Paratroopers make a big deal about jumping out of planes from 800 feet, but U.S. Army Air Force Staff Sgt. Alan Magee fell out of a plane at 22,000 feet without a parachute while the plane was on fire. And he lived. Magee was a ball turret gunner in a B-17 named “Snap! Crackle! Pop!”…
Category: Historical Study
Brush-Up On Your History: 6 Real Life Gunslingers Who Put Billy the Kid to Shame
If some bizarre criminal held you at gunpoint and asked you to name six gravel-shitting badasses from the Old West, you’d probably get as far as Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday before you started wondering whether the Lone Ranger was based on a real person. But a closer look at Old West history reveals a…
Obscure History: Revolutionary War Veterans Live to See the Invention of Photography
Records of the Revolutionary War consist almost exclusively of paintings, sketches, and writings. However, one book, The Last Men of the Revolution, written by Reverend E. B. Hillard 81 years after the war’s conclusion, does contain photographic evidence of a few individuals who fought for America’s freedom: “Published in 1864, the 64-page book stands as the only…
Brush-Up On Your History: The Legacy of the “Sisters-In-Arms”; History’s Famous Female Fighting Units
“There have been a number of women’s brigades that have served in wartime. Here are a few of them.” IT WAS 100 years ago this week that a coalition of armed republican factions seized the city of Dublin and proclaimed Ireland’s independence from Great Britain. The disturbance, which began on April 24, 1916, would go…
American History: Prohibition and The Chemist War
The little-told story of how the U.S. government poisoned alcohol during Prohibition with deadly consequences. It was Christmas Eve 1926, the streets aglitter with snow and lights, when the man afraid of Santa Claus stumbled into the emergency room at New York City’s Bellevue Hospital. He was flushed, gasping with fear: Santa Claus, he kept…
World War II History: What Patton’s Poems Tell Us About Today
By Randy Brown Best Defense poet laureate “Patton, you magnificent bastard! I read your verse!” —Charlie Sherpa Even casual consumers of military history — at least, those familiar with actor George C. Scott‘s portrayal of Patton in the 1971 movie — suspect the historical general may have more than occasionally written poetry. In an early scene set in World War…
Espionage Files: Pakistani Intelligence Possibly Financed 2009 CIA Outpost Bombing
Pakistan’s powerful spy agency may have provided the funding for a deadly 2009 suicide attack on a CIA base in Afghanistan that ranks as one of the deadliest days in the agency’s history, according to a newly declassified State Department cable. The heavily redacted cable, sent about two weeks after the attack on Dec. 30,…
Holocaust History: 92 Year Old Holocaust Survivor Shares How He Survived
A 92-year-old Holocaust survivor held a heartbreaking Reddit AMA, in which he answered questions about his experience, how he survived the ordeal, and how he has come to terms with the world after World War II. Henry Flescher, originally from Vienna, Austria, took to Reddit — with the aid of his grandson — to help share…
World War II History: 10 Tales from the Real Life “Inglorious Basterds”
Quentin Tarantino’s 2009 film Inglourious Basterds tells the story of a group of Jewish commandos who go around killing Nazi officers for revenge. While the movie is obviously fictional, there were groups of Jewish commandos who operated during and after World War II against the Nazis. Their exploits are not as bloody as the Tarantino…
Brush-Up On Your History: The Hidden History of The Irish Slaves
Did you know that more Irish slaves were sold in the 17th century than black slaves? With a staggering death rate between 37% to 50%, this is the story the history books will not tell you. White and Black Slaves in the Sugar Plantations of Barbados. None of the Irish victims ever made it back to…