A Name You Should Know: Lincoln J. Beachy
Monday, November 11, 2024
Lincoln Beachy was known by many, including his competitors, as “The Man Who Owns the Sky”; “the Master Birdman”; “The Divine Flyer”; or quite simply “the Worlds Greatest Aviator”. Here’s a man whose aerial acrobatics drew the attendance of over 30 million people (17 million in 1914 alone) and yet we still had to look the guy up. This is a guy who built his own zeppelin and landed it on the White House lawn. A guy who decided to fill his tank and fly upwards until it ran out, to see how high he could get (nearly 12,000ft.) A guy who intentionally put himself in a desperate tailspin in order to show everybody how to properly get out of one. A guy who could do a break-neck vertical nose-dive and level out just in time to land on the runway. We could fill pages with more of his countless death defying feats, but we figure you’re already impressed. Not bad for a guy that crashed on his first two flights, eh?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_J._Beachey#/media/File:Lincoln_Beachey_cph.3a49742.jpg
History Schmistory: November 11. Coooold-snap!
Monday, November 11, 2024
1911: Apocalyptic expectations went wild the last time we saw an 11/11/11, as The Great Blue Norther, a cold snap that produced record highs and lows on the same day, barreled through the central US, leaving much of the bewildered population with contrasting habiliments.
![By Adriano Agulló [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons](http://www.teammarcopolo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/800px-Barcelona_snowfall08032010.jpg)
By Adriano Agulló [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
History Schmistory: November 10. Street Smarts.
Sunday, November 10, 2024
1969: National Educational Television, soon to be PBS, introduces the world to Sesame Street. If you go all the way to the end and hang a left, you’ll be in Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Sesame_Street#/media/File:Plazasesamologo.svg
History Schmistory: November 9. Missing Magnifico.
Saturday, November 9, 2024
1494: Only two years after our man Lorenzo Magnifico dies, his eldest son Piero (the Unfortunate) manages to get the entire Family de’ Medici kicked out of Florence. This led to the sarcastic expression; “way to go, Piero!” Actually it’s not an expression at all, but you should start using it anyway. It’ll make you feel intellectually superior to others 🙂 Hit it, Marco!
History Schmistory: November 8. Rays of Hope.
Friday, November 8, 2024
1895: Wilhelm Röntgen discovers the X-Ray almost completely by accident. And that’s when the fun began!
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cd/Historical_X-ray_nci-vol-1893-300.jpg
History Schmistory: November 7. A Dynamic Duo.
Thursday, November 7, 2024
1908: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid are reportedly killed in Bolivia. They remain dead until magically resurfacing in a 1930s caper.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/08/The_Sting_(film)_on_location_in_Pasadena.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butch_Cassidy’s_Wild_Bunch#/media/File:Wildbunchlarge.jpg
History Schmistory: November 6. …hanging on a telephone wire!
Wednesday, November 6, 2024
1941: Soviet leader Joseph Stalin addresses the Soviet Union for only the second time in his 30 year reign to boldly claim that, even though they had lost more than 350,000 troops, the Germans had in fact lost over 4 million, so this war should be wrapped up in no time.
History Schmistory: November 5. Back in time.
Tuesday, November 5, 2024
1955: Doctor Emmett Brown conceives the design for the time-travel enabling flux capacitor after taking a nasty fall and bumping his head on a bathroom sink. Someone should tell Marco that movies are not real, because he has been searching for Doc Brown for a while now…
History Schmistory: November 4. So long ago…
Monday, November 4, 2024
2008: Barack Obama becomes the first African-American President of the United States. Despite his near superhero status, his hair quickly goes gray like all the others.
![By Official White House Photo by Pete Souza (P120612PS-0463 (direct link)) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons](http://www.teammarcopolo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/480px-President_Barack_Obama.jpg)
By Official White House Photo by Pete Souza (P120612PS-0463 (direct link)) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Being President is tough on the hair.
History Schmistory: November 3. Say hello to our little friend!
Sunday, November 3, 2024
1913: The United States introduces permanent income taxes to it’s citizens, via the Sixteenth Amendment, securing the latter of only two certainties in life. Luckily, “Death” wasn’t on the table for this one.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cb/Exit-income-taxes-coffin.jpg
