Browsing: December

A Brief History On December 19, 1974, Nelson Rockefeller was sworn in as Vice President of the United States, a job he was not elected to, to serve under President Gerald Ford, another guy not elected to the office he held, or even to the vice presidency before that! Digging Deeper This travesty of the so-called democracy in the United State was a result of Richard Nixon’s and Spiro Agnew’s malfeasances in office as the previous President and Vice President.  Agnew was drummed out of office when he was convicted of fraud, and Nixon resigned rather than face impeachment over the Watergate scandal. Gerald Ford,…

A Brief History On December 18, 1932, the first National Football League (NFL) championship football game ever was played between the Chicago Bears and the Portsmouth Spartans.  Obviously, this is what you would call an historic game, but for more reasons than you would think.  For one thing, due to a blizzard, it had to be relocated from Wrigley field to Chicago Stadium which had a field only 80 yards long!  Blasphemy!  Here 10 such historic football games, both memorable and significant, are presented.  Can you think of any others to add?  Digging Deeper 10. First NFL Championship, Chicago Bears vs. Portsmouth Spartans, 1932.…

A Brief History On December 17, 1862, the stormy history of civil rights in United States was once again shamefully marred when Major General Ulysses S. Grant, future President of the United States, issued his infamous General Order No. 11 which expelled all Jews from Tennessee, Kentucky and Mississippi, the states in the military district he commanded. Digging Deeper It seems the smuggling and black marketing common to most war zones was grating on Grants nerves, and like so many people before and after him, he figured the Jews were to blame.  Besides being responsible to win the war militarily, Grant was…

A Brief History On December 16, 1938, world famous dictator and villain Adolf Hitler directed his Nazi German Empire (Reich) to issue a new medal, one only for mothers of German ethnicity living within Germany or later within other areas incorporated into the Reich.  Digging Deeper In order to qualify for the award, the mother had to have given birth to at least 4 children and to have exhibited probity and exemplary behavior.  (Probity is having a strong sense of morality, honesty and decency.)  The medal was known as the Cross of Honour of the German Mother (Ehrenkreuz der Deutschen Mutter in German)…

A Brief History On December 15, 1973, with a vote of 13-0, the American Psychiatric Association agreed to remove homosexuality from its list of psychiatric disorders.  Obviously, prior to this, the psychiatric world of medicine had considered homosexuality a mental problem, and this ruling was a major step in the social definition of sexual orientation. Digging Deeper Other questions remain unanswered though; at least consensuses have not yet been reached in their regard.  For example, is homosexuality something a person is born with, or is it a learned behavior brought about by a person’s life experiences?  Is homosexuality perhaps a choice, something that…