A Brief History On October 17, 1979, an Albanian (Kosovan) Roman Catholic nun was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, certainly one of the highest honors any living person can be awarded. Does she deserve that Prize and all the other accolades afforded to her? Many think not! Digging Deeper Made a Saint by the Roman Catholic Church in an expedited process in September of 2016, Mother Teresa is one of the most revered women of the past few decades. Born Anjeze Gonxhe Bojaxhiu in 1910 in what was then part of the Ottoman Empire, little Agnes (anglicized) dreamed of a…
Browsing: October 17
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A Brief History On October 17, 2003, the pinnacle was placed upon the top of the 101 story Taipei World Financial Center (the original name), making it (at the time) the tallest building in the world at a whopping 1667 feet tall, a full 184 feet taller than the previous record holder, the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lampur, Malaysia. Digging Deeper The Petronas Towers held the record from 1998 to 2003 (or 2004 if you want to wait until Taipei 101 was actually opened), and Taipei 101 held the record until 2010 when the even taller Burj Khalifa in…
A Brief History On October 17, 1931, Mobster Al “Scarface” Capone was convicted of income tax evasion and later sent to Alcatraz Federal Prison. Authorities had long sought to arrest and convict this famous gangster for the murders, extortion and bootlegging he was involved in, but they never had enough evidence. Finally, law enforcement hit on the idea of going after him on income tax evasion. It is not a surprise that a career criminal would have income-reporting irregularities, but what about seemingly non-criminal people? Here we look at 9 celebrities, not from the criminal underworld, who have had problems…
A Brief History On October 17, 1091, a tornado with a strength thought to be about T8/F4, which means a severely devastating tornado with winds over 200 miles per hour, struck the heart of London, England. Digging Deeper When Americans think of tornadoes, they tend to envision twisters striking mostly flat ground in the American mid-west or accompanying Atlantic hurricanes. We do not generally imagine tornadoes wrecking havoc on major capital cities of medieval kingdoms. Nevertheless, on October 17, 1091, one such twister did just that! The London Tornado of 1091 is Britain’s earliest reported tornado. Although nowhere near as…