Connections: 301

Episode 1 of Connections III.
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Original Connections Episodes:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

Connections II Episodes:
1-2 | 3-4 | 5-6 | 7-8 | 9-10 | 11-12 | 13-14 | 15-16 | 17-18 | 19-20

A Tale of Two Shootings

[This was suggested by our buddy Paul via the tipline.]



Remember the massacre at Luby's in Killeen, TX, back on October 16, 1991? A similar death toll might have been tallied by the shooter at Player's Bar and Grill in Winnemucca, NV on Sunday, were he the only armed individual on the site. But he wasn't:
(emphasis mine)

The subsequent investigation lead detectives to believe that Villagomez entered the bar and at some point began firing multiple rounds. At least two of these rounds struck and killed the other two decedents, Jose Torres age, 20 and his brother Margarito Torres, age 19 both of Winnemucca. At some point during this shooting spree Villagomez allegedly stopped and according to witnesses reloaded his high capacity handgun and began shooting again.

It was at this point that the second shooter, the Reno resident, produced a concealed handgun and proceeded to fire upon Villagomez who succumbed to his wounds. The Reno resident was in possession of a valid Concealed Carry Permit issued through the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office.

After further investigation as well as ongoing discussions with Humboldt County District Attorney Russell Smith, the decision was made that the shooting of Villagomez by the Reno man was a justifiable homicide as outlined in Nevada Revised Statute 200.120 and 200.160. Because of this the Reno man was released from police custody.

Hasn't the coverage of this shooting on the MainScream Media been great? Oh, that's right. The MSM won't touch a story like this, because it doesn't fit the narrative. They'll never want us to know about a concealed-carry permit holder stopping a killing spree. Instead, they'll take a Columbine or Va. Tech as a reason to create even more "gun free zones". In many states, any place that serves alcohol is such a zone. I wonder how many of the patrons of Player's whose lives were saved realize how lucky they are that it wasn't "gun free" .
[Click on the title above, or date stamp below, to see the full post.]

Senator Obama: When will you finally visit Iraq?

Good question.

Book Review "Shadow Warriors"

I read Kenneth Timmerman's book, "Shadow Warriors" a while ago. I was a bit concerned when I started reading it that it might be a right-wing version of the fevered conspiracy theories coming out of the left with alarming frequency these days. But after the first 100 or so pages I understood that Timmerman had tightly documented his claims and had provided evidence for the perfidy of the people he names here as traitors to our country.



[Click on the title above, or date stamp below, to see the full post.]





The basic premise of the book is that there are elements within the CIA and State Department that essentially refuse any responsibility to those elected to direct and oversee them, and which work to subvert the aims of those elected officials and in extreme cases to overthrow them in whatever way possible. Timmerman isn't coy about the identities of these people--he names names and provides details of their efforts to force an American loss in Iraq and to keep any oversight from lessening their grip on the control of their respective bureaucratic fiefdoms. He also points out the mostly Democratic legislators who collude with these traitors in attempting to undermine the President of the United States.



George Bush doesn't get off scot-free in this, however. The president is shown to be too willing to compromise with his opponents in the hope of reaching some non-existent middle ground. Evidently this tactic stood him in good stead as governor of Texas. But in Washington it just cedes the high ground to the enemy, the permanent government, and demoralizes the people working for the administration who come to realize that no one has their backs.



If you're not aware of just how rotten things have become within our diplomatic and intelligence communities, you need to read this book. If you are already aware, you still need to read this book to use as ammunition against all those who will parrot the disinformation provided to them by the permanent government through their public information arm, the mainstream media.

Today in History: May 29

• 1453 You can't go back to Constantinople. Ottoman armies under Sultan Mehmed II Fatih capture Constantinople after a siege, ending the Byzantine Empire.
• 1736 Patrick Henry "Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"
  
• 1903 Thanks for the memories Bob Hope.
  



• 1953 Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay are the first people to reach the summit of Mount Everest, on Tenzing Norgay's (adopted) 39th birthday.


• 1990 Dow Jones Industrial Average hits a record 2,870.49
  

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Today in History: May 28

• 1754 The French and Indian War: in the first engagement of the war, Virginia militia under 22-year-old Lieutenant Colonel George Washington defeat a French reconnaissance party in the Battle of Jumonville Glen.
  
• 1908 Ian Fleming, "Casino Royale" 1953, "Live and Let Die" 1954, "Moonraker" 1955, "Diamonds Are Forever" 1956, "From Russia with Love" 1957, "Dr. No" 1958, "Goldfinger" 1959, "For Your Eyes Only" 1960, "Thunderball" 1961, "The Spy Who Loved Me" 1962, "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" 1963, "You Only Live Twice" 1964, "The Man with the Golden Gun" 1965, "Octopussy and The Living Daylights" 1966.
  

>
• 1987 A robot probe finds the wreckage of the USS Monitor near Cape Hatteras, North Carolina

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Qwer, having done one hell of a job, has handed the TIH baton to me for a bit. Don't expect as much science (I don't recognize the names). Feel free to tell me anything I missed or point out up-coming goodies.

Book Review "Liberal Fascism"

Very few conservatives have not had the experience of being called
"fascist" by someone on the left. In most cases the leftists use
"fascist" as a shorthand for "we hate you." However, words have actual
meanings, and "fascist" is no exception.



A new book, "Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left,
>From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning," by Jonah Goldberg, explores
the cultural and political underpinnings of fascism as it was practiced
in Germany and Italy. The policies and principles advocated by liberals
from Woodrow Wilson to FDR to Hillary Clinton were remarkably similar to
those of the classical fascists. They believed in free health care and
guaranteed jobs. They confiscated inherited wealth and spent lots of
money on public education. They purged the church from public policy
and inserted state authority into every aspect of daily life. They
declared war on smoking, supported abortion, euthanasia, and gun
control. They loathed the free market, provided generous pensions for
the elderly, and maintained a strict racial quota system in
universities, where campus speech codes were nearly universal.




Does this mean today's liberals are also genocidal maniacs, intent on
conquering the world? Of course not. But it's hard to deny that modern
"progressivism" and classical fascism share the same intellectual roots.
[Click on the title above, or date stamp below, to see the full post.]


Thanks Doug Loss!

Today in History: May 27

• 1927 In an obvious assault on alphabetical order, the Ford Motor Company ceases manufacturing the Ford Model T and retools plants to make the Ford Model A.
  
  
• 1907 Rachel Carson, author of the book "Silent Spring" which lead to a worldwide ban on the use of DDT.
  
  
  Paul Hermann Muller was awarded the 1948 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his 1939 discovery of DDT as an insecticide useful in the control of malaria, yellow fever and many other insect-vector diseases.
  
  
  One of these two is not like the other.
  

Yesterday | Tomorrow

Sorry, better late than never.

Photobucket Album

Memorial Day Parade. Westcliffe, CO.
Thanks, Don!

PS
God Bless America!

Today in History: May 26

• 1667 French mathematician Abraham de Moivre born; a founder of Analytic Trigonometry and Probability Theory; De Moivre's formula: (cos x + i sin x)^n = cos(nx) + i sin(xn); published The Doctrine of Chance (1718), a hit with gamblers.
• 1676 Dutch scientist Antonie van Leeuwenhoek discovers "animacules", using one of his microscopes looking in rainwater runoff from his roof -- making him the first microbiologist.
• 1826 English astronomer Richard Carrington born; discovered that during the solar cycle the zone of sunspots moves from the upper latitudes towards the equator; first to map sunspot motion, discovering that the sun rotates faster at the equator; first to record a solar flare. We are currently at solar minimum, awaiting the onset of Carrington Solar Cycle #24.
• 1907 American actor John Wayne (Marion Robert Morrison) born; Stagecoach (1939), They Were Expendable (1944), Red River (1948), Fort Apache (1948), She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), Sands of Iwo Jima (1949), The Quiet Man (1952), The High and the Mighty (1954), The Searchers (1956), The Wings of Eagles (1957), Rio Bravo (1959), The Alamo (1960), The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), Hatari! (1962), The Longest Day (1962), Donovan's Reef (1963), McLintock! (1963), In Harm's Way (1965), El Dorado (1967), The Green Berets (1968), True Grit (1969, Oscar Best Actor), Big Jake (1971), McQ (1974), The Shootist (1976).

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Today in History: May 26

• 1868 The impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson ends, with Johnson being found not guilty by one vote.
  
• 1886 Al Jolson, American singer born. Would later star in the first full length "talkie", The Jazz Singer.
  
• 1907 John Wayne The prototypical American cowboy.
• 1969 Apollo 10 returns to earth after a successful eight-day test of all the components needed for the forthcoming first manned moon landing.

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Today in History: May 25

• 1521 The Diet of Worms declared Protestant Reformer Martin Luther an outlaw and a heretic, banning his literature, and requiring his arrest.
• 1961 During a speech to a Joint Session of the United States Congress, U.S. President John F. Kennedy announced his support for the Apollo space program, with "the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth".
  
• 1977 Star Wars, a science fantasy film written and directed by George Lucas, was released, becoming one of the most successful films of all time.

Yesterday- | Tomorrow

Connections: 219-20

Episodes 19 and 20 of Connections II.
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Episodes 1-2 | 3-4 | 5-6 | 7-8 | 9-10 | 11-12 | 13-14 | 15-16 | 17-18

Original Connections Episodes:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

Phoenix Landing

The Martian probe Phoenix is scheduled to drop onto the Martian North Pole Sunday evening.

Phoenix After nearly 10 months speeding across 422 million miles (679 million km), the Phoenix spacecraft is just days away from plunging into the Martian atmosphere on Sunday to land near the north pole of Mars.

For cable television subscribers without NASA TV or computer access for NASA's Sunday webcast, the Science Channel will also provide live Phoenix landing coverage and commentary from 7:00-9:00 p.m. EDT (2300-0100 GMT).

A cool video of how it's supposed to happen here.

30,000 Scientists: AGW Is Wrong

Some 30,000 scientists have now signed to indicate their agreement with the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine's Global Warming Review Paper, "Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide". Read the report (here, as a web page) to get some highly interesting facts. This is the abstract:

A review of the research literature concerning the environmental consequences of increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide leads to the conclusion that increases during the 20th and early 21st centuries have produced no deleterious effects upon Earth's weather and climate. Increased carbon dioxide has, however, markedly increased plant growth. Predictions of harmful climatic effects due to future increases in hydrocarbon use and minor greenhouse gases like CO2 do not conform to current experimental knowledge. The environmental effects of rapid expansion of the nuclear and hydrocarbon energy industries are discussed.

Today in History: May 19

• 1848 Mexico ends the Mexican-American War by ratifying the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which cedes to the U.S. California, Nevada, Utah and parts of several states for USD $15 million in compensation. Mexico had started the War by invading the Republic of Texas ten years after it had been founded in response to General Santa Ana's abrogation of the Mexican constitution and assumption of dictatorial powers in 1836.
• 1914 Austrian-British molecular biologist Max Perutz born; 1962 Nobel (with John Kendrew), for deducing the structure of haemoglobin, which carries oxygen in the blood.

Yesterday | Tomorrow+

Today in History: May 18

• 1048 Khorasan (northern Persian) mathematician, physicist and poet Omar Khayyám born; wrote Treatise on Demonstration of Problems of Algebra (1070), an advanced algebra text, and Explanations of the Difficulties in the Postulates of Euclid (1077). (For Heinlein buffs, this is Omar the tent-maker.)
• 1711 Ragusan (Dalmatian) mathematician Ruggiero Boscovich born; invented the process of three-observation orbit determinationa among numerous other discoveries.
• 1850 English physicist Oliver Heaviside born; predicted the ionosphere (also known as the Heaviside Layer), and its use for bouncing radio waves beyond the horizon.
• 1889 American chemist Thomas Midgley Jr. born; discovered tetraethyl lead (1921) making car engines safer and more powerful; the cleaning agent carbon tetrafluoride; and Freon, dichlorofluoromethane (1930), making refrigerators safer.
• 1897 Irish writer Bram Stoker publishes Dracula.
• 1897 American film director Frank Capra born; It Happened One Night (1934), Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), Lost Horizon (1937), You Can't Take It with You (1938), Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), Meet John Doe (1941), Why We Fight (1942), It's a Wonderful Life (1946), Arsenic and Old Lace(1944), Pocketful of Miracles (1961).
• 1914 The Panama canal opens to cargo ships, greatly lowering the cost of shipping goods between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.

Yesterday | Tomorrow

Connections: 217-18

Episodes 17 and 18 of Connections II.
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Episodes 1-2 | 3-4 | 5-6 | 7-8 | 9-10 | 11-12 | 13-14 | 15-16

Original Connections Episodes:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

Today in History: May 17

• 1749 English surgeon Edward Jenner born; discovered a safe vaccine (cowpox pustule fluid) for smallpox. The term "vaccine", coined by Jenner, is from "vacca", Latin for "cow".
• 1836 Austrian-American chess player Wilhelm Steinitz born; invented the modern style of chess play; world champion from 1866 (his match against Adolf Anderssen, and given Paul Morphy's retirement) to 1894 (his loss to Emanuel Lasker).
• 1954 The Supreme Court unanimously ends state-mandated government school racial segregation in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. The "Separate-but-Equal" approach had been used as a false front for separate-but-unequal facilities since the end of the Civil War (1865) and had been reinforced by Plessy v. Ferguson (1896).

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Inconceivable!

Day By Day is hilarious today. It's a must read.


Of course, it's always a must read.

Today in History: May 16

• 1861 American inventor Irving Colburn born; invented process to create flat glass in a continuous sheet, vastly increasing its availability.
• 1866 American phramacist Charles Hires invents root beer.
• 1918 Urged by Democrat President Woodrow Wilson, Congress passes the Sedition Act which bars "disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language" about the United States government, the flag, or the armed forces during war; upheld by the Supreme Court the following year in Debs v. United States where five-time Socialist Party presidential candidate E.V. Debs was sentenced to ten years in prison.
• 1946 American engineer Jack Mullin demonstrates the first magnetic tape recorder.
• 1960 American physicist Theodore Maiman demonstrates the first laser, using a ruby crystal, at Hughes Research Laboratories in California.

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The Hollywood Canteen is Back

From the PRWeb:

Jon Voight, James Caan and other celebrities scheduled to serve lunch and camaraderie to 1200 U.S. veterans and family members at the Hollywood Canteen Veterans BBQ

Hollywood Canteen

When: Sunday Noon, May 18th

Where: West Los Angeles VA, outside the Wadsworth Theater, 11301 Wilshire Blvd

Today in History: May 15

• 1856 American author L. Frank Baum born; wrote The Wizard of Oz.
• 1863 English inventor Frank Hornby born; created the Meccano kids' construction set (1901).
• 1891 Ukrainian author Mikhail Bulgakov born; wrote Master and Margarita, which inspired Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses.
• 1948 Egypt, Transjordan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia initiate an unprovoked attack on the day-old state of Israel.
• 1974 Palestinian terrorists murder 22 high school children in Ma'alot, Israel.

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Today in History: May 14

• 1944 Director George Lucas born; created the Star Wars the Indiana Jones trilogies, which revitalized the adventure film.
• 1948 Israel declares its statehood, the day before the British mandate of Palestine (which included the territory of Transjordan) expires. The next day, all the Arab neighbors (Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Egypt, and Transjordan) invade to destroy Israel.

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A "FREE" POLITICAL ANNOUNCEMENT

SEN. BARACK OBAMA (D- ILL)

My fellow Identity-Americans:



As your future President I want to thank my supporters, for their ... support.



Your mindless support of me, despite my complete lack of any legislative achievement, my pastor's relations with Louis Farrakhan and Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi, or my blatantly leftist voting record while I present myself as some sort of bi-partisan agent of change.



I also like how my supporters claim my youthful drug use and criminal behavior somehow qualifies me for the Presidency after 8 years of claiming Bush's youthful drinking disqualifies him. Your hypocrisy is a beacon of hope shining over a sea of political posing.



I would also like to thank the Kennedys for coming out in support of me. There's a lot of glamor behind the Kennedy name, even though JFK started the Vietnam War, his brother Robert illegally wiretapped Martin Luther King, Jr. and Teddy killed a female employee he was having an extra marital affair with who was pregnant with his child. And I'm not going anywhere near the cousins, both literally and figuratively.



And I'd like to thank Oprah Winfrey for her support. Her love of meaningless empty platitudes will be the force that propels me to the White House.



Americans should vote for me, not because of my lack of experience or achievement, but because I make people feel good. Voting for me causes some white folk to feel relieved of their imagined, racist guilt.



I say things that sound meaningful, but don't really mean anything because Americans are tired of things having meaning. If things have meaning, then that means you have to think about them.



Americans are tired of thinking.



It's time to shut down the brain, and open up the heart.



So when you go to vote in the primaries, remember don't think, just do.



And do it for me.



YES WE CAN!



Text from GHS (I changed the last line)
Picture from "the internet"
If you own that picture, please let me know. One should always acknowledge genius.

[Click on the title above, or date stamp below, to see the full post.]

Today in History: May 13

• 1787 Captain Arthur Phillip leaves England with 11 convict ships to create a penal colony in Australia in order to begin "settling" that country to support England's territorial claims.
• 1857 British bacteriologist Ronald Ross born; 1902 Nobel, for discovering the malaria parasite in the Anopheles mosquito -- proving that the disease is transmitted by mosquitos.
• 1937 American writer Roger Zelazny born; wrote This Immortal (AKA And Call Me Conrad) (1966, Hugo), Four for Tomorrow (1967), Lord of Light (1967, Hugo/68), Isle of the Dead (1969), Nine Princes in Amber (1970), Jack of Shadows (1971), My Name is Legion (1976), Changeling (1980), A Night in the Lonesome October (1993).

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Today in History: May 12

• 1907 American actress Katharine Hepburn born; record 4 Best Actress Oscars; Morning Glory (1933, Oscar), Little Women (), Alice Adams (1935), Stage Door (1937), Bringing Up Baby (1938), The Philadelphia Story (1940), Woman of the Year (1942), The African Queen (1951), Pat and Mike (1952), Desk Set (1957), Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967, Oscar), The Lion in Winter (1969, Oscar), On Golden Pond (1981, Oscar).
• 1910 English chemist Dorothy Hodgkin born; 1964 Nobel, for discovering numerous 3-D structures of biologically active molecules, including cholesterol (1937), penicillin (1946) and vitamin B-12 (1956), and the X-ray crystallographic techniques do to so; taught British P.M. Margaret Thatcher (B.Sc for crystallography).
• 1941 German engineer Konrad Zuse demonstrates world's first (semi) programmable computer, the Z3, with two registers and 64 words of memory, each 22 bits wide; with program stored on paper (film) tape, it is only missing a branch instruction.

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Today in History: May 11

• 1854 German-American engineer Ottmar Mergenthaler born; invented the Linotype typesetting machine (1886), ushering in the second printing revolution.
• 1881 Hungarian-American physicist Theodore Von Kármán born; Martian; a founder of JPL; extensive contributions to understanding transsonic and supersonic flow, turbulence, laminar flow stability, boundary layers; the Von Karman vortex street; Cal Tech's Von Kármán Laboratory for Fluid Mechanics and Jet Propulsion; Cal Tech's Von Kármán Lecture Series; craters named for Von Kármán on both Mars and the Moon.
• 1888 American songwriter Irving Berlin born; wrote "God Bless America," Oscar for "White Christmas," "Anything You Can Do," "This Is the Army," "There's No Business Like Show Business", "Blue Skies," "Cheek to Cheek," "Puttin' on the Ritz," "Steppin' Out With My Baby".
• 1918 American physicist Richard Feynman born; 1965 Nobel (with Julian Schwinger and Shin-Ichiro Tomonaga), for independently discovering effective computational techniques (Feynman diagrams) for quantum electrodynamics.
• 1997 IBM's Deep Blue chess-specific supercomputer becomes the world's strongest chess "player", defeating world chess champion Garry Kasparov in the last game of their rematch.

Yesterday | Tomorrow

Connections: 215-16

Episodes 15 and 16 of Connections II.
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Episodes 1-2 | 3-4 | 5-6 | 7-8 | 9-10 | 11-12 | 13-14

Original Connections Episodes:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

Today in History: May 10

• 1730 George Ross born; signed Declaration of Independence.
• 1775 COL Ethan Allan's Vermont volunteers, the Green Mountain Boys, take Fort Ticonderoga and capture a number of cannon with shot and powder, which were then delivered by COL Henry Knox (as in Fort Knox) for GEN Washington's successful siege of Boston.
• 1788 French physicist Augustin-Jean Fresnel born; explained the nature of interference fringes; identified light as transverse waves rather than the longitudinal waves previously assumed by Young and Huygens; invented the "flat" Fresnel lens.
• 1899 American actor Fred Astaire born; Top Hat (1935), Shall We Dance (1937), Holiday Inn (1942), Easter Parade (1948), The Band Wagon (1953), Daddy Long Legs (1955), Funny Face (1957), Silk Stockings (1957), Finian's Rainbow (1968).
• 1900 English-American astronomer Cecilia Payne born; discovered (1925, in her Ph.D. dissertation) that the sun's composition was 99% hydrogen and some helium and only 1% iron, contrary to the prevailing belief that it was roughly 65% iron and 35% hydrogen. Ignored at the time, it was 20 years before astronomer Fred Hoyle confirmed her analysis.
• 1935 American surgeon John Gibbon demonstrates his invention, the first heart-lung machine, successfully on a cat; and 18 years later he demonstrated it on the first human during open-heart surgery.
• 1940 Winston Churchill succeeds Neville Chamberlain as British Prime Minister and leads Britain's survival during WWII when Chamberlain resigns following Germany's invasion of the Netherlands, Belgium and France and the obvious failure of his policy of appeasement, which he called "Peace for Our Time".

Yesterday | Tomorrow

Today in History: May 9

• 1860 Scottish author James M. Barrie born; wrote The Admirable Crichton (1902), Peter Pan (1904).

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Today in History: May 8

• 1846 General Zachary Taylor (later President) defeats a 3,400 strong Mexican army under General Mariano Arista that had invaded Texas -- an independent Republic for 10 years since seceding from Santa Ana's Mexican dictatorship along with several other Mexican states, and which had voted to join the U.S. the preceding year. Part of the invading Mexican army, 2,000 strong, had killed 16 U.S. soldiers and captured the remaining 49 men of the squadron two weeks earlier, near Brownsville, Texas, causing the U.S. Congress to declare war with Mexico.
• 1899 Austrian-British economist Friedrich Hayek born; 1974 Nobel (with Gunnar Myrdal), for "pioneering work in the theory of money and economic fluctuations and for their penetrating analysis of the interdependence of economic, social and institutional phenomena"; wrote The Road to Serfdom (1944), The Constitution of Liberty (1960), Law, Legislation and Liberty (3 vols: 1973, 1976, 1979); the major force in ending the FDR-style Keynesian government economic interventionism in the U.S.

Yesterday | Tomorrow

Today in History: May 7

• 558 The dome of Christian Emperor Justinian's Sancta Sophia (Holy Wisdom) in Byzantium collapses. He has it rebuilt. The Sancta Sophia ("Aya Sofiya" in Turkish) was later converted into the main mosque in Istanbul (the Turkish name for Byzantium).
• 1901 American actor Gary Cooper born; The Virginian (1929), A Farewell to Arms (1932), Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), The Pride of the Yankees (1942), Meet John Doe (1941), Ball of Fire (1941), Sergeant York (1942, he was specially requested by Sgt Alvin York), High Noon (1953), Friendly Persuasion (1956).
• 1945 V-E Day (Victory in Europe); German General Alfred Jodl signs unconditional surrender terms for the Allies at Reims, France.

Yesterday | Tomorrow

Outer Space on a Diet

Want to go into space? But it's a bit too pricey? Try Dennis Wingo's Plan B.

Today in History: May 6

• 1527 Spanish and German troops sack Rome; the Pope's Swiss guard (147) die to ensure his escape; he (yet another Medici Pope (YAMP)) was captured a month later.
• 1742 Swiss botanist Jean Senebier born; demonstrated that green plants in sunlight transform carbon dioxide into oxygen.
• 1916 American physicist Robert Dicke born; invented the lock-in amplifier, which can extract a signal out of overwhelming noise; explained the cosmic microwave background radiation accidentally discovered by Penzias and Wilson (using one of his lock-in amplifiers) when they heard that Dicke was beginning a search for it.
• 1935 FDR's Executive Order 7034 creates the Works Progress Administration (WPA), requiring more taxes to pay for freshly-minted government service manual labor jobs -- rather than lowering taxes to let legitimate companies hire those workers and expand the economy out of the Great Depression.
• 1941 Bob Hope performs his first USO show, prior to the U.S. entry into WWII.

Yesterday | Tomorrow

Today in History: May 5

• 1922 American journalist Nellie Bly born; faked insanity to write an exposé on mental asylums, Ten Days in a Mad-House (1887), for Joseph Pulitzer's newspaper. Took a trip, again for Pulitzer's newspaper, around the world in under 80 days (1889) by herself. 1904, as owner of the Iron Clad Manufacturing Co., she invented the steel 55-gallon drum still used today.
• 1942 American singer Tammy Wynette born; the "First Lady of Country Music"; sang "I Don't Wanna Play House" (1967), "Stand by Your Man" (1968), "He Loves Me All the Way"(1970), "'Til I Get it Right" (1972), "Golden Ring" (1975, with husband George Jones), "'Til I Can Make It on My Own" (1976).
• 1945 German Mauthausen death camp complex liberated; 120,000 to 320,000 prisoners, men, women and children, were murdered there. Two survivors were Lieutenant Jack Taylor of the O.S.S. and Simon Wiesenthal, the famed Nazi hunter.

Yesterday | Tomorrow

Today in History: May 4

• 1493 Pope Alexander VI divides ownership of the New World between Spain and Portugal along the Demarcation Line in his bull Inter Caetera.
• 1821 Russian mathematician Pafnuty Chebyshev born; theory of prime numbers; invented general orthogonal polynomials; Chebyshev's inequality in probability theory; the Chebyshev linkage converts rotary to linear motion.
• 1929 Dutch-American actress Audrey Hepburn born; survived hostage murders during the WWII German occupation of the Netherlands; Roman Holiday (1952), Sabrina (1954), Breakfast at Tiffany's (1960), Charade (1963), My Fair Lady (1964), How to Steal a Million (1966), Wait Until Dark (1967).
• 1942 The Battle of the Coral Sea begins, the first aircraft carrier battle; the Japanese abandon their invasion of New Guinea and push toward Australia; carrier USS Lexington lost.

Yesterday | Tomorrow

Connections: 213-14

Episodes 13 and 14 of Connections II.
(Click on the image to play — it will open in a separate window/tab)

Episodes 1-2 | 3-4 | 5-6 | 7-8 | 9-10 | 11-12

Original Connections Episodes:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

Today in History: May 3

• 1469 Italian historian and political theorist Niccolò Machiavelli born; wrote The Prince, The Discourses on Livy, History of Florence.
• 1695 Italian-French engineer Henri Pitot born; invented the pitot tube, used to measure airspeed in aircraft.
• 1860 Italian mathematician Vito Volterra born; father (with Stefan Banach) of functional analysis; father (with Ivar Fredholm) of integral equations.
• 1933 American physicist Steven Weinberg born; 1979 Nobel (with Abdus Salam and Sheldon Glashow) for the unification of the nuclear-weak and the electromagnetic forces in a single theory.

Yesterday | Tomorrow

Today in History: May 2

• 1551 English historian William Camden born; wrote Britannia, advancing the art of writing history by first-person examination of primary sources rather than relying on the accounts of other writers.
• 1667 German painter and engraver Jacob Le Blon born; invented the four-color printing process (using cyan, magenta, yellow and black -- CMYK).
• 1775 Benjamin Franklin completes the first scientific study of the Gulf Stream.
• 1797 Canadian chemist Abraham Gesner born; discovered kerosene by distilling crude oil, which replaced whale oil in lamps, thereby helping to "save the whales".
• 1800 English chemist William Nicholson discovers that electricity can dissociate water into hydrogen and oxygen gases.
• 1890 American chemist and writer E. E. Smith ("Doc" Smith) born; father of the Space Opera; wrote the Skylark and the Lensmen series of novels; his imaginative science fiction technologies influenced military technologies such as SDI, stealth, frequency-hopping spread spectrum, the CIC (combat information center), C3 (command, control and communications), AWACS, and the OODA Loop. Close friend of Robert Heinlein, who wrote a brief biography of Doc Smith.
• 1903 American pediatrician Benjamin Spock (Dr. Spock) born; wrote Baby and Child Care, influencing millions of parents.

Yesterday | Tomorrow

Today in History: May 1

• 1825 Swiss mathematician Johann Balmer born; invented the Balmer series formula for the Hydrogen spectrum, successfully predicting new spectral lines.
• 1884 Construction of the world's first skyscraper is begun, in New York -- a building entirely supported by a steel skeleton, The Home Insurance Company building.

Yesterday | Tomorrow