This pic blows me away. Not only are eclipses rare, then to catch a plane just on the edge of one, and then to get a super rare plane that didn't last long as that object. Just so many rare pieces in one photo
Here's the wiki page about that prototype flight. Normal time of totality on the ground was just over 7 minutes. Flying with that Concorde along the path of the moon's passing, they were able to get it to 74 friggin minutes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_eclipse_of_June_30,_1973
Peter Freuchen Dug His Way Out Of An Icy Grave Using His Own Frozen Poop Irving Penn Standing a burly six-foot-seven, Peter Freuchen looked like a lumberjack fucked a grizzly bear and she gave birth to the physical manifestation of an ass-kicking. Irving PennSeen here with his girlfriend, Death. In 1906, at the ripe young age of 20, Freuchen dropped out of medical school and set off to explore Greenland by dog sled. That's where he met his first wife, an Inuit woman named Navarana Mequpaluk, who bore him a daughter named Pipaluk Jette Tukuminguaq Kasaluk Palika Hager and a son named Mequsaq Avataq Igimaqssusuktoranguapaluk -- because even the alphabet rightly feared Peter Freuchen. On another of what came to be known as the Thule Expeditions, Freuchen found himself buried alive after waiting out a blizzard. With probably the grossest MacGyverism ever, Freuchen took a dump into his hand, shaped his deuce into a chisel, waited for it to freeze rock-solid, and then chipped his way to freedom. Unfortunately, shit-chiseling is grueling work, and by the time he crawled back into camp hours later, his left foot was hopelessly frostbitten. That's when he -- without any anesthetic whatsoever -- performed a self-amputation on his gangrenous foot, hopefully not with his shit-chisel. MGM Studios"No, I cast a bone saw out of frozen pee and blood in a snow mold." When the Nazis came a-knocking during World War II, Freuchen returned home to join the Danish resistance movement. After aiding countless refugees from the Reich, Freuchen was captured and sentenced to death. Of course, he escaped and fled to Sweden, because if Mother Nature herself couldn't murder the bastard, what chance did the Nazis have?
i'll admit I giggled... that said, in 2008/2012 [insert EVERY member of Hollywood as Obama supporter to put on news and 'care' about their political opinion]
But seriously I run a Twitter account now that posts fun/interesting pics from history, looking for some good stuff
I'll be honest, George H.W. Bush and Arnold Schwarzenegger sledding is my favorite picture in all of human history.
Rob Ford drinking milk with both hands from a green plastic cup while wearing a tie with footballs all over it (attending a city council meeting) is mine
Apparently the artillery shelling of the fort was the least of the German's worries. Some guys had the bright idea to light up a cooking fire near some stores of flamethrower fuel, caused a small explosion that killed a few people and injured a lot of others. These survivor's faces were blackened with soot from the explosion, and when they came out of the blast zone, the Germans thought that black French African troops had breached the fort. The rest of the German soldiers started lobbing grenades at their injured comrades, inadvertently setting off a stockpile of 155mm shells for the massive turret gun. This caused a massive explosion that resulted in the deaths of 700-800 men, and injured 1,800 others.
Verdun is so crazy. I highly recommend anyone interested listen to Dan Carlin's Hardcore History podcast on WWI. The German opening barrage was somewhere in the neighborhood of 2 million shells. Over the course of the battle, they would end up firing 60 million shells or 75 shells per soldier killed in the battle. The scale is mind boggling.
It really did. Its one of a couple conflicts in history that was fought at "the wrong time," i.e. with modern technology but older tactics. The US Civil War is another example. In WWI we had armies fighting with cavalry, bayonet charges, etc but in an environment with fully automatic machine guns, poison gas, modern artillery, air power, etc. Anytime that happens, the casualties just skyrocket.
Didn't finish the whole podcast but my favorite part was when he was talking about the German army marching through Belgium on "Der Tag." Quoted an eyewitness account that said they came marching through his town and took 26 hours for all of them to pass Said they dressed in gray and appeared to just fade in and out of the fog as they passed through.
Swimmers at The Last Frontier motel in Vegas watching a mushroom cloud from an A-Bomb test 65 miles away. March 29th, 1955.
Kinda curious what went on at the "Last Frontier Hotel." I see those covered wagons in the back, guess it was a frontier theme park? I was thinking the other night you could probably make tourism money by offering modern folks the chance to cross the American West in a covered wagon (with plenty of affordances to make it comfortable and not dangerous of course)
166 years ago today, in 1851, Johann Berkowski took the first image of a total solar eclipse in history by using the daguerreotype process. 88 years ago today, in 1928, the Olympic Torch was lit in Amsterdam for the first time since the ancient games in Greece.
The torpedoed Japanese destroyer Yamakaze, as seen through the periscope of an American submarine, USS Nautilus, in June 1942.