Browsing: March

A Brief History On March 6, 1899, the German chemical and pharmaceutical firm, Bayer AG, (the people that brought us “Heroin”) trademarked perhaps their greatest product, and perhaps the greatest medicine ever invented, Aspirin. Digging Deeper Founded by Friedrich Bayer and Johann Weskott in 1863, the big breakthrough for the company was the production of acetylsalicylic acid, the refinement of an age old remedy made from the bark of willow trees.  Salicylic acid and various salicylate compounds from willow and other plants had been used for millennia to treat fever and other illnesses.  Frenchman Charles Gerhardt had invented aspirin in…

A Brief History On March 5, 1936, the fighter airplane that has been called the most beautiful plane of all time made its first flight.  The Supermarine Spitfire British single engine single seat fighter would go on to be refined in time for World War II where constant updates allowed it to reign supreme, as quite possibly the finest fighter plane of World War II. Digging Deeper Introduced into active service in 1938, Spitfires served until 1961 with the Irish Air Corps, after having served not only the British RAF, but also 35 other air forces, including the United States…

A Brief History On March 4, 1990, the sporting world was shocked when Hank Gathers, age 23, died during an NCAA Division I basketball game between Loyola Marymount University (his team) and the University of Portland. Digging Deeper Gathers was a blue chip basketball player, and in the 1988-1989 season had become only the second player in NCAA history  (Xavier McDaniel and Kurt Thomas being the only other 2 players to have achieved the feat) to lead the nation in both scoring (32.7 points per game) and rebounding (13.7 rebounds per game).  Originally enrolled at the University of Southern California,…

A Brief History On March 3, 1776, the Continental Navy and Continental Marines, the forces that would become the United States Navy and United States Marine Corps, conducted the first amphibious operation in US military history when a raid on Nassau in the Bahamas was conducted, known as The Raid on Nassau or sometimes called The Battle of Nassau. Digging Deeper Marines in general and the United States Marine Corps in particular are a military force of fighting men (and today, women as well) that are considered a ‘naval’ military service and work closely with the Navy.  Marines are used…

A Brief History On March 2, 1657, the city of Tokyo, Japan, then known as Edo, suffered a catastrophic fire that lasted 3 days and killed 100,000 Japanese people, a death toll greater than either of the atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Digging Deeper The carnage caused by the Great Fire of Meireki (or sometimes known as the Furisode Fire) combined to destroy about 60 to 70% of the buildings in Edo.  The legendary cause of the fire was a priest attempting to burn a cursed kimono that had been owned by 3 girls, one after…