A Brief History On April 28, 1503, the armies of Spain and France fought in Southern Italy at a place called Cerignola (near Bari), a battle decided by the small arms fire of muskets and arquebuses, one of the first European battles where small arms fire from firearms decided the battle. Although hand held firearms using black powder had been around for nearly 200 years, such weapons had usually not been decisive in battles fought mainly with edged weapons and later with a combination of edged weapons and cannons. Digging Deeper Gunpowder is an invention normally credited to the Chinese…
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 April 27, 2011, a mind boggling 216 tornadoes ravaged the United States, from the Midwest to the South to the Northeast, all part of a larger weather phenomenon called the 2011 Super Outbreak that resulted in 306 tornadoes from April 25th to April 28th, 2011. Sadly, 348 people across the US died in the Outbreak, 324 of them from tornado activity and an additional 24 due to related thunderstorm, flash flood and lightning events. Digging Deeper The human carnage was the worst tornado related death toll since 1925, when a stunning 747 Americans were killed on…
A Brief History On April 26, 1982, South Korean police officer Woo Bum-kon killed 56 people (and himself) while wounding another 35 in a single night of mayhem, the worst single person mass murder incident in history (until eclipsed by the Norway attack in 2011 in which 77 were killed) up to that point. Woo was a former Korean Marine and apparently was angry with his girlfriend. Mass murders do NOT only occur in the US, and do NOT require civilian owned firearms to occur. Digging Deeper South Korea has a civilian gun ownership rate of only about 1.1 firearms…
A Brief History On April 25, 799, Pope Leo III was leading a procession honoring St. Mark in Rome, chanting prayers and responses with the crowd, a practice called the Greater Litanies. During this exercise of his sacred duties, supporters of his predecessor, Pope Adrian I, including the former Pope’s nephew attacked Leo in an attempt to poke out the pontiff’s eyes and cut off his tongue! (Note: In 2018 the cable news giant CNN is airing a 6 part mini-series called Pope: The Most Powerful Man in History, starring Liam Neeson. The show airs on Sundays at 10 pm…
A Brief History On April 24, 2018, we await word as to whether or not President Donald Trump, a self-professed admirer of Napoleon I Bonaparte, Emperor of the French, will pardon former boxing champion and legend Jack Johnson, another admirer of Napoleon. Sylvester Stallone, the man who made fictional boxer Rocky Balboa a legend, has reportedly encouraged President Trump to issue the pardon. (Note: Regarding their mutual admiration for Napoleon Bonaparte, it seems both men may have a mistaken historical impression of exactly who and what Napoleon Bonaparte was. Trump has conflated Napoleon with Napoleon III and shown a shallow…