A Brief History On November 29, 800, the Frankish King Charlemagne (aka, Charles I) traveled to Rome and The Vatican to investigate charges of adultery and perjury against Pope Leo III, another soap opera in the long saga of the papacy. Digging Deeper Charlemagne as King of the Franks (France), was seen as the leading Catholic monarch of the time, and as such, the protector of the faith and the Pope.  Leo had been unanimously elected Pope on the death of Pope Adrian I, but the friends and relatives of Adrian apparently resented Leo and undertook to discredit the reigning…

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A Brief History On November 28, 1895, the first American auto race took place, the Chicago Times-Herald Race, a 54 mile event with a grand prize of $5,000.  (If that prize sounds lame, remember that this is worth over $140,000 in today’s money.) Digging Deeper As the automobile was a new-fangled invention at the time, a proper name for the motorized conveyance had not yet been agreed upon and the Times-Herald called their event a “Moto-cycle Race.”  Originally meant to be a race from Chicago to Milwaukee, the roads of the day were not smooth enough for those primitive cars…

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A Brief History On November 27, 1810, a Londoner named Theodore Hooke perpetrated one of the most effective hoaxes in history, throwing a large part of the city into disarray and confusion, all because of a bet and without spending much money at all. Digging Deeper Apparently Hooke made a bet with his friend Sam Beazley that Hooke could transform any old house in London into the most talked about in the city within a week.  Instead of landing a UFO on a house, or detonating a nuclear weapon, either of which surely would have won the bet but would…

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A Brief History On this holiday when thoughts of children are wandering to their Christmas and Hanukkah lists, for those among us that are hunters, law enforcement officers, military people, recreational or competitive shooters, interested in self defense and the preservation of liberty, or just into the history and technology of firearms, we present to you our “Bucket List” of guns we would like to own before we are too old to enjoy them. (Although some may be out of production, they are still out there for sale.)  Obviously, such a list is pure opinion and is not relevant to…

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A Brief History On November 25, 1940, the feverish pace of developing improved warplanes during World War II culminated in the first flight of two of the most iconic twin engine medium bombers of the war, the British de Havilland Mosquito and the American Martin B-26 Marauder. Digging Deeper These 2 medium bombers had quite different roles in combat, with the B-26 operating as a conventional medium bomber, best employed from medium altitude.  The B-26 had impressive self defense armament of 12 X .50 caliber machine guns and could carry up to 4000 lbs of bombs.  The Mosquito was often…

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