A Brief History On March 5, 1933, Germany’s Reichstag elections were won by Adolf Hitler and his band of “national socialists” with only 43.9% of the vote, enough to allow Hitler, already appointed Chancellor, to become virtual dictator of Germany and lead the world to a path of ruin. Digging Deeper Germany’s Weimar Republic is not the only place where winning the most votes does not guarantee victory, as the US has experienced several Presidential elections where the winner won less than 50% of the vote. In 2016, Donald Trump was out voted by Hillary Clinton by 2.9 million votes,…
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 March 4, 2020, Nik Wallenda of the famous acrobat and daredevil family, became the first person to walk on a wire above the crater of the Masaya Volcano in Nicaragua. Not to be outdone, his wife, Erendira, performed an aerial routine above the smoking crater! Digging Deeper The Wallenda family is famous for many of their death-defying firsts, with Nik personally holding 11 Guinness World Records, including being the first to walk across Niagara Falls on a high wire. Other daredevils have achieved epic firsts, including: Annie Edson Taylor, the first to survive going over Niagara…
A Brief History On March 3, 2018, the track and field world lost one of its greatest runners when Roger Bannister died, the first person to run a mile in under four minutes. Prior to Bannister’s run in 1954, many people doubted that any man could break the “four-minute barrier.” Obviously, those doubters were wrong! Digging Deeper Bannister was involved in another historic race, this time in the finals of the 1500-meter run at the 1952 Olympics, in which he finished 4th, the incredible part being that all eight runners in that race broke the Olympic record for the 1500!…
A Brief History On March 2, 1978, comic actor Charlie Chaplin suffered the indignity of having his coffin stolen from its grave in Switzerland. The grave robbers held Chaplin’s remains for ransom, but were soon caught and the coffin, complete with Charlie, was reburied, this time with reinforced concrete. Digging Deeper Chaplin was not the only celebrity to be victimized by grave robbers, and today we look at two other notable cases. Thomas Paine, American revolutionary, was improbably dug up in 1819 by an Englishman that brought the body to England for a more ceremonial interment, but lacking funds, he…
A Brief History On March 1, 1954, the US conducted its highest yield nuclear weapon test ever, the Castle Bravo test at Bikini Atoll, a blast of 15 megatons, which created the largest ever radioactive contamination event in US history, mainly due to the atomized coral spread for miles spiked with lithium-7. Digging Deeper The Castle Bravo test gives us a pair of major trivia facts, while some other perhaps more fascinating trivia items include: Names, especially name changes and bizarre names, including Frank Zappa naming his kids Moon Unit and Dweezil. His other children had to settle for Ahmet…