Military blackout driving lights are small, faint head and tail lamps equipped with special lenses that are designed to cast a subtle, diffused horizontal beam of light for the driver of the vehicle to navigate with, and drivers of other vehicles to spot the vehicle with. They are intended for use when driving a convoy at night when it is necessary for the vehicles to maintain concealment by limiting their ability to be seen by the enemy.
Whether Starfleet is the military arm of the United Federation of Planets has long been a topic of debate among *Star Trek *fans. Gene Roddenberry, creator of the show, did not consider it a military service, emphasizing its exploratory and diplomatic roles. But since its personnel hold naval ranks, are armed when necessary, serve aboard starships capable of laying waste to the surface of an entire planet, are court-martialed for offenses and in their duties bear the lawful authority of the Federation, many fans disagree with him. So did Dr. David Marcus, son of Capt. James T. Kirk, who in the movie Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan, explicitly called Starfleet “the military.”
The “Genesis effect simulation” shot in “Wrath of Khan” was one of the first fully computerized special effects used in a movie. It was created by Lucasfilm’s Computer Graphics Group, which later split off and became a little studio you might have heard of called Pixar.
Genesis is an English rock band that was formed in 1967. Notable former members of the band include Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins. Genesis has sold over 100 million albums worldwide, 21 million in the United States. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2010.
In 1973 the band released, IMO, one of the more cleverly titled albums, Selling England by the Pound.
Phil Collins began a career as a child actor while at the Barbara Speake Stage School and won his first major role as the Artful Dodger in the London stage production of Oliver! He was an extra in the Beatles’ film A Hard Day’s Night among the screaming teenagers during the television concert sequence which was filmed at Scala Theatre in central London.
Davy Jones, later of “The Monkees”, was the original-cast Artful Dodger in the West End production of Oliver! On 9 February 1964, he appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show with Georgia Brown who was playing Nancy in the Broadway production of Oliver!. This was the same episode of the show in which the Beatles made their first appearance. Jones said of that night, “I watched the Beatles from the side of the stage, I saw the girls going crazy, and I said to myself, this is it, I want a piece of that.”
Monkee Mickey Dolenz also was a child actor, beginning his show-business career at the age of nine when he starred in a children’s TV show called Circus Boy under the name Mickey Braddock. He played Corky, an orphaned water boy for the elephants in a one-ring circus at the start of the 20th century. The program ran for two seasons.
A young George Washington, at the time an officer in the Virginia militia, served on the staff of British Army Maj. Gen. Edward Braddock during his Summer 1755 campaign against Fort Duquesne (present-day Pittsburgh, Penna.). Braddock was killed during the disastrous campaign, but Washington went on to some later minor fame.
The 1971 movie Gumshoe was the first of two films with original music scores by Andrew Lloyd Webber, the second was The Odessa File, in 1974. Lloyd Webber went on to some later fame as the most successful composer of musical theatre in history.
In 1971, the world population increase by 2.1%, the largest increase in history.
The 26th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified in March 1971, establishing the voting age in the U.S. at 18. The amendment sought to correct the practice of drafting young people into military service before they were eligible to vote, which had been ongoing since at least World War II; the amendment was championed with the slogan “Old Enough to Fight, Old Enough to Vote.”
The 27th Amendment to the Constitution states that ‘No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.’
The amendment was first proposed in 1789 but wasn’t ratified until 1992.
The 27th Amendment was originally proposed as part of the Bill of Rights. One more is still out there, which would have controlled the size of the House of Representatives by requiring a ratio of no more than 50,000 persons per representative. No effort is known to exist to push that one through.
On June 27th, 1976, Air France Flight 139, en route to Paris from Tel Aviv and Athens, was hijacked by Palestinian and German terrorists, and redirected to Libya, then to Entebbe, Uganda (where the terrorists had the support of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin). In Entebbe, the hijackers held the passengers and crew hostage, while demanding the release of a number of prisoners being held in several countries.
On July 3rd, a group of Israeli soldiers assaulted the Entebbe airport, to rescue the hostages. The operation, known variously as Operation Entebbe and Operation Thunderbolt, succeeded in freeing most of those still being held hostage; three hostages died, and one was left behind (an elderly woman who had been moved to a hospital).
The airplane in the dramatic final scene in Casablanca was a movie prop made to look like a Lockheed Electra 12A in Air France livery, including its prewar seahorse logo. Snopes:
Thomas Sopwith (1888-1989) established the Sopwith Aviation Company in 1912, and during WWI his company built more than 18,000 airplanes. He later raced sailing yachts, and in 1934 he challenged for the America’s Cup. He was inducted into the America’s Cup Hall of Fame (in Bristol RI, USA) in 1995.
In Charles Schulz’s comic strip Peanuts, Snoopy the beagle frequently fantasized about being a flying ace in World War I. In his fantasies, Snoopy wore an aviator’s helmet, goggles, and scarf, flew a Sopwith Camel airplane (while actually being seated atop his doghouse), and regularly clashed with the famous German ace pilot, the Red Baron.
The phrase “in the doghouse” (referring to a person in disgrace, typically a man in trouble with his wife or girlfriend) originated in the United States and was first recorded in a 1926 book of underworld slang. (Contrary to popular belief, the phrase was not coined by J.M. Barrie in Peter Pan.)
There is no legal connection between the airlines Deutsche Luft Hansa and Lufthansa. The former was founded in 1926 and ceased operations in 1945, and the latter was formed in 1953 and is still operating.
When Dwight D. Eisenhower was sworn in as President in January of 1953, it marked the first time in 20 years that a Republican was in the White House. Eisenhower won 442 electoral votes, easily defeating Adlai Stevenson, who won 89 electoral votes. The Republican party also gained control of both the House and the Senate.