Browsing: July 9

A Brief History This article presents a chronological list of notable events that happened on July 9th.  For each date below, please click on the date to be taken to an article covering that date’s event. Digging Deeper On July 9, 1540, the marriage between Henry VIII and his fourth wife, Anne of Cleves, was annulled. On July 9, 1850, US President Zachary Taylor died after consuming mass quantities of fresh fruit and iced milk at a July 4th fund raising and holiday celebration. On July 9, 1903, the future leader of the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin, was exiled to…

A Brief History On July 9, 2011, South Sudan seceded from Sudan and became the latest new African country.  While Africa has been a center of creating new countries, a dizzying number of new sovereign nations have been formed since 1960. Digging Deeper In 1960 alone, Africa went from having 9 independent nations to 26 countries, an incredible increase.  In 1991 and 1992, when the Soviet Union dissolved, the single nation became 12 separate nations.  Other Soviet era nations that split up into smaller countries include Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia. Besides the erosion of imperialism with nations gaining independence, other factors…

A Brief History On July 9, 1962, the United States Defense Atomic Support Agency and Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) launched a rocket from a remote Pacific Ocean island called Johnston Island (or Johnston Atoll), a rocket carrying a thermonuclear bomb (aka, Hydrogen Bomb) into space.  The Thor rocket carried a W49 thermonuclear warhead, a 1.4 megaton yield device, that was detonated 250 miles above the Earth, about 900 miles West-Southwest of the Hawaiian Islands.  The blast took place about 11 pm local time in Hawaii. Digging Deeper This particular nuclear test in space was called Starfish Prime, an operation within…

A Brief History On July 9, 1979, the Renault automobile of “Nazi hunters” Serge and Beate Klarsfeld blew up outside their home in France, an unsuccessful assassination attempt by someone who did not want their Nazi hunting to be successful. Every so often, the hunters become the hunted, and today we will examine 5 times investigators or police officers were targeted by the miscreants being investigated.  (For the purposes of this article, we will include judges, prosecutors and other investigators or people involved in bringing criminals to justice.) It must be noted that so many (thousands and thousands) of Mexican…

A Brief History On July 9, 1850, US President Zachary Taylor died after consuming mass quantities of fresh fruit and iced milk at a July 4th fund raising and holiday celebration.  Taylor, the only President to hail from Louisiana, suffered severe abdominal distress and fever for 5 days before he died, becoming the second President to die in office (after William Henry Harrison) and leaving Vice President Millard Fillmore to finish his term as President (1850-1853). Digging Deeper Taylor represented the Whig Party, and Fillmore became the last Whig to ascend to the Presidency.  Curiously, Fillmore did not appoint a…