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Wedding Reception Styles with Breathtaking Wedding Backdrops


Most of the wedding halls need to be decorated and ornamented to produce enough enticing charm so that a wedding party can become an unforgettable evening for the new couple and their guests. Using proper backdrops is time tested, quick, effective and amazing way to decor the wedding hall.


Backdrops for Wedding Theme

Backdrops have a great potential to make any venue much more attractive and pleasing to eyes. Previously, the backdrops were used only for on stage dramas or plays. These were designed and used to enhance the theme of the play and to give inkling for the audience about the idea behind the play. One can adopt the same decorative method to influence the guests in a thematic wedding party.


There are many market players who manufacture wedding specific backdrops to sell or rent the attractive backdrops exclusively for the people interested in decorating their wedding party reception stage with these colorful and easeful backdrops.


Some of the wedding party stylists also offer the services of custom made backdrops that can include specific photographs or paintings or other similar articles that are provided by the new wedding couple. Many such companies that used to create backdrops only for plays and drama stages are now being attracted to rent their exclusive backdrops for the grooms and brides to beautify their wedding party venues.


Different kinds of Wedding Backdrops and Wedding Reception stages



Before choosing the right type of backdrop, you will have to consider the coverage area at the venue, wedding theme and the desired effect on the guests that will be required by the backdrop. The choice will also depend on the taste of the newly married couple.



A wedding party with a traditional theme can be used with a fabric made backdrop to provide a warmer and friendlier atmosphere. These fabric backdrops are made of fire resistant canvas and hence are safe to be used.

If the wedding theme is modernistic, one can use the flamboyant video backdrop with a continuous flash of attractive and exciting colors. Digitally printed paper backdrops can be used to provide a unique theme for the wedding with specific photos arranged on the backdrop in such a manner that relates the theme with the backdrop.

Those who already have determined the theme for their wedding party can choose that style of backdrop that will suit with the theme in best way possible and what sort of backdrop will provide the maximum impact on the guests of the party. 


Appealing Wedding Backdrops for the Reception Stage

Many people prefer to have a unique theme for their wedding party and some people enjoy the wildest theme they can manage. This can be made possible by using isolated or mixed backdrops to create an environment that is required for the wedding party.

As for example, some may choose some historical wedding themes that will require specific backdrops indicating the taste and art of that era. A few examples of unique wedding themes that can be accentuated with the use of proper backdrops are 
Italian or Roman wedding theme

  • Disney wedding theme
  • Christmas wedding theme
  • Pirate wedding theme
  • Musical wedding theme
  • Under sea wedding theme
  • Celestial wedding theme
  • Heavenly or angel wedding theme
  • Environmental or florist wedding theme
  • Castles wedding theme
  • Cowboy wedding theme
  • Honeymoon destination wedding theme
Imaginations have no bound and backdrops offer enough potential to provide a creative realistic platform for your imaginations for your wedding party theme.

Things to be noticed while planning for Wedding Reception styles and Wedding Backdrops

Either you can attain the appropriate backdrops on rent, or you can decide to buy custom made backdrops specially for your wedding party and keep them as a memorable fortune of emotions. 

The most important thing before contacting the backdrop dealer is to ensure that the managers or owners of the venue of your wedding party allow the usage of backdrops.

In some cases, the owners do not allow usage of backdrops bought from market rather they offer their own backdrops on rent to be used.

It is always beneficial to contact the backdrop dealer in advance because some of the backdrops are too popular in use and at the last moment you may fail to attain the right choice of backdrops.

Attractive backdrops increase the artistic look of the wedding party and make it extraordinary, providing an intense feeling to the guests about the theme and emotional importance of the wedding party.
http://couplewriters.blogspot.com/2011/04/wedding-reception-styles-with.html
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10 Largest Robberies in History


Most men have probably had a fantasy or two about pulling off a “once in a lifetime” kind of heist worth millions. Fortunately, most of us are sane enough not to let it get further than a thought. Below are a few men who were not. The only criteria for entry on this list is that they must have gotten away with it, at least temporarily. Anyone caught in the act does not qualify for this list. Whether it be cash, jewels, art or anything else worth big bucks, you can bet there is someone, somewhere, planning on stealing it. All values are in US$ or UK£, which bear in mind, are worth more than US dollars. I have roughly adjusted for inflation of some of the older robberies to show where they compare to some of the modern monster hauls. Incredibly, no one was killed during any of the below robberies (as far as I can tell), the mark of true professionals. Feel free to add any others I may have missed in the comments section. This list was originally sent in as a top 20, but it has been broken up due to the size of the items – the second installment will appear in the future.
10
Harry Winston
5th December 2008-Paris, France: $108 million
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Four armed men entered the upmarket jewelry store (“Jeweler to the Stars”) shortly before closing time, 3 of whom were dressed in wigs and women’s clothing. After cleaning out the display cases, they forced staff to loot the storage area, as the millions worth of jewels in the display cases just wasn’t enough for these guys. They cleaned the place out, without firing a shot. Harry Winston stock fell 9% the next day after word of the robbery got out. The store had been robbed the previous year, where thieves netted 10 million euros worth of jewels. One would think that perhaps it would be cheaper hiring some armed guards than getting robbed on a yearly basis. 25 people have since been arrested for the crime, aged 22 to 67. Good to see there is no age discrimination among thieves.
9
Antwerp Diamond Center
16th February 2003- Belgium: $100 million+
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80% of the world’s uncut diamonds go through Antwerp, and don’t thieves know it! The city has seen its fair share of heists, but this one was incredible in both dollar value and the method with which it was executed. This haul was so large that the thieves literally couldn’t carry all their booty out of the vault, but still managed to empty an impressive 123 of 189 deposit boxes. Leonardo Notarbartolo, a 30 year career thief, was the leader of this stylish gang. The robbery was years in the making, with at least 4 people involved. They had rented office space in the building 3 years earlier, where Leonardo posed as an Italian diamond merchant to gain trust and credibility. He set up meetings and did small deals, no one ever suspecting a thing. When it was finally time to move, they inserted fake tapes into the security cameras to cover their movements. The vault was protected by 10 layers of security, including infrared heat detectors, Doppler radar, a magnetic field, a seismic sensor, and a lock with 100 million possible combinations. The robbery was called the heist of the century, and even now the police can’t explain exactly how it was done. Notarbartolo was caught after one of his accomplices failed to burn a garbage bag of evidence. The $100 million worth of gems has never been found and Notarbartolo is currently serving a 10 year sentence. Interestingly, Notarbartolo has claimed that a Jewish diamond merchant hired them for the heist and that they actually only stole roughly $20 million worth, with many of the deposit boxes already lying empty. He believes that he and his gang were used as part of a huge insurance fraud. Police have denied this possibility.
8
United California Bank Robbery
24th March 1972- USA: $30 million est.
21 Safedepositboxes
Whilst $30 million may not seem like much compared to the other monsters on this list, bear in mind that this occurred back in 1972. By today’s standards, it would be worth more than $100 million. At the time, it was a world record amount. A group of 7 men from Ohio, led by Amil Dinsio, broke into a branch of the United California Bank in Laguna Niguel, California, and looted the safe deposit vault. Due to the nature of safe deposit boxes and their undeclared contents, only an estimate is possible. They were eventually apprehended by the FBI. One of the men involved, Phil Christopher, has written an account of the robbery in the book Superthief. I couldn’t dig up too much information on this robbery, as even the FBI website does not have an account of the robbery or investigation, so if anyone wishes to add more information in the comments, feel free.
7
Schiphol Airport Heist
25th February 2005- Amsterdam: $118 million est.
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This haul is the largest diamond heist in history. $118 million is the estimate, as many of the stones were uncut, which make them much harder to value (and trace.) Whilst many of the other robberies on this list involve elegant planning and flawless execution, this was more akin to a smash and grab. 2 weeks prior to the robbery, 4 men stole a KLM cargo truck and KLM uniforms to divert suspicion until the last moment, so that they could move around the secure areas of the airport unhindered. (KLM is a major Dutch airline.) On February 25th, the thieves drove right up to a KLM truck that was carrying a large haul of uncut diamonds intended for delivery to Antwerp. In full view of many witnesses, they ordered the drivers out at gun-point and simply got in the truck and drove it away. Due to the fact that they knew exactly which truck to target, police suspect an inside job. It was the second time in 6 months that the airport terminal had been breached. Several men have been arrested in connection to the robbery.
6
British Bank of the Middle East
20th January, 1976- Beirut, Lebanon: £25 million
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The 1970s saw the rise of the PLO, a terrorist group led by Yasser Arafat, whose aim was to carve out a homeland for the Palestinian people. They were at war. And wars cost money. Lots of it. Lebanon was in the midst of a civil war, and amid the chaos, a group associated with the PLO broke into a dozen banks, the largest of which was the British Bank of the Middle East. The group made off with a staggering £25 million worth of gold, jewels, stocks and currency, valued at much more than $100 million in today’s money. The group blasted the wall of the bank that was shared with the Catholic Church next door. With the assistance of Corsican locksmiths, they opened the vault and plundered the contents over the course of 2 days. Some of the stocks were later sold back to their owners.
5
Knightsbridge Security Deposit
12th July 1987-UK: £60 million
A31 Knightsbridge
Valerio Viccei migrated to the UK from Italy in 1986, where he was wanted for over 50 armed robberies. He decided to continue his successful trade in his new homeland, where he and an accomplice entered the Knightsbridge Safe Deposit Centre and asked to rent a Safe Deposit Box. After being led into the vault, they subdued the manager and the guards. Valerio hung a sign outside stating that the Deposit was temporarily closed to deter more customers, and then went about letting in more accomplices. The gang then plundered the safe deposit boxes at will and netted an estimated £60 million, which translates approximately into a whopping $174 million in today’s money. The police were not alerted until an hour after the robbery, giving the team plenty of time to flee the scene. Valerio fled to Latin America whilst his accomplices were arrested, then foolishly returned to England sometime later to retrieve his beloved Ferrari, where he was subsequently caught. He was sentenced to 22 years in prison. One would think that with the better part of $174 million, you would just buy another Ferrari. Or two. He was killed in 2000 while on day release in Italy, as a result of a gunfight with police.
4
Baghdad Bank Robbery
12th July 2007- Baghdad, Iraq: $282 million
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Employees of the Dar Es Salaam bank showed up to work one morning to find that the doors were unlocked, the vault open, and all the money was gone. It is believed that 3 guards at the bank made off with a staggering $282 million in this whopping haul. Yes, more than a quarter of a billion dollars! That’s more money than the entire economies of some small countries. It is unclear why the bank had such a large amount of cash on hand, but it was all in US currency. It is suspected that the guards had the assistance of militias, to avoid detection at security checkpoints around Baghdad, as having a lazy $282 million in the boot of your car might raise suspicions. No one has been brought to justice for this brazen crime and none of the money has been recovered. The robbery received surprisingly little media coverage.
3
Boston Museum
18th March 1990- Boston, USA: $300 million
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Number 3 on our list is also considered the biggest art heist in history. Two men dressed as police officers convinced 2 inexperienced security guards at the Gardner Museum that they were responding to a disturbance. Contrary to museum policy, the 2 guards let the “officers” into the premises, where they quickly learned that they had been duped after being handcuffed by the men in the basement. Amazingly, the 2 men managed to do this despite having no visible weapons whatsoever. The men spent the next 81 minutes calmly selecting 12 pieces of art with a combined value of over $300 million, and this was 20 years ago. Among the paintings stolen were 3 Rembrandt’s and a Vermeer. The two then took the surveillance tapes and departed, never to be heard from again, though in 1994 an offer was made to return the paintings for $2.6 million and immunity from prosecution, but the writer was never heard from again. The men appear to possibly be amateurs, as they made no effort to avoid damaging the paintings and left even more valuable works behind. The case has never been solved and there is a $5 million reward for any information pertaining to the return of the artworks. Also, authorities have announced that they will not prosecute anyone who has the paintings and offers to return them.
2
City Bonds Robbery
2nd May 1990- London, UK: £292 million
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John Goddard was a 58 year old messenger working for broker Sheppards, who was mugged whilst carrying a briefcase on a quiet London side street. However, the contents of that briefcase contained £292 million in bearer bonds. Goddard was delivering Bank of England Treasury bills from banks and building societies. Due to the nature of bearer bonds, whoever is carrying them is deemed the owner. They are as good as cash. He was held at knifepoint, whilst his assailant made off with 301 Treasury bills, most valued at £1 million each. Keith Cheeseman was arrested in connection to the crime and received a 6 and a half year sentence. Police believe that the mugging was carried out by Patrick Thomas, but he was found dead of a gunshot wound to the head before he could be charged. All but 2 of the bonds were recovered after police and the FBI infiltrated the gang responsible. It’s amazing that the second largest robbery in history was carried out by a low level thief brandishing only a knife on an insignificant back street.
1
Central Bank of Iraq
18th March 2003- Baghdad, Iraq: $1 billion
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Some robberies require careful planning. Others use brute force. But the largest in history was as simple was it was effective. Saddam Hussein treated Iraq as his own personal fiefdom, so it’s no surprise that he would feel that the Central Bank of Iraq was his personal bank account. The day before Coalition forces began bombing Iraq, he sent his son Qusay to make a withdrawal on his behalf with a handwritten note. Qusay oversaw the withdrawal of boxes stuffed with $100 bills in a five-hour operation which netted the dictator about $1 billion in US dollars. It didn’t get him very far, as he was caught sometime later hiding in a hole in the ground whilst his son was killed by US forces. Approximately $650 million was later found by US troops hidden in the walls of one of his palace’s, though the remaining $350 million has never been recovered and is considered lost.
Source: http://listverse.com
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11 Iconic Guitar Combinations

It’s said ‘a poor musician blames his instrument’ but what about good musicians? Do they claim their accomplishments are solely the result of their own efforts? Not really. Most of them thank co-writers, band mates, friends and family.

Guitar players, however, are famous for attributing success to a unique bond with their instrument. As a result, man and machine become inseparable, and over time, the general public has trouble separating where the guitar ends and the guitarist begins. Submitted for your approval is a list of several iconic guitar(ist) combinations. And yes, this one goes to eleven.

11
Rick Nielsen
Hamer 5-Neck



As a boy, Rick Nielsen quit collecting stamps because they weren’t loud enough. Switching to guitars should have slowed him down, but didn’t: he recently pared his vintage guitar collection down to the essentials, and it’s still well north of two hundred instruments.

That’s not counting the dozens of novelty guitars he uses in every Cheap Trick show: he has checkerboard guitars, Beatles guitars, album cover guitars, even a cartoon character guitar that looks exactly like him. So it’s gonna take a special guitar to cement the public image of Rick Nielsen on stage.

Enter the wonderfully stupid Hamer five-neck electric guitar. It hit public consciousness hard in the 1982 ‘She’s Tight’ music video, and Nielsen has been doomed to lug the 80-lb joke on tour ever since. Possibly one of the most-recognized rock instruments ever, the guitar is completely functional, with one 12-string neck, three six-string necks, and a fretless bottom neck (if you can reach it).

10
Bo Diddley
Square Guitar



Bo Diddley is, arguably, most responsible for transitioning blues into rock and roll, mainly through his use of insistent, driving rhythms and hard-edged tone. His trademark instrument was a rectangular-bodied electric guitar that he developed himself and played in thousands of concerts. Why a rectangle? Well, it turns out he was jumping around on stage one night, and his massive Gibson L5 shifted and hit him right in the boys. The next day, Bo designed the smaller (safer) guitar we’ll forever associate with him.

9
Stevie Ray Vaughan
Number One (First Wife)



Number One (aka, ‘First Wife’) was a Fender Stratocaster used by Texas blues guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan. He played it on every one of his studio albums, and in hundreds of concerts. Stevie Ray said he immediately knew there was something special about Number One. He said he didn’t even have to play it—he just knew by the way it looked that it would sound great.
Usually it’s the woman who tries to change the man after marriage. Not with Stevie Ray. Immediately after trading for Number One, he tried to convert it to a left-handed tremolo to imitate his idol, Jimi Hendrix. But the job was botched, and he went to a truck stop desperate for something to cover the damage. All he could find was a “custom” sticker in the parking lot, so he slapped that across the bridge, and added prismatic stickers to spell out his initials, “SRV”. Additional modifications are too numerous to count.

But that’s nothing compared to the legendary abuse that Number One took. Treat a woman like Stevie Ray Vaughan treated a guitar, and you’ll do time. Stories abound about how he would kick it, punch it, ride it like a surfboard, and carry it around by the tremolo bar. And if that wasn’t enough, during shows he’d bounce it off the wall, catch it (or not), and keep on playing.

Number One is currently in the possession of Stevie’s brother, Jimmie Vaughan, although rumors persist that it was buried with Stevie in Dallas.

8
Angus Young
Gibson SG


Much like a cartoon character wears the same clothes in every episode, cartoonish Angus Young is rarely seen in anything but a schoolboy uniform, playing a Gibson SG electric guitar. The look is every bit a trademark as the band’s logo, and has been official AC/DC merchandise for over thirty years.

Young first discovered the SG at 14, when he bought a used 1967 model. It was very light and had an extremely thin neck that suited his smaller hands (he’s 5’3″). This is odd for Gibson products, and many now believe he learned to play on a factory defect or a stolen custom instrument. That guitar lasted only a year, as the neck warped and rotted from Young’s blood and sweat. But by then his fingers could twist into pretzels if called upon, and it’s been nothing but stock SGs after that.

Young has worked with Gibson extensively to try and re-create the specific elements that made that first SG so special, but to no avail. You can however, play a signature model, which re-creates many components of his current touring guitar.

7
Brian May
Red Special (The Fireplace)



Dr. May (PhD, Astrophysics) built his one-of-a kind electric guitar with his dad over 40 years ago, primarily because they couldn’t afford a ‘proper’ guitar. Father and son designed and built the instrument from scratch, with the goal of producing greater range, tunability, and vibrato than guitars currently on the market. Oh, and it HAD to feed back, which was precisely what Fender and Gibson were trying to avoid with their guitars.

The ‘Red Special’ took two years to complete, and emptied the local junkyard. The neck used wood from a 19th century fireplace mantle, and the tremolo used metal from a motorcycle kickstand and his mother’s knitting needles. The unique red color came from countless applications of Rustin’s Plastic Coat (a furniture finish). The only place young Brian splurged was on the Burns Tri-Sonic pickups, which are responsible for the bright, crunchy tone on Queen’s ‘We Will Rock You’ and the biting solo in ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’.

Numerous companies have made Red Special copies over the years, but now you can get a real one from the man himself at brianmayguitars.co.uk. Just don’t take your motorbike if you pick it up in person—you may be missing some pieces on the ride home.

6
Bruce Springsteen
’50s Fender Esquire


Bruce Springsteen plays other guitars, and keeps plenty of spares on tour, but the Born to Run album cover forever links The Boss to a blackguard, maple-neck Fender Esquire. And he hasn’t fought the perception. Since its debut on BTR in 1975, the guitar has been his virtual co-star, appearing on the covers of Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band Live 1975-85, Human Touch and Greatest Hits.

Like any legendary instrument, details of its origins are murky. Some say Bruce originally bought it from a luthier who (others say) rescued it from a recording studio liquidation sale. His guitar techs say it’s either a 1953 or ’54 model, or possibly a ’55 due to the v-profile on the neck. It’s been in the shop for more nips and tucks than Joan Rivers, so you’d best go to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (where it now resides) to decide for yourself.

As Fender’s mortal enemy Gibson says, ‘Ultimately, who cares…whatever kind of mutt of an instrument the thing had become by the time it landed in Springsteen’s hands, it has been the driving force behind some of the most compelling rock anthems in the last 35 years.”

5
Eddie Van Halen
Frankenstrat



David Lee Roth sent Eddie Van Halen home for bringing a Gibson ES to practice, telling Eddie “you ain’t Roy Orbison, come back with a real guitar”. Eddie tried a Les Paul but it was too heavy, and a Fender Stratocaster sounded too thin. That’s when he got the crazy notion to combine the two. The resulting surgery was a mess, but the butchery was covered by a black pick guard, so no one was the wiser. Well, except for the ‘tone’ knob controlling the volume.

Undeterred, he then used masking techniques to paint the guitar white with random black stripes. It looked pretty awful, but all those electrical mods produced a rich tone known as the ‘brown sound’. The guitar was prominently photographed on the 1979 album Van Halen, which sold gangbusters and made the band an overnight sensation.

Eddie’s popularity spawned loads of copycat guitars, so he painted the Frankenstrat with red bicycle paint, lost the pick guard, and added a nonfunctional pickup near the neck, next to a fake five-way switch. Other changes included a Floyd Rose tremolo shimmed with a 1971 quarter, school bus reflectors on the back, and a smaller pick guard made out of a vinyl record.

And that’s not even half the modifications this poor instrument has endured. But the guitar is now as unique to Eddie as his fingerprint, and the band did go on to sell over 50 million records with it. A 2008 version of the Frankenstrat now resides in the Smithsonian Institution.

4
Jimmy Page
Les Paul


Guitarists buy Les Pauls because they think playing one on stage will get them laid. They’re right. And much of the thanks goes directly to Jimmy Page, who made this guitar—and Led Zeppelin—the sweaty embodiment of 70′s sex, drugs and rock’n'roll.

Case in point: Black Dog.
We’re done here.

3
Eric Clapton
Blackie


In the late 60s Eric Clapton was at a career crossroads. On pure impulse, he bought six Fender Stratocasters from a Nashville music store, despite being a devoted Gibson player. He gave one guitar each to friends George Harrison, Pete Townsend, and Steve Winwood, and then used the best components of the remaining three to make a single guitar for himself.

Little did he know that instrument would become his stage and studio guitar for the next 15 years. Clapton nicknamed the guitar ‘Blackie’ and played it on thirteen consecutive solo albums, including 461 Ocean Boulevard (“I Shot the Sheriff’) and Slowhand (“Wonderful Tonight”, “Lay Down Sally”, and “Cocaine”).

Blackie’s last public appearance before retirement was the Live Aid concert for Africa in 1985. In 2004, Clapton auctioned off Blackie and donated the proceeds to the Crossroads Centre, a drug and alcohol rehab clinic on the Caribbean island of Antigua. American music chain Guitar Center purchased Blackie for $959,500, which was a world record at the time. Guitar Center technicians say the instrument is in working order, and if it goes missing, the first place they’ll look is Clapton’s house.

2
Jimi Hendrix
Fender Stratocaster


In the 1960s, seeing a black man with a foot-wide afro dressed like a pimp and playing rock guitar backwards must have been mind-blowing, drugs or no drugs. Add that said music was 20 years ahead of its time, and it’s almost too much too take. Such was Jimi Hendrix.

Yeah, it is rumored that Jimi preferred the darker tone of Les Pauls right before he set the standard for rock star deaths. But Hendrix will forever be remembered for playing reverse-strung, right-handed Fender Stratocasters left-handed. Don’t bother re-reading that—it doesn’t help, and yeah, it was just as weird to write as it was to read.

And note the plural. Jimi isn’t linked to a single guitar because he had this insane penchant for lighting the damn things on fire during performances. As a result, the few remaining Hendrix Strats are worth a small fortune. In 2008, a guitar Hendrix torched during a London show sold for £280,000 at auction.

1
BB King
Lucille


No guitarist is more wedded to his instrument than the reigning Monarch of the Blues, B.B. King. As the man himself tells it, in 1949 he was playing a ‘Chitlin Circuit’ dancehall in Arkansas when the heater upended and set the building on fire. In his haste to escape the flames, King left his beloved Gibson semi-hollow electric guitar inside.

Mortified at his potential loss, King ran back into the burning building and retrieved it. The next day he learned the fire was started by two men fighting over a woman named Lucille, so he named the guitar ‘Lucille’ to remember those mad moments when he risked his life to save it. He then vowed never again to run into a burning building or fight over women (some will argue these are two separate things, but they don’t understand the blues).

In 1968 King described Lucille with equal parts sacred devotion and dirty passion: “it loves to be petted and played with. There’s also a certain way you hold it, the certain noises it makes, the way it excites me … and Lucille don’t want to play anything but the blues … Lucille is real, when I play her it’s almost like hearing words, and of course, naturally I hear cries.”
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10 Worst Moments in US History


1. The Trail of Tears 1838
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The Trail of Tears was the relocation and movement of Native Americans, including many members of the Cherokee, Creek, Seminole, and Choctaw nations among others in the United States, from their homelands to Indian Territory (present day Oklahoma) in the Western United States. The phrase originated from a description of the removal of the Choctaw Nation in 1831. Many Native Americans suffered from exposure, disease, and starvation while en route to their destinations, and many died, including 4,000 of the 15,000 relocated Cherokee. By 1837, 46,000 Native Americans from these southeastern nations had been removed from their homelands thereby opening 25 million acres for settlement by European Americans
2. The Dred Scott Decision 1857
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The Dred Scott Decision was a decision by the United States Supreme Court that ruled that people of African descent imported into the United States and held as slaves, or their descendants—whether or not they were slaves—were not protected by the Constitution and could never be citizens of the United States. It also held that the United States Congress had no authority to prohibit slavery in federal territories. The Court also ruled that because slaves were not citizens, they could not sue in court. Lastly, the Court ruled that slaves—as chattel or private property—could not be taken away from their owners without due process.
3. The battle of Antietam 1862
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The battle of Antietam, fought on September 17, 1862, near Sharpsburg, Maryland, and Antietam Creek, as part of the Maryland Campaign, was the first major battle in the American Civil War to take place on Northern soil. It was the bloodiest single-day battle in American history, with about 23,000 casualties. The Union had 12,401 casualties with 2,108 dead. Confederate casualties were 10,318 with 1,546 dead. This represented 25% of the Federal force and 31% of the Confederate. More Americans died on September 17, 1862, than on any other day in the nation’s military history. Several generals died as a result of the battle, including Maj. Gens. Joseph K. Mansfield , Israel B. Richardson and Brig. Gen. Isaac P. Rodman on the Union side (all mortally wounded), and Brig. Gens. Lawrence O. Branch, William E. Starke on the Confederate side (killed).
4. The Stock Market Crash 1929
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A massive drop in value of the stock market helped trigger the Great Depression which lasted until the increased economic activity spurred by WW2 got us going back in the right direction. The Great Depression had devastating effects in virtually every country, rich and poor. Personal income, tax revenue, profits and prices dropped, and international trade plunged by a half to two-thirds. Unemployment in the United States rose to 25% and in some countries rose as high as 33%. Cities all around the world were hit hard, especially those dependent on heavy industry. Construction was virtually halted in many countries. Farming and rural areas suffered as crop prices fell by approximately 60 percent.
5. Interment Camps 1942
Japanese-Evacuation
The US government came to the conclusion that interning Japanese-American citizens was the best of a number of bad options. Roughly a hundred thousand Japanese-Americans ended up in camps. U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs Executive Order 9066 on February 19, uprooting Japanese Americans on the west coast to be sent to Internment camps. The order led to the internment of Japanese Americans or AJAs (Americans of Japanese Ancestry) in which some 120,000 ethnic Japanese people were held in internment camps for the duration of the war. Of the Japanese interned, 62% were Nisei (American-born, second-generation Japanese American and therefore American citizens) or Sansei (third-generation Japanese American, also American citizens) and the rest were Issei (Japanese immigrants and resident aliens, first-generation Japanese American).
6. Dropping of the Bomb 1945
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A decision was taken to drop atomic bombs on Japanese civilians killing roughly 200,000 people in total to ‘shorten’ the war. ( It completely ignored the fact that war is between armies, not civilians). On Monday, August 6, 1945, at 8:15 AM, the nuclear bomb ‘Little Boy’ was dropped on Hiroshima by an American B-29 bomber, the Enola Gay, directly killing an estimated 80,000 people. By the end of the year, injury and radiation brought total casualties to 90,000-140,000. Approximately 69% of the city’s buildings were completely destroyed, and about 7% severely damaged. On August 9, 1945, Nagasaki was the target of the world’s second atomic bomb attack (and second plutonium bomb; the first was tested in New Mexico, USA) at 11:02 a.m., when the north of the city was destroyed and an estimated 40,000 people were killed by the bomb nicknamed “Fat Man.” According to statistics found within Nagasaki Peace Park, the death toll from the atomic bombing totaled 73,884, as well as another 74,909 injured, and another several hundred thousand diseased and dying due to fallout and other illness caused by radiation.
7. Bay of Pigs. 1961
Bopigs 16663S
Kennedy’s decision to go forward with the invasion and then deny them air support doomed the entire enterprise to failure. Today, 44 years later, Fidel Castro, a diehard enemy of the United States, is still in power. The plan was launched in April 1961, less than three months after John F. Kennedy assumed the presidency in the United States. The Cuban armed forces, trained and equipped by Eastern Bloc nations, defeated the exile combatants in three days. Bad Cuban-American relations were made worse by the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. The invasion is often criticized as making Castro even more popular, adding nationalistic sentiments to the support for his economic policies. Following the initial attacks by 8 CIA-owned B-26s on Cuban airfields, he declared the revolution “Marxist-Leninist”. There are still yearly nationwide drills in Cuba during the ‘Dia de la Defensa’ (Defense Day) to prepare the population for an invasion.
8. Vietnam 1960s
Vietnam-War
The United States entered the war to prevent a communist takeover of South Vietnam as part of their wider strategy of containment. Military advisors arrived, beginning in 1950. U.S. involvement escalated in the early 1960s, with U.S. troop levels tripling in 1961 and tripling again in 1962. The war exacted a huge human cost in terms of fatalities, including 3 to 4 million Vietnamese from both sides, 1.5 to 2 million Laotians and Cambodians, and 58,159 U.S. soldiers. The Case-Church Amendment, passed by the U.S. Congress in response to the anti-war movement, prohibited direct U.S. military involvement after August 15, 1973. U.S. military and economic aid continued until 1975. The capture of Saigon by North Vietnamese army in April 1975 marked the end of Vietnam War. North and South Vietnam were reunified the following year.
9. 9/11 2001
9-11-Attacks
Terrorist madmen attack the Twin Towers and Pentagon, kill nearly 3000 Americans, and set off a war on terrorism. (Some accounts suggest it was an inside job, or a horrific case of neglect). Afghanistan invaded to destroy the groups (Taliban & al Qaeda) America itself made, trained & armed to fight the Russian invasion. The campaign is still going on and has spilled into neighboring Pakistan, India & Iran, highlighting the inability of American forces to contain the war. The initial attack removed the Taliban from power, but Taliban forces have since regained some strength. T he war has been less successful in achieving the goal of restricting al-Qaeda’s movement than anticipated. Since 2006, Afghanistan has seen threats to its stability from increased Taliban-led insurgent activity, record-high levels of illegal drug production, and a fragile government with limited control outside of Kabul
10. Iraq 2003
Iraq-War-2003
The ‘Invasion of Iraq’ on the basis of alleged reports saying Iraq possesses WMD’s. Nothing found but hundreds of thousands of lives shattered. Bush later admitted that “[my] biggest regret of the presidency has to have been the intelligence failure in Iraq. In 2005, the Central Intelligence Agency released a report saying that no weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq. The invasion of Iraq was strongly opposed by some traditional U.S. allies, including France, Germany, New Zealand, and Canada. Their leaders argued that there was no evidence of WMD and that invading Iraq was not justified in the context of UNMOVIC’s February 12, 2003 report. On February 15, 2003, a month before the invasion, there were many worldwide protests against the Iraq war, including a rally of three million people in Rome, which is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the largest ever anti-war rally. According to the French academic Dominique ReyniĆ©, between January 3 and April 12, 2003, 36 million people across the globe took part in almost 3,000 protests against the Iraq war, but the decision remained & Iraq was invaded.
Bonus
McCarthyism
Mccarthyism-1
McCarthyism is the politically motivated practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence. Originally coined to criticize the anti-communist pursuits of U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy, “McCarthyism” soon took on a broader meaning, describing the excesses of similar efforts. During the post–World War II era of McCarthyism, many thousands of Americans were accused of being Communists or communist sympathizers and became the subject of aggressive investigations and questioning before government or private-industry panels, committees and agencies. Many people suffered loss of employment, destruction of their careers, and even imprisonment. Historian Ellen Schrecker wrote that “in this country, McCarthyism did more damage to the constitution than the American Communist Party ever did.”
Source: http://listverse.coma
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