Pens In Space

Gotten from Tumblr. Source hidden to protect the guilty.

This is one that seems to be making the internet rounds lately. 

American astronauts actually started off using pencils when they first went into space. But they quickly realized that the higher oxygen content in the capsule make the highly flammable carbon in the graphite of the pencil even more... flammable. Which isn't really a good thing.

The tip of the pencils would also break off and float though the cabin. This was more than just a small hazard from potentially inhaling a small piece of sharp graphite -- the bits of pencil got into the equipment and caused shorts. 

NASA didn't actually invest any money into the Space Pen -- it was done by Paul C. Fisher, with his own money.* He was successful, creating the Fisher Space Pen used today by both the Americans and the Russians. ** He sold his pens to the Space Agencies for $2.95 apiece. 

Cagey Dresses

Just to give you a heads up, this Mythtory post is SUPER heavy on pictures. 

This is a picture that's been floating around the interwebs lately. It's usually claimed to be either a woman getting dressed for a party, or a rich woman preparing for her regular day, or sometimes she's a bride getting dressed for her wedding. 

So what is shown in this picture, really? 

Leaps of 1929

Panic of 1907, Outside U. S. Subtreasury building at Wall and Broad St. in October 1907

The Great Depression wasn't the first depression for the US economy, but it's certainly the best known. The most famous story is that on Black Tuesday, 29 October, 1929, that stock investors, realizing that they were financially ruined, threw themselves from their office windows down to the pavement below. 

I was taught in high school that when the stock investors realized that they'd lost so much money they'd never be able to get out of the debt, they jumped from the windows of their high office buildings 

It wasn't even 100 years ago, so how wrong could it be?