First “take a trip with The History Guy” starts today! In the Uber on my way to Lambert St Louis International Airport.
Did you know that the precursor to Lambert Field hosted the first International Air Meet in 1910, attended by both the Wright Brothers and US President Theodore Roosevelt?
In 1906, a famed explorer saw something on the horizon that would lead an expedition of men to search for a magnificent land they hoped would be full of new and undiscovered treasures for science.
One famous dolphin lived near the shores of New Zealand in the late 1800s, and swam alongside hundreds of ships, becoming a beloved figure to locals and foreigners alike, and described as ”the best known fish in the world.”
It was relatively common in the middle ages for Kings, royals, and various other titled men to die in combat, and they were at least usually expected to fight personally. Despite the dangers of medieval combat and the expectations of nobility, however, many at the highest levels of aristocracy died in less than noble mundane accidents, and even in embarrassing circumstances.
Killed in combat on July 14, 1918, Quentin Roosevelt was a man who had been known and beloved by almost the entire nation. The death of the only son of a US president to die in combat deserves to be remembered.
On July 11, 1897, at 2:30 in the afternoon, a balloon dubbed “the Eagle” took off from the Norwegian archipelago of Spitzbergen, headed, or so its occupants believed, for the north pole. It was a daring plan, years in the making, that promised to reach the elusive north pole in a way faster and safer than trudging across the ice.