Browsing: April 26

A Brief History On April 26, 1336, famed Italian scholar and poet Francesco Petrarca (better known as Petrarch) ascended Mont Ventoux, a mountain in the Provence region of southern France. Digging Deeper Petrarch is famous for much more than mountain climbing.  Often considered the founder of Humanism, his rediscovery of Cicero’s letters is also often credited with initiating the 14th-century Renaissance.  Petrarch is additionally acknowledged as the first to develop the concept of the “Dark Ages” existing between the Classical Era of Greece and Rome and his own era of Renaissance. A true “Renaissance man”, this polymath also traveled widely in Europe, served…

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A Brief History On April 26, 1933, the Nazi secret police force known as the Gestapo was founded.  No strangers to torturing and executing people, firing squads, hanging by piano wire, and death by torture were Gestapo favorites.  We continue what we started on April 25 when we told you about 10 ways people have been executed with no regard for humanity, intentional or unintentional. Here are 10 more ways people have executed other people and were not so nice about it. Digging Deeper 10. Poison Gas. Used today and recently for individual executions, the condemned have been known to…

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A Brief History On April 26, 1986, the Soviet nuclear power plant in Pripyat, The Ukraine, suffered an explosion and fire resulting in the worst nuclear disaster in history. Digging Deeper A Soviet nuclear plant complex constructed for the purpose of providing electric power was the setting of the disaster. The disaster was not the first accident at the Chernobyl plant, nor would it be the last.  There had been a partial core meltdown of Reactor #1 in 1982, something kept secret in typical Soviet fashion for 3 years.  Later, in 1991 a major fire broke out in the still…

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A Brief History On April 26, 1859, Daniel Sickles, Congressman, Army general, and diplomat, became the first person to successfully use the “temporary insanity” defense to beat a murder rap. Digging Deeper While serving as a U.S. Representative from the state of New York, Sickles shot Phillip Barton Key II, District Attorney for Washington, D.C., who also happened to be the son of Francis Scott Key, the author of the lyrics in the American National Anthem.  Sickles killed the man for having an affair with his wife.  This provocation was considered sufficient by the jury to justify not punishing Sickles for his crime of passion, which of course…

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