On this day:

BarnBuster

BarnBuster

Virtually Unknown Member

May 24, 1994 – Four men convicted of bombing New York’s World Trade Center were each sentenced to 240 years in prison. The attack was planned by a group of terrorists including Ramzi Yousef, Mahmud Abouhalima, Mohammad Salameh, Nidal A. Ayyad, Abdul Rahman Yasin and Ahmed Ajaj. They received financing from Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, Yousef’s uncle. The charges included conspiracy, explosive destruction of property, and interstate transportation of explosives. In November 1997, two more were convicted: Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind behind the bombings, and Eyad Ismoil, who drove the truck carrying the bomb.
 
Roger A. Shrubber

Roger A. Shrubber

Well-Known Member
05/23/1883 the Brooklyn bridge opens to the public. it took 14 years, 27 deaths, and countless injuries. the first fatality is John Roebling, the bridges designer. he has a foot smashed by a boat while taking compass readings before actual construction starts, and dies of tetanus 3 weeks later.
his Son and apprentice Washington takes over the job, and is permanently partially paralyzed from decompression sickness, after working in a pressurized caisson
 
BarnBuster

BarnBuster

Virtually Unknown Member
Roger A. Shrubber said:
05/23/1883 the Brooklyn bridge opens to the public. it took 14 years, 27 deaths, and countless injuries. the first fatality is John Roebling, the bridges designer. he has a foot smashed by a boat while taking compass readings before actual construction starts, and dies of tetanus 3 weeks later.
his Son and apprentice Washington takes over the job, and is permanently partially paralyzed from decompression sickness, after working in a pressurized caisson
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It was an amazing project. Couple of good books

The great bridge : the epic story of the building of the Brooklyn Bridge / David McCullough.
Chief engineer : Washington Roebling : the man who built the Brooklyn Bridge / Erica Wagner.
 
BarnBuster

BarnBuster

Virtually Unknown Member

On this day in 1977, Memorial Day weekend opens with an intergalactic bang as the first of George Lucas’ blockbuster Star Wars movies hits American theaters.​

The incredible success of Star Wars–it received seven Oscars, and earned $461 million in U.S. ticket sales and a gross of close to $800 million worldwide–began with an extensive, coordinated marketing push by Lucas and his studio, 20th Century Fox, months before the movie’s release date. “It wasn’t like a movie opening,” actress Carrie Fisher, who played rebel leader Princess Leia, later told Time magazine. “It was like an earthquake.” Beginning with–in Fisher’s words–“a new order of geeks, enthusiastic young people with sleeping bags,” the anticipation of a revolutionary movie-watching experience spread like wildfire, causing long lines in front of movie theaters across the country and around the world.

With its groundbreaking special effects, Star Wars leaped off screens and immersed audiences in “a galaxy far, far away.” By now everyone knows the story, which followed the baby-faced Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) as he enlisted a team of allies–including hunky Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and the robots C3PO and R2D2–on his mission to rescue the kidnapped Princess Leia from an Evil Empire governed by Darth Vader. The film made all three of its lead actors overnight stars, turning Fisher into an object of adoration for millions of young male fans and launching Ford’s now-legendary career as an action-hero heartthrob.

Star Wars was soon a bona-fide pop culture phenomenon. Over the years it has spawned five more feature films, five TV series and an entire industry’s worth of comic books, toys, video games and other products. Two big-screen sequels, The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and The Return of the Jedi (1983), featured much of the original cast and enjoyed the same success–both critical and commercial–as the first film. In 1999, Lucas stretched back in time for the fourth installment, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, chronologically a prequel to the original movie. Two other prequels, Attack of the Clones (2002) and Revenge of the Sith (2005) followed.

The latter Star Wars movies featured a new cast–including Ewan McGregor, Liam Neeson, Natalie Portman and Hayden Christensen–and have generally failed to earn the same amount of critical praise as the first three films. They continue to score at the box office, however, with Revenge of the Sith becoming the top-grossing film of 2005 in the United States and the second worldwide.
 
Roger A. Shrubber

Roger A. Shrubber

Well-Known Member
the little piss ant town i lived in in Mn had an old movie theater that my neighbor across the alley owned. that's where i saw star wars, with all my school friends, but it didn't get to us till almost christmas...we got all the movies, 6 months after everyone else....
 
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Roger A. Shrubber

Roger A. Shrubber

Well-Known Member
05/25/1895

Oscar Wilde, the celebrated author of Dorian Grey and The importance of being Earnest is jailed for two years for sodomy.
he fought the charge, despite his obvious "guilt".. he achieved a mistrial, but was convicted at retrial.
If only they knew what was coming
images.jpg
 
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lokie

lokie

Well-Known Member
Roger A. Shrubber said:
the little piss ant town i lived in in Mn had an old movie theater than my neighbor across the alley owned. that's where i saw star wars, with all my school friends, but it didn't get to us till almost christmas...we got all the movies, 6 months after everyone else....
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I new some of the usherers that worked the local cinema.

Some were friends with benefits.:blsmoke:

Sometimes I watched the movie and sometimes I was the
rapscallion in the balcony that she had to quiet down.:hump:8-)
 
tangerinegreen555

tangerinegreen555

Well-Known Member
Roger A. Shrubber said:
05/25/1895

Oscar Wilde, the celebrated author of Dorian Grey and The importance of being Earnest is jailed for two years for sodomy.
he fought the charge, despite his obvious "guilt".. he achieved a mistrial, but was convicted at retrial.
If only they knew what was coming
View attachment 4141275
Click to expand...
images.jpg
Definitely creepy. Kinda funny though. Maybe it's a Scientology thing. L. Ron Hubbard was good at writing SciFi. Not much else.
 
BarnBuster

BarnBuster

Virtually Unknown Member

Coolidge signs Immigration Act of 1924​

On this date, President Calvin Coolidge signs into law the Immigration Act of 1924, the most stringent U.S. immigration policy up to that time in the nation’s history.

The new law reflected the desire of Americans to isolate themselves from the world after fighting World War I in Europe, which exacerbated growing fears of the spread of communist ideas. It also reflected the pervasiveness of racial discrimination in American society at the time. Many Americans saw the enormous influx of largely unskilled, uneducated immigrants during the early 1900s as causing unfair competition for jobs and land.

Under the new law, immigration remained open to those with a college education and/or special skills, but entry was denied to Mexicans, and disproportionately to Eastern and Southern Europeans and Japanese. At the same time, the legislation allowed for more immigration from Northern European nations such as Britain, Ireland and Scandinavian countries.

A quota was set that limited immigration to two percent of any given nation’s residents already in the U.S. as of 1890, a provision designed to maintain America’s largely Northern European racial composition. In 1927, the “two percent rule” was eliminated and a cap of 150,000 total immigrants annually was established.

The law particularly angered Japan, which in 1907 had forged with U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt a “Gentlemen’s Agreement,” which included more liberal immigration quotas for Japan. By 1924, strong U.S. agricultural and labor interests–particularly from California, which had already passed its own exclusionary laws against Japanese immigrants–favored the more restrictive legislation signed by Coolidge.

The Japanese government viewed the American law as an insult, and protested by declaring May 26 a national day of humiliation in Japan. The law fanned anti-American sentiment in Japan, inspiring a Japanese citizen to commit suicide outside the American embassy in Tokyo in protest.

Despite becoming known for such isolationist legislation, Coolidge also established the Statue of Liberty as a national monument in 1924.

http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Immigration_Act_of_1924/
http://immigrationtounitedstates.org/590-immigration-act-of-1924.html
https://loveman.sdsu.edu/docs/1924ImmigrationAct.pdf
https://immigration.laws.com/national-origins-act
 
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