Tag Archives: History
The IBM 350, the world’s first hard drive from 1956, weighed one ton, held 3.75 MB of data, and cost…
There is a cemetery in the Netherlands with over 8,000 U.S. WWII veterans’ graves. For over 70…
The Truth About Uncle Sam and Calling Americans Yankee
It is one of the most iconic and enduring images in American history: a hollow-cheeked, white-haired figure with bushy eyebrows and a pointy goatee dressed in a tophat and tails emblazoned with the stars and stripes, pointing sternly at the viewer and declaring I WANT YOU FOR THE U.S. ARMY. This, of course, is Uncle… Read More »
The Deadly Bizarre Balloon Blitz Barrage
If I say the word “balloon”, the image that pops into your head is likely a benign one – a colourful helium party balloon, perhaps; or a hot air balloon drifting serenely over a city. But, as with pretty much all of mankind’s creations, these seemingly docile flying machines can and have been turned into… Read More »
The Cold War’s Most Pathetically Hilarious Air Battle
On the morning of August 16, 1956, an alert reached controllers at Oxnard Air Force Base, just north of Los Angeles: a rogue aircraft was headed towards the City of Angels. It was the call the pilots of the 437th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron had been waiting for their entire careers. Minutes later, a pair of fighter… Read More »
That Time Germany Tried to Conduct International Trade…by Submarine
On July 9, 1916, an unusual vessel suddenly appeared in Baltimore Harbour: a German U-boat, proudly flying the red, white, and black Imperial flag. Yet no warships or gunfire greeted the foreign intruder, for she was on a mission not of war, but of commerce. The 60 metre long, 2,300-ton unarmed vessel, specifically designed to… Read More »
Terror on the Ice- The Forgotten Arctic Disaster
Writing a book or a movie? Want to instantly communicate that your story takes place in an alternate reality? Just add zeppelins! More than any other form of transportation, rigid dirigible airships or zeppelins are emblematic of a bygone era of technology – and of a romantic, optimistic future that never was. From the flights… Read More »
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P.T. Barnum noticed visitors staying too long at his exhibits, so he posted signs reading “This Way…
When Dropping a Wrench Almost Caused Armageddon
From the detonation of the first Soviet atomic bomb in 1949 to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the world lived under the horrifying shadow of nuclear armageddon. Following the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction, the Soviet Union, United States, and their allies stockpiled enormous arsenals of nuclear weapons to deter the other… Read More »