Stuff That Happened

On December 20th, 1860, South Carolina became the first state to officially secede from the Union for one primary reason – to avoid the impending ban on slavery which seemed all the more likely with the recent election of Abraham Lincoln. To deal with the problem of United States military forts existing within their state in Charleston Harbor, the state demanded that all U.S. Army personnel abandon their posts. Major Robert Anderson, who was in charge of the U.S. forces near Charleston, remained loyal the Union and moved himself and all union troops to Fort Sumter, the most powerful and defensible fortress in the harbor. Confederate forces would not allow any union ships to supply or reinforce Fort Sumter, effectively beginning a siege. Once President Lincoln took office, he informed the governor that he was sending supplies and food to Fort Sumter. The Confederate government had to make a decision – allow Fort Sumter to be re-supplied or attack, preventing hungry soldiers from r...

About 1.25 miles off the shore of San Francisco, California lies Alcatraz Island, the location of Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary, also known as the Rock. The prison operated from 1934 to 1963 and was considered by many to escape-proof due to the high security of the prison and surrounding cold waters and strong currents of the San Francisco Bay. It also had a reputation of the toughest prison in the country and former prisoners reported horrific and inhumane conditions that tested the sanity of even the toughest men. It is no surprise then that, despite the location, many prisoners attempted an escape to freedom. The first man to attempt an escape from Alcatraz, Joseph Bowers The first man to make such an attempt was Joseph Bowers, who was serving a 25-year sentence for stealing about 16 dollars from the Postal Service. In April of 1936, Bowers was feeding birds next to a chain link fence when he suddenly began climbing it in attempt to scale it. He ignored the guards who yelled at...

LOT Polish Airlines was established in 1928 and continues to operate today as the flag carrier of Poland and one of the oldest airlines in the world. The airline has a fleet of 79 aircraft, helping people travel around the world, with their central hub at Warsaw Chopin Airport. The airline has an excellent safety record, with the last fatality occurring nearly 35 years ago on November 2nd, 1988, when LOT Polish Airlines Flight 703 was forced to crash land due to icing on the engine intakes. The crash landing was nearly a complete success, but one of the 29 occupants tragically died. A year and a half before Flight 703 however, was the second most recent fatal accident in LOT Polish Airline’s history and it was the most horrifying and deadly crash in the history of Polish aviation. It happened on May 9th, 1987 to LOT Polish Airlines Flight 5055, bound from Warsaw to New York with the ultimate destination of San Francisco. The flight never made it out of Poland. May 9th, 1987 was a...

If you ask an average person what the name of the tallest mountain in the world is, the person is likely to know the answer – of course, Mount Everest. At 29,029 feet, it ranks as the clear #1 in terms of height. It is also not an easy mountain to climb mainly because of the extreme altitude but there are other challenges as well, such as the Khumbu Icefall, extreme cold temperatures, a high number of climbers which can cause traffic jams in the Death Zone, unpredictable avalanches, deadly crevasses and vertical rock faces that are extremely difficult to climb such as the Hillary Step. Despite the challenges, however, Mt. Everest is not considered the most difficult mountain to climb. In fact, there are a few mountains considered more difficult from a technical aspect and one of them is the second tallest mountain in the world, one of that the average person may not be able to name – it is called simply K2. At 28,251 feet, it is just 778 feet shorter than Everest but the difficul...

The first expedition with the goal of making it to the summit of Mount Everest occurred in 1922. The expedition ended in failure and it wasn’t until over 30 years later when some one was confirmed to have reached the summit. Edmund Hillary and Tenzig Norgay achieved this incredible feat on May 29th, 1953. Since then, more mountaineers were able to reach the summit such as the legendary Jim Whitaker, the first American to summit Everest, who accomplished the feat in 1963. Throughout the 50’s and 60’s, only 24 climbers reached the summit. These were expeditions reserved only for the elite of the elite and consisted only of experienced and expert climbers. The casual every day person couldn’t just decide to climb Everest. It would be the same as deciding to pay some money go on a trip to the Moon – unfortunately, such a trip was reserved for astronauts only. Then, in the 90’s that changed. The once desolate and inhospitable landscape of Mount Everest, which at one time contained o...