Comments by "Colonel K" (@Paladin1873) on "The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered" channel.

  1. I was a young USAF lieutenant stationed in Texas in 1979. I may be recalling a different event, but a SAC Minuteman missile crew commander was reassigned to our organization about this time and became my office mate. He told me about the incident and initially thought it was a very realistic drill until the point where they inserted the launch keys. Then the order came to stand down. He was told the mistake was due to the Soviets having conducted an unannounced dual test launch, which was something they had never done before. Our satellites immediately picked up the flares and sent the warning message before calculating the trajectories as being nonthreatening. Perhaps it was a different event, which if true, gives me a case of the willies. Sleep tight America - your Air Force is awake.
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  2. They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, We will remember them. (Laurence Binyon 1869 - 1943)
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  3. I agree with your conclusion. Misfires were not uncommon in both flintlock and percussion firearms under field conditions. Test firing in a dry environment is not comparable to carrying a loaded pistol in a pocket on a rain-soaked day and then attempting to discharge it. It may be apocryphal, but I've been told Jackson cursed the man while beating him with his cane, claiming he could not tolerate a fool who did not know how to properly load a pistol. It certainly seems like something Jackson would say.
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  4. I read a book about the Los Banos Raid a few years back. It is a riveting story that beats anything Hollywood could have dreamed up. The debt we owe the Filipinos is only rivaled by the one we owe the Chinese, who suffered immensely for helping the Doolittle Raiders escape the clutches of the Japanese invaders in 1942. It's all history worth remembering.
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  5. My sister drove a Gremlin in high school. One Sunday afternoon it was parked alone on a quiet street in front of our grandmother's house. They were sitting on the front porch watching the empty road when another vehicle approached from the opposite direction, traveling slowly. Suddenly it crossed the median and smashed into her car before driving away. When our father found out, he was relieved nobody had been hurt, and doubly relieved it had been the Gremlin. It was the only family vehicle which had collision coverage. We concluded the driver must have been drunk or else he really hated Gremlins.
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  6. One person who served on a converted yacht in the early days following the US entry into WWII was Ernest Borgnine. I've watched some videos of him talking about such duty and it was eye opening. The training and equipment they had was subpar. That any of these vessels survived the war must be attributed to the men who served aboard them and a bit of divine intervention.
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  7. Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth, And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings; Now how do I get back down?
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  8. I prefer my ketchup shaken, not stirred.
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  9. They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, We will remember them. (Laurence Binyon 1869 - 1943)
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  10. Slightly more than 14 years after the incident I reached my first active duty assignment at the Medina Annex. I can assure you that the old hands working there were still talking about it. Whenever I told local San Antonio area residents where I was stationed, they would mention the incident, which took place in one of the more isolated areas of the Annex. On the few occasions when I drove to that side of the Annex I would look for the missing igloo. It wasn't hard to spot the grassy depression between the orderly rows of igloos. With the passing of time I doubt many people today know about it. Although it was not a lethal accident, the fact that so many of the buildings at Medina housed radioactive material at one time or another did result indirectly in fatalities of another kind. I personally knew two members of the Air Force Gunsmith School (now Combat Arms Training and Maintenance) who had operated for several years out of one such structure. They were the only men from the school who were still alive. The rest had succumbed to cancer while still in their fifties.
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  11. My late friend, General Bob, flew P-38 intercept missions against the Japanese balloons. At the time the operation was top secret because the government did not want the Japanese to know any of their balloons had reached the US. He never shot one down, but did sink an enemy submarine that looked an awful lot like a whale. 🙂
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  12. I thought Professor Fate won that race. :)
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  13. Yours is the most thorough retelling of the Makin Raid I have yet seen. Semper Fi!
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  14. The French police need taller cars.
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  15. Bainbridge and Decatur figured largely in my early family life. My father was born to a prominent family in Bainbridge, GA, the seat of Decatur county. My great uncle built the Stephen Decatur Hotel there in 1942, where I later spent many Sundays visiting my great aunt, running about the hotel, working the switchboard, playing in the TV lounge, and having supper in the dining room. But most of all I remember the large portrait of Commodore Decatur in the hotel parlor. Now they are all gone but the memories, not even a footnote in the history guides.
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  16. Pride and arrogance can be more lethal than a well placed cannon ball.
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  17. "They will live a long time, these men of the South Pacific. They had an American quality. They, like their victories, will be remembered as long as our generation lives. After that, like the men of the Confederacy, they will become strangers. Longer and longer shadows will obscure them, until their Guadalcanal sounds distant on the ear, like Shiloh and Valley Forge." James Michener, Tales of the South Pacific
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  18. I never considered myself lucky when I discovered a baloney sandwich in my lunchbox. I do recall having to remove the red plastic ring before making cold sandwiches or frying it in a pan. It would always balloon up when fried. I'd cut slits in it and try to deflate it, but in the end I had a warped piece of deli meat. My wife spent her early youth in Detroit and enjoyed baloney purchased at the local deli. She still insists it was much better than the dreaded Oscar Mayer variety. It's all a load of baloney to me. I can afford to buy better lunch meat now. I don't know about a year from now.
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  19. They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, We will remember them. (Laurence Binyon 1869 - 1943)
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  20. In 1978 I worked with a man who lived through the Texas City disaster. In 1947 Dick was residing in Texas City after having survived two years of combat in the Pacific as an infantryman. He told me he as was watching the blaze from over a mile away when the ship exploded. His military instinct took over and he jumped flat onto the dirt. A man standing near him did not and was decapitated by flying debris. A similar disaster, but on a smaller scale, took place in my mother's hometown of Richmond, IN, in 1968, killing 41 people and destroying or damaging 20 buildings. We had visited this tranquil community of 44,000 residents only a year prior. Ever since the tragedy the population of Richmond has steadily declined and now numbers fewer than 36,000. It can happen anywhere, anytime . . . on a sunny day, on a sunny street.
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  21. "It's a jungle out there." "Where, the Congo?" "No, the Bronx."
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  22. I imagine many people must have gone after him in civil court. After all, who didn't want a Tweed suit back then?
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  23. I spent 30 years in the Air Force and was unaware of how serious were the early teething problems of the BUFF. I presume you know what the last "F" really stands for. 🙂 The last B-52 was manufactured in 1962. Many of the later models went through Kelly AFB for complete rebuilds and upgrades more than once. Boeing overbuilt them so well, that such a feat was made possible.
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  24. My late friend, Brig Gen Bob Clements, flew P-38s in the Pacific. After the war he flew P-51s. He preferred the P-38 because he had several Mustang engines seize up in flight, which isn’t a big problem with the P-38. He loved the Lightning so much that his moniker became P-38 Bob.
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  25. "They will live a long time, these men of the South Pacific. They had an American quality. They, like their victories, will be remembered as long as our generation lives. After that, like the men of the Confederacy, they will become strangers. Longer and longer shadows will obscure them, until their Guadalcanal sounds distant on the ear, like Shiloh and Valley Forge." James Michener, Tales of the South Pacific
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  26. I've read a long account of this journey before, but your retelling is much appreciated. I do think it would make a grand adventure movie, assuming Hollywood didn't go Titanic on it.
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  27. "We decided we were stronger together than apart." This theme seems to be losing some of its appeal today.
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  28. It must be gut-wrenching to research and tell these stories, but they deserve to be remembered. Thank you.
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  29. Sounds like they all were mad as a hatter.
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  30. The fascinating history of everything and anything.
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  31. It didn't help that conservative US Congressman Larry McDonald (D-GA), who was also president of the strongly anticommunist John Birch Society, was killed on that flight. Yes, there used to be such a thing as conservative Democrats.
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  32. In the 1980s I became associated with a colorful character by the name of Vito Cellini. He was born in America of Italian immigrants, but his family moved back to Italy when he was still a young boy. Nevertheless, Vito rightfully considered himself an American. During WWII he was drafted into the Italian Army and sent to fight in the Balkans. Vito was very disgusted by the behavior of many Italian troops, so he stole a light machine gun and a motorcycle, then headed into the mountains to join the Partisans. He fought with them until November 1943, by which time he longed to return to Italy and check on his extended family. He was finally able to cross the Adriatic Sea in a small cargo vessel and arrived at Bari the day after the devastating Luftwaffe raid. Vito saw firsthand the carnage the Germans had created and he mingled among the many people still suffering from the effects of mustard gas, though at the time nobody understood what was happening. Over seven decades later he described this incident and much more in a biography of his life.
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  33. Don't mess with Texas or Texas Rangers.
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  34. "We can contend with evil that men do in the name of evil, but heaven protect us from what they do in the name of good." - Herodotus, from his third essay
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  35. I never stole a tank, but when I was about seven years old my grandmother left me on a playground in Bainbridge, GA, which was next door to what I think was the local National Guard Armory. In those days there was a Tank Company from the 121st Infantry Regiment assigned to them. They had what I think were M103 heavy tanks (120mm guns) parked there unattended. I started climbing on them and discovered a hatch had been left unsecured. As a result I was able to crawl around inside the vehicle and pretend I was Sgt Saunders from the TV series Combat!. I found it very roomy, but I was probably no more than four feet tall at the time. Ten years later I was marching in our high school ROTC unit behind a couple of these massive beasts as we paraded down the main street of the Florida state capitol. I believe these 60 ton monsters belonged to the 8th Tank Battalion (4th Marine Div) of the Tallahassee Naval and Marine Corps Reserve Center in Tallahassee, FL and were about to be retired.
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  36. I learned about him only a week ago when a friend sent me an article on his life. Amazing how the internet still can spread good stories quickly amidst its usual noise.
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  37. The Soviet intercept theory strikes me as being preposterous for a host of reasons, not the least of which is the impossibility of arranging a controlled crash in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean in the middle of the night. An accident is a much more plausible theory. During this same time period my Dad was aboard a C-124 in Alaska. He was a young Air Force B-29 engine mechanic heading home on leave when one of the massive Pratt & Whitney R4360 radial engines caught fire. Dad quickly donned his parachute in anticipation of a bailout over the rugged terrain, but an old master sergeant told him to settle down and let the crew handle it. Sure enough, the pilot was able to smother the flames and they continued on to their destination using the power of the remaining three engines. Dad was always wary of Globemasters after than (not that the B-29 was any safer or reliable). Whatever the cause of their demise, may God grant them eternal peace.
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  38. Despite their sacrifices, particularly during the first six months of the war, the US government still has not granted VA benefits or similar privileges to the US Merchant Marines of WWII even though they were granted former WASPS (Women Airforce Service Pilots).
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  39. My brother was a USAF C-141 Starlifter navigator in 1991 and had to evacuate American military families from Clark Air Base in the Philippines following the Mt Pinatubo disaster. Each person was allowed to bring two suitcases with them. Everything else was left behind for local scavengers to salvage (steal). We ended up closing Clark AB and the US Navy base at Subic Bay. These peacetime losses dwarfed the damage done at the Pompeii airfield in 1944.
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  40. It reminds me of the assassination of Albert Patterson, a disabled WWI hero, lawyer, and crusading reformer who fought political corruption and organized crime in Phenix City, Alabama until he was murdered shortly after winning the Democratic nomination for Alabama Attorney General in 1954 (making him a shoe-in for AG). So outraged were citizens of the state that the governor sent in the National Guard and declared martial law. Over 700 people were indicted for various crimes, of which 400 were convicted and paid fines or served some time, but three of them were charged with the murder of Patterson. This included Chief Deputy Sheriff Albert Fuller, Circuit Solicitor (district attorney) Arch Ferrell, and most stunningly, State Attorney General Si Garrett. Only Fuller was convicted, while Garrett never went to trial, having committed himself to a mental asylum in Texas to avoid prosecution. While there his mental condition deteriorated to the point that he was deemed mentally incompetent to stand trial. In the end Albert Patterson's son, John, was elected state AG and later became governor. A 1955 movie of these events, "The Phenix City Story", is brutally heart-stomping reenactment of the actual events.
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  41. The Chief of Naval Operations was Admiral Ernest King.
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  42. Will Hollywood be releasing a movie version of "How the Cold War was Fun"?
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  43.  @TheHistoryGuyChannel  The Air Force sees no reason to speak a foreign language just so the hired help will understand us.
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  44. At age 16 my grandmother took her first airplane ride on a dare. That was in 1917. While she never developed a love for aviation, my Dad did. He even once restored a 1929 Curtiss Robin (shown in my logo). Roscoe Turner once contacted him about purchasing it. I don't know what became of that letter.
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  45.  @TheHistoryGuyChannel  Yes, it was, but Americans back then understood how important such censorship was to our survival and victory. If only this patriotism had extended to turning out the lights at night along the seaboard, how many more merchant seamen would have survived the war?
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  46. I'm a regular viewer of your program, but this one touched me in a personal way and brought back memories from my early youth. It's hard to believe it has now been over a century since WWI ended. I say this because I can clearly remember, as a small boy, visiting my grandparents in Tampa, Florida every summer. During The Big One my Grandpa had served aboard a Navy minesweeper as a boatswain's mate. After the war he joined the American Legion, serving in a variety of capacities, including Post Commander. Forty years later he remained quite active and still served as a committee member at American Legion Post 5, USS Tampa, on Bay Shore Boulevard. The Post was named after the USS Tampa, in honor of a Coast Guard cutter which was sunk with all hands to a German U-boat in WWI. This was the largest loss of life of US Navy personnel to known enemy action in WWI, and because so many of the crew were Coast Guard, this tiny service suffered the greatest loss of life per size of any branch of service. Being a Navy veteran of the same war, Grandpa always tried to honor and remember these men. Almost every day would find us at the Post, where there was always something exciting for a kid to do. I pretty much had free run of the place, so at any given moment I might be sitting on the old torpedo near the flag pole, helping scrape old paint off the building, shooting pool and sharing a "short" beer with Grandpa (I was about five years old), or watching a few veterans play cards and chat with Grandpa, whom they called Sam. At the end of the day I'd help him fold the American flag and put it away. He was always very serious when we did this, and he taught me how to properly fold and respect the flag, and why it was so important. On membership night I'd help out in the bar (I got pretty good at working the tap and sliding long neck bottles of Budweiser and Busch-Bavarian beer down the slick waxed surface of the bar). Each month the wives prepared large dinners for the great hall, and entire families would show up to participate in the always popular BINGO night, with everyone sitting below the beautifully haunting stained glass memorial of the USS Tampa. On quieter evenings, I would sit on the Post 5 veranda with my grandparents, slowly swaying in the rocking chairs, while watching the lights of ships as they entered and left the harbor, the smell of salt air strong in the warm evening breeze. I loved that old Legion Hall, and each visit there brought a new experience to my young eyes. About the only place I recall being off limits was the second floor, so naturally curiosity got the better of me, and not yet able to read and heed the sign chained across the creaky old staircase, I once sneaked upstairs to discover a musty room full of WWI era parade rifles sitting in wooden racks. Next to them were two old machine guns that now lay silent, coated with years of dust. Like the torpedo, the machine guns were defunct and forgotten relics, but the rifles still performed a solemn duty whenever the Legionnaires were asked to provide an honor guard for the funeral of a comrade, and during Memorial Day services, where they would thunder loudly as a volley of blanks was discharged to salute the fallen. They're all gone now, the veterans, their wives, even the old post itself. Another post was built some years later in a new location. Presumably, they still have the torpedo and the memorial. As for me, I will always have the memories. Thanks, Grandpa.
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  47. Move over Lassie and Rin-Tin-Tin; there's a real law dog in town.
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  48. You mowed me over with this one. I suffered from a lawnmower accident at 16, and have despised the chore ever since. When I retired I decided not to have a lawn, and instead made a large rock garden with flowers, shrubs, waterfalls, and ponds. Beyond that are pastures and trees. My biggest problem now is keeping the grass at bay, which is accomplished by a combination of weed blocker, mulch, hand weeding, grass trimmers, and horses. It's more irritating and slower than mowing, but I only have to do the manual labor a couple times, once in the spring and again in the summer. if only somebody would invent a weeding robot.
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  49. My Grandpa was a railroad man during WWI and exempt from the draft, but he quit his job to join the US Navy. He served on a mine sweeper as a coxswain, then after the war he was very active in the American Legion. He was always proud of his WWI Navy service, and I was always proud of him. At the age of five he taught me the manual of arms with my Kaydet toy rifle. He, and men like him, were my inspiration for becoming a career Air Force officer. Watching this presentation, I see a bit of Grandpa in all of those sailors, and I am so very grateful that you have included them as a part of history that deserves to be remembered.
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  50. I agree with Manning's assessment of Earhart's flying skills. In aviation circles Noonan is remembered by some for his pioneering work, while Earhart is seen as a socialite amateur pushed by her wealthy husband beyond her abilities.
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  51. His son, Philip, did not fare so well. He was murdered by Congressman Daniel Sickles of NY in 1859 for having an affair with the congressman's wife. Sickles pleaded temporary insanity and walked. This was the first time such a plea was used in a US court.
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  52. He had the potential to be a great artist, but he squandered his talent. Few of his works impress me because a child with a crayon could have created them. That doesn't stop investors from paying ridiculously obscene prices for them, but their goal is not sensual reward, it is profit on a future sale. The old devil must be laughing in his grave. His victims . . . not so much.
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  53. He was one of the great heroes of the Air Force research community.
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  54. You mentioned the 1994 B-52 crash at Fairchild AFB. This was a particularly tragic event because it was completely avoidable. The week had begun ominously enough when a former serviceman entered the base hospital and killed five people before being shot by Security Policemen. Preoccupied with the investigation, the wing commander overlooked or dismissed repeated complaints regarding the dangerous flight behavior one of his senior pilots. The failure of the wing commander and his deputies to ground this individual would result in the death of four men, including one squadron commander who refused to allow any other members of squadron to fly with this pilot. Numerous serious safety violations were well documented, but nothing more than verbal reprimands had ever been issued. The safety officer on the flight was a colonel who was about to retire, and this was to be his last mission. As a result, his family had gathered at the field to greet him upon landing. Instead, they witnessed the crash, which was recorded on videotape. It is a sickening thing to watch. The findings of the accident investigation uncovered a serious pattern of abuse and failure of leadership which led to the court-martial of the Wing Commander and his conviction for dereliction of duty. Small solace for those left behind.
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  55. Thanks for retelling this extraordinary story. I have never heard of this American hero, but his adventures are worthy of a movie.
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  56. Always a pleasure to hear from Tommy Atkins. I once had the satisfaction of briefly working with the Household Cavalry during an exercise in Egypt. Fortunately, one of my junior offices had liaised with the British before, so he advised that we arrive at suppertime because "They lay out the silver". After six weeks of Army field rations (I was Air Force), the chance of receiving a proper meal proved most enticing. We were not disappointed!
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  57. My grandmother's next-door neighbor bought the first color television in our town. I remember watching "Bonanza" on it in 1959 , complete with pink horses and a purple sky.
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  58. Another amazing David vs. Goliath adventure at sea.
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  59. Ronald, I'm a former fuels officer myself, but by the time I went through the Supply Officer and Fuels course, it was being taught at Lackland AFB (Medina Annex) where I started my career. As an aside, the Supply, Transportation, and Logistics Planning Officer career fields are now a single merged career field called 21RX Logistics Readiness. However, their enlisted equivalents remain separated, so the 2F0XX (fuelies) still enjoy their semi-independence, living at the far end of the field where they can host BBQs and beach parties without interference from Group or Wing leadership.
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  60. "They will live a long time, these men of broadcast television. They had an American quality. They, like their innovations, will be remembered as long as our generation lives. After that, like the men of early radio, they will become strangers. Longer and longer shadows will obscure them, until the terms CBS, NBC, and ABC sound distant on the ear, like roll film and LP." - With apologies to James Michener
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  61. History is never boring when The History Guy tells it.
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  62. Hey, Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat. Again?
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  63. I'm from a flying family and was in my senior year of high school when this happened. I remember my Dad discussing the disappearance with several other pilots, one of whom commented that Don Jonz had once written a dismissive article about the dangers of airplane icing. Another mentioned that Hale Boggs was a heavy drinker, so perhaps everyone aboard had imbibed before takeoff. All of this is pure speculation and may not contain an ounce of truth, but I'd sooner believe weather and incompetence were the culprits before I would accept a Mafia conspiracy theory.
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  64. My brother was a navigator on a C-141 Starlifter at the time and participated in the mass evacuation of US military personnel and their dependents from the Philippines (Operation Fiery Vigil). Very little could be taken, a couple of suitcases per person. In the end we abandoned both Clark Air Base and Subic Bay Naval Base. Since 1988 the US government had been in difficult negotiations with the Philippine government over a treaty involving lease renewals for both bases. Between the acrimonious talks and the devastation wrought by the volcano, the US military decided to permanently abandon Clark. When the US refused to agree to massive increases in basing right leases, the Philippine Senate voted down the treaty, thus forcing the US Navy to leave Subic Bay by the end of 1992. Clark later became an international airport, a special economic zone, and home to the Philippine Air Force. Subic Bay is now a large industrial and commercial complex, but the recent bankruptcy of a major South Korean shipbuilding company there has left Filipino bankers owed over 400 million dollars. Two Chinese firms have offered to take over the shipyard, sparking fears within the Philippine government of what that could portend in the long run. The Philippine Navy also wants to take over the yard for military construction. As an aside, in recent years both the US Navy and Air Force have made frequent stopovers and conducted limited joint operations with the Philippine military. These acts of goodwill serve as a counterbalance to the looming Chinese juggernaut. Will history repeat itself?
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  65.  @AndyFromBeaverton  There was an old joke in the AAF that the Mustang could beat the P-38 at every task except returning home with one engine out.
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  66. I'm glad I never had to learn English history in depth. If wars were won by feasting, Or victory by song, Or safety found in sleeping sound, How England would be strong! - Rudyard Kipling
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  67.  @fernandoi3389  Dr. No Mayo, I presume.
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  68. Did I hear you mention Hadrian was the successor to Trajan? Would that be same the Hadrian of Hadrian's Wall fame in Britain?
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  69. So the birds were on an acid trip. How Californian of them.
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  70.  @maynardcarmer3148  Yep. It made me shake my head and laugh out loud at the same time.
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  71. There's no way canned beer tastes better than bottled beer.
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  72. Don't screw with South Africans.
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  73. I recall the movie "Malta Story" contained a scene of the Ohio limping into Grand Harbour in Malta. It was an amazing feat and a very close thing, deserving of a movie by itself.
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  74.  @solarnaut  Sol, I can actually top that. When my wife and I were first married we lived in a small house on my tree farm. All we got was UHF and VHF reception, and it was poor even with the aluminum foil I added to the rabbit ears (it didn't work on the UHF loop antenna). Even though this was in the mid to late 90s, I couldn't afford to add cable or satellite TV, so when we built a larger house, I installed a roof antenna for better reception. I had "cleverly" mounted it to a pole which itself was held in place by two extended brackets that I'd bolted to the outside wall of our second floor bedroom. We soon discovered that the best reception could only be achieved by "tuning" the antenna for each channel. The only way to do this was for me to rotate the antenna, but the only way to rotate it was for me to climb out the rear bedroom window onto the back deck roof, walk to the edge of the house, and carefully lean around the corner so I could just barely grab the pole and twist it. Meanwhile, my wife, who was in our downstairs living room checking the reception, had to repeatedly run up the stairs and shout to me the result of each minor twist. When a major change in antenna direction was required, my only option was to take a short ladder onto the deck roof and use it to climb onto the main roof of the house, then move to the edge of the roof where I could get a good grip on the antenna and rotate it as much as needed. In these situations my wife had to run up the stairs and into the bedroom, lean out the back window, shout the results to me, then dash back downstairs to check the progress before running back up again for the next report. Mind you, this feat was normally performed at night. Rainy nights were particularly challenging.
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  75. I wonder if we'll have a repeal day for lock-downs.
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  76. Hercules and Cato - sounds like a pair of superheroes. I wish you'd do a story on that most foul character, Provost Marshall William Cunningham. I suspect he was more hated in America than Benedict Arnold and Banastre Tarleton. A fictionalized account of his death at the gallows in 1791 for forgery attests to how deep this sentiment ran.
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  77. In the role of blocking the attacker, yes, the security team failed. In their other roles they succeeded. We studied the photos and video footage of the shooting when I went through protective service training in the USAF a year later. Our instructor pointed out that a police officer assigned to screen the crowd was looking at Reagan instead of the public, thus providing Hinckley an opportunity to penetrate security. As Hinckley opened fire, Secret Service Agent Tim McCarthy spread his body in front of President Reagan and was shot in the abdomen. Meanwhile, the agent in charge, Jerry Parr, quickly shoved Reagan into the limo. As he was doing so, the President was hit by Hinckley's last bullet, which had ricocheted off the armored body of the limousine. According to forensic evidence, had Parr not pushed Reagan so violently into the car, the President would have been struck in the head instead of the arm and abdomen. While racing toward the White House, Reagan's only complaint was of a broken rib which he assumed was caused by Parr's action. But when Parr noticed blood frothing on Reagan's lips, he instantly realized the President had likely been hit in the lung, so he diverted the limo to George Washington Hospital. Collectively, the actions of the Secret Service that day saved Reagan's life. As an interesting aside, Parr first considered becoming a Secret Service agent while still a boy, after watching Ronald Reagan in the 1939 movie "Code of the Secret Service". How's that for coincidence or providence?
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  78.  @K1ddkanuck  If you had ever served in the military you would know that the services ribbing each other is a time honored tradition.
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  79. I suspect Poon Lim and Eddie Rickenbacker would have gotten along famously.
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  80. The movie, Wake Island, does a credible job of reflecting the intensity of the fighting, though it has been reported that the Chinese extras employed to play Japanese soldiers kept falling down "dead" en masse every time the director yelled action and the guns started firing. He had a hard time convincing them that not all of the enemy could die. Some of them had to survive in order to capture the island. Apparently, this displeased them (small wonder). It's also worth remembering that, despite the implication of the movie's last battle scene, most of the men and their leaders did in fact survive the war. Of course, a valiant Alamo style death tends to stir the hearts and minds of Americans more effectively than the banal truth. Anger and revenge have their usefulness in wartime.
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  81. You're a real Poe-t.
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  82. Kingfisher, if you're thanking me, I'm not sure I've done anything to deserve it, but on behalf of everyone who has ever served this country in peace or war, I'll accept it.
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  83. The Medal of Honor is not won; it is earned. This isn't the Olympic Games. It is life and death.
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  84. We studied the Pantelleria operation as part of our AFROTC progam in college, but you went into far more detail in your presentation. Many air power advocates still believe victory can be achieved from air and space without resorting to nukes or guided asteroids. This theory will only become reality when the enemy cannot hide far enough underground to avoid destruction. Perhaps the answer rests in tiny programmable drones that can selectivity target and kill their victims, rather than weapons of mass destruction that ravage entire populations.
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  85. Coastal defense and the coastal artillery so vital to that defense are long overlooked topics of American military history. A visit to any one of these historic sites quickly conjures up images of what life behind those thick walls must have been like for the soldiers stationed there, be they Spanish, English, French, or American.
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  86. Is there a subtle warning in The History Guy's Christmas message that though the current times seem dark, there was a much darker time 81 years ago? Yet the world survived, so there is hope for our future as well. Merry Christmas to all and pray for a better tomorrow.
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  87. My home county remained dry until the early 1970s.
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  88. I never visited Chanute, but my Dad went through the aircraft engine maintenance course there in the late 40s. He told me he and one other airman had already earned their A&E ratings before enlisting in the Air Force, so the instructors told them to just sit in back and remain quiet while they taught the rest of the students. Lots of bases are shuttered now, and others have since merged. For example, Lackland started out in WWII as an annex to Kelly. They were later split into two bases. Now, what remains of Kelly has become part of Lackland. The only constant is change.
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  89. Thanks for clarifying that point. has anyone ever done a retrospective on the Soviet incident?
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  90.  @ryandavis7593  If you don't want it to happen again, you'd better take a stand against what is taking place before our very eyes as many of our indoctrinated youth are hellbent to erase the very history we are talking about. We don't need another remake of the new Soviet Man, the Red Guard, the Master Race, or any other totalitarian ideal.
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  91. As goes the great library of Alexandria, so goes the Mark Twain Branch of the Detroit Public Library.
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  92. I know from firsthand experience during the Katrina disaster that the leadership of the city in 2005 paled in comparison to that exhibited in 1788. Thanks for reminding us of this nearly forgotten history.
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  93. Death Hunt was pure fiction and painted the heroes as villains and the villain as a hero.
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  94. When I'm dictator of the world, all hats will have brims or bills.
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  95.  @jiveturkey9993  I think many Americans were largely indifferent, but not anymore. Now they're mad. I believe the CCP has a very rocky future, what with the entire world pissed at them. Some countries will kowtow, others will resist. Soft power only gets you so far. It's hard to bribe or coerce a man when your actions have resulted in the death of a loved one or the loss of his livelihood.
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  96. In the 1980s I stopped at a service station in Houston, TX where the attendant proudly displayed a coin, letter, and photo of then Vice-President George Bush. The letter thanked him for repairing his limo during a visit to that city. I suspect they have protocols for everything. It certainly is good PR.
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  97. "Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.” Winston Churchill, 1948 “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” George Santayana, 1905 I know a number of people who have had innocuous programs and comments blocked by YouTube, Amazon, and Facebook. They too are flummoxed by the opaque nature of these hosts. Personally, I suspect the wonks who run these companies haven't a clue either, nor do they care. Most likely it's bean counters trying to fill their daily quota of rejections. The Gulag mentality is strong in these organization, Obi-wan. Do not despair. When enough people become frustrated, they will either change their wicked ways or succumb to the economic forces of replacement upstarts eager to garner a disenfranchised audience.
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  98.  @tundralou  The USA did not ratify the 1925 Geneva Gas Protical until 1975. At the time of its signing, several major powers, including the United Kingdom, France, and the Soviet Union, explicitly reserved the right to use the forbidden weapons for retaliatory purposes. Also, the 1925 document failed to address the production, storage, testing, and transfer of the forbidden weapons, a failure that allowed countries such as the Soviet Union and the United States to amass large supplies of chemical and bacteriological agents.
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  99. Your Dad was a true mustang. I'm sure ADM Byrd appreciated this and recognized the potential in him. I thank your Dad for his service to this country in three wars.
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  100. So many older men died. It amazes me how much life had to be lost before decisive corrective action was taken. As for the fine, it equated to $9 per man killed, such is the value placed on them.
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  101. I'm more of a mustard man.
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  102. That story almost brought a tear to my eye. She may have started life a Mongolian mongrel, but she became a Thoroughbred Marine.
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  103. Grierson's Raid by Union cavalry wasn't as long, but was far more effective. Morgan's Raid was a fool-hearty effort that was doomed to failure. You never operate behind enemy lines without an achievable mission statement, good intelligence, a solid support plan, an effective escape route, and the shortest possible timeline. It appears Morgan lacked all five. In many ways it reminds me of the ill-fated 1876 Northfield, MN raid by the James-Younger Gang. Guile, dash, and surprise will only carry you so far, no matter how fearsome your reputation.
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  104.  @TestTestGo  It's both. It forms the route of several languages. I took Latin in high school.
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  105. Excellent review. Now for the nitpicking :) Truman may have said "won" but military medals are not won, for it is not a competition wherein only a few are allowed to be recognized. The CMH, like ever other medal, is earned. On a separate note, I remember reading about the Cochise affair as a boy. I realize that western photos from this time period are either scarce or nonexistent, but the images you used appear to show post-civil war soldiers, based upon the weapons and uniforms. I believe the Army of 1861 was equipped with the 1858 Hardee hats (one side of the brim pinned up), forage caps, and kepis. I don't think any flat brimmed slouch hats were in use at the time, though uniform variations during the conflict were so common that the term "uniform" hardly seemed to apply. Nevertheless, the photos certainly provide a feel for the time period.
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  106. There are two flyspecks in Georgia about 120 miles apart named "Hopeful" and "Needmore". I always thought they should merge. Then there's Sopchoppy, FL, which is a name derived from the mangling of a the local Muskogean Indian word. Of course, growing up, we thought it might have been named after some sort of Asian cuisine like chop suey, or possibly had something to do with slopping and butchering hogs.
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  107. In my early youth I spent my summers in Tampa, FL, where my grandfather, a WWI Navy veteran, was very actively involved in American Legion Post 5 on Bay Street, just off Bayshore Blvd. The Post, which was named after the Tampa, had a beautiful stained glass window inside which contained the names of the crew and a figure of the ship, and was dedicated as a memorial to the men of the USS (USCGC) Tampa. Her sinking represented the greatest single combat loss of active duty US military personnel at sea in WWI and (proportionally) the highest number of causalities of all the services. Ten percent of her crew were native Tampians. When Post 5 relocated to Kennedy Blvd, the stain glass window went with it.
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  108. I well remember the Firestone radial tire fiasco of the late 70s. The steel belts on all four of my 500 series tires separated, but when I took the car into a Firestone dealership, they refused to warranty them, claiming my tires weren't part of the recalled lot. I stopped buying Firestones after that. Being a Ford family member, I continued to acquire their vehicles, but they always came factory equipped with Firestone tires. I'd swap them out with Michelins as soon as they wore down sufficiently. When the next round of faulty Firestone tires were recalled because of Explorer rollovers, our local Ford dealership did replace them for free, but they were out of Michelins, so I had to settle for Goodyears (or was it Goodrich, who can keep those two names straight?). That incident was the final straw for Ford, which severed its nearly century long relationship with Firestone. The final indignation for me came when I retired from the Air Force a few years later and tried to rent a U-Haul trailer. Because of the rollover issue, U-Haul refused to rent me anything, despite no longer having Firestone tires on my vehicle.
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  109. I've heard the story before, but it still chokes me up.
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  110.  @sparky6086  I was fed a lot of baloney when I was at Georgia Tech. The good news is, unlike today, none of it came from my professors.
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  111. @FukAzz RS I rather doubt that. The Korean airliner was shot down because Soviet air defense at the time was incredibly paranoid (as was top Soviet leader Andropov) and rather incompetent. Of course, the same might be said of the crew of the USS Vincennes when, in 1988, it mistakenly downed an Iranian airliner, thinking it was an attacking fighter. Then there is the case of the Malaysian airliner that was destroyed by a Russian made missile fired from the pro-Russian separatist side of Ukraine in 2014. And now we have the latest tragedy, the downing of a Ukrainian airliner by jittery missile men in Iran just a few days ago. Ascribing other motives may provide some sense of rationalization, but the cold hard truth is that nobody has cornered the market on the tragic, criminal mishandling of air defense.
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  112.  PatchesRips  Michener is not speaking about the causes for which they fought; he is speaking about the sacrifices they willingly made and the fact that eventually time will forget them. In this he spoke the truth. Fewer and fewer people are interested in the history of the Civil War or even WWII. There are those who have long condemned the South for supporting slavery, and many today who now condemn America for dropping two Atom bombs on Japan. I suspect the woke generation will eventually condemn MLK because he opposed homosexuality. Judging the past, then erasing the parts you don't like, is a fool's errand that will only lead to greater mischief in the future. It is the reason for the saying that those who do not study and learn from past mistakes are condemned to repeat it.
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  113. The whole time you were describing these events I was thinking that it reminded me of Eddie Albert. I didn't know his last name was actually Heimberger. I remember seeing an old TV show (it might ave been "This is Your Life") where a former sailor was introduced and he described how Eddie Albert dove in and rescued him after he fell overboard. It might have been during the Tarawa invasion.
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  114. Almost parallels the story of the USS Indianapolis.
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  115. They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, We will remember them. (Laurence Binyon 1869 - 1943)
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  116.  @glennriviere7807  Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
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  117. It may be a small consolation, but at least he was able to keep warm until then. 🤨
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  118. My Air War College paper centered around American involvement in small scale actions and began with a description of the long forgotten Polar Bear Expedition. It is an early example of mission creep, or as others have said, "When you're up to your neck in alligators, it's hard to remember that your original objective was to drain the swamp". Somalia comes to mind.
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  119. I think today the Brits would call him a real nutter.
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  120. The distinction between pirates and privateers is reminiscent of that between ninja and samurai.
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  121. "They will live a long time, these men of the South Pacific. They had an American quality. They, like their victories, will be remembered as long as our generation lives. After that, like the men of the Confederacy, they will become strangers. Longer and longer shadows will obscure them, until their Guadalcanal sounds distant on the ear, like Shiloh and Valley Forge." - James Michener, Tales of the South Pacific
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  122. Bruce, the mission of protection personnel is to block attackers and their avenues of attack where possible, quickly remove their charges from the scene to a more secure location when it is not, and stop the attack, in that order. It is not to shoot people, even those who deserve it, unless absolutely necessary. Remember, there are far more innocent people standing around than bad guys, and you don't want to injure or kill them by mistake. To say that Secret Service agents are willing to take a bullet for the President is not an exaggeration.
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  123. I normally watch The History Guy at 2x speed (challenging though it is), but this one I had to play at normal speed. The Captain was a major influence on a lot of us who grew up with The Lone Ranger, Sky King, and Lassie. In our house it was practically sacrilegious to skip the Wizard of Oz at Halloween time or Captain Kangaroo helping to MC the Thanksgiving Day parades. I truly pity those who missed the golden age of television. I doubt the internet will have anything equivalent. For those who have never heard Captain Kangaroo's theme song, here is a link. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSW-LJJHH3U
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  124. Wow, a Fleet. My Dad used to fly one in the late 1950s with the local Civil Air Patrol. Somewhere I have a color photo of it in flight.
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  125. The Irish are always at their best when fighting.
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  126.  @danielseelye6005  Isn't that usually the reason for the fighting?
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  127.  @aliceshaw8265  Why do you feel the instant need to engage in an ad hominem attack on me? I said nothing about the LDS church nor did I imply anything about my faith or anyone else's faith. As for the sources of my information, they came from a friend of mine who is a practicing Mormon and from an old television series that recreated supposedly true western adventures. This is why I posed my remarks as both a question and a lore rather than as statements of fact. If you know the truth, please provide some useful details. If you don't know, please do not engage in character assassination of a person you know absolutely nothing about. It does you no credit.
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  128. Sounds like a rather pointless life.
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  129.  @k8zhd  We didn't get a color set until 1970 and I remember the time spent fiddling with the controls. Did you ever have to walk around with the rabbit ears in your hand, searching for a sweet spot?
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  130. This is the first time I have heard of this tragedy.
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  131. Quite true, but at least one movie made during the war did not change the names of the principal characters, and that was "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo". It remains an astonishingly honest film, full of depth, love, fear, bravery, and sacrifice. I still feel the pathos that movie evokes when I reflect on the horrific sacrifices paid by 250,000 Chinese civilians in the aftermath of the raid. Many decades later I watched a film of one of the Doolittle Raiders, who had returned to China to thank the people for their efforts. As he spoke and recounted the price in lives to his audience, he lost his composure and cried. Who woundn't be moved by such a scene.
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  132. I know the designer, John Garand, did pronounce his name Gerund, but every WWII or Korean era GI pronounced it Gah-rand. As for Marsh Williams, he was brilliant, but almost always cantankerous in the extreme. Now tell the story of the AR15/M16 and the actual role Gene Stoner had in its development. Few people know he did not create the rifle; he developed its predecessor, the AR10. The role of scaling it down went to Jim Sullivan, now largely forgotten.
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  133. Maxwell Smart must have been a descendant of Wood.
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  134. Keep up the good work. Many of the stories you report are ones that I have some sketchy knowledge of, but often I lack the details. Some of the stories are completely new to me. All of them are interesting.
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  135.  @nokiot9  About 22 pounds loaded with a bipod. Many soldiers and Marines removed the bipod to save weight. The WWII version of the BAR had two settings - slow and fast. On the slow setting you could get off single shots, but since it fired from an open bolt, there was a delay before it slammed home and fired. This made accurate aiming difficult unless you used the bipod or some sort of rest to stabilize it.
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  136.  @evensgrey  Another noteworthy member of this fraternity is Colonel Joseph W. Kittinger II. Although a pilot, rather than research physician, he performed the very first extreme altitude experiments by riding balloons to altitudes eventually exceeding 100,000 ft and descending by free-fall at over 600 MPH before opening his parachute. This called for titanium cajones.
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  137. My daughters read all of Laura Ingalls's books. Now they are being band by the new enlightenment.
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  138. I started each Saturday morning with old Popeye and Bugs Bunny cartoons and ended sometime after lunch with the animated Lone Ranger and Jonny Quest.
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  139. It wasn't just GM that was building crappy cars in the late 1970s. When I graduated from college I acquired a brand new Ford Granada Sport. At 13,000 miles the transmission went out for the first time. The paint started to peel, the vinyl half-top rotted, and then there were those awful Firestone 500 tires and their chronic belt separations. Maybe I dodged a bullet by not owning a Citation, but I still got zinged. I do not miss that era at all.
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  140. When I was a teenager my Dad told me a story of Doctor Bell which is perhaps apocryphal. Supposedly while serving as an assistant to Bell, Doyle witnessed a memorable example of the doctor's keen abilities as an instructor. Bell was demonstrating to a class of medical students how to detect the presence of sugar diabetes by dipping one's finger into a vat of urine and tasting it for sweetness. He then had each student come forward and duplicate his example. Once the entire class was again seated he informed them that the real purpose of his demonstration was to emphasize the importance of the power of observation. "Had you but paid closer attention to my actions, you would have noticed that I dipped my middle finger into the vat, but tasted my index finger." What student was likely to forget that lesson?
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  141. Minor correction; the Doolittle Raid was 18 Apr 1942.
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  142.  @mindeloman  Grandpa had an Ambassador DPL with front seats that fully reclined. It was perfect for dating.
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  143. I remember the incident, but I did not recall so many people being shot. Just what was the princess's husband, Mark Phillips, doing during the escapade beside being scared? I would have expected more from a British Army officer.
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  144. "Corn whiskey, corn whiskey I like you pretty well, You've killed all my kin folk and sent them to Hell, You've sent all my kin folk on rotgut and rye, And I guess you'll send me when I'm ready to die" "Corn Whiskey" The Limeliters, 1962 (from their album "Our Men in San Francisco", 1963)
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  145. You're deth-spicable! 🙂
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  146. A lot of onion farmers got skinned.
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  147. I wonder what Charles Russell thought of Remington's art.
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  148.  @MrJest2  My parents got cable around 1965. Suddenly we went from one and a half stations to seven, if you counted the weather channel. It consisted of a clock, barometer, thermometer, and wind gauge mounted on an oscillating table to allow the stationary camera to effectively pan back and forth.
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  149.  @TheHistoryGuyChannel  Complete BS is a more accurate description. The movie made Johnson the hero and portrayed some of his pursuers as either villains or incompetent clowns. The portrayal of the Canandian flying ace was particularity insulting.
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  150. He deserves his own separate video, as do many of the now forgotten Filipino and American guerilla fighters.
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  151. Lest We Forget... They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, We will remember them. (Laurence Binyon 1869 - 1943)
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  152. She was the embodiment of the French spirit.
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  153. If a right is granted, it isn't really a right; it is a privilege that can be revoked on a whim.
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  154.  @mikecurtin9831  Your comment does not correspond with anything I posted. I'm talking about what a tragedy it would be to erase the past.
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  155. These accounts remind me of the the book "The Long Winter" wherein Laura Ingalls described how Pa got lost in a South Dakota blizzard and managed to survive by sitting it out ensconced in a heavy buffalo robe. When morning came he discovered he was within sight of his farmhouse.
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  156. As you have shown, the history of African slavery is not a simple black and white story (no pun intended).
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  157. "Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth, And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings; Sunward I've climbed and joined the tumbling mirth of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung high in the sunlit silence. Hovering there I've chased the shouting wind along and flung my eager craft through footless halls of air. "Up, up the long delirious burning blue I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace, where never lark, or even eagle, flew; and, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod the high untrespassed sanctity of space, put out my hand and touched the face of God." This sonnet is the official poem of the Royal Canadian Air Force and the Royal Air Force. It was written by John Gillespie Magee, Jr., an American volunteer pilot with the Royal Canadian Air Force in the Second World War, who served in a Spitfire squadron until he was killed on 11 December 1941 after he bailed out too low following a collision with another aircraft near Ruskington, Lincolnshire county, England. He was 19 years old. What a loss to the literary world.
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  158. I would like to correct a popular misconception at the beginning of this video. John Chivington was never a US Army Colonel. He served in the U.S. Volunteers (USV), a sort of forerunner of the National Guard. As with state militia forces, the USV augmented the Regular Army in times of war but was separate from it. No Regular Army unit participated in the Sand Creek Massacre, nor did all of the USV forces join in. Captain Silas Soule refused to obey Chivington's orders, and he stood down his company, but they watched the unfolding horror, which he later described in gory detail at an official Army inquest. His testimony was very damning of Chivington and helped turn the nation against him, thus ruining Chivington's planned political aspirations. Soon afterwards, Soule was murdered in retribution. His killer, Charles Squier, though wounded by Soule, escaped, but suffered a most deserving fate five years later in Central America when his legs were crushed, resulting in gangrene and death. Despite his past crimes, his body was buried in Mississippi with honors.
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  159. I first about this incident while in college during the mid 70s. It appeared as an article in an aviation historical journal. I'm glad you were able to to recite this significant event in the annals of aviation.
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  160. A riot is an ugly thing, und I think that it is just about time dat ve had one!
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  161. They that go down to the sea in ships, and occupy their business in great waters; These men see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep. For at his word the stormy wind ariseth, which lifteth up the waves thereof. They are carried up to the heaven, and down again to the deep. Their soul melteth away, because of the trouble. They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wits’ end. So when they they cry unto the Lord in their trouble he delivereth them out of their distress. For He maketh the storm to cease, so that the waves thereof are still. Then are they glad because they are at rest; and so he bringeth them unto the haven where they would be. (Psalm 107: 23 - 30)
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  162. Great story. Now for the movie. On an unrelated note, have you considered doing a video on Ruth Mitchell? She was the sister of Brigadier General Billy Mitchell, the father of the US Air Force. Her life would make an unbelievable movie.
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  163. DoD, I think that movie was about the Cabanatuan Raid which involved Rangers and Filipino Scouts.
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  164. What a cool movie this would make. I can appreciate Colonel Austin's hesitancy to talk about the mission if LeMay had still been alive. He was always a daunting personality, even in old age. When I was a brand new shave tail (2nd lieutenant) in 1978 I was assigned to escort duty for distinguished visitors at a major USAF Security Police symposium on Lackland AFB. One of these guests was General LeMay, who had been instrumental in the creation of the predecessor organization, the Air Police (now Security Force). During a BBQ housed under a large general purpose tent I saw him sitting alone at a picnic table eating his lunch. I briefly pondered the notion of joining him, but remembering all the tales my Dad had told me about LeMay when Dad had served in the Air Force in the late 40s and early 50s, I hesitated and decided discretion was the better part of valor. Soon some old acquaintances of LeMay showed up and they began chatting, so he was no longer alone. As for me, I've always regretted my decision, even though it was likely a prudent one, because we so rarely have the opportunity to interact with living history.
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  165. He was called Bloody Harris for a reason.
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  166. One my favorite aviation stories is the one about "Lawnchair" Larry Walters, the guy who floated over LA in 1982 using weather balloons tethered to his lawn chair.
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  167. As a kid I would watch Sea Hunt with my family every week. Loved the show. Lloyd Bridges was so natural in the role that I thought he was a real frogman.
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  168. The pistol shown in the video is a period correct 1911 pistol because it is marked "Model of 1911 US Army". This nomenclature changed in 1917 to "Model 1911". However, I doubt the pistol Fromme used was made in 1911 and could not have been sold as WWII surplus in 1913 since WWII didn't end until 1945. Even if it had been WWI surplus, that war did not end until 1918. In addition, the government contract for the pistols was only approved in Mar 1911 and the first batch wasn't even assembled until Dec of that year. The military never could get enough of them prior to and during WWI and had to compete with an identical 1911 pistol Colt made using a C prefix on the serial number which meant it was for commercial sale.
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  169. OH, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet, Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat; But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth, When two strong men stand face to face, tho’ they come from the ends of the earth!
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  170. And some people wonder why unions earned such a bad reputation
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  171. Did they ever determine why Dr. Kelley was released by his kidnappers?
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  172. Did Hollywood ever make a movie about it?
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  173. Some of the best stories I've ever read were complete B.S.
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  174.  @danielsummey4144  Compare the views of "Rockefeller Republicans" to those of the Democratic Party today. You won't find much overlap. The same applies to liberal Democrats of that era. One could argue it was the natural progression of ideology, but if you could communicate with FDR, Truman, Kennedy, and LBJ, I suspect they would disagree.
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  175. Well, that explains the French. :)
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  176. Sebi, you must be easily entertained. Usually my stories make watching paint dry an entertaining pastime. 🙄
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  177.  @donlove3741  The P-51 is a single engine fighter. If the engine seizes, you are now flying a very heavy glider. I have added the word "engine" to my comment to clarify my meaning.
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  178.  @TheHistoryGuyChannel  Many of us who served in the military take exception. I know it is not meant as a slight, but the record should reflect historical fact, not perpetuate common misconceptions. I do appreciate your efforts to correct these misconceptions. Have you made a video explaining the way the Medal came about and how the standards for awarding it have changed over the last century and a half? Many people think it is awarded by act of Congress and still call it the Congressional Medal of Honor (misnomer).
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  179.  @TheHistoryGuyChannel  Thanks, I forgot I had seen your earlier video, but apparently I did give it a thumbs up. 🙂 I know Laura Ingalls Wilder embellished her books, so I can't say with certainty if the story of Pa surviving the night in a buffalo robe is true or apocryphal, but it was entertaining.
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  180. Roosevelt also liked to shoot the bull. :)
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  181. We kept chopping down taller and taller trees on our property until one 24 foot behemoth proved too big and unstable. We had to shorten it to 18 feet, then each succeeding year I searched for smaller and smaller trees. Two years ago I finally convinced my family to get an artificial tree. It's a pre-lighted eight-foot fir with frosting. No more needles or water on the floor, or trudging through the snow uphill while dragging a dead fir. We'll still have the memories, though.
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  182.  @BettyHorn  Not everyone learns the right lessons from history, thus we tend to repeat the mistakes of the past. I had a cousin who lost her family during the Holocaust and survived several concentration camps as a slave laborer. She was 17 when rescued by Allied forces. Despite her early life experiences, she was a big-government liberal her whole life. She saw nothing wrong with gun control. Some people never make the right connections; they just assume it can never happen in America. I doubt the American Indian or black slave would agree.
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  183. The Lemp families were a strange brew.
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  184. Say what you like about the Pacer, but it must have been a stoutly built car. A close friend and his wife were run off the Autobahn by a careless driver in a German car. At the time there were no posted speed limits, so every vehicle was doing well in excess of 80 mph. The Pacer rolled over several times and ended right-side up. It was not repairable but neither Bud nor his wife were injured thanks to their safety harnesses and a strong roof.
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  185. My ROTC detachment at Georgia Tech (1973-77) was a rogues' gallery of Air Force flyers. Our first detachment commander had started his career flying P-51 escort missions over Germany. Our second detachment commander was a former B-47 driver who kept a massive photo of the plane over his desk. One of my class instructors had been an AC-130 aircraft commander in Vietnam and another one had flown the RB-57 during that conflict. I don't recall if it was the D or F model, but in one of his desk photos he was wearing what looked like an orange space suit (as best I recall).
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  186. Your great grand uncle did not win the Silver Star; he earned it.
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  187. I have long been familiar with the incident of the USS England's extraordinarily successful attack on Japanese submarines, but not the background or postscript. It is the addition of the human touch that brings your stories alive and makes them history worth remembering.
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  188.  @WreckItRolfe  Nothing's more American than buying Walmart or Winco brand spicy brown mustard.
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  189. Sounds like a bunch of bored Klingons to me.
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  190. In Navy circles Cushing has long been viewed as the father of the PT boat concept. The only thing missing was a Gatling Gun, but I'm sure if Hollywood ever makes a movie about his daring raid, they will include one.
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  191. In the words of Winston Churchill, "Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never-in nothing, great or small, large or petty - never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy."
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  192. So the invasion of Ukraine was merely a navigational error. That explains everything.
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  193. You do a great job. If my minor criticisms are all you have to worry about, then your grasp of history is heads and shoulders above most contemporary "scholars".
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  194. That was an extraordinary tale which I have never before heard. Many thanks for sharing it. Now, where's the movie?
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  195.  @shawnmiller4781  Which law are you referring to?
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  196. Of course vampires are real. Have you never met a lawyer?
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  197. Oh, great, I'll be 89 when the eclipse finally makes it over my place.
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  198.  Ross Cox  Uh-huh.
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  199.  @blueenglishstaffybreeder6956  The mask of anonymity allows anyone to be a macho internet commando.
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  200. Examples of chivalry among warriors throughout history is a noble tradition that has long defied the differences in race, creed, color, religion, or national origin. There is a popular phrase engraved on many Spanish swords which perhaps states it best. "No Me Saques Sin Razon; No Me Envaines Sin Honor." Loosely translated it means "Draw me not without reason; sheath me not without honor".
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  201. Books such as "1984", "The Population Bomb", and "Silent Spring" capture our darkest imaginations more than they do reality. The current and most popular bugaboo is the climate change crisis. Whether one believes the dire warnings or not, man has the capacity to intelligently and wisely alter his path so that the future need never be as bleak as the prophets forecast. Only when we succumb to dogma do we risk failure and annihilation, for dictators do not tolerate differing opinions and alternative solutions.
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  202.  @dougsfriendskeeter  WWI did not start until 1914 and the USA was very much opposed to entering it when it did.
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  203.  @steveclark4291  I used to drive through Climax, GA. It's near Bainbridge, GA.
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  204.  @cogitoergospud1  I'd love to hear his story. As an aside, my family was close friends with the Griffin family in Georgia, the patriarch of which was Marvin Griffin, Lt Governor and Governor of Georgia throughout most of the 1950s. After I saw the movie on DVD a few years back, I asked his son if he remembered anything about it. He said some members of the syndicate put out feelers regarding moving their operations to Georgia after things got too hot for them in Alabama. He said his Dad warned them they'd get a very uncomfortable reception if they stepped foot over the state line. That was the end of that.
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  205. Canada, like the UK, simply could not afford to stay on the cutting edge of aerospace technology. It boils down to simple economics, which remains the true cold equation.
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  206. That's one tall tale.
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  207.  @kurtvanluven9351  So was my Grandpa, but he served on a minesweeper. Other than sweeping and detonating some mines, I don't think his ship saw any other action in "The Big One".
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  208.  @cm-hw5ww  Kudos to both of your parents.
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  209. I still remember when I told my Dad I had heard on the news that Congress had passed a law authorizing two-letter abbreviations for states. His reply was "Don't they have anything better to do?"
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  210.  @-oiiio-3993  I still have to double-check before abbreviating Missouri and Mississippi.
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  211. Lady Macbeth?
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  212. So far the number is one.
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  213. This episode read like one of the late Paul Harvey's "The rest of the story". I wasn't aware of the effect the pigeons' demise had on the American landscape. Maybe I'd better stock up on bourbon before the white oak barrels become extinct.
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  214. Wasn't the Battle of the Tennis Court fought during this invasion?
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  215.  @rationalbushcraft  I don't think you can. All we know for sure is the man received a well-deserved caning for his inept effort.
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  216. Straighten up, child!
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  217.  @megupdike1414  Many sailors served on multiple vessels before, during, and after the War. According to Wikipedia, Borgnine did serve aboard the USS Lamberton prior to WWII but he was discharged from active duty in Sep 1941. As I recall from his interview, he ran into some bureaucratic roadblocks when he tried to reenlist in the Navy after Pearl Harbor, but eventually he received an assignment as a gunner's mate aboard a converted yacht that was used for antisubmarine duties in the Atlantic. I believe this was in 1942. According to Wikipedia this was the USS Sylph (PY-12). I don't know how long he served aboard her or if he had any other shipboard assignments before the War ended. It would be interesting to find out.
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  218.  @popefacto5945  She doesn't recall the brand, but her Mom bought them at their local Jewish deli. Right now I'm enjoying COSTCO all beef hotdogs. They are such a far cry from the dyed red dogs of my youth that leeched their colors when boiled. I have a hotdog rotisserie that does a great job if one has the patience to wait 30-40 minutes for them to reach the ideal state. It even has a bun steamer (sort of).
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  219. In many cases, roads and paths didn't exist.
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  220.  @chuckaddison5134  Chuck, you are applying rational logic to the discussion. I suggest you heed the adage about never arguing with stupid people; they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.
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  221. Matt, we were awake; we just weren't armed. That's one of the dangers of a peacetime mentality.
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  222. I can think of another appendage some scorned ex-lover would have removed form Picasso if given the opportunity.
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  223. Like you, I wasn't aware we lost any Army troops to the Kaiser's U-boats, but I am familiar with the loss of the USS Tampa, which sacrificed itself escorting them. There were no survivors. My grandpa, a WWI Navy veteran, was later the American Legion Post commander in Tampa, FL, where the ship was enshrined in a stain glass display. In 2018, a mural, “A Memorial to the U.S.C.G.C. Tampa and her Crew,’’ was put on permanent public display at the Tampa Bay History Center.
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  224. Wow, what a movie that would make.
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  225. I'd read that Capone ordered the flowers for O'Banion's funeral from the mobster florist's own shop. Now that's chutzpah.
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  226. Those bobby helmets were real corkers.
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  227. That's one story I'd never heard before. I did spot actor Arthur Kennedy in several of the training clips and movie star Clark Gable in another one (he was an actual gunnery officer in the 8th AF during WWII).
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  228. My mother met Dr Wassell after he became famous. I watched the movie, "The Story of Doctor Wassell" on TV many years ago. I have been unable to find anything other than bootleg copies of the movie on DVD, which is sad because it is a very uplifting film
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  229. Or brigands, which are just landlubber pirates.
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  230. I don't recall this engagement even though I've read "An Army At Dawn". Thanks for details.
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  231. When I was a student at Georgia Tech in the 1970s, my advisor and Human Factors professor was Dr. Randall Chambers. He was the former head of NASA's human factors research during the formative years of the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs. With a little prodding he was always willing to regale us with anecdotes about the physical and psychological challenges faced by the chimpanzees and astronauts that his team was charged with testing. One such challenge was the ability of the human body to survive launch and landing when high G forces and sudden shock were involved. This led to the development of memory foam seats for NASA's cramped capsules. Professor Chambers had an original sample of one such seat, which was my first experience with the material. His research also resulted, perhaps indirectly, in an Army request to study the feasibility of launching shock troops into suborbital flight by rockets so they could land anywhere in the word within minutes. Dr. Chambers did not elaborate any further other than to say the request came to naught, but I would be interested in learning more about this intriguing idea which dates back at least to ancient China. With the advent of modern rockets that don't require high g forces and can land like a helicopter, perhaps the concept has some merit. The troops can always bring the mail bag with them. ;-)
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  232. The movie "Panfilov's 28 Men" can be seen on YouTube. I watched it last year. It's pretty good.
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  233.  @unappreciatedtreehouse821  There is an important difference. Only one person or team can win an Olympic gold medal in any particular event. Only one team can win the Superbowl or the World Series. Only one person can win an Oscar for Best Actor or the title of heavyweight champion of the world. There are no limitations on the number of decorations awarded in the military. Anyone who meets the standards is eligible for any given medal. It is not a competition between peers to see who is number one, nor should it be. Heroism is not limited to a single person, so neither should its recognition be limited.
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  234.  @williestyle35  Grandpa Parker worked the yard in Richmond, Indiana, until he was rolled between two rail cars that passed too close together. He was nearly killed, but miraculously survived his injuries, sued the company, retired, and moved to Tampa, FL during the land boom of the late 1930s. It sounds like both men served their families well.
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  235. Please forgive my being a nitpick regarding your excellent condensed histories and biographies, but I'd like to offer a few minor observations. While not publicly demonstrated, the first recorded flight of the Wright Brothers heaver-than-air powered flyer was on Dec 17, 1903. The Quest Expedition left England on 17 Sep 1920. Shackleton died along the journey on 5 Jan 1922. In 1969 a Russian-Italian financed movie, "The Red Tent", was made about the Italia disaster. Peter Finch played Nobile and Sean Connery played Amundsen. While taking some literary license with the actual events, as all films tend to do, it remains a fairly accurate and interesting recreation of the disaster. Two fictional period movies also worth viewing are "The Lost Zeppelin" (1929), whose lead character is patterned after Byrd, and the surprisingly well done (particularly the special effects) Dirigible (1931). The latter was written by famed Naval aviator and early aviation advocate, CMDR Frank "Spig" Wead, about whom was later made a biographical movie starring John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara.
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  236. I remember there was a Coast Guard Auxiliary unit in Bainbridge, GA, that kept their rescue boat in the marina on the Flint River. That would have been in the early 60s.
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  237. Three years ago, while visiting at the Montana Military Museum with my family, I met a 97 year old WWII veteran and former musher by the name of David Armstrong . He had written a book, "Camp Rimini and Beyond", detailing his exploits as a dog trainer and handler at Camp Rimini where sled teams were being prepared to support the Canadian-American First Special Service Force (The Devil's Brigade). Dave was later sent to Newfoundland with his dog sled teams to locate the remains of missing aircrews in the remote wilderness. It is a little known and largely forgotten part of the tapestry of WWII stories.
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  238. I've read about him before. It's a good thing nobody in the 1950s challenged him to land at the Kremlin.
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  239. Dead people voting in Louisiana is a Long tradition. :)
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  240. I think it is fair to say Pulaski was a he-ro, not a her-o.
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  241.  @rabbi120348  I think those stats referred to western POWs (US and UK). When it came to the eastern front, the Germans and Soviets both were about as merciless as one can get.
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  242.  Philip Freeman  Phil, like you I was born in the 50s and grew up in the south when racism and segregation were still common, but my parents fought against it, as did most Americans from all over the country. Our nation remains a work in progress, and always will be as long as we are free to make our own choices, be they good, bad, or ugly. Each generation has to experiment and learn for itself. We're not born wise, but we can obtain wisdom, even if some never do. Hatred is a strong emotion, but it is one which can ultimately destroy a person, assuming he isn't killed by somebody else first. Racism and bigotry are learned behaviors. They can be taught by your parents, your friends, your teachers, or yourself through your own life experiences. I try not to hate or despise entire groups of people because I know that each person is an individual whose ideas and behavior are not always in lockstep with others in his group. But I must admit that some people are making it awfully hard for me to think kindly or respectfully of them when I see them so many of them behaving badly. I'm always willing to be polite and listen to somebody's story, but I do so while checking my back because sometimes it's just a ruse to get me to drop my guard. Long ago I learned that if you don't feel right about a person or situation you are in, maybe it's time to get the hell away. Most folks are decent, but there wolves among the sheep, so let your prejudices work for you, but don't let them rule you. It's a balancing act, to be sure.
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  243.  @SHAd0Eheart  I don't know if the building still stands. The original wooden structure burned down. That's when my great uncle bought it and built the hotel. I haven't been back to Bainbridge in about 25 years.
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  244.  @lizj5740  I would have been trying to save my model airplanes and comic books. I now live in fire country (Montana). Last year I had each family member draw up a list what they wanted to save if we have to bug out. The result is that I will need a long trailer and a dozen movers. 🙂
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  245.  @microdesigns2000  You could make a poem of your comments. If you do, may I suggest you title it "Oh Illinois, what will become of you?" P.S. Like you, my sister and her husband moved from IL to MN after 30 years, and they share your sentiments.
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  246. Some have argued the Taiping Rebellion in China was deadlier than WWII, but it really depends on which deaths are attributed to the war and how accurate those estimates really are. It's a fair bet that China and the USSR suffered the lion's share of casualties from 1937 - 45, though it's also true the Soviets tended to exaggerate battle deaths to further glorify their victories.
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  247. Sounds like Eustis was a real gasbag.
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  248. My wife is an accomplished artist, but you would not know it by seeing her or speaking with her. She is beautiful, articulate, and level-headed. She has spent much of her life trying to destroy the stereotype of the avant-garde artist, but it is an uphill battle.
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  249. The cruel reality of war is that height can matter, just as intelligence, strength, daring, and skill matter. It is rarely wise to form units of men who possess a unique characteristic unless the mission calls for that ability. In the case of the Bantams I've little doubt some of those men were killed by opponents who were bigger, just as some larger men died because their size made them easy targets. Audie Murphy was no Sergeant Rock or Sergeant Fury. He was underage, too small, and too light to get into the Marine Corp, and the Army was hesitant to take him, but he managed to bulk up just enough thanks to the nutrition he received during training. He volunteered for the infantry when the airborne refused him, and he went on to become America's most decorated hero of WWII.
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  250. My Mom was born during the St Valentine's Massacre.
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  251. I was going to say the plow was man's most important invention. After spending a day behind one, you need a good night's rest, hence the bed was invented. Plus, the plow allowed more grain to be produced and people became fat, which led to sleep apnea, so a good pillow had to be invented as well.
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  252. Another bit of buried history can be found at the Battle of Natural Bridge historic site near Tallahassee, FL. It was little more than a skirmish near the end of the Civil War between local militiamen and units of Colored Infantry. The marker that stands on the site states that federal troops numbered 893 (500 reportedly at Natural Bridge), with 21 killed, 89 wounded, and 148 missing. Local militia numbered 595, of whom three were killed, 23 wounded, and none missing. There is a rumor that the 148 missing union troops were in fact captured and executed by furious whites. A similar rumor, but on a grander scale, surrounds the much larger Battle of Olustee a year earlier. Is it history worth exploring and remembering, or is the truth lost to time? I do not know the answer.
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  253. Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones, Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones, Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones, Now hear the word of the Lord!
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  254.  @danielponiatowski7368  Yes, ROTC stands for Reserve Officer Training Corps. The Army, Navy, and Air Force each have their own ROTC programs which are broken into two types. The first is Junior ROTC, which operates in many high schools, grades 9 - 12, with students typically being ages 14 - 18. The second is Senior ROTC, which is a college level program that offers a commission as a 2nd lieutenant or ensign (Navy) to those who successfully complete it. In both programs the members are called cadets, except in the Navy/Marine program where they are addressed as midshipmen. It is typical for a state funded college or university to have one or more service Senior ROTC programs on or near campus. Some private colleges also run Senior ROTC programs. I went to Georgia Tech and we had all three service programs. I was in Air Force ROTC. In high school I was in the Army Junior ROTC program (typically high schools only offer one service program option). There is no service commitment for those who participate in Junior ROTC. For those who join Senior ROTC, the service commitment does not begin until the last two years of the program, so an individual can opt out of the program at any point prior to that. Any member who fails college or drops out of Senior ROTC during the last two years of the program is subject to induction into that service as an enlisted member for up to four years.
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  255.  @kyle857  Which government, federal state, or local?
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  256.  @Autobotmatt428  Yes. It's a footnote in US history, thus largely forgotten.
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  257. What, nobody ever made a movie about him?
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  258. Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones . . .
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  259. If I had a nickel for every . . .
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  260. Where's the movie?
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  261.  @TheHistoryGuyChannel  My late cousin was briefly at Auschwitz, among other camps. I'll forward this story to her family.
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  262.  @patrickcraig6032  Thanks. I did look up the Wikipedia story before posting my comment.
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  263.  @obfuscated3090  I love the smell of Hoppe's Number 9; it smells like freedom.
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  264. Some historians believe 1812 was the beginning of the modern concept of West Point, but its actual origin as a military training institute began in early 1802 when Congress established the United State Military Academy at West Point. The Academy graduated its first two cadets later that same year. By 1812 fewer than 100 officers had graduated, morale was low, and both admission and training standards were haphazard. The entire concept was on the verge of collapse. Congress reacted by creating a more formal system and increasing the size of the cadet corp to 250. In 1817 the new commandant, Colonel Sylvanus Thayer, introduced a code of conduct and an instructional system that remain standard in the Academy today. Thayer is generally considered to be the real creator of West Point as a true institute of higher learning for future Army officers.
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  265. From what I've read, American merchant mariners received even less compensation and recognition for their service. They remain largely forgotten today. The British merchantmen may have had it worse than the Americans. Once your ship went down, your pay and compensation stopped.
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  266.  @HM2SGT  You must have been a corpsman.
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  267.  @absalomdraconis  Rather like the antebellum "These United State" and postbellum "The United States". In 20 years or so we may become "The Untied States".
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  268. It's all just fun and games until the mysterious package blows up.
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  269. What became of Morrell?
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  270. Test patterns until morning, followed by a mix of local and network shows from about 6 or 7 AM through midnight or 1 AM, and the Star Spangled Banner just before the station signed off for the night and returned to the test pattern and that annoying high pitched tone. Did you stand with your hand over your heart during the Star Spangled Banner?
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  271.  @thatpatrickguy3446  You were luckier than I. Church was at 8:30 in the morning, so I only got to stay up late if I was spending the night at my grandparents. When I was about 8 years old the late show was featuring Howard Hawk's "Air Force". I tried to watch the whole movie but eventually feel asleep. Ditto with the "High and the Mighty". It would be decades before I ever saw those movies all the way through. God bless cable TV, VCRs, and DVDs.
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  272.  @thatpatrickguy3446  Ours was a small mission where a circuit riding priest came by once a week to hold Mass before moving on to the next mission, so we only had one service. Mom made sure we were there every Sunday. Many times I watched network TV shows with my family or friends and occasionally old movies with my Dad. In 50s and 60s most of the movies were aired by local TV channels, so they tended to be vintage films which he had seen as a boy or younger man. I think he enjoyed the nostalgia. I don't know how much of this activity survives today with the endless choices now available, but I believe our society is the lesser for having lost these once universally common shared experiences. The cohesiveness and sense of community seems to have faded as a result.
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  273. Never cared for them. Very bland.
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  274.  @kaylaandjimbryant8258  Blech!
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  275.  @Bobby007D  If you read my comments correctly you will see I was referring to the Katrina disaster, which I did have firsthand experience in dealing with because I was on the command and control staff at the Pentagon that coordinated the relief effort from start to finish. I was comparing our national and local response efforts during Katrina with those the History Guy described in his video.
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  276.  @Bobby007D  Use critical thinking skills. Notice I prefaced my comment by mentioning my experience during Katrina in 2005. I never said or implied I was present in 1788. You have stretched reasoning beyond credulity.
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  277. I don't have any Singer artwork, but his influence is quite evident in a 34 cent postage stamp of a WWI Marine that was taken from an original painting done by his contemporary, James Montgomery Flagg (best remembered for his Uncle Sam WWI recruiting poster). I found the tiny image intriguing and it rests among an odd assortment of memorabilia I've gathered over the decades and left on my desk. Such is the effect of art upon us.
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  278. Was he the fellow who wore a heavy buffalo coat with holsters sewn into each pocket? Supposedly, he could shake pistol balls out of the hide whenever someone took a shot at him, claiming he was protected from harm by the Lord Jehovah.
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  279.  @V.Hansen.  It may or may not have been his coat. I've read of at least one other individual who wore a coat with hidden holsters or false pockets (split so he could draw a pistol from his belt or pants). Have you ever heard of a gunman with the improbable last name of Outlaw? I think he wore similar garb.
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  280. I believe it was the 1946 Alan Ladd film, O.S.S., which portrayed an American agent being compromised and arrested when he forgetfully eats a meal in a French cafe using the American style of forkery. During agent training, the O.S.S. and its British counterparts did emphasize cultural practices that had to be adhered to in order to blend in. However, most of the spies were ex-patriots who were already familiar with their own native customs. It was very difficult for nonnative Americans and Englishmen to pose as Continentals, though some did. During the Cold War the Russians were so emphatic about training their agents to impersonate Americans that they built at least one simulated American town in Vinnytsia, Ukraine. We nicknamed it "Little America". Somewhere along the line Hollywood must have heard of this because the idea was used in several television shows and movies. I learned about it during my own training in Air Force counterintelligence. Supposedly, it was discovered by a U2 spy plane or early spy satellite when photo interpreters noticed American cars and buildings in an area near a Soviet airbase. A similar English village was said to have been constructed as well.
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  281. The Phillips head driver is definitely superior to the flat head, but that's about all I can say in its favor. More modern drivers work much better, especially when dealing with parts that require a good deal of torque to seat and unseat. With modern precision machinery I would think the problem of aligning the tool head to the screw and avoiding over-torquing might be solvable.
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  282. Nice of you to keep the topic light.
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  283. They should have named him Lord Whimsy.
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  284.  @gooser__43  Well, to some visitors it probably seemed like a foreign country. Think Mayberry.
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  285. When those last two shows came on I knew it was time to go outside and play. 🙂
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  286. I have a few challenge coins from my service career, but I never got into collecting them. Some folks were very serious about the hobby (for that is what it has become) and probably took it as a mild offense when they learned you had none to offer. I remember as a Boy Scout we collected patches with the same fervor. Regarding your first salute, the tradition is to give the first enlisted member a silver dollar, at least it was when I received my commission. I graduated out of cycle with my class, so I was the only person in my commissioning ceremony. We had four NCOs in my ROTC unit, all lined up and waiting to salute me. I didn't want to disappoint any of them, so I broke with tradition and gave each one a silver dollar when he saluted me. As far as paying for drinks goes, in flight training we didn't use coins or bullets. We played a game called "Dead Bug." If someone yelled it, everyone had to immediately drop to the floor on their backs with their arms and legs in the air. The last person to do so was supposed to buy rounds at the O-Club. Your story about challenge coins brought all those memories flooding back after more than 40 years. Thanks.
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  287. Around 1959 my Dad and a couple of his friends each chipped in $200 to purchase a 1929 Curtiss Robin that one of them had seen wasting away on a farm in central Florida. The man who owned it had bought it many years before to haul his family and possessions cross-country to his new farm, whereupon, no longer having a need for it, he parked it in a corner of his property and built a hangar around it. After acquiring legal ownership from the farmer, my Dad, who was a licensed A&E (aircraft & engine) mechanic, removed the wings from it because the hangar supports blocked them, and they feared if they simply moved the supports, the roof would collapse onto the plane. They put the Robin on a flatbed truck and drove it 175 miles back to our hometown airport in north central Florida where they spent the next two years rebuilding it in an open bay hangar they had constructed for this purpose. When the 225 HP Continental engine was inspected, they discovered it was in excellent shape and only needed new oil before they could fire it up. All the fabric was rotted, and after they stripped it off they found only a few small sections of the tubular frame had rusted and required replacing. New linen was fitted over the fuselage and wings, and then coated with dope before applying the paint. Their biggest concern at this point was finding replacement tires, which were actually large rimmed 1927 automobile tires. As luck would have it, the owner of a local tire dealership remembered still having an unsold set of 1927 Chevrolet tires in the back of his store which fit perfectly. With a beautiful new blue fuselage and yellow wings, finished with a hand-painted robin on the tail (courtesy of my grandmother, who was an artist), this rare four-seat Robin was ready to take flight again. And fly it did. It lifted off the ground like a homesick angel, though after half an hour behind that thundering Continental engine on a hot Florida summer day it felt more like we were headed to the other place. It was a roomy beast which featured dual stick controls in front and car windows you could roll up and down. We used to take it to airshows around the region, and after several years of fun, the group sold it for about 60 times what they paid for it. As the years passed I would occasionally see her listed in the trades for sale again, each time priced much higher than before. I've been told old 563N now sits in museum somewhere. I certainly hope so. I would hate to think she ever suffered the fate of so many of her brethren, forgotten hulks scattered about the fields, forests, and junkyards of America, or other parts unknown.
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  288. What a pity General Lyon was killed. He seemed like a very competent and daring leader, a real Lion of the West. I wish you'd followup this story with an explanation of how it ties in with the Kansas-Missouri fighting.
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  289. Amazing they lost so few men while conducting such extremely hazardous operations. Go Coasties!
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  290. What, nothing about the mastodons, dinosaurs, and jungles he found during one flight over Antarctica? Dang Hecklefish, he fooled me again. 😉
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  291. I hope the Hollywood version of this story is as engrossing and exciting as your telling of it was.
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  292.  @TheEvilmooseofdoom  Maxine Planck?
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  293. You know we're coming to your town . . .
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  294.  @lasselippert3892  Such "struggles" would exist even in a classless society. The terms Marx invented were intended to convey a problem for which only he had the answers. He assumed people would not negotiate in good faith to achieve workable solutions, so revolt was inevitable and "capitalist" societies would crumble in the face of the new socialist man. History has shown he was wrong. In the East the promises of his adherents led to a situation even worse than most of them already endured. In the West the unions eventually became strong enough to bargain with corporate owners to achieve better salaries and working conditions. Today we have laws to ensure workers are not abused. We did it without becoming like the Communists. Conflict and struggle are a necessary part of a healthy free society. Without it we are nothing more than automatons obeying the will of our classless masters who are constantly extolling the virtues of their unquestioned wisdom and leadership. Whether one man or a million, the rights of the individual, not the people as a whole, must remain supreme. Anything less is an introduction into slavery by another name.
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  295. Dang, now I have a craving for hotdogs.
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  296. My Dad, who was an A&E, regarded Beechcraft as the Cadillac of light aviation. We often flew with his best friend who owned a Bonanza and later a Baron, the fastest light twin in its class. I owned a Musketeer and trained in a T-37, which was built like a tank. My brother flew King Airs. Cessnas were fast, Pipers could carry heavy loads, but a comparable Beechcraft typically did both. Of course, this performance came at a higher financial cost to the owner, but isn't that always the case?
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  297. A M1941 Johnson light machine gun (LMG) is clearly visible in the hands of a US soldier at 13:22. This appears to be out of place because in the Pacific fighting the only US forces armed with the Johnson were Paramarines and Marine Raiders. If this snippet of video was filmed during the Battle of Manila, then it is a bit of an enigma because both forces were disbanded before the Manila fighting and no Marine ground combat units took part in the liberation of the city. The only other place I am aware of where the Johnson might have been used in urban fighting is with the combined US Army/Canadian Army First Special Service Force (The Devil's Brigade) during their campaigns in Italy and southern France.
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  298. My single most extensive contract oversight experience was as an Air Force human engineer monitoring part of a huge Boeing air defense system being built for the Royal Saudi Air Force, but this was in the 1980s before their employees kept having so many fatal accidents.
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  299. I wonder how many people have been shot accidentally at football games.
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  300. Speaking of apocryphal, there is another interpretation of the Maire Antoinette quote which claims the "cake" she was referring to was the buildup of burnt food that cakes the inside of an oven. Either version of the story is enough to excite the starving masses to violence, but I suspect a more likely explanation was the need of propagandists to rouse the public by creating false claims of supreme mockery and indifference, or perhaps the story arose after her death as a way of justifying the cruel act of what was essentially political murder.
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  301. Maybe the Vega should have been rebranded the Toad (towed).
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  302. I never realized the acquisition or 20mm Oerlikon guns was filled with so much intrigue. It might make a good movie.
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  303. And thus was born the expression "going down the tubes".
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  304. China: We didn't steal much of your country. India: Thank you?
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  305. I think Casper is the second largest city (55K); Cheyenne is bigger (59K). Your friendly fact checker :)
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  306. I had a 1915 Commercial that eventually cracked its slide, so I replaced the slide and sold it to my brother. As far as I know it's still runnng.
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  307.  @mediamattersismycockholste562  Send me your chocolate and you will be saved from both.
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  308.  @josephdupont  We owe the invention of chewing gum to Santa Ana??? Wrigley, say it ain't so.
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  309.  @josephdupont  The Alamo was an internal Mexican revolt. The Texicans were fighting for their independence. The USA stayed out of it. So it was not "our guys" who were killed there. It was American expatriots who knew exactly what they were doing and the risks they were running. Our government had no desire at the time to be dragged into a war with Mexico. That would come a decade later under a different set of conditions. Thus does politics maker strange bedfellows.
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  310. I have an unusual Colt revolver in my collection that has stumped me and the Colt historian I spoke with. It is a Colt Official Police 38-200 that was factory acquired by the British Purchasing Commission in 1941. As far as I can tell, the markings and dimensions are all original except for the grips and a missing lanyard swivel. What makes it unusual is the barrel and cylinder were made for the 38 Special cartridge, which is dimensionally narrower and longer than the 38-200 cartridge used by the British military at the time. Despite the wrong chambering, the barrel is marked 38-200. I once read an online article that in the rush to satisfy the British, Colt did use standard 38 Special barrels instead of true 38-200 barrels, though I cannot verify this claim to be accurate. I suppose it is theoretically possible, given the rather anemic nature of the 38-200 load, but it does seem like it would cause potential accuracy problems. I would have accepted this explanation as plausible except for the fact that the revolver’s cylinder is also chambered in 38 Special. I know many postwar gunsmiths altered 38-200 cylinders to 38 Special by boring them through to accept the longer case, but the result was always an oversized chamber which caused case splitting. The chambers in this cylinder are a perfect fit for a 38 Special cartridge and include a step inside to prevent a 357 Magnum cartridge from being inserted. Further, since a 38-200 round is too fat to go into any of the chambers, this cannot be an altered 38-200 cylinder. I can only think of two possible explanations for this anomaly. Either this is a factory mismarked 38 Special (there was a war on) or else somebody later replaced the cylinder (but not the numbered crane) with a 38 Special cylinder. The condition of the cylinder matches that of the rest of the pistol, so I’m inclined to think it might be original to the revolver unless Colt marked the Purchasing Commission cylinders in some way. You’d think the British acceptance inspector would have checked cylinders and bores with a gauge before approving them, but who knows, given the exigencies of the time. To date it remains a mystery gun.
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  311. Is it mere coincidence that you posted this story today while Notre Dame Cathedral burns?
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  312. From now on, whenever I look at his painting of Guernica, I will remember how easy it was for him to create. All he had to do was think of the many women he destroyed in his life.
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  313. The fork is not evil. That honor belongs to the spork.
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  314. This episode was very uplifting because it reminded me of the only electrical elevator we had in our small town in the 1960s. It was in the five-story Masonic building and was operated by an elderly black woman who opened and closed the cage door and managed the operating lever. We also had a rope and pulley operated cargo lift elevator in our two-story hardware store, which was certified annually by a state inspector. We used it from the late 1920s until the 1970s, when the state decertified it. Because we could no longer lift material upstairs, the upper floor storage room became frozen in time. The few items we could store upstairs had to be manually carried up the staircase, but eventually rain rot through the roof made it unsafe to use the second floor for this purpose. This presented a bit of a problem because the lavatory was on the second floor, so in order to use it one had to be careful where to step, lest a foot went through a floorboard. Everything began to decay, including an old 48 star flag, unused display cases, a glass cutting table, and sales record books dating back to 1909 (a different store had been used across the street prior to the construction of the new store around 1929). In the end an electrical spark ignited a fire that burned the place to the ground. Aside form a safe, the only other things I salvaged were a few hundred bricks from the outer wall which I used to pave a walkway in front of my house. When I sold my home and moved away, I took a couple of leftover bricks as a reminder of a time and place that is no more. All this because of a a faulty elevator.
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  315. North vs South? Never could trust those damned Yangtze.
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  316. In the 1980s I met a retired Air Force sergeant whose son had been killed in Vietnam while commanding an Ontos. He was outside of his vehicle, presumably reloading it, when a sniper shot him.
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  317. Ditto.
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  318. Scientist aren't the only people constrained by dogma. I can think of no greater impediment to progress than bureaucracies, and no organization embraces bureaucracy more than governments.
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  319. This is the most detailed account of the tragedy I have ever seen.
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  320. That's all we had in my family as kids in the 1960s. My favorite was the one with faux "wood" side panels and the rear facing seat in back - as long as Mom left the back window up. Otherwise, we ate a lot of dust on dirt roads. My fondest memory was a 1975 road trip with one of my sisters and her friend to pick up our eldest sister in Arizona and then on to visit our foster brother in San Fransisco. We covered about 6000 miles in that week long odyssey. The last time I drove a station wagon was in the late 1980s when my sister and her entourage of friends came to visit me and run in the Boston Marathon. As I recall, I rented a Taurus wagon for them.
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  321. You made no mention of debit cards and how they differ from credit cards. I've noticed a trend toward the latter, and some cash-and-carry stores that refuse credit cards will accept debit cards.
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  322. This is a well known story in military flying circles, though why a movie was never made about it is something I've long pondered. My only comment regarding your excellent narration (and probably already made by others) is that the F4U Corsair was armed with either six 50 caliber machine guns or four 20mm cannon, not both.
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  323. The US Army's first mountain and ski troops were the 1st Special Service Force, popularly know after the war as the the Devil's Brigade. This joint American-Canadian regimental size force preceded the 10th Mountain Division. Their cold-weather training, initially intended for use in a suicide commando operation in Norway, came in handy during the Aleutian Campaign and in Italy from 1943-44. They were redeployed for the invasion of southern France, augmented by what was left of the three seriously mauled Ranger battalions previously commanded by William Darby. This left the US with no mountain troops in Italy aside from the much feared French Moroccan goumiers who were equally regarded for their skill and courage in combat as they were for their atrocities committed during their off-duty time. This situation improved greatly with the arrival of the 10th Mountain Division in late 1944. Had the 10th been available in 1943 to fight alongside the 1st SSF and Darby's Rangers, what a difference it could have made in the Italian campaign. As a postscript it should be noted that Colonel Darby became assistant division commander of the 10th Mountain Division, but was killed in action on 30 April 1945. He reportedly was the only U.S. officer honored with a posthumous promotion to General during World War II. Rangers lead the way.
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  324. Lance didn't waffle when telling this story.
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  325. So a disorganized and unregulated militia accomplished what the Italian Army could not. Viva la milizia!
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  326. Arrgh!
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  327. Good grief, people are complaining that you speak the truth about history? I have a suggestion that might help soothe the sensitivities of the precious little snowflakes. Create an alternative history channel just for them that presents history the way they'd like it. Title it "The History Liar: History Deserves to Be Dismembered".
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  328. As my Dad use to say during the space race, "Our German scientists are better than your German scientists."
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  329.  @kevinbarry71  We used to buy Boar's Head meat at the base commissary, which was quite good, but never the bologna. Growing up on Oscar Mayer left me too jaded to try it. Somebody got me to try olive stuffed bologna once, not knowing I hate green olives (the result of another childhood trauma).
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  330.  @kevinbarry71  Montana is not well noted for its cuisine. In my area we have Jimmy John's and Subway.
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  331.  @LG123ABC  When I was five I ate an entire jar of green olives and became nauseated. The sight of anything with green olives in it now makes me ill. I had a similar experience with Taco Doritos at age 14. I consumed a large bag of them under a hot summer sun and haven't been able to look at them since. Behold the power of food memories. For the record, I can still eat black olives and Nacho Doritos, but I do so in moderation.
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  332. History is an agreed upon error.
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  333. I remember this story.
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  334. Evil chocolate is responsible for most of the obesity in America. I cannot urge you strongly enough to remove whatever chocolate you may have from your home and send it to me for safe disposal. I do not charge for this service.
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  335. I have never heard of this incident. From the description, serving at sea aboard those towers would have been an unnerving experience, to say the least. That's one of the reasons I joined the Air Force. I don't like the ocean.
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  336.  @incognitotorpedo42  What pro-Russian Republicans. And by Russian do you meant Communist?
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  337.  @paladinhill  Thanks for the information. I too was at Medina, from 78 - 79, but assigned as a brand new 2nd Lt to the Occupational Measurement Center right next door to OTS. I had the advantage of being allowed to dine in the OTS chow hall as a paying customer, but at the risk of returning the salutes of dozens of cadets if I timed it wrong. The situation once reversed itself while I was at Squadron Officer School at Maxwell AFB. The Air Command & Staff class were pouring out of the Big Blue Bedroom (auditorium) as I was walking past. I think I saluted about 600 majors and LTCs.
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  338.  @haroldcook2146  Like a six year old.
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  339. A late cousin of mine was a US Navy supply officer in WWII. He was deployed to North Africa to work port logistics, but was provided no form of transportation. Being the typical enterprising American, he searched abandoned and salvaged equipment until he found a German Africa Corps BMW motorcycle. He got it running again and this became his personal bike. Imagine what a peculiar sight he made, a US Navy Lt Commander driving a German motorcycle around North Africa.
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  340. The decline of the major networks has loosened the social bonds of most Americans. I don't know if this is a good thing or bad, but I sigh whenever I have to explain who Barney Fife and the Beaver were.
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  341. Artie made his kill the hard way. Excellent analysis of the BoB.
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  342.  @caninedrill_instructor5861  I enjoy watching them both.
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  343.  @julianneale6128  The idea of refitting Merlins to the P-38 was investigated, but the potential gain in performance was offset by the fact that fighter production would lag during the transition period. This was deemed to be an unacceptable tradeoff. Like the Rolls-Royce Merlin engines, the Allison V-1710 underwent constant upgrades throughout the war, as did the P-38's superchargers, intercoolers, and dive recovery flaps. Higher octane fuel also improved the Lightning's performance. The Allison could easily be pushed far beyond the conservative pre-war power settings assigned to it. This was proven by repeated tests conducted during WWII at Wright-Patterson Field and in England by Colonels Ben Kelsey and Cass Hough, respectively. As a result many fighter pilots had the throttle stops removed from their cockpits so they could get maximum performance from the engines during combat maneuvers. Pilots in the Pacific had to fly over very large bodies of ocean. From a psychological standpoint alone, a twin engine aircraft, even with potentially inferior engines, was much preferred to a water landing if an engine was lost.
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  344. The most irritating thing about eight track tapes was the long pause in the middle of some songs while the tape switched tracks. You'd be singing along with the Partridge Family, then came the pause . . . wait . . . wait . . . wait - "I think I love you, so what am I so afraid of, I'm afraid that I'm not sure of a love there is no cure for."
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  345. So what became of Dodge?
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  346. Thank God the well-meaning forces of good in the community won out. Now I get to sit in front of my computer or use my DVD player to relive my golden childhood by watching, uninterrupted, the old unfiltered and unadulterated cartoons of the past - and The History Guy, of course.
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  347.  @Padraigp  If the experts are correct, your AI lawn care machines are more likely to be calculating where to plant you so they have some ornamental shade.
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  348.  @Padraigp  They can't be made any wiser than their designers and operators, which is pretty low bar from what I've seen.
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  349. Thanks, I just ordered a copy based on your recommendation.
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  350.  @REALfish1552  The meanings of words matter. Does it bother you when someone says we live in a democracy instead of a republic? Are you concerned when a member of law enforcement refers to everyone else as civilians? Hazy thinking and the misuse of words is how misunderstandings and false beliefs begin.
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  351.  @unappreciatedtreehouse821  But our choice of words does matter. There is an arduous process for nominating, reviewing, and approving the award of the Medal of Honor. This process has long been fraught with accusations of favoritism, discrimination, and politicization. This has led to periodic reviews of some candidate's awards, denials, and delays, resulting in either rescission or award of the Medal for some of them. Mislabeling the process as a contest only tarnishes and denigrates these efforts.
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  352. I'll bet it gets a Wikipedia page now.
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  353.  @jesseribbey  If you believe that, then I take it you are a product of modern public education.
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  354.  @jesseribbey  Your reasoning remains faulty. Don't assume everyone has children so young.
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  355. And Venezuela lived happily ever after. The end.
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  356. The Communist Vietnamese called them "leftovers". Read the powerful true story of one such kid who missed Operation Babylift, but eventually made it to USA and after almost fifty years finally found his biological American father. https://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/20200615/from-saigon-to-florida-dna-test-leads-to-special-dads-day
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  357.  @lancerevell5979  "Gimme some sugar, baby."
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  358. As I recall, it was the largest boat in the marina and was painted white with an orange stripe across the bow.
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  359. Sounds like a couple of maintainers became thoroughly SACumcised.
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  360. I always knew Picasso was an Ass, but it appears he was a Dick as well.
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  361. I had the same thought.
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  362. What, no mention of the carbeque?
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  363. "Where in his work are disease and death, where is his sense of existential dread?" Apparently these critics never looked deeper into his canvases. There's a lot there that isn't said, but is implied. How blind must one be to view "Southern Justice" or "Murder In Mississippi" and not be moved by their implications?
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  364. The Us Army Air Force was created on June 20, 1941. The US Army Air Corps continued to exist as an organizational construct within the USAAF until the establishment of the US Air Force in 1947.
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  365.  @TheHistoryGuyChannel  That is correct. My point was that the USAAF was created in 1941, not 1942. There is longstanding confusion about this because the term Air Corp was used throughout the war. It took a while before people in and out of the military started saying Air Force instead of Ar Corps. A a result, there is a common misconception that the USAAF was created after America's entry into the war, when in fact it was created and in place before we entered the war.
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  366. Is that an original Star Trek phaser sitting on your display case? I ask because a classmate of mine at Georgia Tech once showed us one of the actual working props that he had acquired after the show was cancelled. I think only twelve were ever built, and that's history that deserves to be remembered.
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  367. I had no idea the Parthenon's destruction was so recent. Now tell the tragic story of the Monastery at Monte Casino.
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  368.  @davidatovar  You are welcome, though others did far more.
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  369. Please do an episode on Dr. Paul Ehrlich. He is another long forgotten figure in medical research who developed the first effective treatment for syphilis. Thanks to the Nazis his name and work were largely erased from German history because he was Jewish, despite his winning the 1908 Noble Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Edward G. Robinson portrayed him in the 1940 movie "Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet".
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  370. We only received one station (CBS) unless the TV repairman (remember them?) came by to tune our set. Then we received the nearest ABC station for about a half hour. I had to go to my grandmother's house to watch all three networks.
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  371. The Hamilton-Burr duel contains many controversies, not the least of which is the dueling pistol set itself. These pistols belonged to Hamilton's brother-in-law and contained a feature which allowed the shooter to set the trigger so that a slight touch would discharge it. Some have speculated Burr was unaware of this fact and instead fired his gun using the customary 10-12 pound trigger pull, an act which could have adversely affected his aim. Others claim Hamilton attempted to use the "hair trigger" feature to his advantage but misjudged its sensitivity, thus inadvertently allowing his shot to discharge prematurely and go wild. On his deathbed Hamilton denied he used the lighter trigger pull feature. As far as we know, Burr made no mention either way, nor ever claimed any intention not to shoot Hamilton. So what we are left with is pure speculation. If the character of each man is accurately represented by written history (a questionable assumption at best), it is easier to assume Hamilton granted quarter where Burr did not, thus putting to the test the notion of Burr's ruthless ambition. Had it not been for the duel, it is possible suspicion about Burr's future endeavors would have amounted to naught. Instead, he is regarded today as being just one step short of another Benedict Arnold, while Hamilton is lionized. The truth, most likely, rests somewhere in between.
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  372. Lest We Forget They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, We will remember them. (Laurence Binyon 1869 - 1943)
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  373. That painting (or a copy) hangs in the halls of the Pentagon.
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  374. Great job as usual. It's a pity more people don't know about these raids. A good friend of mine who passed away a couple of years ago was assigned balloon intercept duties on the west coast before his squadron of P-38 Lightnings deployed to the Pacific theater. They were told the missions were top secret because the government greatly feared the Japanese would launch even more balloons with greater accuracy if they had any inkling of what was really going on. One point I'd like to add is that the first black paratroop unit, the 555th Parachute Infantry Company (Triple Nickle), was secretly assigned to smoke jumper duties to battle the Japanese firebomb raids. Collectively, they made 1200 jumps and ended the war still fighting the conflagrations. Because of the secrecy of the operation, the remoteness of the terrain, and a general indifference on the part of senior leadership, it would be many decades before they received any proper recognition for their wartime service.
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  375. I worked with a man who survived the Texas City explosion in 1947 that killed at least 581 people (estimates of unknown dead run higher). He told me he was over a mile away (I think on a golf course), and being a former combat infantryman, he hit the deck when the big blast went off. Dick said another man nearby remained standing and gazed in amazement until flying debris decapitated him. The tragedy resulted in the first class action lawsuit filed against the US government.
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  376. What, no movie version? Even Timmy and Lassie never had this many adventures.
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  377.  @lightweight1974  But you repeat yourself. ;-)
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  378.  @MadMonk67  No, but a couple of times I made the sign of the cross.
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  379. Looks like parts of Ukraine today.
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  380. At 7:55 you mention Commodore Stephen Decatur, Jr. He would make an excellent topic for your program. I grew up in north Florida, but many of my relatives were from nearby Decatur County, Georgia, which was named after Commodore Decatur. Their county seat is Bainbridge, GA, named after Commodore William Bainbridge, another early US Navy hero and purported friend of Decatur. Anyone familiar with the history of Decatur and Bainbridge would find this combination of names rather strange. This is because of the Chesapeake-Leopard affair of 1807, which served as a precursor for the War of 1812 and would ultimately contribute to Decatur's untimely death in 1820. Bainbridge's part in his death remains a bit of an unresolved mystery, but the whole story is history worth remembering.
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  381.  @almostfm  That's why I think everyone should race in identical vehicles.
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  382.  @SAVikingSA  I didn't intend to go into the details, but you are correct. Both ladies are exceptional drivers in their respective fields.
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  383. I'm pretty sure the robbery was committed by Aloysius Bartholomew Sam, aka Yosemite Sam. He was positively identified by a flea-bitten long-eared rabbit.
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  384.  @stewartritchey7602  She's also an author, and yes, you are right about them.
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  385. Behold the power of fear.
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  386.  @GeorgeSemel  If McClellan had stuck to training the troops and left the fighting to more capable combat officers, the war might have ended sooner, but it a took a few years and a lot of blood to identify those fightin' generals.
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  387.  @gulfrelay2249  It is an ancient gesture (some say from Greek and Roman times) that was supposed to display a sense of boldness and calm self-assurance.
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  388. The aircraft shown at 2:26 is a French Salmson 2A2 reconnaissance biplane. Salmsom designed and built one the earliest air-cooled radial engines, which would be among the most common types used from the 1920s through WWII and beyond. To illustrate how recent this history really is, I grew up having a neighbor who flew Salmsons in WWI. He also was a member of the OX-5 club and wore his OX-5 pin all the time. The OX-5 was an early V-8 American liquid-cooled aircraft engine manufactured by Curtiss. Liquid-cooled engines were about as popular as the radials during the golden age of propeller aviation.
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  389.  @TheHistoryGuyChannel  It depends upon what one considers suitable diversity. Each military unit is a team, but the team needs clear standards in order to become cohesive. If a member falls outside these standards, the unit suffers. But this does not mean everyone must be alike. As one Marine General put it, I don't want to command a squad of eggheads or a squad of dimwits. The former will waste too much time debating their best course of action, while the latter will rush forward without a plan. In a balanced organization, the leader will have sufficient intelligence and determination to quickly formulate a plan, while the team will be of sufficient skill and grit to willingly trust him and execute it. In the case of the Bantams, one gets the impression that many of them suffered from an inferiority complex which drove them to act rashly, hence the brawling to prove their mettle. This was certainly true of the 442nd Infantry Regiment of WWII which was composed mainly of Japanese-Americans (Nisei). It was highly decorated, but it suffered many casualties, and, as several veterans later admitted, they went to extremes to prove they were just as American as anyone else.
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  390.  @rael5469  Give it a rest and enjoy your Christmas.
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  391.  @rael5469  My favorite is " I want a hippopotamus for Christmas".
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  392. Transylvania University?
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  393. Of course it was the Irish. If it had been the Scots, we'd be carving Jack McLanterns.
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  394. Wright was wrong. Sadly, this would not be the last time his ineffective leadership would get men killed. Read about the Port Chicago disaster.
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  395. I remember as a young boy in 1964 watching an episode of the CBS series "The Great Adventure" entitled "The President Vanishes", which was a reenactment of this true event. Barry Sullivan played Edwards and Leif Erickson played Cleveland.
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  396.  @johnknapp952  Maybe he was looking for a mate. I know how lonely you squids get at sea.
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  397. I live in Montana and have read several accounts and books on the operations of various vigilance committees around here. According to these sources, in the case of the "Plummer Gang", each member was tried before a miner's court. Some men were freed by the court, but most were convicted and hanged. While this may seem illegal by today's standards, there was no other law available in their communities at that time. The general consensus since then has been that Plummer was guilty as charged. This assumption is based partly upon eyewitness testimony and on the fact that the murder spree began after Plummer was elected sheriff and ended with his death. His family has long proclaimed his innocence, but one need only look at Plummer's past violent history to realize he was easily capable of murder. In many ways he was the precursor to another more famous legend of the old west, a tuberculous-ridden gambler and dentist by the name of Doc Holiday. Today, the history of early "civilized" life in Montana has been preserved by the Montana Historic Commission which operates a seasonal tourist attraction in the twin mining communities of Nevada City and Virginia City. Visitors can ride a small gauge railroad between the two towns (only a mile apart), tour over 150 period buildings that have been relocated to the two sites, enjoy some fine dining, pan for gold, spend the night in a historic hotel, ride a stagecoach, get photographed in 1900 costumes, shop for souvenirs, and enjoy live performances at the local theater. Oh, and everyday the crowd gets to participate in a reenactment of an actual arrest and hanging of a convicted murderer. 3-7-77 (If you don't know what these mysterious numbers mean, you aren't alone, but you can do a quick Google search to learn more)
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  398.  @lakrids-pibe  I enjoy anything spicy. It need not be Grey Poupou. The Great Value stuff is fine with me.
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  399.  @Pocketfarmer1  No, but I've tried the European tradition of dipping fries in mayonnaise. Mmmmm, mayonnaise.
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  400.  @samanthab1923  Guldens is good.
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  401. Despite the claims. there is no corroborating evidence the CAP ever sank a German sub.
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  402. Sounds like there might have been more whiskey being chugged than corn being shucked in that husking bee.
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  403. For want of a horse . . .
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  404.  @kdrapertrucker  If you're Scandinavian you might pronounce it that way. 🙂
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  405.  @kdrapertrucker  Thanks, I did not know this. I've been retired for over 15 years and don't keep up as much as I use to.
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  406. The World War Two channel covered this critical action a few days ago, but you have gone into much greater detail.
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  407. Now do some episodes on The Three Stooges, Claymation (Davey and Goliath, Gumby, Wallace and Gromit), and marionette programs (Supercar, Stingray, Thunderbirds).
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  408. I've read all of Jim Corbett's books, and they are absorbing. He was a phenomenon, a quiet, reserved man who grew up in the bush and was as comfortable there as Tarzan. His love and respect for the poorest people of India is well illustrated in his riveting stories, as are his descriptions of the jungle and its inhabitants. Though he gives them no voice or dialogue, his animals are every bit as unique and understandable as Rudyard Kipling's Baloo and Shere Kahn, some quite likeable and others quite fearsome. I've read about the Tsavo man-eaters, but not the man-eaters of Njombe. The toll they took appears to rival or exceed that of India's worst man-eaters. It's hard to know, given the spotty record keeping of the time and the remoteness of the regions. There are historical records of the European middle ages involving wild boar and wolves that rival these stories. Perhaps they would make an suitable bookend to your tales of India and Africa.
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  409.  @restitvtororbis5330  Good fences make good neighbors.
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  410. I was referring to the lack of coordination that led to a heavy loss of life.
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  411.  @danielponiatowski7368  On a separate note, I never got to fly in a C-47, but a Canadian gooney bird frequently parked outside our hangar every time they flew in for a meeting, and that was in Texas.
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  412.  @danielponiatowski7368  What a coincidence. As a kid I too thought the same thing during the opening credits. As I got older I realized it was a truncated image of Vic Morrow holding up his Thompson. Yes, here in the States there was a booming surplus business after WWII which continued into the 1970s. We had a local surplus dealer in north Florida who sold tanks, helicopters, landing craft, jeeps, half-tracks, and every conceivable item associated with the military. Most of it was gloried inoperable junk, but it could be restored. Sadly, I was never able to talk my Dad into purchasing anything. What I wanted most were a half-track and a jeep. I was told by a friend that one of the half-tracks was restored and turned into a logging vehicle until it fell in the river. Oh well, I did eventually get a jeep.
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  413. I recommend we pass a Constitutional amendment to freeze the number of states at 50 and only allow a new state to be admitted if two or more existing states agree to merge into one.
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  414.  @alanjones3874  His force might have escaped, but it still would have accomplished little and been seriously mauled in the process.
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  415.  See the Light  Neither was Rin-Tin-Tin, but they always helped lawmen, soldiers, firemen, and rescue workers as necessary. That's why we loved them so as kids.
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  416. When the M1 helmet was phased out in favor of the coal scuttle Kevlar helmet, the comic strip artist Mort Walker paid tribute to the venerable workhorse in a humorous and poignant BEETLE BAILEY cartoon where he pointed out all the things you could do with the old steel pot, and ended by saying all you could do with its replacement was wear it.
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  417.  @davidvogel6359  Always.
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  418.  @77thTrombone  or miss!
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  419.  @paulaschroen3954  Pretty much.
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  420. I don't remember this incident at all.
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  421.  @birgiollo9229  Blame the Japanese. Like the Turks, they prefer to ignore the worst parts of their own history.
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  422. Years ago I read an account of Petrosino and his work, but you bring much more to the story, making it more about a man's life than his profession.
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  423. Wow, I have never heard this story before. How tragic.
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  424. Now I understand why there is a stigma attached to hermaphrodites.
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  425.  @flagmichael  It was supposed to be a pun.
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  426. Using the modern vernacular, one could say the Japanese got "woke" by Wake.
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  427.  @Biber0315  Short A is how we pronounced it in military school.
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  428. And thank you for the matchless history which you share with us.
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  429. Based on body count alone I'd say the sparrows won that war.
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  430. Like in "Heat of the Sun" (which I thoroughly enjoyed watching when it first aired in the 90s).
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  431. Joe, I did not intend to smack anyone. I just wanted folks to know the full story.
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  432. Thank you.
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  433. Beware the Ides of March - and the Irish!
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  434.  @russellborn515  The K cars? Blech!
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  435.  @lapurta22  Mine was a 302 V8 with an automatic transmission. I had to get the transmission rebuilt twice, both times after the warranties had failed. The local San Antonio Ford dealership was no prize either. When I went to pick up my car after an unrelated repair, I discovered my entire air filter assembly was missing. When I told the mechanic this, I was dumbfounded by his reaction. He went from car to car in the shop trying to steal one from another vehicle. He brought over a unit but it did not fit, so the shop ended up ordering a replacement for me. I never went back to them again.
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  436.  @deanfirnatine7814  I quite agree. When I said Untied, I was inferring just what you said.
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  437. My brother is an old school airline captain, and he has echoed the same concern you mentioned regarding the modern era of pilots who've only know glass cockpits and electronic flight control systems.
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  438. One for the books and the movie screen. Reminds me of the "The Enemy Below" with Robert Mitchum and Kurt Jurgens.
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  439.  @tvideo1189  You are correct. It is often referred to as the Congressional Medal of Honor because Congress established it, but they have no role in awarding it.
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  440.  @TheHistoryGuyChannel  The Fleet was an old biplane.
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  441. Doesn't every good story involve pirates?
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  442.  @kaylaandjimbryant8258  I never found a tamale that appealed to me, not or mild. I've tried many types but I'm not a fan of most corn products. I prefer flour tortillas and flour taco shells to the corn versions. I do like some corn tortilla chips and corn on the cob. Everybody's tastes are different.
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  443.  @Bobby007D  Was Katrina 1000 times worse than the 1788 fire? How did you arrive at this assumption? In either case, my comment was not about the scale of each disaster, but the manner in which leadership handled them. My conclusion is based upon my personal experience with the handling of one disaster and the History Guy's assessment of another earlier disaster. You have chosen to inject the false argument that I was making a purely objective comparison.
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  444. A true Maverick.
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  445.  @johngalt9737  No, Florida.
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  446.  @KentuckyIrish  She didn't own the car and it was fully paid for. If you want to troll, you'll have to try harder than this.
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  447. I named my homestead Cimarron after the runaway slaves. When I retired from government service I ran as far away from Washington, D.C. as I could get.
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  448. We don't wear shirts either. We cover our he-man chests with blouses.
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  449. ​ Ross Cox  Tell that to a Mountie if you dare.
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  450.  Ross Cox  65 years young.
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  451.  Ross Cox  You are making false assumptions about what I think.
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  452.  @blueenglishstaffybreeder6956  Really? I'm not the one bragging about beating up a Mountie or anyone else for that matter. My original claim is that the movie is pure fiction, not an accurate account of the real incident. In fact it is an insult to the men who were involved in the chase. All the comments that followed do not pertain to this fact. They are simply rantings by people who don't mind that the reputations of good men were tarnished in the name of entertainment.
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  453.  @blueenglishstaffybreeder6956  The facts of the case are well established. I would add that the former WWI ace did not strafe a bunch of people, killing one of the guides, nor crash into a mountain and die. The movie is tripe, plain and simple. Had it not been based on real events and real people, I would not have minded so much. As for Ned Kelly and his armored suit (yes, I am familiar with his story), I would classify him the same way I would classify Billy the Kid. Much lore has arisen to obfuscate the truth and there were mitigating factors to make him a somewhat sympathetic character (ditto for Jessie and Frank James). But the lack of any mitigating circumstances makes the character of the Mad Trapper far less than appealing or sympathetic.
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  454. "No one who speaks German can be an evil man." from The Simpsons, season 5, episode 2 (Cape Feare)
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  455. Bathroom hygiene is covered in the Bible, naturally in Deuteronomy: “Thou shalt have a place also without the camp, whither thou shalt go forth abroad: And thou shalt have a paddle upon thy weapon; and it shall be, when thou wilt ease thyself abroad, thou shalt dig therewith, and shalt turn back and cover that which cometh from thee:” (Deuteronomy 23:12 -13)
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  456. In a book I read about the OSS in WWII there is a section describing their operations in Yugoslavia. One interesting aspect of it was the different strategic goals of the US and the British at that time. British operatives were adamant that supplies only go to the Chetnik forces, while American operatives were willing to support anyone who would fight the Axis. The British desired a postwar Europe devoid of communist governments, while the Americans simply wanted to end the war as quickly as possible, the future cost be damned. The result was the Partisans had a better relationship with the OSS than they did with British SOE. This was well illustrated by an incident where the OSS had to intervene to free some SOE men captured by Partisan elements. Eventually, the British, for more immediate pragmatic reasons, did start supplying the Partisans. One would think the Partisans would have been more appreciative of the USA's efforts in all of this, but Tito, ever the deft political operator, simply told his people that the supplies marked "US" were actually an abbreviation for USSR, their true socialist friend and supporter against the decadent forces of capitalism and fascism. Postwar, Tito proved equally adept at keeping the country "united" for the sake of maintaining Yugoslavian independence from Stalin (the only east bloc nation to do this). In the end it may all have been for naught because ancient rivalries reared their ugly heads once Tito died, and the long anticipated civil wars erupted again, resulting in the nation-states of Croatia, Slovenia, Serbia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Kosovo (sort of). Forged on the anvil of post-WWI politics, the nation of Yugoslavia is no more. Does anyone really morn the passing of the country that gave us the Yugo? I think not.
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  457.  @joshgeiger9090  Yes, he did. His propaganda apparatus once even manged to convince the team at "60 Minutes" that there was a third way to succeed as a nation-state by combining elements of crony capitalism and Communist socialism into one big happy successful society. And it worked as long as a powerful authoritarian figure like Tito was at the helm to crush any dissension, and as long as the rest of the world didn't look too closely at the facade they had created, and as long as nobody outside of the east bloc actually tried to use their products or compared them with western made products. Funny how that turned out.
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  458.  @gooser__43  I said county, not country. I was born and raised in north Florida.
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  459. Could this have been the origin of the word "cathartic"?
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  460.  @jonthinks6238  The patent dates have little or no bearing on the manufacturing dates. My sources show no 1911 pistols were delivered to the government in 1911. Roughly 17,000 were delivered in 1912. Assuming the pistol in the photo is the actual one Fromme used, it would have been manufactured in late 1914 or early 1915. Regarding the service pistol you were issued, do you know if it was made by Colt or Remington-UMC (not to be confused with Remington Rand)? I ask because Remington-UMC was contracted by the government to build 1911s after we entered WWI and their serial number range was restarted at 1 and ran to 21,676.
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  461.  @TheHistoryGuyChannel  I'm not doubting your sources. I'm simply noting that if Boro did make these claims, he was in error or else his testimony was incorrectly recorded.
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  462.  @jonthinks6238  The serial number in the image is 94854. No such serial number exited in 1911 and no pistols were delivered that year. The first deliveries were not until 1912 and the number totaled roughly 17,000 for the entire year. Serial number 94854 would have been built and delivered sometime in late 1914 or early 1915.
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  463.  @daviddavis3389  Bass Reeves was a lawman, not a bandit. This collection of videos is about outlaws of the old west, not lawmen.
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  464. @Mister Flibble Them's fightin' woids.
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  465. Not all men labeled as robber barons were so underhanded as Fisk and Gould. Men like Vanderbilt rose to the top of their professions by creating more efficient business enterprises without resorting to bribing government officials for favors. Free enterprise should never be confused with crony capitalism. Looking back at over 100 years of progressive politics, it is easy to see that men of such low caliber as Fisk and Gould have had no problems shedding their old robber baron skins for newer progressive ones. If anyone disagrees, then I must conclude they are content with FANG (Facebook, Amazon, Netflicks, Google).
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  466.  @goodun2974  So that's how they did it. Thanks!
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  467. There is a rumor floating around that NOAA may be disbanded and its mission folded into other uniformed services.
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  468. At first I thought you were going to talk about the lynching of labor organizer Frank Little in Butte, MT, in 1917. It was similarity brutal but was orchestrated and planned, rather than a spur of the moment event. If you want to do some justice after the fact, provide the names and brief histories of Prager's murderers. I wonder if their descendants share their pride in their atrocity.
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  469. My future zip code on the moon will be 54321-Alice. Who is old enough to understand this?
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  470.  @zyxw2000  🙂
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  471. I remember reading about the torpedo attack, but I was not aware of the full history of that poor destroyer. The Navy should have renamed her the USS Albatross or USS Joe Btfsplk.
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  472. In my hat collection I have a very similar looking slouch hat that I received from a friend while I was visiting Zimbabwe in the 1980s. It had been her son's Rhodesian Boy Scout hat.
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  473.  @steveshoemaker6347  Thanks. The airplane logo I'm now using is a photo of the actual Robin my Dad rebuilt.
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  474.  @steveshoemaker6347  The same to you, Steve. Somebody has to advise the current generation how to make the best of life, and aviation, even with all its modern contrivances, tests the mettle of a man.
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  475.  dylannroof5291  What makes you think this?
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  476.  dylannroof5291  Apparently you don't. Which part do you think is bull crap, Dick's story or the one about my Mother's hometown disaster?
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  477.  dylannroof5291  Well, Dick has long since gone to his eternal rest, though I'm sure he would have been amused by your ignorance. As for the Richmond tragedy, perhaps you should visit the town and see the memorial. If not, here's a Wikipedia entry to enlighten you. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richmond,_Indiana_explosion
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  478.  dylannroof5291  You really should find a better way to spend your time. A plastic belly becomes no one.
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  479.  @KennethCain-KAC  I'm glad he survived.
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  480.  @gymshoe8862  I live in Montana. 'Nuff said.
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  481. I knew the plane, but not the history. Thanks for filling in the blanks.
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  482.  @sanityassassin8161  Not anymore, thank you. I'm too old for such shenanigans. For over 16 years now we have lived in rural Montana where satellite reception is the only feasible way to get a TV signal. I bought one strictly for internet use, but switched to DSL a few years later. We had become to disillusioned and disgusted with the boob tube that we simply gave up television for good and never regretted this decision. This hasn't kept us from enjoying old movies and TV shows on DVD or YouTube which we watch either on a computer screen or cast to our 80" TV. I still complain about all the crap on the internet and likely will become even more frustrated and vocal as AI tries to mess with my mind and soul. Lord only knows what will become of mankind if holo-decks are ever invented.
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  483.  @Gail1Marie  Just shows you how poor we were back then. 🙂
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  484.  @Gail1Marie  Same here, but we said thrifty instead of cheap. In some ways I share that trait.
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  485.  @jackieallen3344  It sounds plausible, but I don't know. Evil is like water; it seeks the easiest route to success.
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  486. Didn't Arnold Schwarzenegger "borrow" a M48 tank and take it home when he was serving as a reservist in the Austrian Army?
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  487.  @mathewkelly9968  That's a popular explanation, but saying it is an admission that competition helped kill Avro. Competition is a major part of economics, so you are making my point. As for the Swedish aerospace industry, it exists only because the Swedish government was willing to fund it. The Swedish government was willing to make this massive commitment because of its neutrality and its location (sandwiched between NATO Europe and the USSR). Canada had the advantage of being both a NATO ally and a neighbor of the USA, so politically it saw no advantage, and several disadvantages to continuing the Avro program. The Avro Arrow was a massively large interceptor, more on the scale of a medium bomber. The Lockheed F-104 was a tiny interceptor, and more cost effective, but neither plane represented the future of fighter development, which was to be multi-role fighter-attack aircraft such as the F4 Phantom (which also started life as an interceptor). Lockheed was able to turn the F-104 into a passable multi-role aircraft for its foreign customers, but I'm not sure the Arrow would have proven equally adaptable. For the interceptor role, the Canadian government opted for an even cheaper alternative, and bought the F-101 Voodoo, a mediocre aircraft at best. The RCAF also operated the F-104 in Europe in a nuclear strike role. Blaming Lockheed for Avro's demise may make some people feel better, but it's only one part of the story and should not be taken out of context.
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  488. The Battle of the Pearl River Forts became but a Footenote in US Navy and Marine history.
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  489. Thanks for setting the record straight. My sister drove a Gremlin in high school. It was the only car parked on a straight section of city street when a drunk, for reasons we never understood, swerved over and rear-ended it. The car was a total write-off, but it did not explode and, luckily, it was the one car my Dad had purchased collision insurance for. Years later I was rear-ended in my Datsun 240Z while waiting to make a turn. It was turned into an accordian, but it did not explode and I only received minor injuries. Around the same time period a good friend of mine was zipping along the German Autobahn when another car struck his. The Pacer flew off the highway and rolled over several times, but neither he nor his wife were injured. He was impressed by the strength of the car body, which held together and was not crushed. It also did not explode.
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  490.  @drizler  They were buckled in their Pacer and yes, they do have a lot glass.
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  491. And it's a story worthy of remembering.
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  492. My mother was born on the day of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. I was born in 1955, the same year Dr. Goddard died. That would explain my interest in Tommy guns.
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  493. Today he would be unliked or banned by FANG for any comments the SJWs disapproved of.
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  494. What was the cause of the structural collapse during the flight, a helium leak? If so, could this have been the reason the crew abandoned ship? Helium inhalation can lead to dizziness and even asphyxiation. Perhaps it was a contributing factor.
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  495. I don't eat steak very often, or any other beef for that matter, but my favorite choice by far is a good pot roast. Imagine the etymology one could make out of that name.
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  496. Frederick Russell Burnham is a fascinating character, much worthy of his own history review. As for the campaign hat, I have read the US Army adopted it because in the field the peak shed water and snow, unlike other crowns. I have a BSA campaign hat that I purchased in the 1970s from a fellow camp counselor while working one summer as a BSA instructor. It was a brand new Stetson which I paid him $10 for. I still have it, though I later replaced the leather BSA band with an Army rope cord to replicate a traditional Army campaign hat. The Army used different colors of cord to indicate branches. Mine is yellow (cavalry) with a green keeper and matching green acorns (protective end covers). It no longer fits either because it shrank or my head became inflated (probably the latter). I also have a Rhodesian Boy Scout slouch hat from the 1960s which was given to me by the mother of the owner when I visited her in Zimbabwe in the 1980s. Above the snap on the upturned left brim is a brass button featuring a raised crown over a soaring African Crowned Eagle. My motley collection of headgear does not compare to yours in terms of scope and condition, but like yours, each hat has its own history, and that makes all the difference.
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  497. You answered your own question. They were Presidents of Congress, not Presidents of these United States of America.
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  498. Is it played in the Mideast or Africa?
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  499. My old M1 helmet, complete with liner and camo cover, still sits next to my flight helmet on my memorabilia shelf.
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  500. Did anyone recognize (future) five time Academy Award nominee Arthur Kennedy in the WWII training film?
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  501. When I went to Qatar in 2006 the troops were still being limited to two beers a day.
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  502. You do bring history alive, and I thank you for it and for the sincere passion with which you deliver it.
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  503. The primary difference I see between the Socialists and the Fascists is the color of their shirts and the design of their flags.
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  504.  @lasselippert3892  They both endorse strong centralized authoritarian government and deny the individual his rights. The only reason Fascists and Nazis didn't kill more people than the Communists is that they weren't around as long.
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  505.  @lasselippert3892  Remind me again which country Karl Marx was leader of. If you can't answer that, then let's review the countries his followers led and the number of people who died under their iron rule. The tally exceeds 100 million to date. Marxist ideology in any form has never worked and it cannot work, no matter how many people you murder.
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  506.  @lasselippert3892  Both philosophies are grounded in the false belief that the State knows what is best for the individual from cradle to grave and all points in between. The class struggle argument is how communists sow disaffection to create conflict and chaos so they can assume control and restore order. The Fascists and Nazis did much the same thing. We can get into a frying pan vs. the fire argument, but all three ideologies are rotten to the core.
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  507.  @lasselippert3892  Why should I care what Jeff Bezos makes? He earned it. You have shown your hand. You have decided this is unfair. What gives you the right to make the decision for everyone else? And while we're at it, those people lost their jobs because our local and state governments forced them to stay home and made their businesses impossible to operate effectively. You talk about class struggle, but you don't define the classes, indicate their size, or tell me what people within these classes want. I know what I want - to be left alone by the government and the Karens. Is that so much to ask?
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  508.  @lasselippert3892  Those worker were paid for their services. They were not forced to work for Bezos, whereas in a Communist society you work where you are told and do as you are told. Those who do not obey end up in early graves, as do many of those who do obey. You still have not explained what you mean by class and class struggle. You assume it exists, but do not explain why or what it is. What exactly is a classless society (poor dress, hygiene, and manners aside)?
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  509.  @lasselippert3892  I commend your English. Have a good night's rest.
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  510. During WWII a popular saying among many male Brits in the UK was "The problem with Yanks is they're overpaid, oversexed, and over here."
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  511. Our local cafe here in rural Montana serves a popular homemade pasty. Yes, this is a former mining community.
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  512. What a loss. At least this one can't be blamed on the white man (but no doubt will).
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  513. No surprise here how a misunderstanding of science can lead to panic and poor decision-making. Judging by our reaction to CHICOM-19, we haven't progressed much in our thinking from the 1918 epidemic. Maybe ignorance really is bliss.
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  514.  @MrCellophane60613  I have no idea what you are talking about.
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  515. What, no mention of the pineapple hand-grenade?
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  516.  @redaug4212  Agree. According to that fountain of information, Wikipedia, the Filipino rebels and constabulary had some, but I don't know that is possible. I read a book on Melvin Johnson and his inventions, but I don't recall any such story.
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  517. I can attest to the ongoing rivalry as well. While attending Georgia Tech in the 1970s , one of my dorm mates, a man from the Dakotas, lent me his South Dakota joke book, which derided North Dakotans. I read halfway through it, at which point I was instructed to flip the book over, whereupon it became a North Dakota joke book that derided South Dakotans. By the way, the word "Placer" is pronounced like "plaster" without the "t".
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  518. For years I knew of her; now I know about her.
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  519.  @eaglekeeper7737  Missed it by that much.
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  520. Where is Task Force 34. . . The world wonders.
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  521. Here are some fun facts. Mt. Chimborazo in Ecuador is taller than Mt. Everest if the measurement is taken from the center of the Earth. K2 is purported to be taller than Mt. Everest during a few short periods of heavy snowfall. Mt. Mauna Kea in Hawaii and Mt. McKinley/Denali in Alaska are taller than Mt. Everest if one measures from the base of each mountain. So why is Mt. Everest considered the tallest mountain in the world? It's because its peak is the highest point from the sea level surface of the planet.
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  522. History may have repeated itself to a degree after 911. We determined our ability to replenish our anticipated expenditure of ordnance was severely hampered by the shuttering of critical explosive munition plants in the USA. Eventually we located an alternate source in England. I don't know what happened after that, but presumably we used it until domestic capability could be restored.
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  523. NASA should never have allowed any personal items or PPK on the flights because the taxpayer was funding the expense of hauling it into space.
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  524. This is the most detailed account of Rickenbacker's WWII survival incident that I have seen. My father was fortunate enough to meet Rickenbacker when he was stumping for Barry Goldwater during the 1964 presidential campaign. Dad inquired, "Mr. Rickenbacker, may I ask how old you are?", to which he replied, "I'm 73 years young, son." It's all about your personal attitude, and, from what I've read, his was a very positive one that did not tolerate fools.
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  525. I needed a score card and diagram to follow this trail of tears. Yikes!
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  526. I have seen a picture of an experimental Colt 1911 pistol made entirely of stainless steel in WWII, but it would not be until 1965 that Smith & Wesson began producing the first commercially marketed stainless steel handgun, their iconic Model 60 2" Chief Special. Today new forms of stainless steel and modern plastics are the firearm industry standard.
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  527. My Dad was a B-29 engine mechanic in Alaska during the Korean War. It was a maintenance nightmare even then (he made a point of never flying on them despite being qualified to serve as a volunteer crew member). The vastly improved B-50 was a much superior aircraft, but was soon superseded by the B-47 and B-52 jet bombers. During my Air Force ROTC history classes we were told the China based B-29 strategy proved to be a failure. If the planes weren't catching fire in flight, they were doing limited damage to Japanese targets, largely due to parts, fuel, and bombs having to be flown into China over The Hump. Your emphasis on the political importance of this China strategy puts the entire story in a proper perspective.
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  528.  @Dwightstjohn-fo8ki  The concept of evil robber barons is largely a myth created by progressive writers of the 19th and 20th century. It's easy for people to believe their claims when applying 21st century standards to 19th century America. This is not to say that writers such as Upton Sinclair did not expose some bad working conditions through sensational muckraking stories, but the assertions that these barons were keeping Americans in poverty were not supported by the facts. In truth the early industrialists offered affordable products on a mass scale and helped create the American middle class. As an example, in 1914 Henry Ford doubled his line workers' salaries to the unheard of amount of five dollars a day (he later regretted the decision when times got tough and the now powerful unions would not compromise). Like so many noble ideas, after their early hard-won successes, many larger unions became bureaucratically bloated and corrupt. In this sense I find much commonality between them, corporations, and government, which might explain why we see so many of their senior personnel shift easily between the three. All bear considerable watching.
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  529. With the exception of a few scattered articles and the 1959 Frank Sinatra movie "Never So Few", Detachment 101 has been largely overlooked by history, as have the Kachin people of Burma. Another group in Burma that has fought long and hard against tyranny in their country are the Karen. Little does the rest of the world care. Thank you keeping these forgotten struggles alive.
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  530. These surveyors were incapable of walking a straight line east to west?
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  531. Have you done an episode on the Dateline NBC story where the network reporters used rigged GM pickup trucks to falsely show they were unsafe because their gasoline tanks were installed on the sides of the trucks, outside the frame?
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  532. Newman!
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  533. A hero ship.
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  534. I was in AFROTC at Georgia Tech when this cock-up occurred. My instructor was a Major who was notified the night we lost those crewmen and Security Policemen in Thailand that he was to go with a chaplain to inform the parents of one of the airmen. The young man was from Atlanta. I never learned his name. I do remember my instructor saying he never expected to receive such an assignment while assigned as a college ROTC instructor.
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  535.  @patrickscalia5088  Since you specifically asked, I'm going to provide a tediously detailed answer. You have been warned! Yes, the 38 S&W (aka 38-200, 38 Colt New Police) cartridge uses a .361" diameter projectile, while the 38 Special uses a .357" diameter projectile. The 38 S&W projectile is seated in a brass case that is much shorter (.775") than the 38 Special cartridge case (1.155"). The 38 S&W case is larger in diameter and slightly tapers down from .3865" at the base to .3855" at the mouth. The 38 Special case is straight-walled and only .379" in diameter. In 38 S&W revolvers with short cylinders it may be possible to insert the smaller diameter 38 Special cartridge, but it would stick out the front of the cylinder and prevent it from closing. The 38-200 caliber Colt and S&W revolvers the British purchased during WWII were full-sized pistols originally intended for the 38 Special cartridge, thus they had to be built/rebuilt to only allow them to chamber the 38-200 cartridge. This was done by boring the rear of the cylinder to chamber the 38-200 case. The remainder of the cylinder was bored smaller to only allow the passage of .361" projectile. The result was stepped chambers inside each cylinder that prevented the longer 38 Special case from seating flush. This prevented the cylinder from closing. Postwar, may 38-200 revolvers were returned to the USA as surplus and dumped on the public market. Enterprising gunsmiths realized they could bore out the step in the cylinders so the revolvers would chamber and fire 38 Special cartridges, albeit rather sloppily. These converted pistols are easy to spot by their markings and by measuring their bores and chambers. Even if you lack the means to gauge the chambers, you'll find out soon enough when you shoot 38 Specials through them. The empty casings will bulge and/or split inside the oversized chambers. For the occasional shooter this may not be a problem, but for those who like to reload their empty brass, it is a nonstarter. In theory the barrels of these wartime guns should have been bored and rifled for the larger 38-200 projectile, but it is possible to fire the larger diameter projectile through the smaller 38 Special bore. However, accuracy will suffer because the projectile will deform as it squeezes down to fit the tighter bore. This raises several questions. In their early rush to acquire firearms did the British Purchasing Commission allow under-bored barrels? Did Colt goof by putting the wrong cylinder in this gun? Did Colt accidentally mismark the barrel caliber? How many such guns exist?
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  536. Oh you had me at Panzer.
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  537. Are you sure his name was Kapitan Schlit, and not Kapitan Scheisse.
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  538. I thought it sounded familiar. One of the many forgotten, yet crucial battles of WWII.
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  539. This is a very American story - freedom above all else. May it always be so.
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  540. The image of those two planes at time mark 1:50 brought back some powerful memories. My Dad learned to fly in a Taylorcraft and a Cub, then later purchased his first plane, a Luscombe (the plane in the foreground). When I was a teenager his second Luscombe was the first "tail dragger" learned to fly. One of my brothers and a sister also learned to fly it. I spent many hours in it buzzing around north and central Florida and much of Georgia. By the way, the first combat use of Cubs by launching them from ships during Operation Torch in North Africa proved to be something of a disaster. Navy gunners on other ships were unfamiliar with the aircraft and opened fire. After evading naval gunfire the three little planes continued to the beach where one was forced down by friendly Army antiaircraft fire. French gunfire brought down the second plane, flown by the unit leader, Capt Ford E. Allcorn. He managed to drag himself from the wreckage before it exploded and was promptly captured by the French, thus earning him three dubious distinctions. He was the first pilot to fly a Cub from the deck of a carrier into combat, the first Army aviator to be wounded in the campaign, and the first one to be captured. The third plane made it to the improved landing strip, but when the pilot attempted to fly his first artillery spotting mission he was again shot at by US Army units unfamiliar with the aircraft, and was forced to return to the strip. Matters only got worse after this, and the entire program was in jeopardy of cancellation. The situation was eventually rectified as new tactics and leadership evolved, but like the Army itself, much was being learned on the job under combat, a less than desirable state.
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  541. Chapman was noted for his ability to endure pain, privation, and cold that would immobilize a normal man. One article I read claimed he possessed a rare medical condition which allowed his sinewy body to bear frigid weather with aplomb.
    1
  542. The sinking of the USS Reuben James in 1941 was not the worst US Navy disaster since the USS Maine was destroyed in Havana Harbor in 1898. The USS Tampa, a 190-ft Coast Guard cutter transferred to Navy service, was sunk off the coast of England in 1918 by the German submarine U-53, with the loss of all hands, 139 souls in total. As a young boy I used to spend a lot of time at the American Legion Hall in Tampa, FL, with my grandpa, who was the former post commander and a Navy mine sweeper veteran of WWI. I well remember the stained glass memorial of the USS Tampa that was a centerpiece of the Hall.
    1
  543. I live in Montana where everyone takes pride in our vigilante past. They did manage to clean out a nest of murderous outlaws where no formal justice existed at the time.
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  544. I lived in Charles county for six years and did not know any of this. Thanks, History Guy.
    1
  545.  @TheHistoryGuyChannel  I do hope you make a video on it. Personally, I detest debit cards, but there must be a reason for their popularity, so perhaps we are witnessing history in the making. :)
    1
  546.  @donmoore7785  Yes, I meant the former. I was hoping he would address the debit card trend because his research could shed some insight on the future of credit cards.
    1
  547. Hmm, a 126 km race? The distance between Paris and Rome is 1420 km. Just another friendly tip from the History Editor. :-)
    1
  548. I have a piece of the wall, along with some East German shoulder tabs and caps that my brother got for me while on a mission to Berlin right after the wall came down. I've always kept the concrete in a plastic bag because he warned me it contains high levels of asbestos. I hope you washed your hands well after handling it in the video.
    1
  549.  @megupdike1414  That's not what he said in his interview.
    1
  550. Time marches on.
    1
  551. Regarding the USS Roper's rescue of survivors of the torpedoed steamer, the ship was actually the SS City of New York. According to uboat.net, "One of the passengers was Desanka Mohorovicic, the pregnant wife of an attaché to the Yugoslav consulate in New York, who travelled [sic] with her daughter Vesna. Luckily the ship’s surgeon, Leonard Hudson Conly, had followed her into the same boat and delivered the baby in the bottom of the lifeboat that was tossed about in 15 foot waves, even though he himself had two broken ribs." The name New York must have an ominous one, for a different ship, the British registered coastal steamer New York, was torpedoed and sunk in October of 1942. Tragically, many of her survivors were lost the next day when one of the rescue ships, HMS Veteran, was sunk with the loss of all hands while attempting to rescue some of the New York's survivors.
    1
  552.  @kevinbarry71  I believe you, though liverwurst is not among of my favorites. I enjoy different hams, pastrami, roast beef, and most anything that's smoked. It's hard to find a place anymore that knows how to make a proper submarine or Cuban sandwich. When you do, count yourself fortunate. Preparing the right mix of bread, meats, cheeses, condiments, etc. create a taste that chain restaurants cannot duplicate.
    1
  553.  @innotech  Most likely.
    1
  554.  @captainamericaamerica8090  I definitely prefer JJ to Subway.
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  555.  @captainamericaamerica8090  Never heard of them, so I looked up the name and found we have three here in MT, though none closer than a 100 miles. 😞
    1
  556. Social media is again changing our language and destroying its eloquence. You want . . . back in the day . . . a word . . . like, you know . . . ROTFLMAO
    1
  557.  @joshwhite5407  I was referring to the idea that rights are granted by the government. They are not. These are privileges disguised as rights and they can be removed, just as NJ did when they rescinded women's right to vote.
    1
  558.  @joshwhite5407  Yes, the territorial law does express it your way. I should have directed my comment specifically to the way THG expressed it at 4:30 when he said "the bill was the first in US history that explicitly granted women the right to vote". We are getting into the topic of natural rights vs. civil rights, which has probably caused more disagreement and conflict than anything else I can think of.
    1
  559. Reminds me of when I was growing up in north Florida during the 60s. We knew a crop-duster pilot who had been flying for 30 years without injury, then one day he went deep sea fishing with some friends in the Gulf of Mexico. A storm swamped their boat and he succumbed to exposure before they could be rescued. My father lamented that he never expected the man's epitaph to be read "Lost at sea".
    1
  560. Will the outermost rock be named Goofy?
    1
  561.  @bklynp718  I don't see any on the national scene.
    1
  562.  @johnmilner5485  I believe there are a lot more people in the military who hate this woke nonsense than support it, but the current administration is all in with the nutters and yes men, so that's who they promote into leadership roles. The point to remember is that you can be a professional warrior training hard and keeping your eye on the ball or you can be a SJW, but you can't be both. How many snowflakes do you think are fighting in Ukraine right now? I'd say the number is zero because war is not cosplay and those who think it is will be dispelled of this rubbish quickly or else die an ignoble death.
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  563. You brought back the ending theme. Hooray!
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  564. Don't New Yorkers refer to their town as "The City", inferring it's the only real city in America worthy of the moniker?
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  565. Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker.
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  566. That and tobacco, the red man's revenge.
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  567.  @xaenon  There's a treasure trove of films and shows going back to the silent era, so many that one can easily spend a lifetime searching and viewing them.
    1
  568.  @xaenon  I think we're in violent agreement. I haven't had access to cable, satellite, or aerial service in twelve years and I don't miss it. I watch YouTube and buy DVDs based on reviews I've seen and the opinions of friends I trust.
    1
  569.  @xaenon  That's why I own thousands of DVDs. It will take a lifetime to watch them all.
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  570.  @xaenon  Got spares for both, but I think I will pick up another DVD player now that you mention it.
    1
  571. Sounds like he was seeking the goals of a God he did not believe existed.
    1
  572. The last time a leap year was skipped was the year 1900. The next time a leap year will be skipped is the year 2100.
    1
  573.  @knightowl3577  Along with the USS Mae West
    1
  574.  @F_Tim1961  Clever play on words at the end.
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  575.  @caninedrill_instructor5861  No doubt manly man-chores.
    1
  576. It's always been my understanding that the US Navy has long claimed no US warship was ever captured by the enemy until the Pueblo incident. The capture of the Essex seems to prove otherwise.
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  577.  @julianneale6128  I never said the Allison did not seize up, nor did I say it was more reliable than the Merlin. I said my late friend preferred the P-38 because losing one engine wasn't a big problem. For a Mustang or any other single engine aircraft, it was a very big problem indeed. This is an example of the law of probability at work and has nothing to do with engine reliability unless you have truly terrible engines. I do not consider our main combat aircraft engines of WWII, the Allison, Packard/RR Merlin, Pratt & Whitney R-2800, and Wright Cyclone, to be unreliable engines for their time, if properly maintained. I don't know which one was the most reliable, but I suspect it would be the P&W, due to its simplicity and ruggedness. Of course there are many other factors that go into this equation, and it would make an interesting topic for discussion.
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  578. Graveyard of empire, what a crock.
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  579. Such men as Captain Eddie Grant were the norm, not the exception. I know because my Grandpa Sam Parker was a minor league ball player and railroad brakeman during the war to end all wars. He was exempt from the draft but volunteered for the Navy where he served on a minesweeper. He remained devoted to the veterans and was an active member of the VFW for the next fifty years until his death. He taught me the manual of arms when I was five years old and instilled in me a sense of duty that I still believe in. God bless our veterans and our fallen warriors, and may God continue to bless America, the land of the free because of the brave.
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  580. There is nothing more awe-inspiring or intimidating than the sight of a battleship arriving in port. It gentles the natives.
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  581. The island where Ernie Pyle was killed is pronounced I-E Shima. At least that is what my old high school Army ROTC instructor, MSGT Dixon, called it. He was there and saw Ernie only minutes before he was killed.
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  582.  @justicespeaks3270  Interesting moniker you have. "Portrait of Jennie" is one of my favorite movies.
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  583. How comforting to know our govenrment was every bit as efficient and caring then as now.
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  584. The wrath of God seems to have spared Jerusalem . . . so far.
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  585.  @foxiedogitchypaws7141  Pretty much, now that the kids are grown.
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  586. I just finished watching Arvin Ash's video. I was pleased that he addressed my question about how light is able to cross the universe without running out of steam (pardon the analogy). I didn't fully understand his explanation, but I am not a physicists. All the same, he made it more digestible and put me one step closer to comprehension. After watching your historical perspective, I guess you could say, that in physics, Maxwell is the missing link between Newton and Einstein. Such episodes as these are why I never miss anything you or Arvin post. I am glad to see your channel continuing to grow. Keep up the great work.
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  587. I knew the story about the Ward and the twist of fate that her skipper later command the O'Brien in 1944, but I did not know the background of the Ward's namesake. Riveting tale all around.
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  588. I thought the Bowler and Derby had different brims. I never warmed up to the style, preferring the Fedora, Homburg, and Stetson instead.
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  589. An over-reliance on automated controls has been a chronic problem with some airlines and tends to mask subpar crew performance. It is akin to a coat of paint hiding a multitude of sin.
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  590. Three of my favorite laws are the ones banning lovemaking in a grocery cart, paddling your canoe downtown, and shooting Indians from a moving trolley car.
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  591.  @FYMASMD  I agree, but I don't take alcohol into the field, so cans are not an issue for me.
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  592. So he was sort of a scholarly 18th century Hugh Hefner.
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  593.  @JohnSmith-bx1mp  I'm just a gigolo and ev'rywhere I go People know the bar I'm playing Pay for every dance selling each romance
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  594. What a great way to remember a great lady.
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  595. Bowling is a great way to learn about beer. 🙂
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  596. My grandfather came from the same region as Gartner. He married my grandmother, an American, in Germany in the 20s, then immigrated to the USA a few years later. He only returned once, in1937, to assist other members of his family to emigrate before it was too late. As a result, most of them got out just before the war started.
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  597. You showed a painting of the SS Robin Moor being destroyed by a German U-Boat in 1941. Have you done a story about this ship and the political fallout it generated?
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  598. I enjoyed the romp through some of Georgia's colorful political history, but was disappointed you did not mention what happened in the Lt Gov race. With Melvin Thompson seated as governor, a special election was held for Lt Gov and our family's good friend and neighbor, Brig Gen Marvin Griffin (Adjutant General of the Georgia National Guard), was elected. Marvin later became governor of the state from 1955-59. He was quite a colorful character who was well liked by all. Where the characters Senators Snort and Beauregard Claghorn only existed in fiction, Marvin Griffin existed in real life almost as their counterparts.
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  599.  @heymakerphd1982  Using your logic, if the recipient of the Medal of Honor is a winner, are all other soldiers losers?
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  600.  @heymakerphd1982  You asked the question "If he's not a winner, is he a loser?" I'm pointing out why the term winner is never used, nor should be used in any official description of the Medal of Honor or in its awarding. I doubt any recipient of the award would say he won it or earned it (except possibly Douglas MacArthur). I've heard plenty of them say they accepted it on behalf of all those other men who did as much or more, but were never properly recognized for their actions. And don't refer to me as son unless you are in your 90s.
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  601.  @petergianakopoulos4926  Not intentionally, no. But those who do not understand the process of awarding it might think otherwise and treat it like a competition.
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  602. I remember the story well thanks to Walt Disney's "Miracle of the White Stallions", starring Robert Taylor and Lilli Palmer, 1963. I watched it with my family in the local movie theater when it was first released.
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  603.  @ffjsb  Maybe French cops have no place to set them. Those cars tend to be small.
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  604.  @ffjsb  You're spoiling our fun.
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  605.  @davidharris6581  I don't, but you may have a taller sitting height than I do.
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  606.  @adankmeme651  I think the French already have a complex about height. Some historians blames Napoleon because he wanted the tallest men to serve in his army. Maybe the kepis are a form of compensation to make the gendarme look bigger.
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  607.  @brianford1346  I wonder if he knew my Grandpa - Sam Parker.
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  608.  @brianford1346  Grandpa was born in 1896 and died in Tampa in 1968, only six weeks before the tragic gas main/sporting goods store twin explosions that wrecked downtown Richmond and killed 41 residents.
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  609.  @goodun2974  Always with patches.
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  610. The grass was greasy because of all the little bighorn droppings.
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  611.  @MrCellophane60613  :yougotthis:
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  612. Spring Heeled Jack is supposed to have been real.
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  613. I'll bet that 20 years from now somebody is going to come up with the clever idea of building a small Mom & Pop shop, then others will follow suit, and later there will be strip malls, followed by big malls and big box stores.
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  614. Gasp! I mean Gasparilla!
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  615. 😞
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  616.  @jojohnston4113  You are welcome. It seemed appropriate for the occasion.
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  617.  @bobmartin4942  Yes, though never officially adopted, it should be.
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  618.  @kevinstraus1478  That's what I was alluding to. Glad to see somebody remembers that incident.
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  619. In Montana we consider Deer Lodge native Janette Kelley to be the driving force behind the character of Betty Crocker. Here's a link to her bio. https://billingslibrary.org/DocumentCenter/View/4703/KelleyJanette
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  620. I can't stand the taste. But I never warmed up to the Great Pumpkin either.
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  621. 125 calories a day is 1/10th the minimum recommendation for someone on a diet. It would appear to be too little for subsistence. As for military rations, they are very calorie heavy and designed for long term storage if kept in a relatively cool, dry, shaded location. MREs (Meals, Ready to Eat) are typically rated for seven years if stored this way. In the early 1990s I was inspecting one of the MRE production manufacturers in Texas and the facility manager showed me some 1967 Vietnam era C-rations (actually dubbed "Meals, Combat Individual" or MCI, but still called C-rations). He said he had recently opened one and found the food still edible, even though it had been made 25 years prior.
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  622. I read a brief synopsis of the disaster when I was a kid in the 1960s. I think it may have been in Ripley's Believe It or Not. It claimed the prisoner in the cell (Ciparis) was the only survivor. I guess the article was almost right.
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  623.  @kaneinkansas  Yeah, we beat the stupid out of them.
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  624. The deadliest battle in American military history was the the Battle of Normandy and Northern France in WWII which cost us over 34.000 lives.
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  625. Aside from the excellent 1942 movie, Wake Island, starring Brian Donlevy, there is another way the defenders have been remembered and recognized. The Wake Island Device was created and authorized for any sailor or marine who was awarded the Navy or Marine Corps Expeditionary Medal due to service during the defense of Wake Island in the opening days of U.S. involvement in the Second World War.
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  626.  @surfer23505 I think he's off his meds.
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  627.  @suleskos.2743  Maybe Simon should be placed in charge on a new History Channel that recreates past events of things that we might consider trivial or noncontroversial today. I'd hire the History Guy as story editor.
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  628. Will we ever again be as united as we were during WWII?
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  629. If I remember early (19th century) baseball correctly, the violence far exceeded this game and was quite common.
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  630. What, no mention of the corn dog? Sir, you have insulted the South. This is grounds for secession!
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  631. Trust the Brits to mispronounce their own native tongue.
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  632. This year for the first time we did not send out cards, but made a heartwarming video instead. It was much more time consuming than ordering cards. I think we may go back to cards next Christmas.
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  633. The Air Force maintains a small cadre of crash, rescue, and drone recovery boats manned by enlisted personnel wearing Navy dungarees and shirts. As an aside, in the movie "PT 09" all of the PTs are actually former USAF 85 foot Elco crash boats modified to look like 80 ft Elco MTBs.
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  634. The Great McGinty?
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  635.  @LetsTakeWalk  You should be asking how many people die everyday. According to the CDC the numbers are the same as before COVID-19. If you want to stay home for the rest of your life, you are free to do so as long as you can afford it. Few people have this option and few desire it. Calculated risks are a part of life.
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  636.  @MrCellophane60613  Try applying your logic to any other daily activity like driving a car. Every decision you make involves some degree of risk. According to the CDC, 6% of the reported deaths are from COVID-19 alone. On average, everyone else had 2.5 comorbidities. The annual flu kills between 12,000 - 60,000 people, but the numbers would be much higher if doctors decided to report everyone who died with the flu virus as being caused by the flu.
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  637.  @MrCellophane60613  The 1918 pandemic was far worse; similar measures were enacted with similar results. When you are ordered to do something under threat of fine or arrest, altruism is not a factor. As for the WWII generation, 61.2% of our armed forces were drafted, meaning only 38.8% volunteered. I'll grant you that today I suspect far fewer would sign up if the nation were threatened. The actions being forced upon us today by our elected and bureaucratic leaders are little more than band-aids. People hate feeling helpless, so they want to do something - anything to make themselves feel better or safer, even if it means denying everyone their constitutional rights. That was the argument used for incarcerating innocent Japanese-Americans during WWII. Be careful what you wish for; it may come true in ways you never anticipated.
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  638.  @MrCellophane60613  You sound like a cop. When all they deal with are criminals, they start to see everyone as a potential criminal. You see everyone as a potential patient. When everything is up close and personal, it skews your perception, so your reaction is natural. But when you back away and look at the facts instead of the trauma, a different picture emerges. Our nation tests more people than any other country, so we diagnose more people with the virus. We use 40+ cycle thresholds on our COVID tests, while other countries use 25 - 35 cycles. As a result, we get more positive results even though many such results are really false positives of people who are not infectious or who have already recovered from the virus. We count anyone who dies after testing positive for COVID as COVID deaths even when their deaths are not caused by it or are tangentially related to it (meaning they were about to die anyway). No other country does this (with the possible exception of Brazil). The result of this constant panic pushing is the destruction of or freedoms, our livelihoods, and our mental health. Has anyone tabulated these costs to date? I wonder what will be the long-term result from breathing through masks for a year. I won't be surprised if white lung disease lawsuits make a comeback in the next few years.
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  639.  @MrCellophane60613  What other "inconveniences" do you wish to foster on us - meatless diets, alcohol and tobacco bans, mandatory exercise? The potential list is endless. There is a far more pragmatic solution. Anyone who feels at risk should consider limiting contact with others, practicing good hygiene and sanitation, and wearing effective PPE. By this I mean using disposable gloves and the N95 mask. Any other mask is one notch above a placebo in effectiveness. If we're going to play this game then I have a list of demands regarding how my fellow citizens should behave. Demand number 1, stop telling me how to live my life.
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  640. When did tax cuts become a progressive policy?
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  641. At 5:30 you state their actions did not change the war or the battle. I must strongly disagree. Taylor and Welch not only downed at least a half dozen Japanese planes, they damaged many more. Combined with losses inflicted by Army and Navy ground fire during the second attack wave, Admiral Nagumo called off the third attack. Fully 15% of his attack force had been destroyed or seriously damaged. Oil storage tanks, repair bays, armaments, and dry dock facilities had been left intact. Had he authorized a third wave attack, Nagumo would have left Hawaii completely defenseless and useless to the Navy and Army for months to come, meaning our aircraft carriers would have been without a safe harbor from which to arm, fuel, and repair. It might even have precipitated a disastrously premature engagement between our carrier forces and theirs. But Nagumo was a cautious man who essentially snatched defeat from the jaws of Japanese victory. If Taylor and Welch not been so aggressive, history might well have turned out quite differently and not been worth remembering.
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  642.  @TheHistoryGuyChannel  It's pronounced I-gore.
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  643.  @Pygar2  Hearts and kidneys are tinker toys!
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  644.  @Ni999  There wolf; there castle.
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  645.  @Ni999  Sank you, Dockter.
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  646.  @TheHistoryGuyChannel  I think you should do a history of Frankenstein.
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  647.  @Pygar2  He vould have an enormous schwanzstucker.
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  648.  @jojobar5877  While I was preparing to retire from active duty at the Pentagon in 2007 I learned the USAF History Office had a copy of the old F-104 video of the poem in their data files. At the time I could not find it on YT so I downloaded it as a keepsake. I had fond memories from my youth of watching it late at night when one of our local TV stations near Tyndall AFB would play it just before they signed off the air. I still have it and consider it the finest rendition of the poem. Today anyone can see it on YT thanks to the AIRBOYD channel having posted it on YT about 13 years ago.
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  649. Your Dad was right. Even as a kid I noticed the difference in animation quality between the 30s, 40s, and 50s vs. the mid-60s and onward. As I aged I caught the endless double entendres of many older cartoons and Bullwinkle. I was fortunate to grow up when these cartoons were originally intended for the movie screen. If you've never seen a Roadrunner cartoon this way, you have missed out on a great experience.
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  650.  @brianjones7660  Yes, I remember a parody that WB did of this series where two boys are watching a Roadrunner cartoon on the TV and one of them asks the other why the coyote wants to catch the roadrunner. At this point Wile stops the chase to explain to the boys the reason for his quest. He also spoke in the cartoons where he and the sheepdog punch a time clock during the day as if they were working on a regular job site. The brilliance of these timeless classics is obvious to any child who has ever watched them.
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  651. I don't know if Janet Guthrie failed to get major sponsors because of her sex or her driving skills, but I suspect it was a little of both. You never mentioned her winning anything. On the other hand, drag racer Shirley Muldowney did actually win some top awards. I suppose if you really want to know who is the best at anything, make them all use the exact same equipment.
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  652. Lesson number 1, don't kidnap the locals. It tends to make them rather peeved and it's bad for trade.
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  653. I remember the incident well because, as a kid of the 60s, I was infatuated with the B-70, the sleekest, most gorgeous aircraft I have ever seen. The loss was tragic and completely avoidable as you pointed out. I am baffled by only one small point. You state the plane was fueled with JP8 that day. JP8 did not enter military use until 1978. I'm not even sure it existed in 1966.
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  654. One more thing Hollywood has gotten wrong about the old west.
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  655. Is this where we got the adage "Tulips are better than won"? :)
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  656. This episode smacks of intrigue.
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  657. Secretary Wickard, the man who was sued over chicken feed and won the case in a 1942 SCOTUS decision which essentially ruled that the power of the federal government to regulate all aspects of interstate commerce, no matter how trivial or theoretical, was supreme. It gave us the bureaucratic administrative state we have been living in since at least the New Deal.
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  658.  @rkkotilley358  You are welcome.
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  659. Great story.
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  660. Two of Canada's finest hours were fighting alongside American troops during the long forgotten Polar Bear Expedition to Russia in 1918-19, and serving again with Americans in the famous 1st Special Service Force (The Devil's Brigade) during WWII. Oh Canada...!
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  661. Don't mess with Texas.
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  662. Interesting new intro you have there.
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  663. This story has the makings of a great period comedy.
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  664. Wasn't this story part of the background of the movie RAGTIME?
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  665.  @tygrkhat4087  I wasn't aware Norman Mailer ever acted. I remember him as a very successful author.
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  666.  @rael5469  Then you are lucky to be alive.
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  667.  @rael5469  He exceeded the limits of the aircraft and killed everyone aboard.
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  668.  @rael5469  I've read some of the reports on the accident and there is no record of any mechanical failures attributable to the crash. Lt Col Holland (the pilot in command) had a reputation for flying aircraft beyond their authorized limits, but no serious administrative action was ever taken against him. As the chief of STAN/EVAL, Holland knew better, but continued to set a poor example of air discipline. This in itself was a demonstrated failure of senior leadership and has since been used as a lesson to impress future aircrews on the importance of adhering to proper rules and procedures. I am speaking about documented facts, not personal opinion. If insulting other commenters is all you have for your argument, then you have no argument.
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  669.  @rael5469  I'll tell that to one of my former staff officers. He's a FAA inspector and can use a good laugh.
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  670.  @rael5469  Certainly not by crashing his plane before the Russian MiGs and SAMs can get him.
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  671.  @rael5469  Your theory doesn't hold up very well. His superior, the Director of Operations, Colonel William Pellerins, was court-martialed. In my own career I've known and worked with a number of officers who have been reprimanded, fired, forced to retire, or court-martialed. Theirs ranks ranged from captain to Lt General. The captain had been a personal friend. The general had been my boss.
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  672. I've read about the Siege of Kimberely and the brilliant yeoman work of George Labram. He was the quintessential indispensable man, extremely creative and energetic. Among his critical accomplishments during the siege were the building of a fresh water supply for the city and the setting up of watchtowers with searchlights, all connected to the city's forts by a scratch-built telephone network. But perhaps his greatest achievement was mediating between the mercurial and often bombastic Rhodes and the serious and sober Lt Col Kekewich. These two leading figures despised each other, but respected Labram, who was popular with everyone. Perhaps the best example of his congeniality was when Rhodes asked him if he had ever built a cannon before. Labram responded that as a boy he had built one for the 4th of July "to celebrate the time we licked the British.” Rhodes replied, "“Well, build one now to celebrate the time you are to save the British.” It is the stuff of legends and great adventure films.
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  673. The only place I ever saw this helmet authorized for wear in the Air Force was the Panama Canal Zone. The accompanying uniform shorts and short sleeved blue shirt made Airmen look like postmen, which had a somewhat demoralizing effect. I believe the US Postal Service still uses the pressed helmet in the summertime.
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  674.  @orbyfan  Presumably.
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  675. How come you no longer have the music at the end of each program? Did somebody complain?
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  676.  @joshgeiger9090  That's a pity. I find abrupt endings unbecoming.
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  677. In college ROTC we had one Air Force uniform and it was blue. In the summer we wore it with an exposed short sleeve blouse (shirt) and in the winter we donned the long sleeve blouse and service coat. Our Navy midshipmen were issued a bewildering array of uniforms which they changed according to the season.
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  678. Gadzooks, my brother-in-law just rented a Hertz flivver to tour Yellowstone Park. Everything's jake though. They made it back to their flop without getting bumped off by some torpedo with a chopper. :)
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  679. When I was a kid growing up in the south, we said "shock-o and plume" because we had plumes on ours. I've heard it pronounced both ways.
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  680. The hanging was my favorite part (I do so enjoy community activities). I was disappointed, however, that nobody felt compelled to yell, "Hanging's too good for him!" I suppose modern decorum and comportment forbid such public outcries. Pity that. :)
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  681. Don't give up your day job, Dizzy. ;-)
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  682.  @stevenyarnell  I've read that Mr Whitney's invention is what prolonged and entrenched slavery in the Old South.
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  683.  @HikuroMishiro  As I understand it, slavery was proving to be economically unviable and slowly dying out until the advent of the cotton gin. Without the gin I don't see how increasing the size of the slave population would have compensated for not having the gin. It would only have made an economically bad situation worse.
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  684.  @antman5474  I'm in!
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  685.  @tempestfury8324  Ouch! That hurts. My hair is still on top of my head, not on my jaw.
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  686. Today is my wife's birthday. She is one in a million.
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  687. I've never heard of them.
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  688. What, no lawyer jokes?
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  689. A little known fact about American Samoa is that the natives are non-citizen nationals of the US. Unlike Puerto Ricans and most other territorial natives, American Samoans do not gain the right to sit on juries, vote, or hold public office when they relocate to the one of the states. They are banned from public employment, and despite a proportionally very high presence in the US military, they cannot become officers. In order to gain full citizenship rights, they must go through a naturalization process not unlike those who emigrate from foreign countries.
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  690. It's also consistent with the evasive maneuvers used by all combatant subs to escape further attack. One late friend of mine attacked a Jap sub off the California coast and destroyed it with his P-38. The fact that it later turned out to be a whale did dampen his enthusiasm a bit. It is not my intention to demean the courage and resourcefulness of the CAP volunteers or any serviceman. There were many heroic acts during WWII which were later proven to be very overstated, one prime example being Colin Kelly diving his crippled B-17 into a Japanese battleship and sinking it, thus earning the Medal of Honor. The fact none of these things ever happened should not detract from the bravery such men demonstrated when facing overwhelming odds during those early dark days of WWII.
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  691. In the USAF we consider Black Thursday the first Schweinfurt raid in August of 1943 to be the worst day for the 8th AF. It's confusing because there were two Schweinfurt raids. In the first raid the 8th AF split a force of over 300 bombers between Schweinfurt and Regensburg. In theory this would require the Luftwaffe to split its fighter forces, but weather delays and a foul-up in communications caused the timing of their respective attacks to be thrown off. As a result, the Luftwaffe was able to reposition and rearm its fighters in time to hit both forces very hard. The result was the loss of 60 B-17s downed and nearly 100 more damaged, many beyond repair. In October the 8th AF attacked Schweinfurt again and lost another 60 bombers, plus 17 complete write-offs. Given the much smaller size of these two attacking forces, the Black Monday raid in 1944 was not nearly so damaging to 8AF resources. But even this raid paled in comparison to the loses suffered by the RAF in a single night of bombing Nuremberg in 1944 which cost them 106 planes lost. From the research I've read, contrary to popular belief, RAF Bomber Command lost twice as men as the 8th AF, while flying fewer sorties and dropping fewer bombs.
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  692. I enjoy your videos, but I was disappointed that you made no mention of the Barlaong Incident of 1915 when the captain of the Q-ship HMS Baralong ordered all captured German submariners to be executed on the spot. Perhaps you could make a video on this dark episode of British WWI history.
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  693. Where is the movie?
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  694. Navy Cross? Those men deserved the Medal of Honor.
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  695. Dehoe, I said the incident ALMOST parallels the Indianapolis, but you claim there were no parallels. As Pelican stated, both ships sank. There was a heavy loss of life. The men lost were military members. The lack of proper coordination was a major contributing factor. And like the Indianapolis, the end of the war overshadowed what otherwise would have been deemed a major incident. If you don't like my use of the word "parallel", then please recommend one that would be more descriptive.
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  696. dehoe, the Indianapolis was not in the thick of battle when she was struck. The war was practically over by that point. And yes, I know the difference between battle and non-battle. I spent 30 year in the Air Force.
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  697. RQ, both the Japanese Navy and their commercial fleet were in ruins and the home islands were facing starvation and relentless firebombing raids as the Allies prepared for Operation Downfall, the invasion of Japan. Japan was training and ill-equipping militia forces at home while well over a million of their soldiers remained trapped in China and Southeast Asia, essentially cutoff from Japan. Though their ability to feed and equip a significant force in the field had been severely curtailed, it would have been more accurate if I had said the war at sea was practically over. Japan only had 38 operational submarines and fuel was in short supply. There was very little threat of attack, and coupled with poor inter-theater communications, contributed greatly to the disaster. The resulting heavy loss of life could have been mitigated had better command and control been exercised. A similar avoidable tragedy had occurred the previous year during Exercise Tiger in preparation for the D-Day landings. Once again, human error exacerbated the problem. These are the types of similarities I am talking about.
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  698. Ralf, I'm not talking about the actions of the skipper of the Indianapolis. I'm talking about the protocols the US Navy had in place at the time, which would not have prevented the sinking, but did contribute to the magnitude of the disaster. I spent years working command and control. Keeping track of personnel and resources is critical when failure to do so can result in loss of life and property. That was the fatal flaw in Navy operations during this period. As with most airplane accidents, there is usually a chain of events that leads to downfall. In this case the critical issues included failure to notify Captain McVay that a Japanese submarine was operating in his area of transit, using assumptions rather than actual reports to plot a ships position, failure by the losing command (Marianas) to confirm the ship had arrived in port, false reporting of her arrival by the gaining command (Leyte), failure of the gaining Port Director to report and investigate the ship being overdue, and failure of three independent radio monitoring stations to report the ship's distress signal (one station commander was drunk, another did not wish to be disturbed, and the third thought it was a Japanese trick). These are command and control shortcomings which should not have existed this late in the war. The Sultana overcrowding may have been motivated by greed, but it was a general failure of command and control that allowed the disaster to happen.
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  699. In 1960 McGuire AFB was independent of Fort Dix and Naval Air Station Lakehurst (site of the 1937 Hindenburg disaster). The joint base concept did not emerge until 2005 (I was briefly involved in the program). The three bases remained independent until 2009 when they became the first and only (as far as I know) tri-service joint base.
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  700.  @danielponiatowski7368  That's a great episode. My favorite scene was when he was hanging onto the turret for dear life as the tank chassis and turret swung back and forth trying to knock him off.
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  701.  @danielponiatowski7368  It's too bad YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter jails don't let the inmates talk with each other. Think of what a blast that would be. As for vehicle restoration work, I'm completely unqualified to do it. I'm about to replace the fuel pump on my 47 Willys CJ2a, and though it is a simple job, I'll likely cock it up. Wish me luck.
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  702.  @musicofDK  Anyone willing to eat his own body lice and wear the same clothes until they literally fall off of him must be one tough hombre.
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  703. The gang bangers of the Roaring Twenties - good riddance to them all. One interesting detail of the group photo of the armed gang is that the three Thompson sub-machine guns appear to be sporting rare C- drums, each of which held 100 rounds of 45 ACP ammo.
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  704. Why is that?
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  705.  @STho205  I think we are in violent agreement. Under my concept a state could split in two if one section joins another state or if two other states agree to merge. The Constitution does not allow DC to become a state, bu I'm sure there are those who will try to do it anyway. The desire to make the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, etc. states is nothing more than a cnyical power play by one political party to retain permanent hegemony over American politics.
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  706.  @lisahinton9682  Nope.
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  707.  @STho205  This is why I recommend an amendment to allow the subdivision or fusion of adjoining states, but only if the total remains fifty. Your comment about the splitting of WV from Virginia is not the only example of possible Constitutional abuse. All amendments to the Constitution require ratification by 3/4 of the states. From my own analysis it appears the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments fell just short of this requirement, but were incorporated into the US Constitution anyway. Feel free to check my math.
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  708.  @-oiiio-3993  There's a couple of reasons. Congress has grown from 26 Senate members and 65 House members to 100 senate members and 435 House members. That's nearly a sixfold increase in size. The bigger Congress gets, the more unwieldy it becomes. The likely result of an ever expanding Congress is diluted power for the members. Politics abhors a vacuum and I have little doubt the Executive and Judiciary branches will gladly assume more unelected and unconstitutional authority if the opportunity presents itself. We have enough problems with the current size of Congress, so any growth in the number of states will be done for purely partisan reasons in a bid to gain permanent hegemony over the opposing party.
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  709.  @goodun2974  Neither do the American territories. Actually, DC does have representation in Congress and they are allowed to vote on committees but they cannot cast votes on bills brought to the floor for passage. DC also votes for three electors as part of the electoral college. Part of the problem is DC residents appear to want to have their cake and eat it, meaning they want voting reps in Congress but they don't want to become residents of either Maryland or Virginia and pay state taxes, nor does the DC political machine want to fall under another state's governmental control. I suspect the DC politicians would be more than happy to become their own city-state, but that flies in the face of American tradition and the Constitution. I can just see every other American city with an equal or larger population demanding the same status. That should bring us up to about 70 states.
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  710.  @STho205  I, for one, do not want a Constitutional Convention. Nobody knows what will come out of it, but I doubt it will be anything more elegant than came from the last convention - and even that required ten amendments before it could get ratified.
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  711.  @goodun2974  America has never been a democracy. it has always been a representative republic, which is an extremely important distinction. In a democracy the will of the majority can crush the desires and rights of the minority. The whole reason for states having an equal voice in the Senate is to serve as a counterbalance to larger states that otherwise could use their simple majority to impose their will on the minority. This was the fear of smaller states in the 18th century and is one of the reasons the Constitution was written to create a representative republic. The fear remains justifiable today for any small population state. One potential way to circumvent this safeguard is to create enough like-minded mini-states to allow one political party to control all of Congress. The desire to turn DC into a state serves this ulterior motive. You say there are states today with smaller populations than DC, but that was not the case when these states were created. Indeed, if population is the only pertinent factor (it isn't), then why not make every state the same size? If there are roughly 330 million citizens, then each state should have 6.6 million residents unless you want to create more or fewer states. In this case, adjust the state boundaries accordingly to maintain parity. Now that's being fair and democratic.
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  712.  @gotsloco1810  Bright moonlight can be a double-edged sword as it also exposes a surfaced submarine. Subs would try to position themselves so avoid silhouetting or exposure to reflected moonlight, but when approaching a shoreline this was not always possible. Additionally, a darkened ship can blend into a dark shoreline. Another consideration was shore bombardment. Early in WWII (21 June 42) a Japanese sub tried to bombard a Ft Stevens, OR but was foiled by a general blackout and the refusal/failure of the fort commander to return fire and thus reveal the position of his guns. On this night there was a first quarter moon that was 45.69% illuminated (a full moon is 100% illuminated).
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  713. Didn't you do a similar video a few years back on the Ralph Nader/Chevrolet Corvair controversy?
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  714. As a kid growing up in rural Florida I remember seeing outhouses with Sear's catalogs and corn cobs in them. In the case of the cobs, they were normally left to soak in an old coffee can or pail full of water so they would be soft and playable. If not soaked, they were literally "rough as a cob". Once used, they were tossed down the "corn hole".
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  715.  @kirtliedahl  It would still be a million to one shot.
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  716. I loved taking Latin in high school except when I had to read or write it.
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  717. I thought he was one of the jeep drivers in "The Rat Patrol".
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  718. Regarding the USS Roper's rescue of survivors of the torpedoed steamer, the ship was actually the SS City of New York. According to uboat.net, "One of the passengers was Desanka Mohorovicic, the pregnant wife of an attaché to the Yugoslav consulate in New York, who travelled [sic] with her daughter Vesna. Luckily the ship’s surgeon, Leonard Hudson Conly, had followed her into the same boat and delivered the baby in the bottom of the lifeboat that was tossed about in 15 foot waves, even though he himself had two broken ribs." The name New York must have an ominous one, for a different ship, the British registered coastal steamer New York, was torpedoed and sunk in October of 1942. Tragically, many of her survivors were lost the next day when one of the rescue ships, HMS Veteran, was sunk with the loss of all hands while attempting to rescue some of the New York's survivors.
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  719. That was very Illyrianating.
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  720. Love the globe.
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  721. Nothing to see here, folks. I beg to differ.
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  722. You needn't. I'm retired Air Force and find the origami emblem both silly and offensive. We should be using our official cap insignia because it represents our nation and not just the USAF.
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  723.  @bf1255  Grunts, you can shoot 'em, but you can't eat 'em.
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  724.  @rcknbob1  Any well-seasoned USAF officer is savvy enough to know you always hold the umbrella in your left had while keeping your man purse securely strapped over your right shoulder, thus freeing that hand for rendering n snappy salutes.
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  725. "How we can re-imagine it into what we need it to be." Is this not a fitting description of man's unending quest to interpret that agreed upon error we call history?
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  726.  @vanceb1  If only we could relive such moments in our lives. Then again, we might step in it.
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  727. Tanks!
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  728. The Loco Wokos.
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  729. My father's business partner served on a LSMR in the Navy during WWII. He was only 17 when they were ordered to the Pacific to participate in the planned land invasion of Japan. The entire crew was trained in small arms and hand-to-hand combat because their orders were to beach the ship, fire off all their rockets, then prepare to repel borders. As they were crossing the Panama Canal, word came that the US had just nuked Hiroshima. The war ended before they participated in what surely would have been the bloodiest battle of WWII, Operation Downfall.
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