The Official "RIU History" Thread

[BROBIE]

William Bradford Shockley Jr. (February 13, 1910 – August 12, 1989) was an American physicist and inventor. Shockley was the manager of a research group that included John Bardeen and Walter Houser Brattain, the duo who invented the transistor.

Late in his life, Shockley became intensely interested in questions of race, human intelligence, and eugenics. He thought this work was important to the genetic future of the human species and came to describe it as the most important work of his career, even though expressing his views damaged his reputation. Shockley argued that a higher rate of reproduction among the less intelligent was having a dysgenic effect, and that a drop in average intelligence would ultimately lead to a decline in civilization. Shockley's published writings and lectures to scientific organizations on this topic were partly based on the writings of psychologistCyril Burt and were funded by thePioneer Fund. Shockley also proposed that individuals with IQs below 100 be paid to undergo voluntary sterilization

 

[see4]

Michael Joseph Jackson[2][3] (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American singer, songwriter, record producer, dancer, and actor. Called the King of Pop,[4][5] his contributions to music and dance, along with his publicized personal life, made him a global figure in popular culture for over four decades.

The eighth child of the Jackson family, he debuted on the professional music scene along with his elder brothers Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, and Marlon as a member of the Jackson 5 in 1964, and began his solo career in 1971. In the early 1980s, Jackson became a dominant figure in popular music. The music videos for his songs, including those of "Beat It", "Billie Jean", and "Thriller", were credited with breaking down racial barriers and with transforming the medium into an art form and promotional tool. The popularity of these videos helped to bring the then-relatively-new television channel MTV to fame. With videos such as "Black or White" and "Scream", he continued to innovate the medium throughout the 1990s, as well as forging a reputation as a touring solo artist. Through stage and video performances, Jackson popularized a number of complicated dance techniques, such as the robot and the moonwalk, to which he gave the name. His distinctive sound and style has influenced numerous hip hop, post-disco, contemporary R&B, pop, and rock artists.

Jackson's 1982 album Thriller is the best selling album of all time. His other albums, including Off the Wall (1979), Bad (1987), Dangerous (1991), and HIStory (1995), also rank among the world's best selling albums. Jackson is one of the few artists to have been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice. He was also inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Dance Hall of Fame as the first and only dancer from pop and rock music. His other achievements include multiple Guinness World Records; 13 Grammy Awards, as well as the Grammy Legend Award and the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award; 26 American Music Awards—more than any other artist—including the "Artist of the Century" and "Artist of the 1980s"; 13 number-one singles in the United States during his solo career, more than any other male artist in the Hot 100 era; and the estimated sale of over 400 million records worldwide.[Note 1] Jackson has won hundreds of awards, making him the most awarded recording artist in the history of popular music.[6] Jackson became the first artist in history to have a top ten single in the Billboard Hot 100 in five different decades when "Love Never Felt So Good" reached number nine on May 21, 2014.[7] Jackson traveled the world attending events honoring his humanitarianism, and, in 2000, the Guinness World Records recognized him for supporting 39 charities, more than any other entertainer.[8]

Aspects of Jackson's personal life, including his changing appearance, personal relationships, and behavior, generated controversy. In the mid-1990s, he was accused of child sexual abuse, but the civil case was settled out of court for an undisclosed amount and no formal charges were brought.[9] In 2005, he was tried and acquitted of further child sexual abuse allegations and several other charges after the jury found him not guilty on all counts. While preparing for his comeback concert series titled This Is It, Jackson died of acute propofol and benzodiazepine intoxication on June 25, 2009, after suffering from cardiac arrest. The Los Angeles County Coroner ruled his death a homicide, and his personal physician Conrad Murray was convicted of involuntary manslaughter. Jackson's death triggered a global outpouring of grief and a live broadcast of his public memorial service was viewed around the world.[10]

 

[a senile fungus]

Industrial Revolution

Iron and Coal, 1855–60, by William Bell Scottillustrates the central place of coal and iron working in the industrial revolution and the heavy engineering projects they made possible.

The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in the period from about 1760 to sometime between 1820 and 1840. This transition included going from hand production methods to machines, new chemical manufacturing and iron production processes, improved efficiency of water power, the increasing use ofsteam power, and the development of machine tools. It also included the change from wood and other bio-fuels to coal. Textiles were the dominant industry of the Industrial Revolution in terms of employment, value of output and capital invested; the textile industry was also the first to use modern production methods.[1]

The Industrial Revolution marks a major turning point in history; almost every aspect of daily life was influenced in some way. In particular, average income and population began to exhibit unprecedented sustained growth. Some economists say that the major impact of the Industrial Revolution was that the standard of living for the general population began to increase consistently for the first time in history, although others have said that it did not begin to meaningfully improve until the late 19th and 20th centuries.[2][3][4]

 

[Pinworm]

 

[UncleBuck]

William Bradford Shockley Jr. (February 13, 1910 – August 12, 1989) was an American physicist and inventor. Shockley was the manager of a research group that included John Bardeen and Walter Houser Brattain, the duo who invented the transistor.

Late in his life, Shockley became intensely interested in questions of race, human intelligence, and eugenics. He thought this work was important to the genetic future of the human species and came to describe it as the most important work of his career, even though expressing his views damaged his reputation. Shockley argued that a higher rate of reproduction among the less intelligent was having a dysgenic effect, and that a drop in average intelligence would ultimately lead to a decline in civilization. Shockley's published writings and lectures to scientific organizations on this topic were partly based on the writings of psychologistCyril Burt and were funded by thePioneer Fund. Shockley also proposed that individuals with IQs below 100 be paid to undergo voluntary sterilization

is that the same pioneer fund that "respected academic" phillipe rushton administered?



AKA your tiny penis

 

[BarnBuster]

Introduced in January 1904 by a pharmaceutical and suture maker Van Horn and Sawtell of New York City, and later acquired by Johnson & Johnson, K-Y Jelly's original stated purpose was as a surgical lubricant, and it was often chosen by doctors because of its natural base. The product is now more widely used as a sexual lubricant. It does not react with latex condoms or silicone rubber-based sex toys. While K-Y has a thick consistency and a tendency to dry out during use, it can be "reactivated" by the addition of saliva or more water. K-Y Jelly does not contain a spermicide. A formulation with nonoxynol-9 was available, but Johnson & Johnson removed it from the market after finding that it could facilitate HIV spread.

 

[Fogdog]

Scopes was arrested on this day in 1925

Scopes trial, Tennessee legal case involving the teaching of evolution in public schools. A statute was passed (Mar., 1925) in Tennessee that prohibited the teaching in public schools of theories contrary to accepted interpretation of the biblical account of human creation. John T. Scopes, a biology teacher, was tried (July, 1925) for teaching Darwinism in a Dayton, Tenn., public school. Clarence Darrow was one of Scopes's attorneys, while William Jennings Bryan aided the state prosecutor. Darrow argued that academic freedom was being violated and claimed that the legislature had indicated a religious preference, violating the separation of church and state. He also maintained that the evolutionary theory was consistent with certain interpretations of the Bible, and in an especially dramatic session he sharply questioned Bryan on the latter's literal interpretation. Scopes was convicted, partly because of the defense, which refused to plead any of the technical defenses available, fearing an acquittal on a technical rather than a constitutional basis. Scopes was, however, later released by the state supreme court on a technicality. Although the outcry over the case tended to discourage enactment of similar legislation in other states, the law was not repealed until 1967.

 

[Padawanbater2]

Happy Birthday Mr. Marx

"Karl Marx (/mɑrks/; German pronunciation: [ˈkaɐ̯l ˈmaɐ̯ks]; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. Marx's work in economics laid the basis for much of the current understanding of labour and its relation to capital, and subsequent economic thought. He published numerous books during his lifetime, the most notable being The Communist Manifesto (1848 ) and Das Kapital (1867–1894).

Born into a wealthy middle-class family in Trier in the Prussian Rhineland, Marx studied at the Universities of Bonn and Berlin where he became interested in the philosophical ideas of the Young Hegelians. After his studies he wrote for Rheinische Zeitung, a radical newspaper in Cologne, and began to work out the theory of the materialist conception of history. He moved to Paris in 1843, where he began writing for other radical newspapers and met Friedrich Engels, who would become his lifelong friend and collaborator. In 1849 he was exiled and moved to London together with his wife and children, where he continued writing and formulating his theories about social and economic activity. He also campaigned for socialism and became a significant figure in the International Workingmen's Association.

Marx's theories about society, economics and politics—the collective understanding of which is known as Marxism—hold that human societies progress through class struggle: a conflict between an ownership class that controls production and a dispossessed labouring class that provides the labour for production. States, Marx believed, were run on behalf of the ruling class and in their interest while representing it as the common interest of all; and he predicted that, like previous socioeconomic systems, capitalism produced internal tensions which would lead to its self-destruction and replacement by a new system: socialism. He argued that class antagonisms under capitalism between the bourgeoisie and proletariat would eventuate in the working class' conquest of political power and eventually establish a classless society, communism, a society governed by a free association of producers. Marx actively fought for its implementation, arguing that the working class should carry out organised revolutionary action to topple capitalism and bring about socio-economic change.

Both lauded and criticized, Marx has been described as one of the most influential figures in human history. Many intellectuals, labour unions and political parties worldwide have been influenced by Marx's ideas, with many variations on his groundwork. Marx is typically cited, with Émile Durkheim and Max Weber, as one of the three principal architects of modern social science."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Marx

 

[see4]

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (/mænˈdɛlə/;[1] Xhosa pronunciation: [xoˈliːɬaɬa manˈdeːla]; 18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013) was a South African anti-apartheid revolutionary, politician and philanthropist who served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999. He was South Africa's first black chief executive, and the first elected in a fully representative democratic election. His government focused on dismantling the legacy of apartheid through tackling institutionalised racism, povertyand inequality, and fostering racial reconciliation. Politically an African nationalist and democratic socialist, he served as President of the African National Congress (ANC) party from 1991 to 1997. Internationally, Mandela was Secretary General of the Non-Aligned Movement from 1998 to 1999.

A Xhosa born to the Thembu royal family, Mandela attended Fort Hare University and the University of Witwatersrand, where he studied law. Living in Johannesburg, he became involved in anti-colonial politics, joining the ANC and becoming a founding member of its Youth League. After the Afrikaner minority government of the National Party established apartheid in 1948, he rose to prominence in the ANC's 1952 Defiance Campaign, was appointed superintendent of the organisation's Transvaal chapter and presided over the 1955 Congress of the People. Working as a lawyer, he was repeatedly arrested for seditious activities and, with the ANC leadership, was unsuccessfully prosecuted in the Treason Trialfrom 1956 to 1961. Influenced by Marxism, he secretly joined the South African Communist Party (SACP) and sat on its Central Committee. Although initially committed to non-violent protest, in association with the SACP he co-founded the militant Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) in 1961, leading a sabotage campaign against the apartheid government. In 1962, he was arrested, convicted of conspiracy to overthrow the state, and sentenced to life imprisonment in the Rivonia Trial.

Mandela served 27 years in prison, initially on Robben Island, and later in Pollsmoor Prison and Victor Verster Prison. An international campaign lobbied for his release, which was granted in 1990 amid escalating civil strife. Mandela joined negotiations with Nationalist President F. W. de Klerk to abolish apartheid and establish multiracial elections in 1994, in which he led the ANC to victory and became South Africa's first black president. He published his autobiography in 1995. During his tenure in the Government of National Unity he invited other political parties to join the cabinet, and promulgated a new constitution. He also created the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate past human rights abuses. While continuing the former government's liberal economic policy, his administration also introduced measures to encourage land reform, combat poverty, and expand healthcare services. Internationally, he acted as mediator between Libya and the United Kingdom in the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial, and oversaw military intervention in Lesotho. He declined to run for a second term, and was succeeded by his deputy, Thabo Mbeki. Mandela became an elder statesman, focusing on charitable work in combating poverty and HIV/AIDS through the Nelson Mandela Foundation.

Mandela was a controversial figure for much of his life. Denounced as a communist terrorist by critics, he nevertheless gained international acclaim for his activism, having received more than 250 honours, including the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize, the US Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the Soviet Order of Lenin. He is held in deep respect within South Africa, where he is often referred to by his Xhosa clan name, Madiba, or as Tata ("Father"); he is often described as the "Father of the Nation".

 

[see4]

Sun Yat-sen (/ˈsʊn ˈjɑːtˈsɛn/; 12 November 1866 – 12 March 1925)[1][2] was a Chinese revolutionary, first president and founding father of the Republic of China, and medical practitioner. As the foremost pioneer of the Republic of China, Sun is referred to as the "Father of the Nation" in the Republic of China (ROC), and the "forerunner of democratic revolution" in the People's Republic of China (PRC). Sun played an instrumental role in the overthrow of the Qing dynasty during the years leading up to the Double Ten Revolution. He was appointed to serve as Provisional President of the Republic of China, when it was founded in 1912. He later co-founded the Kuomintang (KMT), serving as its first leader.[3] Sun was a uniting figure in post-Imperial China, and remains unique among 20th-century Chinese politicians for being widely revered amongst the people from both sides of the Taiwan Strait.

Although Sun is considered one of the greatest leaders of modern China, his political life was one of constant struggle and frequent exile. After the success of the revolution, he quickly resigned, due to Beiyang Clique pressure, from his post as President of the newly founded Republic of China, and led successive revolutionary governments as a challenge to the warlords who controlled much of the nation. Sun did not live to see his party consolidate its power over the country during the Northern Expedition. His party, which formed a fragile alliance with the Communists, split into two factions after his death. Sun's chief legacy resides in his developing of the political philosophy known as the Three Principles of the People: nationalism, democracy, and the people's livelihood.[4]


I'm betting 98% of you have never heard of this fella.

 

[Padawanbater2]

I'm betting 98% of you have never heard of this fella.

I never have, sounds like a pretty stand up guy from that summary

 

[BarnBuster]

James Wright was an engineer at General Electric who invented Silly Putty in 1943.

The invention of Bouncy Putty that was later renamed Silly Putty happened accidentally. During World War II, the United States couldn't obtain natural rubber from Asian suppliers, who gathered it from rubber trees. General Electric was trying to find a way to supply rubber for truck tires and soldiers boots. James Wright, an engineer at General Electric, was working with silicone oil-a clear, gooey compound composed of silicon bonded to several other elements. By substituting silicon for carbon, the main element in rubber, Wright hoped to create a new compound with all the flexibility and bounce of rubber.

In 1943, Wright made a surprising discovery. He mixed boric acid with silicone oil in a test tube. Instead of forming the hard rubber material he was looking for, the compound remained slightly gooey to the touch. Disappointed with the results, he tossed a gob of the material from the test tube onto the floor. To his surprise, the gob bounced right back at Wright. The new compound was very bouncy and could be stretched and pulled. However, it wasn't a good rubber substitute, so Wright and other GE scientists continued their search.

Seven years after this event, a toy seller named Peter Hodgson packaged some of Wright's creation in a small plastic egg and presented his new product at the 1950 International Toy Fair in NY. The material was to be called Silly Putty, and it proved to be popular. Millions of eggs containing the starch has been sold to kids of all ages since. Rubber and boric acid are substances with very different properties. This was James Wright's greatest highlight of his career. Its first name was Nutty Putty but changed later due to marketing concerns. It is now called silly Putty; it was actually one of the most sold items in 1949.

 

[see4]

I never have, sounds like a pretty stand up guy from that summary

He was the founding father of modern day China, and liberator of Taiwan. (For all intents and purposes)

 

[Padawanbater2]

He was the founding father of modern day China, and liberator of Taiwan. (For all intents and purposes)

I was always under the impression from a western education that Mao Zedong was the dude considered the founding father of modern day China.

What was his favored economic system and how well did that work for the people?

 

[see4]

I was always under the impression from a western education that Mao Zedong was the dude considered the founding father of modern day China.

What was his favored economic system and how well did that work for the people?

He was a Communist and is the father of modern day Communist China.

Sun Yat-sen was a revolutionist and briefly the President of the Republic of China, a more democratic political system.

Both are fathers to modern day China. But because of pressure from powerful constituents, Mao Zedingdong lead the Communist Party to power and stayed there. And they managed to rewrite the history of China, all but deleting Sun Yat-sen from any acknowledgment of his actions. Sun Yat-sen is the real Father of the People's Republic of China.

 

[BarnBuster]

Inventor of the Fortune Cookie​

While their Japanese origins aren’t disputed, nobody knows exactly where the modern fortune cookie came from. It’s widely reported that they made their first American appearance at San Francisco’s Japanese Tea Garden in the 1890s, however.

Makoto Hagiwara, a Japanese immigrant who had served as official caretaker of the Japanese Tea Gardens since 1895, began serving the cookies at the Tea Garden sometime between 1907 and 1914. (His grandson, George Hagiwara believes the correct date is between 1907 – 1909). The cookies were based on Japanese senbei – grilled rice wafers. According to some sources; the cookies contained thank you notes instead of fortunes, and may have been Hagiwara’s way of thanking the public for getting him rehired after he was fired by a racist Mayor.

Meanwhile, Canton native David Jung had immigrated to Los Angeles. In 1916 he founded the Hong Kong Noodle Company. He claimed to have invented the fortune cookie around 1918, handing out baked cookies filled with inspiring passages of scripture to unemployed men. However, even the Los Angeles Almanac website admits that there is no surviving documentation showing how he came up with the idea

 

[BarnBuster]

To All Allied Servicemen and Women in WWII​

V-E Day 1945: The Celebration Heard 'round the World
By Gerald D. Swick HistoryNet.com.

Facts and Summary, V-E Day, also written VE Day: V-E Day stands for Victory in Europe Day. In the Soviet Union it was called simply Victory Day and still goes by that name in states of the former USSR. Some early reports in the West also called the day V-Day, but V-E was more accurate, as the war still continued in the Pacific Theater. Today in France the day is called World War II Victory Day.

V-E Day was observed on May 8, 1945 in Great Britain, Western Europe, the United States and Australia, and on May 9 in the Soviet Union and New Zealand.

V-E Day commemorates the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany to the Allied forces in 1945, ending World War II in Europe. With their power-mad Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler, dead by his own hand, German military leaders signed surrender documents at several locations in Europe on May 7, capitulating to each of their victorious foes. Germany's partner in fascism, Italy, had switched sides in 1943, though many Italians continued to fight alongside their German comrades in Italy.

Significance of V-E Day​

For just over five years and eight months a war had been raging in Europe that began with Germany's invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939. By the summer of 1941, the military of Germany's fascist dictator Adolf Hitler had conquered or subdued virtually all of Europe from Spain's eastern border to the western border of the Soviet Union. Italy, under the control of the fascist Benito Mussolini, was allied with Germany, and the two nations fought against the British (and later the Americans) in North Africa and Italy.

While still at war with Great Britain Hitler invaded the USSR on June 22, 1941, and on December 11 of that year he declared war on the United States of America, to honor a mutual support pact he had signed with Imperial Japan. The "European War" and the war the Japanese had been fighting in Asia and the Southwest Pacific were now a global conflict—the Second World War. Upon entering the war in December 1941, the United States agreed on a "Europe first" strategy: concentrate on defeating Germany, Italy and their satellites rather than focusing the bulk of men and resources on the war in the Pacific.

V-E Day, therefore, marked a major milestone for the Allies but did not end the war—as Allied governments pointedly reminded their citizens. Attention turned to finishing the war against Imperial Japan. Continue reading to see how the news of victory in Europe was received in Allied nations around the world and by front-line troops in Europe and the Asia-Pacific theater

 

[Padawanbater2]

Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln Listeni/ˈeɪbrəhæm ˈlɪŋkən/ (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. Lincoln led the United States through its Civil War—its bloodiest war and its greatest moral, constitutional and political crisis. In doing so, he preserved the Union, abolished slavery, strengthened the federal government, and modernized the economy.

Born in Hodgenville, Kentucky, Lincoln grew up on the western frontier in Kentucky and Indiana. Largely self-educated, he became a lawyer in Illinois, a Whig Party leader, and a member of the Illinois House of Representatives, where he served from 1834 to 1846. Elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1846, Lincoln promoted rapid modernization of the economy through banks, tariffs, and railroads. Because he had originally agreed not to run for a second term in Congress, and because his opposition to the Mexican–American War was unpopular among Illinois voters, Lincoln returned to Springfield and resumed his successful law practice. Reentering politics in 1854, he became a leader in building the new Republican Party, which had a statewide majority in Illinois. In 1858, while taking part in a series of highly publicized debates with his opponent and rival, Democrat Stephen A. Douglas, Lincoln spoke out against the expansion of slavery, but lost the U.S. Senate race to Douglas.

In 1860 Lincoln secured the Republican Party presidential nomination as a moderate from a swing state. With very little support in the slaveholding states of the South, he swept the North and was elected president in 1860. His election prompted seven southern slave states to form the Confederate States of America before he was sworn into office. No compromise or reconciliation was found regarding slavery and secession.

After the Confederates attacked Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, the North enthusiastically rallied behind the Union. Lincoln concentrated on the military and political dimensions of the war. His primary goal was to reunite the nation. He suspended habeas corpus, leading to the controversial ex parte Merryman decision. Lincoln averted potential British intervention in the war by defusing the Trent Affair in late 1861. His complex moves toward ending slavery centered on the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863. Lincoln used the U.S. Army to protect escaped slaves, encouraged the border states to outlaw slavery, and helped push through Congress the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which permanently outlawed slavery. Lincoln closely supervised the war effort, especially the selection of top generals, including his most successful general, Ulysses S. Grant. He also made major decisions on Union war strategy; for example: a naval blockade that shut down the South's normal trade; moves to take control of Kentucky and Tennessee; and using gunboats to gain control of the southern river system. Lincoln tried repeatedly to capture the Confederate capital at Richmond; each time a general failed, Lincoln substituted another, until finally Grant succeeded in 1865.

An exceptionally astute politician deeply involved with power issues in each state, Lincoln reached out to "War Democrats" (those who supported the North against the South), and managed his own re-election campaign in the 1864 presidential election. As the leader of the moderate faction of the Republican Party, Lincoln confronted Radical Republicans, who demanded harsher treatment of the South, War Democrats, who called for more compromise, anti-war Democrats (called Copperheads), who despised him, and irreconcilable secessionists, who plotted his assassination. Politically, Lincoln fought back by pitting his opponents against each other, by appealing to the American people with his powers of oratory, and by carefully planned political patronage. His Gettysburg Address of 1863 became an iconic endorsement of the principles of nationalism, republicanism, equal rights, liberty, and democracy. Lincoln held a moderate view of Reconstruction, seeking to reunite the nation speedily through a policy of generous reconciliation in the face of lingering and bitter divisiveness. Six days after the surrender of Confederate commanding general Robert E. Lee, Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth, a Confederate sympathizer.

Lincoln has been consistently ranked both by scholars and the public as one of the three greatest U.S. presidents.


Imo, the greatest president to serve the Union

This dude did this while battling clinical depression.. He saved the motherfucking Union from breaking apart, he emancipated the slaves, he started a social and economic revolution, and he won the motherfucking American Civil War despite a blatant absence in General leadership until near the conclusion of the war. He had an unyielding sense of moral character and fortitude. He was so influential during his presidency, his rivals in the republican national convention in 1864 stepped aside to endorse him in support of the Union in the face of the democrats and George McClellan. He won the election with 91% of the electoral vote and 55% of the popular vote, losing only New Jersey, Delaware and Kentucky in the election

 

[BarnBuster]

The roots of the Buck family involvement in knifemaking reach back four generations to Hoyt Buck, born in 1889 near Leavenworth, Kansas. With his formal schooling limited to the fourth grade, he became an apprentice to a Leavenworth blacksmith at the of 13. One of his jobs was to sharpen reapers and hoes for local farmers, and he soon realized that the metal of these tools did not hold an edge, resulting in frequent return visits and the need for him to constantly work the smithy's grindstone. Through trial and error the youngster developed a method to temper the metal of these tools so they would remain sharp for longer periods of time. Using discarded rasps, he then applied this technique to making knife blades that could hold an edge. Many years passed, however, before Hoyt Buck turned his discovery to commercial use. He quit the blacksmith trade at the age of 18 and moved to the Pacific Northwest. There he married and started a family, which he supported primarily through hard labor in the sawmills of the Northwest, working as a resawyer, trimming rough lumber into finished planks. It was not until America's entry into World War II, when the government called for donations of fixed-blade knives, that Hoyt Buck again put his knifemaking skills to use. He set up a small blacksmith shop in the basement of the Idaho church where he served as a lay pastor and turned out knives for the military. He earned such a high reputation for quality that by the end of the war there was a long waiting list of servicemen desiring a handcrafted Buck knife.

With the war over, in 1946 Hoyt and his wife moved to San Diego, where their son Al lived with his family. Hoping to start a knife company with his son, he set up his forge, anvil, and grinder in a lean-to next to Al's garage and began turning out knives in the afternoons. Mornings were spent drumming up orders by visiting potential customers in the area, such as butcher shops, restaurants, and sporting goods stores. For raw material he used discarded metal file blades (purchased for a penny a piece from the nearby Consolidated Vultee airplane plant), rosewood scraps for the handles, and leather scraps for the sheaths. While establishing the small business, Hoyt also lobbied his son, who was content to work as a bus driver and skeptical about his chances of earning a living making knives. Finally, in 1947, Al agreed to join his father and they established a business, H.H. Buck & Son. It would be a brief partnership, however, because a year later Hoyt was diagnosed with cancer. He spent the final months of his life making sure that Al possessed the grinding skills required to produce a knife worthy of the Buck name. Once satisfied, he moved back to the Northwest and died at the age of 59.

 

[Antidisestablishmentarian]

Great president, but Lincoln abolished slavery in the south, (which technically was another country, so he didn't really do anything?), but not in the northern border states. Why do they leave that out? Slavery was legal AFTER the civil war and until the 13th was ratified, a full 8 months later.