Browsing: June 8

A Brief History Captain Humayun Saqib Muazzam Khan (September 9, 1976 – June 8, 2004) was a Pakistani American Muslim soldier of the United States Army who was killed in Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom.  Khan’s parents later appeared at the 2016 Democratic National Convention, where his father, Khizr Khan, spoke of his dead son and controversially rebuked the Republican nominee for president, Donald Trump.  Our hearts of course go out to the father of a soldier who died for our country, but there clearly seems to be some kind of double-standard at play in this latest controversy concerning the 2016 U.S.…

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A Brief History On June 8, 1972, Nick Ut of the Associated press took his famous photograph of a 9 year old Vietnamese girl running naked from a US napalm attack.  For this poignant photo Ut won a Pulitzer Prize.  Sometimes a photographer is just in the right place at the right time and takes the photo of a lifetime.  Here we list 10 great examples of the photographers’ art.  (Note: By its nature, this list is subjective!  That is why we do not presume to call them the “greatest.”  Also, because a picture already says a thousand words, we shall…

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A Brief History On June 8, 2001, and then again on June 8, 2008, Japan was terrorized by a mass stabbing.  The first occurred at an Osaka elementary school, and 7 years later the next rampage took place in Tokyo. Digging Deeper The first perpetrator was a mentally unbalanced man who had been a juvenile delinquent.  Mamoru Takuma was known to roll cats in flammable material and light them on fire or throw them in a furnace.  As a sophomore in  high school he assaulted a teacher and was a drop out.  His father tried to get him psychiatric help,…

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A Brief History On June 8, 1966, while test flying the monstrously expensive XB-70 Valkyrie, the U.S. Air Force managed to knock the Mach 3 bomber from the sky when an F-104 “chase” plane got a little too close and bumped into it, resulting in the crash of both aircraft and the death of two pilots and severe injury to another.  The XB-70 had cost about $750 million to develop and build, quite a fortune in those days.  Military history is rife with such blunders, miscalculations and general screw ups.  Here we list 10 such incidents in no particular order.…

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