A Brief History On February 24, 1989, 9 of the 337 passengers on United Flight 811 exited the flight early to their untimely deaths. Digging Deeper Digging deeper, we find the giant Boeing 747 airliner heading for Sydney, Australia, having originated in San Francisco. The giant airplane was only about 16 minutes into its flight after takeoff from its stopover in Honolulu and at about 22,000 feet when a cargo door suddenly and violently popped open! The door was of the kind that swings outward when opened and was secured with electronic latches, possibly the source of the failure. As the…
Browsing: Travel
A Brief History As it is said, “Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it” (George Santayana, but you will see this quotation in many different forms), today we will go way back into History and find some things that may be worth repeating after all, the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. This list consists of the generally accepted list of “wonders” but feel free to nominate anything you think belongs on this list. (Note: List is by age, starting with the oldest.) Digging Deeper 7. Great Pyramid of Giza (Egypt), 2561BCE. The only one on…
A Brief History On this date, September 28, 48 BC, Pompey the Great was assassinated on the orders of King Ptolemy of Egypt after landing in Egypt. Although we know of this incident, many open problems concern Ancient Egypt, and some of them may never be solved. Egyptian archaeology is in a state of constant transition, with much of the terminology and chronology in dispute. The archaeological record is incomplete, with countless relics and artifacts missing or destroyed. New archaeological discoveries can call into question previous conclusions about Ancient Egypt. Furthermore, there are internal problems of overall cohesion of various…
A Brief History On July 17, 1917, King George V of the United Kingdom changed the British royal family’s name from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to the more English-sounding Windsor. Digging Deeper A blatantly political move, changing the German name was done under pressure from a war-weary nation that had been fighting in what at the time had been the biggest and costliest war in human history. England had even been bombed by German bomber aircraft named Gotha, causing that much more resentment. As a cousin of both Czar Nicholas II of Russia and Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany, King George knew the incestuous nature…
A Brief History On June 18, 1900, the Dowager Empress Cixi of China proclaimed war against the colonizing powers in China, including diplomats and their families. This order was made during the Boxer Rebellion (1899-1901), a popular uprising of Chinese against foreign Imperialists who had been imposing their will upon China. For 55 days, foreigners and Christian Chinese were held under siege at a legation/embassy in Peking, now modern-day Beijing. Digging Deeper A major motion picture, 55 Days at Peking (1963), starring Charlton Heston, David Niven and Ava Gardner is loosely based on this event; it flopped at the box office,…
