Before leaving the subject of aviation in the 1970’s entirely, the strange case of Australian pilot Frederick Valentich is another mystery worthy of note. At 6:19 pm on October 21, 1978, Frederick took off from Robin Airport, near Melbourne, in a Cessna 182 light aircraft. His plan was to fly west for forty minutes along… Read More

On 24 November 1971, a man in his mid-forties, wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase, calling himself Dan Cooper, purchased a one-way ticket in cash from the Northwest Orient Airlines flight counter at Portland International Airport for flight 305, a short 30 minute hop to Seattle. He boarded the aircraft, a Boeing 727-100, settled… Read More

During the course of the Middle Ages, the grim reaper was a far more frequent visitor than today. Illness, famine, and pestilence were commonplace, and with a medical knowledge based on the theories of the ancients, treatments were largely ineffectual, and as a consequence, little could be done to alleviate suffering. But it was not… Read More

Jacob Miller was a soldier in the Union Army that fought against the Confederacy in the American Civil War. On 19 September 1863, during the Battle of Chickamauga, he was shot in the forehead. Given the rudimentary medical care available in the mid-nineteenth century, and the lack of facilities on hand, that should have been… Read More