On July 2, 1937 an aircraft disappeared over the Pacific ocean. Speculation as to what happened to that aircraft has been the subject of public attention, and more than a thousand books, since. But, lost in all the discussion, is that there were two pioneering aviators aboard that Lockheed Electra that never made its scheduled landing at tiny Howland island, and arguably the one most important to the field of aviation has somehow become merely a footnote.
The Sargo Class submarine USS Seawolf was one of the most active American submarines in the early war in the Pacific. Her extraordinary service was kept secret for operational reasons during the war, but would later be described to two reporters by her chief radioman, and published as a book in 1945.
On October first, 1910, Americans were shocked by an unimaginable act of violence, in the very heart of one of the nation’s largest cities. The 1910 Los Angeles Times bombing was a product of the times, and proof that political violence is not new to the United States.
In 1817 the Linnaean Society of New England published a thrilling report: they had investigated reports of a new sea creature, and after scrupulous examination they could declare that they had discovered not just a new species, but an entirely new genus native to the shores of the United States. They had identified and scientifically described, they claimed, a great sea monster.