrestler, he also began rock climbing, graduated from Boston College, and became a teacher while…
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A Brief History On May 24, 1993, Cardinal Juan Jesús Posadas Ocampo, a Mexican Roman Catholic archbishop of the see of Guadalajara, was gunned down by 14 bullets while at the Guadalajara International Airport, allegedly because he was mistaken for drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán by rival drug cartel gunmen out to assassinate El Chapo. Digging Deeper Six other people were killed along with the Cardinal, allegedly by Mexican-American contract killers hired by the Tijuana Cartel to kill the head of the Sinaloa Cartel, Guzmán. In spite of the carnage wrought that day, nobody has ever been convicted and…
A Brief History On May 23, 1939, the submarine USS Squalus demonstrated the dangers faced by submarine sailors even in peacetime. Squalus was commissioned in March of 1939, with a length of 310 feet and a normal crew of five officers and 54 enlisted men. Digging Deeper With four bow torpedo tubes and four more aft, Squalus was a formidable warrior, boasting a 3-inch gun and four machine guns. After completing a series of test dives, Squalus once again dove on May 23, 1939, and suffered the catastrophic failure of her fresh air intake valve, partly flooding the sub, drowning 26 men…
A Brief History On May 22, 2021, what may be the saddest and most bizarre event to strike an athletic competition in progress occurred in Gansu, China. An ultra-marathon held in the Yellow River Stone Forest was the final race for 21 of the 172 long distance runners competing in the 100 km race. Digging Deeper During the race, the weather had turned cold, rain and possibly graupel, a form of frozen rain, pelted the hapless runners as temperatures dipped from an “apparent” 34 degrees Fahrenheit to about 23 degrees Fahrenheit in wind gusts between 47 and 55 miles per…
A Brief History On May 21, 2005, Six Flags Great Adventure became home to the tallest roller coaster in the world. Called Kingda Ka, the 456 foot tall steel ride eclipsed Ohio’s Cedar Point’s Top Thrill Dragster for the height crown, and boasted a top speed of 128 miles per hour to boot! Digging Deeper The world of roller coasters is not stagnant, and the title of the fastest coaster today is held by Formula Rossa in Abu Dhabi, with a top speed of 149 MPH! At 1.29 miles, Formula Rossa is the second longest coaster, beaten by Steel Dragon’s…