DayStrider: Tales from a Time Traveler

Dec 21st: The Need for Speed

• Truman Pastworthy • Episode 5

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Some incredible things were created on December 21st by folks who had a problem to solve and they were able to do so by blending their passions together to make something new for the world to enjoy.  Make time to explore the richness of today: 

  • The “birth” of the F-14 Tomcat (its first flight),
  • The “birth” of the post of basketball (the very first game), and
  • The “birth” of the crossword puzzle (the very first one published).   

If it's a special day for you or for someone you care about, why not learn a little more about today by listening to some fun, engaging stories.  If you need some great gift ideas, we have those too (along with links to where you can find them on Amazon).

I mentioned two fun activities in this episode, here they are (these links worked in late 2023 - not sure how long they will remain available):

Once you are done, you can use the crossword labs website to make your own puzzle!


Gift ideas for folks who celebrate December 21st for any reason:

Full disclosure:  If you use these gift idea links and make a purchase, I will make a small commission.

My promise:  Every penny will be reinvested into this podcast to help it grow and flourish . . . or perhaps even to help spawn new podcasts (many ideas are bubblin').


~~~   DayStrider Fun   ~~~

Text me your favorite time travel movie!!!


~~~ DayStrider Fun ~~~


Do you want to be mentioned here in the podcast? Or do you want me to do a shout-out for a loved one? All you need to do is send me an e-mail: daystriderstories@gmail.com


Better yet, you can record your own shout-out by leaving me a voice message using this SpeakPipe link


Do you have a story that you wish to share? Join me as a guest and let’s tell the world together! Once again, just send me an e-mail or find me here on Facebook: Truman Pastworthy


If you had as much fun listening as I did creating this episode, please click "follow" in your favorite podcast platform . . . oh . . . and even better - why not share it with a friend (or three)! I’m betting you know just the perfect person who would enjoy today’s stories!


If you feel adventurous, how 'bout writing a great review? :-)



SPEAKER_00:

If December 21st is your special day, or if it's special for someone you care about, then come stride with me. I've got some great stories to share with you about some things that happened on this day in the past. Today we're celebrating three proverbial birthdays. The most iconic fighter jet in the world, a popular international sport invented here in America, and a mental maze that changed the puzzle landscape forever. That's some great company to be in, my friend. So let's get to them. Welcome, seekers, to the enchanting world of Daystrider, the podcast where we embark on a daily journey through history. I'm your travel guide, Truman Pastworthy, and together we'll explore some fascinating stories that happened on this exact day, but from some time in the past. From groundbreaking inventions to remarkable birthdays... and extraordinary events to quirky national holidays, we've got it all. So kick back, relax, and open your mind for some lighthearted stories that'll leave you saying, huh, I never knew that happened on this day. Alrighty then, let's get to it. I feel the need, the need for speed. Oh, yeah. Now, if I was allowed, I'd cue the Danger Zone song for you and get you in the mood. And then I'd cue up an F-14 fighter jet zooming by with that loud airplane swoosh sound. Get your adrenaline up. Takes you back to the original Top Gun movie, right? The scene where Maverick and Goose were taking on Iceman. Yep. Have you ever seen the movie Top Gun or its sequel, Top Gun Maverick? If not, well, you've missed out on an outstanding adventure. And you should definitely add them to your list of what to watch next. In addition to some fantastic action scenes, there's a love story baked into each one of the movies, along with some tragedy, including a very sad death that occurred in the first movie, and which played a huge role in the second movie. So I'm telling you, these movies have it all. And if you're not convinced, the Rotten Tomatoes score is a 96%. And Tom Cruise's career, his trajectory took off. Pun intended. After the original movie aired in 1986, as did the career of director Tony Scott, but another big winner coming out of Top Gun was the Navy itself. That's right. They tapped into Top Gun fever and enjoyed a significant increase in new recruits that year because they realized that the high-octane action scenes made the Navy seem glorious, and so they set up recruiting stations right outside of movie theaters. So when the young men and women walked out of the movie theater... The Navy was right there to catch their energy and excitement and sign them up for the Navy. The Navy hasn't published official stats on the recruiting increases other than to say they were significant. But we're not here to talk about a movie. We're actually here to talk about the true star of the original Top Gun, and that's the F-14 Tomcat, the fighter jet that Maverick and Goose and their cronies flew throughout the movie. This beast of an airplane was hailed by aviators as the best interceptor the Navy ever flew for a decade prior to Hollywood getting its hands and its lenses on them. Essentially, the F-14 Tomcat was born on this day in 1970, when Bob Smythe and Bill Miller took to the air in the very first one. Their test flight was a success, and the plane eventually went into production a few years later and easily became the Navy's number one aircraft for the next 30 years. The F-14 also became the world's number one aircraft during that span, and I'll come up with a little story maybe to help you see that. But before we get to the story, let's talk a little bit about the plane. Now, when I was researching this segment, I discovered that when aviators talk about the Tomcat aircraft, They are in love with it, and they just drone on and on about the specs and the engines and the radar system and the guns. And, ugh, it's too much. I'm just going to keep it simple for you. This plane was fast, and it was agile. So on the fast part, it could go two and a half times the speed of sound. And on the agile part, it could get involved in all kinds of combat. Air to ground, air to air. It could intercept planes that were really far away. And all these impressive maneuvering capabilities came to be because of the design of the plane and its variable sweep wings. Yep, I had to get technical there. Variable sweep wings. Now, in the movies you could see how these variable sweep wings worked. When the plane wanted to be in fighter jet mode... It could extend its wings kind of straight out wide to the side, like if you made your arms go straight out. That's kind of what the wings looked like, and that helped it fight Russian MiG fighters and other bad guys. But then when it wanted to go super fast and intercept other planes, it was able to kind of pull those wings down, angle them back, and tuck them in a little bit so it looked more like a rocket. And these special wings, they were made out of titanium, which made them very strong and also very light, so helping the plane be more maneuverable. Pretty neat stuff. So also featured in the movies was the plane's radar capabilities. That's because this new radar that was designed for this plane could track two dozen targets all at once. So incoming missiles, enemy planes, activities on the ground. And this was an incredible advancement compared to the technology that was available at that time in 1970s. Okay, so we don't want to bore you to death on describing the airplane, right? We're not aviation enthusiasts. But let's get a feel for how badass this fighter jet really was. So let me find a story for you. So we're going to go back to 1981, and we're going to go over the waters of the Mediterranean Sea. So a country there in northern Africa is called Libya, and Libya along its coast has this indentation that kind of goes down and up, and that body of water is called the Gulf of Sidra. And the leaders of Libya decided they wanted to, quote unquote, close the Gulf of Sidra to the rest of the world and claiming it as their waters. Well, Ronald Reagan was the president at that time, and he was not happy with this approach. And so he decided to send an aircraft carrier fleet. So this is a bunch of ships, including an aircraft carrier, into the region to conduct naval testing and training that included air activity. And so early on in that training, The Libyan Air Force decided to send up some MiGs so they had some Russian fighter planes, which previous to the F-14 Tomcat were the best fighter jets in the world. They sent them up to go see what was happening, and they ended up getting a little surprised. One of the planes in the exercise was an F-14 Tomcat that was piloted by Lawrence Music Musinsky and Officer James Luca Anderson. And Music kind of flew his plane right up next to the MiG fighter jet. Kind of just appeared out of nowhere. And he could tell they were close enough to tell when the MiG pilot looked over to see what was that coming out of his peripheral vision. He was surprised to see an airplane there. They basically snuck up on him and scared him a little bit. And they did some evasive maneuvers to try to get the heck out of there. And of course, Music and Luca have some fun, got in behind them and just flew them back to their own airspace. And so they thought that was a great experience. They talked a little trash when they got back to the carrier. And there was no incident that day. But the next day, there was. So Music and Luca were back up in the air in their Fast Eagle 102 that next day. And two more MiGs showed up and they wanted to test the capabilities of the Tomcat. So they were playing a kind of a game of chicken in the air where the American planes were flying straight at the Libyan planes. And then one of the Libyan planes fired a missile at the Americans, unprovoked. So Music had to do some really fast evasive maneuvers and fire off his countermeasures and get the plane away from that missile and then had to bank around and do this 180 degree turn, kind of drop the engine speed, get the plane spun around and then behind the MiG and essentially got behind him really fast. It took less than 30 seconds to get behind that plane and he shot it down. And then once he had permission, he and his wingman were able to get in behind the other MiG pilot and shoot that plane down as well. So within minutes, both of the MiGs at the bottom of the Gulf. Fortunately, the pilots were able to safely eject, so they didn't lose their lives. And that probably saved an international incident. But those planes, they got shot down fast. So, spoiler alert here, right? If you haven't seen the movie Top Gun, don't listen to this part yet. But basically, in the movie, they had a scene where Maverick and Goose inverted their plane above one of the Russian MiG fighters and took a picture of it. So that was based on this real-life incident from 1981. They actually based it off of that. They put in their Hollywood flair a little bit, right? And then the scenes where Maverick is getting the plane to maneuver around the bad guys, those are kind of things the F-14 could actually be capable of doing. So, pretty neat. One more spoiler alert, though, sadly. The incident that caused Maverick to have to eject from the fighter and led to Goose's death, that is also based on real-life issues with the F-14, where when it flies through another airplane's exhaust that causes engine stalling, And that's what happened in the movie that actually also caused some accidents in real life. So that's a little sad. But let's end on a positive note here. The world was made a safer place for several decades because of the awesomeness of the F-14 Tomcat that was born on this day in 1970. And if you want to go see what the plane looks like, you can actually do so. The Fast Eagle 102 that was involved in the story that I just told, it's on display in Midland, Texas at an airfield museum there. Imagine, if you will, the following scenario. You're a teacher and a coach at a college in central Massachusetts, and it's the dead of winter. In fact, a blizzard has just blasted your campus, and the student-athletes can't go anywhere, especially they can't get outside and burn off energy. So you've got a bunch of football players who also play lacrosse in the spring, horsing around with each other in the gym, trying to burn off their pent-up energy and making a ruckus. And so your athletic director stomps into your office and challenges you to come up with something for these rapscallions to do to burn off energy. But make sure that they don't get hurt between their fall and spring seasons. So what do you do? How good are you at making up games? Seriously. Think about a time you've been sitting around with your friends or family, and it's miserable outside, or when there's no internet available to distract you. What kind of game would you make up? When I was younger, before Xboxes, Before Nintendo, and even before Atari, you had to pass the dog days of summer doing something. And you couldn't always find enough people to go over to the sandlot. So, you made up a game. We had Kick the Can. We made up Curb Ball. We did Woodpile Olympics, which was dangerous. We played a game called Muckle. Well, some people called it Muckle, and others, we called it Kill the Guy with the Ball. And others used a more offensive name for that game. But James Naismith, he's the teacher and coach who was in this situation, had to come up with a game that would be engaging for his players, have fun and challenging, and also competitive enough to make them want to do it again. So he was digging around the storage closet area next to the gym, and he walked out with a couple of peach baskets, a hammer and some nails. He walked up to the balcony seating area above the gymnasium floor, and nailed those baskets right to the railing, which happened to be 10 feet above the gymnasium floor. He rounded up 18 men, split them into two teams of nine, and gave them a soccer ball. He told them the object of the game was to get that ball into one of the baskets while the other team tried to stop you. That's right, get the ball in the basket. And yes, folks, that's how basketball was born on this day, December 21st, 1891. During a blizzard to keep the football players engaged with actual baskets and a ball that wasn't even really good at being dribbled. What was the score of that very first game? One to nothing. Seriously. But to be fair, they didn't really have that many great rules at that time. Naismith came up with 13 rules to try to make the game safer because the men were tackling each other on the gym floor. And he wanted to give it a little more flow. So when you watch basketball on TV or in the local rec center, it is much different today than what it looked like 130 years ago. First, you probably heard me say that he took 18 players and divide them into teams of nine. Well, today's game, it's five on five, and they switched to five players in 1897. You're also probably wondering, how did they get the ball after someone made a basket? Well, believe it or not, they climbed a ladder. That's right. Every time somebody made a basket, they had to get the ladder out and climb up and pull the ball out of the basket. Of course, that didn't last long. In 1892, they cut the bottoms out of the baskets. But they did keep using wooden peach baskets for another year, and they took a beating. So they changed it to a cast iron rim in 1893, two years after the game was invented. But they didn't add a net to the rim until 1912. So almost 20 years later, it was that they added a net. Can you imagine playing basketball without a net? So we're making some progress here, right? Well, hold on a second. Remember I said these baskets were hung from the balconies? That meant that anybody in the balcony could interfere with play by swiping at the ball or helping it go into the basket. So they put up backboards to prevent this interference from the stands, not to help shooters get lucky with their bank shots. Something else you might not have thought of as basketball became more popular, they were putting these baskets with the backboard against the walls of the gym. So the players could actually, when they were doing layups, run up the wall to help them get closer and make the layup easier. So it wasn't until 1916, 25 years later, that they actually built a frame and hung the backboard off the wall a couple feet so that players couldn't use the wall to make their layups easier. But wait, there's more. Let me prompt you here. When you have the ball in your hands, what are your three options? You can dribble, pass, or shoot, right? Well, the original game had the passing and shooting part down, but they didn't actually start dribbling the ball until 1897. So the first six years of basketball were very different than the game you see today. And of course, back then, as I mentioned, the ball was a soccer ball, and it wasn't made for dribbling. But the Spalding Company, who made baseballs and baseball gloves in that time, quickly realized the popularity of this sport, and they came out with a ball that was easier for bouncing, and that's when the actual basketball itself was born. So let's see, what are we missing here? Mr. Curry? Paging Mr. Stephen Curry. Any ideas on what I'm forgetting to share as the evolution of the game? That's right, that three-point line. By the way, he's the best three-point shooter in history. That wasn't introduced until 70 years after the game started. There were other changes as well. such as making a foul shot worth one point instead of two, adding a shooting clock to the game, which made the offense have to shoot before time ran out, and a bunch of other rules. But original rule number one, that's still a rule, no changes. The ball may be thrown in any direction with one or two hands. Now, I can't let you go without talking about some of the people who made basketball famous. Without these folks, we wouldn't enjoy March Madness and the NBA Finals as much as we do today. So I'm going to list off some of the most influential players of all time, and I'm going to do it in historical order. I'm not trying to create controversy here and argue that any one of these players is the greatest of all time. I'm just going to list the players. Starting with Bill Russell, who played in the 50s and 60s, and his team, the Boston Celtics, won 11 championships over the 13 years that he played. That's pretty impressive. And then there's Wilt Chamberlain. He played in the 60s. And there was a game he scored 100 points, which we'll cover in a future podcast episode. And another game he had 55 rebounds. And then, of course, you can't leave out Larry Bird and Magic Johnson. You got to mention these two together. They played together in the 80s at opposite ends of the country. One player was on the Lakers, one on the Celtics. And they dominated the game. And they created an intense rivalry that got the entire nation fully engaged into the sport of basketball, making the popularity just soar. And then, of course, along comes Michael Jordan. And together with his Nike contract, they made the popularity of basketball soar to the entire world. And then Kobe Bryant came along, a fierce competitor who constantly reinvented himself on the court. Many of today's stars credit him as their model that they built their game on. And then right now we have King James. LeBron James is the current NBA star who was actually NBA ready in high school. And he continues to shatter records at an amazing pace. But he's also the oldest player in the league right now. So it makes you wonder who's going to be the next star to carry on the torch. What's a nine-letter word for an invention that was first published on this day in 1913? Need another hint? The invention was a puzzle. And it was originally featured in the New York World newspaper. You think you got it? It's featured daily today in the New York Times. The crossword puzzle, that's right. Good job. Actually, something funny about that hint. The New York Times originally refused to publish crossword puzzles way back in the day. They thought crosswords were a fad, and they thought that they didn't need silly puzzles to keep readers' attention. How about that? They went so far as to publish articles poo-pooing crossword puzzles. That's pretty ironic given where we are today. But hey, we're going to come back to the New York Times. So when was the last time you tried to complete one of those things? If you're like me, you find them very challenging to finish. But a secret pleasure of mine, don't tell anybody. When you're flying on a plane and you pull out one of those airplane magazines out of the pocket of the seat in front of you, and you open up to the crossword, and somebody who has already done some of it, and they actually figured out all the hard clues, leaving you the easy ones left. I love those, because then I can actually finish the puzzle and say, hey, look, guys, I finished the crossword puzzle. All right, so the New York World was a sensationalist paper. They glorified sports and sex and scandal. You know the kind, right? Well, if you don't, here's an example. During the 1864 presidential election... The paper actually got shut down because they were publishing forged documents that they had claimed were from Abraham Lincoln. Sensationalism. Now you know the kind I mean. But hey, sensationalism sold papers, right? And the goal of the New York world was to boost circulation. And they tried all kinds of things to sell papers. But some of them were good. For example, they produced the first full-color supplement to their weekend editions, which included cartoons. Basically, the precursor to comic strips. That's pretty cool. And they wanted something fun for the readers to do each day as well, a mental exercise, if you will. So the head of the paper walked into Arthur Wynne's office in 1913 and challenged him to come up with something for the readers to do. Arthur got to thinking and he combined his love of words and his liking of puzzles and came up with a way to have the reader solve for the clues that he put down into blank squares on the paper. He came up with the very first crossword puzzle. He made it shaped like a diamond, and he had 15 across clues and 16 down clues. And you can actually try to solve his puzzle today. I will leave a link to it in the show notes, but you can also find it anywhere on Google. And I finished that thing in less than one minute. Okay, I'm not a sensationalist podcast. I actually couldn't finish it. The clues were too hard for me. But maybe you can get it. So obviously, the crossword craze was not a fad like the Times originally depicted. It endured, it evolved, and it grew like crazy. All across the country, publications began making crossword puzzles. And about 30 years later, the Times finally said, all right, I guess we'll get into this business. So for perspective, prior to 1942... Crossword puzzles did not have that look to them that you see now in today's paper where there's a square and the blacked out areas have what they call rotational symmetry. There were all kinds of shapes and sizes and their clues were all over the map and some clues were more risque than others. And many crosswords contained errors and misspellings. The Times didn't want that. They wanted to have the best crossword format in the nation. If they were going to do it, they were going to do it right. So they created a structure and an approach, and they came up with rigid rules to contain the shape and size of the puzzles. And they wanted the clues to be challenging, but rated no worse than PG. And they had a formula, where the Monday puzzles were easier, and they got progressively harder each day during the week, with the hardest puzzles showing up on the weekend edition. So they helped elevate the crossword puzzle game. And so today, there are crossword puzzles that follow this new format in every major news publication. There are crossword puzzle books. There are crossword puzzle puzzles. I mean, the jigsaw type. And there are also tournaments to crown an annual crossword puzzle champion. There's even a documentary movie called Wordplay featuring crossword puzzles and the people who love to solve them, puzzle masters, regular folks, and some celebrities, including an ex-president. But this is a storytelling podcast, so we've got to find a story about crossword puzzles. And there is one. Back in World War II... Just before the U.S. and British forces were about to invade German-controlled France, they created Project Overlord, which was the name for their Normandy invasion. And at the time, the London newspaper, the Daily Telegraph, had begun featuring clues that were suspected of being part of a spy network. So Leonard Dahl, who was the Cruciverbalist—got to say that right, Cruciverbalist is the name of the person who creates crossword puzzles— And his puzzles began including words like Utah and Omaha, which were code words for the French beaches that were going to be invaded, and Neptune, which was the code word for a specific naval assault stage that they were working on this project. And then when they saw the word overlord show up in his crossword puzzle, that was the end of it. So the British intelligence officers were like, what the heck is going on? Why are all our code words showing up in these crossword puzzles? So they busted down Leonard's door and they gathered him up and took him into headquarters and started interrogating him. He's just doing his job, making up, you know, fun words for the puzzles. And they happened to be the same words that were being used by the Allied forces. And it turns out everything was okay. He was not a spy. But can you imagine that? You're just doing your job and then your door gets busted down by the CIA accusing you of being a traitor. All right. So in today's world of technology, you can easily find and complete crossword puzzles. Or even better, you can make your own crossword puzzles. Yeah, they have apps online. You just go in and you type in the word and then you type in the clue and then another word and the clue and another. And they'll create a crossword puzzle for you. It's pretty neat. It doesn't have the beautiful rotational symmetry that you'll find in the New York Times, but still it's pretty neat. So guess what? I actually made a crossword puzzle for you. And I'll put a link to it in the show notes. And you can try it out yourself. And then you can use that application to make your own crossword puzzles. It's pretty neat. But hey, warning. You'll have to have listened to all my prior episodes to get all the clues correctly. So there you go. Good luck. And there you have it. Some great stories to share with your someone special to celebrate December 21st. Once again, those were the creation of the F-14 Tomcat fighter jet, the creation of the game of basketball, and the creation of the crossword puzzle. That's a lot of creation going on, folks, and let's reflect for a moment. I don't usually do this, but let's reflect on the fact that each one of these things that you learned about today changed the world in a substantial way. And they were created by people, or a group of people, that faced a challenge and overcame that challenge by thinking about things that they were passionate about and crossing multiple things together to come up with something brand new. And then they applied that and off it went. It became very popular. You probably run into problems all the time. And if you stop and think about those problems and cross over some of your passions, you might be able to come up with a solution that's totally new that no one's thought of. Something to think about. But let's get on with perhaps you're unfulfilled because you haven't gotten anything for your loved one. And of course, you'd love something tangible to go along with these great stories, right? Now, I know sometimes my gift ideas from past episodes have been a little silly, but today I have a sincere idea. You should make your loved one a crossword puzzle. It's really easy. You can get a website online and it's easy to make. As I mentioned earlier, there's a link to a puzzle maker that I tried in the show notes. What better gift can you get for a loved one than a customized crossword puzzle that has things that they know and love all throughout it? December 21st is also National Coquito Day. I don't know if I'm saying that right. I'm willing to wager that your loved one has likely not tried this drink. It is a peppermint eggnog-ish type of liqueur. And you can pick some up at the local liquor stores at this time of year. And if your loved one, of course, isn't 21, maybe get them a basketball from your local sporting goods store. And if the weather permits, you guys can go out to a local school and shoot around a bit. I'm sure they'd love that time together. And as always, if those aren't cool enough, why don't you plan ahead for next time and leave a comment or get a hold of me at daystriderstories at gmail.com and share with me their name and something interesting you'd want to include in a future podcast. I'll do some shout-outs to a random selection of folks, and they'll forever be memorialized here with me. For example, Happy Birthday, Tricia Noel. As in, Tricia... Alright, that's how they want me to do it. Alright, our next two episodes will include stories about what happened on January 8th and February 2nd. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks so much for listening. Until next time, this is Truman Pastworthy, reminding you that every day has a great story. And we'll be striding through them all to find some more goodies for you. Now get out there and make your own great story today.