re: Interesting historical pictures thread (add captions please)

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Cool story about Pres. Bush. He's lead quite a life!

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Really nice guy IRL as is Barbara. All the family is so down to earth and normal. None of them act like theyre important

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The Ryugyong Hotel in the center of North Korea's capital city Pyongyang, must count as one of the strangest building projects, not to say one of the ugliest, in the world. Construction began in 1987 and continued until its abandonment in 1993 when the projected cost of required remedial rebuilding was simply too much for the impoverished city and state to bear. Now, twenty-four years after the first concrete block was laid, it's finally finished - kinda..

Designed in the 80s Brutalist Sci-Fi style so beloved of Marxist dictators of the time, the 105 floor Ryugyong Hotel at 330 meters (1,082 feet) was to be one of the tallest buildings outside of the US - a towering monument to the success of North Korea and its leader Kim Il-Sung. Unfortunately by 1992 The Soviet Union had collapsed taking with it its significant financial support of the North Korean economy and the cripplingly expensive project could not continue while the country slipped into poverty.

For fifteen years the citizens of Pyongyang simply chose to deny the existence of the abandoned concrete shell, even though it completely dominates the city's skyline and western visitors found it bizarrely impossible to direct a taxi towards the site. It became a popular Google Earth destination and attracted the nickname 'Hotel of Doom.'

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High tide came at 06:00 on 24 October. The wind had lessened, but Sophia was still stuck fast on the reef. Low tide came at about noon. The wind and waves forced the Sophia even farther up onto the reef, but fortunately the vessel's double hull was not breached. At low tide on the reef the entire hull of the Sophia was completely out of the water. The barometer was rising, which indicated a possible improvement in the weather. With the next high tide at 16:00, and the seas so rough that any evacuation would be hazardous, Locke chose to wait to see if he could get the vessel off. This proved impossible. Without a tug, or more likely two or three tugs, the Sophia could never be taken off the reef. Worse yet, the passengers could not be evacuated from the vessel without life-threatening danger. At low tide the Sophia was surrounded on both sides by exposed rock. At high tide, the rock was awash, but the swells were such that a lifeboat would strike the rocks as the waves pounded up and down.

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Just as Miller was disembarking from Cedar to return to King and Winge, at 16:50 on 25 October, Sophia sent out a wireless message: "Ship Foundering on Reef. Come at Once." Ledbetter immediately prepared to steam out to the reef. He signaled Miller on King and Winge to follow him with two blasts of the whistle, but Miller did not at first understand the signal. Ledbetter then drove Cedar alongside King and Winge and shouted out to Miller: "I am going out there to try and locate him. If the snow should clear up, you come out and relieve me." Miller replied: "I will give you an hour to find them."
The next radio message from Sophia came at 17:20: "For God's sake, hurry, the water is in my room." There was more but the radio operator could not pick it up. Knowing Sophia had weak wireless batteries, Cedar wired Sophia to conserve battery power and only transmit if absolutely necessary. Sophia's operator radioed back: "Alright I will. You talk to me so I know you are coming." This was the last wireless message from Sophia.

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BUT if this pic is real and that is his wife, it sure looks like he married a "mixed woman".

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William "Uncle Bill"Lundy was born on January 18, 1848 in Coffee Springs, Alabama. He was a member of Company D 4th Alabama Cavalry Regiment of the Confederate States of America Army. He died on September 1, 1957, in Crestview, Florida.

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