On February 2, 1709, British sailor Alexander Selkirk was rescued by explorer and pirate William Dampier [1] (pictured) after being marooned on a desert island for five years. His story inspired the book “Robinson Crusoe.”
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On February 2, 1980, the FBI [2]‘s undercover criminal investigation known as Abscam [3] was revealed to the public; it resulted in the convictions of various elected officials on an assortment of bribery [4] and corruption charges.
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On February 2, 1653, New Amsterdam (later named New York City [5]) was incorporated as a city.
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Today we present a guest article by Montana-based economist and commentator Brandon Smith, the editor of Alt-Market.us [6]. Both his free website and his subscription The Wild Bunch Dispatch e-newsletter are highly recommended.
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We are now seeking entries for Round 111 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest [7]. More than $875,000 worth of prizes have been awarded since we started running this contest. In 2023, we polled blog readers, asking for suggested article topics [8]. Refer to that poll if you haven’t yet chosen an article topic. Round 111 ends on March 31st, so get busy writing and e-mail [9] us your entry. Remember that there is a 1,500-word minimum, and that articles on practical “how-to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.