Heinz Meixner defects from East Germany by driving through Checkpoint Charlie after removing his windshield 5 May, 1963

One evening Meixner met Margarete Thurau at a dance in East Berlin. As love grew, they made plans for marriage, and Margarete asked permission to emigrate to Austria. East German authorities denied her request.

Undeterred, Meixner decided to drive under one of the steel beams that stretch across the narrow exits in the Wall. He chose Checkpoint Charlie, and riding a borrowed motor scooter, stalled it while the guard checked his passport. Meixner managed to measure the height of the barrier. It was only 37 1/2 inches above the pavement.

Meixner began a painstaking survey of West Berlin`s car rental agencies to find an automobile low enough to slip under the barrier. He selected a sports car, a red Austin-Healey Sprite. Without its windshield the sports car measured 35 1/2 inches in height. He chose a Sunday, shortly after midnight, for his run.

A few hours before starting he removed the windshield and, for added insurance, let some air out of the tires to lower the car even further. Margarete huddled in the tiny section behind the driver`s seat. Meixner`s future mother-in-law was crammed into the cramped luggage area. For protection against possible gunfire, Meixner had surrounded her with 30 bricks.

Sunday, May 5, 1963. It was time for the run. In the early-morning darkness, Meixner drove to the first barricade on the East Berlin side of the checkpoint. He displayed his passport to the guard, who motioned him on to the customs shed. Instead he gunned the motor, whizzed around the vertical bars and skidded past the startled guard.

Before the guards could fire their submachine guns, Meixner raced to the last steel bar, ducked his head, floored the accelerator and rocketed into West Berlin. He was traveling so fast that when he finally hit the brakes the tires left 96-foot-long skid marks.

After the American guards recovered from their shock at this apparition that had materialized out of the early-morning gloom, they welcomed Heinz Meixner, Margarete Thurau and her mother.

Meixner told the Americans, ``I figured it would take the guards three seconds to draw their weapons once they knew what I was doing. I knew Margarete`s mother was protected by the bricks. I felt I could make it with about three inches to spare . . . Now we can get married.``

http://www.vintag.es/2015/07/heinz-meixner-defects-from-east-germany.html

landing stolen planes in Manhattan, used to be a bar bet winning move

Tommy Fitzpatrick stole a plane from a New Jersey airport and landed it on St. Nicholas Avenue in northern Manhattan, right in front of the bar where he had been drinking around 3 a.m. on Sept. 30, 1956, when he was 26. He took a single-engine plane from the Teterboro School of Aeronautics in New Jersey and took off without lights or radio contact and landed on St. Nicholas Avenue near 191st Street. It was reported as a “fine landing” by the New York Times.

 It would provide enough material to tell everyone and anyone "Remember the time when Fitz landed that plane outside?" Naturally, people wouldn't believe he did it. So he did again two years later to prove it. Both daredevil landings were made in incredibly narrow areas, in the dark – and after quite a number of drinks.

On Oct. 4, 1958, just before 1 a.m. Fitzpatrick made his second drink and land.

He took a plane from Teterboro once again but this time landed on Amsterdam and 187th Street in front of a University building. He apparently jumped out of the plane and fled the scene but decided to turn himself in afterwards. Fitzpatrick simply told the police that he did it the second time because someone at the bar refused to believe he had done it the first time around.

After that first time, Fitzpatrick was charged with grand larceny but that was then dropped as the plane’s owner declined to sign a complaint. In the end he was only charged $100 for violating the city’s administrative code, which prohibits landing a plane on the street.

But for the second time he did it, he was sentenced to six months in jail for bringing a stolen item into the city.

http://www.theladbible.com/articles/a-pilot-once-landed-a-plane-outside-the-bar-he-was-drinking-at-twice-for-a-bet

on this day in 1909 22-year-old Alice Huyler Ramsey was the first woman to drive across the United States.

Found on https://www.facebook.com/womenshistory?fref=photo

The stone chariot of Hampi India, depicting a elephant drawn carriage (all speculation, but that's what it looks like) from 700 years ago. At the Vittala Temple

In front of the chariot two elephants are positioned as if they are pulling the chariot. In fact these stone elephants were brought from elsewhere and positioned here at a later stage. Originally two horses were carved in that position.

The tails and the rear legs of the horses can be still seen just behind these elephant sculptures. A broken stone ladder once gave access to the sanctum is kept between the elephants.

There was even a dome like superstructure over the chariot. That too is missing now. However you can see them on the first ever photographs of Hampi taken in 1856 by Alexander Greenlaw.

The great Vijayanagara Empire was established in the year 1336 by the two brothers Harihara I and Bukka Raya I of the Sangama Dynasty. The empire came to be regarded as a culmination of all the struggles of the southern powers for averting the Islamic invasions in late 13th century. Its power started declining after the great defeat in 1356 at the hands of the Deccan sultanates

It is clear that India at the time when Muslim invaders turned towards it (10th to 12th century) was the earth's richest region for its wealth in precious and semi-precious stones, gold and silver, religion and culture, and its fine arts and letters.

Tenth century Hindustan was also far more advanced than its contemporaries in the East and the West for its achievements in the realms of speculative philosophy and scientific theorizing, mathematics and knowledge of nature's workings. ( Europe was suffering through the "dark ages" and Islamic cultural advancement was permanently reversed by some idiot that decided math was against muhammad's plan)

 Hindus of the early medieval period were equal to or superior in more things than the Chinese, the Persians (including the Sassanians), the Romans and the Byzantines of the immediate proceeding centuries. Vijayanagar city was bigger than Rome city and one of the richest kingdoms.

 The followers of Siva and Vishnu on this subcontinent had created for themselves a society more mentally evolved-joyous and prosperous too-than had been realized by the Jews, Christians, and Muslim monotheists of the time.

Medieval India, until the Islamic invaders destroyed it, was history's most richly imaginative culture and one of the five most advanced civilizations of all times. Hindu culture was at its imaginative best and vigorously creative when the severely-allergic-to-images Muslims entered Hindustan.

Giving proof of the resentment that men belonging to an inferior civilization feel upon encountering a superior civilization of individuals with a more refined culture, Islamic invaders from Arabia and western Asia broke and burned everything beautiful they came across in Hindustan.

After the Muslims destroyed the Hindustan civilization, the Christians created massive poverty in it.
http://www.thehistoryhub.com/hampi-facts-pictures.htm  and  https://www.facebook.com/ancientoriginsweb/photos/a.595116573862624.1073741825.530869733620642/979775105396767/?type=1&fref=nf

http://hampi.in/stone-chariot/stone-chariot-of-hampi-new-old

The Disneyland Car Club Day and Autocade, 1959... a coincidental gathering of talent and future icons of custom cars it would be impossible to find again. Probably George Barris is the only guy alive from that show

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/the-great-disneyland-cover-up-of-1959.394779/page-2
March, 1960 issue of Rodding and Re-Styling magazine

a one day event at Holidayland in Disneyland in California.

The show was promoted as an annual show, but was only held once.

The participants of the car show drove their cars down Main Street USA and continued to Holidayland for the show and judging.

At the time the show was held, Disneyland was only about 4 years old, and they were hungry for special events to bring more customers to Disnelyand
Famous cars and people attending:
Norm Grabowski's The Kookie T
 The Kopper Kart
 Dean Jeffries' 1956 Porsche
 Ed Roth's Tweedy Pie and Excalibur
The name Excaliber came from a sword Ed used as a gear shifter in the car. The sword was a Revolutionary War sword that came from his mother-in-law's family. As no one could pronounce the name for the car, he changed it to the Outlaw later on in 1960.

There were about 500 cars there according to the grandson of the promoter. http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/the-great-disneyland-cover-up-of-1959.394779/page-3

http://www.kustomrama.com/index.php?title=Disneyland_Car_Club_Day_and_Autocade

A couple famous car guys have worked at Disneyland, Boyd Coddington for example

LA Times http://www.disneyhistoryinstitute.com/2012/04/holidayland-pt-2.html

how a Maharaja of arrives to greet foreign dignitaries

The 1903 Delhi Durbar was held to celebrate the succession of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra as Emperor and Empress of India.

The two full weeks of festivities were devised in meticulous detail by Lord Curzon. It was a dazzling display of pomp, power and split second timing. Neither the earlier Delhi Durbar of 1877, nor the later Durbar held there in 1911, could match the pageantry of Lord Curzon’s 1903 festivities.

http://historicaltimes.tumblr.com/post/119755619857/the-maharaja-of-rewa-arrives-at-the-delhi-durbar