A Brief History On June 18, 1900, the Dowager Empress Cixi of China proclaimed war against the colonizing powers in China, including diplomats and their families. This order was made during the Boxer Rebellion (1899-1901), a popular uprising of Chinese against foreign Imperialists who had been imposing their will upon China. For 55 days, foreigners and Christian Chinese were held under siege at a legation/embassy in Peking, now modern-day Beijing. Digging Deeper A major motion picture, 55 Days at Peking (1963), starring Charlton Heston, David Niven and Ava Gardner is loosely based on this event; it flopped at the box office,…
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 June 15, 1991, Mt. Pinatubo on the Philippine island of Luzon erupted with a massive blow. This eruption would be the second biggest land-based eruption of the 20th century after a 1912 eruption in Alaska. Digging Deeper The massive eruption cost at least 847 people their lives and would reduce the size of the ozone layer in the upper atmosphere and affect global temperature for the next 2 years as evidenced by a 1 degree Fahrenheit drop. Although unassuming and covered in trees, Pinatubo was a sleeping monster, its last eruption having been in 1500 A.D. …
A Brief History On June 14, 2002, an asteroid named 2002 MN passed within 75,000 miles of the Earth. If that does not sound close to you, it is only a third as far away as the Moon. (M-O-O-N, moon.) Good old 2002 MN is what is called a “near earth asteroid,” a heavenly body that comes at least within 1.3 Astronomical Units (AU) of the Earth. An AU is defined as the distance from the Earth to the Sun. Digging Deeper Asteroids are basically mini-planets, chunks of rock that orbit the Sun in our solar system. Some are large…
A Brief History On June 11, 2015, President Obama was in the strange position of having a trade agreement he and many congressional Republicans supported shot down in a vote by members of his own party. Digging Deeper The “Pacific Rim” trade treaty endorsed by the President would involve Canada and 11 other countries in freer trade with the US. Wary of another NAFTA trade fiasco where such a treaty cost American jobs, many Democrats opposed the agreement, as did enough Republicans to deal the President a defeat. The President must now go back to negotiating a revised deal if…
A Brief History On June 8, 1966, while test flying the monstrously expensive XB-70 Valkyrie, the U.S. Air Force managed to knock the Mach 3 bomber from the sky when an F-104 “chase” plane got a little too close and bumped into it, resulting in the crash of both aircraft and the death of two pilots and severe injury to another. The XB-70 had cost about $750 million to develop and build, quite a fortune in those days. Military history is rife with such blunders, miscalculations and general screw ups. Here we list 10 such incidents in no particular order.…