Globe Trotting
WWII museum sets visitor mark
NEW ORLEANS » The National WWII Museum has capped a record-breaking fiscal year with another milestone: welcoming its 4 millionth visitor since its founding in 2000.
Officials say visitation for fiscal year 2014 had exceeded 483,000, beating its previous best attendance year, fiscal year 2013, by more than 85,000 visitors.
Museum President and CEO Gordon Mueller says the highlight comes on the heels of major events in New Orleans and France commemorating the 70th anniversary of the Allied invasion of Normandy. He says those activities generated worldwide exposure for the museum.
Mueller, who helped found the museum with historian and author Stephen Ambrose, said he never imagined their dream of a museum celebrating the significance of World War II would grow into the destination attraction and educational outreach center that it has become.
Legal pot to be commemorated
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SEATTLE » The first recreational marijuana sold legally in Seattle is headed to the Museum of History and Industry.
The woman who waited all night to be first in line at the Cannabis City store, 65-year-old Deb Greene, plans to donate her pot Tuesday to the Seattle museum on South Lake Union.
Cannabis City says it also will donate items from the opening day of the store.
Wrights’ engine maker honored
DAYTON, Ohio »The man who built the engine for Orville and Wilbur Wright’s first powered aircraft has finally gotten his due.
It was Charles Taylor — a mechanic in the brothers’ Dayton bicycle shop — who built the engine for the airplane that first took flight at Kitty Hawk, N.C., on Dec. 17, 1903.
On Monday a bronze bust of Taylor was unveiled at the National Museum of the United States Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton.
The self-taught mechanic hand-built the first airplane engine after a slew of automakers rejected the brothers’ request to build one.
The San Diego-based Aircraft Maintenance Technicians Association raised $6,000 to have the bronze bust displayed at the museum, according to the Dayton Daily News.