Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Monday, July 20, 2026
Saturday, July 18, 2026
Thursday, July 02, 2026
Thursday, June 25, 2026
thank you Marc for letting me know about Barney Oldfield Day at Museum of Fulton County! I didn't know that he became a movie star and even owned the “Oldfield/Kipper Saloon” in Los Angeles, which previously was the the Old Crow Bar, opened in 1906. They hadn't licensed the name from Old Crow liquor though, and were sued
1913... there's a parking garage there now... I bet Barney would hate the idea of a parking garage instead of a saloon, a race track would probably be fine, btu a parking garage? That's insulting to the memory of a race car driver
His car racing career began in 1902 when fledgling automobile designer Henry Ford hired him to race his model 999 car.
Barney was the first automobile racer to achieve a mile a minute
William Nolan, in his book “The Barney Oldfield” story, states that Oldfield took money earned from barnstorming to form a partnership with a former railroad conductor by the name of Jack Kipper. They took over the location and opened the Oldfield Kipper Saloon in late 1912.
Finally tiring of the saloon trade, Oldfield sold out in 1920 to the Rappaport Brothers, who operated a hattery business out of the building. In 1923 they changed their name to the New York Hat Co., continuing to operate through 1939
By the late 1940s, a Western Union Telegraph Office operated at 534 S. Spring St. Over the next ten years they would be robbed seven times.
Thursday, June 18, 2026
Tuesday, June 16, 2026
the story of a life of a C 131
Peru days anti narcotics.
It was an LBJ plane.
The U.S. State Department used a specific Convair 580 (also designated as a VC-131H) for counterdrug and logistics operations in Peru, operating under the bureau of international narcotics affairs.
This aircraft, registered as N7146X (serial number 54-2815), was transferred to the Peruvian National Police in 1990, where it was registered as PNP-025.
Registered as N8448H before delivery to the USAF as C-131D 54-2815 in 1954.
Converted to a CV580/VC-131H in 1966 then to the US Navy in 1978.
To the Department of State Bureau of Narcotics as N7146X then to Policia Nacional del Peru as PNP-025 in 1990.
Returned as N7146X and stored at Davis-Monthan AFB, AZ in 1993.
Left in 1996. To the United States Marshal Service as N723ES then to the IFL Group in 1998.
Converted to a fire bomber for the Province of Saskatchewan as C-GSKQ in 2008. Still operational in 2025.
Original Airframe: The plane began its life as a U.S. Air Force C-131D.
Conversion: It was heavily modified into a turboprop CV-580 (VC-131H) configuration.
Original Airframe: The plane began its life as a U.S. Air Force C-131D.
Conversion: It was heavily modified into a turboprop CV-580 (VC-131H) configuration.
State Department Service: Operated under the Bureau of Narcotics (now the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs) in the Andean counterdrug theater, after which it transferred to Peruvian police operations.
Later Usage and Status
After being returned to the United States in the mid-1990s, the aircraft was subsequently used by the U.S. Marshal Service (registered as N723ES) and eventually underwent conversion to become an aerial firefighting tanker in Canada.
Monday, June 15, 2026
It's amazing how few years it takes for tech to become so commonplace, no one remembers how recently it came along, like the traffic light, or, the internet
Not so long ago, they had to have mass communication awareness campaigns for traffic lights (1965) and zip codes, for example
Thursday, June 11, 2026
American journalist Martha Gellhorn tricked the Navy so that she could write firsthand dispatches from Normandy in June 1944, she lied to get on a hospital ship so she could be a stowaway and get transported to the D Day invasion!
She had already accompanied the US Fifth Army to the front in Monte Cassino, Italy in 1943. She wasn't worried about being in the middle of the war.
Although the US military refused permission for female journalists to cover the Allied landings, Gellhorn wasn't deterred. "To me, all the people in the rear who make rules, they exist to be thwarted," she said in 1991.
Although the US military refused permission for female journalists to cover the Allied landings, Gellhorn wasn't deterred. "To me, all the people in the rear who make rules, they exist to be thwarted," she said in 1991.
Her defiance meant she was on the first hospital ship to reach Normandy, arriving at Omaha Beach early on the morning of 7 June, and becoming the only woman correspondent on the ground at the D-Day landings.
"somebody asked me before letting me board the hospital ship, what I was there for, and I said, 'I'm just going on this ship to interview the nurses – a woman's feature.'
"somebody asked me before letting me board the hospital ship, what I was there for, and I said, 'I'm just going on this ship to interview the nurses – a woman's feature.'
"You could always get by with that. It always sounded harmless and idiotic, and it worked a treat. 'I'm just doing the woman's angle,' and nobody's interested anymore. And then I just locked myself in a toilet until after we left port."
During a career that spanned 60 years, the Missouri-born journalist covered the Spanish Civil War, the Vietnam War, the invasions of Czechoslovakia and Finland, and the liberation of Dachau concentration camp.
She befriended the Roosevelts and stayed with them at the White House, cadged bed and breakfast from HG Wells, and married Ernest Hemingway
She also wrote for Vogue magazine and reported on the Great Depression for the US government, travelling through the Dust Bowl with the photographer Dorothea Lange.
Thanks to Don for highly recommending the movie "Hemingway & Gellhorn". Martha Gellhorn is played by Nicole Kidman.
Tuesday, June 09, 2026
Happy birthday to David Hobbs! He started racing in 1959 in his mom's Morris Oxford. Within three years, he was at Daytona driving someone else's Jaguar and lending his own Lotus Elite to Jimmy Clark.
The career that followed touched every corner of motorsport.
Formula 1 for Honda, McLaren, and BRM.
Sports cars in the Ford GT40, the Mirage, the Ferrari 512M, and Porsche 917s and 956/962s.
IMSA Camel GT for BMW.
Fifth place at the Indianapolis 500 in a McLaren.
Championships in Formula 5000 and Trans-Am.
He even led the Daytona 500 in a NASCAR stock car.
A British driver leading the biggest stock car race in America. In the same career where he raced a Porsche 917 and a Ferrari 512M.
Twenty starts at Le Mans. Two third-place finishes.
Two decades of returning to the same race, in different cars, for different teams, across different eras of the sport.
After the driving Hobbs joined CBS in the early 1970s and became one of the most recognizable voices in American motorsport television, eventually working with SPEED.
Today, let's remember that a bridge was measured in Smoots!
In 1958, as a freshman at MIT and Lambda Chi Alpha pledge, the fraternity pledgemaster hatched the idea to use the shortest — and most scientifically named pledge — to measure the bridge from Boston to Cambridge.
Little did they know, however, that their activity would make its way into MIT, Boston and even Google lore.
They also underestimated how difficult getting up and down 364.4 times (plus or minus an ear) would be. "I don't think any of us had the slightest idea how much work was involved with lying down, getting up," he said. "They had to help me a great way across the bridge. I started by doing a push-up, and then I couldn't even do that. It deteriorated from there."
In 1958, a group of MIT students measured the Massachusetts Ave. Bridge in “smoots,” a now accepted unit of measurement named for the 5-foot, 7-inch Oliver R. Smoot Jr. ’62, who famously laid down hundreds of times across the span one storied night as his peers painted markers across the bridge, totaling 364.4 smoots
On April 4, an MIT team set out on a similar journey across the Charles River to pull off a new “hack,” this time measuring the Longfellow Bridge in “kleins.” This new measurement is named after Smoot’s classmate Martin Klein ’62. One klein (4 feet, 9.5 inches) is equal to 0.85820896 smoots.
The expedition was undertaken in honor of both Smoot and the 85th birthday of Klein.
Known as the father of commercial side-scan sonar, Klein serves on the MIT Sea Grant Advisory Board and the MIT Museum Collections Committee. His sonar technology has been used worldwide to help locate countless famous shipwrecks, including the Titanic, the World War I ocean liner RMS Lusitania, and the treasure-laden Nuestra Señora de Atocha.
Appropriately, the MIT team used a “side-scan” method to survey the Longfellow Bridge.
Reclined on a custom-engineered wooden cart topped with a mission-specific chaise lounge pillow, Klein himself acted as the official observation device — by looking to the sides — as the team pulled him along the bridge.
this post brought to you because of bridges, humor, and the cart they thoughtfully used so 82 year old Martin Klein did not have to move and lay down and move 400 times...
We can all benefit from some light humor about bridges, goody characters, and carts
Saturday, June 06, 2026
I just learned that the founder of Mr. Gasket, Joe Hrudka, and his brother Tom won the 1961 and 1962 NHRA U.S. Nationals.
he launched the Cleveland-based Mr. Gasket business in 1965 with his brother Tom
Tom's daughter, Tracy, is the CEO of the Quarter Mile Foundation
https://www.racingjunk.com/news/mr-gasket-founder-joseph-joe-hrudka-passes-away
Saturday, May 30, 2026
Friday, May 29, 2026
there's a bullet hole in his coffee cup which he was drinking from when someone shot at his rig when he was on the interstate near Lucedale, Mississippi, Feb 1974
The shot went through the side window of Harold Jentzen's truck and through the cup.
He was not hurt, and did not stop to report the incident until he was 200 miles away five hours later in Lafayette, La.
Anecdotal evidence is that teamsters union was on strike, and shooting at the truckers rolling along on the US72, US78, and Interstate 55
Wednesday, May 27, 2026
Some officers in the 101st thought a 75mm pack howitzer could not knock out a German tank. The grunts ignored the naysayers and did it anyway
On Christmas morning '44 the 463rd Parachute Field Artillery Battalion were dug in northwest of Bastogne.
A German armored assault force helped out by showing up to provide tanks to submit for testing, with direct fire, at short range.
The battalion claimed eight tanks destroyed, though only two could be confirmed at the time and other units shared the fight. Of the eighteen that began the assault, none survived the day.
The 463rd received the Presidential Unit Citation for its work at Bastogne.
Tuesday, May 26, 2026
Monday, May 25, 2026
new to me ads for Phillips 66 (now has me wondering... what is the 66 representing?) And Steve has the answer! The story the museum tells is that the car testing the Phillips gas did 66 miles per hour while running on Route 66.
Route 66 opened in 1926. The first Phillips 66 station opened in November 1927 - bulk sales before that.
By the end of December they had four stations up and running. The story the museum tells goes that the car testing the gas did 66 miles per hour while running on Route 66.
The stated reason in 1927 didn't mention a car testing gas on Route 66 - it was the API gravity value of their aviation fuel (by 1932 it was up to 69.6).
Their logo didn't change to look like the Route 66 signs until around August 1930.
The stated reason in 1927 didn't mention a car testing gas on Route 66 - it was the API gravity value of their aviation fuel (by 1932 it was up to 69.6).
Their logo didn't change to look like the Route 66 signs until around August 1930.
As an aside, Phillips 66 was the name of Bartlesville's very successful A.A.U. league basketball team.
Saturday, May 23, 2026
Tuesday, May 19, 2026
Flossie Beadle's attempt to stop the destruction of the cork elms 1960s, trees that were doomed by the road expansion from horse and buggy use to 4 lanes wide
Lakeside Historian Flossie Beadle blocking the excavator
Flossie Beadle tried to save them from being cut down on Woodside but in the end even her shotgun could not stop the removal the the trees to make the road wider, so, instead she talked the community into helping her transplant seedlings/offshoots to all the lakeside schools, like Lindo Park school.
the Cork Elms on the West side of Lakeside were imported from Australia in 1893, by the El Cajon Land Co, and planted by the school kids in Lakeside
There were 50 planted on each side. These were the only lane of Cork Elms in the USA.
In Feb 1956, seven of the shade trees were cut down from the south lane for an entrance to a proposed shopping center (Safeway Vons) and though the promoter was on record as having promised that the trees would be preserved as an asset to the shopping center, of course, he was lying his ass off. By 1967 all the cork elms were cut down, or destroyed by pipeline construction destroying their roots
In 2021, history repeated itself just feet away from the Cork Elm location.
Volunteers planted them on a property along Woodside Avenue, in tribute to some trees long gone.
Others interfered with the construction of the parking lot and number of spaces for the library and construction of the building itself.
Nearly 130 years ago, and a few feet away, school children planted 50 cork elms. In 1956, county officials wanted to take the trees down to widen the road. In the way was town historian Flossie Beadle.
According to a county spokesperson, the cost of relocating the trees is $10,000 for each tree and not financially "viable."
Monday, May 18, 2026
Sir George Dowty designed the hydraulic landing gear for the World War II Lancaster bomber, and a statue of him and the gear will be officially unveiled at the International Bomber Command Centre (IBCC) in Lincoln on Wednesday 27 May..... not many people get a statue for suspension!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)