A Brief History On December 7, 1941, the Naval and Air Forces of the Empire of Japan conducted a sneak attack against the US military bases on Oahu, Hawaii, and especially at Pearl Harbor. President Franklin Roosevelt called December 7, 1941, “a date that will live in infamy.” He was certainly right, and it has, perhaps more than any other date on the calendar as far as Americans are concerned. Here we list 10 Dates That Live in American Infamy. Feel free to debate the order or content of the list, and tell us which dates belong and which do…
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A Brief History On December 6, 343, the man we have come to know as Santa Claus died at the age of 73 in Myra, part of the Roman Empire in what is now South Western Turkey. Digging Deeper Before you break the bad news to young children, you should know that St. Nicholas of Myra, also known as Nicholas the Wonderworker (now that is a name!) is the real life inspiration for Santa Claus. (Note: Nicholas is an Anglicized version of Nikolaos.) Not only is Nicholas revered as a saint by the Catholic Church, he is also given sainthood…
A Brief History On December 5, 2014, the American space agency, NASA, successfully launched an Orion space capsule with a Delta IV Heavy rocket supplying the lifting power. The unmanned Orion space capsule launched on this test flight is the first of America’s next generation of manned space vehicles. Digging Deeper The US has been without a manned space system of its own since the last of the Space Shuttles were retired in 2011. American astronauts have had to hitch rides with spacecraft from other countries in order to go to and from the International Space Station. The Orion, named…
A Brief History On December 4, 1619, 38 British settlers landed from the ship, Margaret (out of Bristol, England) along the North shore of the James River in Virginia in order to found a new town in the Virginia Colony called Berkeley Hundred. Digging Deeper Apparently oblivious to just how idiotic it is to arrive in North America in December instead of the Spring when crops could be planted and impending Winter would not threaten survival, these eager settlers were dropped off by the crew of the Margaret and by order of the Virginia Company of London (known by various…
A Brief History On December 3, 2005, Dick Rutan, record breaking aviator, became the first man to pilot a rocket powered airplane to deliver US Mail when he flew an XCOR Aerospace E-Z Rocket from Mojave, California to California City (both cities in the County of Kern). Digging Deeper Various forms of “email” have been around since the 1960’s, but when email joined forces with the Internet old fashioned paper letters became “snail mail.” Actually, the term snail mail was first used as far back as 1942 and numerous times since, usually as a derisive complaint about how long it…