The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, by Washington Irving, has been called “America’s First Ghost story." It is, perhaps, the story that most represents the Halloween season. But it also works in a lot of history, history that deserves to be remembered.
Few examples of early aviation ambition exceeded the lofty goals set for the Airship America and forgotten aviation pioneers Walter Wellman and Melvin Vaniman. Plus a cat.
Occurring just twelve days before the end of the war, the loss of the USS Indianapolis to torpedoes from the Japanese submarine I-58 represented the greatest single loss of life at sea in the history of the U.S. Navy. The event has been dramatized and eulogized, perhaps most famously in a chilling scene from the 1975 film Jaws. But in the face of mistakes and incompetence came self-sacrifice and heroism that deserves to be remembered.