10 unusual revolvers

Apache knuckle duster

This unusual-looking gadget was a multi-purpose weapon made from about 1870 to 1900. It's a combination knife, revolver and brass knuckles. It looks really interesting, but my guess would be it's not very practical. Of course these antique firearms make great collector's items. Also, the brass knuckles part was hinged, and it could fold up beneath the main body of the weapon; the knife too could be folded back against the body, thus allowing the user to drop this into a pocket.

Collier flintlock revolver

Several companies made early flintlock revolvers, but Elisha Collier got the patent in England in 1818. Not the prettiest weapon ever made, and probably not very practical, but it easily draws the interest of weapons collectors. Flintlock firearms in general were not easy to use, at least by today's standards, so I can't imagine how much of a pain it would have been to load and fire this flintlock revolver.

Dardick Model 1500

This handgun from the 1950s isn't really a revolver. But it is. It's hard to describe. The Dardick 1500 has an open revolving chamber that can hold three rounds, but it also takes a magazine to insert the rounds. The bullets aren't inserted from the magazine into the chambers in a traditional fashion. In other words, the bullets don't slide into a chamber or any kind of hole shaped like the letter O. Instead, the bullets are inserted into the side of the chamber, into slots shaped like a U. Sorry, but this is awfully difficult to describe. Maybe looking at the patent diagram below will help. Another weird thing, because of the construction, this handgun fired trounds, a sort-of triangular shaped bullet.

Heckler & Koch P11

This isn't really a revolver, but it looks like one so I decided to include it. Plus, it's just so unusual and secretive. Basically, it's a handgun for firing underwater. It fires steel pins, or darts, one for each of the five barrels of the gun. Several special forces groups around the globe use this weapon, and its working mechanisms are a safe-guarded secret. So much so that apparently, once the P11 has been fired, it has to be returned to the manufacturer to be reloaded.

LeMat

The LeMat was a black powder firearm that is mainly remembered as a service sidearm for officers of the Confederacy during the American Civil War. Manufactured from 1856 to 1865. Less than 3,000 were actually made. What's really interesting about this period piece is that it had two barrel, a longer one on top of a short, fatter one. The top barrel fired a .36 or .42 round from the gun's cylinder. The barrel underneath, however, only fired one shot, a 16-gauge shotgun blast. That just sounds cool. And it's sort of a pretty piece of mechanical ingenuity.

Mateba Model Unica 6

Designed and developed in Italy in 1997, this is an automatic revolver. A what? That's right, an automatic revolver. They exist, they're just very rare. Instead of having to cock back a hammer to rotate the cylinder, recoil from the weapon would automatically rotate the cylinder. Another odd thing is that the barrel is lined up with the bottom of the cylinder, not the top as in almost every other revolver ever made.

.600 Nitro Express Zeliska

According to Pfeifer, the maker of this firearm, this is the largest handgun in the world today. It's 22 inches long and weighs just a tad more than 13 pounds. This is also said to be the worlds most powerful handgun. Also, each of these weapons is made individually, so they're definitely for collectors.

SwissMiniGun

We had the world's largest handgun, now we've got the world's smallest. And yes, this is an actual gun that fires 2.34 mm rimfire round. It works just like any other modern, double-action revolver, except it's really tiny. Made in Switzerland, of course.

Webley Fosbery Automatic Revolver

This is another of those very rare automatic revolvers, made in Britain about the time of World War I. Another unusual feature about this Webley Fosbery is that it is one of the few revolvers that actually has a manual safety. Manual safeties are practically unknown on revolvers, though that is changing somewhat today with a few of the most modern of sidearms.

Walch Navy Model Revolver

The is probably the most down-to-earth of all the revolvers listed here. What's so special about this black powder weapon manufactured from 1859 to 1862 in New York? Well, for one thing, it holds 12 shots. It's true, a revolver that holds 12 rounds. Man, you were loaded for bear when packing one of these.

10 historical facts about the Cincinnati Reds baseball team

1. Name: The original name of the Cincinnati Reds baseball team was the Cincinnati Red Stockings. The team initially formed in 1863, but did not become a professional team with all 10 players being paid a salary for playing until 1869, making the Reds the first professional baseball team in history.
2. Changes: The team did not drop the word "Stockings" from its name until 1890 when it officially became titled the Cincinnati Reds. Why the name change? Some historians argue about this, but the big switch for the Reds that year was the team moved from the now-defunct American Association into the National League. That move probably prompted the name change.
3. Another name: Yep, the Reds were known under another name at one time. For the 1953 to 1958 seasons, the team was known as the Cincinnati Redlegs. Why? Because of the fears of Communism in the 1950s and the association of the color red with Communism.
4. Stolen bases: Which player has the record for stolen bases in one season with the Cincinnati Reds? That would be Bob Bescher who stole a team-record 81 bases all the way back in 1911. Unfortunately forBescher, he did not hold the stolen base record for the year 1911 for the sport as a whole. That record goes to the infamous Ty Cobb then of the Detroit Tigers. Cobb had 83 stolen bases that year.
5. Home runs: The year is 1977. The player is George Foster. The number of home runs he earned that year? 52. And it still stands as a team record all these years later.
6. The field: Until 1970, the Reds played home games on one particular field in Cincinnati, Ohio. From 1884 to 1901, the field at the corner of Findlay Street and Western Avenue was known as League Park. In 1902, major improvements were made to the park and it became known as the Palace of the Fans until 1911. Then, beginning in 1912, the Reds had a major baseball park to play in, Redland Field, which in 1934 would be renamed Crosley Field. In 1970, the ballpark was torn down and the Cincinnati Reds moved to Riverfront Stadium, which later was known as Cinergy Field.
7. The new field: In 2003, the Great American Ballpark opened in Cincinnati to the Reds. The new ballpark was so huge that during construction part of the old Cinergy Field actually had to be demolished. Believe it or not, the name of the ballpark comes from the Great American Insurance Group.
8. World Series champs: The Reds have won the World Series a total of five times. The years: 1919, 1940, 1975, 1976, and 1990.
9. Victory and defeat: The biggest win the Reds have had over another team came in 1911 when the Reds defeated the Boston Braves 26-3. Unfortunately, the biggest defeat is more recent. In 2009, the Philadelphia Phillies beat the Reds 22 to 1.
10. The Big Red Machine: During the 1970s, the Cincinnati Reds were nicknamed the Big Red Machine, originally by the Cincinnati Enquirer newspaper. And the nickname was definitely earned. From 1970 to 1976, the Reds won two World Series titles, five National League Western Division titles, and four National League pennants.

Other links

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10 historical facts about the pin and the tack

1.) There are different types of pins. The push pin, for instance, has a large plastic head on it, as pictured below. A push pin, also known as a drawing pin or thumbtack, generally has a flat or slightly curved head of brass and a small brass nail sticking out of its bottom. There are also clothing pins, drawing pins, etc.

2.) In 1900, Edwin Moore, the founder of the Moore Push-Pin Company in America, invented the map pin, a small pin with a small round head on it often made of plastic today. Map pins are pictured below.

3.) Edwin Moore also invented the push pin in 1903.

4.) Also in 1903, the thumbtack was invented by Mick Clay in England, though he would live his days in poverty having sold off his invention to another who became quite wealthy because of it.

5.) The modern safety pin, pictured below, was invented by Walter Hunt in 1849, though a more crude version of the safety pin is known to have been used throughout history going at least as far back as the 14th Century B.C. in Mediterranean Europe.

6.) The "drawing pin" is basically just another term for a push pin or brass tack or even map pin. However, the term came about because such pins were used to pin up drawing paper on drawing boards.

7.) The bobby pin, pictured below, is a close cousin to the straighter hair pin, which was quite common in the 19th Century and has a history going back nearly 2,000 years. The bobby pin itself came into fashion during the 1920s because it helped women to keep up the then trendy bob or bobby or bobbish hairstyles.

8.) The clothes pin is a later cousin to the clothes peg, which is a similar, simpler tool. The wooden clothes peg was historically invented by Jeremie Victor Qpdebec, while the modern clothes pin that includes a spring was invented in 1853 by David M. Smith. See the image below for a clothes pin, these wooden, though some do come in plastic.

9.) While traditionally clothes pins are used to hold clothes on a line, they have many other uses. For instance, they are commonly used in film photography to hand photos to dry on a line.

10.) Stamped thumbtacks are not very common today and are made from one small piece of metal in which the nail part is made from cutting and bending down a sliver of metal made from the head of the thumbtack. See the image below for an example.

Links

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Who was the first African-American pro baseball player?

Jackie Robinson is often remembered by armchair historians and sports fans as the first African-American to play professional baseball, but the truth is more complex than that. It is true when Robinson debuted with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947 that he was the first African-American to play professional baseball in what is considered the modern era of baseball, but he was not the first African-American to ever play pro ball in the United States.

So who was the first?

Some questions remain about this topic.

Generally, Moses "Fleet" Walker is thought to be the first African-American to play professional baseball. History records that in 1883 Walker joined the minor league Toledo Blue Stockings, but then in 1884 the Toledo team joined the American Association, a major baseball league of the time. Walker, now considered a member of a major league team, played his first major league game on May 1, 1884, against the Louisville Eclipse.

It would seem Walker was the first African-American to play pro baseball. But the story does not end there.

Meet William Edward White.

White played a single major league baseball game. On June 21, 1879, he played as a substitute player for the Providence Grays.

The main question concerning White is this: Was he black? Was he African-American?

White was the son of a white plantation owner and a slave of mixed race. White having been born in 1860, was legally considered a slave at his birth.

Census records during White's lifetime are also confusing. The 1870 census records White as a mulatto. The 1900 and 1910 census records record White as white. However, the 1920 census records White as black.

Then there is the fact no one knows for sure when and where White died. He was known to be living in Chicago as of 1920.

So, who was the first African-American to play professional baseball? The answer somewhat depends upon one's own thoughts on the matter. Walker is generally accepted as the first black to play pro ball, but what about White?

Other baseball links

10 historical facts about the Cincinnati Reds

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10 baseball records not likely to be broken anytime soon

10 historical facts about toilet paper

1. Massachusetts-born Joseph C. Gayetty is credited with the invention of modern toilet paper. He originally sold his toilet paper in 1857 and it continued for sale until the 1920s. The paper came in flat packs of 500 and sold for 50 cents. Gayetty's original toilet paper had aloe as an ingredient.
2. Seth Wheeler, of Albany, New York, was the first person to gain a patent for toilet paper in 1871.
3. Ancient Romans didn't have toilet paper, so they used a sponge on a stick. They kept the sponge and stick clean by dumping them in sea water.
4. The first recorded existence of toilet paper is from 589 A.D. in China. The scholar Yan Zhitui mentioned using paper for toilet purposes.
5. The Kimberly-Clark Corporation first sold moist toilet paper in the United Kingdom in the 1990s, marketed with the name of the Andrex company. Kimberly-Clark introduced moist toilet paper to the United States in 2001.
6. The Scott Paper Company is credited with being the first to sell toilet paper on a roll, beginning in 1879.
7. The first two-play toilet paper was sold in 1942 by the St. Andrew's Paper Mill of England.
8. It was recorded in the 1300s that in the Zhejiang province of China, more than ten million packets of toilet paper were made each year. Each packet had between 1,000 and 10,000 sheets of paper. And that's from just one province.
9. Early toilet paper often had pieces of wood pulp still in it. In 1935, Northern paper company became the first to advertise toilet paper free of splinters. Ouch!
10. The United States suffered a toilet paper shortage in 1973, and it started as a joke. The late, great TV comedian Johnny Carson had heard from a member of Congress there was going to be a shortage on toilet paper (this wasn't true), so one night on The Tonight Show, Carson joked that toilet paper was disappearing from the shelves of stores. Apparently Americans took Carson seriously. The next morning, by noon, toilet paper was sold out across the country. And it took three weeks before stores could regularly stock toilet paper again.

10 mysterious Lincoln and Kennedy Connections

1. Both Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy were assassinated on Fridays with their wives present.
2. Lincoln was elected president in 1860, Kennedy in 1960.
3. Each wife, while living at the White House, had lost a son.
4. Lincoln and Kennedy each have 7 letters in their last names.
5. Both assassins were killed before they could be brought to trial.
6. Lincoln was shot and killed in Ford's Theater. Kennedy died while riding in a Ford Lincoln convertible.
7. Lincoln and Kennedy were each followed by their vice-presidents, men named Johnson in both cases.
8. Lincoln's assassin, John Wilkes Booth, was born in 1839. Kennedy's killer, Lee Harvey Oswald, was born in 1939.
9. The first name of Lincoln's private secretary was John. The last name of Kennedy's private secretary was Lincoln.
10. Both presidents were slain by a bullet shot to the head from behind.

10 historical facts about Green Bay Packers football

1. The Green Bay Packers became a football team in 1919, but did not join the pro football league until 1921.
2. Though this team only has three Super Bowl wins to this date, it has a total of 12 NFL World Championships going back way before the Super Bowl even existed.
3. The Packers are a non-profit, and they're also a community-owned team, the only such pro major-league team in the United States.
4. The trophy awarded each year for the Super Bowl is known as the Vince Lombardi Trophy. Vince Lombardi was the famous coach of the Packers from 1959 to 1967, and general manager in 1968.
5. In 1968, the city of Green Bay, Wisconsin, changed the name of Highland Avenue to Lombardi Avenue, where the Packers' Lambeau Field sits to this day.
6. The team was originally named for the Indian Packing Company, which supplied money for equipment and uniforms
7. The Packers' home stadium, Lambeau Field, opened its doors in 1957 and was originally called City Stadium.
8. Lambeau Field is named for Earl "Curly" Lambeau, one of the original founders of the Packers.
9. The Packers have one of the oldest team names currently still being used in the NFL.
10. The Dallas Cowboys and the Green Bay Packers faced off in the 1967 NFL Championship Game, a famous game that has come down through history known as the Ice Bowl because temperatures were as low as -15 degrees Fahrenheit.

10 historical facts about George Washington

1. George Washington was born in Westmoreland County, Virginia, on February 22, 1732.
2. As Washington's birthday is on February 22, the U.S. federal holiday known as Washington's Birthday (or more recently President's Day) never falls on his actual birthday because that holiday occurs on the third Monday in February, and thus could never fall later than the 21st day of the month.
3. Washington's first ancestor to arrive in the American colonies was his great-grandfather, John Washington, who in 1656 arrived in the Colony of Virginia while a second mate aboard a ship.
4. There is no actual evidence that George Washington chopped down a cherry tree as a child. The first mention of such a story was from Parson Mason Locke Weems who supposedly heard it from people who had known Washington as a child.
5. Washington died on December 14, 1799, at home and was laid to rest December 18, 1799.
6. After Washington's death, Napoleon gave orders in France for 10 days of official mourning.
7. The first president of the United States never had children of his own, though he did raise two of his wife's children from an earlier marriage that had ended in her being widowed.
8. Between 1758, the end of the French and Indian War, and 1775, the start of the American Revolution, George Washington did not serve in any military.
9. Washington's army of more than 10,000 lost between 2,000 and 3,000 men during the winter of 1777 and 1778 while encamped at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. Nearly all the deaths were because of disease and the harsh weather conditions.
10. He was elected president of the United States in 1789 and again in 1792. Washington remains to this day the only president in American history to have received 100 percent of all votes in the Electoral College.