Browsing: March

A Brief History On March 21, 1986, Debra Janine Thomas made athletic history by becoming the first African American woman to take the Gold Medal at the World Figure Skating Championships.  As March is Women’s History Month, it is our pleasure to relate her story. Digging Deeper Born in Poughkeepsie, New York in 1967, Debi moved with her mother to California at an early age, growing up in San Jose.  Her mother had become a single parent when she divorced Debi’s dad, but that hurdle did not stop Debi from taking up a career in figure skating starting at the…

A Brief History On March 7, 1988, the President of the United States of America (U.S.) proclaimed March 1988 as “Women’s History Month.”  Over the course of the following decades, celebration of Women’s History Month have spread outside of North America to as far away as Australia and the United Kingdom.  Today, March 20, 2020, over thirty years after the U.S. presidential proclamation of 1988, various history themed YouTube Channels from around the world have joined together to present a collaborative playlist of videos concerning notable women in not just U.S. but world history. Digging Deeper To learn about these…

A Brief History On March 19, 1945, the Essex class aircraft carrier USS Franklin while on station off the coast of Japan, was struck by a Japanese dive bomber flying a virtually suicidal mission through intense defenses, causing massive damage, but not sinking the ship.  Still, an incredibly high fatality count had been inflicted upon the crew of the stricken ship, with at least 740 men killed and perhaps more. Is the Franklin the ship that suffered the highest death toll in a single battle that did not sink of damage inflicted in that battle?  While we could not find…

A Brief History On March 18, 1915, the Allied naval operation at the Dardanelles, the straits that provide entry to the Black Sea from the Mediterranean, ended in one of the worst defeats of the British Royal Navy when 3 battleships were lost and another 4 capital ships were seriously damaged.  A cruiser was also damaged. Digging Deeper Worse than just the loss of the ships, the British and French suffered 700 men killed on ships alone, along with several dozen killed on shore raids.  The Turks suffered only 40 dead and 78 wounded. The stunning part about the failed…

A Brief History On March 17, 2020, the United States of America and Ireland both have cancelled virtually all St. Patrick’s Day festivities, absolutely destroying one of the jolliest holidays in either country.  For this disappointment, we have to thank the coronavirus, or more correctly COVID-19, the mysterious flu like illness believed to have originated in Wuhan, China only a few months earlier. Digging Deeper While the world has experienced many pandemics throughout history, the last several decades have been marred by only a few breakouts of illness that garnered a lot of attention, including the AIDS/HIV pandemic, the Swine…