A Brief History On June 11, 173, during the Marcomannic Wars (166–180), the Roman army in Moravia was encircled by the Quadi, a Germanic tribe, who had broken the peace treaty of 171. In a violent thunderstorm, emperor Marcus Aurelius (r. 161–180) defeated and subdued them in the so-called “Miracle of the Rain”! (For more about Rome on this website, see Rome) Digging Deeper Marcus Aurelius, the Roman emperor in the beginning of the major motion picture Gladiator (2000), is considered the last of Rome’s Five Good Emperors and, arguably, the last emperor of the Pax Romana or “Roman Peace”. The author…
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A Brief History We have covered numerous tragedies that have occurred at schools around the world. This article presents a chronological timeline of the most infamous such incidents in our world’s history. Digging Deeper On May 18, 1927, Andrew Kehoe committed the worst mass murder in an American school ever, proving that this is not just something started recently. On June 11, 1964, World War II veteran Walter Seifert went on a rampage at a Catholic elementary school outside of Cologne, Germany. He did not have a gun, but he did have a home-made flamethrower, a mace and a lance! On May 4, 1970, the…
A Brief History On June 11, 1937, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin had eight of his top army generals executed as part of The Great Purge. From 1934 to 1940 Stalin had vast numbers of government, party, and army officials murdered to satisfy his paranoid delusions that everyone was out to get him. This purge left his military in bad shape when war came, stripped of many of its most capable officers, but just another day for “The Man of Steel.” Stalin was a bad person indeed, and although Hitler is generally regarded as the most evil man in history, Uncle Joe gives…
A Brief History On June 11, 323 BC, one of History’s greatest conquerors and generals died at the age of 32, not on the battlefield where he had spent so much time putting his life in danger, but in bed in the Palace of Nebuchadnezzar II in Babylon. Digging Deeper The facts surrounding the death of Alexander the Great are somewhat muddled for so great a personage, but the reality is that the written historical accounts we have of the Macedonian King date from many decades after his death. How much of his legacy is fact and how much is…
A Brief History On June 11, 1963, George Wallace, the governor of Alabama stood in the doorway to the University of Alabama in a vain attempt to block four newly admitted African-American students from entering the school. Wallace had ascended to the governorship on promises of fighting Civil Rights for African-Americans, most especially against Federal efforts to end racial segregation. Digging Deeper Today, with throngs of Alabama football fans heartily cheering Black athletes and with a mixed race man in the White House, it is hard to remember such a day when a state governor could physically try to block…