A Brief History This article presents a chronological list of notable events that happened on December 14th. For each date below, please click on the date to be taken to an article covering that date’s event. Digging Deeper On December 14, 835, Emperor Wenzong of the Chinese Tang Dynasty was given the news that “sweet dew” had formed on a pomegranate tree outside a military headquarters, a sign of divine favor for the Emperor. On December 14, 1836, a war between the States ended, but one you may not be familiar with. On December 14, 1909, the last paving brick…
Browsing: December 14
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A Brief History On December 14, 2017, the Walt Disney Company continued a trend of corporate mergers and acquisitions that are killing competition in many markets when they announced the deal to acquire the 20th Century Fox movie studio for over $52 billion. Digging Deeper Way back in 1890, Congress realized the problem with only a few companies owning too much of a market, and passed the Sherman Act, the first major anti-trust law in the US. President Teddy Roosevelt built on a reputation as a “trust buster” to protect competitive commerce, but his successor, President William Taft, proved to…
A Brief History On December 14, 1909, the last paving brick was laid at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Indiana, giving the venue its iconic nickname, The Brickyard. Previously, the racing surface was a miserable concoction of limestone, gravel, tar and oil, a surface that ate the tires of cars and motorcycles for lunch! Road surfaces and the motor vehicles that drive on them have improved immeasurably in the years since 1909, and today we take a look at some of the automotive gadgets and features we believe best illustrates those advances. As always, feel free to nominate those automotive…
A Brief History On December 14, 1940, at the University of California at Berkeley, atomic scientists first isolated the element Plutonium, a radioactive element with a designation of Pu-238 on the atomic chart of the elements (also known as the Periodic Chart), Element #94 for those keeping track. Plutonium is the stuff we make nuclear bombs from and is a highly dangerous substance even without the thermo-nuclear explosions associated with it. Digging Deeper Element #94 was first discovered by Enrico Fermi and his team in 1934 at the University of Rome, and named the element Hesperium, but it turned out…
A Brief History On December 14, 1992, the War in Abkhazia took a sickening turn when a helicopter carrying refuges was shot down, killing 52 people, about half of which were innocent children. The unfortunate death of civilians and children occurred during the Siege of Tkvarcheli, an unsuccessful siege by Georgian National Guard forces of the city held by separatist Abkhazians, a siege that lasted more or less for the entire course of the War in Abkhazia, 1992-1993. So what and where is Abkhazia? Today we seek to answer those questions and shed some light on a war that occurred…
