A Brief History On December 17, 1989, The Simpsons premiered on American television with their first episode, “Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire.” Not only does The Simpsons rank as probably the greatest animated television show of all time, it is also the longest running scripted primetime television series in TV history. Today we take a look at what we consider the 5 greatest animated television series of all time. As always, feel free to disagree with those that we have chosen and tell us which shows we should not have picked and what shows we have overlooked. (Sorry, Looney…
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 December 15, 1973, with a vote of 13-0, the American Psychiatric Association agreed to remove homosexuality from its list of psychiatric disorders. We marked this historical event with our article, “Is Homosexuality a Mental Disorder?” Today we take a look at some of the many famous or important historical figures that are known or believed to have been homosexual or something other than straight heterosexual. Some on the list you may be familiar with, while others may come as a surprise. Some on the list may only be the subject of conjecture, with no definitive historical…
A Brief History On December 14, 1940, at the University of California at Berkeley, atomic scientists first isolated the element Plutonium, a radioactive element with a designation of Pu-238 on the atomic chart of the elements (also known as the Periodic Chart), Element #94 for those keeping track. Plutonium is the stuff we make nuclear bombs from and is a highly dangerous substance even without the thermo-nuclear explosions associated with it. Digging Deeper Element #94 was first discovered by Enrico Fermi and his team in 1934 at the University of Rome, and named the element Hesperium, but it turned out…
A Brief History On December 13, 2019 (Friday the 13th for those that keep track of such things), we have the good fortune of the widespread release of the latest movie in the Jumanji franchise, Jumanji: The Next Level. The Jumanji saga started with a book by Chris Van Allsburg in 1981, and hit the big screen in 1995 with a film starring Robin Williams. The franchise got a major boost with the 2017 film, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, the success of which guaranteed this latest sequel. Digging Deeper The first Jumanji movie had a budget of $65 million…
A Brief History On December 12, 1937, the USS Panay, a gunboat afloat on the Yangtze River near the city of Nanking (now called Nanjing) was attacked by Japanese military aircraft and sunk, with the loss of three American lives. The United States and Japan were not at war and the incident was claimed by the Japanese to be due to mistaken identity of the American ship, despite clear American flags painted on the decks. The Panay was not the first, nor the last, American vessel to be attacked by forces of another country not at war with the United…