A Brief History On July 31, 1948, the battleship USS Nevada BB-36 was sunk by a torpedo from a Navy bomber, ending the career of possibly the most battered ship in history.  Not only did the Nevada survive the Pearl Harbor attack in which she was hit by a torpedo and as many as 10 bombs (minimum 6), but she was also hit by a Japanese Kamikaze suicide plane off Okinawa as well as by shore battery fire, but easily survived those hits.  (Please see our other article about the USS Nevada, “USS Nevada, America’s First Super-Dreadnaught”) Digging Deeper After World…

A Brief History During the recent Republican National Convention supporter of Donald Trump, Dr. Ben Carson, pointed out that Hillary Clinton has as a mentor and admired person, Saul Alinsky, a counter culture radical from the 1960’s.  Clinton wrote about Alinsky in her college Thesis, invited him to speak at Wellesley, and was offered a job working for the rascal.  It seems Alinsky has made references to Lucifer (the devil himself) and preferring to go to Hell instead of Heaven, which in Republican eyes makes Hillary Clinton logically a supporter of Lucifer.  (Note: Barack Obama was also denigrated for ties…

A Brief History On July 30, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Social Security Act of 1965 into law, establishing the Medicare and Medicaid programs the American people have come to take for granted. Digging Deeper Medicare was and is a program to provide health coverage to people over 65 years old and older, many of which were retired and no longer getting health insurance through their employer.  Medicaid was and is a program to provide health insurance to those people too poor to afford it.  The final bill passed the House of Representatives by a 307 to 116…

A Brief History On July 29, 1976, the homicidal lunatic known to the tabloid press as “Son of Sam” murdered his first victim and wounded another in the first of 8 shooting attacks by David Berkowitz of New York City. Digging Deeper Berkowitz, also called “The .44 Caliber Killer” because his murder weapon was a “Bulldog” revolver in .44 Special caliber, eventually killed 6 people and wounded another 7 in the 8 attacks that spanned about a year.  During his spree, he left messages taunting the police and telling of being told by a “demon” to commit the crimes. The…

A Brief History On July 28, 1935, the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress first took flight, starting a career that many claim as the greatest bomber aircraft of all time.  Of course, the Avro Lancaster  crowd has something to say about that, and the eternal B-52, descendant of the Flying Fortress, will probably serve for 100 years before it is retired.  Even the proponents of the Consolidated B-24 Liberator question the title going to the B-17, but among the men that flew them, the B-17 was and will always be the greatest. Digging Deeper When the giant (for its day) Boeing…