A Brief History On March 9, 1987, Chrysler Corporation, then maker of Chrysler, Dodge, and Plymouth cars and trucks, announced the absorption of American Motors under the Chrysler banner. American Motors itself was formed in 1954 when Nash-Kelvinator and Hudson Motor Car Company merged. Digging Deeper Try to follow this corporate puzzle when also in 1954, Packard merged with Studebaker, forming Studebaker-Packard Corporation. Meanwhile, Kaiser Motors and Willys-Overland, makers of the Jeep brand, had merged in 1953 to create Kaiser Jeep. Then in 1970, American Motors bought up Kaiser Jeep. American Motors stumbled along until being acquired by Chrysler in…
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A Brief History On March 7, 2024, the 46th president of the United States of America, 81-year-old Joe Biden, a Democrat currently running for reelection, gave the 2024 State of the Union Address in the House Chamber at the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. 42-year-old Senator Katie Britt of Alabama gave the Republican response. Digging Deeper To my students and subscribers who watched Biden’s speech and Britt’s response, I have the following questions: On a grading scale of F to A, with F meaning “failure,” a D being “below average,” a C being “average,” a B being “good,” and…
A Brief History On March 7, 2021, the military of Equatorial Guinea experienced one of those “oops moments” leading to disaster when a military base near the port city of Bata suffered a series of massive explosions of stored munitions that devastated the city and left over 100 people dead. Digging Deeper Authorities blamed local farmers and their “slash and burn” farming techniques for starting fires that triggered the explosions, although outside organizations claimed such farming fires had not actually been set anywhere near the military camp. President Obiang did admit that the storage of munitions had been “negligent,” and…
A Brief History On March 6, 2018, founder and former boss of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, was named by Forbes as the richest person in the world, with a net worth of $112 billion. Such wealth makes us wonder, what can you do with all that money? Digging Deeper Currently, the richest individual person is Elon Musk of Tesla and SpaceX, worth $180 billion, while the family of Bernard Arnault of the LVMH commercial conglomerate is worth $211 billion, while the average American household has a net worth of $192,900. So, what can the super-rich buy with their wealth? A new…
A Brief History On March 5, 1933, Germany’s Reichstag elections were won by Adolf Hitler and his band of “national socialists” with only 43.9% of the vote, enough to allow Hitler, already appointed Chancellor, to become virtual dictator of Germany and lead the world to a path of ruin. Digging Deeper Germany’s Weimar Republic is not the only place where winning the most votes does not guarantee victory, as the US has experienced several Presidential elections where the winner won less than 50% of the vote. In 2016, Donald Trump was out voted by Hillary Clinton by 2.9 million votes,…