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.
There were 129 stage robberies in Arizona alone between 1875 and 1903. But one robbery in particular has left an enduring mystery. What exactly happened outside Wickenburg, Arizona on November 5, 1871?
A witness said, on August 8, 1975: it “sounded like the sky was collapsing and the earth was cracking.” What came next was the single most deadly infrastructure collapse in human history.
The unsung heroes of the naval war in the Western theater weren’t the city class casemate ironclads, but a much larger and more active fleet of more than seventy, much smaller, lightly armored vessels. The “Tinclads” of the US Civil War deserve to be remembered.