Browsing: August 25

A Brief History On August 25, 1945, American Army Intelligence officer, Captain John Birch, was killed by communist revolutionaries in China a mere 10 days after the end of World War II.  Birch is seen by many, especially hard corps right wing anti-communists, as the first martyr or victim of the Cold War between the totalitarian communist states and the democratic capitalistic nations (largely East vs. West). Digging Deeper Birch was the son of Christian missionaries and was born in India in 1918.  Highly intelligent, hard working, and a dedicated patriot, Birch graduated Magna cum laude from Mercer University in…

A Brief History On August 25, 1914, during the opening stages of World War I German soldiers burned the Library of the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium, destroying a treasure of ancient, Medieval, and Renaissance works.  Over 300,000 books were burned, many of them irreplaceable volumes now lost forever.  Thousands of manuscripts of various types were burned, along with 1000 Incunabula (printed works made before 1501, the earliest works printed by machine).  A specific work that was lost was the Easter Island Rongorongo Text E, a wooden tablet etched with glyphs made by Easter Island natives before invasion by…

A Brief History On August 25, 1835, the New York newspaper The Sun published the first of six articles about alleged new scientific discoveries concerning the moon, specifically that a civilization had been found thriving there.  People bought the newspapers in eager anticipation of each new report about this fabulous discovery.  Throughout history people have been fooled by tricksters that perpetrate hoaxes, sometimes for profit, sometimes just for fun.  Here 10 of those hoaxes are listed.   Digging Deeper 10. Cardiff Giant, 1869. In an effort to make fun of Biblical references to giants, George Hull, a New York atheist, had a…

A Brief History On August 25, 1939, in a move meant to dissuade Germany from attacking Poland, the United Kingdom (Britain) signed a military alliance treaty with Poland which promised that if either were attacked, the other would come to their assistance.  Meanwhile, in a deal made with the devil (you pick which side is the devil, both qualify!), the German Nazi government led by Adolf Hitler signed a “non-aggression pact” with the Soviet Union known as the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact in which each country promised not to attack the other. Digging Deeper Both of these agreements were not worth the paper…