Harrison Ford
Charles Bronson
Leonard Nimoy
William Shatner
Ron Howard
Jon Voight
Richard Dreyfuss
Nick Nolte
Sam Elliott
Kurt Russell
Jodie Foster
Bette Davis
Angie Dickinson
Suzanne Pleshette
Bruce Dern
Jack Elam
Victor French
Cloris Leachman
Ellen Burstyn
Carroll O'Connor
Ed Asner
Harry Morgan
Chuck Connors
Lee Majors
David Carradine
Beau Bridges
Bruce Boxleitner
Lee Van Cleef
James Doohan
June Lockhart
Denver Pyle
Jeanette Nolan
George Kennedy
Mariette Hartley
Anthony Zerbe
Pernell Roberts
Dan Blocker
Alan Hale Jr.
Buddy Ebsen
Howard McNear
Edgar Buchanan
Jack Albertson
Ed Begley
Eileen Heckart
Kim Hunter
Ben Johnson
Mercedes McCambridge
Jean Arthur
Lew Ayres
Ralph Bellamy
Theodore Bikel
Beulah Bondi
Dyan Cannon
Jack Cassidy
Lee J. Cobb
Ellen Corby
Nina Foch
Vincent Gardenia
Thomas Gomez
Arthur Hunnicutt
John Ireland
Richard Jaeckel
John Marley
Katharine Ross
Cicely Tyson
James Whitmore
Chill Wills
James Daly
Michael Learned
Kathleen Nolan
Frank Sutton
Richard Kiley
David Wayne
Fritz Weaver
James Drury
Andrew Duggan
Jack Kelly
Claude Akins
Leslie Nielsen
Michael J. Pollard
William Talman
Andy Devine
Joe Don Baker
Kim Darby
George Lindsey
Robert Culp
Daniel J. Travanti
Forrest Tucker
William Shallert
Richard Anderson
Slim Pickens
Wayne Rogers
Strother Martin
Gary Busey
Cameron Mitchell
Ned Beatty
Melissa Gilbert
Sebastian Cabot
Jan-Michael Vincent
Jim Backus
Joan Van Ark

Bravo! Who would have thought that Kirk, Spock, and Scotty, all came through Dodge City. Probably a lot of red shirt crewmen did, too

(Original Star Trek)

On Sunday, September 2, more than 250 Allied warships lay at anchor in Tokyo Bay. The flags of the United States, Britain, the Soviet Union, and China fluttered above the deck of the Missouri, just after 9 a.m. Tokyo time, Japanese Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu signed on behalf of the Japanese government. General Yoshijiro Umezu then signed for the Japanese armed forces, and his aides wept as he signed.

Supreme Commander MacArthur next signed, declaring, "It is my earnest hope and indeed the hope of all mankind that from this solemn occasion a better world shall emerge out of the blood and carnage of the past." Nine more signatures were made by the United States, China, Britain, the USSR, Australia, Canada, France, the Netherlands and New Zealand, respectively. Admiral Chester W. Nimitz signed for the United States. As the 20-minute ceremony ended, the sun burst through low-hanging clouds. The war was over.

Lt. Col. Thomas "Tom" Dooley '35 Aide to General Wainwright, Witness to the Japanese Surrender
Dooley, a former Aggie yell leader, was serving as aide-de-camp to Maj. Gen. Jonathan M. Wainwright in the Philippines when Wainwright surrendered in 1942, and was taken prisoner along with the general's staff. He fought through Bataan and Corregidor before his capture and was the first soldier in the Philippines awarded the Silver Star, on December 8, 1941. He spent more than three years as a Japanese prisoner of war, held on Formosa and later in Manchuria, before being returned to military control at Chungking from where he was selected to accompany General Wainwright to witness the Japanese surrender ceremony aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. He held the rank of Major at liberation and was promptly promoted to Lieutenant Colonel. Back home, he was honored by the Dallas A&M Club and continued his Army career, later serving at Fort Sam Houston

GM Osiyo!

He was 20. A Texican kid from a tiny Rio Grande border town in Hudspeth County.

Benito Martinez was born in Fort Hancock, Texas, a remote Rio Grande border town in Hudspeth County, about 50 miles east of El Paso. His parents were Francisco and Francisca Martinez. He… pic.twitter.com/5sCFcBSqYN

— Gaijin - Markus GFY News (@Gaijin_Markus) September 6, 2026

Quote:

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He was 20. A Texican kid from a tiny Rio Grande border town in Hudspeth County.

Benito Martinez was born in Fort Hancock, Texas, a remote Rio Grande border town in Hudspeth County, about 50 miles east of El Paso. His parents were Francisco and Francisca Martinez. He grew up Mexican-American in a place most of the country still couldn't find on a map. He went through the local schools and graduated Fort Hancock High School in May 1951. That same year he enlisted at the recruiting station in his hometown.

He became a machine gunner in Company A, 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment the Wolfhounds 25th Infantry Division ("Tropic Lightning"). By February 1952 his division was on the line near the Mundung-ni Valley, northeast of the Hwacheon Reservoir. His platoon inherited a position called Sandbag Castle. Forward of that, in a four-man bunker wired for a sound-power phone, sat Outpost Agnes (sometimes written Anges). That was his post.

The night:
Shortly after midnight on September 6, 1952, the North Koreans opened up on Sandbag Castle with artillery. During a lull, men inside the castle saw enemy troops crawling in to cut off the forward bunkers. Martinez ordered the three other soldiers in his bunker back to the castle. His lieutenant, McLean, called him on the phone and told him to get out. Martinez knew the ground better than anyone on the other end of the line. He said he had to stay .
and hold them as long as he could.

He raked them with the machine gun until the ammunition was gone. Then he fell back to a bunker already wrecked by shelling and kept fighting with a Browning Automatic Rifle and a .45. For six hours he was alone. They called him several times. Each time he told them not to come , it was too dangerous. Shortly before dawn he called one last time: they were closing in.

The next morning they found his body. Empty ammunition clip in his left hand. .45 in his right. Three dead North Korean soldiers nearby. Because he held that ground, his company was able to reorganize, counterattack, and take the key terrain back.
He was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor. It was presented to his mother. He is buried at Fort Bliss National Cemetery in El Paso (Section B, Site 366A) after an earlier burial in Fort Hancock and a later reinterment with full honors. Fort Hancock and El Paso both named elementary schools after him. A Texas historical marker stands in his hometown.

Fort Hancock put a Texas historical marker on SH Spur 148 in 1967: graduated high school May 1951; lone six-hour stand; rejected aid; incredible valor, supreme sacrifice. Both Fort Hancock and El Paso named elementary schools after him. Kids in his hometown still walk into Benito Martinez Elementary every morning.

That's the fuller picture: a border-town high school kid who refused a direct order to save himself, bought his company the hours it needed, and never came home. Most people still don't know the name. That's the part that should change.

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jkag89 said:

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GM Osiyo!

He was 20. A Texican kid from a tiny Rio Grande border town in Hudspeth County.

Benito Martinez was born in Fort Hancock, Texas, a remote Rio Grande border town in Hudspeth County, about 50 miles east of El Paso. His parents were Francisco and Francisca Martinez. He… pic.twitter.com/5sCFcBSqYN

— Gaijin - Markus GFY News (@Gaijin_Markus) September 6, 2026

Quote:

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He was 20. A Texican kid from a tiny Rio Grande border town in Hudspeth County.

Benito Martinez was born in Fort Hancock, Texas, a remote Rio Grande border town in Hudspeth County, about 50 miles east of El Paso. His parents were Francisco and Francisca Martinez. He grew up Mexican-American in a place most of the country still couldn't find on a map. He went through the local schools and graduated Fort Hancock High School in May 1951. That same year he enlisted at the recruiting station in his hometown.

He became a machine gunner in Company A, 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment the Wolfhounds 25th Infantry Division ("Tropic Lightning"). By February 1952 his division was on the line near the Mundung-ni Valley, northeast of the Hwacheon Reservoir. His platoon inherited a position called Sandbag Castle. Forward of that, in a four-man bunker wired for a sound-power phone, sat Outpost Agnes (sometimes written Anges). That was his post.

The night:
Shortly after midnight on September 6, 1952, the North Koreans opened up on Sandbag Castle with artillery. During a lull, men inside the castle saw enemy troops crawling in to cut off the forward bunkers. Martinez ordered the three other soldiers in his bunker back to the castle. His lieutenant, McLean, called him on the phone and told him to get out. Martinez knew the ground better than anyone on the other end of the line. He said he had to stay .
and hold them as long as he could.

He raked them with the machine gun until the ammunition was gone. Then he fell back to a bunker already wrecked by shelling and kept fighting with a Browning Automatic Rifle and a .45. For six hours he was alone. They called him several times. Each time he told them not to come , it was too dangerous. Shortly before dawn he called one last time: they were closing in.

The next morning they found his body. Empty ammunition clip in his left hand. .45 in his right. Three dead North Korean soldiers nearby. Because he held that ground, his company was able to reorganize, counterattack, and take the key terrain back.
He was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor. It was presented to his mother. He is buried at Fort Bliss National Cemetery in El Paso (Section B, Site 366A) after an earlier burial in Fort Hancock and a later reinterment with full honors. Fort Hancock and El Paso both named elementary schools after him. A Texas historical marker stands in his hometown.

Fort Hancock put a Texas historical marker on SH Spur 148 in 1967: graduated high school May 1951; lone six-hour stand; rejected aid; incredible valor, supreme sacrifice. Both Fort Hancock and El Paso named elementary schools after him. Kids in his hometown still walk into Benito Martinez Elementary every morning.

That's the fuller picture: a border-town high school kid who refused a direct order to save himself, bought his company the hours it needed, and never came home. Most people still don't know the name. That's the part that should change.

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WARNING! DON'T READ THIS if you're sensitive or don't want to be saddened. Got it? Today marks the 126th anniversary of the horrific hurricane that struck Galveston in 1900. I've written about the hurricane many times, of course, so I thought I'd mention some things that I've… pic.twitter.com/GhGzfK34og

— Traces of Texas (@TracesofTexas) September 9, 2026

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Today marks the 126th anniversary of the horrific hurricane that struck Galveston in 1900. I've written about the hurricane many times, of course, so I thought I'd mention some things that I've never mentioned in the past. Some of this is tough to read; it was tough for me to write out:

1) Father James Kirwin, a Catholic priest who became heavily involved in recovery work, reported that after the water receded, 43 bodies were found caught on or dangling from a railroad bridge in western Galveston. Kirwin also organized crews to collect bodies for burial at sea and said the men had to be given whiskey to enable them to do the work.

2) You might not realize this, but Galveston effectively disappeared from the outside world before outsiders knew what had happened. By shortly after noon on September 8, the railroad connections and telegraph lines had been severed. The bridges to the mainland were destroyed as well. So one of America's important ports suffered an enormous catastrophe while the rest of the country initially had essentially no idea what had happened.

3) The hurricane physically moved the beach. It's crazy to think about, but true. Reading through the old newspaper accounts, the articles describe the Gulf shoreline as having been driven two to three blocks inland in places. The NPS gives an estimate of roughly 300 feet of shoreline lost to erosion. It's crazy to think that the island that existed on Sept. 7th didn't exist in the same form on Sept. 9th.

4) There were sixteen ships sitting in Galveston harbor when the hurricane struck. All suffered heavy damage.

5) The debris created something resembling a man-made geological feature. The destruction accumulated into a debris ridge reported as roughly three miles long and as much as 30 feet high through the island. Houses nearest the Gulf had essentially become battering rams, floating inland and smashing the next line of houses, whose wreckage smashed the next, and the next, and so on.

6) The storm destroyed 25 of Galveston's 39 churches. The remaining fourteen were damaged to varying degrees. Given how many people sought shelter in churches because they regarded them as particularly substantial buildings, that's unbelievably tragic. Whether you lived or died depended on which church you selected to hunker down in.

7) I've written about the tragedy at the St. Mary's orphanage before, but you may not know that it has an tragic prequel. The orphanage had already been struck by disaster twice in 1875. One building burned, although the twelve infants inside survived; later that same year a hurricane destroyed the boys' residence and badly damaged the girls' building. Then, in 1896, the orphanage decided to sell the exposed property and relocate closer to central Galveston. This never happened and I'm unsure why. Four years later the 1900 storm destroyed it and killed the ten sisters and at least ninety children.

Shown here: The intersection of 21st and Avenue O, looking north. Simple incredible.

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Today is the day the Winged Hussars saved Christian Europe.

They saved Viena, and Europe at large, from being conquered by the Ottoman empire with their legendary charge.

"Venimus, Vidimus, Deus vicit"
(We came, we saw, God conquered). pic.twitter.com/sx2Kuczbh5

— Trad West (@trad_west_) September 12, 2026

OTD 1683 the Polish King, led the forces of the Holy Roman Empire and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth against those of the Ottoman empire and defeated them at Kahlenberg near Vienna. My 7th great grandpa, Jan Franciszek Tuchołka, was an officer in the famous Winged Hussars. pic.twitter.com/7WD6dfDFgc

— Patrick Baty (@patrickbaty) September 12, 2026

Today marks the 91st anniversary of Howard Hughes doing a Howard Hughes thing: breaking the airspeed record. Howard ---- who was Houston-born and never one to do things halfway ---- teamed up with Richard Palmer to design the H-1 racer you see here. Glenn Odekirk built the… pic.twitter.com/4mfNve4Lw2

— Traces of Texas (@TracesofTexas) September 13, 2026

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Today marks the 91st anniversary of Howard Hughes doing a Howard Hughes thing: breaking the airspeed record. Howard ---- who was Houston-born and never one to do things halfway ---- teamed up with Richard Palmer to design the H-1 racer you see here. Glenn Odekirk built the thing, which got the nickname "The Winged Bullet." The goal was simple: make the fastest airplane on God's green earth.

And September 13, 1935, Hughes did just that, wrangling the H-1 to a world speed record of 352 miles per hour over Santa Ana, California. Also known as the Hughes 1B, the airplane came with two sets of wings: a short pair spanning 25 feet for tearing around the racetrack, and a longer set spanning 31 feet, 9 inches for stretching its legs across the country. The one you see here is wearing the long set. Hughes then took that same plane and broke the transcontinental U.S. speed record on January 19, 1937, flying from Los Angeles to Newark, New Jersey, in 7 hours, 28 minutes, and 25 seconds. Average speed over those 2,490 miles: 332 miles per hour.

I guess Gary P. Nunn was right: when a Texan fancies he'll take his chances, chances will be taken.

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On this day in Texas History!

These are the two trains from the infamous "Crash at Crush," moments before they were deliberately rammed into each other at high speed in front of 40,000 spectators, killing three and severely injuring six more.

From the TSHA:

A plaque fifteen miles north of Waco in… pic.twitter.com/gSJqPoGS9F

— Traces of Texas (@TracesofTexas) October 11, 2024

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A plaque fifteen miles north of Waco in McLennan County marks the site of the "Crash at Crush." On September 15, 1896, more than 40,000 people flocked to this spot to witness one of the most spectacular publicity stunts of the nineteenth century-a planned train wreck. The man behind this unusual event was William George Crush, passenger agent for the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad. In 1895 Crush proposed to Katy officials that the company stage a train wreck as an attraction; he planned to advertise the event months in advance, sell tickets to transport spectators to and from the site on Katy trains, and then run two old locomotives head-on into each other. The officials agreed.

Throughout the summer of 1896 bulletins and circulars advertising the "Monster Crash" were distributed throughout Texas. Many newspapers in Texas ran daily reports on the preparations, and some papers outside the state carried the story. As Crush had predicted, the Katy offices were flooded with ticket requests. The engines, Old No. 999, painted a bright green, and No. 1001, painted a brilliant red, were displayed in towns throughout the state. Thousands turned out to look at them.

As the arena for his spectacle, Crush selected a shallow valley just north of Waco, conveniently located close to Katy's Waco-Dallas track. In early September 500 workmen laid four miles of track for the collision run and constructed a grandstand for "honored guests," three speaker's stands, two telegraph offices, a stand for reporters, and a bandstand. A restaurant was set up in a borrowed Ringling Brothers circus tent, and a huge carnival midway with dozens of medicine shows, game booths, and lemonade and soft-drink stands was built. Finally, workmen erected a special depot with a platform 2,100 feet long, and a sign was painted to inform passengers that they had arrived at Crush, Texas.

George Crush told a reporter that he expected a crowd of around 20,000. The first of thirty-three fully loaded excursion trains arrived at daybreak on September 15, and by 3:00 P.M. more than 40,000 people were on the grounds picnicking, listening to political speeches, and waiting for the great crash. Two dollars bought a round-trip ticket from anywhere in the state, and some passengers were obliged to ride on top of the cars because there was no room left inside.

At 5:00 P.M. engines No. 999 and 1001 squared off at opposite ends of the four-mile track. Crush appeared riding a white horse and trotted to the center of the track. He raised his white hat and after a pause whipped it sharply down. A great cheer went up from the crowd as they pressed forward for a better view.

The locomotives jumped forward, and with whistles shrieking roared toward each other. Then, in a thunderous, grinding crash, the trains collided. The two locomotives rose up at their meeting and erupted in steam and smoke. Almost simultaneously, both boilers exploded, filling the air with pieces of flying metal. Spectators turned and ran in blind panic. Two young men and a woman were killed. At least six other people were injured seriously by the flying debris.

The Katy wrecker-trains moved in to remove the larger wreckage, and souvenir hunters carried off the rest. People began to leave for home, the tents, stands, and midway booths came down, and by nightfall Crush, Texas, ceased to exist. The Katy quickly settled all damage claims brought against it with cash and lifetime rail passes. As for George Crush, the railroad fired him that evening but relented and rehired him the next day. He continued to work for the Katy until his retirement. In the early twentieth century Scott Joplin commemorated the event in his march "Great Crush Collision." It has been surmised that the spectacle drew its huge audience in part because it occurred at a time of economic distress when railroads symbolized to many the evils of the big business "octopus" and were a target of attack for populist politicians.

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Happy birthday little brother

BonfireNerd04 said:

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September 17:

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1959 Girl is born who will one day be dumb enough to marry CanyonAg77 and stay married to him for 45 years (and counting)