A Brief History On May 9, 1961, the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Newton Minow, shocked Americans by declaring commercial television programming to be a “vast wasteland.”  And you thought TV today was lousy! Digging Deeper Appointed as Chairman of the FCC by President Kennedy, Newton was giving his first speech in office to the National Association of Broadcasters, not exactly the audience likely to agree with him.  Minow went on to rail against all the game shows, slapstick comedies, phony portrayals of family life and the violence, which though tame by our modern standards, must have been shocking…

A Brief History On May 9, 1980, in a scene out of horror movie the freighter MV Summit Venture collided with a support pier of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge that spanned 4.1 miles across Tampa Bay in Florida. Digging Deeper The bridge roadway soared 165 feet above the water built in 1954. In 1971 a parallel span was built to carry southbound traffic only and the older span became northbound only. In a heavy thunderstorm that reduced visibility to near zero, the 580 foot long 19,000 ton Summit Venture bulk carrier blundered into a support pier in the middle of…

 A Brief History On May 9, 1980, the Security Pacific Bank of Norco, California was held up by 5 robbers, leading to chases and shootouts resulting in 2 robbers and a deputy sheriff being killed and a whopping 33 vehicles being destroyed. Digging Deeper The 5 bank robbers armed with shotguns, assault  rifles (AK-47, HK91, HK93), and handguns, as well as  home made bombs robbed the bank then stole a car and fought a running gun battle with two sheriff’s departments (Riverside and San Bernardino) Two suspects were killed, one deputy was killed, nine other cops wounded, and 30 police…

A Brief History On May 9, 1986, Sherpa guide Tenzing Norgay died, the first man to climb Mt. Everest.  Sir Edmund Hilary is usually given that distinction, but it was Norgay that guided him up the tallest mountain in the world and was probably the first to the summit.  History is full of sidekicks, a person close to another that gets most of the fame, fame that would be less likely without the presence of the sidekick.  Kind of like bacon and eggs, or beer and pretzels, the primary and the sidekick just belong together. Here we list 10 of…

A Brief History On May 8, 1945, Nazi Germany surrendered unconditionally to the allies and ceased to exist as a state. You may count Germany invading Poland in 1939 as the start of World War II (also known as The Second World War) or the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1937, but in any case most people would guess correctly that World War II cost more lives than any other war in history. (Please note that total lives lost in each war are also debatable, and the list can be rearranged somewhat depending on your analysis of the sources.) The…