Category: History

Historical Bucket List

Bucket List, Entertainment, History

Triggered by this article (“Brits wish they’d seen these top 25 historical events”), I thought I’d put together my own list of historical events I’d like to have witnessed firsthand.  (I know, I wrote a similar post a while back, but times have changed.)  They are in no specific order of preference.

  1. Gunfight at the OK Corral
  2. Sinking of the Bismarck
  3. Wright Brothers’ first flight
  4. Battle at Little Big Horn
  5. Eruption of Krakatoa, 1883
  6. 24-hour Le Mans race, 1934 (from several vantage points)
  7. The Beatles playing at the Cavern club in Liverpool
  8. Battle of Hastings, 1066
  9. Any Blaze Starr performance at the Two O’ Clock Club
  10. Bombing of the Eder Dam by RAF 617 (“Dambusters”) Squadron
  11. Constitutional Convention, 1787
  12. Great Fire of London, 1666
  13. Any Led Zeppelin concert, 1970–71
  14. London Blitz, September 1940–May 1941
  15. First performance of Stravinsky’s Rite Of Spring, 1913
  16. Battle of Rorke’s Drift, 1879
  17. Borg–McEnroe Wimbledon final, 1980
  18. Liberation of Paris, 1944
  19. Trial of Galileo, 1633 (assuming I could speak medieval Italian)
  20. Battle of Marathon, 490 BC
  21. 1906 San Francisco earthquake
  22. Assassination of Julius Caesar
  23. Alvin York’s heroic action in France, 1918
  24. The deaths of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
  25. Queen Victoria’s wedding night

Your choices (any number up to 25) in Comments.

What A Year

History, Music

Here’s a little (okay, hour-long) look at 1965, a year which changed, well, pretty much everything.  (It’s horribly edited, but just go with the flow.)

Imagine releasing an album that had all these hit songs on it — from a band that nobody had heard of, and who have since been forgotten.

My favorite of that lot?  Needles and Pins.

Never mind all the other more well-known stuff from the Stones, Beatles, Beach Boys, Dylan, Yardbirds, Four Tops… and the list goes on an on.

Now let’s talk about the changes in fashion, and attitudes.  My Generation, indeed.

And then came Rubber Soul.

Happy Birthday, America

History

Now go and light up some fireworks, eat some good ol’ Murkin food (tacos?) and have a good time in general.

Because in the not too distant future, we may have some work to do.

 

Or, more likely:

Just sayin’.

Thought Experiment

History

If you could be transported back in time to any five historical events, which ones would you choose to witness?

Assume that it would be in your mind’s eye only, so you could not be involved in, change or be physically affected by the event, and you could come back to the present at any point you wished.  Also assume, though, that you could take photographs (or videos) to prove that you were there and what you saw.

Mine are below the fold.

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Wings Of Clay

Aircraft, History

…or, an unvarnished look at the WWII German Messerschmitt 262.

Along the way, this screamingly-funny chap slaughters all sorts of sacred cows, e.g. that the Me262 could have won the war for the Nazis, that Albert Speer was a genius, that German technology was superior to that of the Allies, and that Herman Goering was an incompetent asshole.

Okay, that last one happens to be true, as historian Lord HardThrasher sets about him with a cricket bat, calling most of history’s revered sources a pack of liars and completely debunking the myth of Germany’s technocrats, e.g. Willi Messerschmitt (yeah, the guy who designed the Me109).

Along the way, he proves that Allied bombing actually worked better than today’s naysayers would have you believe, and that bad things happen when you allow the reigns of power to be wielded by simpletons and incompetents.

But you all knew that.

There is plenty of bad language, but as Readers of this here website, you should be used to that by now.

Reminder

History

On this day, a few years ago:

Not that we’re still angry about it, or anything — or else Toyota wouldn’t still be the top-selling automotive brand in the United States.