All About Everything - Week Of March 25, 2014

Today's Topic: Boston Molasses Disaster (or the Great Molasses Flood)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

The Boston Molasses Disaster, also known as the Great Molasses Flood and the Great Boston Molasses Tragedy, occurred on January 15, 1919, in the North End neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts in the United States. A large molasses storage tank burst, and a wave of molasses rushed through the streets at an estimated 35 mph (56 km/h), killing 21 and injuring 150. The event has entered local folklore, and for many decades residents claimed that on hot summer days, the area still smelled of molasses.

The disaster occurred at the Purity Distilling Company facility on January 15, 1919. The temperature had risen above 40 °F (4.4 °C), climbing rapidly from the frigid temperatures of the preceding days. The stored molasses was awaiting transfer to the Purity plant situated between Willow Street and what is now named Evereteze Way, in Cambridge.

At about 12:30 in the afternoon near Keany Square, at 529 Commercial Street, a molasses tank 50 ft (15 m) tall, 90 ft (27 m) in diameter and containing as much as 2,300,000 US gal (8,700 m³) collapsed. Witnesses stated that as it collapsed, there was a loud rumbling sound, like a machine gun as the rivets shot out of the tank, and that the ground shook as if a train were passing by.

The collapse unleashed a wave of molasses 25 feet (7.6 m) high at its peak, moving at 35 miles per hour (56 km/h). The molasses wave was of sufficient force to damage the girders of the adjacent Boston Elevated Railway's Atlantic Avenue structure and tip a railroad car momentarily off the tracks. Author Stephen Puleo describes how nearby buildings were swept off their foundations and crushed. Several blocks were flooded to a depth of 2 to 3 feet (60 to 90 cm). Puleo quotes a Boston Post report:

The Boston Globe reported that people "were picked up by a rush of air and hurled many feet." Others had debris hurled at them from the rush of sweet-smelling air. A truck was picked up and hurled into Boston Harbor. Approximately 150 were injured; 21 people and several horses were killed—some were crushed and drowned by the molasses. The wounded included people, horses, and dogs; coughing fits became one of the most common ailments after the initial blast.

* * *

Local residents brought a class-action lawsuit, one of the first held in Massachusetts, against the United States Industrial Alcohol Company (USIA), which had bought Purity Distilling in 1917. In spite of the company's attempts to claim that the tank had been blown up by anarchists. (because some of the alcohol produced was to be used in making munitions), a court-appointed auditor found USIA responsible after three years of hearings. United States Industrial Alcohol Company ultimately paid out $600,000 in out-of-court settlements (at least $10.7 million in 2012 dollars). Survivors of the fatal victims reportedly received approximately $7,000 per victim (approximately $125,000 in 2012 dollars).

---

Maybe it's because I live 3,000 miles from Boston, or maybe because I haven't spent nearly enough time on Wikipedia, but I had never heard about this disaster before yesterday, when I ran across a story about it in an old Highlights magazine.

It almost seems like something out of The Onion. I mean... molasses?! 

But it happened. And 21 people died. :(

Strangely/sadly, our region is currently dealing with the aftermath of a similar disaster, the Oso Mudslide. (I say similar because of how quickly it happened, with little to no warning, and how it destroyed so many lives.) But then I guess there are hundreds of disasters that have been "similar" -- tornadoes, earthquakes, flash floods, rock slides. It's scary how many deadly disasters just happen without any warning. And on THAT bright note....

All About Everything - Week Of October 15, 2013

This Week's Topic: New York City Blackout of 1977

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

The New York City blackout of 1977 was an electricity blackout that affected most of New York City on July 13–14, 1977. The only neighborhoods in the city that were not affected were in southern Queens and neighborhoods of the Rockaways, which are part of the Long Island Lighting Company system.

Unlike other blackouts that affected the region, namely the Northeast blackout of 1965 and the Northeast blackout of 2003, the 1977 blackout was localized to New York City and the immediate surroundings. Also in contrast to the 1965 and 2003 blackouts, the 1977 blackout resulted in city-wide looting and other disorder, including arson.

The blackout occurred when the city was facing a severe financial crisis and its residents were fretting over the Son of Sam murders. The nation as a whole was suffering from a protracted economic downturn, and commentators have contrasted the event with the good-natured "Where Were You When the Lights Went Out?" atmosphere of 1965. Some pointed to the financial crisis as a root cause of the disorder, others noted the hot July weather. (The city at the time was in the middle of a brutal heat wave.) Still others pointed out that the 1977 blackout came after businesses had closed and their owners went home, while in 1965 the blackout occurred during the day and owners stayed to protect their property. However, the 1977 looters continued their damage into the daylight hours, with police on alert.

Looting and vandalism were widespread, hitting 31 neighborhoods, including most poor neighborhoods in the city. Possibly the hardest hit were Crown Heights, where 75 stores on a five-block stretch were looted, and Bushwick, where arson was rampant with some 25 fires still burning the next morning. At one point two blocks of Broadway, which separates Bushwick from Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn, were on fire. Thirty-five blocks of Broadway were destroyed: 134 stores looted, 45 of them set ablaze. Thieves stole 50 new Pontiacs from a Bronx car dealership. In Brooklyn, youths were seen backing up cars to targeted stores, tying ropes around the stores' grates, and using their cars to pull the grates away before looting the store.While 550 police officers were injured in the mayhem, 4,500 looters were arrested.

During the blackout, a number of looters stole DJ equipment from electronics stores. As a result, the hip hop genre, barely known outside of The Bronx at the time, grew at an astounding rate from 1977 onward.

---

For some reason, whenever I think about New York in the 70's, I picture Sesame Street. Not the Muppets, exactly, but the actual street, with all the friendly neighbors hanging out and Oscar grumbling in his trash can and kids sitting on the steps and Mr. Hooper selling his wares.

It's hard to imagine the chaos that must have been seen, heard and felt during those crazy summer days in actual New York (not on Sesame Street) way back when.

Of course, there are pictures. Crimes captured on film and -- so many years later -- posted to the internet for all to see and for some to say, "Hey... that guy looting those stereos... isn't that Grandpa?" o_O

All About Everything - Week Of September 24, 2013

This Week's Topic: Pulsars

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

A pulsar (portmanteau of pulsating star) is a highly magnetized, rotating neutron star that emits a beam of electromagnetic radiation. This radiation can only be observed when the beam of emission is pointing toward the Earth, much the way a lighthouse can only be seen when the light is pointed in the direction of an observer, and is responsible for the pulsed appearance of emission. Neutron stars are very dense, and have short, regular rotational periods. This produces a very precise interval between pulses that range from roughly milliseconds to seconds for an individual pulsar.

The precise periods of pulsars makes them useful tools. Observations of a pulsar in a binary neutron star system were used to indirectly confirm the existence of gravitational radiation. The first extrasolar planets were discovered around a pulsar, PSR B1257+12. Certain types of pulsars rival atomic clocks in their accuracy in keeping time.

Discovery

The first pulsar was observed on November 28, 1967, by Jocelyn Bell Burnell and Antony Hewish. The observed emission from the pulsar was pulses separated by 1.33 seconds, originated from the same location on the sky, and kept to sidereal time. In looking for explanations for the pulses, the short period of the pulses eliminated most astrophysical sources of radiation, such as stars, and since the pulses followed sidereal time, it could not be man-made radio frequency interference. When observations with another telescope confirmed the emission, it eliminated any sort of instrumental effects. At this point, Burnell notes of herself and Hewish that "we did not really believe that we had picked up signals from another civilization, but obviously the idea had crossed our minds and we had no proof that it was an entirely natural radio emission. It is an interesting problem—if one thinks one may have detected life elsewhere in the universe, how does one announce the results responsibly?" Even so, they nicknamed the signal LGM-1, for "little green men" (a playful name for intelligent beings of extraterrestrial origin). It was not until a second pulsating source was discovered in a different part of the sky that the "LGM hypothesis" was entirely abandoned.

Disrupted Recycled Pulsar

When two massive stars are born close together from the same cloud of gas, they can form a binary system and orbit each other from birth. If those two stars are at least a few times as massive as our sun, their lives will both end in supernova explosions. The more massive star explodes first, leaving behind a neutron star. If the explosion does not kick the second star away, the binary system survives. The neutron star can now be visible as a radio pulsar, and it slowly loses energy and spins down. Later, the second star can swell up, allowing the neutron star to suck up its matter. The matter falling onto the neutron star spins it up and reduces its magnetic field. This is called “recycling” because it returns the neutron star to a quickly-spinning state. Finally, the second star also explodes in a supernova, producing another neutron star. If this second explosion also fails to disrupt the binary, a double neutron star binary is formed. Otherwise, the spun-up neutron star is left with no companion and becomes a “disrupted recycled pulsar”, spinning between a few and 50 times per second.

* * * * *

Ahhh I love astronomy. How can you not love learning about all the crazy things that are going on up there? Comets and meteorites and planets and black holes... okay, not black holes so much. Yeah, um, so back in my school days, when it seemed like they were always showing us filmstrips about terrible things happening, we watched one about black holes and I began to routinely fear that I would be sucked into one. You know, randomly, just walking along one day and then suuuuck, that would be it -- I'd get all stretched out taller than Robert Wadlow and then go floating around the universe in a state of limbo forever. Because that was what black holes did. And they must be a serious threat to us, or why else would our teacher be showing us a film about them? (It couldn't be because they just wanted to silence 27-odd brats for half an hour while they graded papers, course not.)

All About Everything - Week Of September 17, 2013

This Week's Topic: The Lizzie Bennet Diaries

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

The Lizzie Bennet Diaries is an American drama web series adapted from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice where the story is conveyed in the form of vlogs. It was created by Hank Green and Bernie Su and stars Ashley Clements, Mary Kate Wiles, Laura Spencer, Julia Cho, and Daniel Vincent Gordh. It premiered on YouTube on April 9, 2012 and concluded when the 100th episode was posted on March 28, 2013.

...

Most episodes are two to eight minutes long and the series is presented as a video blog, told by Lizzie and (in the realm of the story) filmed and edited by her best friend Charlotte, although she occasionally takes over the editing when Charlotte is unavailable. All events are recounted and re-enacted by Lizzie, Charlotte, Jane, and Lydia within the confines of Lizzie's bedroom, making for a very different experience than previous full narratives. There are also semi-frequent questions and answers videos (about one in every ten regular episodes) in which Lizzie and other characters answer questions from their audience. Starting with episode 25, the series started moving locations and introducing new characters, such as Mr. Collins, Bing and Caroline.

In addition to the video blogs, all the characters also have various social media accounts through which they interact and reveal portions of the story and perspectives that are not necessarily represented in Lizzie's vlogs.

-----

Fun fact: the first time I encountered this series, I stumbled upon one of the spin-off videos, "Pemberley Digital," and was left feeling so confused. Was this a real company? What was going on? WHAT WAS HAPPENING????

Word of advice: don't start with the spin-offs.

http://www.lizziebennet.com/

All About Everything - Week Of September 3, 2013

This Week's Topic: Panera Bread

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

Panera Bread is a chain of bakery–café quick casual restaurants in the United States and Canada. Its headquarters are in Sunset Hills, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis, and operates as Saint Louis Bread Company in the St. Louis metropolitan area.

Panera considers its legacy to have begun in 1981 with the original Au Bon Pain Co., co-founded by current Panera CEO Ron Shaich. In 1993, Au Bon Pain Co. purchased the St. Louis Bread Company, which was founded by Ken Rosenthal in 1987. At the same time, the St. Louis Bread Company was renovating its 20 bakery-cafés in the St. Louis area.

In May 1999, to expand Panera Bread into a national restaurant, Au Bon Pain Co. sold its other chains, including Au Bon Pain, which is now owned by Compass Group North America. The company operates or franchises 1,500 Panera Bread bakery-cafés in 40 states and 20 facilities that deliver fresh dough to the bakery-cafés every day. Panera Bread's co-CEOs are William Moreton and Ron Shaich.

In its headquarters city of St. Louis, Panera Bread still operates under the name St. Louis Bread Company. The St. Louis metropolitan area has over 100 locations.

In 2005, Panera ranked 37th on BusinessWeek's list of "Hot Growth Companies", earning $38.6 million with a 42.9% increase in profits.

In 2007, Panera Bread purchased a majority stake in Paradise Bakery & Café, a Phoenix-based concept with over 70 locations in 10 states (predominantly in the west and southwest). The Company purchased the balance of Paradise in June 2009.

In 2008, Panera Bread expanded into Canada, beginning with Richmond Hill, Thornhill, Oakville and Mississauga in the Toronto area.

In a 2008 Health magazine study, Panera Bread was judged North America's healthiest fast casual restaurant.

* * * * *

Happiness is: A bread bowl filled to the brim with hot broccoli-cheese soup, alongside an apple or a bag of kettle chips, next to a tall glass of icy soda.

Or a cold smoothie made of a blend of delicious, tangy fruits.

Or a mug of coffee that you can refill and refill and refill... until you explode.

Or a bowl of creamy, hot, cheesy pasta, the same kind you could make from a box thanks to Pastaroni, but HOT... and so good... so, so good...

Panera Bread, you're my hero!

All About Everything - Week Of July 30th, 2013

This Week's Topic: Teetotums!

(Teetotums having nothing, I repeat, nothing to do with Teetotalers, although one could presume teetotalers used teetotums for fun & general amusement.)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

A teetotum (or T-totum) is a form of gambling spinning top. It has a polygonal body marked with letters or numbers, which indicate the result of each spin. In its earliest form the body was square (in some cases via a stick through a regular six-sided die ^[1]), marked on the four sides by the letters A (Lat. aufer, take) indicating that the player takes one from the pool, D (Lat. depone, put down) when a fine has to be paid, N (Lat. nihil, nothing), and T (Lat. totum, all), when the whole pool is to be taken.

Other accounts give such letters as P, N, D (dimidium, half), and H or T or other combinations of letters. Other combinations of letters that could be found were NG, ZS, TA, TG, NH, ND, SL and M, which included the Latin terms Zona Salve ("save all"), Tibi Adfer ("take all"), Nihil Habeas ("nothing left"), Solve L ("save 50") and Nihil Dabis ("nothing happens").

The teetotum survives today as dreidel, a Jewish game played on Hanukkah. Some modern teetotums have six or eight sides, and are used in commercial board games in place of dice. The original 1860 version of The Game of Life used a teetotum in order to avoid the die's association with gambling.

* * * * *

Reading further on the subject, I learn that dice used to be considered evil and tainted, and that good, respectable folks did not play games with those cubed fiends. 

I'm glad that sentiment has pretty much died over the years, because think of how hard it would be to play Yahtzee if you have to spin five teetotums? THINK!

All About Everything - Week Of July 23, 2013

Today's Topic: The Mansion Of Happiness

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

The Mansion of Happiness: An Instructive Moral and Entertaining Amusement is a children's board game inspired by Christian morality. Players race about a sixty-six space spiral track depicting virtues and vices with their goal being The Mansion of Happiness at track's end. Instructions upon virtue spaces advance players toward the goal while those upon vice spaces force them to retreat.

The Mansion Of Happiness was designed by George Fox, a children's author and game designer in England. W. & S. B. Ives published the game in the United States in Salem, Massachusetts on November 24, 1843.

...

The Mansion of Happiness is a roll-and-move track board game, and, typical of such games, the object is to be the first player to reach the goal at the end of the board's track, here called The Mansion of Happiness (Heaven). Centrally located on the board, the goal pictures happy men and women making music and dancing before a house and garden. To reach The Mansion of Happiness, the player spins a teetotum and races around a sixty-six space spiral track depicting various virtues and vices.

Instructions upon spaces depicting virtues move the player closer to The Mansion of Happiness while spaces depicting vices send the player back to the pillory, the House of Correction, or prison, and thus, further from The Mansion of Happiness. Sabbath-breakers are sent to the whipping post. The vice of Pride sends a player back to Humility, and the vice of Idleness to Poverty.

* * * 

Sounds like a blast! :-D

All About Everything - Week Of July 16, 2013

This Week's Topic: Honey

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

Honey /ˈhʌni/ is a sweet food made by bees using nectar from flowers. The variety produced by honey bees (the genus Apis) is the one most commonly referred to, as it is the type of honey collected by beekeepers and consumed by humans. Honey produced by other bees and insects has distinctly different properties.

....

Honey is produced by bees as a food source. In cold weather or when fresh food sources are scarce, bees use their stored honey as their source of energy. By contriving for bee swarms to nest in artificial hives, people have been able to semidomesticate the insects, and harvest excess honey.

In the hive (or in a wild nest), there are three types of bees:

• a single female queen bee
• a seasonally variable number of male drone bees to fertilize new queens
• some 20,000 to 40,000 female worker bees.

The worker bees raise larvae and collect the nectar that will become honey in the hive. Leaving the hive, they collect sugar-rich flower nectar and return.

In the hive, the bees use their "honey stomachs" to ingest and regurgitate the nectar a number of times until it is partially digested....The bees work together as a group with the regurgitation and digestion until the product reaches a desired quality. It is then stored in honeycomb cells. After the final regurgitation, the honeycomb is left unsealed. However, the nectar is still high in both water content and natural yeasts, which, unchecked, would cause the sugars in the nectar to ferment. The process continues as bees inside the hive fan their wings, creating a strong draft across the honeycomb, which enhances evaporation of much of the water from the nectar. This reduction in water content raises the sugar concentration and prevents fermentation. Ripe honey, as removed from the hive by a beekeeper, has a long shelf life, and will not ferment if properly sealed.

....

Toxic Honey

Honey produced from flowers of oleanders, rhododendrons, mountain laurels, sheep laurel, and azaleas may cause honey intoxication. Symptoms include dizziness, weakness, excessive perspiration, nausea, and vomiting. Less commonly, low blood pressure, shock, heart rhythm irregularities, and convulsions may occur, with rare cases resulting in death. Honey intoxication is more likely when using "natural" unprocessed honey and honey from farmers who may have a small number of hives. Commercial processing, with pooling of honey from numerous sources, is thought to dilute any toxins.

* * * * *

Hmm, I guess I never knew exactly how bees made honey, but regurgitation doesn't sound very appetizing. But I guess when you think about where a lot of our food comes from... well, I'll leave it at that.

Meanwhile, toxic honey? Why was there never a Winnie The Pooh story about that? Or is that what caused the Heffalumps and Woozles to appear? Ya know....

All About Everything - Week Of July 2, 2013

This Week's Topic: Beverly Cleary

(source: beverlycleary.com)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

Beverly Cleary (born April 12, 1916) is an American writer of more than 30 books for young adults and children. As one of America's most successful authors of children's literature, she has sold 91 million copies of her books worldwide. Some of her best-known characters are Henry Huggins, Ribsy, Beatrice ("Beezus") Quimby, her sister Ramona Quimby, and Ralph S. Mouse. She won the 1981 National Book Award for Ramona and Her Mother and the 1984 Newbery Medal for Dear Mr. Henshaw.

For her lifetime contributions to American literature Cleary has received the National Medal of Arts, recognition as a "Living Legend" by the Library of Congress, and the Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal from the children's librarians.

Works By Beverly Cleary 

(*=one of my favorites)

Henry Huggins, 1950

Ellen Tebbits, 1951

*Henry and Beezus, 1952

Otis Spofford Morrow, 1953

Henry and Ribsy, 1954

*Beezus and Ramona, 1955

Fifteen, 1956

Henry and the Paper Route, 1957

*The Luckiest Girl, 1958

Jean and Johnny, 1959

The Hullabaloo ABC, 1960

The Real Hole, 1960

Beaver and Wally, 1960

Here's Beaver!, 1961

Two Dog Biscuits, 1961

Emily's Runaway Imagination, 1961

Henry and the Clubhouse, 1962

Sister of the Bride, 1963

Ribsy, 1964

The Mouse and the Motorcycle, 1965

The Growing-Up Feet, 1967

Mitch and Amy, 1967

*Ramona the Pest, 1968

Runaway Ralph, 1970

Socks, 1973

*Ramona the Brave, 1975

*Ramona and Her Father, 1977

*Ramona and Her Mother, 1979

*Ramona Quimby, Age 8, 1981

Ralph S. Mouse, 1982

*Dear Mr. Henshaw, 1983

*Ramona Forever, 1984

The Ramona Quimby Diary, 1984

Lucky Chuck, 1984

Janet's Thingamajigs, 1987

*A Girl from Yamhill, 1988

Muggie Maggie, 1990

Strider, 1991

Petey's Bedtime Story, 1993

*My Own Two Feet, 1995

Ramona's World, 1999

* * * * *

Beverly Cleary is one of my heroes. Fun fact: she was born during World War I and she's STILL HERE. (As of this posting, anyway...) Also she's a Newbery Medalist, the top honor only going to one author/book a year. She's gotten the Honor a few times, too.

Growing up, my classmates and I all heard about Beverly Cleary over and over in school and I always just assumed it was because she was a local connection (she was born in my home state of Oregon, then moved to my city, Portland, just in time for first grade).

But as I got older I realized that Beverly Cleary's influence had spread all over, and even Judy Blume, who grew up in New Jersey, was inspired by Beverly Cleary. Granted, New Jersey's not exactly the North Pole, but at least it went to show that Beverly Cleary wasn't only appreciated by the people who could regularly drive by one of the houses she grew up in, but by people all over. People who were awesome.

I highly recommend Beverly Cleary's two autobiography/memoirs: A Girl From Yamhill and My Own Two Feet. She is funny, honest, remembers details, and tells her life story just as if it were one of her novels. I've actually read both of them at least thrice. Check em out. (But do take care to avoid this.)

All About Everything - Week of June 25, 2013

This Week's Topic: Warner Bros. Studio Store

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

The Warner Bros. Studio Store was a chain of retail stores selling Looney Tunes and other merchandise based on Warner Bros. films, similar in style to The Disney Store. They first opened in 1991 and when Warner Bros. owner Time Warner merged with Turner Broadcasting (which owned Hanna-Barbera and the pre-1986 MGM library) in 1996, merchandise based on Turner properties were added to the product lines. In 2001 all Warner Bros. Studio Stores went out of business after just ten years but in 2006 the stores were reopened in China when Warner Bros. Consumer Products partnered with PMW Retail.

* * * * *

In the mid-90s I had a thing for Superman. Okay, I still do. But back then, it wasn't very easy to procure Man Of Steel merchandise. You couldn't find it in regular stores (believe me, I tried. Not until about 1997, when the animated series caught on.) And online shopping wasn't a thing yet. Internet merchants existed, but you usually just had to ask them to send you a paper catalog. So I was sad. I had a meager allowance and dangit, I wanted to spend it on Superman stuff! 

One day, I learned about a thing called The WB Store, aka the Warner Bros. Studio Store. And I learned that there was one in a mall across town. I begged my mom to take me there, and she did. I remember walking into this giant room just full of... okay mostly Looney Tunes stuff, but oh, there were other things. There were Animaniacs. There was Batman. And there was Superman.:)

There was never a lot of Superman stuff. Usually there'd be three or four things each time I visited. And I would buy one or two of them. I managed to convince somebody to take me there at least two times a year for the next few years. After high school, I discovered how to get there via public transit (it only took an hour each way!) and would often bring a friend. 

In the late 90's, the WB Store started selling Buffy merchandise, so I began branching out with my purchases. In 2001, they even started offering Harry Potter stuff. Strangely, that's the year the WB Stores all closed. I guess the company figured they could sell the same stuff online, but... it would never be the same for me.

Sometimes I still visit that mall (Washington Square, near Tigard, OR) and gaze longingly at the space the WB Store once occupied (I think it's a clothing store, now.) I remember the excitement I used to have at the mere thought of going there. Then the sheer bliss I felt stepping through the doors and into a world of things that I loved. The fun of choosing something cool, buying it, and bringing it home to add to my collection.

I miss you, WB Store.

All About Everything - Week Of June 18, 2013

This Week's Topic: Malbone Street Wreck

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

The Malbone Street Wreck, also known as the Brighton Beach Line Accident of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company (BRT), was a rapid transit railroad accident that occurred November 1, 1918, beneath the intersection of Flatbush Avenue, Ocean Avenue, and Malbone Street (now known as Empire Boulevard), in the community of Flatbush, Brooklyn. At least 93 individuals died, making it one of the deadliest train crashes in the history of the United States.

The wreck occurred the evening of November 1, 1918 at 6:42 PM, during the last days of World War I. An elevated train, consisting of five cars constructed primarily of wood, entered the tunnel portal beneath Malbone Street going toward the Prospect Park station, negotiating a curve designated to be taken at six miles per hour (9.6 km/h) at a speed estimated at between 30 and 40 mph (48–65 km/h). The trailing truck of the first car derailed, and the two following cars completely left the tracks, tearing off their left-hand sides and most of their roofs. The first and fourth cars sustained relatively minor damage, while the second and third cars were severely damaged, the third so badly that it was dismantled on the spot. The fifth suffered no damage at all. The motorman was not injured and left the scene of the accident.

.....

The motorman was Edward Luciano, a crew dispatcher with light experience operating elevated trains, who was pressed into service during the strike emergency. He had never operated an elevated train in passenger service before. He was not familiar with the Brighton Beach Line, and his only experience moving trains was parking non-revenue trains in a train yard a year earlier. He had been taken over the line earlier by a motorman-instructor as part of his two hours of training prior to the disaster. Normally a motorman in that era received sixty hours of training before being allowed to control a revenue-generating train.

.....

In the wake of the tragedy, Malbone Street was renamed Empire Boulevard, a name it still bears today.

*****

I find this last fact to be creepy... deliciously so. You could walk down Empire Boulevard today and not know about the events that happened 95 years ago in that very place. It's like when a building burns down and a new one is built there. Or when someone builds a house and later they find out they built it on an ancient burial ground. I don't know why that fascinates me. It probably shouldn't. Oh well.

All About Everything - Week Of June 11, 2013

This Week's Topic: Warwick Castle

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

Warwick Castle (ⁱ/ˈwɒrɪk/ worr-ik) is a medieval castle developed from an original built by William the Conqueror in 1068. Warwick is the county town of Warwickshire, England, situated on a bend of the River Avon. The original wooden motte-and-bailey castle was rebuilt in stone in the 12th century. During the Hundred Years War, the facade opposite the town was refortified, resulting in one of the most recognisable examples of 14th century military architecture. It was used as a stronghold until the early 17th century, when it was granted to Sir Fulke Greville by James I in 1604. Sir Fulke Greville converted it to a country house. It was owned by the Greville family, who became earls of Warwick in 1759, until 1978 when it was bought by the Tussauds Group.

        

The Warwick trebuchet

The trebuchet at Warwick Castle is the largest catapult in the world.

In June 2005, Warwick Castle became home to one of the world's largest working siege engines. The trebuchet is 18 metres (59 ft) tall, made from over 300 pieces of oak and weighs 22 tonnes (24 short tons).^[57] The machine, which was made in Wiltshire, is situated on the riverbank below the castle. It takes eight men half an hour to load and release,^[58] the process involves four men running in 4 metres (13 ft) tall wheels to lift the counterweight, weighing 6 tonnes (7 short tons) into the air. It is designed to be capable of hurling projectiles distances of up to 300 metres (980 ft) and as high as 25 metres (82 ft) and can throw projectiles weighing up to 150 kilograms (330 lb).^[58] On 21 August 2006, the trebuchet claimed the record as the most powerful catapult of its type when it sent a projectile weighing 13 kilograms (29 lb) a distance of 249 metres (817 ft) at a speed of 260 kilometres per hour (160 mph), beating the previous record held by a machine in Denmark.^[59]

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My final term of college, I took a class called England's Castles. It sounded more interesting than it actually was. It was taught by this tiny little British guy who sometimes brought his dog, and sometimes brought his wife, to class. Most of his lectures involved detailed descriptions of how castle walls were fortified (curved walls = good, corners = bad).

One day, Little British Dude announced that a third of our final grade would depend upon a 17-page term paper written about a castle of our choice. The catch? We had to cite all our research, and none of that research could come from the internet. I decided on Warwick Castle, and I managed to get a bunch old, antique, ready-for-the-dustbin books on the subject via Inter-Library Loans. I wrote the paper, and I'll be darned if at least three of those 17 pages weren't made up of citations. 

Minor Fact: The overuse of the term "motte-and-bailey" that term led me to name my cat Baylie. True story.