Did You Know? Jan. 17, 2018

Did you know? Jan. 17, 2018

Posted by Alan Van Wormer On 01/16/2018

January 17 is Popeye Day

Popeye the Sailor first appeared on this date in 1929 as part of a comic strip called “Thimble Theatre”. Created by E.C. Segar, Popeye and his cast of characters soon became very popular.

Popeye loved to eat spinach, which gave him the strength to defeat his rival Bluto for the hand of his girl, Olive Oyl. The characters became immensely popular, spawning comic books, radio serials, animated cartoons, television series, and feature films.

Today in history: January 17, 1966 The Palomares Incident

During a Cold war alert mission, a nuclear armed B-52 collided with a KC135 tanker aircraft during a mid-flight refueling over the small fishing village of Palomares, Spain. The KC135 exploded, killing it’s 4 man crew. The B-52 was severely damaged in the blast, and 3 of it’s crew were killed as the bomber broke up. Four nuclear bombs went down in the accident.

Three of the bombs fell over land, and two of them detonated non-nuclear explosives on impact. While they did not unleash nuclear explosions, the damage released plutonium and contaminated a small area of land. The third bomb was found intact in a riverbed, but there was no trace of the fourth. Searchers found remains of a parachute housing which led them to believe the 4th bomb’s parachute had deployed and it had drifted out to sea.

After an exhaustive 2½ month search, the bomb was found intact.

Weird fact: A cat named Unsinkable Sam survived 3 ship sinkings during World War II.

Originally known as “Oskar”, Sam was a ship’s cat owned by a sailor in the German Kriegsmarine, aboard the battleship Bismarck. On May 21, 1941 during a famous battle with Britain’s Royal Navy, Bismarck was destroyed and Oskar was found floating on wreckage by the Royal Navy ship HMS Cossack looking for survivors. The crew of the Cossack adopted him, and coincidentally named him “Oscar”. 5 months later on October 24, the Cossack was hit by a torpedo off the coast of Gibraltar. Survivors were transferred frantically to other ships, and efforts were made to tow Cossack, but she also sank. Oscar survived again and was brought ashore at Gibraltar only to be taken out to sea once again, this time aboard the aircraft carrier Ark Royal.

Oscar, now nicknamed “Unsinkable Sam”, still had no luck and 2 weeks later the Ark Royal was torpedoed and sunk off of Malta. The cat was found clinging to a floating plank, and was described as “angry, but unharmed”.

Thankfully, Sam was then retired from sea duty. He spent his remaining days in an Old Sailors home in Norway, where he lived until 1955.

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