- published: 02 Oct 2013
- views: 36
Thomas Leo Clancy, Jr. (April 12, 1947 – October 1, 2013) was an American novelist best known for his technically detailed espionage and military science storylines set during and after the Cold War. Seventeen of his novels were bestsellers, and more than 100 million copies of his books are in print. His name was also used on movie scripts written by ghost writers, non-fiction books on military subjects, and video games. He was a part-owner of the Baltimore Orioles and Vice Chairman of their Community Activities and Public Affairs committees.
Clancy's literary career began in 1984 when he sold The Hunt for Red October for $5,000. His works, The Hunt for Red October (1984), Patriot Games (1987), Clear and Present Danger (1989), and The Sum of All Fears (1991), have been turned into commercially successful films with actors Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford, Ben Affleck, and Chris Pine all playing Clancy's most famous fictional character Jack Ryan, while his second most famous character, John Clark, has been played by actors Willem Dafoe and Liev Schreiber. Clancy died on October 1, 2013, of an undisclosed illness.
James Warren "Jim" Jones (May 13, 1931 – November 18, 1978) was an American cult leader. Jones was the founder and leader of the Peoples Temple, infamous due to the mass murder-suicide in November 1978 of 918 of its members in Jonestown, Guyana, the murder of Congressman Leo Ryan, and the ordering of four additional Temple member deaths in Georgetown, the Guyanese capital. Nearly three-hundred children were murdered at Jonestown, almost all of them by cyanide poisoning. Jones died from a gunshot wound to the head; it is suspected his death was a suicide.
Jones was born in Indiana and started the Temple there in the 1950s. He later moved the Temple to California in the mid-1960s, and gained notoriety with the move of the Temple's headquarters to San Francisco in the early 1970s.
Jones was born in a rural area of Crete, Indiana, to James Thurman Jones (1887–1951), a World War I veteran, and Lynetta Putnam (1902–1977). Lynetta reportedly believed she had given birth to a messiah. He was of Irish and Welsh descent. Jones later claimed partial Cherokee ancestry through his mother, though according to his maternal second cousin Barbara Shaffer, this is likely untrue. Economic difficulties during the Great Depression necessitated that Jones' family move to Lynn, Indiana, in 1934, where he grew up in a shack without plumbing.
The Wright brothers, Orville (August 19, 1871 – January 30, 1948) and Wilbur (April 16, 1867 – May 30, 1912), were two American brothers, inventors, and aviation pioneers who are credited with inventing and building the world's first successful airplane and making the first controlled, powered and sustained heavier-than-air human flight, on December 17, 1903 four miles south of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. In 1904-1905 the brothers developed their flying machine into the first practical fixed-wing aircraft. Although not the first to build and fly experimental aircraft, the Wright brothers were the first to invent aircraft controls that made fixed-wing powered flight possible.
The brothers' fundamental breakthrough was their invention of three-axis control, which enabled the pilot to steer the aircraft effectively and to maintain its equilibrium. This method became and remains standard on fixed-wing aircraft of all kinds. From the beginning of their aeronautical work, the Wright brothers focused on developing a reliable method of pilot control as the key to solving "the flying problem". This approach differed significantly from other experimenters of the time who put more emphasis on developing powerful engines. Using a small homebuilt wind tunnel, the Wrights also collected more accurate data than any before, enabling them to design and build wings and propellers that were more efficient than any before. Their first U.S. patent, 821,393, did not claim invention of a flying machine, but rather, the invention of a system of aerodynamic control that manipulated a flying machine's surfaces.
Best Selling Author Tom Clancy Dies at 66
David Conn: Cult Expert, Jim Jones, Peoples Temple, Jonestown Guyana
ARWEN SHARP reads - Good Night, Gorilla
William F. Buckley & Christopher Buckley on the Future of Conservatism (2004)
Truyện audio Bố Già (3/3) - Tiểu thuyết kinh điển của Mario Puzo
Conversion Part III
Penguin Group (USA) Employee Videos
The Wright Brothers
Benjamin Franklestein Lives: Book Review
Conversion Part I