Archive for the ‘History’ Category

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 417

Saturday, May 22nd, 2021

There’s someone on the ‘Tube who has a channel, “Demolition Dave Drilling and Blasting”. I think he’s ‘stralian, mate.

In this video, Dave reviews a Chinese generator.

How do you say “Harbor Freight” in Australian?

Mike the Musicologist sent me this: it is a little more recent than I’d like, and I think I’ve seen it linked on Hacker News, but I still think it’s worth highlighting here.

“What Really Happened at the Oroville Dam Spillway?” from Practical Engineering.

Finally, here’s something that’s just about 25 minutes long, and that I think some folks will enjoy: “The Unfortunate History of the AMC Pacer”.

“There’s a fine line between uniqueness and strange.”

Dick Teague on Wikipedia.

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 416

Friday, May 21st, 2021

I’m going to serve up another platter of random today.

The other day, The Drive ran a mildly interesting article: “The 1970s Trucking Craze Can Be Traced Back to a Regional TV Commercial for Bread“.

Inspired by that: “Wheels of Progress”, a 1950 propaganda film for truckers and the trucking industry.

Bonus #1: This is another video from the AT&T Archives, but I’m not really doing Phone Phriday today. “A Model for Living”.

This film centers around the “House of Ideas”, which was profiled in the April, 1968 issue of Woman’s Day magazine. Through the eyes of a young couple looking for a house, we meet the builder, watch telephone cable for the house being laid underground, and then return to tour the finished home at an Open House.

Content warning/spoiler: The kitchen has everything. Even carpeting on the floor. I repeat, the kitchen is carpeted.

Bonus #2: I really don’t have a good category to stick this under, so I’ll just leave it here: “Boys Town: A Place Called Home”, from about 1951.

As far as I’ve been able to determine, Father Flanagan has been named a “Servant of God”, but has not been canonized yet, and it’s not clear to me that the process has advanced in the past nine years.

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 415

Thursday, May 20th, 2021

Travel Thursday!

Continuing in our tour of the United States: “The Secrets of St. Louis”, a documentary from the 1960s about St. Louis history.

Bonus #1: I’m posting this less to tease certain commenters, and more for the scenery: “America For Me”. Yes, this a Greyhound promo film, but there’s a lot of spectacular scenery. And a love story, but you can skip over that and just watch the scenery go by.

Bonus #2: “Pan Am: Giant of the Skies”.

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 414

Wednesday, May 19th, 2021

Tonight is my happy hour night, so I thought I’d do some food and drink today.

Why don’t we start with gin, which I am nearly out of at the moment. I know, I should not have let my stock get this low…

“The London Gin Craze and Beyond”.

Bonus #1: I’m trolling a little here. I have a close family member who hates onions as much as I hate tomatoes. So…

“Why are sweet onions sweet? Can you really eat Vidalia onions like apples?”

Bonus #2: I touched on Tiki history recently, but only from the Donn the Beachcomber perspective. Here’s one from a different source that also covers Trader Vic and Mariano Licudine.

Thinking about it, I may have just enough gin to mix a Suffering Bastard tonight. I believe we have everything else. Except perhaps limes.

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 413

Tuesday, May 18th, 2021

Did you know that Chrysler built turbine powered cars?

I’m not talking about the one that raced at Indy: Chrysler had an active program from (roughly) the 1950s to 1979 developing turbine powered passenger cars. Between 1963 and 1964, they produced 55 cars.

“Here’s why the government made Chrysler destroy its 46 jet cars.”

(I know the numbers don’t quite match: Chrysler kept two, five are in museums, and two are privately owned.)

Bonus #1: “The Mazda RX-8 Is a Fun Car You Probably Shouldn’t Buy”.

Bonus #2: Breaking slightly from the car theme, but…”Evel Knievel: The True Story” from 1998.

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 412

Monday, May 17th, 2021

Military History Monday!

But I’m going to start off with an exception. Today is Tax Day in much of the United States. (In parts of the country that were impacted by winter storms, tax day falls on June 15th this year.)

So here’s something thematically appropriate for today: “Helping the Taxpayer” from…

…I’m sorry, I can’t keep a straight face…

…I’m laughing too hard…

…Okay, better now. Those wonderful folks at the IRS (in cooperation with the American Institute of Accountants).

With that out of the way: Ward Carroll has a YouTube channel!

That name may not ring any bells with some of you: Mr. Carroll is a former Navy pilot who has written several books. I liked Punk’s War quite a bit, and need to pick up the other Punk novels (when I see them at reasonable prices: cheese louise, Mr. Carroll, time for Kindle editions of those.)

“Dogfighting 101”. Bending a rule here, but I’m obsessed with dogfighting (in the aviation context, not in the Ron Mexico context). Have been since I was a little kid reading WWI and WWII histories and wondering, “Okay, so Dick Bong shot down a bunch of planes. How?” Textbooks on dogfighting were not readily available in elementary and middle school libraries: I didn’t actually pick one up until I was in my mid-30s.

(Affiliate link.)

Bonus: I feel like I don’t do enough from the British perspective, so let me fix that. “1400 Zulu”, a 1965 propaganda film for the Royal Navy.

Obit watch: May 17, 2021.

Monday, May 17th, 2021

Sometimes I want to put up an obit just because the writer clearly had fun writing it.

In Canada, it’s possible to find a man lounging on a chesterfield in his rented bachelor wearing only his gotchies while fortifying his Molson muscle with a jambuster washed down with slugs from a stubby.

That’s the lead from the obit for Katherine Barber, founding editor of the Canadian Oxford Dictionary. She was 61.

Chuck Hicks. He has 197 credits in IMDB as an actor…and 110 as a stunt person. He worked a lot with Clint Eastwood, was in “Cool Hand Luke”, “Dick Tracy”, and played the robot boxer in the “Steel” episode of “The Twilight Zone”…

…and among all of his other movie and TV credits, he appeared seven times on “Mannix”.

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 411

Sunday, May 16th, 2021

Science Sunday!

I thought I’d do a sampler platter today. Roughly from short to long:

“The Creation and Behavior of Radio Waves”. This is a 1942 Army Signal Corps film: I guess technically this could be MilHisMonday, but it is more about the theory of radio than specific military radio usage, so I feel like it qualifies here.

“The Nuclear Look”, a pro-nuclear power propaganda film from Westinghouse.

And speaking of nukes, “Medical Aspects of Nuclear Radiation”.

In the light of more current science, the film seems woefully incomplete and misleading.

Finally: I know this was just posted recently, and I’m trying to avoid using anything that’s not older than at least a month. But I haven’t done any space science recently, I haven’t done anything from the Soviet perspective, and we’re moving towards closure here, so: “Conquerors Of the Universe”, a documentary about the Soviet space program. Don’t worry, it’s narrated in English.

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 410

Saturday, May 15th, 2021

I said I wasn’t going to make Safety Saturday a thing, and I’m still not. However, I do have a couple of videos I can’t pass up.

“Handling Explosives in Underground Mines”. There’s some good information in here, if you are a miner.

The most important safety tip, which is not covered in this video, is: do not try to cross Boyd Crowder.

Bonus #1: How about something different? Like trains?

One of the craziest railroad films of all time, “Escape from Limbo” is part Twilight Zone episode, part safety film that is just as entertaining as any half-hour TV show from the 1950’s. The film tells the bizarre tale of Pennsylvania Railroad fireman Henry who apparently gets killed in a hunting accident. He ends up in Limbo where a Devil explains that he is now required to cause accidents on the railroad line — in an attempt to gather other souls for his patron. This unique premise allows the filmmakers to show nearly all types of accidents, from switch weights dropped on feet to maiming and — death.

Bonus #2: This could have gone in Military History Monday, but it is short and amused me. The Marines remind you: “Safety First”.

Don’t forget to hydrate.

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 409

Friday, May 14th, 2021

Today, a handful of random.

Skallagrim” discusses “End Him Rightly”, a fighting technique from the Gladiatoria.

Bonus #1: Here’s another video from the good folks at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC): “Integrity in the Workplace”. Or, things you shouldn’t do as a Federal employee.

Bonus #2: A little something for FotB RoadRich again. Guy picks up a 1973 Piper Cherokee Cruiser for $9,000 (it needs an overhaul and the owner couldn’t afford it) and does a restoration and rebuild.

Besides putting this up as RoadRich bait, I’m posting this because that’s a really nice looking airplane. I could see myself flying something like that.

Bonus #3: And speaking of the Cherokee, “50th Anniversary of the Piper Cherokee” from the good folks at Piper.

Obit watch: May 14, 2021.

Friday, May 14th, 2021

Lawrence sent over an obit from one of the Indianapolis TV stations for Edgar Harrell and James W. Smith, both of whom passed away this week. They were 96 years old.

Both men were survivors of the USS Indianapolis sinking.

Harrell was the last surviving Marine. The Facebook page’s tribute to Harrell said, “During his time aboard ship, he helped guard components of the atomic bomb. After the torpedoing, he was a hero amongst his shipmates.”
Smith had served the longest aboard the ship, beginning in December 1943. The Facebook page’s tribute to Smith said, “During weekly zoom calls, James would regale the group with tales of wartime as a young sailor… tales filled with mischief, adventure, fear, heroism, and brotherhood… and of course girls and a few stashed bottles of moonshine that got him into trouble.”

I’ve been meaning to note this one for a couple of days now: Colt Brennan. He was a star quarterback at the University of Hawaii.

In 2006, he set what was then an N.C.A.A. record for touchdown passes — 58 — in a single season, raising the possibility that he would be recruited by the N.F.L. after his junior year.
Instead, he stayed on for his final year. The Rainbow Warriors finished the season 12-0 and made their only football bowl series appearance, in the Sugar Bowl, against Georgia on Jan. 1, 2008. Mr. Brennan was a Heisman Trophy finalist that season.

He was drafted by Washington in 2008 as a backup, was cut two years later, went to the Raiders, and was cut again.

According to his family, he was in a car crash in 2010 and was never the same: “…broke his collarbone and ribs, caused head trauma, and resulted in blood clots that would plague him the rest of his life”. He descended into addiction. Recently, he had spent four months in a rehab center.

Mr. Brennan tried to enroll in a detox facility over the weekend but was turned away because it was full, his father said.

Instead, he met up with some people at a hotel and (according to his family) overdosed on fentanyl. He was 37.

NYT obit for Billie Hayes.

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 408

Thursday, May 13th, 2021

Travel Thursday!

Since I know there’s at least one person out there who loves Greyhound (“…the awful smell of stale cigarettes, recirculated air with the BO of 50 other people that would linger for a day or two after my 6 hour Greyhound ride from college to home.“) here’s a promo film: “Would You Believe It?” from 1957, promoting the company’s “Escorted Tour” services. In color, even.

The one time I took the ‘Hound on the ground, it was only about three hours each way (Austin-Houston and back), and I think by that time smoking was verboten on Greyhound buses. However, in the interest of fairness…

Bonus #1: “10 BAD Things That WILL Happen on the GREYHOUND BUS” from the “Frugal Travel Guru”.

Bonus #2: This one’s a long one, but probably somewhat more pleasant than traveling by bus. Especially if you have a good car: a man with a good car doesn’t need to be justified.

“100 Years on the Lincoln Highway”, a Wyoming PBS documentary about the first coast to coast road.