Author: Major Dan

A Brief History On February 8, 1587, Mary Stuart, also known as Mary, Queen of Scots or even Mary I of Scotland, was executed by the order of Queen Elizabeth I of England, her own cousin! Digging Deeper Mary, born in December of 1542, was only 6 days old when she inherited the throne of Scotland, and reigned for only 15 years before she was forced to abdicate after the murder of her husband and Mary remarrying the main suspect in her husband’s murder only a month after his acquittal for the murder. Failing to reclaim her throne, Mary fled…

A Brief History On February 7, 1984, two astronauts from the Space Shuttle Challenger on mission STS-41-B made space exploration history by taking the first untethered space walk outside of their space ship. Digging Deeper Not being attached by any sort of lifeline had to be a terrifying prospect, but astronauts Bruce McCandless II and Robert L. Stewart, both on their first space flight, operated outside the Challenger free of any safety line for over 5 hours. In 1972, President Richard Nixon announced the NASA Space Shuttle program, an ambitious program sadly remembered for the Challenger and Columbia disasters, but…

A Brief History On February 6, 2023, a major earthquake with a magnitude of 7.8 hit Turkey in the area of Gaziantep in the South-Central part of the country.  Major aftershocks ensued, and then, 9 hours later, a second quake measuring 7.5 struck the already devastated region at Kahramanmaraş. Update: As of February 13, 2023, the death count has sadly reached over 36,000 people.  Some remarkable stories of survival have also emerged, such as a lady well into her 80s that was pulled alive from the rubble after more than 5 days being buried. Update #2:  As of February 15,…

A Brief History On February 6, 1959, an engineer at Texas Instruments, Jack Kilby, filed for the first patent for the “integrated circuit,” a small piece of silicon with many circuits called MOSFETs integrated on it, a device we know as the “microchip.” Digging Deeper Incredibly smaller, faster, and cheaper than the circuits that came before the microchip, these little devices have become the backbone of the electronics industry and are found in all sorts of computers, mobile phones, automobiles, industrial machines, and home appliances. The Metal-Oxide-Silicon that makes up the base material for the microchip is a semi-conductor and…

A Brief History On February 5, 2023, America is abuzz with partisan bickering over the way President Biden handled the alleged Chinese spy balloon shot down on February 4th. Digging Deeper Despite Republican criticism that President Biden “waited” to decide to take action, the White House reports that Biden had ordered the balloon to be shot down back on February 1st, and that the military waited until the spy in the sky was over water for the safety of those on the ground.  The balloon is reportedly the size of “three buses,” and presumably would weigh hundreds or even thousands…