Archive for the ‘America’ Category

Imagine yourself cold and shivering on a damp and thickly fogged-in morning. Heavy steel shackles squeeze your wrists and ankles, and the constricting metal seems to amplify the cold. Your movements are constrained, which makes it difficult to maintain your balance as you embark on the island ferry. You catch a brief glimpse of what will soon be your new home across the foggy bay…

Your new roommates are considered the most hardened criminals in the American penal system. Their resumes boast crimes ranging from kidnapping to espionage, bank robbery to murder. As you disembark with the firm assistance of a correctional officer, he smiles, looking up toward the cellhouse, and utters words that will never leave your memory: “Welcome home, welcome to Alcatraz.”

Each year over one million tourists board the Alcatraz ferry and visit what was once considered the toughest Federal prisons in America. Today, Alcatraz is one of the biggest tourist magnets and most famous landmarks of San Francisco. The island’s mystique, which was created primarily by books and motion pictures, continues to lure people from all over the world to see firsthand where America housed its most notorious criminals. Cramped cells, rigid discipline, and hard-line routine were the Alcatraz trademarks, and it was the last stop for the nation’s most incorrigible prisoners. Read the rest of this entry »

On October 22, 1962, after reviewing newly acquired intelligence, President John F. Kennedy informed the world that the Soviet Union was building secret missile bases in Cuba, a mere 90 miles off the shores of Florida. After weighing such options as an armed invasion of Cuba and air strikes against the missiles, Kennedy decided on a less dangerous response. In addition to demanding that Russian Premier Nikita S. Khrushchev remove all the missile bases and their deadly contents, Kennedy ordered a naval quarantine (blockade) of Cuba in order to prevent Russian ships from bringing additional missiles and construction materials to the island. In response to the American naval blockade, Premier Khrushchev authorized his Soviet field commanders in Cuba to launch their tactical nuclear weapons if invaded by U.S. forces. Deadlocked in this manner, the two leaders of the world’s greatest nuclear superpowers stared each other down for seven days – until Khrushchev blinked. On October 28, thinking better of prolonging his challenge to the United States, the Russian Premier conceded to President Kennedy’s demands by ordering all Soviet supply ships away from Cuban waters and agreeing to remove the missiles from Cuba’s mainland. After several days of teetering on the brink of nuclear holocaust, the world breathed a sigh of relief. Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Lewis Hackett Date: 1992

Industrialization: The First Phase

Most products people in the industrialized nations use today are turned out swiftly by the process of mass production, by people (and sometimes, robots) working on assembly lines using power-driven machines. People of ancient and medieval times had no such products. They had to spend long, tedious hours of hand labor even on simple objects. The energy, or power, they employed in work came almost wholly from their own and animals’ muscles. The Industrial Revolution is the name given the movement in which machines changed people’s way of life as well as their methods of manufacture. Read the rest of this entry »