Browsing: February 22

A Brief History On February 22, 1944, American bombers accidentally bombed the Dutch cities of Nijmegen, Arnhem, Enschede, and Deventer, killing over 800 civilians in the Netherlands towns.  In previous articles, we have discussed the tragedy of good guys accidentally killing good guys, a phenomenon called “friendly fire” incidents.  While the United States military tries especially hard to avoid such incidents, including sometimes putting our own people in danger to minimize the possibility of killing innocent civilians, in war stuff happens, often bad stuff. Digging Deeper In February of 1944 the Netherlands were occupied by German military forces and had…

A Brief History On February 22, 1744, the British Royal Navy began an engagement with Spanish and French naval ships in a sea battle off the coast of Toulon, France in the Mediterranean Sea, a battle that was a defeat for the British and one of the most humiliating fiascos in Royal Navy history, The Battle of Toulon.  While we do not believe we are Anglophiles per se, we do have great respect for the Royal Navy and its long tradition of courage at sea and its many accomplishments.  In fact, the only national navy we would place alongside the…

A Brief History On February 22, 2018, we have only one more day to wait for the nationwide debut of the new film by Alex Garland, the screenwriter of 28 Days Later and Dredd, and the writer/director of Ex Machina. This time around Garland wrote the screenplay and directed Annihilation, a film based on the Jeff  VanderMeer novel by the same name. Digging Deeper The VanderMeer story is the first of the “Southern Reach Trilogy” of stories (2014), with Annihilation followed by Authority and Acceptance. Will the second and third novels in the series be adapted for film? We do…

A Brief History On February 22, 2018, we take the opportunity to update our February 22, 2014 article titled “Norwegian Woman Becomes Most Successful Female Winter Olympian”, the tale of uber skier Marit Bjorgen. At the time, Marit had earned 6 Olympic Gold Medals in Winter Olympic competition, and in the 2018 Winter Games held in South Korea she has added another Winter Olympic Gold Medal! Digging Deeper Not only has Marit added another Gold Medal in the 4 X 5 km relay, she also threw in another Silver and another Bronze Medal into her treasure trove of Olympic awards.…

A Brief (And we mean Brief!) History On February 22, 1983, the Eugene O’Neill Theater (230 West 49th St., New York, although considered a “Broadway” theater) was the scene of perhaps the biggest fiasco in the History of Broadway Plays, the opening and closing night of the Arthur Bicknell play, Moose Murders. Digging Deeper Not only did this miserable play only have the one night, its very name has become the archetype for lousy plays, those which open and close after only one show.  Moose Murders is the low standard by which crumby plays are compared.  Frank Rich, Broadway critic…