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On Friday, December 5, 1952 a substantial fog rolled across London, England. This was not a particularly rare occurrence in that city. What made it memorable and lethal was the fact that it stayed for the better part of four days and basically brought the British capital to a standstill. The first week in December 1952 brought unusually cold weather to Great Britain. An unusual weather system known as an anticyclone moved over London. (Anticyclones are high pressure systems that create stationary surface hazes.) Not only was the thickening mist not moving, the smoke from the city's coal-burning furnaces in homes and offices was also trapped. In the early 1950s, the coal used in most London households was of a lower grade than the type used before the Second World War. (The higher quality coal was saved for export.) It also had a high sulfur content. Because the anticyclone was trapping both the fog and the coal smoke, the city was engulfed in a stinky blanket of mist that made many basic outdoor activities impossible. Driving became a dangerous adventure. City buses moved at a snail's pace, often with policemen preceding them on foot with torches. Within a short while bus service stopped altogether due to the low visibility. (The unaffected London Underground kept its schedule, however). Private cars were abandoned on the streets. Most outdoor activities, including sports events, were cancelled. The smog became so bad that it began to seep into indoor venues. Movie theaters and concert halls had to cancel shows because of diminished visibility. Finally, after four days of intense smog, a new weather system cleared London's skies on Tuesday, December 9. However, about 4,000 Londoners died from respiratory illnesses shortly thereafter related to breathing the unhealthy coal smoke. Health officials later put the death toll at about 12,000 from the lingering effects of what became known as The Great Smog. In 1956 the British parliament passed the Clean Air Act which mandated pollution controls and restricted furnaces to burning pollution-free fuels. The legislation worked. London has not experienced anything even close to The Great Smog of 1952 in all the years since then.
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London
Great
Smog
pollution
Added: 4th November 2015
Views: 1231
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Posted By: Lava1964 |

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On February 17, 1864, the small navy of the Confederate States of America could claim a military first: A submarine sank an enemy ship. The crew of the H.L. Hunley, under the command of George Dixon, achieved the feat of sinking the USS Housatonic in Charleston Harbor, only to mysteriously sink later that same day with the loss of its entire crew of eight sailors. The H.L. Hunley had a short, checkered history. Twice it sank during training operations, killing a total of 13 men--including its namesake inventor who was aboard for the second catastrophe. Both times the hull was raised, repaired and put back into service. The hull of the Hunley was first located in 1995 and was raised in 2000. The remains of the brave sailors were finally laid to rest on April 17, 2004. Thousands of curious but respectful onlookers, dressed in both blue and gray, turned out for the ceremony at Magnolia Cemetery in Charleston, SC. Scientists and military historians are still trying to discover exactly why the submarine sank.
Tags:
Confederate
submariners
funeral
Added: 9th November 2015
Views: 1342
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Posted By: Lava1964 |

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On Tuesday, May 22, 1962 a deadly act of madness caused Continental Airlines Flight #11 to be blown out of the sky. Eight crew members and 37 passengers perished. To date it is the worst airline disaster ever to occur in the skies over Missouri. The doomed flight departed Chicago's O'Hare Airport at 8:35 p.m. for Kansas City, MO. At the last second, Thomas G. Doty arrived at the departure gate. Although the airplane doors had been closed--and airline policy prohibits doors from being reopened--the doors were improperly reopened and Doty was permitted to board the aircraft. The flight was absolutely routine until the plane approached the Mississippi River. At that point the pilot informed air traffic control that he was deviating from the planned course to avoid severe thunderstorms in the area. In the vicinity of Centerville, IA, the radar image of the aircraft suddenly disappeared from the scope of Flight Following Service in Waverly, IA. It had nothing to do with inclement weather. At approximately 9:17 p.m. an explosion occurred in the right rear lavatory resulting in separation of the airplane's tail section from the fuselage. The remaining aircraft structure pitched nose-down violently, causing the engines to tear off, after which it fell into uncontrollable gyrations. The fuselage of the Boeing 707, minus the aft 38 feet, and with part of the left and most of the right wing intact, struck an alfalfa field on the ground. Most of the fuselage was found near Unionville, MO, but the engines and parts of the tail section and left wing were found up to six miles away from the main wreckage area. Of the 45 individuals on board, 44 were already dead when rescuers reached the crash site. One passenger, 27-year-old Takehiko Nakano of Evanston, IL, was barely alive when rescuers found him among the wreckage, but he later succumbed to fatal internal injuries. Another victim, Fred P. Herman, was a recipient of the United States Medal of Freedom. In their investigation of the crash, FBI agents discovered that late-arriving passenger Thomas G. Doty, a married man with a five-year-old daughter, had purchased a life insurance policy from Mutual of Omaha for $150,000, the maximum available. He further augmented that coverage with a flight insurance policy worth another $150,000 that he purchased just before departure. Doty had recently been arrested for armed robbery and was to soon face a preliminary hearing in the matter. Investigators determined that Doty had purchased six sticks of dynamite--at 29 cents apiece--shortly before the flight. An examination of the wreckage determined that Doty's dynamite bomb was detonated in the lavatory. His motive was purely financial: His wife and daughter would be able to collect $300,000 of life insurance. His widow attempted to collect on the insurance, but when Doty's death was ruled a suicide, the policies were voided.
Tags:
crime
bomb
air
disaster
Flight
11
Added: 15th December 2015
Views: 1740
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Posted By: Lava1964 |

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Father Hans Schmidt, a handsome Catholic priest originally from Germany, is the only person from his profession ever to be executed in American history. Born in Bavaria in 1881, Schmidt immigrated to the United States in 1909. He was first assigned to a church in Louisville, KY, but a dispute with a fellow priest prompted his relocation to St. Boniface Church in New York City. He quickly gained a reputation of being a fiery orator whose sermons often warned about the temptations of the flesh. Anna Aumuller, an attractive Austrian housekeeper employed by the rectory, caught his eye. The feeling was mutual. Contrary his vows of celibacy, Schmidt became sexually involved with Anna. It was later discovered the two were secretly married in a service of dubious legal standing performed by Schmidt himself! Anna became pregnant shortly thereafter. Schmidt realized this development would be the end of his priesthood, so he slit Anna's throat on September 2, 1913, dismembered her body, and dumped the pieces into the Hudson River. Nevertheless, the victim was identified because parts of the body had been wrapped in monogrammed linen that Anna had specially ordered. Confronted with this evidence, Schmidt confessed to the murder but attempted an insanity defense. It resulted in one hung jury but he was convicted in a second trial. Schmidt went to his death at Sing Sing Prison's electric chair on February 18, 1916. Police later found that Schmidt had another criminal enterprise: a secret apartment well stocked with counterfeiting equipment. Worse still, it was discovered that a nine-year-old girl had been murdered at Schmidt's former church in Louisville and the body--which the killer had tried to dismember--was buried in the church's basement. The church's janitor had been convicted of the crime, however.
Tags:
Hans
Schmidt
murderer
priest
Added: 14th January 2016
Views: 1130
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Posted By: Lava1964 |

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Millennials will have trouble believing these ever existed, but at one time the majority of North American households did not have private telephone lines. Instead, they were serviced by party lines--basically one common telephone line that served numerous households. Party lines existed in urban areas where private lines were unavailable or expensive, but they are more frequently associated with rural areas where great distances separated neighbors and made private lines expensive for phone companies to install. As late as 1943, three-quarters of Pennsylvania's telephone customers had party lines. Party lines had certain advantages: Important community news could be relayed quickly to everyone who was connected, but of course there were major negatives too. Privacy was a virtual impossibility as anyone else who subscribed to the party line could eavesdrop on others' conversations. Also, there was the obvious problem of one subscriber hogging the line, preventing others from making a call. (If you look at Ann Landers-type newspaper columns from the first half of the 20th century, one person dominating the party line was a frequent complaint.) Phone companies responded by offering protocol tips to party-line users. Among the typical suggestions was a five-minute limit per call. Eavesdropping on others' phone conversations did lead to some amusing anecdotes. Criminal schemes were known to have been thwarted by listeners who heard crooks discussing their plans. One college football coach overheard his rival's plans on how to defeat his team in an upcoming game. Most telephone companies discontinued party lines toward the end of the 1970s.
Tags:
party
lines
telephone
systems
Added: 7th November 2016
Views: 1230
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Posted By: Lava1964 |

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