On Sept. 28, 1918 an incident happened on the Western Front in France that changed the course of history. For the worse. Private Henry Tandey was a soldier in the British army and his unit was tasked with capturing the French town of Marcoing. Tandey was a decorated veteran, Read more…
Johnny Clem ran away from home to join the Union Army in the Civil War. He hooked up with the 22nd Michigan Infantry which adopted him as a mascot and drummer boy. Drummer boys were common in the war. They used their drums to relay orders to the men. Read more…
Alfred Nobel made a lot of money perfecting the blowing up of things. He came from a family of inventors. His father invented plywood. His brothers started the Russian oil industry. Alfred was not a happy man. He suffered from migraines, depression, and angina (for which he ironically took Read more…
The Turtle Ships were used in the Seven Year War (1592-1599) between Japan and Korea. Although they had existed before 1592, Admiral Yi Sun-Shin improved the ship and used it to defeat the Japanese navy in several battles. The ships, called “kobukson” by the Koreans, have been called the Read more…
John Paul Jones had already made a name for himself before his signature battle. His Ranger was part of the fledgling American navy. In 1778, he had conducted some daring and well-publicized raids on the British coast. In 1779, he came into port in France and was given the Read more…
The youngest of the wonders is the lighthouse in the harbor of Alexandria, Egypt. It was built around 250 B.C. It stood 380 feet tall which made it only behind the great pyramids as the tallest structure on Earth. It was dedicated to Zeus Soter (the deliverer). It had Read more…
This was a 110 foot statue of the god Helios that was located somewhere in the harbor of Rhodes. It was probably on a pedestal near the entrance. It almost surely did not straddle the entrance, as is sometimes depicted. It was made of bronze and took about twelve Read more…
The temple was built as a tomb for a Persian satrap named Mausolus. It was located in what is today southwestern Turkey. It was completed around 353 B.C. by his wife Artemisia. It was made of white marble and was huge, possibly as tall as 45 stories. The Read more…
James Bowie grew up in Louisiana. As a boy he tamed wild mustangs and rode alligators (you grab their upper jaw and gouge their eyes). He and his brothers made a lot of money in a scam with the infamous pirate Jean Lafitte. Lafitte would smuggle slaves in. The Read more…
Patty Hearst was the granddaughter of newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst. On Feb. 4, 1974 three members of the Symbionese Liberation Army broke into her apartment in Berkeley, California and abducted her. They beat up her fiancé and a neighbor who tried to help. They fired guns at Read more…