Author: James Wesley Rawles

May 14th, 1686 was the birthday of Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit, who invented the thermometer. On May 14th, 1948, in Tel Aviv, Jewish Agency Chairman David Ben-Gurion proclaimed the State of Israel, reestablishing the Jewish state after 2000 years. In an afternoon ceremony at the Tel Aviv Art Museum, Ben-Gurion pronounced the words “We hereby proclaim the establishment of the Jewish state in Palestine, to be called Israel,” prompting applause and tears from the crowd gathered at the museum. Ben-Gurion became Israel’s first Prime Minister. — Today’s feature article is too short for consideration as an entry for Round 106 of the …

May 13th is the birthday of firearms engineer Theodor Koch (born 1905, died 1976.) Koch, along with Edmund Heckler and Alex Seidel salvaged tooling from the bombed-out Mauser factory at Oberndorf, Germany, and with it founded Heckler und Koch (“HK”). — SurvivalBlog Writing Contest Today we present another entry for Round 106 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round include: First Prize: The photovoltaic power specialists at Quantum Harvest LLC  are providing a store-wide 10% off coupon. Depending on the model chosen, this could be worth more than $2000. A Gunsite Academy Three Day Course Certificate. …

In May of 1921 a solar storm began, dubbed The Great Geomagnetic Storm of May 1921. These were some of the headlines: “Telegraph Service Prostrated, Comet Not to Blame” — declared the Los Angeles Times on May 15, 1921. “Electrical Disturbance is ‘Worst Ever Known’” — reported the Chicago Daily Tribune. “Sunspot credited with Rail Tie-up” — in the New York Times. — SurvivalBlog Writing Contest Today we present another entry for Round 106 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round include: First Prize: The photovoltaic power specialists at Quantum Harvest LLC  are providing a store-wide …

On May 11, 1949, Israel was admitted into the United Nations. — SurvivalBlog Writing Contest Today we present another entry for Round 106 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round include: First Prize: The photovoltaic power specialists at Quantum Harvest LLC  are providing a store-wide 10% off coupon. Depending on the model chosen, this could be worth more than $2000. A Gunsite Academy Three Day Course Certificate. This can be used for any of their one, two, or three-day course (a $1,095 value), Two cases of Mountain House freeze-dried assorted entrees in #10 cans, courtesy of …

May 10th is the birthday of the late Janis Pinups (born 1925, died 15 June 2007). He was one of the last of the Forest Brothers anti-communist resistance fighters. He came out of hiding, after five decades, to obtain a Latvian passport in 1994, after the collapse of Eastern European communism. (He was never issued any communist government identity papers and by necessity lived as a nonexistent “ghost” during the entire Soviet occupation of Latvia.) The history of the Forest Brothers movement certainly deserves more recognition. May 10th is the birthday of the late Col. Jeff Cooper. He was born …

On May 9th, 1945, Herman Goering – commander in chief of the Luftwaffe, president of the Reichstag, head of the Gestapo, prime minister of Prussia, and Hitler’s designated successor – was taken prisoner by the U.S. Seventh Army in Bavaria. Goering, who was addicted to painkillers due to a wound, was instrumental in creating concentration camps for political enemies. It was Goering who ordered the purging of German Jews from the economy following Kristallnacht in 1938, initiating an “Aryanization” policy that confiscated Jewish property and businesses. Tried and convicted at the Nuremberg trials, he was sentenced to hanging, but before …