
r/AllThatsHistory

Barack and Michelle Obama in their living room with their newborn daughter Malia(1998).
In February 1985, newlyweds John and Linda Sohus vanished after leaving their home in San Marino, California. Before disappearing, they told others they were leaving for a top-secret government job in New York. They were never seen again.
Freddie Mercury having a sleepover with some close friends (mid-1980s)
Mossad operator and former SS-Obersturmbannführer, Otto Skorzeny, confronts a photographer. 1960.
First president found to legally be a child predator
18-year-old Scarface actress Tammy Lynn Leppert vanished from Cocoa Beach on July 6, 1983. After returning from a party, her personality changed drastically; she became sullen, intensely paranoid, and told her mother she saw something she 'wasn't supposed to see.' She has never been seen again.
In 1974, Rachel Trlica (17), Renee Wilson (14), and Julie Moseley (9) vanished while Christmas shopping. Their locked car was found in a mall lot packed with gifts. A mysterious letter arrived the next day claiming they ran away to Houston. They have never been found.
Woman who owns the sun
Spanish citizen María Ángeles Durán notarized a document declaring herself the owner of the Sun, claiming she had found a loophole in international space law.
She threatened to charge people for using solar energy and pledged to direct the proceeds toward public welfare. Her claim had no legal standing because international treaties prohibit the appropriation of celestial bodies, and eBay later banned her attempts to sell plots of the Sun.
The gold standard made the Great Depression worse because it stopped countries from easily increasing the money supply. When banks failed and people saved their gold, there was less money in the economy. The U.S. stayed on the gold standard until 1933, making the crisis last longer.
The Paraguayan War was a war fought between Paraguay and Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay from 1864 to 1870. Paraguay was defeated and lost much of its population, becoming one of the poorest countries in South America.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraguayan\_War
Paraguay suffered massive casualties, and the war's disruption and disease also cost civilian lives. Some historians estimate that the nation lost the majority of its population. The specific numbers are hotly disputed and range widely. A survey of 14 estimates of Paraguay's pre-war population varied between 300,000 and 1,337,000.[99] Later academic work based on demographics produced a wide range of estimates, from a possible low of 21,000 (7% of population) (Reber, 1988) to as high as 69% of the total prewar population (Whigham, Potthast, 1999). Because of the local situation, all casualty figures are a very rough estimate; accurate casualty numbers may never be determined.
After the war, an 1871 census recorded 221,079 inhabitants, of which 106,254 were women, 28,746 were men, and 86,079 were children (with no indication of sex or upper age limit).
The worst reports are that up to 90% of the male population was killed, though this figure is without support. One estimate places total Paraguayan losses—through both war and disease—as high as 1.2 million people, or 90% of its pre-war population, but modern scholarship has shown that this number depends on a population census of 1857 that was a government invention. A different estimate places Paraguayan deaths at approximately 300,000 people out of 500,000 to 525,000 pre-war inhabitants. During the war, many men and boys fled to the countryside and forests.
In the estimation of Vera Blinn Reber, however, "The evidence demonstrates that the Paraguayan population casualties due to the war have been enormously exaggerated".
A 1999 study by Thomas Whigham from the University of Georgia and Barbara Potthast (published in the Latin American Research Review under the title "The Paraguayan Rosetta Stone: New Evidence on the Demographics of the Paraguayan War, 1864–1870", and later expanded in the 2002 essay titled "Refining the Numbers: A Response to Reber and Kleinpenning") used a methodology to yield more accurate figures. To establish the population before the war, Whigham used an 1846 census and calculated, based on a population growth rate of 1.7% to 2.5% annually (which was the standard rate at that time), that the immediately pre-war Paraguayan population in 1864 was approximately 420,000–450,000. Based on a census carried out after the war ended, in 1870–1871, Whigham concluded that 150,000–160,000 Paraguayan people had survived, of whom only 28,000 were adult males. In total, 60–70% of the population died as a result of the war, leaving a woman/man ratio of 4 to 1 (as high as 20 to 1, in the most devastated areas). For academic criticism of the Whigham-Potthast methodology and estimates see the main article Paraguayan War casualties.
Steven Pinker wrote that, assuming a death rate of over 60% of the Paraguayan population, this war was proportionally one of the most destructive in modern times for any nation state.
The Battle of Hattin: The Slaughter of the Dehydrated Crusader Army and Saladin's Greatest Military Triumph
The Battle of the Horns of Hattin was a significant battle that broke the field army of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Following the death of King Baldwin IV, Guy of Lusignan was crowned king. Guy was highly unpopular and was considered to have poor leadership skills. This would prove to be a deadly combination in an already strained situation for the Crusaders.
When Saladin attacked Tiberias, Guy abandoned his stable position at Sepphoris and marched his army to relieve the city. The march was a gruesome ordeal for the Crusader army. Without access to water and under the harsh sun, the Crusaders became dehydrated, demoralized, and weak.
Saladin did not rush into battle. Instead, he waited for the Crusaders to exhaust themselves, constantly harassing them with hit-and-run tactics. The Crusaders eventually halted near the Horns of Hattin, which provided a good terrain advantage but lacked the water they desperately needed.
Under constant harassment from Saladin's mounted archers, the Crusaders attempted to break through but failed, as the main bulk of the army remained trapped. Here, they would make their last stand as the remaining Crusader forces lost cohesion and surrendered. Guy was captured along with several other high-ranking nobles.
The significance of this loss was catastrophic for the Crusaders. With the main army destroyed, the Crusader states and their cities were left vulnerable. Jerusalem would eventually fall to Saladin as panic spread across the Crusader states, prompting the Third Crusade. The relic known as the True Cross was also captured by Saladin, depriving the Crusaders of an object of immense religious and psychological value.
The Battle of Hattin is a lesson in the importance of logistics and the availability of resources to an army. The defeat can largely be attributed to poor decision-making on the part of the Crusader leadership. For Saladin, it was a decisive victory and his greatest military triumph, opening the path to the conquest of Jerusalem.
Olga Benário (1908–1942) was a Jewish German and the wife of Brazilian communist revolutionary Luís Carlos Prestes. Following an unsuccessful coup attempt by Prestes in 1935, Olga was extradited to Nazi Germany while pregnant. She was murdered during the Holocaust.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olga\_Ben%C3%A1rio\_Prestes
Olga Gutmann Benário was born in Munich to a Jewish family. Her father, Leo Benário, was a Social Democrat lawyer, and her mother, Eugenie (Gutmann), was a member of Bavarian high-society. In 1923, aged fifteen, she joined the Communist Youth International and her activities with the group (including putting up posters) led local police to register her as a "communist agitator". At the age of 18 she moved with her lover and fellow party member Otto Braun to Berlin where she continued her activities in the working class district of Neukoln. In this period she was arrested on charges of ‘preparations for high-treason’ and in 1928 she helped Braun's escape from Moabit prison. Despite German authorities offering rewards of 10,000 marks for her arrest, "Many workers gave her a home and doors were made in different places so she could escape at anytime". She went to Czechoslovakia and from there, reunited with Braun, to Moscow, where Benário attended the Lenin-School of the Comintern and then worked as an instructor of the Communist Youth International, in the Soviet Union and in France and Great Britain, where she participated in coordinating anti-fascist activities. She parted from Otto Braun in 1931.
After her stay in Britain, where she was briefly arrested, Olga attended a course in the Zhukovsky Military Academy, leading some historians to view her as an agent of Soviet military intelligence. Due to her military training, in 1934 she was given the task of helping the return to Brazil of Luís Carlos Prestes, to whom she was assigned as a bodyguard. In order to accomplish this mission, false papers were created stating that they were a Portuguese married couple. By the time they arrived at Rio de Janeiro in 1935, this cover had become a reality, as the couple had fallen in love. After a failed insurrection in November 1935, Benário and her husband went into hiding, and after barely escaping a police raid at Ipanema, they were both eventually arrested in January 1936, during the harsh anti-communist campaign declared after Getúlio Vargas had proclaimed martial law and was already plotting the 1937 coup that eventually led to the institution of the fascist-like Estado Novo regime.
Pregnant and separated from Prestes, Benário clung to her alias, only to have her real identity disclosed by Brazilian diplomats, working hand-in-hand with the Gestapo. Her lawyers attempted to avoid extradition by means of a habeas corpus at the Brazilian Supreme Federal Court based on her pregnancy, because extradition would have left a newborn Brazilian national in the power of a foreign government. As Brazilian law forbids the extradition of nationals, Olga's lawyers expected to win time until Olga gave birth on Brazilian soil to an ipso facto Brazilian citizen - irrespective of the child's paternity, which remained legally doubtful in the absence of evidence for Olga's and Prestes' marriage - something that would have rendered extradition quite unlikely. The plea, however, was speedily quashed, the rapporteur-justice alleging that habeas corpus was superseded by martial law and that Olga's deportation was justified as "an alien noxious to public order".
After the Brazilian supreme court's decision, and despite an international campaign, Olga was forcibly returned to Germany in September 1936. The captain of the German liner that took her cancelled scheduled stops in non-German European ports, foiling communist attempts at rescuing her. On arrival, she was put in Barnimstrasse women's prison in Berlin, where on 27 November she gave birth to a daughter, Anita Leocádia. At the age of fourteen months, the child was released into the care of her paternal grandmother, Leocádia Prestes.
Her arrest in Brazil and eventual extradition to Nazi Germany, where she would die in Ravensbrück concentration camp, was also made possible by the collaboration of Britain's MI6 with the Brazilian authorities.
After the birth of her child, Olga was sent to Lichtenburg concentration camp in 1938, transferred to Ravensbrück concentration camp in 1939, and finally to Bernburg Euthanasia Centre in 1942, where she was gassed alongside hundreds of other female political prisoners.
Alamo Plaza Courts — Waco, Texas, 1939
The Alamo Plaza Hotel Courts is considered the first motel chain in the United States.
The first location opened in Waco, Texas, in 1929, and by 1955 there were more than 20 locations across the South. Many featured distinctive Mission Revival façades inspired by the Alamo in San Antonio.
The chain was also innovative for its time. By 1936, Alamo Plaza locations were among the first motels to put a telephone in every room. Later locations added amenities such as swimming pools, air conditioning, and TVs.
The decline of Alamo Plaza reflected changes in American road travel. Many properties were built along the old U.S. highway system and lost traffic as the Interstate Highway System expanded. Most were eventually sold, renamed, converted, or demolished.
Woman celebrating her 36th birthday in Costa Rica vanished after a stormy night alone at her Airbnb. The property’s security guard claimed she left at 5 a.m., but days later she was found in a nearby wooded area. DNA evidence linked the guard, who had access to her apartment with a master key
dailycrimepost.comThe Black Legion was a white supremacist terrorist group active in the Midwestern United States from 1925 to 1937. An offshoot of the Ku Klux Klan, the Legion murdered as many as 50 people.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black\_Legion\_(political\_movement)
Like the KKK, the Black Legion was largely made up of native-born, working-class, Protestant white men in the Midwest. These men feared the rapid social changes underway and resented competition with immigrants such as Italians and Jews. They also feared migrants in the industrial economy of major cities, such as Detroit. Their list of enemies "included all immigrants, Catholics, Jews and blacks, nontraditional Protestant faiths, labor unions, farm cooperatives and various fraternal groups." Membership was concentrated in Michigan and Ohio.
Black Legion members created a network for jobs and influence. In addition, as a secret vigilante group, the Legion members operated in gangs in order to enforce their view of society, sometimes attacking immigrants to intimidate them at work, or to enforce their idea of moral behavior. They generally opposed socialism and union organizing. They had a reputation for frequent violence against alleged enemies, whether political or social. From 1933 to 1936, they were rumored to be responsible for some unsolved deaths that had officially been attributed to suicide or unknown perpetrators.
In 1931, a chapter of the Black Legion was formed in Highland Park, Michigan, by Arthur F. Lupp, Sr. of that community, who styled himself its major general. Throughout and perhaps fueled by the economic and social upheaval of the Great Depression, the Black Legion continued to expand across Michigan until the mid-1930s, when its estimated membership peaked at between 20,000 and 30,000. In general, Black Legion members in the state were native-born Protestant men. One-third of its members lived in the city of Detroit, which had also been a strong center of KKK activity in the 1920s. The Michigan Legion was organized along military lines, with 5 brigades, 16 regiments, 64 battalions, and 256 companies. It boasted of a membership of one million Legionnaires in Michigan, but observers estimated that it had between 20,000 and 30,000 members. One-third of them were located in Detroit, with many living in Highland Park.
The Black Legion's tactics were "to lure potential recruits to a meeting—kidnap them, if necessary—then threaten them if they didn't join and [make them] swear they’d never tell anybody." They would also beat up members if they threatened to quit. The Legion wanted sports figures as members. It was looking into recruiting Mickey Cochrane, player-manager for the Detroit Tigers. He had a nervous breakdown in 1936 and removed himself from the team over Black Legion suspicions. One of these Legion members, Dayton Dean, broke their code and told the authorities of Black Legion's illegal activities. Dayton Dean participated in two of the murders that the Black Legion committed.
On May 12, 1936, Charles A. Poole, a federal organizer for the Works Progress Administration, was kidnapped from his home by a gang of Black Legion members. They claimed that Poole, a French Catholic married to a Protestant woman, beat his wife, and that they intended to punish him for this. He was shot and killed that night by Dayton Dean.
Wayne County Prosecutor Duncan McRae, who had been reported by the Detroit Times as a member of the Black Legion, worked to restore his public reputation and vowed to bring the killers of Poole to justice. Authorities arrested and prosecuted a gang of twelve Legionnaires. Dayton Dean pleaded guilty and testified against numerous other members; ten others were convicted of first degree murder or second degree murder, nine by a jury and one in a bench trial. One man was acquitted.
Dean provided considerable testimony to authorities about other activities of the Black Legion. Prejudiced primarily against Catholics, particularly Italian and Slavic immigrants, he and his collaborators had never learned that Becky Poole had a great-grandmother who was African American.
Dayton Dean died in prison on January 18, 1960, at the age of 59. In June 1960, Urban Lipps, another man convicted in the case, had his sentence commuted to 71 years by Governor G. Mennen Williams. Lipps, who was determined to have had the least involvement in the murder, was the first convict to be recommended for clemency. At the time of his release, Lowell Rushing, Paul Edwards, Edgar Baldwin, Ervin Lee, John Bannerman, Harvey Davis, and Charles Rouse were still in prison. Harvey Davis died in the prison in the 1960s. In 1966, Ervin Lee, now 60, had his sentence commuted by Governor George W. Romney. The commutations were granted with the recommendations of the Michigan Parole Board.
Dean's testimony and other evidence stimulated investigations by Prosecutor McRae. He gained indictments into a series of other murders and attempted murders in the Detroit area during the previous three years. In total, nearly 50 Legionnaires were prosecuted for murder, conspiracy to commit murder, kidnapping, arson, and perjury, with additional prosecutions on contempt of court against Legionnaires and sympathizers who refused to cooperate with the investigation. The trials revealed the wide network of Black Legion members in local governments, particularly in Highland Park. For instance, member N. Ray Markland had served as mayor of Highland Park. Members also included a chief of police and a city councilman in the suburb, in addition to persons in civil service jobs. Following the convictions and publicity, membership in the Legion dropped quickly; its reign of terror ended in the Detroit area.
Among the cases, the prosecutor indicted Black Legion members for the 1935 murder of Silas Coleman of Detroit. The African-American man had been found killed outside Putnam Township, Michigan, on May 26, 1935, nearly a year before Poole's abduction and murder. The ringleader of the murder, Harvey Davis, wanted to see "how it felt to shoot a Negro," according to Dean. Coleman had been abducted, forced to run for his life, and then hunted down and shot. Five men were convicted of first degree murder for killing Coleman and sentenced to life in prison: Harvey Davis, James Roy Lorance, John Bannerman, Ervin D. Lee, and Charles Rouse. Lorance died in prison of tuberculosis on January 3, 1938.
Members were also indicted for a 1933 conspiracy to murder Arthur Kingsley, a Highland Park publisher of a community paper, who was a candidate for mayor in 1934. They had planned to shoot him in 1933 because he ran against Markland, a Legionnaire politician. Sixteen Black Legion members were indicted in Kingsley's case, including "two factory policemen, a police officer, and several Highland Park city employees. Nine of them were convicted, and each received sentences of one to five years in prison. At the time of his arrest, Markland was employed as an investigator in the office of Wayne County Prosecutor McRea." Nine members were convicted in this case, including Markland and Arthur F. Lupp Sr., then a milk inspector for the Detroit Board of Health. Lupp was said to have founded the Legion in Michigan by setting up the chapter in Highland Park. One of the most notable plots of the Legion was a plot by Lupp and Charles McCutcheon, a department bacteriologist, to inject typhoid germs into milk and dairy products distributed through Jewish markets. In the following weeks, Lupp also asked McCutcheon if the germs could be produced in large quantities, put into milk bottles, would flourish in cottage cheese, spread via an infected needle.
Through these cases, authorities learned that Mayor William Voisine of Ecorse, Michigan had been identified as a potential target of the Legion; its members had resented his hiring African Americans for city jobs. McRae prosecuted and gained convictions of a total of 37 Legion members on these and related charges, beyond those charged in the Poole case. All received prison terms, markedly reducing the power of the Black Legion in Detroit and Michigan.
What do his answers tell you about his personality? [Christian Brando]
Alberto Santos-Dumont (1873–1932) was a Brazilian inventor and one of the few people to have contributed to the development of both heavier than air and lighter than air aircraft. Dumont is a national hero in Brazil, where he is widely credited with the first airplane.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberto\_Santos-Dumont
In October 1904, three aviation prizes were founded in France: the Archdeacon Prize, the French Aeroclub Prize, and the Deutsch-Archdeacon Prize. The first, promoted by millionaire Ernest Archdeacon, would award 3,500 francs to anyone who flew 25 metres; the second, instituted by the French aeroclub, would award 1,500 francs ($300) to anyone who flew 100 metres; and the third, sponsored by Henri Deutsch de la Meurthe and Ernest Archdeacon, would award 1,500 francs to anyone who flew 1,000 metres.
With the exception of the Deutsch-Archdeacon Award, which prohibited the competing aircraft from using a balloon for launch, the other awards left the question of takeoff open. The flight could take place on flat or uneven terrain, in calm weather or wind – the French Aeroclub's Award required the flight to be into the wind – and the use of an engine was not mandatory. This allowed human-powered gliders and ornithopters to compete. It was required for all prizes that the race took place in France and under the supervision of an aeronautical commission convened no later than the evening of the previous day.
Very little of what was required was new. Inventors in other countries had already met or exceeded some of the required goals including 2-axis (pitch and roll) control of gliders. In Germany, Otto Lilienthal had made thousands of glider flights in the early 1890s, often reaching distances far greater than the 25 metres stipulated by the Archdeacon Prize. In the United States, German immigrant Gustave Whitehead had allegedly pioneered powered glide, though claims and eyewitness accounts remain controversial. The Wright brothers had simultaneously been making progress in developing surface-control gliders, at first using Lilienthal's foil concepts, then relying on their own wind tunnel data, and finally adding yaw control via a rudder, leading to the first 3-axis surface-controlled aeroplane in 1903. However, because their 12-horsepower engine could only provide two-thirds of the thrust required for takeoff on a rail of practical size, their takeoffs were aided by headwinds near Kitty Hawk and a catapult in Ohio, and without any official observers. Lilienthal's death due to a stall led the Wright brothers to place the elevator in front, which helped prevent stalls but made stable flight difficult until the Wrights modified the design; the 3-axis surface control (pitch, yaw and roll) pioneered by the Wrights was also adopted by other inventors including Santos-Dumont and remains the standard airplane control configuration.
Having already accumulated technical knowledge, mainly concerning engines, in early 1905, Santos-Dumont built a model glider, No. 11, inspired by a self-stabilising prototype made 100 years earlier by English scientist George Cayley, considered to be the first aeroplane in history: the model, 1.5 metres long by 1.2 metres wide, had fixed wings, a cruciform tail and a movable weight to adjust the centre of gravity. Santos-Dumont's glider differed from Cayley's in size, wing profile, and the fact that it had no movable weight. The project was abandoned due to poor stability. An article by Georges Blanchet published in April 1904 diverges from the description of the No. 11 as a model aeroplane by presenting it as a dirigible balloon capable of carrying five people and a 34-metre-long envelope, being purchased by an American.
The first experiment, conducted on 13 May at the Aeroclub de France, was made by the Dufaux brothers with a prototype helicopter. The model, weighing 17 kilograms and with a 3 hp engine, repeatedly soared to the roof of the air club's porch, raising clouds of dust. It had been demonstrated that heavier, larger aircraft could be lifted by their own means. The second experiment was made on 8 June on the Seine: Gabriel Voisin went up in the hydroplane Archdeacon, towed by a speedboat piloted by Alphonse Tellier, La Rapière. The device barely rose out of the water and the project was abandoned due to poor stability. Watching tests like this, Santos-Dumont realised that the Antoinette engine from the tugboat could be used in an aeroplane, giving the concept of the 14-bis.
He began to study the two solutions for heavier-than-air flight. On 3 January 1906, he entered the Deutsch-Archdeacon Prize, and before that he had begun building a helicopter, the No. 12, but gave up on it on 1 June because it was impossible to create a light, powerful engine. Between June 12 and August 25, 1905, he tested the No. 14 airship, which flew in two versions (14-a and 14-b): the first was 41 metres long, 3.4 in diameter and 186 cubic metres, with a 14 hp engine, and the second was 20 metres long, 6 in diameter and with a 16 hp engine.
On 13 June 1905, represented by the Italian Count Eugenio Brunetta d'Usseaux, Baron Pierre de Coubertin awarded Santos-Dumont the Olympic Diploma No. 3 for "...representing the Olympic ideal..." according to Coubertin, who was also received by Theodore Roosevelt, Fridtjof Nansen and William-Hippolyte Grenfell. De Coubertin considered aviation a sport; Santos-Dumont was described as a sportsman in FAI Bulletins and the Paris Sport of 15 July 1901 described the Brazilian as "a true sportsman in every sense of the word." Santos-Dumont was already famous at that time and already a hero in his country. Santos' diploma was passed to the Brazilian ambassador in Belgium, who then passed it on to the aviator, according to the 21 June 1905 edition of the Correio Paulistano. Santos-Dumont was not the only one represented by others at the ceremony and only William Grenfell received the diploma personally. The FAI was created on 14 October 1905, along the lines of the International Olympic Committee.
In 1906 Santos-Dumont built a hybrid machine, the 14-bis or Oiseau de Proie, consolidating his studies of what had been done in aviation until then, without having had experience with gliders. By mid-year, within two months of starting he completed an aeroplane attached to a hydrogen balloon to assist takeoff. On 18 July, after completing the 14-bis, Santos-Dumont signed up for a competition and presented the aircraft for the first time the next day. at Bagatelle, achieving some short hops. Excited, he decided to apply for the Archdeacon and Aeroclub of France awards the following day, his 33rd birthday, but was discouraged by Captain Ferdinand Ferber, another aviation enthusiast. Ferber had attended the demonstrations and did not like the solution presented by Santos-Dumont; he considered the hybrid an impure machine. "Aviation must be solved by aviation!" he declared.
Santos-Dumont decided not to compete for the prizes with the hybrid, but on 20 July signed up for the tests and over the next three days continued to test the plane tethered to the balloon, to practise steering. Throughout the tests he realised that, although the balloon helped take-off, it made flight difficult as the drag generated was too great. 279–280 The airship was discarded, and the biplane received the name Oiseau de Proie ("Bird of Prey") from the press. The Oiseau de Proie had been inspired by the hydroplane tested by Voisin. Like the water glider, the invention also consisted of a cellular biplane based on the structure created in 1893 by Australian researcher Lawrence Hargrave, which offered good support and rigidity. The plane was 4 metres high, 10 metres long, and had a span of 12 metres, with a wing area of 50 square metres. Its mass was 205 kilograms. The wings were attached to a beam, in front of which lay the rudder, consisting of a cell identical to those of the wings. At the rear end was the propeller, powered by a 24 hp Levavasseur engine. The landing gear had two wheels, and the pilot stood upright. The 23 September 1906 issue of Le Sport Universel Illustré published the technical details of the 14-bis.
On 29 July, using a donkey and a system of cables, Santos-Dumont hoisted the Oiseau de Proie to the top of a tower 13 metres high (2 metres were stuck in the ground), installed a few days earlier on his property in Neuilly. This frame was very similar to the one Ferber had used at Chalais-Meudon for the May 1905 experiments with the 6-bis. The plane, suspended on a movable hook connected to an inclined steel wire, glided without a propeller 60 metres from the top of the tower to a smaller one, only six metres long, on the Boulevard de la Seine. This allowed Santos-Dumont to get a feel for the aeroplane and to study its centre of gravity. In August the 14-bis was unsuccessful in trying to take off because the 24-hp engine was not powerful enough. On 13 September, the 14-bis made a 7 to 13-metre test flight with a 50 hp Antoinette engine, at 8:40 a.m, which ended in an accident that damaged the propeller and landing gear, but that was praised by La Nature magazine. On 30 September he interrupted the tests of the 14-bis to compete in the Gordon Bennett Cup with the Deux Amériques balloon. He abandoned it after an accident, having flown 134 kilometres in 6 hours and 20 minutes. The accident occurred while attempting a manoeuvre that caused the engine gear to fracture his arm.
On 23 October, Santos-Dumont presented himself at Bagatelle with the Oiseau de Proie II, a modification of the original model. The plane had been varnished to reduce the porosity of the fabric and increase lift. The rear wheel had been removed. In the morning he limited himself to manoeuvring the aircraft across the field, until the propeller shaft broke. It was repaired in the afternoon, and the plane was moved into position for an official attempt. An expectant crowd was present. At 4:45 pm, Santos-Dumont started the engine. The plane lifted off and flew for 60 metres, without taking advantage of headwinds, ramps, catapults, slopes, or other devices. The flight had taken place solely by the aircraft's own means, and Europeans at the time believed it was the first such achievement.
The crowd celebrated, ran up to the pilot and carried him off in triumph. The judges had been overcome with emotion and forgot to time and track the flight, and due to this the record was not made official. Brandão 2018 says that because the Aeroclub Committee was partially present, a new test was scheduled for 12 November.
"I struggled at first with the greatest difficulties to achieve complete obedience of the airplane. It was like shooting an arrow with the tail forward. On my first flight, after sixty meters, I lost direction and crashed... I didn't stay in the air any longer, not because of the machine's fault, but exclusively my own."
— Santos-Dumont.
The aeroplane was still experimental. To compete for the French Aeroclub's prize, Santos-Dumont inserted two octagonal surfaces (rudimentary ailerons) between the wings for better steering control and created the Oiseau de Proie III. Santos-Dumont was a pioneer in implementing ailerons in his aircraft.
Santos-Dumont competed for the award on 12 November 1906, again in Bagatelle. He did five public flights that day: one at 10 am, of 40 metres; two others at 10:25 am, of 40 and 60 metres, when the axle of the right wheel broke. The damage was repaired during lunch and Santos-Dumont resumed at 4:09 pm. He covered 82.60 metres, surpassing the feat of 23 October and reaching 41.3 km/h. At 4:45 pm, with the day ending, he took off against the wind and flew 220 metres, for 21 seconds at an average speed of 37.4 km/h, winning the French Aeroclub Award. These were the first aeroplane flights recorded by a film company, Pathé. The Wright brothers, after learning of the 12 November experiment, sent a letter to Captain Ferdinand Ferber asking for "exact news of the Bagatelle experiments," including "a faithful report of the trials and a description of the flying machine, accompanied by a schematic". Santos-Dumont even adopted the configuration proposed by the Wright brothers and placed the rudder at the front of the 14-bis, which he described as "the same as trying to shoot an arrow forward with the tail...". To test the idea that the rudder at the rear increased the angle of incidence of the wings, Santos-Dumont built a new aircraft, without abandoning the 14-bis, and tested it in March 1907, without taking off as the primitive landing gear did not allow it.
He returned to the 14-bis having made other changes to the aircraft after 12 November, and on 4 April 1907, at Saint-Cyr, the aircraft flew for 50 metres, oscillated, crashed, and was torn to pieces. The project was abandoned.
Patient Record Card, Dunn County Asylum — Julia (Bard) Ingalls: The Tragic Life of Laura Ingalls Wilder's Aunt
Julia (Bard) Ingalls, wife of George Whiting Ingalls and aunt of Laura Ingalls Wilder, was born July 15, 1859. She married George Ingalls in 1876. The couple lost several children shortly after birth; one son lived for a year but suffocated after being wrapped too tightly following a winter visit with family.
Overcome by grief, Julia was admitted to the Wisconsin State Hospital for the Insane on February 3, 1888, at age 29, from Burnett County, Wisconsin. She was transferred to the Dunn County Asylum for the Chronic Insane in Red Cedar Township on February 3, 1893, where she remained until her death on May 20, 1910.
She appears as an inmate in the 1900 and 1910 federal censuses for the asylum.