A Brief History On August 17, 1945, George Orwell published his novella, Animal Farm, a cautionary tale that amounts to “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss!” An allegory about the siren song of communism, Animal Farm was proven right when almost all the communist countries in the world reverted to at least somewhat of a market system. Digging Deeper Other authors have foretold the future, such as Jules Verne with his tales of submarines and space travel. Orwell himself struck again with Nineteen Eighty-Four in 1949, forecasting our descent into universal surveillance of the population and the…
Browsing: August 17
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A Brief History On August 17, 2023, we went and saw Meg 2: The Trench in 3D (RealD) as big monsters certainly deserve a big screen! We strongly recommend seeing such epic flicks on the big screen to get the entire movie experience from the film. To kill the suspense, yes, we liked the movie. Digging Deeper Despite criticism from reviewers picking the movie apart, you must remember, the film is not a documentary. Based on the 1999 novel, The Trench, by Steve Allen, you have to have a willful suspension of disbelief such as with movies like Godzilla or…
A Brief History This article presents a chronological list of notable events that happened on August 17th. For each date below, please click on the date to be taken to an article covering that date’s event. Digging Deeper On August 17, 1498, Cesare Borgia, the son of reigning Pope Alexander VI, resigned his office as Cardinal of the Catholic Church, becoming the first cardinal to do so. On August 17, 1943, the U.S. 8th Air Force, the main American unit of heavy bombers stationed in England, launched 376 B-17 bombers against Schweinfurt and Regensburg in Germany, a raid that came…
A Brief History On August 17, 1978, Ben Abruzzo, Maxie Anderson, and Larry Newman made ballooning history by becoming the first to pilot a manned balloon across the Atlantic Ocean, flying from Maine to France in the Double Eagle II, a Helium balloon. Today, we take a look at a few momentous balloon flights. Digging Deeper On November 21, 1783, the first ever manned balloon flight took place in France, when Francois Pilatrê de Rozier and Francois Laurent took flight in a hot air balloon made by the Montgolfier brothers. In 1785, Jean-Pierre Blanchard and American John Jeffries made history…
A Brief History On August 17, 1998, US President Bill Clinton admitted in a taped deposition that he had am “improper physical relationship” with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, a lie that led to his impeachment. American Presidents have been involved in many scandals over the years, and here we list some of those, inviting our viewers to chime in and rank those executive misdeeds from bad to the worst. (See our many other articles about political scandals.) Digging Deeper Andrew Jackson was married to an already married woman and was a veteran of 100 duels, including killing a man…