Dynamic Directory - May 17, 2025

Francis Gary Powers was flying a Lockheed U-2 over Soviet territory when he was shot-down by a surface-to-air missile on May 1, 1962.

This is the type of aircraft - a U-2 "spy plane" - which Major Richard S. Heyser flew over Cuba when his photos revealed the the USSR was placing missiles in Cuba.

On May 9, 1941, the HMS Aubretia captures the German U-110 and retrieves the Enigma machine and codes.

German, Arthur Scherbius creates the Enigma device in 1923; the Nazis use the codes in WWII.

U-boats are submarines the Germans use to attack Allied supply ships.

The British ship, HMS Aubretia, spots the U-110's periscope and drops depth charges to disable the submarine.

A British ship and David Balme, a sailor, capture U-110 and its Enigma machine and code.

The British do not want the Germans to know they have the Enigma machine so they tow the U-110 to Iceland where it eventually sinks.

Polish mathematicians help Britain's Alan Turing create a decoder to the Enigma machine.

It is never easy to break the codes because the Germans change them frequently; finally the British learn to decode important weather signals.

America captures its first U-boat, the U-505, off the coast of French West Africa.

The U-505 has a permanent home at Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry, where visitors can tour it.

When the movie is made in the US, it causes friction with the British because it was a British, not an American, crew that retrieved the Enigma machine and its code books from U-110. The actual U-571 sinks off the west coast of Ireland in January 1944.

"Ultra" was the cover-name given to the actual intelligence, obtained from decoding Germany's military messages at Bletchley Park, which was secretly passed on to Churchill and his military commanders.

The general who helped the North win the American Civil War was working in his father's leather store (in Galena, Illinois) when the fighting began. Seven years after joining the war, he became America's 18th President.

Susan and her sister Mary used the 14th Amendment to convince officials to let them register to vote.

A remarkable man died July 2, 2014. His story opens, here, with three men in a raft in the middle of the Pacific Ocean without food and water.

The childhood story of Louis Zamperini, his training as a runner, and how running took him to the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, Germany.

Louie joins the Army and drops bombs on Japanese from a B-24 bomber. The B-24 history is overwhelming in terms of crashes and loss of life.

Zamp and his crewmates name their B-24 Super Man. A Popular Science article describes where B-24s are made and how they look.

Old photographs of the B-24 in action.

Japanese anti-aircraft damage Super Man over Nauru, and bomb the island of Funafuti. Zamp and his crew use Green Hornet for a search and rescue mission.

Green Hornet crashes in the ocean. Zamp and two men drift in a life raft, surrounded by sharks, hoping someone will find them. They exist on rainwater and birds.

The Japanese capture Zamp and Phil after 47 days. They are beaten and treated worse than animals. Zamp and Phil transfer to another prisoner of war camp. No one knows they are alive.

Zamp and Phil move to another anonymous prisoner of war camp. Guards are brutal, and meals are poor. Zamp meets a guard he knew from college in the US. He and Phil move to Omori.

The Japanese know that Zamperini is an Olympic hero. He makes a radio broadcast, but will not speak against US policies. He moves to Naoetsu. Rumors begin about Hiroshima and the end of war.

Mutsuhiro Watanabe (The Bird) is the worst Japanese guard; he makes life hard for Zamp at several camps. After the war, The Bird hides, begins a new life and is not punished for his crimes.

Louie comes home from war angry and violent. After meeting Billy Graham, Louie decides to change his life and learn to forgive those who harmed him.

Louie receives permission to return to Japan to meet and forgive his old guards who are now in prison. Prior to the 1998 Olympic games in Japan, Zamp carries the Olympic Torch past one of his old prison camps.

The Quack - a prison guard at Ofuna - seemed to take great pleasure in harming Allied prisoners of war.

Ofuna, a place Louis Zamperini came to know well, was a secret interrogation camp where Japanese officials questioned prisoners of war.

James Montgomery Flagg created this 1917 lithograph as a magazine cover. It soon became used for other purposes, such as recruiting troops for both world wars.

Runaway slave Tice Davids' journey across a river between the slave states and free states gives a name to a movement.

Tice, a runaway slave, swims across the Ohio River which separates a free state and a slave state. When he disappears, it's like he is traveling on an "underground road."

Men, women and children are captured in Africa and arrive in the "New World" as slaves after a terrible transatlantic journey aboard ships.

African-American slaves are bought and sold like animals in the country's system of chattel slavery.

Slaves who are brought to America to work the southern plantations have little "comfort and happiness."

Slaves, who are forced to do hard work in the fields growing cotton and other crops, are often abused.

The Underground Railroad is dangerous; many risk their lives both escaping and helping others escape.

The Underground Railroad poses incredible risks and uses railroad terms to keep the passages secret.

"Conductors" are people who lead the slaves to safety; some include runaway slaves such as Harriet Tubman.

Escaping slaves, during the years of the "Underground Railroad," arrive at League Island (near Philadelphia).

Escaping slaves needed to understand a bit of science in order to find their way to freedom. The words of songs helped them to achieve that objective.

Under the Tuscan Sun is a movie about the life of recently divorced writer, Frances Mayes, who moves to Tuscany.

Take a virtual tour of Cortona, a town in the region of Italy known as Tuscany.

Etruscans are the civilization of ancient Italy inhibiting Tuscany, western Umbria, and northern Latium.

Learn about Umbria and Tuscany, the regions in the center of Italy.

Frances Mayes, the author of her memoirs Under the Tuscan Sun, splits her time between San Francisco and Tuscany.

Mayes' Tuscan home is named Bramasole (English translation is "yearning for the sun").

Joseph Hooker was known as an arrogant man. Although he was a leading Union General, President Lincoln had to make a decision whether to keep Hooker in a high-command position.

The flag of England is the Cross of St. George. That is just one part of the ''Union Jack.''

Otto Boetticher, an artist, was serving as a captain for the Union when he was captured by Confederate soldiers. He was sent to the Salisbury prison camp, in North Carolina, where other Union prisoners-of-war were able to play baseball.

After the Declaration of Independence was signed, the Continental Congress authorized a new form of currency to be used throughout the United Colonies.

Following World War II, a Cold War developed between America and the Soviet Union. During that time, the U.S. and the U.K. continued to enjoy their ''special relationship.''

Chinese laborers help to build the American West, but how are the workers treated as they build their new country?

Was Einstein so brilliant that he could dismiss the unpredictability of quantum mechanics - or - was he simply wrong that everything (including outcomes in quantum mechanics) can be predicted?