Biker, Happy Joan of Arc Day!

Huon

Native
May 12, 2004
1,327
1
Spain
Just managed to dig out a photo of our old soft toys. Pa sure knew how to pick birthday gifts:
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Goatboy

Full Member
Jan 31, 2005
14,956
18
Scotland
Ah yes the words of the police surgeon flood back looking at those... " Now show us where he attached the straps on your bear Huon..." He was only trying to teach us a trade so we'd be busy in the holidays.
 

Huon

Native
May 12, 2004
1,327
1
Spain
Ah yes the words of the police surgeon flood back looking at those... " Now show us where he attached the straps on your bear Huon..." He was only trying to teach us a trade so we'd be busy in the holidays.

I remember that now! I must have blanked out most of it.

Pa'll be pretty miffed. I nicked the photo from a scrapbook he left out on that FB place. He doesn't know I took it :yikes:
 

Huon

Native
May 12, 2004
1,327
1
Spain
Yeah, we weren't allowed to remove eviden... mementoes when we were kicke... ran awa...left home.

Pa always said that we didn't need mementos as memories were only skin deep anyway. Of course pa's interpretation of skin deep tends to leave lingering mementos anyway.
 

Huon

Native
May 12, 2004
1,327
1
Spain
To give Pa credit where it is due, especially now he's here, he did leave us with a rich legacy of amusing japes and practical jokes. Some of them didn't even need stitches afterwards.

Pa's tricks with white face paint and the bedside lamp were an inspiration to me. So earlier tonight I patiently waited in a darkened bedroom doorway, torch in hand to do the white face trick myself. Boy did she jump and who'd have thought that someone under 5' could pack such a punch?

Grounds for divorce? Perhaps but thank the lord we're not married :D

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk
 

crosslandkelly

Full Member
Jun 9, 2009
26,437
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67
North West London
October 24. A black day in the Russian space program.

1960: The attempted launch of a prototype R-16 ICBM ends in disaster when the Soviet rocket blows up on a launchpad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, killing over 100 engineers, technicians and military personnel.

The accident is now known as the Nedelin catastrophe, after Marshal Mitrofan Ivanovich Nedelin, commander in chief of the USSR's Strategic Rocket Forces, who was among those killed. Coming as it did at the height of the Cold War, the disaster was kept a closely guarded secret for years. The details did not become known in the West until the 1990s.

An electrical malfunction in the rocket, which was already fueled and sitting on the pad, led to the accident. It was Nedelin himself, impatient to get the show on the road, who ordered the technicians to fix the problem without first defueling the rocket. An errant radio signal triggered the firing of the second stage, causing the rocket to explode.

The cream of the Soviet Union's rocket engineering talent was wiped out in an instant, along with the unfortunate Nedelin, who had set out a deck chair to watch and supervise the repair work. The R-16's designer, Mikhail Yangel, survived only because he had slipped into a nearby bunker for a smoke just before the explosion occurred.

Marshal Nedelin had been handpicked a year earlier by Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev to create the Strategic Rocket Forces, the USSR's answer to the U.S. Strategic Air Command.
View attachment 24150

Three years later.
Silo explosion kills 7 at Baikonur - . Nation: USSR. On 24 October 1963 an R-9 was being prepared for launch in a silo at LC-70. Unknown to the 11 man launch crew, an oxygen leak in the fuelling system had raised the oxygen partial pressure in the silo from the 21% maximum allowed to 32%. Whie the crew was descending in a lift to the 8th level of the silo, a spark from an electrical panel created a fire in the explosive atmosphere, killing seven and destroying the silo. This happened on the same day as the Nedelin disaster three years earlier, and became the cosmodrome's 'Black Day'. Forever after no launches were attempted from Baikonur on October 24.

View attachment 24151
 

Goatboy

Full Member
Jan 31, 2005
14,956
18
Scotland
Biker! Happy Teleportation Day!
Plaza_Mayor_de_Mexico.jpg

Biker!, on this day in 1593 - The alleged teleportation of Gil Perez took place.
Gil Perez was a 16th century soldier and guard. He was a member of the Filipino Guardia Civil and worked as a guard at the palace of the Governor General in Manila, Philippines. His life was rather typical of a soldier in that place and time. He did his duty to his government and did his job regardless of any circumstances that arose during his guard duty — even spontaneous teleportation to another country.
Teleportation is a common theme in literature, movies and anything science fiction. The crew of the Starship Enterprise had it down to a science. The mad scientist in The Fly botched it terribly and Stephen King had it stealing the sanity of children in his short story “The Jaunt.” There is no denying that teleportation has an appeal in fiction because it strips away the location limitations of characters and it is open to interpretation; all manner of horrors can occur as a result because we simply do not know what side effects teleportation may have.
There is also an interest in real life teleportation because it would obviously be quite convenient. The real life applications could be life saving and bring people closer together. However, it could also change the face of modern warfare and make it very difficult to track criminals. That is all assuming teleportation is something we could control. What if there was no control? What if some people could teleport spontaneously without any knowledge they are about teleport? That is what reportedly happened in the case of Gil Perez.
On October 24, 1593, Gil Perez was doing his guard duties at the Governor’s palace in Manila. Chinese pirates had assassinated the governor — Gomez Perez Dasmarinas — the night before, but the guards still guarded the palace and awaited the appointment of a new governor. Tired, Gil Perez decided to lean against a wall and rest for a moment. When he opened his eyes, he was in a completely unfamiliar place. Unsure how to react, he continued to do his guard duties until he was approached by someone who started asking him questions and telling him that he was somewhere that it was impossible for him to be. Gil was in Mexico City’s Plaza Mayor.
When questioned, Gil Perez gave the story of his supposed teleportation and the death of his country’s governor. The assassination was unknown to those in Mexico City, but Gil Perez was reportedly wearing the uniform of the palace guards in Manila. He was placed in jail because it was thought he might be a deserter and/or a servant of the devil. After two months, a ship arrived from the Philippines, bringing news of the governor’s death. They said that they knew Gil Perez, though they did not know he was in Mexico City. The last time they had seen him was on October 23 at the palace.
The authorities in Mexico City decided to release Gil Perez and send him home. As there is no other account of Gil materializing anywhere, it is assumed that he never spontaneously teleported again. It was lucky for him that, if the story is true, he did not wind up in a country where Spanish was not spoken or worse, in a harsh terrain like the ocean, desert or arctic tundra. Some sources say that the story was not told until 100 years after it reportedly occurred. Other sources say that authorities documented the occurrence immediately. Without details like this, it is hard to say if the story is any more suspicious than its science fiction premise already suggests.

 

crosslandkelly

Full Member
Jun 9, 2009
26,437
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North West London
Today in 1969.

The supersonic airliner, Concorde, has made a "faultless" maiden flight.

The Anglo-French plane took off from Toulouse and was in the air for just 27 minutes before the pilot made the decision to land.

The first pilot, Andre Turcat, said on his return to the airport: "Finally the big bird flies, and I can say now that it flies pretty well."

The test flight reached 10,000ft (3,000m), but Concorde's speed never rose above 300mph (480kph). The plane will eventually fly at a speed of 1,300mph (2,080kph).

Mr Turcat, his co-pilot and two engineers taxied to the end of the runway at about 1530GMT. Strong winds meant the test flight was in doubt for much of the day.

Spontaneous applause

Two previous test flights had to be abandoned because of poor weather conditions.

Concorde sped down the runway and there was a spontaneous burst of applause from watching reporters and cameramen as the wheels lifted off the ground.

The noise from the four Olympus 593 engines, built jointly by the Bristol division of Rolls Royce and the French Snecma organisation, drowned out any noise from the crowd.

Less than half-an-hour later, the aircraft was brought back down to earth using a braking parachute and reverse thrust.

The crew emerged at the top of the steps, led by Mr Turcat, who gave the thumbs up signal with each hand.

The first British test pilot, Brian Trubshaw, who watched today's flight from the news stand, said, "I was terribly impressed by the way the whole flight was conducted. It was most professional and I would like to congratulate Andre on the way he handled this performance."

The British government has so far invested £155m in the project. It is hoped Concorde will begin flying commercially in 1973, when it will cut the flying time between London and New York from seven hours 40 minutes to three hours 25 minutes.

[video=youtube;wHPv0eEdjCU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHPv0eEdjCU[/video]
 

Biker

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Fascinating stuff chaps, thanks.

The happenings in Russia's space program was pretty sad to read, just goes to show the arrogance of the military top brass over going by the book. That teleportation story was just plain bizarre, that'll have to be remembered for a story around the camp fire.
 

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