On September 6, 1915, a prototype tank nicknamed Little Willie rolled off the assembly line in England. Little Willie was far from an overnight success. It weighed 14 tons, got stuck in trenches and crawled over rough terrain at only two miles per hour. However, improvements were made to the original prototype and tanks eventually transformed military battlefields.
An Elvis Presley firearm sold for a pretty penny on an Illinois auction block recently.
The king of rock ‘n’ roll’s Smith & Wesson Model 53 revolver fetched $199,750 at Rock Island Auction Company (RIAC)’s August Premier Auction on Aug. 26 in Rock Island, Illinois.
The engraved revolver exceeded its pre-auction estimate of $60,000 to $90,000 due to "competitive bidding from gun enthusiasts" and Elvis fans around the world, according to a press release from RIAC.
Some of Elvis’ gun collection.
Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977)
On September 6, 1901, President William McKinley was shaking hands at the Pan-American Exhibition in Buffalo, New York, when a 28-year-old anarchist named Leon Czolgosz approached him and fired two shots into his chest. The president rose slightly on his toes before collapsing forward, saying “be careful how you tell my wife.”
Czolgosz moved over the president with the intent of firing a third shot, but was wrestled to the ground by McKinley’s bodyguards. McKinley, still conscious, told the guards not to hurt his assailant.
Other presidential attendants rushed McKinley to the hospital where they found two bullet wounds: one bullet had superficially punctured his sternum and the other had dangerously entered his abdomen. He was rushed into surgery and seemed to be on the mend by September 12.
Later that day, however, the president’s condition worsened rapidly and, on September 14, McKinley died from gangrene that had gone undetected in the internal wound. Vice President Theodore Roosevelt was immediately sworn in as president.
Czologz was executed in the electric chair (a fairly new means of execution at the time) at New York’s Auburn Prison on Oct. 29th, 1901, just 54 days after he shot the president.
Mug Shot of President William McKinley’s assassin, Leon Czologz.
Theodore Roosevelt Jr. (October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919)