United States
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The Tornado that created the Mayo Clinic
Oppressive heat, dense air and a quiet stillness of life filled the citizens of Rochester, Minnesota with dread during the day of August 21, 1883. Conditions in town had turned for the worse by the evening when the skies had turned to black and sudden gale force winds whipped across the land. These are all the markings of an impending tornado. A small tornado formed in another area of Minnesota earlier in the day, but it was a much larger tornado that touched down at 6:30 P.M. that was the cause of the most concern as it was moving northeast, directly towards Rochester. At a mile wide, this F5 tornado…
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USS Indianapolis – July 1945
Hooper: You were on the Indianapolis? Brodie: What happened? Quint: Japanese submarine slammed two torpedoes into our side, Chief. We was comin’ back from the island of Tinian to Leyte… just delivered the bomb. The Hiroshima bomb. Eleven hundred men went into the water. Vessel went down in twelve minutes…. Noon the fifth day, Mr. Hooper, a Lockheed Ventura saw us, he swung in low and he saw us. He’s a young pilot, a lot younger than Mr. Hooper, anyway he saw us and come in low. And three hours later a big fat PBY comes down and start to pick us up. You know that was the time I…
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Johnny Cash
Johnny Cash faced a lifetime of hardships and tribulations and it all started in the small town of Kingsland, Arkansas on February 26, 1932. Born John R. Cash to a family of sharecroppers that included his parents, Ray and Carrie Cash, and his 6 brothers and sisters. Life on the farm was not easy nor was sharecropping was not a lucrative business, and as a result the family was poor, forcing the children to help their parents farm their crops. The hard work was a blessing in disguise as this is where John would find his love of music. Carrie would sing in the fields, often folk songs and hymns…
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War breaks out in American colonies
In 1774, following the infamous Boston Tea Party the previous December, when residents had dumped a cargo of imported tea into the Harbour at Boston, Massachusetts, the British governor to the state had been ordered, using amendments to the Massachusetts Colonial Government Charter, to disband the locally elected councils in favour of members appointed by the Governor. In retaliation, a shadow patriot government, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress was set up by the dissenters. They compiled their objections, the Suffolk Resolves, named so after Suffolk County, where Boston was the main city, to refuse to obey the Massachusetts Government act and threatened to boycott imported goods from Britain, unless the ‘Intolerable…
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Gunfight at the O.K. Corral
“Fast is fine, but accuracy is everything. In a gun fight… You need to take your time in a hurry.” Words couldn’t have been truer than those spoken by Wyatt Earp. A total of thirty shots were fired in thirty seconds in the most famous shootout in the history of the American Old West. I will of course follow this article up with more about Wyatt’s vendetta, and biographies of the key players, but for now I will concentrate on the infamous gunfight itself. Tombstone, Arizona is located near the Mexican border. The Earps arrived on December 1, 1879, when the small town was mostly composed of tents as living…
