A Brief History On September 5, 1836, Sam Houston was elected as the first president of the Republic of Texas. Of course, we remember him largely through the city that is named after him, the 4th most populous in the United States and spreading a massive nearly 600 square miles, about double the area of New York City. In 2017, while the city of Houston is in the news as Hurricane Harvey and its resultant floods devastate the city and the area, we look into the man behind the city’s name. Digging Deeper Sam Houston was born to a Scots-Irish…
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 4, 1949, after a concert by African American singer, actor and activist Paul Robeson, riots broke out in the Peekskill, New York location of the concert. World famous for singing, acting, and as a Civil Rights and Trade Union activist, Robeson became the target of hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and White Supremacists. Digging Deeper Paul Robeson was a remarkable man, born in New Jersey in 1898, a time of Jim Crow Laws and segregation, in the state of Woodrow Wilson, a man we now know as a racist. Robeson’s mother was…
A Brief History On September 3, 1838, Frederick Douglass, an African American slave in Maryland, finally made good on an escape attempt, using trains, ferry boats, and steam boats to find his way to Pennsylvania, a “free” state. Douglass became famous as a spokesman for the abolition of slavery and when slaves were freed in the United States, he became a spokesman and author for African American rights. The escape engineered by Douglass and a free Black woman he had become friends with was not a spur of the moment running away, but a carefully orchestrated operation. Here we list…
A Brief History On September 2, 1901, Teddy Roosevelt first voiced his advice, “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” We took the utterance of this phrase, one that became closely associated with TR, as impetus to write 10 Phamous Phrases People are Known Phor. Today we add another 5 such catch phrases. Digging Deeper 1. “You’re fired.” Donald Trump. The Donald made this phrase his own, and even tried to trademark the line, on his “reality” television show, The Apprentice. Since becoming President of the United States in January of 2017, he has racked up an impressive list of phamous…
A Brief History On September 1, 1983, a fighter plane of the Air Force of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR or Soviet Union) shot down an unarmed civilian passenger plane that had accidentally entered Soviet air space, killing all 269 people aboard. Shooting down airliners was just one of the dirty tricks pulled by the Soviet Union over the years, against foreigners and against their own people, especially non-Russian Soviets. Here we list 10 of those incidents, reason we do not mourn the passing of the Soviet Union. What incidents would you include in this list? (Hint: There…