On 14 August 1945, Japan unconditionally surrendered ending WWII in the Pacific. This followed the dropping of atomic weapons by the United States. “Little Boy”, a 15 kiloton of TNT, uranium based bomb destroyed Hiroshima on 6 August 1945 and was deployed by the B29 Superfortress “Enola Gay”. “Fat Man”, Continue Reading
USA
Myth: George Washington’s Teeth
The first President of an independent United States, George Washington’s teeth were made from gold, ivory, lead and teeth extracted from animals and slaves. They were not wooden.
Nostradamus Prophecies: Death of Henry II of France and the Election of Donald Trump
Michel de Nostradame, usually anglicised to Nostradamus, wrote Les Propheties in 1555, which is a collection of over a thousand quatrains (four line poems) that have often been interpreted as prophecies of future events. Nostradamus rejected the label of “prophet” and disliked astrologers. However, that hasn’t stopped many commentators interpreting the Continue Reading
S.P.A.M., SPAM, spam (and lobster thermidor)
SPAM luncheon meat was first produced in the Depression era in the United States (1937), by the Hormel Foods Corporation. It was named by Ken Daigneau who had won a contest (and $100). Ken was the brother of a Hormel Vice-President, but that may be entirely coincidental. Hormel insist that the Continue Reading
The best known UFO conspiracy
On July 8 1947, the Roswell Daily Record newspaper reported that the US Air Force at Roswell Army Air Field (RAAF) had captured a flying saucer. This was in response to a press release issued by the RAAF on that day: The many rumors regarding the flying disc became a reality Continue Reading
They couldn’t hit an elephant at this distance
Union General John Sedgwick was a brave and inspiring figure in the American Civil War. At a skirmish near Spotsylvania Court House, Confederate snipers were causing problems when he was trying to deploy his men. The following report by General McMahon who was at his side, describes his unfortunate last conversation: Continue Reading
The First Computer Virus
In 1971, Bob Thomas at BBN Technologies created a self-replicating program, designed to infect servers on ARPANET, the precursor to the internet. Allegedly named after the Scooby Doo villain, the Creeper Virus infected the remote systems and displayed the message “I’m the creeper, catch me if you can!”. Ray Tomlinson, who also Continue Reading
Americans planned to nuke the Moon
On 4 October 1957 the Soviet Union took the lead in the Space Race by launching Sputnik I, the first successful artificial satellite. One of several plans by the the US government to reverse this embarrassment, given the failure of the their own Project Vanguard satellites, was to detonate an Continue Reading
Earliest map of America
The Waldseemüller map, Universalis Cosmographia, first published in 1507, was the first map to use the word “America”. It is generally considered that America is named after Amerigo Vespucci. However, this would be inconsistent with the general practice of using surnames (other than Royal names) for the naming of discovered Continue Reading
Nixon’s Speech if Apollo XI crew got stranded
President Richard Nixon had a speech prepared in the event that the Apollo XI crew got stranded on the moon. From the US National Archives it reads: Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace. These Continue Reading