A Brief History On November 16, 1871, the National Rifle Association received its charter from the State of New York, starting a long and distinguished history as a major force in encouraging marksmanship by Americans as preparation for possible military service and promoting the shooting sports. Later emphasis on the rights of gun owners and shooters embroiled the organization in political mire and in recent years the once universally admired organization has generated much backlash against its political activities, including hatred from those that oppose the 2nd Amendment. How did things go so wrong? The answer is a bit complex,…
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 November 15, 2019, fans of the 1976-1981 television franchise by the same name and the two feature films that continued the story line, Charlie’s Angels (2000) and Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle (2003) will be treated to the latest iteration of the “jiggle” oriented action adventure series when this year’s version of Charlie’s Angels makes its debut across the United States. Digging Deeper A little background is in order, as the television series featured 3 beautiful women (Farrah Fawcett, Kate Jackson, and Jaclyn Smith) as undercover crime fighters of extraordinary smarts and fighting abilities working for an…
A Brief History On November 14, 1978, 40 years ago today, the #1 Song in the United States was the disco dance tune, “MacArthur Park,” by the Queen of Disco, Donna Summer. Born LaDonna Adrian Gaines in 1948, this powerful singer unfortunately died in 2012, at the too young age of 63 from lung cancer though she was a non-smoker. (She thought all the contaminated air she breathed in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York is what caused her cancer.) Summer was certainly not the first or the last musical artist to take a…
A Brief History On November 13, 2019, we celebrate “Lucky 13” by telling the history of the card game, Poker, a game that enjoys widespread popularity and comes in so many forms it would be difficult to explain all the different games. In 1937, R. F. Foster wrote: “the game of poker, as first played in the United States, five cards to each player from a twenty-card pack, is undoubtedly the Persian game of As-Nas.” Ah, but more recent historians, including David Parlett, that study the origins of poker have concluded that Mr. Foster was wrong! They claim poker evolved…
A Brief History On November 10, 1871, Welsh-American journalist Henry Morton Stanley finally met the man he had come so far to see, the missionary Rev. David Livingstone, prompting Stanley to blandly ask, “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?” As if it was some other Rev. Livingstone in the African jungle! People sometimes understate things, and today we look at a few of those notable occurrences, but first we are compelled to say a bit about Henry Morton Stanley, a really fascinating guy. Digging Deeper Stanley was born John Rowlands in Wales in 1841, to an unwed 18 year old mother that…