Two hundred years ago, Ascension Island was a barren volcanic edifice Today, its peaks are covered by lush tropical "cloud forest" What happened in the interim is the amazing story of how the architect of evolution, Kew Gardens and the Royal Navy conspired to build a fully functioning, but totally artificial ecosystem
The tiny tropical island of Ascension is not easy to find It is incredibly remote, located 1,600km 1,000 miles from the coast of Africa and 2,250km 1,400 miles from S
14 September 2000, a Komatsu D375A-2 pulled an abandoned tank from its archival tomb under the bottom of a lake near Johvi, Estonia
The Soviet-built T34/76A tank had been resting at the bottom of the lake for 56 years According to its specifications, it's a 27-tonne machine with a top speed of 53km/h
From[url=http://wwwmilhiiumaaee/2000_09_14_kurtna_T-34-36/]milhiiumaaee[/url] - more pictures on the site
From February to September 1944, heavy battles were fought in the narrow
In the 1960's when they were developing the first spacesuits a malfunction during testing in a vacuum lab saw Jim LeBlanc exposed to the vacuum for a short time This is the video of the event and shows the bravery of the men involved in developing the space program
Jim LeBlanc was the test subject for a dangerous NASA test in 1965 designed to test if space suits could withstand a zero-pressure vacuum, just like there would be on the moon But when the tube pressurizing his suit became di
Before the advent of Radar, these acoustic listening devices from the 1930's were used to listen for incoming planes
For scale see the anti aircraft guns in the background
From http://wwwfutilityclosetcom/2006/08/28/japanese-war-tuba/ and http://cominganarchycom/2008/02/28/behold-the-war-tuba/ and http://enwikipediaorg/wiki/Japanese_war_tuba
The remains of a World War II-era Soviet submarine have been found by a team of Swedish divers in the Baltic Sea
The vessel, a Soviet S-2 class submarine, was sunk by mines in 1940, killing all 50 crew members The search for the Soviet submarine wreck began more than a decade ago in April 1999
Documents from the Swedish military archives claim that the S-2 sub was sunk by Swedish mines in Swedish waters, while records in the Finnish military archives say the vessel sank in Finnish wate
A rare World War II Helldiver dive bomber that crashed after its engine failed during a training exercise on May 28, 1945 has been found 85 feet below the surface of a San Diego reservoir
The pilot and gunner aboard managed to ditch the craft and swim ashore to safety But the plane remained at the bottom of the lake, forgotten for six decades until it turned up last year on the angler's device
Now private salvage divers have been slowly and gently clearing away the silt and mud coverin
On 19 August 1917 Submarine U-28 left Emden for the war on shipping in the Arctic Sea On 2nd September at 1155 am, the U-boat attacked the armed English steamer SS Olive Branch, 4649 t, carrying munitions from England for Arkhangelsk
Since the steamer was not sunk by a torpedo hit, U-28 came to close range to finish her with gunfire The second shell hit the cargo of munitions, which detonated with an enormous explosion, whereby the U-boat was so badly damaged that it sank
Some m
Annie Oakley was an American sharpshooter and exhibition shooter Oakley's amazing talent and timely rise to fame led to a starring role in Buffalo Bill's Wild West show, which propelled her to become the first American female superstar
Using a 22 caliber rifle at 90 feet Oakley reputedly could split a playing card edge-on and put five or six more holes in it before it touched the ground
In November 1, 1894, Oakley and Butler performed in Edison's Kinetoscope film, The "Little Sure
A 1936 Bugatti that recently sold for more than $30 million went on display Tuesday at the Mullin Automotive Museum in Oxnard, Canada
The museum says the 1936 Bugatti Type 57SC Atlantic is one of only three ever made and was first purchased by Lord Victor Rothschild of London
In 1939, it was sent back to the factory to be supercharged The owners have included Dr Peter Williamson, who bought the car in 1971 for $59,000 and restored it
The car sold in May in a deal brokered by Goodi
A great sea liner, dies at its berth in New York in 1942 because of a fault from a welder
The French Line's Normandie is one of the relatively few legitimate contenders for the title "Greatest Liner Ever" She was a ship of superlatives: the largest ship in the world for five years, more than 20,000 tons larger than White Star's Majestic; the first liner to exceed 1000 feet in length; the first liner to exceed 60,000 tons and 70,000 and 80,000, for that matter; the largest turbo-elec
Canadian archaeologists have found a British ship abandoned more than 150 years ago in the quest for the north-west passage, the fabled sea route across North America, the head of the team said
Marc-Andre Bernier, Parks Canada's head of underwater archaeology, said the HMS Investigator was found in shallow water in Mercy Bay along the northern coast of Banks Island in Canada's western Arctic The ship had been abandoned in the ice in 1853 while trying to find the doomed earlier expedition
In English we have created a mythical word that we think was spoken in the past That of Ye being pronounced as "Ye" In reality Ye was an abbreviation for the word we know as "the" Thats right, back then they also said "the" just as we do today
Thorn or žorn Ž, ž, is a letter in the Old English, Old Norse, and Icelandic alphabets, as well as some dialects of Middle English The letter originated from the rune ᚦ in the Elder Fužark, called thorn in the Anglo-Saxon and t
The largest single hoard of Roman coins ever found in Britain has been unearthed on a farm near Frome in Somerset
A total of 52,500 bronze and silver coins dating from the 3rd century AD including the largest ever found set of coins minted by the self proclaimed emperor Carausius, who lasted seven years before he was murdered by his finance minister were found by Dave Crisp, a hobby metal detectorist from Devizes, Wiltshire
Crisp first dug up a fingernail-sized bronze coin only 30cm
A 3,200-year-old round bronze tablet with a carved face of a woman, found at the El-ahwat excavation site near Katzir in central Israel, is part of a linchpin that held the wheel of a battle chariot in place
This was revealed by scientist Oren Cohen of the Zinman Institute of Archaeology at the University of Haifa [quote]Such an identification reinforces the claim that a high-ranking Egyptian or local ruler was based at this location, and is likely to support the theory that the site is Ha
Over the past century, violent images from World War II concentration camps, Cambodia, Rwanda, Darfur, Iraq, and many other times and places have been seared into our collective consciousness These images have led to a common belief that technology, centralized nation-states, and modern values have brought about unprecedented violence
Here is a great video by Steven Pinker on the myth of violence
http://wwwtedcom/talks/steven_pinker_on_the_myth_of_violencehtml
[flash=600x489]http://
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