TIM MAGUIRE
Carlos Humberto Santana Barragán is 78 years old today.
In 2023, Rolling Stone named him the 11th greatest guitarist
of all time. He has won 10 Grammy Awards and three Latin
Grammy Awards, and was inducted along with his namesake
band into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998.
MIKE CRACIA
Christopher Latham Sholes patented the QWERTY typewriter, revolutionizing communication. His first version was cobbled
together using an old table, a circular piece of glass, a telegraph
key and piano wire.
Christopher Latham Sholes (1819 – 1890)
CAMILLE BOHANNON
On May 28, 1937, the government of Germany—then under
the control of Adolf Hitler of the National Socialist (Nazi)
Party—forms a new state-owned automobile company.
Later that year, it was named simply Volkswagenwerk,
or “The People’s Car Company.”
After nearly 70 years and more than 21 million units
produced, the last original Beetle rolled off the line
in Puebla, Mexico, on July 30, 2003.
In 2003 the last production Type 1 VW Beetle rolled off the assembly line.
On May 24, 1941, Germany’s largest battleship, the Bismarck,
sunk the pride of the British fleet, HMS Hood.
The Bismarck was the most modern of Germany’s battleships,
a prize coveted by other nation’s navies, even while still in the
blueprint stage (Hitler handed over a copy of its blueprints to
Joseph Stalin as a concession during the days of the Hitler-
Stalin neutrality pact).
The HMS Hood, originally launched in 1918, was Britain’s largest
battle cruiser (41,200 tons)-but also capable of achieving the
relatively fast speed of 31 knots. The two met in the North
Atlantic, northeast of Iceland, where two British cruisers had
tracked down the Bismarck.
Commanded by Admiral Gunther Lutjens, commander in chief
of the German Fleet, the Bismarck sunk the Hood, resulting in
the death of 1,500 of its crew; only three Brits survived.
