Browsing: August 13

A Brief History On August 13, 1889, the coin operated pay phone was patented by William Gray of Connecticut. “It’s your dime” was a common phrase meaning “you make the call, you paid for it” and our greatest superhero, Superman, needed phone booths to change into his Superman suit. Not anymore! Digging Deeper Pay phones and phone booths used to be part of the American scene, as recently as the 1980s or the 1990s, but cell phones made them obsolete.  Like the Marlboro Man, other bits of Americana largely disappeared, including: Coin operated kids’ rides outside the front of stores. …

A Brief History This article presents a chronological list of notable events that happened on August 13th.  For each date below, please click on the date to be taken to an article covering that date’s event. Digging Deeper On August 13, 1521, Cuauhtémoc, ruler of the Aztecs, was captured while fleeing Tenochtitlán by crossing Lake Texcoco in disguise with his wife, family and friends. On August 13, 1779, a combined US Naval and ground expeditionary force was defeated after a three week campaign known as The Penobscot Expedition, the worst defeat in US Navy history until the surprise attack against Pearl Harbor on December 7,…

A Brief History On August 13, 1961, the Soviet occupiers of East Berlin tired of unhappy citizens of the communist “workers’ paradise” defecting to the West via West Berlin and erected a barbed wire fence that would become infamous as “The Berlin Wall.” Digging Deeper The Soviets and East Germans cordoned off West Berlin and began erecting a concrete wall complete with guard towers and barbed wire to prevent their citizens from fleeing to the West. The Berlin Wall stood as an icon of the Cold War between the Democratic Western countries and the Communist bloc, and in a way…

A Brief History On August 13, 2008, the military forces of Russia took over the Georgian city of Gori following a Russian war of aggression against its smaller neighbor and former Soviet Socialist Republic, during the Russo-Georgian War between August 1 and August 12 of 2008. Digging Deeper Russia had previously waged war on Georgia during another Soviet-Georgian War, this time an invasion during 1921.  We say “Soviet” because at that time Russia was the leading Republic in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.  An expansionist invasion, the Soviets, or Russians if you will, sought to expand the territory of…

A Brief History On August 13, 2019, we went and saw the latest horror movie from Hollywood, the movie version of Alvin Schwartz’s Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark.  Perhaps you read the books back in the day (the 3 books spanned the time from 1981 to 1991), as we did.  Aimed at the preteen and teen-aged audience, even as an adult I found the stories interesting enough to read and finish the books.  It was with this fond memory that we went to the movies this morning. Digging Deeper We enjoyed the movie.  While not a pure anthology…