Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead



that joke was pretty funny back in 1975 ...

North and South Korea's DMZ is one of the most militarized places on earth. It was created in 1953, after the Korean War, to keep the two armies apart. Hundreds of villages had to be cleared, forcing thousands from their homes.

Only two villages were allowed to stay inside the Korean DMZ; Taesung in the South Korean half of the DMZ, and a mile away across the borderline, North Korea's Kijong "Peace Village."

Whenever villagers venture to their rice paddies near the borderline just 1,300 feet away, they are shadowed by South Korean soldiers. They also live with a midnight-to-sunrise curfew and a door-to-door roll call every night.
When they invite friends from outside the DMZ to visit, villagers have to apply for approval two weeks in advance. Once a car enters the DMZ, its navigation map goes blank. Soldiers must escort all visitors.
Taesung has no gym, no hospital, no supermarket, no restaurant. If a villager orders Chinese takeout, the last military checkpoint outside the DMZ is as far as the delivery vehicle can come. The dish must be left there for the villager to pick up.

A bus comes to the village four times a day.

Also known as the "Zero" factor.
What's interesting is the failed assassination attempts during the non zero years:

Teddy Roosevelt in 1912 ( shot in Milwaukee prior to giving a speech…the 50 page speech along with his eyeglass case actually slowed the bullet. Roosevelt, wounded, still gave the speech, declaring it would take more than one bullet to kill a Bull Moose.
John Shrank, a saloon owner, shot Teddy because he had a dream that William McKinley, rising up out of his coffin, told him to kill Roosevelt in order to keep the country from having a third term president.

President-Elect FDR was shot at by an Italian immigrant in Miami, Florida in 1933. The mayor of Miami was hit and later died. Giuseppe Zangara, the assassin, suffered from severe stomach problems and said capitalism was the reason he had stomach issues. Since FDR was soon to be inaugurated, Zangara decided to kill the future president of the US.

Puerto Rican nationalists tried to kill Harry S Truman in 1950 while Truman was staying at Blair House during a renovation of the White House. One of the terrorists and a White House Policeman were killed. The surviving terrorist, Oscar Collozo, was imprisoned until 1979 when Jimmy Carter commuted his sentence.

Charles Lindbergh's plane, the Spirit of St. Louis, had 85 gallons of fuel remaining when he landed at Le Bourget Aerodrome near Paris on May 21, 1927. The plane initially carried 450 gal at takeoff from Roosevelt Field.

Sapper Redux said:

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BQ78 said:

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Cyrus McCormick the inventor of the reaper was a witness of the murder of Barton Key by Dan Sickles and testified at Sickles' trial.

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Now that's a tidbit I didn't know. For those who don't know, Sickles' trial was the first successful use of the "not guilt by reason of temporary insanity," defense. The Union would probably have been better off if he had been convicted.

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this was BEFORE Gettysburg?!?!

Yep. His wife Teresa was having an affair with Philip Barton Key, son of Francis Scott Key. Sickles (who treated his wife like **** and had multiple affairs that he didn't even try to hide) waited for Key and then ambushed him and murdered him.

Regarding Lindbergh, he was one of my early childhood heroes, before I discovered he was a nut and a Nazi.

Kidding a little, he was weird, though.

Don't know how many people are familiar with Giuseppe Mario Bellanca. One of the most amazing designers of aircraft, and I have a few hours in his last design, the Bellanca Super Viking



His were the most fuel efficient planes of the late 1920s, and were equipped with the same super-reliable Wright Whirlwind that Lindbergh selected for Spirit. Lindy wanted one for his flight, and Bellanca's company (with Charles Levine as President) initially agreed to sell him a Wright-Bellanca WB-2. But when he came back with the check, they told him it would be a two-man crew, and they would pick the crew.

Lindy tried another company or two, and eventually had Ryan build a plane to his specs.

However the WB-2 (Columbia) was prepared, and was planning on making the Paris flight around the same time as Lindy.

Quote:

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On April 12, 1927, Clarence Chamberlin and Bert Acosta set off on their endurance attempt. The aircraft was predicted to crash by Curtiss engineers, but took off in only 1200 feet of runway. They stayed aloft over Roosevelt field in New York City for 51 hours, 11 minutes, and 25 seconds. The estimated distance flown was 4,100 miles, which was 500 more than was needed for the Orteig Prize attempt between New York, United States and Paris, France.

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You may remember that Lindy took off for Paris on May 20. The Bellanca was ready to go about the same time, but a copilot was bumped from the flight and got an injunction to prevent Columbia from leaving without him. By the time it was all cleared up, the Orteig Prize went to Lindbergh.

Columbia did make the crossing on June 4, with Levine as the first passenger across the Atlantic, and the third non-stop across the Atlantic. (First was Alcock and Brown, 1919) Their intention was to go from New York to Berlin, but ended 100 miles short, yet still 9 hours and 315 miles further than Lindbergh,

Bellanca left the company in late 1927, taking the rights to the WB- 2 with him. But the Columbia set several other records, more info below

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright-Bellanca_WB-2

Also, Lindbergh was the 82nd person to fly across the Atlantic. He was not the first crossing, not the first solo crossing, not the first nonstop crossing, not the first non-stop, not the first heavier-than-air crossing. To be fair, most of the crossings were done in Airships, but many others were heavier-than-air.

If someone wants to read a dim view of Lindy:


http://www.zakkeith.com/articles,blogs,forums/Charles-Lindbergh.htm

Aggie_Journalist said:

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From 1840 to 1960, presidents elected in 20-year intervals died in office.

1840 William Henry Harrison
1860 Lincoln
1880 James Garfield
1900 McKinley
1920 Warren Harding
1940 FDR
1960 JFK

The trend was broken when Ronald Reagan survived a would-be assassin's bullet. His wife, aware of the trend, began consulting a Hollywood astrologer to mark days on his calendar as safe or unsafe for public appearances.

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The only other presidential death was Zachary Taylor, who was elected in 1848 and thus exempt from the curse of Tippecanoe, but still succumbed to an apparent case of food poisoning in 1850.

He was succeeded by Millard Fillmore, the last Whig president, best known (when he's remembered at all) for getting the Fugitive Slave Act passed.

Saying Biden is somehow worse than Buchanan or Johnson is… something.

Funny enough about Fillmore is that he essentially repudiated the entire American Party platform around immigration. He just wanted another shot at the presidency.

I'm going to disagree and leave it at that. I think Trump is uniquely awful in the last century but I still wouldn't rate him below the three presidents around Lincoln.

Strange times. Left and right used to be able to find common ground but it just isn't happening anymore.

That said Pierce, Fillmore, Buchanan and Johnson (both of them) were pretty underwhelming. Common Ground!

The income tax was a Constitutional amendment and quite a popular one. Wilson supported it, but I wouldn't credit that to him. The rest is certainly true. He did a lot of bad.

BonfireNerd04 said:

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Aggie_Journalist said:

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From 1840 to 1960, presidents elected in 20-year intervals died in office.

1840 William Henry Harrison
1860 Lincoln
1880 James Garfield
1900 McKinley
1920 Warren Harding
1940 FDR
1960 JFK

The trend was broken when Ronald Reagan survived a would-be assassin's bullet. His wife, aware of the trend, began consulting a Hollywood astrologer to mark days on his calendar as safe or unsafe for public appearances.

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The only other presidential death was Zachary Taylor, who was elected in 1848 and thus exempt from the curse of Tippecanoe, but still succumbed to an apparent case of food poisoning in 1850.

He was succeeded by Millard Fillmore, the last Whig president, best known (when he's remembered at all) for getting the Fugitive Slave Act passed.

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There was a belief that Taylor might have been assassinated (poisoned) by some Southern Senators who resented his opposition to allowing slavery in the Mexican Cession. Historian Clara Rising discovered that the two Senators from Georgia (Tooms and Stephens) visited him in the Whitehouse and threatened him! Her research showed that the Whitehouse was easy for anyone to walk into at that time, and the poison could have been placed in his milk before he returned from dedicating the Washington Monument that morning. She determined he had the classic symptoms of arsenic poisoning, and also convinced family members to exhume the body….which they did in the 1990's. Medical examiners determined he was NOT poisoned by arsenic however! (Without any organs or skin, tests for arsenic were done on his hair and fingernails).

Wasn't that done by Aggie H.B. Zachary?

CanyonAg77 said:

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Wasn't that done by Aggie H.B. Zachary?

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Yep

CanyonAg77 said:

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Also, Lindbergh was the 82nd person to fly across the Atlantic. He was not the first crossing, not the first solo crossing, not the first nonstop crossing, not the first non-stop, not the first heavier-than-air crossing. To be fair, most of the crossings were done in Airships, but many others were heavier-than-air.

If someone wants to read a dim view of Lindy:


http://www.zakkeith.com/articles,blogs,forums/Charles-Lindbergh.htm

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I don't see how any of this diminishes what Lindberg did. His flight got so much publicity because of a $25,000 reward (about half a million in today's currency) put up for the first person to fly from New York to Paris, or vice versa. Several teams who were much better funded were in a frantic race to do what he accomplished alone. His trip covered about twice the distance as from Newfoundland to England.

One Summer, America 1927 by Bill Bryson, great read talks about the race across the Atlantic and the NY Yankees.

That I can agree with. I guess most people here are aware of the controversy over whether the Wright brothers were actually the first to fly an airplane. There's a ton of evidence that says they weren't but they're the ones with the credit.

Boatlift short documantary. Highly recommended (Narrated by Tom Hanks)