A forest fire hollowed out this giant sequoia tree, creating a 'chimney' 90 feet high. Local people named the tree "Pluto's Chimney." It used to stand in the Placer County Big Trees Grove of the Tahoe National Forest in CA, a small sequoia grove nestled among pine and fir trees that is the northernmost stand of living giant sequoias. Photos from 1866.
Weeks after the Berlin Wall fell in November 1989, activists stormed Stasi’s Berlin headquarters to gain access to the huge trove of surveillance data that Stasi had collected on East German citizens. Some data had been obtained by Stasi agents reading mail, tapping telephones, and searching apartments, but most came from citizens — one out of three East Germans — who agreed to spy on friends, co-workers and neighbors. Many people had cooperated out of fear. Others were blackmailed or spied in exchange for favors. Among those most anxious to retrieve the Stasi files were these collaborators, who sought to destroy documents revealing their cooperation. On the left: The central Stasi archive in Berlin, now a museum. [Photo: Dr. Huburtus Knabe]. Right: East Germans stream into West Germany on Nov. 10, 1989, the day after the Berlin Wall fell.
President Wilson throws out the first pitch of the 1916 baseball season, April 12, 1916. In October, the Boston Red Sox (AL) would defeat the Brooklyn Robins (NL) in the 1916 World Series, 4 games to 1. Babe Ruth sits third man from the left in the Red Sox team photo. Ruth was then in his third year in the majors, and had become a star pitcher. The Red Sox rented the large Boston's Braves Field for the World Series.
Left: Edward, the Prince of Wales, at the White House after visiting bedridden President Woodrow Wilson following a trip to Canada, Nov. 1919. Wilson has suffered a stroke five weeks earlier. Then age 25, the Prince would become King Edward VIII in January 1936, but abdicate the throne in December of that year. Right: Prince Edward in Toronto.
On November 15, 1969, a day in which thirty US troops were killed in Vietnam, more than 500,000 people gathered in Washington, D.C., to protest the US involvement in the War. Three days before, journalist Seymour Hersh had published information revealing the March 1968 My Lai Massacre. On the left, protesters gathered near the Washington Monument [Dr Dennis Bogdan photo]. Right: members of the US Army 4th Infantry Division move in a convoy to a new staging area in South Vietnam.
Left: Oak Knoll Farm House, Napa County, CA, 1866. Right: View of Napa Valley from the Oak Knoll Farm, 1866. In 1856, Oak Knoll was named the best farm in the state by the California Agricultural Society, and by 1860, its vineyard was the largest in Napa Valley.
Left: Cave Rock, Lake Tahoe, NV, 1866. Right: View from the top of Cave Rock, eastern shore of Lake Tahoe, NV, looking north, 1866.
Left: Walt Disney and Kirk Douglas on the set of 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, 1954. Right: Disney with the Mouseketeers, c. 1958.
Original Mouseketter Annette Funicello, 1942-2013.
