A Brief History On February 18, 2010, the international hacker and leaker organization, WikiLeaks, released the first batch of an enormous trove of classified American documents, in fact, hundreds of thousands of top secret files turned over to WikiLeaks by a US Army soldier, Bradley Manning. Manning was soon arrested and later convicted of violations of laws governing national secrets, and along the way announced his intention to live as a female, changing his name to Chelsea Manning. Manning is but one of many well known transsexual or transgender persons, and today we take a look at some of the…
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 February 17, 1370, the Teutonic Knights fought a great battle against the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, a battle known as the Battle of Rudau. This particular battle was one in the series of wars called “The Northern Crusades,” a war to impose the Christian religion on Pagan people in Northern Europe, especially in the Baltic region. The “other” Crusades, those in the Middle East as a Christian effort to take and retain control of Jerusalem and “The Holy Lands” against Islamic forces is much better known, and had been discussed on our site at length. Today,…
A Brief History On February 16, 1804, the U.S. Navy conducted a stunningly audacious raid to deny the enemy the use of an American warship by concocting a ruse that allowed American sailors into the jaws of the enemy harbor to sink a captured American frigate. The American Navy managed to sink the captured ship and escape under heavy gunfire, a heroic and successful raid marking a high point in the bravery and cunning of the U.S. Navy. Digging Deeper The United States had been having troubles with pirates along the Barbary Coast (modern Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya) resulting…
A Brief History On February 15, 1961, the sporting world was rocked by one of the worst disasters in sports history, the crash of Sabena Flight 548 in Belgium, killing all 72 people on board, including the entire US Figure Skating team, both competitors and coaches and even some family members. Luckily, only 1 person on the ground was also killed. Other sports teams have suffered from the catastrophic crash of airliners and buses, or even the terrorist massacre at the 1972 Olympics in Munich, but the US Figure Skating team loss was one of the first really big disasters…
A Brief History On February 14, 2019, yet another of the many Valentine’s Day massacres took place, this time in India, leaving 41 people dead and another 35 people wounded. The attack was a suicide bombing of an Indian security forces convoy in the disputed region of Kashmir (more exactly, the Pulwama district of Jammu and Kashmir, at the village of Lethpora). (See our other Valentine’s Day related articles.) Digging Deeper The Kashmir region, on the border of India and Pakistan, is a disputed area that the 2 countries have fought over ever since the division of India into sovereign…