A Brief History On February 14, 1779, Captain James Cook, navigator, map maker, and explorer, was killed by native Hawaiians at the island of Hawaii near what is now Kealakekua. Cook is one of several notable explorers to die while exploring, including: Digging Deeper Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese sea captain often cited as the “first person to circumnavigate the Earth,” actually never completed his famous voyage as he was killed in a fight with natives in the Philippines in 1521. Robert Falcon Scott died trying to become the first person to reach the South Pole in 1912. Scott and four…
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 February 13, 1542, the Queen of England and wife of King Henry VIII, Catherine Howard, was executed for adultery. Catherine was between 17 and 19 years old at the time of her beheading, old enough to understand the dangers of cheating on the King. Digging Deeper Some other historical wives that behaved badly toward their husbands include: Empress Catherine II of Russia, better known as Catherine the Great, born Princess Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst in Prussia, married the man that would become Emperor Peter III of Russia, also a German, but overthrew him after he ascended the…
A Brief History On February 12, 1967, British police raided the home of Rolling Stones member Keith Richards at Redlands, confiscating illegal drugs, a pistol, and a shotgun along with ammunition. Richards and bandmate Mick Jagger were arrested, along with singer Marianne Faithfull. Also present were Dennis Hopper, Polish Prince Jean Christien Stanislaus Klossowski, and George Harrison of the Beatles. Digging Deeper Richards was charged with 25 crimes and was sentenced to a year in jail with Jagger earning a six month stay in the slam. A prompt appeal resulted in charges against Richards being dropped and Jagger’s sentence being…
A Brief History On February 11, 2001, the “Anna Kournikova Virus” was set loose by a Dutch computer troll, infecting the email of millions of users with a joke image of the eponymous tennis player along with a not so funny virus infecting their computers. Digging Deeper Anna, of course, had nothing to do with the computer plague that bears her name, and today we look at a few other unfortunately named items. Firstly, any disease or bad medical condition. Examples would be Parkinson’s, Graves’, Alzheimer’s, Hodgkin’s, Crohn’s, or Down Syndrome. Sadism and Masochism are also both named after people!…
A Brief History On February 10, 2013, yet another tragic disaster related to a religious event took place when 42 faithful Hindus were killed and another 45 injured at the train station taking people to the 2013 Prayag Kumbh Mela Festival in Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, India. Digging Deeper Accounts of the cause of the deadly stampede vary, with one version saying the stampede started when a rail broke on a footbridge, and others claiming the police precipitated the event by using batons to control the unruly crowd of faithful people. Apparently, the Kumbh Mela Festival is no stranger to deadly…