A Brief History On October 14, 1938, the Curtiss P-40 Warhawk made its first flight, leading to an eventual production run of 13,738 of the rugged fighters. Although often referred to as “obsolete” at the beginning of World War II, and famously rejected by the British for combat in the Northern European theater, the plane flown by the Flying Tigers with its intimidating shark mouth paint job became one of the main Allied fighters of World War II. (Previously, on November 6th we featured an article, The Hawker Hurricane: The Most Underrated Fighter Plane of World War II, and on…
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 October 13, 2013 (too many “13’s” in that date?), 115 Indians were killed and another 110 injured during the Hindu festival of Navratri at the Ratangahr Mata Temple in India when a stampede occurred on a bridge. Today, we list 10 such unhappy times when a religious activity or celebration went terribly wrong. (BTW, Today, October 13, 2017, is Friday the 13th!) Digging Deeper 1. Navratri Festival, 2013. A common Indian Hindu festival held each Autumn for 10 days and 9 nights, the method and reason for celebrating varies from region to region. Dancing, recitals, plays, rituals…
A Brief History On October 12, 2017, the United States has only one more day to wait for the release of Jackie Chan’s latest and perhaps greatest film, The Foreigner. A collaboration of Chinese and Western movie makers, this film is not a comedy, but a taut, spellbinding thriller with plenty of action. Digging Deeper Think of the movie along the lines of Taken, The Devil’s Own, Law Abiding Citizen, and The Limey. Like the above films, The Foreigner is about a simple Chinese restaurant owner, a sort of everyman, that seeks justice in an unjust world. In the title…
A Brief History On October 12, 1945, Corporal Desmond T. Doss of Lynchburg, Virginia was awarded the Medal of Honor, the highest award for valor given to only the bravest of our military heroes. A remarkable aspect of this award was that Doss was a lifelong conscientious objector and refused to bear arms against any other person, enemy or not. Digging Deeper Doss was the nation’s first conscientious objector to be honored by a Medal of Honor, and to make the feat that much less likely, he lived to receive his medal and died at the age of 87 in…
A Brief History On October 11, 1779, Polish cavalry officer and American Brigadier General, Casimir Pulaski, died of wounds incurred during the Battle of Savannah (Georgia) during the American Revolutionary War. Pulaski, known as “The Father of American Cavalry,” had fought in Poland against the Russians, and was forced to flee his own country, taking his military skills to America where he became a hero of the American Revolution. Pulaski was not the only major Polish officer to fight for America’s Independence, and of course other foreign born people also served in America during the Revolutionary War. Here we list…