Jim thorpe

Jim Thorpe was an absolutely amazing athlete. He was a professional football player, professional baseball player, professional basketball player, double Olympic gold medalist in the decathlon (which he won be 700 points) and the pentathlon, he placed fourth in high jump and seventh in long jump. Jim was born may 28, 1888, he was a native American and was raised as a Sac and Fox. Although he was such an incredible athlete he had to deal with a lot of racism and discrimination throughout his life. He was an Indian in a white power time in the United States, if he weren't so incredible he would have gone no where. On top of that when Thorpe was young his brother died of pneumonia and he ran away a few times. His mother sent him to Haskel Indian Nations University in Kansas, a boarding school so that he would not run away anymore. His mother died two years later while giving birth to a child so Jim came home. He got into a fight with his father and moved away to work on a horse ranch. He returned to his father two years later and returned to school again, this time he attended Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania. This is where he met his biggest influence, football coach Pop Warner. Later that year Jim's father died from gangrene poisoning in a hunting accident. Jim dropped out of school again. He went back to farm to work for a few years, until he returned to Charlisle to kick off is sporting career. In 1950, a Press poll of nearly 400 sportswriters and broadcasters voted Thorpe the greatest athlete of the first half of the 20th century. In 1999, the Associated Press placed him third on their list of athletes of the century list behind Babe Ruth and Micheal Jordan, and ESPN ranked him seventh on their list of North American athletes of the century. On top of that, on May 27, 1999 the United States House of Representatives passed resolution 198 declaring Thorpe "America's athlete of the century".
In 1911 Jim would gain nationwide attention playing football for Carlisle when he scored all of his team's points—four field goals and a touchdown—in an 18-15 upset of Harvard.His team finished the season 11–1. The following year, he led Carlisle to the national collegiate championship, scoring 25 touchdowns and 198 points. And that was only football...

Jim Thorpe is an unbelievable individual. He was amazing at every thing he did, at the international level too. In my opinion he is the most athletic man of all time, that i have heard of.

Chuck yeager

Chuck Yeager was an American general and a test pilot in the US air force. He entered pilot training in 1942 and became a p-51 pilot. He became a test pilot once Wold War 2 was over. He tested many different types of aircraft and rocket planes in his career as a test pilot but in 1947 he became the very first man to ever travel faster than Mach 1. His record was quickly broken by a man named Scott Crossfield but Chuck answered back, beating Scott's mach 2 with mach 2.4!

Two nights before Chucks test flight he fell off a horse and broke two ribs. He only told his wife and the man that closes the door on his plane, Mike Riddle. He was in such pain the day of the flight that he could not close the door of his aircraft and had to get Riddle to close it for him. Yeager broke the sound barrier on October 14, 1947 flying the experimental X-1 at mach 1 at an altitude of 45,000 feet, with two broken ribs...

I think that Chuck must have been quit a brave man to test out all of these new airplanes. He was the first man with the record and the third, because Scott beat his original record. He may have been a bit of a reckless man though because of his not telling anyone about of his broken ribs.

Al Capone was born in Brooklyn, New York on January 17, 1899. He grew up in a rough neighborhood and was a member of two "kid gangs," the Brooklyn Rippers and the Forty Thieves Juniors. He was said to be very large and actually quite smart. When he was 19 he got married and had kids with Mary "Mae" Coughlin. They moved to Chicago that year, where Capone started an empire. He got involved with a man named John Torrio who saw Capones potential ant tool him under his wing. Capone worked his way up the food chain until he was the number two man. When Torrio was shot by a rival gang Capone got full control over the empire of Bootleging, saloons, gambling houses and brothels. Caopne was an even better leader that Torrio was. Capone expanded the business to include horse and dog race tracks, night clubs, distilleries, breweries and even the largest cleaning and dieing plant in Chicago. The mayor was one of Capones main business partners. Eventually the mayor turned on him and drove him out of Chicago. When Capone looked for a new place to live, he quickly discovered that he was unpopular in much of the country. He finally bought an estate at 93 Palm Island, Florida in 1928.

Capone's most notorious killing was the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. On February 14, 1929, four Capone men entered a garage at 2122 N. Clark Street. The building was the main liquor headquarters of bootlegger George "Bugs" Moran's North Side gang. Capone sent in his men in dressed up as police officers. They ended shooting the six men over 150 times. Capone never got caught for murdering anyone because he always had an alibi, in this case he was in Florida.
In 1927 Capone was tried for tax evasion which lead to his down fall. It was said that Capone was making $100 000 000 per year, so the income tax would have been staggering. The only thing was, Capone never filed an income tax return, owned nothing in his own name, and never made a declaration of assets or income. He did all his business through front men so that he was anonymous when it came to income. The governments answer was to put a man from the IRS's Special Intelligence Unit (Frank Wilson)to investigate Capones financial situation. Wilson accidentally found a cash receipts ledger that not only showed the operation's net profits for a gambling house and a record of Capone's income from it. Capone was soon convicted for tax evasion. At the court hearing tried to bribe the jury but the judge changed the jury at the last second. Capone was found not guilty on 18 of the 23 counts and was sentenced to 10 years in prison. He was sent to a prison in Atlanta, where he "took over" so he was transferred to Alcatraz. He could not get any influence in Alcatraz, due to the super tight security which lead to him going crazy and finishing his sentence in the hospital. Once released Capone did not take his business over again because he was not the same as he was before and died a short while after.

I think that Al Capone was an amazing man that wored wis way to the very top of the food chain when he started at the bottom. His good side is also under rated. He was the first person to open soup places to give out a free lunch to the people devestated by the stock market crash during the great depression.

Boxer Reellion

The Boxer rebellion was a Chinese rebellion (1899-1901) against any forign influence in china. The fought forign influence in areas like trade, politics, religion and thecnology in China during the final years of the Manchu Rule. The group was made up of mainly Chinese peasents who whole haertedly beleived in anti-forignisim and anti-imperialisim. They attacked forigners building rail roads and people responsable for the forign donination of china.
In June 1900 the Boxers invaded Beijing, killing 230 forigners along with tens of thousands of Chinese Christians, Catholics and Protestants. This lead to the end of the Qing dynast and the formation of the modern Chinese Republic. After that little incident a multinational coalition semt 20 000 troops to China to get things back under controle.
I think that the Boxers were bitter that forigners were bitter that Forigners, their new way of doing things and their "strange" new culture were starting to take over the old China. The same thing happened all over the world, just not with the same, extreme, reprecutions as in China.

Marc Chagall was born in 1887 in Vitebsk in the Russian Empire. He was an artist who was influenced by Cubism, Fauvism and Surrealism. "My art is an extravagant art, a flaming vermilion, a blue soul flooding over my paintings," he says. His paintings have symbols of his childhood and of his Jewish religion inter mixed into the main work. Vitebsk was where he was born and is where he was inspired to become an artist. "The soil that nourished the roots of my art was Vitesbsk." He started his career as an artist like any other, poor and living in hardship but by 1930 he was known world wide.
In 1906 Marc decided that he wanted to pursue his passion to become an artist. The problem was that his parents did not want him to do this. After getting into a furious argument with his father Marc fled to St. Petersburg with nothing but a few roubles. He began to study but it was too difficult for him in St Petersburg because he was Jewish and Jews were given a very hard time there in that time, so he moved to Paris.
I find that when I first looked at Marc's paintings i was like, "wtf is this," but when you see it a few times and really take the time to examin it them they are very detailed. He uses numerous shades of the same colour and throws all kinds of different symbols into all of his paintings. I like how he puts different shapes into is paintings using colour alone.

The Bristol Beaufighter

The Bristol Beaufighter was a British long range heavy fihter. It was manufactured by the Bristol Aeroplane Company and was designed by Leslie Frise and Roy Fredden. The fighters madien voyage was on July 17, 1939 but was not introduced to to battle until July 27, 1940. It had a 20 year career in the Allies air force, retiring in 1960. The fighter had four Histano 20mm cannons that were mounted on the lower fuselage area and had a bomb bay near the rear of the air craft. The fighter was a two man aircraft with a pilot in the front and a navigator at the very back of the plane in a bubble armed with a machine gun, just in case. Many different, new and improved models of the Beaufighter came out as time went on. Every model had some sort of new feature or improvement. For example in 1942, Mk VICs (an improved version of the Beaufighter) were being equipped with torpedo-carrying gear, enabling them to carry the British 18-inch or the US 22.5-inch torpedo externally. The first successful torpedo attacks by Beaufighters came in April 1943, with No. 254 Squadron sinking two merchant ships off Norway.
The Beaufighter took part in many battles. The key to the success of these fighters were the tactics that were developed for the planes. The North Coates strike wing developed attack tactics. They used the the Beau fighters for anti-flank suppression using their cannons and rockets while the Torbeaus (another type of fighter) attacked the lower level of the ships.
The Beaufighters sound to me like they were the cutting edge as far as fighter planes went at the time. They had tons of fire power and were very successful.

Bonnie nad Clyde

Bonnie and Clyde where notorious robbers and criminals in 1931-1935 during what was called the public enemy ear. Bonnie Parker was said to be an attractive woman, standing at only 4 ft 11 in, and weighing only 90 pounds. She was a gifted poet and gave introductuctory speeches for local politicians. She married at age 15 but the marriage was short lived, ending just three years later. She met Clyde while working as a waitress, and the two immediately became transfixed with one-another. Clyde Barrow was born into a poor farming family with seven or eight siblings. He always held down "square" jobs, but he cracked safes, burgled stores and stole cars on the side. Clyde's goal in life was not to gain fame and fortune from robbing banks, but to eventually seek revenge against the Texas prison system for the abuses he suffered while serving his time.
Although the duo was known primarily for robbing banks they actually mainly focused on robbing filling stations and grocery stores. Clyde made his dream come true in 1934 in what was called the "Eastham Breakout." Clyde was the mastermind behind the operation, he got Henry Methvin, Raymond Hamilton and several others out of the Texas Prison. Phillips, another member of the Barrow gang, describes the breakout as the burning passion of Clydes life.
After this little stunt Bonnie and Clyde were then under the full power of the texas government. Texas Department of Corrections reportedly promised him every person involved in the breakout would be hunted down and killed. He kept his word, except for Henry Methvin, whose life was exchanged in return for betraying Bonnie and Clyde. The Texas Department of Corrections then contacted legendary retired man hunter and Texas Ranger Captain Frand A. Hammer, and convinced him to accept a commission to hunt down the Barrow Gang. He accepted the job immediately, studying the duos habits and patterns to eventually corned them and kill them in a hail of bullet.
Clyde went on to kill 4 more officers of the law in epic gun battles, while Bonnie is said to have never even shot a gun in any of the gangs history.
On may 23, 1934 Bonnie and Clyde were ambushed and killed while driving down a desolate road on their way to their hide out in Louisiana. They were shot with over 130 rounds by 6 officers with machine guns and armour tipped bullets. They went out in a blaze of gun fire.
I think that Bonnie and Clyde were very interesting and i found it fascinating to learn about them. They were celebrates of their time and age, which is quite an accomplishment, to have celebrity status as a thief on the run; yet still not get caught for years.