I Eat Gravel

Firenado

Dust devil has never been a more appropriate term:

Before humankind knew about heat and wind and convection and whatever else is related to crazy weathery things, it’s interesting to think about what people thought they were seeing when they saw things like this. It’s no surprise that stories of fire-breathing dragons and similar creatures and anomalies predominately exist prior to our current scientific understanding.

In today’s world, we know that fire can do some pretty strange things — like create funnel clouds in Alaska, which has on average about 0 tornadoes a year.

This funnel cloud was pictured near a fire on the Kenai Peninsula in July 2005.

Today In History: August 25

1609 – Galileo Galilei demonstrates his first telescope to Venetian lawmakers.

1768 – James Cook begins his first voyage.

1835 – The New York Sun perpetrates the Great Moon Hoax.

1916 – The United States National Park Service is created.

1948 – The House Un-American Activities Committee holds first-ever televised congressional hearing: “Confrontation Day” between Whittaker Chambers and Alger
Hiss.

1950 – President Harry Truman orders the US Army to seize control of the nation’s railroads to avert a strike.

1981 – Voyager 2 spacecraft makes its closest approach to Saturn

1989 – Voyager 2 spacecraft makes its closest approach to Neptune, the outermost planet in the Solar System.

Born on August 25:
1919 – George Wallace, American politician (d. 1998)
1921 – Monty Hall, Canadian-born game show host
1930 – Sean Connery, Scottish actor
1931 – Regis Philbin, American television host
1951 – Rob Halford, English singer (Judas Priest)
1958 – Tim Burton, American film director
1961 – Billy Ray Cyrus, American singer and actor

Today in Alaskan history:
1947 The U.S. Department of the Interior announced plans for a new Alaska Railroad terminal to be built at Fire Island in Anchorage, making it possible to dismantle the Seward-Anchorage line. (Never happened)

1954 The U.S. Department of the Interior seized control of the government-owned McKinley Park Hotel due to the unsatisfactory operation record of the concessionaire.

1966 Cook Inlet was the site of a 30-day hovercraft demonstration, to test the feasibility of using them for cargo transportation. (Never took off)

The Burning of Washington

196 years ago today, the British Army took up occupation of Washington D.C. and began a conflagration campaign on a number of public buildings, including The White House and the U.S. Capitol.

White House copy of the watercolor
Notes by Kloss, William, et al. Art in the White House: A Nation’s Pride. Washington, D.C.: The White House Historical Association, 2008:

“The burned-out shell of a once elegant and imposing house stands alone in the landscape. It is the White House as it looked following the conflagration of August 24, 1814, the low point of the War of 1812. The fire was the work of British troops, the first–and only–foreign army to invade the capital city of the United States. . . .

“Viewed from the northeast, from the public common, the empty scene is a vivid reminder of the elemental state of the capital city at that date. . . .

“One prominent but puzzling detail is the S-curved shape above the near corner of the roof. It is most readily interpreted as part of a lightning protection system. Not a lightning rod, given its length, but rather part of the metallic conductor that encircled the roof, now torn from its mooring. This record of fact could also be interpreted ironically, since the British had destroyed what thunder and lightning could not.”

“Drawing shows the ruins of the U.S. Capitol following British attempts to burn the building; includes fire damage to the Senate and House wings, damaged colonnade in the House of Representatives shored up with firewood to prevent its collapse, and the shell of the rotunda with the facade and roof missing.” “1 drawing on paper : ink and watercolor” “Historical context: George Munger’s drawing, one of the most significant and compelling images of the early republic, reminds us how short-lived the history of the United States might have been. In the evening hours of August 24, 1814, during the second year of the War of 1812, British expeditionary forces under the command of Vice Admiral Sir Alexander Cockburn and Major General Robert Ross set fire to the unfinished Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. All the public buildings in the developing city, except the Patent Office Building, were put to the torch in retaliation for what the British perceived as excessive destruction by American forces the year before in York, capital of upper Canada. At the time of the British invasion, the unfinished Capitol building comprised two wings connected by a wooden causeway. This exceptional drawing, having descended in the Munger family, was purchased by the Library of Congress at the same time the White House purchased the companion view of the President’s House.”

An Interesting Campaign Ad

We’ll tune back in, in November, and see how it worked out.

Today In History: August 24

79 – Mount Vesuvius erupts. The cities of Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Stabiae are buried in volcanic ash.

1215 – Pope Innocent III declares Magna Carta invalid.

1349 – Six thousand Jews are killed in Mainz after being blamed for the bubonic plague.

1391 – Jews are massacred in Palma de Mallorca.

1456 – The printing of the Gutenberg Bible is completed.

1682 – William Penn receives the area that is now the state of Delaware, and adds it to his colony of Pennsylvania.

1814 – British troops invade Washington, D.C. and burn down the White House and several other buildings.

1831 – Charles Darwin is asked to travel on HMS Beagle.

1857 – The Panic of 1857 begins, setting off one of the most severe economic crises in United States history.

1909 – Workers start pouring concrete for the Panama Canal.

1912 – Alaska becomes a United States territory.

1932 – Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to fly across the United States non-stop (from Los Angeles to Newark, New Jersey).

1944 – World War II: Allied troops begin the attack on Paris.

1950 – Edith Sampson becomes the first black U.S. delegate to the United Nations.

1954 – The Communist Control Act goes into effect. The American Communist Party is outlawed.

1963 – Buddhist crisis: As a result of the Xa Loi Pagoda raids, the US State Department cables the US Embassy in Saigon to encourage Army of the Republic of Vietnam generals to launch a coup against President Ngo Dinh Diem if he did not remove his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu.

1967 – Led by Abbie Hoffman, a group of hippies temporarily disrupt trading at the NYSE by throwing dollar bills from the viewing gallery, causing trading to cease as brokers scramble to grab them.

1968 – France explodes its first hydrogen bomb, thus becoming the world’s fifth nuclear power.

1981 – Mark David Chapman is sentenced to 20 years to life in prison for murdering John Lennon.

1989 – Cincinnati Reds manager Pete Rose is banned from baseball for gambling by Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti.

1991 – Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as head of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

1992 – Hurricane Andrew hits South Florida as a Category 5 Hurricane.

1995 – Computer software developer Microsoft releases its Windows 95 operating system.

2006 – The International Astronomical Union (IAU) redefines the term “planet” such that Pluto is now considered a Dwarf Planet.

Born on August 24:
1929 – Yasser Arafat, Palestinian leader (d. 2004)
1942 – Max Cleland, American politician
1945 – Vince McMahon, American professional wrestling promoter
1955 – Mike Huckabee, American politician, Governor/Presidential candidate
1960 – Cal Ripken, Jr., American baseball player
1962 – Craig Kilborn, American talk show host
1963 – John Bush, American singer (Anthrax)
1964 – Dana Gould, American comedian and writer
1970 – David Gregory, American television journalist
1973 – Dave Chappelle, American actor and Comedian

Today in Alaskan history:
1912 President William Taft signed into law a bill creating the Territory of Alaska and the Alaska Territorial Legislature.

Weren’t Looking Up Last Week?

Here’s what you missed:

Joshua Tree Under the Milky Way from Henry Jun Wah Lee on Vimeo.

The geography of Joshua Tree combined with the Perseids is absolute magic.

Today In History: August 23

79 – Mount Vesuvius begins stirring, on the feast day of Vulcan, the Roman god of fire.

1305 – William Wallace, Scottish patriot, is executed for high treason by Edward I of England.

1555 – Calvinists are granted rights in the Netherlands.

1784 – Western North Carolina (now eastern Tennessee) declares itself an independent state under the name of Franklin; it wasn’t accepted into the United
States, and only lasted for four years.

1839 – The United Kingdom captures Hong Kong as a base as it prepares for war with Qing China. The ensuing 3-year conflict will later be known as the First
Opium War.

1864 – The Union Navy captures Fort Morgan, Alabama, thus breaking Confederate dominance of all ports on the Gulf of Mexico.

1904 – The automobile tire chain is patented.

1923 – Capt. Lowell Smith and Lt. John P. Richter performed the first mid-air refueling on De Havilland DH-4B, setting an endurance flight record of 37 hours.

1927 – Sacco and Vanzetti are executed.

1954 – First flight of the C-130 Hercules transport aircraft.

1966 – Lunar Orbiter 1 takes the first photograph of Earth from orbit around the Moon.

1990 – Saddam Hussein appears on Iraqi state television with a number of Western “guests” (actually hostages) to try to prevent the Gulf War.

1996 – Osama bin Laden issues message entitled ‘A declaration of war against the Americans occupying the land of the two holy places.’

Born on August 23:
1724 – Abraham Yates, American Continental Congressman (d. 1796)
1946 – Keith Moon, English musician (The Who) (d. 1978)
1970 – Jay Mohr, American actor and comedian
1970 – River Phoenix, American actor (d. 1993)
1978 – Kobe Bryant, American basketball player

Today in Alaskan history:
1901 Telegraph service began at Juneau via a submarine cable to Skagway and the Canadian land line.

1939 Dr. W.W. Council, Territorial Health Commissioner, disclosed that tuberculosis was responsible for 22% of Alaska’s deaths.

1966 Alaska Airlines filed an application to provide jet service between Sitka and Seattle and Sitka and Anchorage.

1966 Walter J. Hickel and William Egan won the primary election, to square off for the office of Governor. Walter Hickel was elected in November.

Random Thought

Ignorance may be bliss, but it is not patriotic.

Garbage = Oil

Apparently, a man has invented a portable machine that turns plastic garbage into burnable oil. If this works as it seems, this could be huge!

And if we still feel that we need to collect our oil from the ocean, with this technology we can start with The Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

//I realize that this doesn’t eliminate the problem of emissions from burning the oil, but maybe some inventor can come up with the solution to that as well.

Today In History: August 22

1780 – James Cook’s ship HMS Resolution returns to England (Cook having been killed on Hawaii during the voyage).

1831 – Nat Turner’s slave rebellion commences just after midnight in Southampton, Virginia, leading to the deaths of more
than 50 whites and several hundred African Americans who are killed in retaliation for the uprising.

1848 – The United States annexes New Mexico.

1849 – The first air raid in history. Austria launches pilotless balloons against the city of Venice.

1864 – Twelve nations sign the First Geneva Convention. The Red Cross is formed.

1901 – Cadillac Motor Company is founded.

1902 – Theodore Roosevelt becomes the first President of the United States to ride in an automobile.

1932 – The BBC first experiments with television broadcasting.

1941 – World War II: German troops reach Leningrad, leading to the siege of Leningrad.

1966 – Labor movements NFWA and AWOC merge to become the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee (UFWOC), predecessor of the
United Farm Workers.

1989 – The first ring of Neptune is discovered.

1989 – Nolan Ryan strikes out Rickey Henderson to become the first Major League Baseball pitcher to record 5,000 strikeouts.

1996 – Bill Clinton signs welfare reform into law, representing a major shift in US welfare policy.

2003 – Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore is suspended after refusing to comply with a federal court order to remove a rock inscribed with the Ten Commandments from the lobby of the Alabama Supreme Court building.

2004 – A version of The Scream and Madonna, two paintings by Edvard Munch, are stolen at gunpoint from a museum in Oslo, Norway.

2007 – The Texas Rangers rout the Baltimore Orioles 30-3, the most runs scored by a team in modern MLB history.

Born on August 22:
1915 – David Dellinger, American social rights and peace movement leader (d. 2004)
1917 – John Lee Hooker, American musician (d. 2001)
1934 – Norman Schwarzkopf, U.S. general
1939 – Carl Yastrzemski, American baseball player
1950 – I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, White House Chief of Staff
1963 – Tori Amos, American singer/songwriter

Today in Alaskan history:
1959 A 140-foot flag pole was erected on the Anchorage City Hall lawn. At the time, it was Alaska’s tallest flag pole.

1960 For the second time in half a century, volcanic activity at Mount Katmai National Monument on the Alaska Peninsula showered ash as far as a hundred miles away.

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