Showing posts with label Automobiles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Automobiles. Show all posts

Sunday, April 20, 2025

Monday, April 20, 1925. Route shields

The US adopted the shield symbol for highway routes.


New York police raided Minsky's Burlesque for featuring striptease acts.  Not really newsworthy at the time, the event was later made famous due to a 1960 novel that was turned into a film.

Burlesque shows are mostly a thing of the past, although there are odd efforts to reenact them.  Sort of remembered in a cutesy fashion, they were really much raunchier in some ways than recalled, and indeed many stage shows in general featuring women through the 1920s were fairly pornographic.

Last edition:

Saturday, April 18, 1925.

Monday, April 14, 2025

Saturday, April 14, 1900. Racing.

The Automobile Club of America staged the first car race in U.S. history.

The race took place on Long Island, with the course from Springfield to Babylon, New York, and back.  A. L. Riker won in two hours and 3.5 minutes.

Also in racing, but in bicycles, the Union Cycliste Internationale , the controlling body, was founded in Switzerland.

Last edition:

Friday, April 13, 1900. Direct election.

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Wednesday, March 26, 2025

M38 A1s, National Museum of Military Vehicles.

M38A1 with a recoilless rifle.

The first automobile I ever owned was a M38A1.


The prototype for the modern Jeep, basically, it entered civilian use as the CJ5, after entering military use in 1952.  Doubtless examples are still in use, and civilians varians are still produced by Roxor in India.

 Last edition:

M151 Jeeps. National Museum of Military Vehicles.

Tuesday, March 25, 2025

M151 Jeeps. National Museum of Military Vehicles.

The M151 "Mutt" entered service in 1959 and carried on into the 1990s.  It had fantastic off road capabilities, and was also fantastically dangerous, given its independent wheel suspension system.


The last Jeep to see general use in the U.S. military, it was replaced by HumVeh's, although speciality vehicles, and even modern commercial Jeeps, continue to see some use.  In these examples, the radio mount for a period radio is displayed.


I personally have a lot of experience from the 1980s, with both the M151, and this model of military radio.


Last edition:

M32 Tank Retriever, National Museum of Military Vehicles.

Wednesday, January 22, 2025

Wednesday, January 22, 1975: Mercury Bobcat goes public


January 22, 1975 – Mercury Bobcat goes public

It was the Mercury variant of the Pinto.

The United States ratified the Geneva Protocol of 1925, officially the "Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare".

A bit late. . . 

Landsat 2 was launched.

Last edition:

Friday, January 17, 1975. Chinese political turnover, French infanticide.

Monday, January 6, 2025

Equipment of the Vietnam War, National Museum of Military Vehicles, Dubois Wyoming.

A reader might feel that today must be Vietnam War Day here on this blog, and not without good reason.

For one thing, we've started what will undoubtedly be a series of posts of the closing months of the Vietnam War, with this daily entry:

Monday, January 6, 1975. The Vietnam War resumes in earnest.


For another, I bumped up this old item, or reran it:


And now, of course, the following from my visit to the National Museum of Military Vehilces.

UH-1 "Huey", a helicopter synonymous with the Vietnam War.

Hueys came into use in a major way during the war, and remained in use for many years thereafter. They were still the predominant helicopter when I was a National Guardsmen in the 1980s, and even now I'll occasionally see an Air Force example in Cheyenne in operation.

They remain one of the greatest helicopters of all time.



I wasn't even aware of the M-422's existence as a actual service item.  I've seen them on a television series from the 60s and assumed they were just a studio item substituting for a real Jeep.  Offhand, I think that was from The Lieutenant which only had one run, that being in 1963.






Gun trucks, depicted here, were a Vietnam War thing adn were produced in theater.  








The "Gamma Goat", an incredibly unstable vehicle.  One of the guys I was in basic training with was latter killed in a Gamma Goat roll over.

The M151 Jeep.  Also very unstable, but long serving.  It was the last 1/4 general purpose truck of the US Army used on a widescale basis.








M109 howitzer.  I trained on one of these at Ft. Sill, where I had the "No 1" position on the gun.  A much updated version is still in service.
























Last edition: