A Brief History On November 18, 2018, just after the 100th Anniversary of the Armistice that ended World War I, we look back over the past almost 62 years to take a look at things we find commonplace today that did not exist when I was born (January 1957). We also look at things that were common then or in the past that no longer exist. As you can guess from the title of this article, we have examined these items, new and passé, a few times before. (See “Things That Did Not Exist (Or Were Different) on July 1,…
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 17, 1858, Denver, Colorado, the town that bills itself as “The Mile High City” because of its elevation of 5280 feet above sea level, exactly one US mile, was founded. Denver became the capital of the State of Colorado when Colorado was admitted to the Union as the 38th State in 1876, and today the Denver metropolitan area has fully one half of all of Colorado’s population. A “Big League City” today, Denver boasts the Major League (National League) Rockies of baseball, the Broncos of the National Football League, the Nuggets of the National Basketball…
A Brief History On November 16, 1938, the psychedelic drug LSD was fist synthesized in Basel, Switzerland by scientist Albert Hofmann, a genius not to be confused with 1960’s American radical Abbie Hoffman. Hofmann was so smart he was declared the Greatest Living Genius by the Daily Telegraph Newspaper (tied for 1st place on the list of 100 geniuses with Tim Berners-Lee). Unfortunately, Hofmann’s invention of the manner to synthesize LSD gave the world a powerful drug with no particular good use, but plenty of potential for misuse. Sometimes things turn out that way, and today we examine 5 geniuses…
A Brief History On November 15, 2018, we bring to you good news and bad news about screening the latest Harry Potter universe major film, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald. The good news is the $200 million spent on producing the film was money well invested as the movie is first class in every way. Plus, fans of the Harry Potter magic universe will find a logical progression and development of characters and story line, undoubtedly enjoying every minute of this latest installment of the franchise. The bad news, if you could call it that, is people not familiar…
A Brief History On November 14, 1851, author Herman Melville published his greatest book, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale. Certainly the best known novel concerning whales or a whale, Moby-Dick has not only stood the test of time as a novel, but has also generated several movies and provided numerous cultural references. The first line of Moby-Dick, “Call me Ishmael” is one of the best known opening lines of any novel. Today, we explore four of the Greatest Stories about Whales. What stories would you add to the list? (Either real life or fiction.) See our previous article, “The Real Moby…