Einstein & His Henchmen

1921 Irradiation of The World with Electromagnetic Radiation is Underway according to Plan

The introduction of vacuum-tube equipment promised to revolutionize radio. However, all amateur and commercial use of radio came to an abrupt halt on April 7, 1917 when, with the entrance of the United States into World War One, most private U.S. radio stations were ordered by the President to either shut down or be taken over by the government, and for the duration of the war it became illegal for private U.S. citizens to even have an operational radio transmitter or receiver — in fact, it was Treason to Possess Wireless Stations according to one zealous city manager, reported on the front page of the April 23, 1917 San Jose Evening News. Radio in the U.S. had become a government monopoly, reserved for the war effort. Amateur radio operators were particularly hard hit by the restrictions. Before the ban, amateurs read the monthly issues of The Electrical Experimenter in order to find out about the latest improvements in equipment design, but now that magazine was featuring articles like How the Government Seals Radio Apparatus, which appeared in July, 1917. The American Radio Relay League’s July, 1917 QST magazine brought Arthur C. Young’s report of What Happened at Buffalo When Closing Orders Were Received. QST also began carrying monthly reports from former amateurs who were now enlisted in the U.S. Navy, and in September, 1917, in its final issue before suspending publication for the duration of the war, mused about the uncertain future of amateur radio in Another Season Opens, But—, while Guglielmo Marconi, in the September, 1917 Wireless Age, asked that the United States “Send the Wireless Men Abroad Immediately”. The war was an opportunity for some to advance beyond standard peacetime restrictions. In this heavily segregated era there were a limited number of jobs open to African-Americans, however in the May, 1918 issue of the same magazine, Negroes for Army Signalmen announced that radio operator training was being established in Richmond, Virginia.

The 1918 flu pandemic (January 1918 – December 1920) was an unusually deadly influenza pandemic, the first of the two pandemics involving H1N1 influenza virus.^[1] It infected 500 million^[2] people across the world, including remote Pacific islands and the Arctic, and killed 50 to 100 million of them—three to five percent of the world’s population^[3]—making it one of the deadliest natural disasters in human history.^[2][4][5][6]

Most influenza outbreaks disproportionately kill juvenile, elderly, or already weakened patients; in contrast the 1918 pandemic predominantly killed previously healthy young adults. Modern research, using virus taken from the bodies of frozen victims, has concluded that the virus kills through a cytokine storm (overreaction of the body’s immune system). The strong immune reactions of young adults ravaged the body, whereas the weaker immune systems of children and middle-aged adults resulted in fewer deaths among those groups.^[7]

Historical and epidemiological data are inadequate to identify the pandemic’s geographic origin.^[2] It was implicated in the outbreak of encephalitis lethargica in the 1920s.^[8]

And did I mention Polio?

And you thought atomic bombs were bad…