A Brief History On January 22, 1879, the British Army got a taste of colonial medicine when it suffered its worst defeat in its history against a native force armed mostly with archaic weapons. The British numbered about 1800 soldiers counting colonial and native troops, and were accompanied by about 400 civilians. A Zulu force of perhaps 20,000 warriors, armed mostly with indigenous weapons (spears, etc) and some obsolete firearms (muskets) attacked the British column that was invading Zululand, resulting in a resounding defeat of the British in the area of Isandlwana. (Note: There are various spellings of Isandlwana.) Digging…
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A Brief History On Saturday, January 21, 2017, about 15,000, mostly female, protesters took to the streets of Cleveland, Ohio. I am a recently graduated, college-educated woman who participated in these protests. Although I do not have many good pictures of the event, as I mostly took pictures to show crowd size, I nevertheless wish to share and show what I experienced on a particularly historic Saturday in January with the readers of this site. Digging Deeper The Women’s March was a positive experience. Everyone I encountered as seen in the pictures below seemed to spread the message of inclusivity.…
A Brief History On January 21, 1908, the New York City Board of Alderman passed the Sullivan Ordinance, a law that banned women from smoking in any public establishment. Mayor George McLellan Jr. vetoed the ordinance 2 weeks later, and only one woman was fined $5 for disobeying the law. When she refused to pay the fine, she was arrested, but released the next day. Digging Deeper Laws targeting women separately from men, including those that demean or belittle the public stature of women are nothing new, and unfortunately are far from unknown today. Here we list 10 Laws That…
A Brief History On January 20, 1972, Pakistan started a nuclear weapons development program in a bid to become the first Islamic country to possess a nuclear bomb. Coming on the heels of embarrassing losses in the Liberation War for Bangladesh (aka East Pakistan), and then failure in the 1971 war with India, Pakistan vowed to have a nuclear weapon by 1976. Digging Deeper Although Pakistan missed their timeline goals, by 1998 Pakistan became the first Islamic majority country to possess a viable nuclear weapon, and the 7th country to officially possess nuclear weapons (after the US, UK, USSR, France,…
A Brief History On January 19, 2017, there will undoubtedly be fans of American novelist and short story writer Edgar Allan Poe carefully watching his original grave (the cenotaph marking the site) to catch a glimpse of the person that has come to be known as “The Poe Toaster.” Every year since some time in the 1930’s, an unknown shadowy person dressed all in black save for a white scarf and wearing a large brimmed black hat has visited the grave of Poe on Poe’s birthdate of January 19, performing the same ritual each year. In 2010, for the first…