Second Thoughts

Rogue Heroes — Review of the BBC1 Series

11/16/2022

With such great raw material to work from, you’d think it’d be easy to make a great series from it. Apparently it wasn’t. The BBC1 series Rogue Heroes based on the Robert MacIntyre book of the same name is an altogether silly comic-book effort to tell the incredible story of the formation of the elite British Special Air Service during…read more

125 Years of the Brooklyn Public Library — Second-Most Checked-Out Book

11/14/2022

The Brooklyn Public Library on November 30, 2022, will celebrate its 125th anniversary. It was in 1896, two years before Brooklyn became a part of the City of New York, that the Brooklyn Common Council passed a resolution to establish the library system. As part of the library’s efforts to commemorate the occasion, the Brooklyn Public Library released a list…read more

Bill Belichick — Second-Winningest Coach in NFL History

New England Patriots Head Coach Bill Belichick (right) and Quarterback Tom Brady (left)

11/01/2022

Bill Belichick is not usually known for being second to anyone — for the past 22 years, he’s been at the top of his profession as an NFL head coach — but on October 30, 2022, he gladly welcomed being second when his New England Patriots beat the New York Jets 22 to 17, making him the second-winningest coach in…read more

K2 Becoming Too Safe?

K2 Mountain

10/20/2022

Updated on 10/22/2022

K2 has always been considered one of the most dangerous mountains over 8,000 meters to climb. I covered most of this here in “The History of K2 — The World’s Second-Highest Mountain“. But as mountain climbing equipment improves, routes get more secured, and more highly trained guides become available, this danger may be subsiding somewhat. At least as much as…read more

Luz Long’s Silver Medal Auctioned

Luz Long's Silver Medal from the 1936 Munich Olympics

10/18/2022

The silver medal won by German athlete Luz Long in the long jump at the 1936 Munich Olympics fetched $488,435 at auction on October 16, 2022, a record for an Olympic silver medal sold at public auction. In all, 20 bids were made for the medal, which had attracted a significant amount of worldwide media attention. Many other pieces of…read more

James McDivitt’s Second Trip Into Space — Apollo 9

Astronaut James McDivitt training in the Gemini simulator.

By the time astronaut James McDivitt stepped into the Apollo 9 spacecraft on March 3, 1969, he had already built a reputation as a solid and trusted American pilot and astronaut. A member of NASA’s “Second Group” of astronauts, his first trip into space came as mission commander of the Gemini IV mission in June 1965. That particular mission was…read more

William Shakespeare, RIP

05/27/2021

Just shy of 6 months after he became the second person in the UK to receive a Covid-19 vaccine (he got the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine), William “Bill” Shakespeare passed away on May 26, 2021. Shakespeare became famous on December 8, 2020 when he received his first Covid vaccine jab. It was a momentous occasion for him, as well as everyone…read more

William Shakespeare — The Second Person to Receive the Covid-19 Vaccine

Shakespeare getting jabbed

12/08/2020

The United Kingdom on December 8, 2020 became the first nation to begin widespread distribution of a working Covid-19 vaccine. At the University Hospital in Coventry, in what hopes to be the beginning of the end for the pandemic that effectively shut down the world for most of 2020, 90-year-old Margaret Keenan became the first person in the world outside…read more

Cleaned-up Venera Photos

03/04/2020

For those of you who’ve never heard of Donald Mitchel, he’s a former computer research scientist and writer who also a space exploration history enthusiast. He is also an expert in the field of image resampling and enhancement. In his latest tweet (down below) Mitchel presents raw images he got from the Soviet Union’s Venera project, which sent back the…read more