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…
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 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…
A Brief History On August 12, 1994, major league baseball players went on strike, ending the 1994 major league baseball season and causing the cancellation of the 1994 World Series. Sacrilege! Any labor dispute that cause the cancellation of anything as publicly visible as the World Series is sure to get attention, though labor or protest strikes outside of the sporting world can also be highly visible or even intrusive to the public at large. Today, we list “10 Famous Labor or Protest Strikes” that have particular historical interest or consequence. (Note: As denizens of the USA, we tend to…
A Brief History On August 11, 1929, George Herman “Babe” Ruth hit his 500th home run at Cleveland’s League Park, the first major league baseball player to achieve that lofty status. Obviously, Ruth was the greatest long ball slugger of his day, and his career total of 714 home runs was not eclipsed until Hammerin’ Hank Aaron beat it in 1974. Since then, the much reviled Barry Bonds of steroid induced mega-muscles has surpassed Ruth and Aaron both, ending his career in 2007 with an all time best 762 career homers. Today we are going to compare the top 10…
A Brief History On August 10, 2018, movie goers in the United States will be treated to a new monster motion picture, and we do mean “Monster!” The fabled prehistoric shark known as the Megalodon is the star of this new film, never mind action hero Jason Statham. When we say “monster,” we are talking about a shark big enough to eat “Jaws,” and yet not silly enough to be a made for television movie. In fact, the monster shark in this film really did exist millions of years ago, which makes the premise of the story all the more…