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08/27/2026

GREEN BERET MELVIN MORRIS WAS SHOT THREE TIMES SAVING A FALLEN COMRADE — 45 YEARS LATER, HE RECEIVED THE MEDAL OF HONOR.

On September 17, 1969, Staff Sgt. Melvin Morris led a mission near Chi Lang, Vietnam, to recover a fallen team commander. Under intense enemy fire, Morris helped wounded soldiers reach safety, returned to the battlefield, destroyed enemy positions, and retrieved his fallen comrade. He was wounded three times while making his way back. Morris initially received the Distinguished Service Cross in 1970. In 2014, after a review of military records, that award was upgraded to the Medal of Honor.

08/26/2026

A MILITARY DOG HANDLER THREW HERSELF OVER HER DOG TO PROTECT HIM FROM AN IED BLAST.

According to the account provided, Army Staff Sergeant Miriam Stumpf was serving in Afghanistan with her military working dog, Rex, when an IED detonated nearby. As shrapnel flew toward them, she reportedly threw herself over Rex and was wounded while the dog remained unharmed. She later described Rex as her partner, saying she simply returned the protection he had given her while searching for explosives. The story is a powerful reminder of the extraordinary bond between military handlers and their dogs.

08/25/2026

COLUMBIA SURVIVED TWO SERIOUS ENGINE PROBLEMS JUST SECONDS AFTER LAUNCH IN 1999 — AND EILEEN COLLINS WAS COMMANDING.

On July 23, 1999, Space Shuttle Columbia launched on STS-93 with Eileen Collins as commander. About five seconds after liftoff, an electrical short disabled one controller on the center engine and another on the right engine. Backup controllers kept both engines operating. At the same time, a hydrogen leak in the right engine caused additional problems. Columbia ultimately reached orbit, deployed the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, and returned safely four days later. The mission also made Collins the first woman to command a space shuttle.

08/24/2026

REDOSHI SURVIVED THE LAST KNOWN SLAVE SHIP TO BRING CAPTIVES FROM AFRICA TO THE UNITED STATES AND LIVED UNTIL 1937.

Redoshi was kidnapped as a child in West Africa and transported to Alabama aboard the Clotilda, the last documented U.S. slave ship, in 1860. The voyage was illegal because the United States had already banned the importation of enslaved people. Redoshi was enslaved in Alabama, later married and had a daughter, and survived slavery and its aftermath. She died in 1937 at roughly 89 years old. She was once considered the last survivor of the transatlantic slave trade, before historian Hannah Durkin identified Matilda McCrear, who lived until 1940.

08/24/2026

JEFF BAUMAN LOST BOTH LEGS IN THE BOSTON MARATHON BOMBING—ONE YEAR LATER, HE WAS WALKING AGAIN ON PROSTHETIC LEGS.

Jeff Bauman became one of the most recognizable survivors of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing after a widely published photograph showed him being rushed to an ambulance. The blast resulted in both of his legs being amputated above the knee. After intensive rehabilitation, Bauman learned to walk using prosthetic legs and returned to the Boston Marathon one year later, becoming a powerful symbol of resilience and recovery.

08/23/2026

A JEWISH COMPOSER WROTE AN OPERA INSIDE A N**I CAMP—AND IT WAS PERFORMED 31 YEARS LATER.

Viktor Ullmann was deported to Theresienstadt in 1942, where he continued composing despite being imprisoned by the N***s. His opera Der Kaiser von Atlantis, created with librettist Peter Kien, was rehearsed inside the camp but stopped by the SS before it could be performed. Ullmann was deported to Auschwitz in October 1944 and murdered there. His musical manuscripts survived, and the opera finally received its world premiere in Amsterdam on December 16, 1975—31 years after its creation.

08/22/2026

SHE SURVIVED A 75-FLOOR ELEVATOR FALL AFTER A PLANE CRASHED INTO THE EMPIRE STATE BUILDING.

On July 28, 1945, a U.S. Army B-25 bomber flying through heavy fog crashed into the Empire State Building, killing 14 people. Elevator operator Betty Lou Oliver was badly injured in the disaster, then survived an elevator plunge of roughly 75 floors—nearly 1,000 feet. Rescuers pulled her from the wreckage alive, and she eventually recovered. Oliver later returned to Arkansas and lived until 1999, at age 74. Her survival remains one of the most extraordinary stories in the building’s history.

08/21/2026

SISTER JEAN HUGHES SPENT YEARS HELPING PEOPLE REBUILD THEIR LIVES ON CHICAGO’S WEST SIDE.

Sister Jean Hughes, an Adrian Dominican nun, devoted much of her later ministry to Saint Leonard’s Ministries in Chicago, where she worked with formerly incarcerated men and women seeking to rebuild their lives. She was also deeply involved in education and social justice. A high school program at Saint Leonard’s was later named the Sister Jean Hughes Adult High School in recognition of her work and legacy. She died in 2015 at age 76.

08/21/2026

23-YEAR-OLD MARINE JOSE JIMENEZ CHARGED INTO ENEMY FIRE AND GAVE HIS LIFE TO HELP HIS FELLOW MARINES SURVIVE.

During a deadly ambush in Quang Nam Province, Vietnam, on August 28, 1969, Lance Corporal José Francisco Jiménez repeatedly advanced toward heavily concealed North Vietnamese positions. He destroyed several enemy personnel and silenced an antiaircraft weapon before moving close to an automatic-weapons position and destroying it under intense fire. He was mortally wounded while continuing his assault. Jiménez, who was born in Mexico City and raised partly in Arizona, was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor. President Richard Nixon presented the medal to his mother and sister at the White House in 1970.

08/20/2026

SHE STARTED PRIMARY SCHOOL IN HER 90S — AND REFUSED TO LET AGE STOP HER FROM LEARNING.

Priscilla Sitienei, affectionately known as “Gogo,” spent more than six decades working as a midwife in Kenya before becoming an extraordinary student herself. She attended primary school alongside children many decades younger than her and continued studying into her late 90s. Sitienei said she wanted to set an example for younger generations and show that education was valuable at any age. Her determination later inspired international attention and a film about her life.

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