Catalina Island is a popular tourist destination that receives more than a million visitors each year. But the trajectory of the island and its only incorporated town, Avalon, was dramatically changed 109 years ago by a devastating fire, the subject of a still enduring mystery, and possibly a dark secret.
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.