On December 19, 1944 the submarine USS Redfish accomplished a rare feat in the second world war, sinking a Japanese fleet aircraft carrier. It was just one event in the service of a submarine that entered the second world war rather late in the game, but found distinguished service during the second world war and beyond. In fact, there is a good chance you’ve seen USS Redfish, even if you didn’t know it at the time.
An Olympic medal event only since 1998 you might think that curling is a relatively new sport apparently invented in Canada. And, of course, neither is true. The sport dates back at least to the 16th century, and comes from perhaps a surprising place.
During the later half of the nineteenth century numerous attempts were made to assassinate Tsar Alexander II of Russia. Killing the Tsar, however, turned out to be no easy task.
The St Louis World’s Fair, officially known as the Louisiana Purchase Expedition, was an enormous event, with more than 60 countries and 43 states maintaining exhibition spaces for nearly twenty million visitors. In addition to the many exhibitions, a variety of private enterprises set up camp near the fair in the hopes of making money off the guaranteed audience. Some of those ideas worked better than others, but few among them went as ridiculously badly as the attempt to put on a Spanish-Style bullfight.