A Brief History On January 29, 1936, the first class of baseball “Hall of Famers” was named and was comprised of Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner, Christy Mathewson, and Walter Johnson.  Before the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum finally opened in 1939, another 20 men were also selected for this honor. Digging Deeper This year’s (2015) group of inductees are the pitchers Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinex and John Smoltz, as well as second baseman Craig Biggio. Located in Cooperstown, New York, the alleged site of the birth of baseball, the Hall of Fame currently has over 300 inductees made up of Major…

This Just In! A couple of days ago, we reported on the mainstream media’s gloomy prediction of a potentially catastrophic snow storm striking North America on January 26-27, 2015. Yet, now such news reports as this one are slamming how Winter Storm Juno did not exactly live up to the “sky is falling” hype.  Even Wikipedia mentioned the “Forecasting controversy” in their article on the storm, with “A number of New York City residents criticized New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s decision to shut down the city’s subway system for the first time ever due to snow.  The nor’easter dropped much less snow in…

A Brief History On January 28, 1887, Fort Keogh, Montana was the scene of what was probably the most bizarre snow storm in recorded history.  Established as an Army outpost in the wake of the Little Big Horn massacre of Lt. Col. Custer’s 7th Cavalry, the fort was named after Capt. Keogh who had died in that action. Digging Deeper On this remarkable snowy day in 1887, astonished soldiers witnessed the falling of perhaps the largest snowflake ever, measuring a massive 15 inches wide by 8 inches thick!  If you think that is impossible, then you can go argue with The Guinness Book of…

A Brief History In having his marriage Anne of Cleves annulled and immediately marrying Catherine Howard, Henry VIII committed his biggest marital blunder following his divorce from Catherine of Aragon.  By leaving Anne of Cleves, he left perhaps his most suitable wife after Catherine for the least suitable one of them all! Digging Deeper Nowadays Catherine Howard would be considered little more than a school girl, but she did not even have that going for her as reading and writing provided her great difficulty, her education having been sorely neglected.  In fact, despite being the granddaughter of a duke, not only was so little attention…

A Brief History On January 27, 1939, one of the great American fighter planes of World War II, the Lockheed P-38 Lightning, made its first flight.  Appropriately named, the Lightning was the fastest fighter in the world at that time, being the first to exceed 400 mph in level flight. Digging Deeper The Lightning was designed by the master aircraft architect Clarence Kelly Johnson who also designed the Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star, the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter, the Lockheed U-2 Dragon Lady and the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird. Conceived as a high-speed, high-altitude (44,000 feet!) interceptor, at its introduction, the twin-engine Lightning…