A Brief History On October 26, 1917, a force of only 100 German Army soldiers led by Oberleutnant (First Lieutenant in American talk) Erwin Rommel took Mt. Matajur from an Italian defensive force of 7,000 men, a key part of the German/Austro-Hungarian victory at the Battle of Caporetto (aka The 12th Battle of the Isonzo). Digging Deeper Rommel earned the highest German military medal of the time for his exploits, the Pour le Merite (sometimes called colloquially The Blue Max) but his main comments were for his men to be better fed, which says a lot about his leadership. To…

A Brief History On October 25, 1957, notorious mob boss Albert Anastasia, known as “Lord High Executioner” and “Mad Hatter” for his role in ruling the mob assassination team known as “Murder, Incorporated” or “Murder, Inc,” was himself gunned down, a fitting end to a violent life. Digging Deeper Born in Italy in 1902, Anastasia (originally “Anastasio”) came to the US illegally in 1919, deserting the merchant ship he was serving on. Working as a longshoreman, Albert (born “Umberto”) made his first known “kill” in 1921, and was sentenced to death. Lucky for Albert, he was granted a retrial in…

A Brief History On October 24, 1929, the New York Stock Exchange suffered the catastrophic day of losses known as Black Thursday, the day that for all intents and purposes started the Great Depression. Also known as The Great Crash or The Crash of ’29, this was the most significant stock market crash and economic event in the history of the United States, so enormous in scope that it plunged the entire industrialized world into a decade long depression. Digging Deeper The 1920’s in the United States was a time of excitement and prosperity. Women could vote, Prohibition went into…

A Brief History On October 23, 1911, during the Italo-Turkish War, history saw the first use of airplanes for warfare purposes when an Italian airplane flew over Turkish positions as the first aerial reconnaissance mission by an airplane in history. Only 9 days later, on November 1, 1911, an Italian airplane dropped a bomb on Turkish troops, the first aerial bombardment in history. During this same conflict Italian pilots fired the first shots in anger from these planes, but only from pistols. All three of these milestones occurred in what is now Libya. Digging Deeper The aircraft involved was an…

A Brief History On October 22, 1797, Frenchman and balloonist Andre-Jacques Garnerin performed the first successful descent in a frameless parachute from a height of 3,000 feet. Garnerin had built a silk frameless parachute, the canopy of which we would recognize as a typical parachute today, with the lines running from the 23 foot diameter canopy to the basket Garnerin rode in. The parachute and basket Garnerin rode in were suspended underneath the hot air balloon gondola by a rope running through a hollow tube. (Previous parachute attempts were made with devices umbrella like in construction with umbrella like frames.)…