On February 17, 1940, the Altmark Incident: The crew of the British destroyer Cossack (pictured) boarded the German tanker Altmark in Jøssingfjord, Norway, releasing 299 British prisoners after hand-to-hand fighting with bayonets and the last recorded Royal Naval action with cutlasses.
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I just heard that actor Robert Duvall [1] passed away at age 95. May he rest in peace. – JWR
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Using a 13-inch (33-cm) telescope at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, Clyde W. Tombaugh [2], a 24-year-old American with no formal training in astronomy, discovered the dwarf planet Pluto [3] this day in 1930.
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We are nearly done with deliveries of the 2005-2025 waterproof SurvivalBlog archive USB sticks. Here is the status of the few orders that are not yet at their destinations:
- 2 packages going to Canada – one is still with Customs Canada, and the other made it through.
- 2 packages are being held by post offices for pickup per customer request at their post offices.
- 1 package delayed due to bad weather but still being tracked to an Ohio address.
- 4 orders are still on hold, awaiting payment via check or cash. (Two of those were ordered on Feb 6, one of them ordered on Jan 25, and one of them ordered on Dec 31. A note to just those four folks: You have until February 23rd to get a check to us before your orders will be cancelled.
For everyone else: The archive USB sticks all sold out within a month. We won’t be taking any new orders until the next edition of the stick is produced in January of 2027. Please mark your calendars for January 10th, 2027, so that you don’t miss out.
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Today’s feature article is by SurvivalBlog Field Gear Editor Tom Christianson.