A Brief History On April 15, 2016, we ran an article acknowledging April 15th as the day your income tax return must be filed by each year in the United States, and used that fact to list five days people really look forward to and five other days many people may dread. Today, we do it all again, with an updated list for both columns that takes into account the changing nature of our society, or as you may have guessed already, coronavirus. As always, we welcome your input on days we could have added to the list or should…
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 April 14, 1986, the Gopalganj district of Bangladesh experienced the largest hailstones ever recorded, with an incredible weight of 1 kilogram for a single hailstone! As you can imagine, the damage caused was extensive, but even worse, 92 people were killed by the giant ice balls from above. Today we take a look at this particular weather phenomenon. Digging Deeper Hail is basically frozen rain. Little balls of ice, or irregular shaped lumps, hail differs from ice pellets in that ice pellets usually fall in the winter or cold weather and are smaller. Hail varies in…
A Brief History On April 13, 1861, the US Army installation known as Fort Sumter located at Charleston Harbor, South Carolina, surrendered to the rebellious forces of the fledgling Confederate States of America after a bombardment. The next day, the fort was surrendered to the Confederates with no men killed on either side. While the armed forces of the United States have been overwhelmingly successful over the course of many wars and conflicts, there have been those inevitable times with failure has resulted in the humiliating surrender of American military personnel and/or installations or ships. Today we address some of…
A Brief History On April 12, 1012, Jaromir, Duke of Bohemia, was deposed by the Duke Oldřich of Bohemia. Of course, merely deposing a royal leader is not good enough, so the Duke Oldřich also had Jaromir blinded before the unlucky now former Duke was forced to flee to Poland. But it gets worse! Digging Deeper Oldřich was the brother of Jaromir, and both of them had been exiled by their other brother, Duke Boleslaus III in 1002. It seems Jaromir had rebelled against Boleslaus III, and the irritated Duke had Jaromir castrated (his own brother!) before banishing both brothers…
A Brief History On April 11, 1079, Bishop Stanislaus of Kraków, Poland, later Saint Stanislaus, was executed either by the order of or perhaps by the direct hand of King Bolesław II of Poland. After the execution, the body of the slain Bishop was chopped up into small pieces and scattered in the forest, presumably to be eaten by the forest critters. Lo and Behold! The pieces of the body of the future Catholic Saint reassembled themselves! Digging Deeper While no word of any coming back to life was noted, chroniclers did say that 4 eagles guarded the body of…