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Warship's 1742 Sinking Left Crew on Deserted Island
Warship's
1742 Sinking
Left Crew on
Deserted Island
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Mar 23, 2024 4:45 PM CDT

Warship's 1742 Sinking Left Crew on Deserted Island

HMS Tyger's survivors built Garden Key's first fortifications, a century before Fort Jefferson

(Newser) - A British warship that sank off Florida nearly 300 years ago, forcing its crew to embark on a remarkable survival journey, has been identified. HMS Tyger, first discovered within Dry Tortugas National Park in 1993, was identified after archaeologists visited the site in 2021 and discovered five cannons, believed to...

River Dredging Brings Up a Possibly Revolutionary Find

Artifacts discovered in Georgia, including cannons and anchor, could be from late-1700s warship

(Newser) - What was supposed to be a routine dredging in the Savannah River turned up a handful of artifacts that might date back to the Revolutionary War. The AP reports that three barnacle-encrusted cannons, a rusty anchor, and a big piece of wood that could be a piece of a ship...

Man Killed at Baby Shower After Celebratory Stunt Goes Wrong

Something went awry when a cannon was fired in Gaines, Mich.

(Newser) - A day meant to be filled with joy turned tragic over the weekend in Michigan. As the Detroit Free Press reports, the host of a Saturday baby shower in Gaines brought several people into the backyard to fire a cannon in celebration, a device police say resembled a "signal...

He Was Reffing a Game. Then a Blast, and a Fall to the Ground

Cannon blast injures referee at college football game in Maine

(Newser) - At Maine Maritime Academy, enthusiastic fans at the school's college football games partake in a loud tradition: They shoot blank shells out of cannons whenever the home team scores a touchdown. That tradition went terribly awry, though, last weekend after an alumnus fired off his device and struck a...

Surprising Find in Blackbeard's Cannon: Reading Material

Researchers find scraps of paper, figure out book they came from

(Newser) - Pirates of yore plundered, but they also read books, apparently. While cleaning sludge out of a cannon recovered from Blackbeard's flagship, scientists discovered bits of paper and were able to figure out the name of a book kept on board. The 16 fragments, each no bigger than a quarter,...

Lawsuit: Depp Spent $3M on a Cannon for Writer's Ashes

He also blew $30K a month on wine, former managers say

(Newser) - Johnny Depp spent more than $3 million on a cannon to blast Hunter S. Thompson's ashes over Aspen, Colo., spent $30,000 a month on expensive wines, and apparently just wasted much of the rest of his income, according to a lawsuit filed by his former managers. The lawsuit,...

Woman Killed When Partygoers Fire Homemade Cannon

Things went very wrong

(Newser) - Authorities say an eastern Iowa woman was killed when a homemade cannon exploded at a backyard gathering, the AP reports. Davenport television station KWQC-TV reports that 55-year-old Lori L. Heims of Edgewood was flown to an Iowa City hospital, where she was pronounced dead. The Delaware County Sheriff's Department...

California Veterans Get Their Stolen WWI Cannon Back

A man was surprised to find he had bought a stolen cannon

(Newser) - A WWI-era cannon was returned to its home of nearly 70 years this week after a Bay Area man realized he had accidentally purchased the stolen antique, the Los Angeles Times reports. The 1-ton cannon was installed outside the Veterans Memorial Hall in Richmond, California, in 1947. On May 1,...

Pulled From SC River: 3 Civil War Cannons

Archaeologists say they were dumped off Confederate warship in Pee Dee River

(Newser) - Over the past two decades, Bob Butler has dived down to the bottom of South Carolina's Pee Dee River and discovered not one (in 1995), not two (in 2006), but three (final one in 2013) Civil War-era cannons he says were dropped off a Confederate warship, the State reports....

Civil War Cannon Explodes, Sends 3 Kids to Hospital

Re-enactment goes awry

(Newser) - Three kids in Orem, Utah, were injured during a parade Saturday night when a Civil War re-enactment got out of control, KSTU reports. The children—all of them participating in the re-enactment and parade, according to the Daily Herald —were injured during a ceremonial cannon firing after a spark...

Angry Guy Fired Cannon at Neighbors: Cops

Brian Malta accused of firing powder blasts

(Newser) - Well, here's one way to handle a disagreement with your neighbors: Fire up your trusty Civil War replica cannon and bombard them with blasts of noise. That's what police in New York state are accusing Brian J. Malta of doing, the Buffalo News reports. The 52-year-old, apparently upset...

Archaeologists Plunder Blackbeard's Ship

Haul 5 cannons from wreckage, bringing total to 22

(Newser) - Avast, ye mateys! More bounty from famed pirate Blackbeard's ship, the Queen Anne's Revenge, has been plundered, with archaeologists hauling another five cannons from the wreckage off North Carolina's coast on Monday, reports Popular Science . "This is a red letter day. Five cannons is the most...

Smugglers Launch Pot Over Border With Cannon

But a citizen finds them first

(Newser) - The catapult didn't work so well. Nor did driving over the border fence with a makeshift ramp. Now Mexican drug smugglers have resorted to cannons, authorities say. Smugglers used a pneumatic cannon to shoot containers of pot over the border into an Arizona field, reports the Yuma Sun . It...

Woman Killed by Cannonball Fired by Lover

...who was himself injured

(Newser) - A 33-year-old San Diego-area woman died early this morning when a cannonball—fired by a man who is either her husband or her boyfriend—slammed into her mobile home. Authorities found the woman dead when they arrived around 12:15am, and the man admitted to igniting what the San Diego ...

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