A Brief History On September 27, 1937, the smallest of all sub-species of tiger, the Bali Tiger, native only to the Indonesian island of Bali, went extinct.  Approximately 40 years later, it was joined by fellow Indonesian tiger, the Java Tiger.  Currently, the only Indonesian tiger still among the living is the highly endangered Sumatran Tiger.  Unfortunately, no film was ever made of a Bali tiger, and none were ever displayed in zoos.  The last one was an adult female that was shot. Digging Deeper The various tiger subspecies that have gone extinct or are endangered today are pretty much all victims of habitat…

A Brief History On September 26, 1981, Nolan Ryan, right-handed pitcher for the Houston Astros, pitched his record-breaking 5th no-hitter of his career.  Ryan, arguably the best pitcher in major league baseball history, went on to throw 2 more no-hitters in his career, the last (number 7) in 1991 when he was an astounding 44 years old! Digging Deeper Fans of other great pitchers will make the case for those hurlers.  Some might talk about Bob Feller’s incredible fastball, his 3 no-hitters and 12 one-hitters and how he lost some of his prime years to service in the Navy during World War…

A Brief History On September 24, 2009, the first use of a long range acoustic device (LRAD) for crowd control in the United States took place in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania during the G-20 summit that was being held there.  The first use had been in Georgia (the country, not the state) in 2007.  Digging Deeper Although it is also known as a sound cannon, its manufacturer, the LRAD Corporation, does not call it a weapon but rather a “directed sound communications system.”  It is a device that looks like a loudspeaker, however instead of projecting beautiful music, it generates deterring sounds that are pain inducing, and it can send those sounds…

A Brief History On September 23, 1641, off the coast of Cornwall, England, a British merchant ship named the Merchant Royal sank with her cargo of Spanish treasure.  She has not yet been found, and your treasure possibly awaits you somewhere at the bottom of the Atlantic ocean, southwest of England. Digging Deeper If lost treasure interests you, then pay attention!  The Merchant Royal, despite being leaky and somewhat weary after long travels, had been contracted to transport gold and silver from Cadiz, Spain, to Antwerp in modern-day Belgium (which at that time was part of the Spanish Netherlands), to pay…

A Brief History On September 22, 1692, eight people convicted of witchcraft during the Salem Witch Trials were executed by hanging.  The trials took place between February 1692 and May 1693 and resulted in the execution of twenty people, most of them women.  Contrary to the common belief that witches were typically burned, most of those condemned in Salem and the surrounding areas died by hanging. Digging Deeper As in our previous article on 10 Things History Got Wrong about Women, this article explores 10 more common misconceptions involving women in history.  These misconceptions may be due to legend, malicious gossip,…