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Columbus-America Discovery Group
SS ''Central America'', known as the Ship of Gold, was a sidewheel steamer that operated between Central America and the East Coast of the United States during the 1850s. She was originally named the SS ''George Law'', after George Law of New York. The ship sank in a hurricane in September 1857, along with 425 of her 578 passengers and crew and 30,000 pounds (13,600 kg) of gold, contributing to the Panic of 1857. Sinking On September 3, 1857, 477 passengers and 101 crew left the City of Aspinwall, now the Panamanian port of Colón, sailing for New York City under the command of William Lewis Herndon. The ship was laden with of gold prospected during the California Gold Rush. The ship continued north after a stop in Havana. On September 9, 1857, the ship was caught up in a Category 2 hurricane while off the coast of the Carolinas. By September 11, the winds, and heavy seas had shredded her sails, she was taking on water, and her boiler was threatening to fail. A lea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William H
William is a masculine given name of Germanic origin. It became popular in England after the Norman conquest in 1066,All Things William"Meaning & Origin of the Name"/ref> and remained so throughout the Middle Ages and into the modern era. It is sometimes abbreviated "Wm." Shortened familiar versions in English include Will or Wil, Wills, Willy, Willie, Bill, Billie, and Billy. A common Irish form is Liam. Scottish diminutives include Wull, Willie or Wullie (as in Oor Wullie). Female forms include Willa, Willemina, Wilma and Wilhelmina. Etymology William is related to the German given name ''Wilhelm''. Both ultimately descend from Proto-Germanic ''*Wiljahelmaz'', with a direct cognate also in the Old Norse name ''Vilhjalmr'' and a West Germanic borrowing into Medieval Latin ''Willelmus''. The Proto-Germanic name is a compound of *''wiljô'' "will, wish, desire" and *''helmaz'' "helm, helmet".Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxfor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eye (cyclone)
The eye is a region of mostly calm weather at the center of a tropical cyclone. The eye of a storm is a roughly circular area, typically in diameter. It is surrounded by the eyewall, a ring of towering thunderstorms where the most severe weather and highest winds of the cyclone occur. The cyclone's lowest barometric pressure occurs in the eye and can be as much as 15 percent lower than the pressure outside the storm. In strong tropical cyclones, the eye is characterized by light winds and clear skies, surrounded on all sides by a towering, symmetric eyewall. In weaker tropical cyclones, the eye is less well defined and can be covered by the central dense overcast, an area of high, thick clouds that show up brightly on satellite imagery. Weaker or disorganized storms may also feature an eyewall that does not completely encircle the eye or have an eye that features heavy rain. In all storms, however, the eye is where the barometer reading is lowest. Structure A typical tropi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bayesian Search Theory
Bayesian search theory is the application of Bayesian statistics to the search for lost objects. It has been used several times to find lost sea vessels, for example USS Scorpion (SSN-589), USS ''Scorpion'', and has played a key role in the recovery of the flight recorders in the Air France Flight 447 disaster of 2009. It has also been used in the attempts to locate the remains of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. Procedure The usual procedure is as follows: # Formulate as many reasonable hypotheses as possible about what may have happened to the object. # For each hypothesis, construct a probability density function for the location of the object. # Construct a function giving the probability of actually finding an object in location X when searching there if it really is in location X. In an ocean search, this is usually a function of water depth — in shallow water chances of finding an object are good if the search is in the right place. In deep water chances are reduced. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tommy Gregory Thompson
Tommy Gregory Thompson is an American treasure hunter known for his leading role in the discovery of the wreck of the SS ''Central America'' on September 11, 1988. He is also the author of a book about the discovery, ''America's Lost Treasure'', published in 1998, and is a main character in the best-selling 1998 non-fiction book ''Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea'' by Gary Kinder. Recovery expedition According to the ''Tampa Bay Times'', while Thompson discovered the wreck of the SS ''Central America'' in 1988, he did not receive legal authorization to salvage the wreck until 2003. He used the ''Arctic Discoverer'' as his expedition vessel, which deployed a remotely controlled vehicle, the ''Nemo''. A 3-part mini docuseries titled "Cursed Gold: A Shipwreck Scandal" aired in 2024 about him. Legal issues In 2000, Thompson sold gold recovered from the ''Central America'' for $52 million. In 2009 he had an offshore account in the Cook Islands valued at $4.16 million. In 2013, the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chester Alan Arthur
Chester Alan Arthur (October 5, 1829 – November 18, 1886) was the 21st president of the United States, serving from 1881 to 1885. He was a Republican from New York who previously served as the 20th vice president under President James A. Garfield. Assuming the presidency after Garfield's assassination, Arthur's presidency saw the largest expansion of the U.S. Navy, the end of the so-called "spoils system", and the implementation of harsher restrictions for migrants entering from abroad. Arthur was born in Fairfield, Vermont, and practiced law in New York City. He served as quartermaster general of the New York Militia during the American Civil War. Following the war, he devoted more time to New York Republican politics and quickly rose in Senator Roscoe Conkling's political organization. President Ulysses S. Grant appointed him as Collector of the Port of New York in 1871, and he was an important supporter of Conkling and the Stalwart faction of the Republican Party. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nell Arthur
Ellen Lewis "Nell" Arthur ( ''née'' Herndon; August 30, 1837 – January 12, 1880) was the wife of the 21st president of the United States, Chester A. Arthur. She died of pneumonia in January 1880; her husband was elected vice-president that November. He succeeded to the presidency in September 1881 when President James A. Garfield was assassinated. Early life Ellen Lewis Herndon, called "Nell," was born in the town of Culpeper Court House, Virginia on August 30, 1837, the daughter of William Lewis Herndon and Frances Elizabeth Hansbrough.(October 10, 1817 – April 5, 1878). Her father was a naval officer who gained national renown in 1857 when he went down with his ship, the mail steamer SS ''Central America'', along with more than 400 passengers and crew. It was the largest ever loss of life in a commercial shipping disaster at the time. Herndon had safely evacuated 152 women and children to another vessel during the severe hurricane off Cape Hatteras, but his ship could ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Herndon, Virginia
Herndon is a town in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States. Located in Northern Virginia, it is part of the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area, Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. In 2020, the population at the census was 24,655, which makes it the largest of three incorporated towns in the county. History The early settlement was named Herndon in 1858, after Commander William Lewis Herndon, an American naval explorer and author of ''Exploration of the Valley of the Amazon''. Commander Herndon captained the ill-fated steamer SS SS Central America, ''Central America'', going down with his ship while helping to save over 150 of its passengers and crew. In the 1870s, many Union army, Northern soldiers and their families came to settle in the area, taking advantage of moderate climate and low land prices. Originally part of the rural surroundings of the Washington, D.C. area, the town of Herndon developed into a hub of dairy farming and vacationing for area residents, aided by its ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
USS Herndon
USS ''Herndon'' has been the name of more than one United States Navy ship, and may refer to: * , a , commissioned in 1920 and transferred to the Royal Navy as HMS ''Churchill'' * , a ''Gleaves''-class destroyer, commissioned in 1942 and decommissioned in 1946 * , a high-speed transport, in commission from 1944 to 1946 {{DEFAULTSORT:Herndon United States Navy ship names ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Valley Of The Amazon
''Exploration of the Valley of the Amazon'' is a two-volume publication by William Lewis Herndon and Lardner A. Gibbon, who were lieutenants in the United States Navy. Gibbon's dates: Aug. 13, 1820 - Jan. 10, 1910. Volume 1 was written by Herndon, and volume 2 was writtten by Gibbon. The publication was originally a report about their exploration, consisting in 442 pages. When their team started exploring the region, Herndon split the main party in two so that he and Gibbon could explore two different areas. Expedition In 1851, Herndon was ordered by the United States Navy to head an expedition exploring the Valley of the Amazon, a vast uncharted area. Departing from Lima, Peru, on May 21, 1851, Herndon, Gibbon, and a small party of six men headed into the wild. The group split up into two and took different routes in order to cover a wider area and gather more information. After a journey of , which took Herndon through the wilderness from sea level to heights of , Herndon rea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mexican–American War
The Mexican–American War (Spanish language, Spanish: ''guerra de Estados Unidos-México, guerra mexicano-estadounidense''), also known in the United States as the Mexican War, and in Mexico as the United States intervention in Mexico, (April 25, 1846 – February 2, 1848) was an invasion of Second Federal Republic of Mexico, Mexico by the United States Army. It followed the 1845 American annexation of Texas, which Mexico still considered its territory because it refused to recognize the Treaties of Velasco, signed by President Antonio López de Santa Anna after he was captured by the Texian Army during the 1836 Texas Revolution. The Republic of Texas was ''de facto'' an independent country, but most of its Anglo-American citizens who had moved from the United States to Texas after 1822 wanted to be annexed by the United States. Sectional politics over slavery in the United States had previously prevented annexation because Texas would have been admitted as a slave state ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Troy Ounce
Troy weight is a system of units of mass that originated in the Kingdom of England in the 15th century and is primarily used in the precious metals industry. The troy weight units are the grain, the pennyweight (24 grains), the troy ounce (20 pennyweights), and the troy pound (12 troy ounces). The troy grain is equal to the grain unit of the avoirdupois system, but the troy ounce is heavier than the avoirdupois ounce, and the troy pound is lighter than the avoirdupois pound. Legally, one troy ounce (oz t) equals exactly 31.1034768 grams. Etymology Troy weight is generally supposed to take its name from the French market town of Troyes where English merchants traded at least as early as the early 9th century. The name ''troy'' is first attested in 1390, describing the weight of a platter, in an account of the travels in Europe of the Earl of Derby. Charles Moore Watson (1844–1916) proposes an alternative etymology: ''The Assize of Weights and Measures'' (also known as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
