Brendan I. Koerner

“Skyjackers had a pretty abysmal success rate - once you commandeered a plane in American airspace, your odds of a happy ending were slim. After the epidemic ended in 1973, what folks tended...”

“The hazards posed by Near-Earth Asteroids are assessed by Sentry, a computer system developed by the Near-Earth Objects Group at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. The soft...”

“You don't have to be Wilt Chamberlain to get into the Basketball Hall of Fame. If you don't have a sweet turnaround jumper from 18 feet, the best route to the Hall is fatherhood. Daniel Bias...”

“A duped newspaper or magazine could contend that a fiction-spouting journalist obtained part of his salary via fraud, and use a criminal proceeding to try and recoup that money. Given the pr...”

“The first outbreak of America's 11-year skyjacking epidemic occurred in the summer of 1961, when four planes were seized in the nation's airspace. The last of these incidents, involving 16-y...”

“According to tarot historian Gertrude Moakley, the cards' fanciful images - from the Fool to Death - were inspired by the costumed figures who participated in carnival parades.”

“Like many of his fellow skyjackers, 49-year-old Arthur Gates Barkley was motivated by a complicated grievance against the federal government. In 1963, the World War II veteran had been fired...”

“According to Ted Watt's 'The First Labor Day Parade,' the September date was chosen because it coincided with a Knights of Labor conference in New York, thus guaranteeing a sizable turnout f...”

“I was vaguely aware that people used to hijack planes to Cuba. But I didn't know much about how often it happened and what the motives were. I started looking into what was going on back the...”

“In the early years of America's skyjacking epidemic, the airlines were reluctant to let the FBI attempt to end hijackings by force; they feared that innocents would get caught in the crossfi...”

“Most of the American skyjackers who fled abroad eventually elected to return to the United States, having tired of life on the lam. These homecomings typically involved prearranged surrender...”

“Sea-Monkeys are hybrid brine shrimp and the brainchild of the mail-order entrepreneur Harold von Braunhut in 1957. When their crystallized eggs are submerged in water, minuscule crustaceans...”

“Tarot cards likely originated in northern Italy during the late 14th or early 15th century. The oldest surviving set, known as the Visconti-Sforza deck, was created for the Duke of Milan's f...”

“Mystical groups such as the Theosophical Society and the Rosicrucians turned tarot into an American fad during the early 1900s. Many American tarot practitioners use a set of cards known as...”