The Midnight Massacre (1945)

On July 8, 1945, two months to the day after the Allies declared victory in Europe, 29 German POWs were shot while peacefully residing in a prison camp in Salina, Utah. The Shooter Private Clarence V. Bertucci was 23 years old at the time of the shooting. Stationed at the Salina camp, Bertucci had been born and raised in New […]

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This Day in History: December 3rd

Today in History: December 3, 1979 The British rock band The Who hadn’t played Cincinnati since 1975, so the excitement level was high among the fans standing outside the Riverfront Coliseum on December 3,1979. For the majority of the fans attending the concert – 14,000 out of the over 18,000 in attendance – tickets were either for festival seating (standing […]

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Weekly Wrap Volume 15

This is a weekly wrap of our Daily Knowledge Newsletter. You can get that newsletter for free here. Why a Turkey is Called a Turkey In the sixteenth century, when North American turkeys were first introduced en masse to Europe, there was another bird that was popularly imported throughout Europe and, most relevant to this article, England, called a guinea […]

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For Nearly Two Decades the Nuclear Launch Code at all Minuteman Silos in the United States Was 00000000

Today I found out that during the height of the Cold War, the US military put such an emphasis on a rapid response to an attack on American soil, that to minimize any foreseeable delay in launching a nuclear missile, for nearly two decades they intentionally set the launch codes at every silo in the US to 8 zeroes. We […]

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