A Brief History On October 27, 939, King Æthelstan of England died, the throne then going to his half-brother, Edmund I. Digging Deeper This year, 2022, King Charles III has ascended the throne of the United Kingdom, the first royal succession in Britain since Queen Elizabeth II became monarch in 1952. Long before either of these esteemed individuals, Æthelstan was the first English monarch to become King of ALL of England, though various subsections of England had had kings for centuries. Prior to attaining the title, King of the English in 927, Æthelstan had been King of the Anglo Saxons…
Browsing: October 27
A Brief History On October 27, 2004, the Boston Red Sox ended a World Series victory drought that went back to 1918, an incredible 86 years between Major League triumphs. Over those many decades of frustration, rabid Red Sox fans often cited the unfortunate deal that sent Babe Ruth, arguably the greatest baseball player of all time from the Sox to the hated New York Yankees, ushering in a dynasty of Yankee success that has been unparalleled in Major League history. Digging Deeper Babe Ruth, or George Herman Ruth, was a great pitcher for the Red Sox, having won 24…
A Brief History On October 27, 1553, a Spanish scientist versed in many disciplines, Michael Servetus, was burned at the stake for heresy. The first researcher to correctly identify pulmonary circulation as the aeration of the blood through the lungs, his mind was a valuable tool for the Renaissance world that was snuffed out because of religious bigotry, a problem history has seen again and again over the years. Does religion continue to suppress the advance of science? Are religion and science incompatible? Today we look at some of the ways religion and science have crossed swords over the years,…
A Brief History On October 27, 2017, Paramount Pictures releases Suburbicon, a noir-ish “dramadey” written by the Coen Brothers and directed by George Clooney. With the star power of Matt Damon and Julianne Moore, the film is sure to make a major splash on the movie scene. We watched a pre-screening event on October 23, 2017 and will share our thoughts on the film. Digging Deeper The Coen Brothers have brought us a string of somewhat odd, but highly successful films, such as Fargo, The Big Lebowski (one of our favorites), No Country for Old Men, and True Grit (the…
A Brief History On October 27, 2017, tensions between the United States and North Korea put a cloud of possible nuclear conflict facing the American people. Meanwhile, 2017 has been a year of unprecedented major wildfires, hurricanes, and who knows what the last couple months of the year can bring? The potential for natural or man-made disaster that results in a time of no police, no government services, no utilities, no food, no water, and no civil behavior by fellow survivors is higher than at any time since the Cold War. As we have seen in Louisiana in the aftermath…