A Brief History On August 31, 1535, King Henry VIII of England was kicked out of the Catholic Church by Pope Paul III, although a more official excommunication would come three years later. Previously, Pope Clement VII had refused to grant Henry an annulment from his wife, Catherine of Aragon, and threatened excommunication if the King persisted. Digging Deeper Other notable cases of ex-communication include: St. Joan of Arc, 1431, got the most extreme form of excommunication by being burned at the stake for blasphemy and heresy, although she was later acquitted. Martin Luther, 1521, excommunicated for defying the Catholic…
Author: Major Dan
Major Dan
Major Daniel Zar is a retired veteran of the United States Marine Corps. He served during the Cold War and has traveled to many countries around the world. Prior to his military service, he graduated from Cleveland State University, having majored in sociology. Following his military service, he worked as a police officer eventually earning the rank of captain prior to his retirement.
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A Brief History On August 30, 1974, the third World Population Conference was held in Bucharest, Romania. The first such conference was held in Geneva, Switzerland in 1927, the idea of birth control advocate Margaret Sanger, under the aegis of the League of Nations. Experts in health, food supply, fertility and other relevant subjects met to examine how many humans the Earth could sustainably host. Subsequent conferences have been arranged by the United Nations starting in 1954. Digging Deeper The conference spawned the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population, a subject fraught with religious, moral, and ethnic considerations. …
A Brief History On August 29, 1915, US Navy salvage crews raised the submarine, F-4, from the seabed off Honolulu where she had sunk with all hands on March 25, 1915, the first USN sub lost and another in a long list of Naval “Oops Moments.” Digging Deeper Tiny by today’s standards, the F-4 was only 142 feet and 7 inches long with a beam of 15 feet, with a crew of only 21 on the day she sank. Her original name had been USS Skate, although it was changed before her launch. Interesting trivia regarding her salvage is that…
A Brief History On June 16, 2023, Warner Brothers and DC Studios released yet another big budget superhero movie, in this case, The Flash. Obviously, part of the DC Extended Universe that includes notable superheroes such as Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, the $220 million budget film was expected to a blockbuster. Digging Deeper Alas, so far the box office has reaped a disappointing $268.5 million, not enough, at least yet, to make a profit let alone approach lofty expectations that Marvel and DC movies generate. Losses are expected to approach $200 million. So what went wrong? Starting with the…
A Brief History On August 28, 1973, Stockholm, Sweden police arrested two bank robbers after a five day standoff in which the robbers held four people as hostages. Incredibly, the hostages seemed to take sides with the robbers, a psychological effect later named “Stockholm Syndrome.” Digging Deeper The perpetrator of the crime, Jan-Erik Olsson, was a convicted criminal that had absconded while on furlough from prison. A veteran of prior armed robberies, Olsson was armed with a sub-machinegun during the robbery. When police arrived at the scene, Olsson took hostages, and the standoff began. Police brought Olsson’s friend from prison…