A Brief History On November 12, 1970, the people along the Pacific Coast of Oregon found out the answer to the question, “How many State Highway Department employees does it take to blow up a whale?” Unfortunately, no rational people had actually asked that particular question in the first place! Digging Deeper On that memorable November day, a 45 foot long, 8 ton Sperm Whale washed up dead on an Oregon beach. Stinky and unsightly, locals not surprisingly wanted it gone. In Oregon, for some reason beaches are considered highways, so the nasty task of removing the whale carcass fell…
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 November 11, 1673, General Jan Sobieski of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth successfully used military rockets designed by Kazimierz Siemienowicz in the Second Battle of Khotyn in the Ukraine, helping to defeat Ottoman forces. Siemienowicz was the greatest artillery officer of his day, perhaps in history, and yet much about him is unknown. Digging Deeper Historians argue over whether Siemienowicz was of Lithuanian, Polish, or Belarusian ethnicity, as the borders and identities of countries and alliances in those days was murky and changing all the time. Ambiguity in the personal accounts of Siemienowicz does not clarify the issue,…
A Brief History On November 10, 1775, the finest fighting force in the history of the world was born when the United States Marine Corps was established in a Philadelphia tavern by Samuel Nicholas. Digging Deeper Even back in 1775 Tun Tavern was already an old established meeting place, having been built way back in 1686, making it almost 90 years old. Located near the Philadelphia waterfront, Tun Tavern was a meeting place for the St. George Society, the first Masonic lodge in America (St. Johns Masonic Lodge #1), the St. Andrews Society, served as a recruiting place for the…
A Brief History On November 9, 1965, 22 year old American Roger Allen LaPorte, a former Catholic seminarian, sat down calmly, poured gasoline over himself, and burned himself to death in front of the United Nations in New York in a protest of the Viet Nam War. Digging Deeper LaPorte had dropped out of the seminary, but graduated from Holy Ghost Academy (Tupper Lake, New York) in 1961 and was active in the Catholic Worker Movement. Although fatally burned (he died the next day), LaPorte was able to talk before dying and said he performed his act of protest against…
A Brief History On November 8, 1895, German physicist Wilhelm Roentgen (or Röntgen) discovered what has become known as X-Rays. In an experiment with electromagnetic radiation for which he won the 1901 Nobel Prize for Physics (the first ever awarded), Roentgen both produced and detected the electromagnetic rays that were originally named Roentgen Rays in his honor. Digging Deeper Only 2 weeks after discovering X-rays, Roentgen devised a method of taking a picture of the skeleton of his wife’s hand on a coated plate, the first “X-ray” picture in history. The implications for medical use were apparent and almost immediate. …