Around the world, different human cultures have used a wide variety of methods to keep track of the passing year. In the western world, our calendar system is based on the Roman model, which itself underwent a series of significant changes throughout history.
Continue reading The Roman Calendar
Most Hollywood blockbusters today depend upon special effects (SFX) for their visual impact. One of the most widely-used techniques is “greenscreening”, in which multiple elements are filmed in front of a plain green background and then are “composited” together in one scene. But the techniques of SFX compositing go all the way back to the beginnings of cinema.
Continue reading Green Screening: A History of SFX Movie Compositing
In May 1961, US President John F Kennedy called for a NASA program to send a man to the Moon before the end of the decade. It was hailed at the time as a bold step into the unknown. But two years prior to Kennedy’s speech, the US Army had already undertaken a classified feasibility study that was much more ambitious in scope than a mere Moon landing. Dubbed “Project HORIZON”, the Army’s plan called for a permanently-manned lunar outpost, with a dozen residents, that would be powered by nuclear reactors, armed with nuclear weapons, and capable of carrying out a wide variety of military tasks.
Project HORIZON Moon base photo from US Defense Dept
Continue reading Project HORIZON: The American Military Base on the Moon
The strangest battle of the Second World War happened in its closing days, when US Army and German Wehrmacht troops fought side by side to free French political prisoners being held by the SS.
Sherman tank in Germany photo from Wiki Commons
Continue reading Castle Itter: When Americans and Nazis Fought on the Same Side
It is often said that the last invasion of the British Isles was at Hastings in 1066. But that is not quite true.
The French fleet at Fishguard, a contemporary engraving photo from Wiki Commons
The first human-made nuclear fission reactor was constructed in the United States during the Second World War, as part of the Manhattan Project. But, remarkably, Mother Nature had already produced her own nuclear fission reactor, billions of years ago in Africa.
Uranium metal
ost Internet Conspiracy Theories are relatively harmless, just idiotic speculations passed around online by nutjobs and having no connection to the real world. But the Pizza-Gate CT was different: the Crackpots here came very close to actually killing people.
Cheese Pizza–also known as “Child Porn”
