A Brief History On February 17, 1370, the Teutonic Knights fought a great battle against the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, a battle known as the Battle of Rudau. This particular battle was one in the series of wars called “The Northern Crusades,” a war to impose the Christian religion on Pagan people in Northern Europe, especially in the Baltic region. The “other” Crusades, those in the Middle East as a Christian effort to take and retain control of Jerusalem and “The Holy Lands” against Islamic forces is much better known, and had been discussed on our site at length. Today,…
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A Brief History On February 16, 1804, the U.S. Navy conducted a stunningly audacious raid to deny the enemy the use of an American warship by concocting a ruse that allowed American sailors into the jaws of the enemy harbor to sink a captured American frigate. The American Navy managed to sink the captured ship and escape under heavy gunfire, a heroic and successful raid marking a high point in the bravery and cunning of the U.S. Navy. Digging Deeper The United States had been having troubles with pirates along the Barbary Coast (modern Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya) resulting…
A Brief History On February 15, 1961, the sporting world was rocked by one of the worst disasters in sports history, the crash of Sabena Flight 548 in Belgium, killing all 72 people on board, including the entire US Figure Skating team, both competitors and coaches and even some family members. Luckily, only 1 person on the ground was also killed. Other sports teams have suffered from the catastrophic crash of airliners and buses, or even the terrorist massacre at the 1972 Olympics in Munich, but the US Figure Skating team loss was one of the first really big disasters…
A Brief History On February 14, 2019, yet another of the many Valentine’s Day massacres took place, this time in India, leaving 41 people dead and another 35 people wounded. The attack was a suicide bombing of an Indian security forces convoy in the disputed region of Kashmir (more exactly, the Pulwama district of Jammu and Kashmir, at the village of Lethpora). (See our other Valentine’s Day related articles.) Digging Deeper The Kashmir region, on the border of India and Pakistan, is a disputed area that the 2 countries have fought over ever since the division of India into sovereign…
A Brief History In February 1969, black educators and the Black United Students at Kent State University in Ohio first proposed Black History Month. The first celebration of Black History Month took place at Kent State one year later in 1970. Today, fifty years later, Black History Month is celebrated throughout North America and Europe. Digging Deeper So, as a graduate of Kent State University’s Master’s Program in History, on this 50 year anniversary of one of my university’s contributions to how we remember history, it seems appropriate that I should present a playlist of videos about some notable events…