Author: Major Dan

A Brief History On November 22, 1986, boxer Mike Tyson won the Heavyweight boxing championship at the record young age of 20 years old.  Incredibly, Puerto Rican Welterweight boxer won his first championship when only 17!  Young people have often achieved great things throughout history, and today we look at 10 of these talented young people.  (We will ignore people that inherited their crowns and stick to those that earned their achievements.) Digging Deeper 1. Wilfred Benitez, 17, professional boxing champion. Not only did this prodigy win a world title at the age of 17, he went on to win…

A Brief History On November 21, 1927, the grossly inappropriately named Serene, Colorado failed to live up to its idyllic name and was witness to a massacre of unarmed coal miners by the Colorado State Militia, an event usually called the “Columbine Mine Massacre” and alternatively called simply “The Columbine Massacre.”  Of course, the horrible school shooting that took place in 1999, at Columbine High School in Columbine, Colorado, is what generally comes to our minds when we hear the words “Columbine” and “massacre” used together. Digging Deeper In fact, the infamous school shooting in 1999 left 15 people dead,…

A Brief History On November 20, 1518, Sir Marmaduke Constable, a Tudor Era English courtier and soldier, died in a most unusual way.  One may even say, in an idiotic way.  This gentleman died when he drank a glass of water and swallowed the frog that was in the water!  We previously told you about “10 More Idiotic Ways to Die,” which itself was a sequel to our other articles, “10 Horrible Ways to Die,” “10 People Who Were the First to Die 10 Different Ways,” and “9 Innovative Ways to Die,” and today we continue to explore the many…

A Brief History On November 18, 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed into law legislation (Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988) that made certain drug trafficking offenses punishable by the death penalty, a sharp escalation of the “War on Drugs.”  In hindsight, the War on Drugs is seen today as having been an abject failure and perhaps mismanaged, and the national sentiment about capital punishment has also shifted toward decreased support for executions and increased support for banning the death penalty. Digging Deeper Reagan had been elected President in 1980 as the oldest (at the time) man elected to that office.  Having…

A Brief History On November 17, 2019, we celebrate another one of those made up holidays (actually, ALL holidays are made up holidays), National Homemade Bread Day.  Obviously, the fact that we have to have a day to celebrate homemade bread means Americans have gotten away from baking bread at home and almost exclusively buy bread from stores and bakeries.  The subject of bread brings up certain questions, which we will try to answer! Digging Deeper What Was the Greatest Thing Before Sliced Bread? A topic so important, we have previously addressed this question in its own article.  A partial…