Browsing: August

A Brief History This article presents a chronological list of notable events that happened on August 21st.  For each date below, please click on the date to be taken to an article covering that date’s event. Digging Deeper On August 21, 1791, a voodoo, or alternately “vodou,” ceremony at Bois Caïman, Haiti, was the scene of the first major assembly of African slaves in Haiti, an event that led to the slave rebellion known as the Haitian Revolution. On August 21, 1888, American inventor William Seward Burroughs of New York patented the first successful American adding machine, a device that remained in service…

A Brief History On August 21, 1791, a voodoo, or alternately “vodou,” ceremony at Bois Caïman, Haiti was the scene of the first major assembly of African slaves in Haiti, an event that led to the slave rebellion known as the Haitian Revolution. Digging Deeper White European colonial slave owners viewed the voodoo ceremonies as harmless exercise of the slave religion, making such rituals the only opportunity for large numbers of slaves to meet. Dutty Boukman, a voodoo priest and slave looked up to by other slaves, was named by a mysterious woman who appeared during the ceremony as the…

A Brief History This article presents a chronological list of notable events that happened on August 20th.  For each date below, please click on the date to be taken to an article covering that date’s event. Digging Deeper On either August 20 or September 8-10, 480 BC, the Persians defeated the Spartans in the Battle of Thermopylae. On August 20, 1858, naturalist Charles Darwin published his theory of evolution, the change of organisms over time through mutation and natural selection, in The Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London. On August 20, 1882, Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture made…

A Brief History On August 20, 1995, a horrific rail accident occurred on India’s Northern Railway.  Known as the “Firozabad rail collision,” a train carrying 2,200 sleeping passengers ran into another train that stopped after hitting a giant Nilgai antelope.  Officially 358 people died, although the count may have been higher. Digging Deeper There have been far worse rail accidents, including the “Bihar Train Disaster” in India of 1981, in which 500 to 800 people died, the 1917 “Ciurea Rail Disaster” in Romania which cost over 700 lives, and another 1917 disaster, the “Maurienne Derailment” in France, when 800 to…

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…