How many frozen cows do you need to blow up to make a hamburger…… news report
From history , here’s that famous whale – stick another couple of sticks of dynamite on there… and some more….. and some more…. here…. brilliant commentary.
How many frozen cows do you need to blow up to make a hamburger…… news report
From history , here’s that famous whale – stick another couple of sticks of dynamite on there… and some more….. and some more…. here…. brilliant commentary.
Around about 1751, Benjamin Franklin became the first person to initiate explosives with electricity. Franklin, as usual, was well ahead of other scientists around the world. While one aspect of this research leads us to modern electrical initiation of explosives and munitions another leads us towards the hazards of lightning when associated with stored munitions, and Franklin became expert at lightning conductors for munition stores.
For the past few years I’ve been mentally filing interesting accidental explosions from history and I’m now being encouraged to gather my notes together, and indeed relay some of the intriguing aspects to these stories. Shortly you’ll see a new page on this blog dedicated to such events.
Here’s a great example:
In August 1769 lightning struck the tower of the Church of San Nazaro on Brescia, Italy. In the vaults of the church over 200,000 pounds of explosive was stored. The resulting explosion killed 3000 people and destroyed a large part of the city.
For many centuries gunpowder was stored in churches – there seems to have been a belief that the church bells prevented lightning. Unfortunately I guess the opposite is true – the tall steeples and towers on a church actually encourage lightning strikes. During thunder storms teams of men rang the bells in church towers in efforts to prevent thunderstorms. During the period 1753 to 1786 lightning killed 103 French bell ringers. A triumph of belief over evidence surely.
Interestingly Franklin was extremely active in advising European governments after the Brescia event on the principles of lightning protection for munitions stores. At one stage there was a dispute over the best shaped lightning rods , with Franklin a proponent of sharp pointed rods on top of buildings and an Englishman, Benjamin Wilson urging the use of ball shaped terminals below the roof line. The argument became political, and George III decided he didn’t want American advice…. And Franklin’s conductors were replaced on several British munitions stores. One of them in Sumatra subsequently disappeared with a bang during a thunderstorm.
As late as 1856 gunpowder stored in a church in Rhodes was hit by lightning and it exploded killing , allegedly, 4000 people.
Further to the recent theme, this is pretty interesting – a link to before and after photos of the explosion at the Iranian facility last week
Click on the buttons at the top of the picture in the link to tranistion from before to after. Pretty intersting stuff – no sign of a single catastrophic explosion but lots of damage and destruction of whole buildings – but not others and I thinks some bulldozing of some of the buioldings after the event. Comments from the rest of you amateur BDA guys out there welcome :- )
I’m not sure what to think – other than its damned interesting.
In a previous post I detailed the use of remarkably sophisticated submarines used by South American narco gangs to smuggle cocaine. Here below are some recent images of a different range of narco developed equipment – this time “tanks” or more accurately armoured personnel carriers. All of these from Mexico where things are are pretty bad. The war between the individual cartels sometimes makes the conflict between the cartels and the police and military seem like a side show. Government officials are being cowed by the concept of “plata o plomo” – silver or lead…… they are offered both and have to make the choice. Some people suggest that 40,000 people have been killed or “disappeared” since 2006… that’s a pretty big number and easily exceeds Iraq and Afghanistan.
As is usual , this ain’t a first, and I recall other terrorist groups improvising such things in the past. and in response cartels are now obtaining anti-tank weapons.
By the way, 2011 is Mexico’s “Year of Tourism”.
A divergent aside from the grim world of terrorism. I came across a fascinating historical eccentric British military figure. He went by the name of Lieutenant General Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart VC, KBE, CB, CMG, DSO. Very non-PC. I’m digging into his life story, and honestly you couldn’t make it up. Here’s some examples of his exploits:
I think he might be the subject of my next book…. 🙂