History

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

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

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

2SAS — The Second Regiment of the UK Special Air Service (SAS)

07/01/2019

Updated on 11/01/2022

It didn’t have as compelling a birth as the first Special Air Service regiment. It didn’t have its great founder driving point in a souped-up jeep during attacks on German air bases. It didn’t have the romance of the desert as its initial stomping grounds. About the only thing it seemed to have going for it was the reputation of…read more

Venus — Planet Second-Closest to the Sun

02/27/2019

Updated on 07/13/2019

Venus is the planet second-closest to the the sun in our solar system and Earth’s nearest neighbor. The cloudy rocky planet orbits the sun at an average distance of 67,238,251 mi (108,209,475 km) at a mean orbital velocity of 78,339 mph (126,074 km/h). For us Earthlings, Venus also the second-brightest object in the night sky, with the first being the…read more

The Second U.S. State of the Union Address

01/27/2019

Updated on 09/24/2022

In the never-ending political theater whose current star is U.S. President Donald Trump, even something as mundane as the State of the Union Address had become an issue. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D, CA) had rescinded her invitation to the President to address a joint session of Congress, thus giving pundits everywhere more reason to yell at each other on…read more

Louis Rudd — Second Person to Complete a Solo Traverse of Antarctica

01/06/2019

When it comes to polar exploration, history is the mother of all excursion. To close out 2018, Louis Rudd became the second person to complete a solo crossing of the continent of Antarctica. In what seems a repeat of the Shackleton/Amundsen race to the pole (that was a race to the pole and not a traversal of the continent), the…read more

John Rutledge — Second Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court

12/23/2018

John Rutledge (1739-1800) of South Carolina was an intriguing political figure whose highly preventable downfall came swiftly. In the early days of the U.S., political rules and practices were still being hammered out while the lines between what was appropriate and what wasn’t were slowly being drawn. What didn’t always help matters was the press at the time. Rumors were…read more