Author: Major Dan

A Brief History On March 1, 1953, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin suffered an alleged stroke that led to his death on March 5, 1953 at the age of 74.  Although the official reason the brutal dictator died was a common medical malady, high blood pressure leading to a cerebral hemorrhage complicated by a stomach hemorrhage as well, speculation that he may have been murdered persists to this day.  (You may note that there are various spellings of Stalin’s name, the one we have used is the Anglicized version.) Digging Deeper Born Ioseb Jughashvilli in Gori, Georgia of the Russian Empire…

A Brief History On February 28, 1939, the Webster’s New International Dictionary, Second Edition accidentally included a goofy meaningless word among the thousands of legitimate words found in the esteemed text. Digging Deeper When it was pointed out that the apparently new word, “dord,” had been included in the dictionary, defined as “density,” an investigation ensued.  The explanation was that the entry that should have been included was simply a capital D, followed by the word “or” followed by a lower-case d.  That is, it should have looked like this: D or d. Chemists, engineers, physicists and the like use…

A Brief History On February 27, 1902, a British firing squad carried out the execution of convicted war criminal, Australian Lt. Harry “Breaker” Morant.  A rare thing indeed for the British Army to prosecute one of their own for war crimes in those days, Morant and fellow soldier Lt. Peter Handcock stood accused of the murders of several South African (Boer) prisoners of war and civilians. Digging Deeper The Second Boer War between the British and Dutch settlers of South Africa (Boers) started in October of 1899 and was near its end when Morant and Handcock were tried and executed. …

A Brief History On February 26, 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte, aka Napoleon I, Emperor of the French, escaped from his forced exile on the island of Elba and made his way back to France, seeking to regain his throne. Digging Deeper Napoleon Bonaparte, born in Corsica, had parlayed his spectacular military successes during and immediately after the French Revolution to becoming a General by the age of 24, and seizing the opportunity to mount a coup and take virtual control of France in 1799.  Never bashful, Napoleon crowned himself L’ Empereur in 1804 and led his Empire in a series of…

A Brief History On February 25, 1836, Samuel Colt of Hartford Connecticut made good on the “All men are created equal” theme by making sure they stayed that way.  Colt did this by patenting his famous revolving cylinder pistol. Digging Deeper The revolving pistol was not a new concept, and previous efforts using flint lock pistols were attempted with uneven results.  The loose powder in the pan of a flintlock made “chain firing” all too possible and keeping the powder in the pan as the cylinder rotated was also difficult at best.  Once the percussion cap was invented and reached…