CAMILLE BOHANNON
Joseph Rudyard Kipling
(December 30, 1865 – January 18, 1936)
Kipling was an English journalist, short-story writer,
poet, and novelist. He was born in India, which inspired
much of his work. Kipling’s works of fiction include The
Jungle Book, Kim, and many short stories, including
"The Man Who Would Be King".
Ferdinand Magellan (1480 – April 27, 1521)
After sailing through the dangerous straits below South America that now
bear his name, Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan entered the Pacific Ocean with three ships, becoming the first European explorer to reach the
Pacific from the Atlantic.
On September 20, 1519, Magellan set sail from Spain in an effort to find a
western sea route to the rich Spice Islands of Indonesia. In command of
five ships and 270 men, Magellan sailed to West Africa and then to Brazil,
where he searched the South American coast for a strait that would take
him to the Pacific.
He searched the Rio de la Plata, a large estuary south of Brazil, for a way
through; failing, he continued south along the coast of Patagonia. At the
end of March 1520, the expedition set up winter quarters at Port St. Julian.
On Easter day at midnight, the Spanish captains mutinied against their
Portuguese captain, but Magellan crushed the revolt, executing one of the
captains and leaving another ashore when his ship left St. Julian in August.
On October 21, he finally discovered the strait he had been seeking. The
Strait of Magellan, as it became known, is located near the tip of South
America, separating Tierra del Fuego and the continental mainland. Only
three ships entered the passage; one had been wrecked and another
deserted. It took 38 days to navigate the treacherous strait, and when
ocean was sighted at the other end Magellan wept with joy.
TIM MAGUIRE
Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev speaking at the UN Assembly in 1960.
CAMILLE
BOHANNON
On this day in 1947, a United States Army Air Forces balloon crashed at a ranch near Roswell, New Mexico. Following wide initial interest in the crashed "flying disc", the US military stated that it was merely a conventional weather balloon. Interest subsequently waned until the late 1970s, when Ufologists began
promoting a variety of increasingly elaborate conspiracy theories, claiming
that one or more alien spacecraft had crash-landed and that the extraterrestrial occupants had been recovered by the military, which then engaged in a cover-
up.
In the 1990s, the US military published two reports disclosing the true nature
of the crashed object: a nuclear test surveillance balloon from Project Mogul.
Roswell Army Air Field Intelligence Officer Jesse Marcel, sr. holding
foil debris from Roswell, New Mexico UFO crash site.
