A Brief History In 326 BC, Alexander III of Macedon, known more familiarly as Alexander the Great, having conquered the Achaemenid Empire of Persia, the largest empire within the ken of the Greeks of the time, turned his attention to the next great conquest, that of the fabled but little known land of India. What exotic people and riches awaited the greatest conqueror of ancient times? With only one way to find out, Alexander once more mounted his armies and stepped forward to the Indian sub-continent, transiting the famous Khyber Pass. Digging Deeper Alexander the Great was the premier conqueror…
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 June 18, 2020, American movie fans will get to see the new major motion picture, 7500, a film set aboard a German jet airliner that is attacked by passengers seeking to take over the airplane for terrorist purposes. The tension as gut-wrenching life and death decisions are made are sure to cause inner turmoil as movie watchers carry on inner debates with themselves as to what they would do in the various impossible situations that develop. Digging Deeper With a modest running time of 92 minutes, the film starts out routinely enough, taking a few minutes…
A Brief History On May 15, 2020, a “new” science fiction drama makes its debut, a film about the late 1950’s that is filmed to be in the retro style of that era. It works, and audiences might not get to see it in the theaters but will instead have access to the film via Amazon Studios. The movie, The Vast of Night, will be available on Prime Video on May 29, 2020. Digging Deeper The movie takes on the UFO craze of the 1950’s sci-fi era, and starts out with a Twilight Zone style opening, beginning in black and…
A Brief History On May 14, 1955, eight communist nations in the orbit of the Soviet Union (USSR) signed a mutual defense pact military alliance, known as The Warsaw Pact. This gang of communist countries aligned with the USSR was organized as a counter to the NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) mutual defense pact aligned with the United States and its Western allies in response to communist aggression and the stated goal of the USSR and other communist countries to forcibly convert the rest of the world to communism by any means possible. Today we take note of 10 times…
A Brief History On May 11, 2020, CNN and other news agencies reported the Iranian Navy while conducting exercises in the Gulf of Oman accidentally killed 19 of their own sailors and wounded another 15. As we have reported many times in the past, Naval Oops Moments seem to be without any limit, with no navy in the world immune from catastrophic blunders. We have also reported on incidents concerning so called “friendly fire,” when your own people accidentally shoot, blow up or target their own comrades or equipment. Sometimes both of these military mishaps come together and combine into…