2020 New Random Pics

[GH85Carrera]

Massive thunderstorm, photographed from space.

[daepp]

This thread is such a joy - thanks to all the contrbutors!


Ireland before covid:

[Steve Carlton]

[Racerbvd]

[GH85Carrera]

Although travel by stagecoach is viewed with nostalgia and is a popular symbol of the Old West, reality for those that actually rode in them was much different.


A horse-drawn wagon driving the winding road of Hassel Canyon amid the limestone cliffs dotted with trees.
An early mining town near Townsend, Hassle, Montana produced nearly 5 million dollars in gold through placer and quartz mining. Mines that operated in the area include Bunker Hill, Ajax, Big Hill, Lone Star, and the Diamond Hill. Formerly named Saint Louis, the town changed its name in 1895 to acknowledge one of its pioneer miners, Joseph E. Hassel. At that time, the town was home to about 200 people. By 1910 mining operations had slowed, many of the town’s people moved away, and the town was mostly abandoned. Mining operations resumed briefly in the 1930s and again in 1946. As of 2020 the Apollo Mining Company was managing mining operations and remnants of the ghost town could still be seen.


Fisherman Edward Llewellen with the World's Record Black Sea Bass (425 lbs / 192kg), which he caught at Catalina Island, California, 1903. (Caption by Library of Congress. Since then, even bigger specimen have been caught).


On June 25, 1913 Civil War veterans began arriving in Gettysburg, PA. for the "Great Reunion" marking the 50th anniversary of the battle. The event officially lasted from June 29 - July 4 and over 50,000 old soldiers attended. Here former enemies clasp hands over a stone wall on Cemetery Ridge.


GI with a captured Japanese Type 89 Grenade Projector in Buna, New Guinea - 1943
Here we see why Americans incorrectly called it the knee mortar, It is hoped he didn’t actually fire it that way.
Original Caption by John Klear
LIFE Magazine Archives - Geroge Strock Photographer

[GH85Carrera]

Civil War Drum And Fife At The Gettysburg Reunion In 1913
Following the Civil War, veterans began gathering at reunions to renew old friendships with those they shared a common bond. The largest of these events made headline news around the world and took place in 1913 at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
As aging Veterans began arriving on June 29, new friendships were born and old wounds healed. The youngest Veteran, Col. John C. Clem (known as the Shiloh drummer boy), was 62 years old, while the oldest Veteran was 112 years of age. Of the 55,000 in attendance, representing the half million living Confederate and Union Veterans, 22,103 hailed from Pennsylvania, of whom 303 were Confederate. The smallest delegation came from New Mexico; one, and he was a Union Veteran.
In a vast sea of over 5,000 tents, covering 280 acres in the middle of the battlefield.
On the fourth of July at high noon, a great silence fell over the battlefield, as the church bells began to toll. Buglers of the blue and gray prepared to play the mournful tune of Taps one last time. The guns of Gettysburg shook the ground, signaling the end of the weeklong event. And though many eloquent speeches were given, none expressed what these Veterans took away from this experience better than a scene witnessed at the train station:
"Nearly all of the men had said their good-byes and headed for home. On the station platform a former Union soldier from Oregon and a Louisiana Confederate were taking leave of each other. They shook hands and embraced, but neither seemed able to find the words to express his feelings. Then an idea seemed to strike both men at once. In a simple act, which seemed to say everything they felt the pair took off their uniforms and exchanged them. The Yankee went home in Rebel gray, the Confederate in Union blue."
The above quote is an excerpt from “Gettysburg: The 50th Anniversary Encampment,” by Abbott M. Gibney, Civil War Times Illustrated, October 1970.


U.S. Marine carries light machine gun, rifle and other field equipment as he moves past youngster in Da Nang area in South Vietnam on March 13, 1965. Marine was one of several hundred who landed in the area to beef up defenses for the air base there.


Fountain City, Wisconsin’s Rock in the House is exactly what it sounds like: a massive boulder embedded in the side of an otherwise unremarkable riverside residence. Renovations on the small house on North Shore Drive had just finished in April of 1995 when calamity struck. The home sat at the base of a steep hillside and on April 24th of that year, a two-story tall boulder weighing 55-tons came careening down the slope, colliding right into the back of the back of the building. The couple that owned the place were home at the time of the impact and were almost crushed by the rolling stone. Luckily both were physically uninjured, although both had been sufficiently rattled to abandon the house almost immediately.

[A930Rocket]

[GH85Carrera]

At a recent convention center visit, I noticed this in the men's bathroom. I did a complete double take the first time I saw it. If I looked close, the C was there once, but it has been peeled off, or fell off. It made me look closely at it.




The picture need some car parts, and keys to a sports car and maybe an Aircraft Spruce catalog.


Fred, are you hiring? She looks qualified.




During their first combat tour, while on the island of Vella Lavella, the Black Sheep’s Intelligence Officer Frank Walton wrote to the Commissioner of Baseball with a proposition:
"The Black Sheep, said Walton, were in dire need of sun-shading ball caps due to the humid weather which quickly destroyed their military issue caps. He promised that his Squadron’s pilots would shoot down a Japanese aircraft for each cap sent to them. Only the St. Louis Cardinal organization of the National League responded, sending dozens of caps to the heroes in the Pacific.
Pictured is Major Greg “Pappy” Boyington (right) pretending to take a stack of Cardinals caps from Chris Magee who accepts a stack of Japanese Navy “victory” decals in return.
According to the National Baseball Hall of Fame: "In return for the caps, the Black Sheep made good on their end of the bargain. Instead of taking down just 20 enemy planes, though, the original 20 members of the Squadron accounted for 48 enemy planes destroyed."
The St Louis Cardinals more than doubled their investment and the Black Sheep Squadron were happy to oblige!! Semper Fi.



TRIBUTE TO THE DC-3

In fifty-one they tried to ground the noble DC-3
And some lawyers brought the case before the C.A.B.
The board examined all the facts behind their great oak portal
And pronounced these simple words "The Gooney Birds Immortal"

The Army toast their Sky Train in lousy scotch and soda
The Tommies raise their glasses high to cheer their old Dakota
Some claim the C-47's best, or the gallant R4D
Forget that claim, their all the same, they're the noble DC-3.

Douglas built the ship to last, but nobody expected
This crazy heap would fly and fly, no matter how they wrecked it.
While nations fall and men retire, and jets go obsolete
The Gooney Bird flies on and on at eleven thousand feet.

No matter what they do to her the Gooney Bird still flies
One crippled plane was fitted out with one wing half the size
She hunched her shoulders then took off (I know this makes you laugh)
One wing askew, and yet she flew, the DC-3 and a half.

She had her faults, but after all, who's perfect in every sphere?
Her heating system was a gem we loved her for her gear
Of course the windows leaked a bit when the rain came pouring down
She'd keep you warm, but in a storm, it's possible you'd drown.

Well now she flies the feeder lines and carries all the freight
She's just an airborne office, a flying twelve ton crate
The patched her up with masking tape, with paper clips and strings.
And still she flies, she never dies, Methuselah with wings.

[dafischer]

[craigster59]

This cracked me up. My experience was similar except the recruiter said "I'll just put down that you tried it once but didn't like it".

[rockfan4]

Apparently KISS has hired Ian Faith as their new tour manager.

[red 928]

[red 928]

[svandamme]

Originally Posted by WPOZZZ

I filled up gas the other day after I finally got my Alfa back.

That same volume would cost me 124 Euro.

[svandamme]

Originally Posted by Bob Kontak

its really not oversized at all. your screen is just undersized.

[GH85Carrera]

Arizona's Goldroad Mine in 1904.


Hundreds of years ago, Ute Pass Colorado was a trail the Ute Indians would take to hunt and travel between their winter and summer camps. It later became a wagon trail carrying supplies to the gold filed streams and mines. This snap taken circa 1860.. The miners headed into the gold fields were known as 59'ers as the Pikes Peak Gold Rush started in 1859


On June 26, 1948, pilots from the United States and Britain began what became known as the Berlin Airlift, dropping thousands of pounds of food and supplies into Berlin. Following the end of World War II, Germany was divided into different zones of occupation for each of the Allied powers. The United States, Great Britain, France, and Russia each controlled a section of Germany, with Russia controlling a large section in the east and the other nations controlling swaths of territory in the west. These lands soon took on the governmental styles of those occupying them. The country of East Germany was formed out of Soviet territory and became communist, while the other Allied countries merged their occupation zones and formed a democratic West Germany. To further complicate things, the German capital of Berlin had been divided as well following the war. Again, the Allies used the same east/west dividing method, and each section of the city took on the government of its respective occupiers.
Problems soon began to form due to the fact that Berlin sat well within the Soviet occupation zone. Because of Berlin’s symbolic importance the Allied powers had agreed to occupy it together, but by 1948, with the Cold War well under way, the Soviets were no longer happy with that arrangement. The Soviet Union attempted to gain control the city by cutting off the land and sea routes into West Berlin in order to force the Allies to evacuate. Because of the Soviet blockade, West Berlin’s two million residents were soon starving and in need of many other supplies. Not wishing for a military confrontation, President Harry Truman instead ordered a massive airlift operation to bring in the necessary supplies to the starving Berliners. On June 26, the airlift started and continued until September 1949, bringing in almost 2,500 pounds of food and supplies a day. Germany existed as two separate nations up until the end of the Cold War, when, with the rapid collapse of Communism in Europe, a reunification plan was put in to action. East and West Germany were reunited on October 2, 1990.


Breastplate of French cuirassier Antoine Favreau, who perished in the battle of Waterloo, struck and killed by a cannonball. June 18th, 1815.
Antoine Favreau was a Carabinier-à-cheval (mounted carabiner) during the time of the Napoleonic Wars. The Carabinier were a body of heavy cavalry. At the time of Napoleon, they wore steel armor-plated brass, highly polished, and were armed with carbine which gave them the name (sort of short rifle), a saber and a pair of pistols.
Antoine Favreau took part in the Battle of Waterloo, which marked the decline of the Napoleonic empire.

[asphaltgambler]

+1!

[Racerbvd]

[GH85Carrera]

Gasoline Filling Station at Country Store at Goldvein, Virginia


U.S. Army helicopters providing support for U.S. ground troops fly into a staging area fifty miles northeast of Saigon, Vietnam, August 28, 1966. Helicopter fuel is stored in the large rubber tanks, foreground. (AP Photo/Henri Huet)


King Tutankhamun's camping bed discovered in 1922 by Howard Carter. It's the first ever three-part folding camping bed.




An unidentified Sioux village set up with traditional buffalo hide teepees at Fort Robinson, Nebraska, was photographed circa 1877. The photo may have been taken by Gen. George Crook’s aide-de-camp 1st Lt. Walter Scribner Schuyler, who served the three-star general from May 30, 1876, to January 19, 1882.

[Racerbvd]