A Brief History On May 18, 1096, Christians in Europe heeded the call of Pope Urban II and joined up with the throngs following local noblemen in a Crusade to regain the Holy Land of Jerusalem from the Muslims that occupied what is now Israel and the Levant, but on this day the Crusading zeal went in a horribly different direction. Digging Deeper Count Emicho of Leiningen had gathered his forces to serve the cause of God in the People’s Crusade (First Crusade), though it seems his personal goal was to rid Germany of its Jewish population. On May 18,…
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 May 18, 1974, India’s Operation Smiling Buddha resulted in the successful detonation of a nuclear weapon, becoming the sixth nation to explode a nuclear device. Prior to India, only the 5 permanent members of the UN Security Council (US, Soviet Union/Russia, United Kingdom, France and China) had developed nuclear weapons, at least officially. Digging Deeper India officially claimed a yield of about 13 kilotons, similar in size to the bomb the US dropped on Hiroshima, Japan in 1945. Outside scientists estimated the explosion as less powerful, perhaps as little as 2 kilotons. Canada, which had supplied…
A Brief History On May 17, 1943, the British RAF conducted their famous “Dambusters” raid on dams on Germany’s rivers, a story we told in our article “May 17, 1943: 10 Most Daring, Dashing, Devastating Bombing Raids (WWII)”. Today we will discuss 10 Bombing raids of significance (historic or famous) that did not occur during World War II. Digging Deeper 1. Balloon Bombs, Venice, 1849. The first known use of aerial bombing, Austrians used unmanned balloons to carry bombs over Venice on July 15, 1849, which had revolted against Austrian rule and declared the Republic of San Marcos. The Austrians…
A Brief History On May 16, 1960, a scientist at Hughes Research Laboratories in California, Theodore Maiman, operated the world’s first optical laser, a red (ruby) coherent light beam. We have published 2 articles about lasers (“November 14, 1967: The LASER is Patented” and “March 22, 1960: When Were Lasers Invented?”) and another article titled “Things That Did Not Exist (Or Were Different) on July 1, 1957” and today we list another 10 things that were not around when this author was born. (January 1957.) Digging Deeper 1. Video Games. Although rudimentary efforts to construct some sort of electronic video…
A Brief History On May 15, 2018, we are finally allowed to tell you about the exciting and absolutely hilarious new blockbuster action hero movie, Deadpool 2, which premiers on Friday, May 18, 2018 in the United States. The sequel to Deadpool, the 2016 blockbuster that made over a quarter of a billion dollars at the box office (a dozen times its budget), Deadpool 2 again stars Ryan Reynolds in the title role of a disgraced Special Forces soldier that has turned mercenary. When the Reynolds character gets terminal cancer, an experimental treatment turns him into a disfigured superhuman that…