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The B-17 (Coronet Magazine, 1959)
1959, Coronet Magazine, Weapons and Inventions

The B-17 (Coronet Magazine, 1959)

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The B-17 Flying Fortress was the most fabulous combat plane ever built. Like Douglas’ unretireable DC-3 airliner, the B-17 is history written in metal, a pivot of progress which helped influence an entire generation.

Perhaps more than any other plane, the B-17 beat Hitler. Its 640,036 tons of bombs on Europe, nearly the total dropped by all other U.S. planes combined, knocked out much of his industry, oil and railroads… The B-17 unveiled the era of strategic air power and turned man’s eye to the stratosphere and beyond.


Click here to read about the P-47 fighter plane.

The B-17 (Coronet Magazine, 1959)
1959, Coronet Magazine, Weapons and Inventions

The B-17 (Coronet Magazine, 1959)

By /

The B-17 Flying Fortress was the most fabulous combat plane ever built. Like Douglas’ unretireable DC-3 airliner, the B-17 is history written in metal, a pivot of progress which helped influence an entire generation.

Perhaps more than any other plane, the B-17 beat Hitler. Its 640,036 tons of bombs on Europe, nearly the total dropped by all other U.S. planes combined, knocked out much of his industry, oil and railroads… The B-17 unveiled the era of strategic air power and turned man’s eye to the stratosphere and beyond.


Click here to read about the P-47 fighter plane.

1945, Weapons and Inventions, Yank Magazine

The Undeveloped Weapons of the Nazi Scientists (Yank Magazine, 1945)

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The war was over when the U.S. Army Ordnance Department began snooping around all the assorted ÜBER-secret weapons labs and work shops where the pointiest headed Nazis were developing some truly far-seeing weaponry, inventions that they were never able to perfect (thankfully).

One of the most striking aspects of the attached article is the part when you recognize that it was the Nazi scientists who first conceived of such space-based weaponry as the Star Wars technology that was ushered in during the Reagan presidency (i.e.: the Strategic Defense Initiative). While in pursuit of their nefarious tasks, these same scientists also conceived of harnessing the powers of the sun in order to advance Hitler’s queer vision of the perfect world.


Click here to read about the firm belief held by the German Army concerning the use of motorcycles in modern war.

Death Dealers Squadron Peleliu 1945 | Napalm Deployed on Peleliu 1945 | WW II Napalm Use
1945, Collier's Magazine, Weapons and Inventions

Enter Napalm (Collier’s Magazine, 1945)

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The first use of napalm in the Second World War was by the U.S. Army Air Corps flying over Germany. This article reported that it was used by Navy over Saipan, the Army over Tinian and the Marines over Peleliu:

Now it is possible to tell one of the more dramatic fire-bomb stories: [During an eight day period] last October, on a section of Peleliu no bigger than a city block, the Death Dealer Squadron of the Second Marine Air Wing dropped more than 32,000 gallons of flaming gasoline on Jap cave positions and wiped them out.


Click here to read about one of the greatest innovations by 20th Century chemists: plastic.

'How We Made the October Revolution'' (New York Times, 1919)
1919, Recent Articles, Soviet History, The New York Times

‘How We Made the October Revolution” (New York Times, 1919)

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Here is Leon Trotsky’s reminiscence of those heady days in 1917 that served as the first step in a 75 year march that went nowhere in particular and put millions of people in an early grave – this is his recollection of the fall of the Kerensky Government and the creation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics(R.I.P.).

THE REVOLUTION was born directly from the war, and the war became the touchstone of all the revolutionary parties and energies…


The review of the first English edition of Das Kapital can be read here…

1941 Paul Robeson Interview
1941, African-American History, The American Magazine

‘America’s No. 1 Negro” (The American Magazine, 1941)

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Paul Robeson (1898 – 1976) was a multi-talented man and this article lays it all out.

Paul Robeson thinks of himself as conclusive proof that there is no such thing as a backward race. Given a few generations of equal opportunities, he believes, any people – Eskimos, Malayans, Fijians or the Untouchables of India – can produce as talented statesmen, scientists, educators, inventors and artists as the whites.

FDR's ''Pack The Court'' Proposal (Pathfinder Magazine, 1937)
1937, Pathfinder Magazine, Recent Articles, Supreme Court-Packing

FDR’s ”Pack The Court” Proposal (Pathfinder Magazine, 1937)

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Attached is a break-down of President Roosevelt’s proposed legislation to rid the Supreme Court of six ornery justices by imposing a mandatory retirement age for the whole of the Federal Government. Failing that, FDR’s legislation would have granted the President power to appoint an additional Justice to the U.S. Supreme Court, up to a maximum of six, for every member of the court over the age of 70, in order to assure passage of all New Deal legislation.

The Hats of 1947 (Collier's Magazine, 1947)
1940s Fashion, 1947, Collier's Magazine

The Hats of 1947 (Collier’s Magazine, 1947)

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With the exception of the broad-brimmed sun hat pictured in the attached fashion editorial, you will find that women’s hats were growing smaller throughout the course of the Forties and they tended to sit farther back on the cranium, requiring hairdos that would accommodate and complement these creations.


The Sally Victor hat composed of red cherries took its inspiration directly from the bizarre, comical costumes worn by the actress Carmen Miranda. This fruit theme was typical of many post-war milliners. The six other hats in the piece were by two American designers: Lilly Dache and John-Frederics.

Click here to see what men’s summer hats were like during this period.

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