Browsing: January

A Brief History On January 6, 2017, an American citizen and veteran of the War in Iraq opened fire at the Fort Lauderdale–Hollywood International Airport in Broward County, Southern Florida with a legally purchased and owned pistol, killing 5 people and injuring another 6 before surrendering to police.  While it is not unusual for mass shooters to either be assessed as mentally ill or to at least seem (to the general public) to be mentally ill, the convoluted path through mental illness to a tragic mass murder in this case is particularly disturbing.  While we describe the course of this…

A Brief History On January 5, 2005, American astronomer Michael E. Brown (of CalTech, Princeton, and Berkeley) with fellow astronomers David L. Rabinowitz (Yale University and University of Arizona) and Chad Trujillo (University of Hawaii, Gemini Observatory and Northern Arizona University) were given credit for their discovery of a planetoid they called Eris, at the time, the largest dwarf planet known in the Solar System.  The astronomical team actually discovered Eris in 2003, but its (relatively) small size and distance from Earth required rigid documentation for the discovery to be accepted.  Eris is larger than Pluto, the dwarf planet that…

A Brief History On January 4, 2007, Nancy Pelosi, US Representative to Congress from California, was sworn in as the first woman Speaker of the House of Representatives of the United States congress.  Once again, on January 4, 2018, she begins her first full day as Speaker of the House of Representatives having been sworn in for the second time yesterday.  Pelosi previously had tenure as Speaker of the House from 2007, when she became the first and only female Speaker of the House, to 2011, when the Democratic Party became the minority party in the House of Representatives and…

A Brief History On January 3, 2009, the Genesis block, the first of the blockchains, of the crypto-currency known as Bitcoin was first established online by creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, an alias for an unknown person or persons.  The form of “currency” invented by Nakamoto (or whatever) does not entail any tangible coins or paper money and is purely theoretical online tradable currency.  A decentralized payment system, Bitcoin allows financial transactions of many types to be conducted without the oversight or vagaries of governments or a central bank. Digging Deeper A crypto-currency is a system that uses digital data as a…

A Brief History On January 2, 533, Mercurius, son of Projectus, a Roman priest was elected Pope by the Catholic Church.  Mercurius, his name being derived from the pagan Roman messenger god, Mercury, thought his own name was inappropriate for one who would lead the Christian Church and decided to take another name instead of his own.  His chosen name under which to serve as Pope of the Catholic Church was John, and he became Pope John II.  The “John” he named himself after was not Saint John the Apostle, nor Saint John the Baptist, but instead was taken after…