May 20

Featured Article

The most famous sniper in the history of the United States Marine Corps had his humble beginning in Geyer Springs, Arkansas on May 20, 1942. He grew up in rural Arkansas, living with his grandmother after his parents separated. He took to shooting and hunting at a young age, partly out of necessity to help feed his poor family. As a USMC sniper in Vietnam, Hathcock was so good that the North Vietnamese Army even put a bounty of $30,000 on his life for killing so many of their men. He tallied up a service record of 93 kills (and those are just the confirmed ones) but it would be just one that he would be really famous for: In 1967 Hathcock set the record for the 20th century's longest combat kill, hitting his target at the then-unheard of distance of 2,286 meters or 1.42 miles. The record held firm for 35 years until 2002, when it was broken by a Canadian sniper during Operation Anaconda in Afghanistan. Read (and watch) more about the Gunny here...

[more] What else happened today

1706 — American gunsmith and soldier Seth Pomeroy was born in Northampton, Massachusetts. 1772 — English inventor and rocket artillery pioneer Sir William Congreve was born in Kent. 2000 — NRA president Charlton Heston tells Al Gore, "from my cold dead hands" in a speech at the 129th NRA convention in Charlotte, North Carolina. 2005 — Colt Defense LLC completed its acquisition of Diemaco, which now operates as Colt Canada.