The U.S. tried to win World War II with a bat bomb
What it’s about: Holy ordinance, Batman! During World War II, American scientists raced to develop crucial technology that would win the war: The B-29 bomber. Radar. The atomic bomb. And, a somewhat less crucial technology, the bat bomb: a bomb canister that contained live bats, each of which would carry an incendiary device and (in theory) start devastating fires across Japanese cities.
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Biggest controversy: The part where we tried to defeat Imperial Japan with an army of bats. The idea came from a dental surgeon named Lytle S. Adams. An acquaintance of Eleanor Roosevelt, he wrote to the White House a month after Pearl Harbor suggesting the idea, which came to him during a trip to Carlsbad Caverns. Adams was “intrigued by the strength of bats” and believed they could carry an incendiary device, which could do serious damage to Japan’s largely wooden architecture.
Stacker compiled a list of the 100 best Western films of all time, using data from Metacritic, a site that collects reviews from respected critics and uses them to determine the average rating.
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Loon watching the sunrise over Indian Lake in the Adirondacks of New York state. Photo illustration, Shutterstock, Inc.Photo illustration, Shutterstock, Inc.
When a person travels nearly half way across the country, he might expect to find many things to be different from the familiarities of home. But as a seasoned traveler could tell you, Americans in distant places are predictably more alike than they are different. A recent expedition by automobile to New York State to meet a new grandchild did nothing to cast doubt on that fact. One of the things shared by Minnesotans and many in the East is a fascination with even a reverence for our state bird, the common loon.
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