I suspect that not one in a thousand Americans is familiar with the work of the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics, and that is truly a tragedy, because the committee had an outsized effect that played a critical role in winning the Second World War, and shepherding the US into the Jet Age.
On October 19, 1762 the day was so dark at Fort Detroit that candles were needed to see at noon. A British officer called the day "The most extraordinary dark day perhaps ever seen in the world." Some would take the darkness as a sign.
Solenopsis invicta, the “Red Imported Fire Ant”, native to South America, has proven a tenacious and destructive pest in the United States, costing Americans billions of dollars every year. That is why, in the late 1950s, the United States embarked on an all out war against the six-legged menace.