Author: Major Dan

A Brief History On May 23, 2013, the Interstate-5 bridge over the Skagit River collapsed suddenly, dumping two occupied cars into the river. Incredibly, not only did the occupants survive, they did not suffer any severe injuries. Often the results are much different and much more tragic. Today we discuss some of the famous bridge collapses through History, with an eye toward ones that are particularly deadly, interesting, or unique.  (See our previous article on August 1, 2007, “10 Famous Bridge Collapses.”) Digging Deeper 1. I-5 Bridge over the Skagit River, 2013. As stated above, this harrowing incident that dumped…

A Brief History On May 22, 1176, The Hashshashin (Assassins) made an attempt on the life of Saladin, the First Sultan of Egypt and Syria. The attempt failed, and Saladin, a Kurd and a Sunni Muslim, continued his reign until his death in 1193 of fever at the age of 56. Kurdish by ethnicity, Saladin was the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty and ruled what is now Egypt, Syria and Yemen along with the West coast of the Saudi Arabian Peninsula and Upper Mesopotamia (parts of Northern Iraq, Northeast Syria and Southern Turkey). Saladin is probably the best known person…

A Brief History On May 21, 2011, Christian radio broadcaster Harold Camping had predicted that the world as we know it would end, with the return of Jesus Christ and the advent of the “Rapture,” followed by months of fire and brimstone resulting in the destruction of Earth. If you were paying attention on that date, you will note that the end of times did not in fact begin on May 21, 2011! Many people have predicted the end of the world or the end of the world as we know it, and so far, each has been wrong. Today…

A Brief History On May 20, 1645, the forces of Prince Dodo (we do not make this stuff up!) of the Qing Dynasty conquered the city of Yangzhou, China, from the forces of the Southern Ming of the Hongguang Emperor. The Qing army commenced perhaps the greatest single incident atrocity/massacre in all of History by killing 800,000 people over the next 10 days. (See below for another candidate for worst massacre in History.) Digging Deeper China had long been fought over by rival warlords calling themselves “Emperor” and the carnage involved in these Chinese wars are among the deadliest in…

A Brief History On May 19, 1845, Sir John Franklin set off from Greenhithe, England in command of two British Royal Navy ships, the HMS Erebus and the fatefully named HMS Terror, on a voyage of discovery searching for the final leg of what he hoped would be a Northwest Passage around Canada to the Pacific. The tragic expedition is chronicled on the outstanding AMC television series, The Terror, which first aired in March of 2018.  In the series, Irish actor Ciarán Hinds portrays Captain Sir John Franklin as seen in the comparative image above. Digging Deeper Since Franklin and…