he History of Breakfast Cereals
By Mary Bellis
The first modern and commercial cereal foods were created
by the American Seventh-day Adventists. The Adventists
formed the Western Health Reform Institute in the 1860s.
The Institute was later renamed the Battle Creek Sanitarium
after its location in Battle Creek, Michigan. The Adventists
manufactured, promoted, and sold wholesome cereals.
Cereal or grain is a member of the grass plant family, with starchy seeds used for
food. Common cereals are: wheat, rice, rye, oats, barley, corn (maize), and
sorghum.
Will Keith Kellogg
Will Keith Kellogg was the founder of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, founded in 1906.
In 1894, Kellogg was trying to improve the diet of hospital patients. He was
searching for a digestible bread substitute using the process of boiling wheat.
Kellogg accidentally left a pot of boiled wheat to stand and the wheat became
tempered (soften). When Kellogg rolled the tempered or softened wheat and let it
dry, each grain of wheat emerged as a large thin flake. The flakes turned out to be a
tasty cereal. Kellogg had invented corn flakes.
Kellogg received his M.D. from Bellevue Hospital Medical College, New York City, in
1875. He was a Seventh-day Adventist. (Kellogg's Company)
Will Keith Kellogg
Will Keith Kellogg, founder of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, may be best known as
the cereal industry giant and inventor of corn flakes.
W. K. Kellogg / Kellogg Company
Will Keith Kellogg founded the Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company in 1906.
Rice Krispies were introduced by Kellogg in 1929.
C(harles) W(illiam) Post
American manufacturer noted for his development of breakfast cereals.
Cherrios
"The year was 1941 and America's first ready-to-eat oat cereal with crisp doughnutlike rings was arriving on store shelves. The introduction of the seven-ounce box of
Cheerioats was a major event for General Mills."
Cereal Advertising Icon Toys
Since the Quaker Oats man became the first registered breakfast cereal trademark in
1877, breakfast cereals have been synonymous with characters like Tony the Tiger
of Kelloggs, the Trix Rabbit, and Post's Sugar Bear.
Victorian Breakfasts
One distinctly American component was corn, especially in the South where hominy,
first eaten by Native Americans, was joined by corn meal mush, corn pone, grits, and
so on.
he History of Breakfast Cereals
By Mary Bellis
The first modern and commercial cereal foods were created
by the American Seventh-day Adventists. The Adventists
formed the Western Health Reform Institute in the 1860s.
The Institute was later renamed the Battle Creek Sanitarium
after its location in Battle Creek, Michigan. The Adventists
manufactured, promoted, and sold wholesome cereals.
Cereal or grain is a member of the grass plant family, with starchy seeds used for
food. Common cereals are: wheat, rice, rye, oats, barley, corn (maize), and
sorghum.
Will Keith Kellogg
Will Keith Kellogg was the founder of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, founded in 1906.
In 1894, Kellogg was trying to improve the diet of hospital patients. He was
searching for a digestible bread substitute using the process of boiling wheat.
Kellogg accidentally left a pot of boiled wheat to stand and the wheat became
tempered (soften). When Kellogg rolled the tempered or softened wheat and let it
dry, each grain of wheat emerged as a large thin flake. The flakes turned out to be a
tasty cereal. Kellogg had invented corn flakes.
Kellogg received his M.D. from Bellevue Hospital Medical College, New York City, in
1875. He was a Seventh-day Adventist. (Kellogg's Company)
Will Keith Kellogg
Will Keith Kellogg, founder of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, may be best known as
the cereal industry giant and inventor of corn flakes.
W. K. Kellogg / Kellogg Company
Will Keith Kellogg founded the Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company in 1906.
Rice Krispies were introduced by Kellogg in 1929.
C(harles) W(illiam) Post
American manufacturer noted for his development of breakfast cereals.
Cherrios
"The year was 1941 and America's first ready-to-eat oat cereal with crisp doughnutlike rings was arriving on store shelves. The introduction of the seven-ounce box of
Cheerioats was a major event for General Mills."
Cereal Advertising Icon Toys
Since the Quaker Oats man became the first registered breakfast cereal trademark in
1877, breakfast cereals have been synonymous with characters like Tony the Tiger
of Kelloggs, the Trix Rabbit, and Post's Sugar Bear.
Victorian Breakfasts
One distinctly American component was corn, especially in the South where hominy,
first eaten by Native Americans, was joined by corn meal mush, corn pone, grits, and
so on.
Fire balloon
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
The term "fire balloon" can mean a small unmanned hot air balloon for
festivities; this is also called a sky lantern.
Shot down fire balloon reinflated by Americans in California
A fire balloon or balloon bomb (Japanese 風船爆弾 fūsen bakudan, lit. "balloon
bomb") was an experimental weapon launched by Japan during World War II. A
hydrogen balloon with a load varying from a 12 kg (26 lb) incendiary to one 15 kg
(33 lb) antipersonnel bomb and four 5 kg (11 lb) incendiary devices attached, they
were designed as a cheap weapon intended to make use of the jet stream over the
Pacific Ocean and wreak havoc on Canadian and American cities, forests, and
farmland.
The balloons were relatively ineffective as weapons, and one of the few Attacks on
North America during World War II.
Between November 1944 and April 1945 Japan launched over 9,000 fire balloons.
About 300 balloon bombs were found or observed in North America, causing six
deaths and a small amount of damage.[1]
It remains likely that more balloon bombs lie unexploded in the forests, deserts,
lakes and mountains of North America.
Contents
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Overview
Origins
Offensive
Allied investigation
o 4.1 Press coverup
Japanese abandon the project
Single lethal attack
See also
References
External links
[edit] Overview
From late 1944 until early 1945, the Japanese launched over 9,000 of these fire
balloons, of which 300 were found or observed in the U.S. Some guesswork gives
the total number that made the trip at about 1,000. Despite the high hopes of their
designers, the balloons were relatively ineffective as weapons, causing only six
deaths and a small amount of damage, and they survive in memory mostly as an
ingenious and dangerous curiosity.
Japanese bomb-carrying balloons were 10 meters (33 ft) in diameter and when fully
inflated, held about 540 cubic metres (19,000 ft³) of hydrogen. Their launch sites
were located on the east coast of the main Japanese island of Honshū.
Japan released the first of these bomb-bearing balloons on November 3, 1944. They
were found in Alaska, Washington, Oregon, California, Arizona, Idaho, Montana,
Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, Texas, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota,
Michigan and Iowa, as well as Mexico and Canada.
The last known discovery of a functional fire balloon in North America was in 1955 —
its payload still lethal after 10 years of corrosion. A non-lethal balloon bomb was
discovered in Alaska in 1992.[citation needed]
The balloon bombs were not very efficient, with a kill rate of 0.067%. General
Kusaba's men launched over 9,000 balloons throughout the course of the project.
The Japanese expected 10% (around 900) of them to reach America, which is also
what is currently believed by researchers. About 300 balloon bombs were found or
observed in America. It remains likely that more balloon bombs lie unexploded in the
forests, deserts, lakes and mountains of North America.
The last one was launched in April 1945.
[edit] Origins
The balloon campaign was the fourth attack the Japanese had made on the
American mainland. The fūsen bakudan campaign was, however, the most earnest of
the attacks. The concept was the brainchild of the Japanese Ninth Army Technical
Research Laboratory, under Major General Sueyoshi Kusaba, with work performed by
Technical Major Teiji Takada and his colleagues. The balloons were intended to make
use of a strong current of winter air that the Japanese had discovered flowing at
high altitude and speed over their country, which later became known as the jet
stream.
The jet stream blew at altitudes above 9.15 km (30,000 ft) and could carry a large
balloon across the Pacific in three days, over a distance of more than 8,000 km
(5,000 mi). Such balloons could carry incendiary and high-explosive bombs to the
United States and drop them there to kill people, destroy buildings, and start forest
fires.
The preparations had consumed much time because the technological problems were
acute. A hydrogen balloon expands when warmed by the sunlight, and rises; then it
contracts when cooled at night, and falls. The engineers devised a control system
driven by an altimeter to discard ballast. When the balloon descended below 9 km
(29,500 ft), it electrically fired a charge to cut loose sandbags. The sandbags were
carried on a cast-aluminium four-spoked wheel and discarded two at a time to keep
the wheel balanced.
Similarly, when the balloon rose above about 11.6 km (38,000 ft), the altimeter
activated a valve to vent hydrogen. The hydrogen was also vented if the balloon's
pressure reached a critical level.
The control system ran the balloon through three days of flight. At that time, it was
likely over the United States, and its ballast was expended. The final flash of
gunpowder released the bombs, also carried on the wheel, and lit a 19.5 meter (64
ft) long fuse that hung from the balloon's equator. After 84 minutes, the fuse fired a
flash bomb that destroyed the balloon.
The balloon had to carry about 454 kg (1,000 lb) of gear. At first, the balloons were
made of conventional rubberized silk, but there was a better way to make an
envelope that leaked even less. An order went out for ten thousand balloons made of
"washi", a paper derived from mulberry bushes that was impermeable and very
tough. It was only available in squares about the size of a road map, so it was glued
together in three or four laminations using edible konnyaku (devil's tongue) paste.
Hungry workers stole the paste and ate it. Many workers were teen-aged girls,
whose fingers were nimbler than any other class of people. They were told to wear
gloves, to keep their fingernails short, and not to use hairpins. They assembled the
paper in many parts of Japan. They had no idea of the purpose of their work. Large
indoor spaces, such as sumo halls, sound stages, and theatres, were required for the
envelope assembly.
Similar, but cruder, balloons were also used by Britain to attack Germany between
1942 and 1944.
[edit] Offensive
Gun cameras show balloons being shot down near the Aleutians.
Initial tests took place in September 1944 and proved satisfactory. However, before
preparations were complete, B-29s began their raids on the Japanese home islands.
The attacks were somewhat ineffectual at first but still fueled the desire for revenge
sparked by the Doolittle Raid.
The first balloon was released in early November 1944. Major Takada watched as the
balloon flew upward and over the sea: "The figure of the balloon was visible only for
several minutes following its release until it faded away as a spot in the blue sky like
a daytime star."
The Japanese chose to launch the campaign in the beginning of fall, when the jet
stream is strongest. This limited the chance of the incendiary bombs causing forest
fires, as by that time of year, the forests were generally too damp to catch fire easily
or covered in snow.
The balloons continued to arrive in Oregon, Kansas, Iowa, British Columbia,
Manitoba, Alberta, Northwest Territories, Washington, Idaho, South Dakota, Nevada,
Colorado, Texas, Northern Mexico, Michigan, and even the outskirts of Detroit.
Fighters scrambled to intercept the balloons, but they had little success; the balloons
flew very high and surprisingly fast, and fighters destroyed fewer than 20. Among
the US units which fought the fire balloon was the 555th Parachute Infantry
Battalion.
By early 1945, Americans were becoming aware that something strange was going
on. Balloons had been sighted and explosions heard, from California to Alaska.
Something that appeared to witnesses to be like a parachute descended over
Thermopolis, Wyoming. A fragmentation bomb exploded, and shrapnel was found
around the crater. A P-38 Lightning shot a balloon down near Santa Rosa, California;
another was seen over Santa Monica; and bits of washi paper were found in the
streets of Los Angeles.
On March 10, 1945, one of the last paper balloons descended in the vicinity of the
Manhattan Project's production facility at the Hanford Site. This balloon caused a
short circuit in the powerlines supplying electricity for the nuclear reactor cooling
pumps, but backup safety devices restored power almost immediately.[2]
Two landed back in Japan but caused no damage.[citation needed] Two paper balloons
were recovered in a single day in Modoc National Forest, east of Mount Shasta. Near
Medford, Oregon, a balloon bomb exploded in towering flames. The Navy found
balloons in the ocean. Balloon envelopes and apparatus were found in Montana,
Arizona, Saskatchewan, in the Northwest Territories, and in the Yukon Territory.
Eventually, an Army fighter managed to push one of the balloons around in the air
and force it to ground intact, where it was examined and filmed. Japanese
propaganda broadcasts announced great fires and an American public in panic,
declaring casualties as high as 10,000.[citation needed]
[edit] Allied investigation
Despite their low success, the authorities were worried about the balloons anyway.
There was the chance that they might get lucky. Much worse, the Americans had
some knowledge that the Japanese had been working on biological weapons, most
specifically at the infamous Unit 731 site at Pingfan in Manchuria, and a balloon
carrying biowarfare agents could be a real threat.
Nobody believed the balloons could have come directly from Japan. It was thought
that the balloons must be coming from North American beaches, launched by landing
parties from submarines. Wilder theories speculated that they could have been
launched from German prisoner of war camps in the U.S., or even from JapaneseAmerican internment centers.
Some of the sandbags dropped by the fusen bakudan were taken to the Military
Geology Unit of the US Geological Survey for investigation. Working with Colonel
Sidman Poole of U.S. Army Intelligence, the researchers of the Military Geological
Unit began microscopic and chemical examination of the sand from the sandbags to
determine types and distribution of diatoms and other microscopic sea creatures, and
its mineral composition. The sand could not be coming from American beaches, nor
from the mid-Pacific. It had to be coming from Japan. The geologists ultimately
determined the precise beaches in Japan the sand had been taken from. By this
time, it was mostly irrelevant, since by early spring the balloon offensive was almost
over.
[edit] Press coverup
The bombs caused little damage, but their potential for destruction and fires was
large. The bombs also had a potential psychological effect on the American people.
The U.S. strategy was to keep the Japanese from knowing of the balloon bombs'
effectiveness. In 1945 Newsweek ran an article titled "Balloon Mystery" in their
January 1 issue, and a similar story appeared in a newspaper the next day. The
Office of Censorship then sent a message to newspapers and radio stations to ask
them to make no mention of balloons and balloon-bomb incidents, lest the enemy
get the idea that the balloons might be effective weapons. Cooperating with the
desires of the government, the press did not publish any balloon bomb incidents.[3]
Perhaps as a result, the Japanese only learned of one bomb's reaching Wyoming,
landing and failing to explode, so they stopped the launches after less than six
months.
The press blackout in the U.S. was lifted after the first deaths to ensure that the
public was warned, though public knowledge of the threat could have possibly
prevented it.[3]
[edit] Japanese abandon the project
With no evidence of any effect, General Kusaba was ordered to cease operations in
April 1945. The expense was large, and in the meantime the B-29s had destroyed
two of the three hydrogen plants needed by the project. The last one was launched
in April 1945.
[edit] Single lethal attack
Killed near Bly, Oregon
1. Elsie Mitchell, age 26
2. Edward Engen, age 13
3. Jay Gifford, age 13
4. Joan Patzke, age 13
5. Dick Patzke, age 14
6. Sherman Shoemaker, age 11
On May 5, 1945, a balloon bomb that had drifted over the Pacific killed five children
and a woman. It exploded when a 13-year-old girl (Joan Patzke) attempted to pull
the balloon from a tree during a church group picnic in the woods near Bly, Oregon.
Having taken some local children on an outing, Reverend Archie Mitchell watched in
horror as his wife, Elsie (or Elyse) Mitchell, and five children who accompanied them
(ages 11 to 14) were killed. The minister escaped by luck of being a short distance
behind. Those six were the only known victims of the balloon bombs. However,
dangers of the balloon bomb still may exist. Hundreds were never found and may
still constitute unexploded ordnance. The six who perished were the only known
casualties inflicted by Japanese attack on the U.S. mainland during World War II.
The press blackout in the U.S. was lifted after the deaths to ensure that the public
was warned.
A memorial, the Mitchell Monument, is located 110 kilometres (70 mi) northeast of
Klamath Falls. It was rededicated during a 50-year anniversary service in 1995.
Elsie Mitchell is buried in the Ocean View Cemetery in Port Angeles, Washington.