A Brief History On August 24, 2010, 72 bodies of illegal immigrants were found in a mass grave by Mexican military units that had just ended a shootout with the dreaded drug and crime cartel, Los Zetas. They had been blindfolded and handcuffed before being shot in the back of the head. Perhaps the most pervasive of the Mexican criminal gangs and drug-trafficking cartels, Los Zetas are known for their brutality and are quick to use force and terror instead of coercion and bribery. Digging Deeper The unfortunate illegal immigrants came to Mexico from even poorer countries in South and Central…
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A Brief History On August 23, 1954, a harmless looking cargo aircraft made its first flight when the C-130 had become airborne. It would go on to become perhaps the greatest cargo plane in history, still in production over 50 years later! Despite its fantastic versatility as a troop and cargo transport, airborne laboratory, electronic warfare, weather reconnaissance plane, aerial tanker, fire fighter, search and rescue, paradrops, sensor drops, Special Forces support, and bomber that drops the largest bomb in the US Air Force (the MOAB, Massive Ordnance Air Blast, or colloquially, “Mother of All Bombs” due to its giant…
A Brief History On August 22, 1971, Cold War anti-communist zealots FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and Attorney General of the US John Mitchell announced the arrest of “The Camden 28,” anti-Viet Nam War protesters that had broken into a Camden, New Jersey draft board to destroy documents necessary for the administration of the military draft for that area. Digging Deeper The 28 anti-war activists included priests and former seminarians, and quite a few people that had experienced Catholic high school or college education, and some were involved in the priesthood (2 priests and a minister, plus a Franciscan Brother)…
A Brief History On August 22, 1880, The London Telegraph published an allegedly true story claiming that, believe it or not, people can be buried alive and still survive! Digging Deeper To support the article’s claims, they provided an example concerning the fakir Haridas. A fakir is a holy man, usually a Muslim. In 1835, at the maharaja’s palace in Lahore, India, Haridas spent 40 days locked in a sealed chest. It is said that Haridas fasted for seven days before the big moment. He also swallowed and then reproduced a 27 meter long strip of linen to clean out his stomach.…
A Brief History On August 20, 1977, the United States space probe, Voyager 2 was launched with the mission of studying the outer portions of our solar system and then becoming the first (with its sister ship, Voyager 1, actually launched 2 weeks later) man made object to enter inter-stellar space. Digging Deeper These Voyager spacecraft have sent back information about Saturn, Uranus, Jupiter and Neptune and the moons of those planets, and are expected to continue to send back data (including images) until about 2020 when their Plutonium powered generators run down, with perhaps another 5 years of weak…