A Brief History On October 5, 1986, the British newspaper the Sunday Times ran a story featuring information and photographs from Mordechai Vanunu, a former technician who had worked in the Israeli nuclear program, that detailed secrets about the Israeli nuclear weapons program, confirming, as suspected, that Israel did indeed possess such bombs. Digging Deeper The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) recognizes the U.S., the UK, Russia, China and France as nuclear powers and seeks to limit other nations from gaining that status. Of course, India and Pakistan are known to have nukes, and North Korea is believed to recently have developed…
Read More
A Brief History On October 4, 1997, the second largest money robbery in U.S. history took place in Charlotte, North Carolina at Loomis, Fargo and Company, with $17.3 million in cash taken. The ensuing investigation was spearheaded by the FBI and resulted in about 95% of the money being recovered and in 24 convictions. Unfortunately, unlike the super sleuths on television and in the movies, real-life cops do not always solve crimes. Here we list 10 Things Police Know That You Might Not. Heck, maybe you do know some of them, or at least suspect a couple, but in my experience as…
A Brief History On October 3, 1995, in one of the most ridiculed jury findings in American history, a criminal jury found OJ Simpson not guilty of the murder of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ron Goldman. Digging Deeper Simpson had been an American hero, born into a working family and raised in the projects of San Francisco after his parents separated in 1952. OJ developed rickets as a child, and wore leg braces until age 5. A star high school football player, Simpson first played at the Community College level before transferring to USC where he…
A Brief History On October 2, 1942, the Royal Navy teamed up with the Cunard White Star Line to pull off yet another of Naval History’s great “Oops” moments. In this incident, the giant luxury liner, RMS Queen Mary, collided with her own escort, the HMS Curacoa, an anti-aircraft cruiser, sinking the hapless cruiser. Digging Deeper Back on July 3, 2014, History and Headlines featured a list of 10 “Oops” Moments in Naval History. Today, we have another tale to add to this pantheon of blunders at sea. The RMS Queen Mary had been converted to use as a troop…
A Brief History On October 1, 1942, the United States was a bit behind Germany and Britain in the development of jet engines and jet powered aircraft, but still managed to conduct the first ever flight of an American prototype jet fighter, the Bell P-59 Airacomet. Only 5 years later, the US North American F-86 Sabre made its first flight, and the tale of these 2 fighter airplanes could not have been much more different. Digging Deeper The P-59 was a disappointing flop, and only 50 production models were built. One was exchanged with the British for one of their…
