A Brief History On September 29, 1940, the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) experienced the most astounding incident of airplanes colliding in mid-air, becoming locked together, and then safely landing. Incredibly, no crew member of either plane was killed! Digging Deeper At the RAAF No. 2 Service Flying Training School at Station Forest Hill, New South Wales, Australia (near Wagga Wagga if that helps), pilots and navigators learned to fly CAC Wirraway (single engine) and Avro Anson (twin engine) airplanes. The Anson was a derivation of the Avro 652 airliner, that served as a general purpose airplane before and during…
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 September 28, 551 BC, Chinese philosopher Confucius was born, a life started that would have a major influence on billions of people for centuries to come. Considered by some (Daoists or Taoists) to be a deity, Confucius was a teacher, editor, and politician as well as a philosopher. Digging Deeper First off, the Confucius is a Latinized/Anglicized version of his Chinese name, Kong Fuzi. He was born near what is now Qufu, China, and his father died while Kong was still a child. Kong’s mother also died fairly young, and Kong was married at the age…
A Brief History On September 27, 2001, the chilling reality that a mass shooting could happen anywhere, at any time, became apparent when a deranged Swiss citizen walked into the Zug Canton Parliament building and started shooting Swiss legislators. By the time the massacre was over, 15 were dead (including the gunman) and 18 were injured. Digging Deeper Switzerland is a relatively peaceful country that has been neutral on the world stage since the Reformation, jealously guarding their neutrality and independence by armed vigilance. The last major conflicts in Switzerland were the invasion by Napoleon’s French Army and the Civil War…
A Brief History On September 25, 1911, the French battleship, Liberté, joined the long, sad list of ships that managed to sink themselves without the benefit of an enemy to blame when she blew up while moored at Toulon harbor in the South of France. Digging Deeper Liberté was a pre-Dreadnaught type battleship, built in 1902 to 1908, already obsolete at her 1908 commissioning because of the revolutionary appearance of the British battleship HMS Dreadnaught in 1906. Still, the Liberté was an impressive ship with a displacement of nearly 15,000 tons and a length of 439 feet. Capable of 19…
A Brief History On September 24, 2017, numerous NFL football players took a knee rather than stand for the playing of the National Anthem at this week’s football games. A practice started last year by quarterback (now unemployed) Colin Kaepernick of the San Francisco 49’rs that spread intermittently throughout the league, had largely died down, with players expressing their displeasure with the state of affairs in the United States by the less threatening action of joining arm in arm while the National Anthem is played and or sung before games. Digging Deeper Today, not only did 21 Cleveland Browns players…