A Brief History On December 19, 2018, we take the opportunity to review the latest blockbuster DC Universe superhero film, Aquaman, a major motion picture that opens across the United States on December 21, 2018. As you may know from previous reviews on this site, we usually only see movies we are likely to like, and like this movie we did! Seen in Real D 3D, the film is lots and lots of eye candy. The packed theater test audience included a better than usual representation of kids, and to say the kids got into the movie would be an…
Browsing: December
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A Brief History On December 17, 2003, the 100th anniversary of the first powered flight of a human piloted aircraft flown by Orville Wright was marked by another aviation first, that being the first supersonic flight by a human piloted aircraft that was built by a private company when SpaceShipOne, piloted by Brian Binnie achieved Mach 1.2 in a rocket powered test flight to a lofty altitude of 20.67 kilometers (almost 68,000 feet). SpaceShipOne is a privately developed space plane designed to take passengers into suborbital space flight, space being defined as at an altitude of at least 100 kilometers. …
A Brief History On December 16, 1901, British artist and conservationist Beatrix Potter self-published the book that would launch her literary career, The Tale of Peter Rabbit, a book that would sell 45 million copies. (Note: Number of copies sold and ranking among various best selling lists vary by source. The initial success of the book led to it being published by an established publisher a year later.) Peter Rabbit would end up as perhaps the 10th best selling Children’s Book of all time, and around the 35th best selling book of any type in history. Ah, but Potter was…
A Brief History On December 15, 1890, legendary Hunkpapa Lakota (aka, Teton Sioux) leader and holy man, Sitting Bull, was killed by Indian Agency Police at Standing Rock Indian Reservation in the Grand River area of South Dakota. Indian Agents feared Sitting Bull would be leaving the reservation in order to supervise a “Ghost Dance” ritual that agents feared could result in unrest and rebellion among the Native American tribes already on reservations. An early morning arrest had been ordered to surprise Sitting Bull and his followers, and a total of 39 Indian Agency Police officers and 4 additional volunteers…
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…