We Were that Close to Being Burned Alive

It's a damn good thing our grandparents weren't candy asses.  They celebrated "Christmas".  And if you messed with them, they kicked your ass.  And that's why this never happened.  From a 1945 Life Magazine article:

In Germany last month, U.S. Army technical experts came up with the astonishing fact that German scientists had seriously planned to build a "sun gun," a big mirror in space which would focus the sun's rays to a scorching point at the earth's surface. The Germans, the Army reported, hoped to use such a mirror to burn an enemy city to ashes or to boil part of an ocean.

That reminds me of an odd story Cousin Kenny once told.  Said Kenny...

"I didn't have an ant farm as a child....But my next door neighbor did...I remember when he got it and set it up...He placed it under one of those flexible-neck study lamps that were so popular in the 70s...He didn't place it under the lamp so he could study their habitat or behavior....Best I can tell, he put it there so he could burn ants with a magnifying glass even when it was raining outside."