D. Owen Nelson (Don)

“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

[D. Owen Nelson (Don) @D_O_Nelson]

@OneBadDude_ Numbers never lie, only people do.

[Echoes of War @EchoesofWarYT]

Andrew Higgins during an event celebrating the completion of 10,000 Higgins Boats, New Orleans, Louisiana, United States, 23 July 1944.

Andrew Jackson Higgins was an American boat builder based in New Orleans, and the invention he is best remembered for is the Higgins boat, officially the LCVP, which stands for Landing Craft, Vehicle, Personnel. It became one of the most important pieces of equipment in the Allied victory in World War II.

Higgins was born in 1886 in Columbus, Nebraska, and eventually settled in Louisiana, where he ran Higgins Industries. Before the war he designed shallow draft boats for use in the swamps and marshes of the Gulf Coast, vessels meant for oil drillers, trappers, and others who needed to operate in shallow water thick with mud and debris. His signature design was the Eureka boat, which had a recessed propeller and a spoonbill bow that let it run up onto a riverbank, extract itself, and back off without damage. That ability to land on an unimproved shore and pull away again turned out to be exactly what the military needed.

The key refinement that made the boat legendary was the addition of a retractable bow ramp, an idea reportedly inspired by Japanese landing craft observed in China. Instead of soldiers having to climb over the high sides of a boat while exposed to enemy fire, the front of the craft dropped down to let troops, a small vehicle, or a jeep rush straight out onto the beach. A typical LCVP could carry roughly 36 soldiers and was built largely of plywood, which made it cheap and fast to produce in enormous numbers.

Higgins boats were used in virtually every major amphibious assault of the war, including the Normandy landings on D-Day, the invasions of North Africa and Italy, and the island campaigns across the Pacific. Higgins Industries produced them by the thousands, and the company employed a workforce that was notably integrated for its time, with Black and white workers, women, and people with disabilities working side by side and, unusually, receiving equal pay for the same jobs.

The importance of the design was captured in a famous remark attributed to Dwight D. Eisenhower, who is said to have called Higgins "the man who won the war for us." Eisenhower's point was that without those boats, the Allies could not have landed troops across open beaches the way the strategy required, and the whole approach to the war in Europe and the Pacific would have had to change.

Higgins died in 1952, but his shallow water designs and the mass production methods he championed left a lasting mark on both naval warfare and American industry.

[D. Owen Nelson (Don) @D_O_Nelson]

@EricLDaugh Add at least one 0 to the admission, at least one.

[D. Owen Nelson (Don) @D_O_Nelson]

@WhitmanXAI @jackcoder0 YT

[D. Owen Nelson (Don) @D_O_Nelson]

@yhbryankimiq 7EeRBiSaW4bnYGU8s4MgDPqfB3ecWXe9eg5Ypu3MGZEK

[D. Owen Nelson (Don) @D_O_Nelson]

@jackcoder0 Does prime operate similarly?

[Naval @naval]

The problem with truth is, once you see it, you can’t unsee it.

[Our Unique States of America @ousoa250]

Happy Fourth of July 🇺🇸 Independence Day! 250 years!

[Echoes of War @EchoesofWarYT]

Everyone knows John Hancock for his giant signature. Almost nobody knows the actual man, and his real life was wilder than the legend.

He was an orphan. His father died when he was 7, and he was taken in by his uncle Thomas, the richest merchant in Boston. John was groomed to run the family shipping empire, inherited the whole thing in 1764, and became one of the wealthiest men in all of America before most people his age owned anything at all.

He was also, by the crown's definition, a criminal. In 1768 the British seized his ship Liberty for smuggling, and Boston rioted in his defense. The man we now put on patriotic posters was, to London, a wealthy smuggler dodging customs.

He didn't just resent the crown quietly. He bankrolled resistance and became such a thorn that the British wanted him gone. On the night of April 18, 1775, when Paul Revere made his famous ride, the warning was not vague. He rode to Lexington specifically to warn two men that the British were coming to arrest them: Samuel Adams and John Hancock. The opening night of the Revolutionary War was, in part, a manhunt for Hancock.

Weeks later, General Gage offered a pardon to every rebel in Massachusetts who would lay down arms, with exactly two exceptions: Samuel Adams and John Hancock. Being left off that list was essentially a public death warrant.

Here is the part nobody tells you. As president of the Continental Congress, Hancock actually wanted to be named commander of the army himself. He sat in the chair and watched as the Adams cousins instead rose to nominate George Washington. He was reportedly stung by it. Then he did the thing most people never manage. He swallowed his pride, signed Washington's commission, and spent the next eight years pouring his personal fortune into the war he could not lead.

So when Hancock signed the Declaration of Independence first, big and bold across the top, it was not a cute flourish. He was already a hunted man with a price on his head, putting his name, his fortune, and his neck on the line before anyone else dared lift a pen.

And that famous line about signing large "so King George can read it without his spectacles"? He almost certainly never said it. It is a myth stitched onto him generations later. The real story is better. He just signed first, as president, knowing exactly what it could cost him.

The flamboyance was real, though. He lived in princely splendor in a granite mansion on Beacon Hill overlooking the harbor, with imported mahogany furniture and apricot trees shipped from Spain. In 1775 he married Dorothy Quincy, and the two became one of Massachusetts' first political celebrity couples, famous for endless lavish dinners that slowly drained his fortune.

He went on to become the first Governor of Massachusetts, serving roughly eleven years, and died in office in 1793. His funeral was one of the grandest ever given to an American up to that point. Samuel Adams declared the day a state holiday.

The orphaned smuggler with a target on his back had become the face of American defiance.

That is why, 250 years later, we still say "put your John Hancock right here."

[Naval @naval]

Science is not a process, a credential, or an institution.

It is the unflinching pursuit of truth, carried out by the few, co-opted by the many.

[D. Owen Nelson (Don) @D_O_Nelson]

@PeteKaliner @NC_Governor As I finished my pilot and first book with NC as the pilot just today—first draft, part of “Our Unique States of America” (one for each state) this saddens me. North Carolina has such a great history—great people, places and products from our past, in the present + for the future

[D. Owen Nelson (Don) @D_O_Nelson]

@TommiPedruzzi AI

[D. Owen Nelson (Don) @D_O_Nelson]

@RichardGrenell *almost lmao, and doesn’t leak.

[D. Owen Nelson (Don) @D_O_Nelson]

@CarlHigbie *almost

[D. Owen Nelson (Don) @D_O_Nelson]

@Ikennect Yes, all 20. And I’m not THAT old lol.

[Gary Sinise @GarySinise]

Wonderful to share this video with all of you from GSF. It was a special day, another collection of beautiful songs and compositions from Mac and his pals.

[D. Owen Nelson (Don) @D_O_Nelson]

@SoveyX 👏

[D. Owen Nelson (Don) @D_O_Nelson]

@bennyjohnson The NJSP should take all abandoned supplies, esp food, H2O, med supplies and clothing to a few Newark and JC homeless shelters, esp for vets.

[D. Owen Nelson (Don) @D_O_Nelson]

@nicksortor The NJSP should take all abandoned supplies, esp food, H2O, med supplies and clothing to a few Newark and JC homeless shelters, esp for vets.