Ten Things You Didn't Know About Niagara Falls

Niagara Falls is the collective name for three sets of Falls, the Horseshoe Falls, Bridal Veil Falls and American Falls.  Here are ten things you may not know about Niagara Falls.

1.  Niagara Falls is the most popular destination for people visiting Toronto.

2.  Niagara Falls dates back 12000 years to the last Ice Age.  It erodes 1 metre per year and therefore has eroded 11 kilometres in total.

3.  Sixty-three year old schoolteacher Annie Edson Taylor was the first person to go over the Falls in a barrel.  She survived, as did 13 out of 18 who have attempted a similar feat.

4.  The Niagara River generates five million horsepower of electricity.

5.  Over 80% of the War of 1812 land battles took place along the Niagara River.

www.battlefieldhouse.ca

6.  The Niagara River marked the world's largest undefended border until the Canadians and Americans signed the Treaty of Ghent on Christmas Eve 1814.

7.  Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario's Parliament for a short time, was the site of the signing of the world's first anti-slavery law in 1793.

8.  The world's first railway suspension bridge was completed in 1848 above the Niagara River.

9.  Eighteen tightrope walkers have crossed the Niagara River including Charles Blondin, the most famous, and Nik Wallenda, the most recent.

10.  Sixty-eight Olympic-sized swimming pools could be filled with the amount of water that flows over Niagara Falls every minute.

www.momentotravel.com

Sources:  www.buzzfeed.com
               daily.bhascar.com

Louis Bleriot: Pioneer of Flight

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When Charles Lindbergh was a mere seven years old, Louis Bleriot was flying monoplanes in France.  On July 25, 1909, wearing a khaki jacket, a cap and overalls, Monsieur Bleriot planned to steer his monoplane across the English Channel. Without a compass, and with the wind driving him off course, would he reach his destination?

Louis Bleriot was always one determined individual.  In October of 1900, he saw a pretty girl dining with her parents in a French restaurant and proclaimed to his mother:  "I saw a young woman today.  I will marry her or I will marry no one."  The following February, they walked down the aisle.

His wife would be a champion of his work, first as an engineer and later as an aviator.  One day, Madame Bleriot saved a young child from falling to his death; his parents were so grateful that they gave her husband 25,000 francs towards his aviation work.  Monsieur Bleriot was able to build Bleriot XI.  In the meantime, the young pilot picked up a London Daily Mail newspaper and noticed a contest for a flight across the English Channel, coupled with a 1000-pound reward.  While the Paris newspaper Le Matin predicted that there was "aucune chance" anyone would win the prize, Bleriot went ahead and registered for the contest.

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Bleriot had three main rivals:  Arthur Syemour, an Englishman, did nothing but submit an entry; Charles de Lambert, a Russian aristocrat of French heritage, who established a training base, but went no further: and Hubert Latham who piloted Antoinette IV part way across the English Channel only to ditch it at sea.

www.air-racing-history.com

Enter Louis Bleriot.  Donning his pilot attire, he climbed into his monoplane early on the morning of July 25, 1909.  After making practice runs around the airport, he made his takeoff for the Channel, black smoke belching out of his exhaust.  Bleriot took 1200 revolutions just to clear the telgraph wire along the French coast.  He built of speed, eventually tracking 68 kilometres an hour.  The unpleasant motion of the waves 30 yards below his monoplane bothered him, but he persevered.

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With no compass, he found himself off course at Margaret's Bay part way through the flight; the next ten minutes were filled with nothingness.  Suddenly, Bleriot spotted the French tri-colour flag flying over Dover, England.  Thirty six minutes after taking off, he managed to make a rough but controlled landing near Dover castle, collapsing the landing gear in the process.  A small crowd was there to greet the French pilot including soldiers, policemen and his wife, all happy to see him in one piece.

upload.wikimedia.org

Bleriot collected his 1000-pound prize, becoming somewhat of a celebrity in France.  Le Matin, the newspaper that had made the prediction that no one would collect the prize money, had to eat its words. The money he had spent on making Bleriots I-XI was recouped once he started selling reproductions of Bleriot XI.

With a Click of His Shutter

"...the most effective and best remembered campaigns of the Civil Rights Movement were those where the news media captured iconic images that the nation found impossible to ignore."

National Guard outside Birmingham, Alabama bus depot on May 24,1961 courtesy blogs.denverpost.com.

Birmingham Post-Herald photographer Tommy Langston was dispatched to the town's bus depot to cover the Freedom Rider's arrival in May of 1961.  Armed only with his camera, he set out on foot to his destination only three blocks away.  Prone to seek out danger, Tommy had no idea what he was about to encounter.  The Birmingham Police, knowing there would be a confrontation, deliberately stayed away from the bus station. When the photographer arrived, he found 100 Klu Klux Klan members attacking the Freedom Riders.  Tommy snapped only one photograph before the KKK members turned their wrath on him, smashing his twin Rolleiflex camera and kicking his ribs. Battered and bruised, Tommy fled the bus depot and ran the three blocks back to the newspaper office, his smashed camera under his arm, collapsing upon arrival.

Camera similar to the one used by Tommy Langston courtesy blogspot.com.

Thinking his film was destroyed he was surprised to discover that it was very much intact.  The next day, the Birmingham Post Herald ran his photograph which was viewed not only by Birmingham residents but also Americans across the country.  For the first time, the entire nation could see what these Freedom Rides were all about.  The nation saw unarmed riders being assaulted by armed goons.  They saw unarmed riders refusing to fight back.  They saw armed goons returning for more assaults.  They saw unarmed riders refusing to fight back.  

Tom Langston's photo on May 15, 1961.

Birmingham businessmen saw the police commissioner Bull Connor sanctioning the actions of the KKK as the city and the nation watched.  On a practical level, they knew it was bad for business.  Viewers of the photographers also saw FBI informant Gary Thomas Rowe play a role in the beatings, putting the Bureau in a bad light.

Bull Connor courtesy denverpost.com.

The photograph soon became not national, but international news as it was picked up by newspapers all over the world.  

With a click of his shutter, Tommy Langston had snapped "the picture that changed Birmingham".  But the photograph would come with a price:  Tommy and his family suffered threats from local racists and he decided to shepherd his pregnant wife out of town. 

Photo of National Guard protecting Freedom Rider bus courtesy The Birmingham News.

While the Freedom Rides would end in September of 1961, Tommy's photo would hang in the Herald-Post building for decades.  One colleague who worked with the photographer in the 1980's said that Tommy never mentioned that he took the famous photograph that hung on the wall.  Not one to brag, she said he was the "penultimate gentlemen" who once gave her his coat to wear while they waited to cross a busy highway on a cold, windy night.

The Freedom Riders

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Attacked by a white mob when participating in the first Freedom Ride in 1961, James Peck lay on an operating table as a doctor closed a head wound 4 inches long.  In total, he required 50 stitches.  Once sewn up, James was asked by an Anniston, Alabama reporter if now that he was seriously injured, would he abandon the ride.  His response?  “I’ll be on the bus tomorrow for Montgomery.”

The first Freedom Ride bus left Washington D.C. on May 4, 1961 filled with 13 riders, 7 Black and 6 White.  Their aim was to ride through several Southern States as an integrated party.  They planned to arrive in New Orleans, Louisiana on May 17.  No incidents occurred in Virginia.  However, when the Greyhound bus reached South Carolina, one of its occupants, John Lewis, was attacked.  Arrests for alleged violations of the segregation laws took place in North Carolina, South Carolina and Mississippi.

                                

Map of Freedom Ride routes courtesy blogspot.com.

In Birmingham, the Klu Klux Klan planned an assault on the Freedom Riders, sanctioned by the local police who said they would give them 15 minutes to attack before they arrived.  On Mother’s Day Sunday, a white mob, some still wearing their church clothes, attacked the Greyhound bus, slashing the tires.  In fear, the bus driver put the petal to the metal, but the angry mob followed in hot pursuit in cars.  They chased the crippled bus which soon blew some tires and was forced to stop.  The mob firebombed the bus and then held the doors shut, trapping the Freedom Riders.  Either an exploding fuel tank or a trooper with a revolver forced the mob members to retreat, enabling the riders to make a hasty exit.  The mob still beat the riders, and if not for the arrival of a trooper with a revolver, would have likely lynched them.

Birmingham Bus Station courtesy crmvet.org.  Note the "Colored Waiting Room" sign, indicative of why the Freedom Riders were protesting.

Hospitalized, many of the Freedom Writers were refused care.  Hospital officials released then at 2:00 am, fearful of the mob assembling outside the hospital’s doors. 

President Kennedy saw the image of the burning bus on his television screen.  Knowing he must act, he put pressure on the Greyhound bus drivers to complete the ride.  They refused and therefore Kennedy offered them a police escort to which they said yes.  Driving down the Alabama freeway at 90 miles an hour, the riders remained safe with the Alabama State Highway Patrol at their side.  But they were abandoned by the escort at the Montgomery city limits.  An angry mob greeted them at the bus station, which started to beat the riders while the local police looked the other way.  Reporters and photographers were attacked first so there would be no evidence of the assault.  Ambulance drivers refused to transport the injured riders to the hospital; it was local black residents who rescued the wounded riders. 

media.npr.org

The freedom riders finally arrived at First Baptist Church in Montgomery where they were greeted by a crowd of 1500 people to honour their efforts.  Martin Luther King addressed the congregation along with Ralph Abernathy.  After the service, Dr. King was told that an angry white mob totalling 3000 was outside waiting to pounce on the parishioners.  Rocks flew through the stained glass windows.  Tear gas canisters were released.  Armed black taxi drivers arrived to rescue those inside.  However, fearful of more violence, Dr. King managed to talk the taxi drivers into leaving.  The National Guard arrived later and dispersed the angry mob. 

The second Freedom Ride bus to leave Washington D.C. in May, a Trailways vehicle, received a similar reception as it made its way through the Southern states.  In Birmingham, KKK members, along with police officers led by Commissioner Bull Connor, attacked the non-violent protesters using baseball bats, iron pipes and bicycle chains, leaving them semi-conscious.  This was where rider James Peck ended up with a four-inch gash on his head.  He was refused treatment at the first hospital he went to, but he was treated at the second one.

Klansmen attacking a Freedom Rider in May 1961 courtesy 

http://www.npr.org/2006/01/12/5149667/get-on-the-bus-the-freedom-riders-of-1961.

In total, there were 60 Freedom Riders that participated that first summer.  More than three hundred arrests were made.  Many of the riders chose to stay in jail rather than post bail.  In groups, they sang freedom songs to help pass the time and boost morale.  One sheriff was so annoyed by their singing that he personally drove a group up to the Tennessee border and released them.  Another group had their mattresses, sheets and toothbrushes confiscated.  But still they sang.

On September 22, 1961,  the I.C.C. outlawed segregation on Interstate Busses.  All "Whites Only" signs were ordered removed by November of that year.  

For more information, read:

1. Freedom Ride, James Peck, 1962.
2. Walking with the Wind:  A Memoir of the Movement, John Lewis, 1998.
3. Freedom Writers:  1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice, Raymond Arsenault, 2011.

The Rise & Fall of the Drive-In

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Richard Hollingshead Jr. loved two things:  cars and movies.  One day, in his driveway in Camden, New Jersey, he parked his car, positioned a Kodak projector on the hood, nailed a screen to two trees in the backyard, and rolled the film.  It was the first drive-in.

With $30,000, Mr. Hollingshead opened America's first drive-in on June 6, 1933.  The first film to be played was "Wife Beware".  One advertisement announced:  "The whole family is welcome, regardless of how noisy the children are."  Just as the children could not be heard in the cars' backseats, the movie could not be heard by the occupants of the cars in the back rows.  The location of the speakers was at the front on a pole beside the giant screen.  But the neighbours adjacent to the drive-in could hear the movie whether they wanted to or not.  The noise problem was fixed two years later with the installation of rows of speakers, each beside a car.  

Entrance to the drive-in was cheap:  25 cents per car and 25 cents for each occupant of the car.  Families came out in droves to see the new source of entertainment.  More drive-ins sprouted up across the United States in 1934:  Orefield, Pennsylvania in April, Galveston, Texas in July and Los Angeles, California in September.  

At its peak, 4000 drive-ins decorated the American landscape.  With stiff competition, drive-in owners brainstormed for ways to attract customers:  some offered small petting zoos or cages with monkeys; some had small runways where planes could taxi in and pilots could enjoy the show; some had musical groups perform before the show; some featured personal appearances by actors who appeared in that night's film; some offered religious services on Sunday; some offered "buck nights" at $1 per car.  The smallest drive-in, located in Harmony Pennsylvania, only held 50 cars.  The largest drive-in, in Long Island New York, at 29 acres, held 2500 vehicles.  It featured a full service restaurant with seating on the roof to watch the show along with a shuttle to and from a playground for the kids.  

                               

Charlton Heston parts the Red Sea in "The Ten Commandments" at a Utah Drive-In circa 1958 courtesy www.sfgate.com.

Drive-in popularity peaked in the 1950's and the early 1960's, coinciding with the peak in popularity of automobiles.  "American Graffiti", a story set in 1962, was a coming of age film featuring fast cars.  Premiering in 1973, it featured Ron Howard and Harrison Ford and became a sleeper hit.  Just as "American Graffiti" was full of teenagers, many of the cars at the drive-in were full of teenagers. The drive-in was dubbed "the passion pit" as it became the place to go on a date.  

"American Graffiti" still courtesy www.oocities.org.

The 1970's was the decade that I started going to the drive-in.  I remember my two older sisters and I as kids going to the Starlite Drive-In outside of Grand Bend.  We would don our pajamas, climb into the back of our wood-panelled station wagon and head to the drive-in. After playing on the swingset under the big screen, we would buy some popcorn at the snack bar and then sit back and enjoy the show.  

But with the invention of colour television and the VCR, families started staying home to watch movies by the 1980's.  Businessmen could no longer afford to purchase large amounts of land to build drive-ins due to escalating real estate prices.  Drive-in owners couldn't afford the taxes.  Slowly, drive-ins started to disappear.  The drive-in at the end of our street in Hamilton closed in 1985, was torn down and replaced by a new survey (sadly, we never visited it since it was literally in our own backyard).

As of 2013, the United States has only 366 drive-ins.  While at its peak, 25% of movie screens were drive-ins, that figure has now dropped to 1.5%.

But the statistics didn't stop my son Thomas and his Youth Group from watching a movie last night under the stars.  They sat in the pastor's backyard and watched a Will Smith movie.  Their equipment?  A large tarp and an old movie projector.  What worked for Richard Hollingsford 80 years ago still works for Pastor Ken today.  

The drive-in...it was fun while it lasted.  

The Jewel That Divides Two Cultures

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A creamy limestone bridge spans the emerald-green Neretva River which meanders through a town nestled in the Balkans. The town is beautiful, its history, ugly.

The town of Mostar served as a trading post for the Ottoman Empire for many years.  In 1557, architect Mimar Hajrudin was commissioned, under threat of death, to build a bridge over the Neretva River.  He complied, but arranged to have his funeral on the day that the scaffolding came down in the event that he failed.  The architect was successful and the bridge remained standing for four and a half centuries.

Like Yugoslavia, the town of Mostar was a melting pot of cultures and religions:  Christian church spires dotted the skyline along with Muslim domes and Jewish synagogues.  The city also served as a geographic divider of East and West. Visitors to Mostar could stroll its cobblestone streets and buy Turkish coffee or Persian rugs from hospitable merchants.

With the collapse of the U.S.S.R. in 1991, countries behind the former Iron Curtain were struggling with their new-found independence.  In 1992, war came to the doorstep of the Balkan town.  On November 9, 1993, the beautiful bridge crumbled after being hit by Croatian artillery.   Yugoslavia would be at war for three years and see the country divided up into five parts:  Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Macedonia and Slovenia.

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For years, the Mostar bridge sat in a state of disrepair, its limestone crumbling, tires hanging from its heights. Then in 2001, a plan fell into place to rebuild the bridge, at a cost of 5 million pounds, with aid from other countries.  It reopened in 2004, in a ceremony attended by princes, presidents and prime ministers.

While the war was over in Mostar, hostitilies were not.  As of 2004, one man reported that a pizza joint on one side of the river would not deliver pizza to Muslims on the other side.  Another resident said that you could not take the city bus across the old frontline from the Bosnian Conflict.  A bus driver from the Muslim east side explained:  I would drive to the other side if there was a need.  But hardly anyone goes from one side to the other.

In a move reminiscent of the American Deep South, the grammar school was segregated.  Begrudgingly, the school board were planning on opening the school to Muslims but on a separate floor than the Christians.

Still, the Mostar bridge spans the Neretva River in all its beauty, hoping to bridge the gap between east and west.

www.environmentalgraffiti.com

For more information, read my post The Cellist of Sarajevo dated February 14, 2013 at http://alinefromlinda.blogspot.ca/2013/02/the-cellist-of-sarajevo.html.

A Ketchup Bottle & A Monopoly Game

"I am one of the few witnesses, either living or dead, to the crime of the century." (Ronnie Briggs)

The Royal Mail train had run from Glasgow to London for 125 years without incident.  But on this night in 1963, something would go terribly wrong.  And by morning, there would be two men injured, sixteen men at large and 2.4 million pounds missing.

Driver Jack Mills was manoeuvring his train down the tracks from Glasgow to London.  At 3:00 am, in complete darkness, he stopped at Sears Crossing for a red light.  It was there that the robbers boarded the train, knocked out Mills, and proceeded to take over the train.  The set to work packing up 120 sacks of 1, 5 and 10 pound notes, a particularly large load due to the recent Scottish bank holiday.  Then the thieves ran off in the dark of night with the equivalent of $46 million in today's currency.

Scotland Yard received a ring from Cheddington Station announcing that there had been a robbery. Confused, Scotland Yard thought that it was the station that had been robbed, not the train, and it took them seven hours to get over to the scene of the crime.  They set to work collecting fingerprints and writing down statements.

Just as Scotland Yard's reaction to the robbery was not typical, nor was the reaction of the British public. With a very unpopular Conservative government run by Prime Minister MacMillan, the average Joe on the street almost applauded the thieves for one-upping the government by taking over one of its Royal Mail trains.

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In the seven hours it took Scotland Yard to wake up, the robbers had absconded with the money to their hideout, a nearby farmhouse called Leatherslade Farm.  However, as police detectives started to smell their scent, the gang started to disperse.  Police descended on the farm, and set to work examining its contents.  Inside they found everyday items like cutlery, plates and cups.  They found Monopoly money covered with fingerprints, a game that the thieves played to pass the time.  And a bottle of ketchup bearing the fingerprints of one Ronnie Biggs, a bit player in the train robbery.

www.ebay.com

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One by one, Scotland Yard detectives questioned the gang members.  And one by one they were locked up. Out of 16 members, 12 were charged, seven of whom received 30 year sentences.  It seemed that the case was cut and dried.

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However, Ronnie Biggs decided to climb over the prison wall in 1965 and flee.  He arranged to have plastic surgery to disguise himself and hid away, first in Australia and later, Brazil.  It would become the mission of one of the Scotland Yard detectives to hunt down Mr. Biggs, a hunt that would last a lifetime.  It was not until 2001 that the fugitive, in ailing health, returned to Britain and handed himself in.  He was re-incarcerated, serving time only until 2008 when he was released due to his deteriorating health.

                                                 

friendsreunited.co.uk

In the meantime, the ringleader of the gang, Bruce Reynolds, avoided being captured by escaping to Mexico and later, Canada.  Returning to Britain in 1968, Reynolds was immediately put in jail where he remained for 25 years.  Sadly, many of the robbers did not serve more than ten out of their 30 year sentences.

mirror.co.uk

The train driver, Jack Mills, was so traumatized by the event that he died only 7 years later.  A fellow worker on the train that night also died an early death at 34 years of age.  Ronnie Biggs became somewhat of a folk hero in Britain.  He celebrates his 84th birthday, today, on the 50th anniversary of the train robbery.  He has "no regrets" about his role in the crime, almost proud of his participation.  Bruce Reynolds, who was charged with more crimes in the 1980's, passed away this past February.

The Great Train Robbery remains the biggest train heist in British history.

Note:  For more information, read The Great Train Robbery -- 50th Anniversary -- 1963-2013 by Nick Russell-Pavier, the son of Bruce Reynolds.