Tuesday, February 21, 2017

History: The Year is 1957

I've uploaded year 1957 to the TSP Wiki...

http://tspwiki.com/index.php?title=1957

As always, Alex Shrugged's opinions are his own. Other people's work are their own. I include them here for the sake of completeness and to provide a second method of access to the material for the TSP history segment.


* The Mad Bomber Is Caught... BY PROFILING -- Contributed by Alex Shrugged

* The Killer Bees Have Escaped! -- Contributed by Alex Shrugged

* Operation Power Flite: The B-52 flies around the world -- Contributed by Southpaw Ben

* Notable Births -- See below.

* This Year in Film -- See below.

* This Year in Music -- See below.

* In Other News -- See below.



=====================================

The Mad Bomber Is Caught... BY PROFILING

Contributed by Alex Shrugged
No. It's not Bill Ayers. It's George Metesky, a Con-Edison employee who was dismissed after breathing gases during a boiler accident. The doctors said there was nothing wrong with him, so he filed for workman's compensation. The paperwork was late, so his claim was denied. In reaction, he set a pipe bomb at a Con-Edison power plant with a note reading "CON EDISON CROOKS – THIS IS FOR YOU." Thus began 16 years of fear and dread as the Mad Bomber of New York set small bombs in lockers, restrooms, and under movie theater seats to publicize his complaint. After years of no leads, a psychiatrist builds a profile of the bomber. (This is a first.) He is male, older than 35 (and by now over 50). He wears a double-breasted suit (buttoned) and he lives with a female relative. He is unmarried but not a homosexual, and on and on. (Most of the profile is simple logic applied to the data at hand, but if we did this today, people would shout "BUT NOT EVERYONE IS LIKE THAT!" I know. I'm not three-years-old.) The profile is printed in the newspapers, and bingo! A Con-Edison employee matches his description along with several frightening complaint letters on file. George greets the police warmly. Yep. He wears a double-breasted suit (buttoned), and he lives with his two maiden sisters. He is judged nuttier-than-a-fruitcake, and locked up with the criminally insane. In 1973, he will be judged harmless and released. He will remain angry with Con-Edison, but he will keep his vow to bomb no more. He knows how to keep his promises. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]
My Take by Alex Shrugged
I had a speaking engagement for the Christmas party at the Atascadero State Hospital for the criminally insane. (Would it be wrong to say that they were crazy for me? It would? Oh. Sorry.) I planned to make the drive with my girlfriend, but as the date approached, we broke up. I was rebuilding my car engine, so I could still make it if I assembled the engine in ONE DAY. My boss let me go home early, and that had NEVER happened before, so I thought, "This is God's will." I laid the parts out and realized that the machine shop hadn't returned my camshaft! I thought, "Maybe this is NOT God's will." I swallowed my pride, and asked my ex-girlfriend for a ride. Amazingly, she agreed. I thought, "This is God's will!" But we were soon lost in cow country while taking the scenic route. "This can't be God's will." Hours later, we rolled into the parking lot with minutes to spare. "It's God's will again!" I took the steps two at a time, and identified myself to the nurse. "I'm the speaker for the Christmas Party." She asked, "What?" I repeated, "I'm here for the Christmas Party!" Then it dawned on her, "Oh! That was LAST week." My ex-girlfriend laughed. Apparently, God was having His little joke, and when God laughs it behooves the smart man to laugh too. I learned that I must not mistake my will for God's will, and that His will may include a little ego deflation for my own good. (Honestly, it was a good joke. I really did laugh.) [6] [7] [8]

The Killer Bees Have Escaped!

Contributed by Alex Shrugged
Not the heavy metal band. The bees from Africa. Last year an apiary was set up a 100 miles south of Sao Paulo, Brazil as an experiment in increasing honey production using African honey bees. (An apiary is a bee hive or group of hives.) Unfortunately, this year 26 queens and their swarms escape into the wild and are not recovered. The bees are aggressive, they swarm more quickly than the European variety, and they will chase you a quarter mile before they give up... if then. They also produce queens a little more quickly than European bees, so when a hive produces a queen it is more likely to produce an African queen before the European one has time to mature. Then it is out with the European and in with the African. The bees have been spreading north at about 100 to 200 miles a year. They will reach Texas by 1990 and California by 1995. [9] [10] [11]
My Take by Alex Shrugged
I have now exhausted my bee lore. I leave it to experts to say more, but this parallels the introduction of fire ants to the Caribbean. When you introduce a new species to a region and they are the biggest and baddest bugs on the block, they become a pest in more ways than one.

Operation Power Flite: The B-52 flies around the world

Contributed by Southpaw Ben
Between January 16th and January 18th, five B-52 bombers, two of which were spares in case something went wrong with the three main planes, flew around the world, taking off from Castle Air Force Base in California. Refueling multiple times as they went, on of the bombers failed to refuel, forcing it to abort the mission and land early. On January 18th the three main planes landed having flown for 45 hours and 19 minutes, over twice as fast as the first non-stop circumnavigation performed by the Lucky Lady II in 1949. The purpose of the mission was to demonstrate the Air Force's capability to be able to drop a hydrogen bomb anywhere in the world. All crew members of the flight were awarded Distinguished Flying Crosses. [12]
My Take by Southpaw Ben
With tensions flaring in Europe and the Middle East after the Suez Canal Crisis, the US wanted to show the USSR that it could still wreak havoc on the USSR even though it was half way around the globe from the major population centers. This was one of the biggest benefits and drawbacks of the US's location, it is far away from all of the wars and conflicts occurring in Europe, which gave it protection from being directly invaded by the Red Army, however it also meant that it was harder for the US to directly assert it's military might, as any full scale land battle would require shipping millions of men across an ocean. So the US had to focus on it's Navy and Air Force to better allow the US to project it's power. As a result, to this day, the US has a extremely large Navy and Air Force which it uses to police the world, because its policy hasn't matured since the Cold War era.

Notable Births

I'm not saying there is something WEIRD about 1957 but... sheeesh!
  • Osama bin Laden (died 2011, age 54): Founder of al-Qaeda, responsible for the 9-11 attacks. [13]
  • Andrew Cuomo: 56th Governor (D) of New York and son of Mario. [13]
  • Cindy Sheehan: Anti-war protestor. [13] [14]
  • And in Entertainment...
  • -- LeVar Burton: Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge in Star Trek, and Kunta Kinte in Roots. [13]
  • -- John Lasseter: Chief Creative Officer of Pixar Animation and director for Toy Story, A Bug's Life, and Cars. [13]
  • -- Nancy Cartwright: The voice of Bart Simpson. [13]
  • -- Dan Castellaneta: The voice of Homer Simpson. [13]
  • -- Scott Adams: The creator of the Dilbert comic strip. [13]

This Year in Film

  • The Bridge on the River Kwai: Starring Alec Guinness as a British POW who builds a bridge for the Japanese war effort. (Great movie winning many history awards, but THERE WAS NO BRIDGE over Kwai. I'm nit-picking.--alexshrugged) [15]
  • The Three Faces of Eve: Starring Joanne Woodward as a woman with multi-personalities, remade as "Sybil" starring a young Sally Fields and Joanne Woodward as her doctor. [15] [16]
  • An Affair to Remember: This movie is reimagined in the movie "Sleepless in Seattle". [15] [17]

This Year in Music

  • (Please Stay... By Me...) Diana: Paul Anka. [18] [19]
  • (I'm) All Shook Up: Elvis Presley . [18] [20]
  • (Goodness, Gracious) Great Balls of Fire: Jerry Lee Lewis. [18] [21]

In Other News

  • Felix Wankel gets his prototype engine running: This is the rotary engine that Mazda will eventually picked up. (It backfires, but it puts Mazda on the map.--alexshrugged)[22]
  • The Soviet Sputnik 1 and 2 orbit the Earth: The USA steps up the Atlas ICBM program.(I mean space program.--alexshrugged) [23] [24]
  • The "Little Rock Nine" are escorted to school by the 101st Airborne: Eisenhower made segregation happen because a judge said it was his constitutional duty. (Eisenhower will be the last Constitutional President for some time, if ever.--alexshrugged) [23]

This Year in Wikipedia

Year 1957, Wikipedia.

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