A Brief History On August 21, 1982, elements of the 860 man French contingent of the Multinational Force in Lebanon (MNF) arrived in Beirut. A few days later United States Marines followed adding another 850 troops, and the next day 575 Italian troops arrived. The MNF was a US brokered peace keeping force with the intention of saving lives among Lebanese in the wake of the June 1982 invasion of Lebanon by Israel in pursuit of Palestine Liberation Organization fighters. The MNF was assigned the mission of evacuating PLO fighters and Syrian troops from Lebanon so that the Israeli forces…
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.
Read More
A Brief History On August 20, 1938, Yankees’ first baseman and “Iron Horse” Lou Gehrig hit his 23rd Grand Slam of his career, a monumental major league baseball record that stood for 75 years until topped by Alex Rodriguez. Previously we listed “10 Awesome Baseball Records,” “What a Day For Baseball Records,” and “What a Day For Baseball Records, The Sequel.” Today we go after another 10 baseball records that we think are incredibly hard to match and incredibly impressive. Or just nifty records. In a word, awesome! Many pitching records will be hard to match now that relief pitching…
A Brief History On August 17, 2018, American action film fans are treated to the opening of the new action/thriller/black-ops movie starring Mark Wahlberg in his quirkiest best, Mile 22. Yes, we watched a pre-screening of the film and like the full packed audience, we loved every gun shot, grenade blast, and kick to the face. What we do not like is the title of the film! We know that is being picky, but for what it is worth we think a title that grabs the potential movie goer would represent the film better. Still… Digging Deeper Well directed by…
A Brief History On August 15, 1914, the Panama Canal was opened for traffic, with the SS Ancon making the first transit of the great canal. Constructed from 1904 to 1914 by the United States, a previous French attempt at building the canal from 1881 to 1894 failed miserably, with thousands of workers killed by disease and venomous snakes, a rate of fatalities that reached 200 per month. Despite an asking price of $100 million dollars, the US was able to purchase the rights to the canal project for only $40 million. Completion of the canal became a great source…
A Brief History On August 14, 2003, an enormous electrical blackout struck the Northeast and upper Midwest of the United States and a large part of Western Ontario, Canada, leaving about (or “aboot” in the Great White North) 55 million people without electricity for a period lasting between 7 hours and 2 days. As is nearly always the case, the government response was a knee jerk reaction to lie to the public! While the 9/11 terrorist attacks were still fresh in the minds of North Americans, the US Government assured the public that the power outage was NOT a terror…