History Of Metric System

From the FBI's vault: Cryptic tales of Dallas history

Earlier today, an editor came by to tell me, rather breathlessly, about newly released documents from the FBI that deal with UFO sightings over Roswell, N.M .

I didn't get too excited, since there's no such thing as UFOs.

However, my close encounter with this editor did introduce me to a cool new website, the FBI's Vault .

It houses digital scans of thousands of declassified FBI documents.

And, it's searchable.

First, I searched for my name.

Nothing. That's good news, given my modest role in the antiwar movement and the methods by which I mastered the metric system as a college student, beginning with the gram and the kilo.

Then I searched for "Dallas," and found a metric ton of fascinating stuff.

There's a file about an FBI investigation in 2000 into an allegation that Anna Nicole Smith (right) tried to have Pierce Marshall killed . He was the son of Howard Marshall, the 89-year-old oil mogul from Houston whom Smith had married just months before his death. Pierce Marshall and Smith were bitter combatants in a legal battle-royal over the old man's estate. According to the FBI, Anna Nicole cried when agents asked her if she'd tried to have her pesky stepson snuffed.

There's a file about Melvin Belli, the flamboyant lawyer who represented Jack Ruby and who, after Ruby was found guilty of murdering Lee Harvey Oswald, "made a vicious verbal attack against the court, the judge and the City of Dallas." (If that wasn't enough to raise suspicion, Belli reportedly also talked about wanting to visit Cuba.)

There's a file about the 1974 theft of $24,000 worth of jewelry from Liberace while he was staying at the Statler Hilton in downtown Dallas. Among the items taken: a "platinum Tiffany pocket watch, encrusted with diamonds..."

There's a file about the deaths of Bonnie and Clyde , who were killed on May 23, 1934, by officers in Bienville Parish, La., "after one of the most colorful and spectacular manhunts the Nation had seen up to that time."

Honestly, that doesn't begin to scratch the surface of what's in the Vault. Enter at your own risk. The risk is that you'll look up and see that you've spent an hour there, while you were supposed to be doing something more productive.

Warning: Many of the pages are hard to read.They are old, typewritten, and heavily censored. Like this: To delete the data filtering InPrivate Go to Tools / Internet Options. Click the "Delete" button under "Browsing History" in the General tab. Make sure that "Preserve Favorites website data" is unchecked. Make sure that "InPrivate Filtering Data" is checked. Click "Remove." Click "OK" to close the Internet Options window. Refresh the page.

SI Navigator -- Your Guide to the Modern Metric System (SI)

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SI Navigator -- Your Guide to the Modern Metric System (SI)

SI Navigator provides an intuitive way to visit web sites dealing with the metric system (SI) metrication and units of measure. It contains information on binary prefixes metric system books and the history of the SI metric system. It also has links to metric supplies sites and metrication consultants.

http://metric1.org/

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