The McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II was developed for the US Navy and entered service in 1961. Its production ran from 1958 to 1981, and 5,195 aircraft were built, making it the most-produced American supersonic military aircraft in history. It reached speeds above Mach 2.2 and could carry more than 18,000 pounds of weapons on nine hardpoints. Early models had no internal cannon, although later versions added the M61 Vulcan. The Phantom was central to air combat in the Vietnam War, and all five American aces of that war flew it. It was used by the US Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps, and by eleven other nations. Turkey and Greece still fly it, and Turkey plans to keep its upgraded F-4E Terminator in service until at least 2030.
so what
The Phantom was a defining Cold War aircraft that served in several decades of conflict. Its long life shows how adaptable a design can be well beyond its original purpose.
fun fact
The F-4 Phantom II was the only aircraft flown by both the US Air Force Thunderbirds and the US Navy Blue Angels demonstration teams.
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In 1909 D. W. Griffith made a 14-minute film about a speculator who corners the wheat market and doubles the price of bread. A farmer sows his field while a 'Wheat King' gambles in the Chicago wheat pit; bakers raise the loaf from five cents to ten and the poor line up for bread. Griffith cut back and forth between the farm, the feast and the breadline, a technique called parallel editing, so audiences saw both ends of the economy at once. The film drew on Frank Norris's stories and on a real scheme: months earlier Chicago financier James Patten had cornered wheat, sent bread prices up and made about $5 million, roughly $185 million today.
how it works
To corner a market, a trader buys up most of the available supply and the futures contracts that promise more. Anyone who has to deliver the commodity must then buy from the cornerer at whatever price is demanded. The trader profits until the stock is released or the scheme collapses.
so what
A century on, it still shows how markets can be rigged by someone who controls supply, and how the people at either end, farmers and eaters, pay for it. It also helped establish editing as a way to argue a point, not just tell a story.
the bigger pattern
Corners have recurred whenever supply could be locked up, from the Hunt brothers' attempt on silver in 1979 to 1980 to the 'Black Friday' gold panic of 1869. Many such schemes end by collapsing, and the response is often new rules on speculation.
fun fact
In the film the Wheat King dies by falling into a grain elevator and being buried in the wheat he hoarded, an ending borrowed from Norris's novel The Octopus.
more on this
background
A Corner in Wheat is a 1909 American short silent film which tells of a greedy tycoon who tries to corner the market in wheat, destroying the lives of the people who can no longer afford to buy bread. It was directed by D. W. Griffith and adapted by Griffith and Frank E. Woods from a novel and a short story by Frank Norris, titled The Pit and "A Deal in Wheat". Griffith may have had a real-life inspiration: six months earlier, James A. Patten had actually cornered the market in wheat, and in some cities, the price of bread doubled from five cents to ten, just as in the movie.
In 1994, A Corner in Wheat was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
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from ABC News In-depth
One of the darkest days in Australia's sporting history has been dragged back into the spotlight.
A new autobiography by former Test cricketer Usman Khawaja has made explosive revelations about the Australian Test team's 2018 ball-tampering saga in South Africa.
7.30 host Sarah Ferguson speaks to Usman Khawaja.
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