USAIN BOLT, THE JAMAICAN WHO BROKE ALL RECORDS

Today, The Grandma has been reading about Usain Bolt, the Jamaican retired sprinter who is considered one of the greatest athletes of all time, who broke the world record in the 100 m sprint, with a wind-legal (+1.7 m/s) 9.72 seconds.

Usain St Leo Bolt (21 August 1986) is a Jamaican retired sprinter, widely considered to be the greatest sprinter of all time. He is a world record holder in the 100 metres, 200 metres and 4 × 100 metres relay.

An eight-time Olympic gold medallist, Bolt is the only sprinter to win Olympic 100 m and 200 m titles at three consecutive Olympics (2008, 2012 and 2016). He also won two 4 × 100 relay gold medals. He gained worldwide fame for his double sprint victory in world record times at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, which made him the first person to hold both records since fully automatic time became mandatory.

An eleven-time World Champion, he won consecutive World Championship 100 m, 200 m and 4 × 100 metres relay gold medals from 2009 to 2015, except for a 100 m false start in 2011. He is the most successful male athlete of the World Championships.

Bolt is the first athlete to win four World Championship titles in the 200 m and is one of the most successful in the 100 m with three titles.

Bolt improved upon his second 100 m world record of 9.69 with 9.58 seconds in 2009 -the biggest improvement since the start of electronic timing. He has twice broken the 200 metres world record, setting 19.30 in 2008 and 19.19 in 2009. He has helped Jamaica to three 4 × 100 metres relay world records, with the current record being 36.84 seconds set in 2012.

Bolt's most successful event is the 200 m, with three Olympic and four World titles. The 2008 Olympics was his international debut over 100 m; he had earlier won numerous 200 m medals, including 2007 World Championship silver, and holds the world under-20 and world under-18 records for the event.

His achievements as a sprinter have earned him the media nickname Lightning Bolt, and his awards include the IAAF World Athlete of the Year, Track & Field Athlete of the Year, BBC Overseas Sports Personality of the Year (three times) and Laureus World Sportsman of the Year (four times).

Bolt retired after the 2017 World Championships, when he finished third in his last solo 100 m race, opted out of the 200 m, and pulled up in the 4×100 m relay final.

More information: Usain Bolt

Bolt was born on 21 August 1986 to parents Wellesley and Jennifer Bolt in Sherwood Content, a small town in Jamaica.

Performing for Jamaica in his first Caribbean regional event, Bolt clocked a personal best time of 48.28 s in the 400 metres in the 2001 CARIFTA Games, winning a silver medal. The 200 m also yielded a silver, as Bolt finished in 21.81 s.

He made his first appearance on the world stage at the 2001 IAAF World Youth Championships in Debrecen, Hungary.

The 2002 World Junior Championships were held in front of a home crowd in Kingston, Jamaica, and Bolt was given a chance to prove his credentials on a world stage.

Under the guidance of new coach Fitz Coleman, Bolt turned professional in 2004, beginning with the CARIFTA Games in Bermuda.

The silver medals from the 2007 Osaka World Championships boosted Bolt's desire to sprint, and he took a more serious, more mature stance towards his career.

Bolt continued to develop in the 100 m, and he decided to compete in the event at the Jamaica Invitational in Kingston.

On 3 May 2008, Bolt ran a time of 9.76 s, with a 1.8 m/s tailwind, improving his personal best from 10.03 s. This was the second-fastest legal performance in the history of the event, second only to compatriot Asafa Powell's 9.74 s record set the previous year in Rieti, Italy.

Bolt doubled-up with the 100 metres and 200 metres events at the Beijing Summer Olympics. As the new 100 m world-record holder, he was the favourite to win both races. Michael Johnson, the 200 m and 400 m record holder, personally backed the sprinter, saying that he did not believe that a lack of experience would work against him.

Bolt qualified for the 100 m final with times of 9.92 s and 9.85 s in the quarter-finals and semi-finals, respectively.

In the Olympic 100 m final, Bolt broke new ground, winning in 9.69 s (unofficially 9.683 s) with a reaction time of 0.165 s. This was an improvement upon his own world record, and he was well ahead of second-place finisher Richard Thompson, who finished in 9.89 s.

More information: Instagram-Usain Bolt

Bolt then focused on attaining a gold medal in the 200 m event, aiming to emulate Carl Lewis' double win in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.

The following day, at the final, he won Jamaica's fourth gold of the Games, setting a new world and Olympic record of 19.30 s. Johnson's record fell despite the fact that Bolt was impeded by a 0.9 m/s headwind. The feat made him the first sprinter since Quarrie to hold both 100 m and 200 m world records simultaneously, and the first to hold both records since the introduction of electronic timing. Furthermore, Bolt became the first sprinter to break both records at the same Olympics.

Bolt began the 2012 season with a leading 100 m time of 9.82 seconds in May. He defeated Asafa Powell with runs of 9.76 seconds in Rome and 9.79 in Oslo. At the Jamaican Athletics Championships, he lost to Yohan Blake, first in the 200 m and then in the 100 m, with his younger rival setting leading times for the year.

However, at the 2012 London Olympics, he won the 100 metres gold medal with a time of 9.63 seconds, improving upon his own Olympic record and duplicating his gold medal from the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Blake was the silver medallist with a time of 9.75 seconds.

Bolt followed this up with a successful defence of his Olympic 200 metres title with a time of 19.32 seconds, followed by Blake at 19.44 and Warren Weir at 19.84 to complete a Jamaican podium sweep.

At the 2016 Rio Olympics, Bolt won the 100 metres gold medal with a time of 9.81 seconds. With this win, Bolt became the first athlete to win the event three times at the Olympic Games.

Bolt followed up his 100 m win with a gold medal in the 200 m, which also makes him the first athlete to win the 200 m three times at the Olympic Games.

Bolt ran the anchor leg for the finals of the 4 × 100 m relay and secured his third consecutive and last Olympic gold medal in the event. With that win, Bolt obtained the triple-triple, three sprinting gold medals in three consecutive Olympics, and finished his Olympic career with a 100% win record in finals.

More information: Olympics

There are better starters than me,
but I'm a strong finisher.

Usain Bolt

WYNONNA JUDD, FROM THE JUDDS TO WORLD SUCCESS

Today, The Grandma is relaxing at home. She has decided to listen to some music, and she has chosen Wynonna Judd, one of her favourite American country music singers, who was born on a day like today in 1964.

Wynonna Ellen Judd, born Christina Claire Ciminella (May 30, 1964) is a multi award-winning American country music singer.

She is one of America's most widely recognized and awarded female country singers of the 1990s.

Her solo albums and singles are all credited to the single name Wynonna. 

She first rose to fame in the 1980s alongside her mother Naomi in the country music duo the Judds. They released seven albums on Curb Records in addition to 26 singles, of which 14 were number-one hits.

The Judds disbanded in 1991 and Wynonna began a solo career, also on Curb. In her solo career, she has released eight studio albums, a live album, a holiday album, and two compilation albums, in addition to more than 20 singles.

Her first three singles were She Is His Only Need, I Saw the Light, and No One Else on Earth. All three reached number one on the U.S. country singles charts consecutively, and To Be Loved by You also hit number one in 1996, her fourth number one and top ten hit. Three of her albums are certified platinum or higher by the RIAA.

Her most recent recording was Wynonna & the Big Noise, released on February 12, 2016, and she released the single Cool Ya' that same month.

Wynonna is most recognized for her musical work, although she has also pursued other interests starting in the 2000s, including writing, acting, and philanthropy.

More information: Wynonna

Wynonna was born Christina Claire Ciminella in Ashland, Kentucky, on May 30, 1964. She was given the last name Ciminella after Michael Ciminella, the man her mother quickly married after being abandoned by her boyfriend and Judd's biological father, Charles Jordan, who died in 2000.

Her younger half-sister is actress Ashley Judd. Naomi and Ciminella moved with the girls to Los Angeles in 1968 but were divorced by 1972.

By 1976, Wynonna and Naomi were living in Kentucky, where Wynonna took inspiration from the country music that her mother listened to and learned to play guitar after receiving one for Christmas. The two of them moved to Nashville, Tennessee, in 1979 in pursuit of a musical career.

Wynonna and Naomi were signed to RCA Records in 1983 as the duo the Judds.

On January 27, 1992, Wynonna performed solo on television for the first time at the American Music Awards. She unveiled She Is His Only Need, the first single from her self-titled solo debut album. This album, Wynonna, was released in 1992 via MCA/Curb, under the production of Tony Brown.

She Is His Only Need went to number one on the Billboard country singles charts that year, as did the album's next three singles, I Saw the Light and My Strongest Weakness. No One Else on Earth, was also the number one country song of 1992 according to Billboard Year-End.

She Is His Only Need and No One Else on Earth were also minor Adult Contemporary hits, and the latter peaked at No. 83 on the Billboard Hot 100. My Strongest Weakness, the album's final single, was a No. 4 country hit. The album shipped five million copies in the United States, earning a 5× Multi-Platinum certification from the RIAA.

More information: Wynonna-Instagram

Her second album, Tell Me Why, was released by MCA/Curb in 1993. Also, a platinum-selling album, it accounted for five consecutive Top Ten hits on the country charts: the title track, Only Love, Is It Over Yet, Rock Bottom, and Girls with Guitars, which was written by Mary Chapin Carpenter.

Tell Me Why was her third crossover hit, peaking at No. 77 on the pop charts and No. 24 on the Adult Contemporary charts. Between Tell Me Why and Only Love, she sang guest vocals on Clint Black's 1993 single A Bad Goodbye, from the album No Time to Kill, which became her biggest pop hit at No. 43. The success of this song led to a tour called the Black & Wy tour, featuring Black and Wynonna as headliners.

In 1994, she also made an appearance on the Lynyrd Skynyrd tribute album Skynyrd Frynds, on which she covered their song Free Bird. She also sang duet vocals on pop-Christian singer Michael English's debut single, Healing, which peaked at No. 120 on the pop charts.

After Girls with Guitars fell from the charts, Wynonna became the subject of negative publicity, as she had a child out of wedlock.

She was absent from the country charts for all of 1995. In 1996, she married Arch Kelly, the father of her daughter and son.

More information: Wynonna-Twitter

Revelations was the title of her third album, released by MCA/Curb in 1996. 

Also certified platinum, this album was led off by her fourth and final number one hit, the Mike Reid/Gary Burr co-written To Be Loved by You. Despite this song's minor Adult Contemporary success, the album's other three singles did not fare as well.

Wynonna's fourth and final album for MCA was titled The Other Side. Unlike her previous country pop-oriented albums, this album focused on a more blues and rock sound. It was released in 1997 and produced four singles. The album did not sell as well as her first three, however, only earning a gold certification.

Its singles were not as successful on the charts, either: although When Love Starts Talkin' and Come Some Rainy Day reached No. 13 and No. 14, respectively, Always Will fell short of Top 40 and Love Like That became the first single of her career not to chart at all. After the release of the greatest hits album called Collection, Wynonna left MCA in favor of Mercury Records.

In 1999, Wynonna decided to reunite with her mother for a tour beginning on New Year's Eve. A month later, Wynonna released her fifth solo album, New Day Dawning. This album, the first of her career that Wynonna co-produced, included a four-song bonus disc entitled Big Bang Boogie composed of four new Judds songs.

What the World Needs Now Is Love, her sixth studio album, was released in August 2003, on Curb records.

Lead-off single What the World Needs reached the Top 15 on the country charts, followed by the lesser singles Heaven Help Me and Flies on the Butter (You Can't Go Home Again), at No. 37 and No. 33 respectively.

This latter song, originally recorded by Lari White on her album Stepping Stone, featured backing vocals from Naomi, and was credited on the charts as Wynonna with Naomi Judd instead of The Judds.

Judd had success on the Hot Dance Airplay charts with a cover of Foreigner's I Want to Know What Love Is. Her rendition peaked at No. 12 on that chart in 2005. Also included on What the World Needs Now Is Love were two songs from soundtracks: a cover of the Elvis Presley hit Burning Love, which Wynonna recorded for the animated film Lilo & Stitch, and You Are, co-written by Judd, which was included in the film Someone Like You, a film starring half-sister Ashley Judd.

Her second release for Asylum-Curb was a live CD/DVD package called Her Story: Scenes from a Lifetime, released in 2005 which was concurrently released by with her best-selling autobiography, Coming Home to Myself. The album included one new studio track, Attitude.

Written by Wynonna and John Rich of Big & Rich, this song was issued as a single, peaking at No. 40 on the country charts. That same year she released her first solo Christmas album called A Classic Christmas that included a Latin version of Ave Maria. She also sang an overdubbed duet with Elvis Presley on the late 2008 RCA album Christmas Duets.

Sing: Chapter 1, her first studio album in six years, was released on February 3, 2009 on Curb Records. This album is largely composed of cover songs, except for the title track, an original composition by Rodney Crowell. It also reunites her with producers Brent Maher and Don Potter, who produced all the Judds' 1980s albums.

This album's lead-off single is I Hear You Knocking, a blues standard first recorded by Smiley Lewis. On May 9, 2009 a seven-song EP containing dance remixes of the title track was released.

More information: Wynonna-Facebook

On September 14, 2010, the Judds appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show where Wynonna discussed her recent weight loss, her year of living dangerously and what it's like going back on stage as part of the iconic duo, the Judds.

The Judds also performed their new single I Will Stand By You, released October 4, 2010. I Will Stand By You was released as the title track to the Judd's 2011 Greatest Hits collection, I Will Stand by You: The Essential Collection.

In 2011, the New York Times bestselling author released her first novel, Restless Heart.

A new single, Love It Out Loud was released in May 2011. On November 27, 2011 Wynonna debuted her new band Wynonna & The Big Noise in Nashville, TN at 3rd and Lindsley.

In March 2013 Wynonna released Something You Can't Live Without, the first single off her forthcoming full-length album, produced by her husband/drummer Cactus Moser and set for release 2013 on Curb Records. This album -her first with all new material in over four years-was recorded in her own home studio and is deeply personal, especially noting the life-changing events the couple experienced in 2012.

Judd released a new studio album, Wynonna & the Big Noise, on February 12, 2016. The album produced Two singles Jesus And A Jukebox and Things I Lean On.

In October 2020, Wynonna released a new extended play titled Recollections via Anti Records.

More information: Taste of Country

There's a place for all types of country music
as long as there is honesty and realness
and a real human experience for the fans.

Wynonna Judd

ROMY SCHNEIDER, A LONG CAREER IN A SHORT TIME

Today, The Grandma is at home watching some French films. She has chosen some of them interpreted by Romy Schneider, the German-French actress who died on a day like today in 1982.

Romy Schneider, born Rosemarie Magdalena Albach (23 September 1938-29 May 1982) was a German-French actress.

She began her career in the German Heimatfilm genre in the early 1950s when she was 15. From 1955 to 1957, she played the central character of Empress Elisabeth of Austria in the Austrian Sissi trilogy, and later reprised the role in a more mature version in Visconti's Ludwig (1973).

Schneider moved to France where she made successful and critically acclaimed films with some of the most notable film directors of that era.

Schneider was born Rosemarie Magdalena Albach in Vienna to actors Magda Schneider and Wolf Albach-Retty. Her paternal grandmother, Rosa Albach-Retty, was also an actress. Schneider's mother was German while her father was Austrian.

Romy Schneider's first film, made when she was 15, was When the White Lilacs Bloom Again (1953), credited as Romy Schneider-Albach.

In 1954, Schneider, for the first time, portrayed a royal, playing a young Queen Victoria in the Austrian film Mädchenjahre einer Königin.

Schneider's breakthrough came with her portrayal of Empress Elisabeth of Austria in the romantic biopic Sissi (1955) and its two sequels, Sissi-The Young Empress (1956) and Sissi-Fateful Years of an Empress (1957), all with Karlheinz Böhm, who became a close friend. Less stereotypical films during this busy period include The Girl and the Legend (1957), working with a young Horst Buchholz, and Monpti (1957), directed by Helmut Käutner, again with Buchholz.

Schneider soon starred in Christine (1958), a remake of Max Ophüls's 1933 film Liebelei, in which her mother Magda Schneider had played the same role. It was during the filming of Christine that Schneider fell in love with French actor Alain Delon who co-starred in the film. She left Germany to join him in Paris, and they announced their engagement in 1959.

More information: The Guardian

Schneider decided to live and to work in France, slowly gaining the interest of film directors such as Orson Welles for The Trial (1962), based on Franz Kafka's The Trial. She was also introduced by Delon to Luchino Visconti. Under Visconti's direction, she gave performances in the Théâtre Moderne as Annabella and Delon as Giovanni in John Ford's stage play 'Tis Pity She's a Whore (1961), and in the film Boccaccio '70.

In 1962, Schneider played Anna in Sacha Pitoëff's production of Chekhov's play The Seagull, also at the Théâtre Moderne.

A brief stint in Hollywood included a starring role in Good Neighbor Sam (1964), a comedy with Jack Lemmon, while What's New Pussycat? (1965), although American-financed, was shot in and around Paris. Schneider co-starred with Peter O'Toole, Peter Sellers, and Woody Allen.

Romy Schneider and Alain Delon decided to separate in December 1963, although they remained close life-long friends. They continued to work together in such films as La Piscine (1968), which revitalized her career, and The Assassination of Trotsky (1972).

Schneider continued to work in France during the 1970s, most notably with director Claude Sautet on five films. Their first collaboration, Les choses de la vie (1970) featuring Michel Piccoli, made Schneider an icon in France. The three collaborated again for the noir thriller Max et les ferrailleurs (1971), and she appeared with Yves Montand in Sautet's César et Rosalie (1972).

Other successes from this period included Le Train (1973), where she played a German-Jewish refugee in World War II, Claude Chabrol's thriller Les innocents aux mains sales (1975) with Rod Steiger, and Le vieux fusil (1975). The gritty L'important c'est d'aimer (1974) garnered her first César Award, France's equivalent of the Oscar, a feat she repeated five years later, in her last collaboration with Sautet, for Une histoire simple (1978).

She also acted in Le Trio infernal (1974) with Michel Piccoli, and in Garde à vue (1981) with Michel Serrault and Lino Ventura. An unpleasant incident occurred during this period with leading German film director Rainer Werner Fassbinder, who wanted to cast her as the lead in his film The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979).

Schneider was found dead in her Paris flat on 29 May 1982.

More information: Mature Times

I wish to present myself in front of the camera,
each time under the features of a different woman.
I would like to live and apprehend the problems,
the conflicts, the feelings and the impulses of women
radically different from me.

Romy Schneider

1937, VOLKSWAGEN (VW) IS FOUNDED IN GERMANY

Today, The Grandma has been reading about Volkswagen, the German motor vehicle manufacturer that was founded on a day like today in 1937.

Volkswagen, shortened to VW, is a German motor vehicle manufacturer founded in 1937 by the German Labour Front, known for the iconic Beetle and headquartered in Wolfsburg. It is the flagship brand of the Volkswagen Group, the largest carmaker by worldwide sales in 2016 and 2017.

The group's biggest market is in China, which delivers 40% of its sales and profits. Popular models of Volkswagen include Golf, Jetta, Passat, Atlas, and Tiguan. The German term Volk translates to people, thus Volkswagen translates to people's car.

Volkswagen was established in 1937 by the German Labour Front (Deutsche Arbeitsfront) in Berlin.

In the early 1930s, cars were a luxury -most Germans could afford nothing more elaborate than a motorcycle and only one German out of 50 owned a car.

Seeking a potential new market, some carmakers began independent people's car projects -the Mercedes 170H, BMW 3/15, Adler AutoBahn, Steyr 55, and Hanomag 1.3L, among others.

War changed production to military vehicles -the Type 82 Kübelwagen, utility vehicle, VW's most common wartime model, and the amphibious Schwimmwagen -manufactured for German forces.

The company owes its post-war existence largely to one man, wartime British Army officer Major Ivan Hirst, REME.

In April 1945, KdF-Stadt and its heavily bombed factory were captured by the Americans and subsequently handed over to the British, within whose occupation zones the town and factory fell.

From 1948, Volkswagen became an important element, symbolically and economically, of West German regeneration.

More information: Volkswagen

Heinrich Nordhoff (1899-1968), a former senior manager at Opel who had overseen civilian and military vehicle production in the 1930s and 1940s, was recruited to run the factory in 1948.

In 1949, Major Hirst left the company -now re-formed as a trust controlled by the West German government and government of the State of Lower Saxony.

The Beetle sedan or peoples' car Volkswagen is the Type 1. Apart from the introduction of the Volkswagen Type 2 commercial vehicle (van, pick-up, and camper), and the VW Karmann Ghia sports car, Nordhoff pursued the one-model policy until shortly before his death in 1968.

VW expanded its product line in 1961 with the introduction of four Type 3 models (Karmann Ghia, Notchback, Fastback, and Variant) based on the new Type 3 mechanical underpinnings. The name Squareback was used in the United States for the Variant.

While Volkswagen's range of cars soon became similar to that of other large European carmakers, the Golf has been the mainstay of the Volkswagen line-up since its introduction,  and the mechanical basis for several other cars of the company. There have been eight generations of the Volkswagen Golf, the first of which was produced from the summer of 1974 until the autumn of 1983.

In 1991, Volkswagen launched the third-generation Golf, which was European Car of the Year for 1992. The Golf Mk3 and Jetta Mk3 arrived in North America in 1993. The sedan version of the Golf was badged Vento in Europe but remained Jetta in the United States. The Scirocco and the later Corrado were both Golf-based coupés.

The sixth-generation VW Golf was launched in 2008, came runner-up to the Opel/Vauxhall Insignia in the 2009 European Car of the Year, and has spawned several cousins: VW Jetta, VW Scirocco, SEAT León, SEAT Toledo, Škoda Octavia and Audi A3 hatchback ranges, as well as a new mini-MPV, the SEAT Altea.

In 2017, Volkswagen announced plans to place a considerable focus on electric vehicles (EV), with a goal to, by 2025, launch at least 30 EV models, and have 20 to 25 percent of their total yearly sales volume (2-3 million) consist of EVs.

In September, Volkswagen CEO Matthias Müller stated that the company aimed to have electric versions of all of its vehicle models by 2030, at a cost of 20 billion euro, and 50 billion euro on acquisition of batteries.

In November 2020, Volkswagen announced that, trying to remain the world's largest carmaker in the green era, it has increased its investment in electric and self-driving cars to $86 billion over the next five years.

More information: VW

I love fast cars... and to go too fast in them.

Lara Flynn Boyle

THE NC-4 AIRCRAFT, THE FIRST TRANSATLANTIC FLIGHT

Today, The Grandma has gone to the library to search more information about Curtiss NC-4, the flying boat that was the first aircraft to fly across the Atlantic Ocean and arrives in Lisbon on a day like today in 1919.

The NC-4 was a Curtiss NC flying boat that was the first aircraft to fly across the Atlantic Ocean, albeit not non-stop.

The NC designation was derived from the collaborative efforts of the Navy (N) and Curtiss (C). The NC series flying boats were designed to meet wartime needs, and after the end of World War I they were sent overseas to validate the design concept.

The aircraft was designed by Glenn Curtiss and his team, and manufactured by Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company, with the hull built by the Herreshoff Manufacturing Corporation in Bristol, Rhode Island.

In May 1919, a crew of United States Navy and US Coast Guard aviators flew the NC-4 from New York State to Lisbon, Portugal, over the course of 19 days. This included time for stops of numerous repairs and for crewmen's rest, with stops along the way in Massachusetts, Nova Scotia, on the mainland, Newfoundland, and twice in the Azores Islands. Then its flight from the Azores to Lisbon completed the first transatlantic flight between North America and Europe, and two more flights from Lisbon to northwestern Spain to Plymouth, England, completed the first flight between North America and Great Britain.

This accomplishment was somewhat eclipsed in the minds of the public by the first non-stop transatlantic flight, made by the Royal Air Force pilots John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown two weeks later.

More information: History Net

The transatlantic capability of the NC-4 was the result of developments in aviation that began before World War I.

In 1908, Glenn Curtiss had experimented unsuccessfully with floats on the airframe of an early June Bug craft, but his first successful takeoff from water was not carried out until 1911, with an A-1 airplane fitted with a central pontoon.

In January 1912, he first flew his first hulled hydro-aeroplane, which led to an introduction with the retired English naval officer John Cyril Porte who was looking for a partner to produce an aircraft with him to attempt to win the prize of the newspaper the Daily Mail for the first transatlantic flight between the British Isles and North America-not necessarily non-stop, but using just one airplane.

Emmitt Clayton Bedell, a chief designer for Curtiss, improved the hull by incorporating the Bedell Step, the innovative hydroplane step in the hull allowed for breaking clear of the water at takeoff. Porte and Curtiss were joined by Lt. John H. Towers of the U.S. Navy as a test pilot.

The 1914 America flying boat produced by Porte and Curtiss was a larger aircraft with two engines and two pusher propellers.

 

The members of the team hoped to claim the prize for a transatlantic flight, however their ambitions were curtailed on 4 August 1914 with the outbreak of World War I in Europe. Development continued in the U.S. and Porte now back in the Royal Navy's flight arm the RNAS, commissioned more flying boats to be built by the Curtiss Company. These could be used for long-range antisubmarine warfare patrols. Porte modified these aircraft, and he developed them into his own set of Felixstowe flying boats with more powerful engines, longer ranges, better hulls and better handling characteristics. He shared this design with the Curtiss Company, which built these improved models under licence, selling them to the U.S. Government.

This culminated in a set of four identical aircraft, the NC-1, NC-2, NC-3 and the NC-4, the U.S. Navy's first series of four medium-sized Curtiss NC floatplanes made for the Navy by the Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company. The NC-4 made its first test flight on 30 April 1919.

World War I had ended in November 1918, before the completion of the four Curtiss NCs.

More information: Blue Jacket

Then in 1919, with several of the new float planes in its possession, the officers in charge of the U.S. Navy decided to demonstrate the capability of the seaplanes with a transatlantic flight. However, it was necessary to schedule refuelling and repair stops that were also for crewmen's meals and sleep and rest breaks -since these Curtiss NCs were quite slow in flight. For example, the flight between Newfoundland and the Azores required many hours of night flight because it could not be completed in one day.

The U.S. Navy's transatlantic flight expedition began on 8 May 1919. The NC-4 started out in the company of two other Curtiss NCs, the NC-1 and the NC-3, with the NC-2 having been cannibalized for spare parts to repair the NC-1 before this group of planes had even left New York City. The three aircraft left from Naval Air Station Rockaway, with intermediate stops at the Chatham Naval Air Station, Massachusetts, and Halifax, Nova Scotia, before flying on to Trepassey, Newfoundland, on 15 May. Eight U.S.

Navy warships were stationed along the northern East Coast of the United States and Atlantic Canada to help the Curtiss NCs in navigation and to rescue their crewmen in case of any emergency.

More information: Aviation History

Three days after arriving in the Azores, on 20 May, the NC-4 took off again bound for Lisbon, but it suffered mechanical problems, and its pilots had to land again at Ponta Delgada, São Miguel Island, Azores, having flown only about 240 km.

After several days of delays for spare parts and repairs, the NC-4 took off again on 27 May. Once again there were station ships of the Navy to help with navigation, especially at night. There were 13 warships arranged along the route between the Azores and Lisbon.

The NC-4 had no more serious problems, and it landed in Lisbon harbour after a flight of nine hours, 43 minutes. Thus, the NC-4 become the first aircraft of any kind to fly across the Atlantic Ocean -or any of the other oceans. By flying from Massachusetts and Halifax to Lisbon, the NC-4 also flew from mainland-to-mainland of North America and Europe.

The part of this flight just from Newfoundland to Lisbon had taken a total time 10 days and 22 hours, but with the actual flight time totalling just 26 hours and 46 minutes.

The crewmen of the NC-4 were Albert Cushing Read, the commander and navigator; Walter Hinton and Elmer Fowler Stone, the two pilots; James L. Breese and Eugene S. Rhoads, the two flight engineers; and Herbert C. Rodd, the radio operator. Earlier, E.H. Howard had been chosen to go as one of the flight engineers, but on 2 May, Howard lost a hand in misjudging his distance from a whirling propeller. Consequently, he was replaced by Rhoads in the crew.

More information: Aviastar

In the early days of aviation,
there was a great deal of experimentation
and a high death rate.

Elon Musk

LENNY ALBERT KRAVITZ, 'ARE YOU GONNA GO MY WAY'

Today, The Grandma is relaxing at home. She has been listening to one of her favourite musicians, Lenny Kravitz, the American singer, who was born on a day like today in 1964.

Leonard Albert Kravitz (born May 26, 1964) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, record producer, and actor.

His style incorporates elements of rock, blues, soul, R&B, funk, jazz, reggae, hard rock, psychedelic, pop, folk, and ballads.

Kravitz won the Grammy Award for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance four years in a row from 1999 to 2002, breaking the record for most wins in that category and setting the record for most consecutive wins in one category by a male.

He has been nominated for and won other awards, including American Music Awards, MTV Video Music Awards, Radio Music Awards, Brit Awards, and Blockbuster Entertainment Awards.

He was also ranked at No. 93 on VH1's 100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock. He was made an Officer of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2011, and has played Cinna in the Hunger Games film series. In his career, Kravitz has sold over 40 million albums worldwide.

More information: Lenny Kravitz

Leonard Albert Kravitz was born in Manhattan, the only child of actress Roxie Roker (1929–1995) and NBC television news producer Sy Kravitz. His mother came from a Christian family of African-American and Bahamian descent. His father descended from Ukrainian Jews, with one of his great-grandfathers hailing from Kyiv.

Kravitz released his début album Let Love Rule in 1989, a combination of rock and funk with a 1960s vibe.

In 1990, Kravitz produced the song Justify My Love for Madonna, which he co-wrote with Ingrid Chavez. The song, which appeared on her greatest hits album The Immaculate Collection and created controversy because of its explicit video, went to number 1 for two consecutive weeks.

In 1993, Kravitz wrote Line Up for Aerosmith's Steven Tyler, and appeared on Mick Jagger's solo album, Wandering Spirit, in a cover of the Bill Withers soul classic Use Me, and played guitar on the title track of David Bowie's The Buddha of Suburbia. That year Kravitz also got to work with idols Al Green and Curtis Mayfield. Are You Gonna Go My Way was released, reaching number 12 on the Billboard 200 and Kravitz earned a BRIT Award for best international male artist in 1994.

He would win the first of his four consecutive Grammy for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance at the Grammy Awards of 1999.

Kravitz released his sixth album Lenny in October 2001.

Kravitz's seventh album Baptism was released in May 2004.

Kravitz's next album, tentatively titled Funk, was tentatively re-titled Negrophilia and was due out sometime in 2010.

The Raise Vibration world tour, (2018) coincided with the release of his 11th studio album.

Kravitz Design Inc. is a New York City-based company founded by Kravitz in 2003.

Kravitz Design focuses on commercial, residential and product creative direction and design.

More information: Lenny Kravitz-Instagram

I just need to know that I did the very best
I could and that I was true to myself.

Lenny Kravitz

ROBERT CAPA, THE PHOTOJOURNALISM IN WAR TIMES

Today, The  Grandma has been looking at photos made by one of the best photographs in history, Robert Capa, who is considered the greatest combat and adventure photographer in history, who died on a day like today in 1954.

Robert Capa, born Endre Ernő Friedmann (October 22, 1913-May 25, 1954) was a Hungarian-American war photographer and photojournalist as well as the companion and professional partner of photographer Gerda Taro.

He is considered by some to be the greatest combat and adventure photographer in history.

Capa fled political repression in Hungary when he was a teenager, moving to Berlin, where he enrolled in college. He witnessed the rise of Hitler, which led him to move to Paris, where he met and began to work with Gerta Pohorylle. Together they worked under the alias Robert Capa and became photojournalists. Though she contributed too much of the early work, she quickly created her own alias Gerda Taro, and they began to publish their work separately. He subsequently covered five wars: the Spanish Civil War, the Second Sino-Japanese War, World War II across Europe, the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, and the First Indochina War, with his photos published in major magazines and newspapers.

During his career he risked his life numerous times, most dramatically as the only civilian photographer landing on Omaha Beach on D-Day. He documented the course of World War II in London, North Africa, Italy, and the liberation of Paris. His friends and colleagues included Ernest Hemingway, Irwin Shaw, John Steinbeck and director John Huston.

In 1947, for his work recording World War II in pictures, U.S. general Dwight D. Eisenhower awarded Capa the Medal of Freedom. That same year, Capa co-founded Magnum Photos in Paris. The organization was the first cooperative agency for worldwide freelance photographers. Hungary has issued a stamp and a gold coin in his honour.

More information: Magnum Photos

Capa was born Endre Ernő Friedmann to the Jewish family of Júlia and Dezső Friedmann in Budapest, Austria-Hungary on October 22, 1913. His mother, Julianna Henrietta Berkovits was a native of Nagykapos and Dezső Friedmann came from the Transylvanian village of Csucsa. At the age of 18, he was accused of alleged communist sympathies and was forced to flee Hungary.

He moved to Berlin where he enrolled in Berlin University where he worked part-time as a darkroom assistant for income and then became a staff photographer for the German photographic agency, Dephot. It was during that period that the Nazi Party came into power, which made Capa, a Jew, decide to leave Germany and move to Paris.

He became professionally involved with Gerta Pohorylle, later known as Gerda Taro, a German-Jewish photographer who had moved to Paris for the same reasons he did. The two of them decided to work under the alias Capa at this time. The two of them later separated aliases and published their work independently.

Capa and Taro developed a romantic relationship alongside their professional one. 

Capa proposed and Taro refused, but they continued their involvement. He also shared a darkroom with French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, with whom he would later co-found the Magnum Photos cooperative.

Capa's first published photograph was of Leon Trotsky making a speech in Copenhagen on The Meaning of the Russian Revolution in 1932.

From 1936 to 1939, Capa worked in Spain, photographing the Spanish Civil War, along with Gerda Taro, his companion and professional photography partner, and David Seymour.

Taro died when the motor vehicle in which she was travelling, apparently standing on the footboard, collided with an out-of-control tank. She had been returning from a photographic assignment covering the Battle of Brunete.

It was during that war that Capa took the photo now called The Falling Soldier, purporting to show the death of a Republican soldier. The photo was published in magazines in France and then by Life magazine and Picture Post. The authenticity of the photo was later questioned, with evidence including other photos from the scene suggesting it was staged. Picture Post, a pioneering photojournalism magazine published in the United Kingdom, had once described the twenty-five-year-old Capa as the greatest war photographer in the world.

Capa accompanied then journalist and author Ernest Hemingway to photograph the war, which Hemingway would later describe in his novel, For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940). Life magazine published an article about Hemingway and his time in Spain, along with numerous photos by Capa.

In December 2007, three boxes filled with rolls of film, containing 4,500 35 mm negatives of the Spanish Civil War by Capa, Taro, and Chim (David Seymour), which had been considered lost since 1939, were discovered in Mexico. In 2011, Trisha Ziff directed a film about those images, entitled The Mexican Suitcase.

In 1938, he travelled to the Chinese city of Hankou, now within Wuhan, to document the resistance to the Japanese invasion. He sent his images to Life magazine, which published some of them in its May 23, 1938 issue.

More information: ICP

At the start of World War II, Capa was in New York City, having moved there from Paris to look for work, and to escape Nazi persecution.

On October 7, 1943 Robert Capa was in Naples with Life reporter Will Lang Jr., and there he photographed the Naples post office bombing.

In 1947 Capa travelled to the Soviet Union with his friend, the American writer John Steinbeck. They originally met when they shared a room in an Algiers hotel with other war correspondents before the Allied invasion of Italy in 1943. They reconnected in New York, where Steinbeck told him he was thinking about visiting the Soviet Union, now that the war was over.

In 1947, Capa founded the cooperative venture Magnum Photos in Paris with Henri Cartier-Bresson, William Vandivert, David Seymour, and George Rodger. It was a cooperative agency to manage work for and by freelance photographers, and developed a reputation for the excellence of its photo-journalists.

Capa toured Israel during its founding and while it was being attacked by neighbouring states. He took the numerous photographs that accompanied Irwin Shaw's book, Report on Israel.

In the early 1950s, Capa travelled to Japan for an exhibition associated with Magnum Photos. While there, Life magazine asked him to go on assignment to Southeast Asia, where the French had been fighting for eight years in the First Indochina War. Although he had claimed a few years earlier that he was finished with war, Capa accepted the job. He accompanied a French regiment located in Thái Bình Province with two Time-Life journalists, John Mecklin and Jim Lucas.

On 25 May 1954, the regiment was passing through a dangerous area under fire when Capa decided to leave his jeep and go up the road to photograph the advance. Capa was killed when he stepped on a landmine near the road.

He was 40 at the time of his death. He is buried in plot #189 at Amawalk Hill Cemetery, also called Friends Cemetery, Amawalk, Westchester County, New York along with his mother, Julia, and his brother, Cornell Capa.

More information: The Culture Trip

If your pictures aren't good enough,
you aren't close enough.

Robert Capa

S. MILOSEVIC, CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY IN KOSOVO

Today, The Grandma has been reading about one of the worst moments in the European history, the Balkan Wars.

 

On a day like today in 1999, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, Netherlands indicted Slobodan Milošević for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Kosovo.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY)  was a body of the United Nations established to prosecute the war crimes committed during the Yugoslav Wars, and to try their perpetrators.

The tribunal was an ad hoc court located in The Hague, Netherlands.

The Court was established by Resolution 827 of the United Nations Security Council, which was passed on 25 May 1993.

It had jurisdiction over four clusters of crimes committed on the territory of the former Yugoslavia since 1991: grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, violations of the laws or customs of war, genocide, and crimes against humanity. The maximum sentence it could impose was life imprisonment. Various countries signed agreements with the UN to carry out custodial sentences.

A total of 161 persons were indicted; the final indictments were issued in December 2004, the last of which were confirmed and unsealed in the spring of 2005. The final fugitive, Goran Hadžić, was arrested on 20 July 2011. The final judgment was issued on 29 November 2017 and the institution formally ceased to exist on 31 December 2017.

Residual functions of the ICTY, including oversight of sentences and consideration of any appeal proceedings initiated since 1 July 2013, are under the jurisdiction of a successor body, the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT).

United Nations Security Council Resolution 808 of 22 February 1993 decided that an international tribunal shall be established for the prosecution of persons responsible for serious violations of internationalhumanitarian law committed in the territory of the former Yugoslavia since 1991", and calling on the Secretary-General to submit for consideration by the Council... a report on all aspects of this matter, including specific proposals and where appropriate options... taking into account suggestions put forward in this regard by Member States.

The Court was originally proposed by German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel.

By 25 May 1993, the international community had tried to pressure the leaders of the former Yugoslavian republics diplomatically, militarily, politically, economically, and –with Resolution 827– through juridical means.

Resolution 827 of 25 May 1993 approved S/25704 report of the Secretary-General and adopted the Statute of the International Tribunal annexed to it, formally creating the ICTY.

The indictees ranged from common soldiers to generals and police commanders all the way to prime ministers. Slobodan Milošević was the first sitting head of state indicted for war crimes. Other high level indictees included Milan Babić, former President of the Republika Srpska Krajina; Ramush Haradinaj, former Prime Minister of Kosovo; Radovan Karadžić, former President of the Republika Srpska; Ratko Mladić, former Commander of the Bosnian Serb Army; and Ante Gotovina, former General of the Croatian Army.

The very first hearing at the ICTY was a referral request in the Tadić case on 8 November 1994. Croat Serb General and former President of the Republic of Serbian Krajina Goran Hadžić was the last fugitive wanted by the Tribunal to be arrested on 20 July 2011.

An additional 23 individuals have been the subject of contempt proceedings.

More information: ICTY

Milosevic will never stop,
because he is fighting for personal power in Serbia.
The only way to stop him is cutting the functioning of his war machine.
He is spending $1.7 million a day on his war machine in Kosovo.

Fatos Nano

THE TRAGIC END OF BONNIE PARKER & CLYDE BARROW

Today, The Grandma is relaxing at home. She has decided to read about two of the most controversial American figures of the last century, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, the American criminal couple well-known during the Great Depression who were killed on a day like today in 1934.

Bonnie Elizabeth Parker (October 1, 1910-May 23, 1934) and Clyde Chestnut Barrow (March 24, 1909-May 23, 1934) were an American criminal couple who travelled the Central United States with their gang during the Great Depression, known for their bank robberies, although they preferred to rob small stores or rural gas stations.

Their exploits captured the attention of the American press and its readership during what is occasionally referred to as the public enemy era between 1931 and 1934. They are believed to have murdered at least nine police officers and four civilians.

They were killed in May 1934 during an ambush by police near Gibsland, Louisiana.

The press's portrayal of Bonnie and Clyde was sometimes at odds with the reality of their life on the road, especially for Parker. She was present at 100 or more felonies during the two years that she was Barrow's companion, although she was not the cigar-smoking, machine gun-wielding killer depicted in newspapers, newsreels, and pulp detective magazines of the day.

Nonetheless, numerous police accounts detail her attempts to murder police officers, although gang member W.D. Jones contradicted them at trial. A photo of Parker posing with a cigar came from an undeveloped roll of film that police found at an abandoned hideout, and the snapshot was published nationwide. Parker did smoke cigarettes, although she never smoked cigars.

According to historian Jeff Guinn, the photos found at the hideout resulted in Parker's glamorization and the creation of myths about the gang.

The 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde, directed by Arthur Penn and starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway in the title roles, revived interest in the criminals and glamorized them with a romantic aura. The 2019 Netflix film The Highwaymen depicted the law's pursuit of Bonnie and Clyde.

More information: FBI

Bonnie Elizabeth Parker was born in 1910 in Rowena, Texas, the second of three children. Her father Charles Robert Parker (1884-1911) was a bricklayer who died when Bonnie was 1 year old. Her widowed mother Emma (Krause) Parker (1885-1944) moved her family back to her parents' home in Cement City, an industrial suburb in West Dallas where she worked as a seamstress.

As an adult, Bonnie wrote poems such as The Story of Suicide Sal and The Trail's End, the latter more commonly known as The Story of Bonnie and Clyde.

In her second year in high school, Parker met Roy Thornton (1908-1937). The couple dropped out of school and married on September 25, 1926, six days before her 16th birthday. Their marriage was marred by his frequent absences and brushes with the law, and it proved to be short-lived. They never divorced, but their paths never crossed again after January 1929. She was still wearing his wedding ring when she died.

Thornton was in prison when he heard of her death. He commented, I'm glad they went out like they did. It's much better than being caught. Sentenced to 5 years for robbery in 1933 and after attempting several prison breaks from other facilities, Thornton was killed while trying to escape from the Huntsville State Prison on October 3, 1937.

After the end of her marriage, Parker moved back in with her mother and worked as a waitress in Dallas. One of her regular customers was postal worker Ted Hinton.

In 1932, he joined the Dallas Sheriff's Department and eventually served as a member of the posse that killed Bonnie and Clyde.

Parker briefly kept a diary early in 1929 when she was 18, in which she wrote of her loneliness, her impatience with life in Dallas, and her love of talking pictures.

More information: Smithsonian Magazine

Clyde Chestnut Barrow was born in 1909 into a poor farming family in Ellis County, Texas, southeast of Dallas. He was the fifth of seven children of Henry Basil Barrow (1874-1957) and Cumie Talitha Walker (1874-1942). The family moved to Dallas in the early 1920s, part of a migration pattern from rural areas to the city, where many settled in the urban slum of West Dallas. The Barrows spent their first months in West Dallas living under their wagon until they got enough money to buy a tent.

Barrow was first arrested in late 1926, at age 17, after running when police confronted him over a rental car that he had failed to return on time. His second arrest was with his brother Buck soon after for possession of stolen turkeys.

Barrow had some legitimate jobs during 1927 through 1929, but he also cracked safes, robbed stores, and stole cars. He met 19-year-old Parker through a mutual friend in January 1930, and they spent much time together during the following weeks. Their romance was interrupted when Barrow was arrested and convicted of auto theft.

Clyde was sent to Eastham Prison Farm in April 1930 at the age of 21. He escaped from the prison farm shortly after his incarceration using a weapon Parker smuggled to him. He was recaptured shortly after and sent back to prison.

Barrow was repeatedly sexually assaulted while in prison, and he retaliated by attacking and killing his tormentor with a pipe, crushing his skull. This was his first killing. Another inmate, who was already serving a life sentence, claimed responsibility.

In order to avoid hard labour in the fields, Barrow purposely had two of his toes chopped off by either him or another inmate in late January 1932. Because of this, he walked with a limp for the rest of his life.

However, Barrow was set free six days after his intentional injury. Without his knowledge, Barrow's mother had successfully petitioned for his release. He was paroled on February 2, 1932 from Eastham as a hardened and bitter criminal. His sister Marie said, Something awful sure must have happened to him in prison because he wasn't the same person when he got out. Fellow inmate Ralph Fults said that he watched Clyde change from a schoolboy to a rattlesnake.

In his post-Eastham career, Barrow robbed grocery stores and gas stations at a rate far outpacing the ten or so bank robberies attributed to him and the Barrow Gang. His favourite weapon was the M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR).

More information: History

According to John Neal Phillips, Barrow's goal in life was not to gain fame or fortune from robbing banks but to seek revenge against the Texas prison system for the abuses that he suffered while serving time.

Several accounts describe Parker and Barrow's first meeting. The most credible states that they met on January 5, 1930 at the home of Barrow's friend Clarence Clay at 105 Herbert Street in the neighbourhood of West Dallas.

Barrow was 20 years old, and Parker was 19. Parker was out of work and staying with a female friend to assist her during her recovery from a broken arm. Barrow dropped by the girl's house while Parker was in the kitchen making hot chocolate. Both were smitten immediately; most historians believe that Parker joined Barrow because she had fallen in love with him. She remained his loyal companion as they carried out their many crimes and awaited the violent death that they viewed as inevitable.

Barrow and Parker were killed on May 23, 1934, on a rural road in Bienville Parish, Louisiana.

More information: Bonnie & Clyde History

 Gang violence in America is not a sudden problem.
It has been a part of urban life for years,
offering an aggressive definition and identity
to those seeking a place to belong
in the chaos of large metropolitan areas.

Dave Reichert