Browsing: October 6

A Brief History On October 6, 1977, the Soviet aircraft design bureau, Mikoyan-Guryevich, flew their MiG-29 supersonic fighter for the first time.  In service since 1983, over 1600 of these highly capable air superiority and fighter bomber jets have been built, and incredibly (for a fighter aircraft) the plane is still in production. Digging Deeper Conceived as the lower end mix of fighter jets, similar to the American F-16 vis a vis the F-15, the MiG-29 is the smaller, cheaper half of the Su-27/MiG-29 mix of Soviet (now Russian) fighters.  (Note: Twice as many MiG-29’s have been built as have…

A Brief History On October 6, 1976, the former dictator (Prime Minister) of Thailand, Thanom Kittikachorn, returned to Thailand after he had fled the country in 1973, which generated mass protests.  The ensuing crushing of the protesters in an incident that became known as the Thammasat University Massacre made way for a military coup in which the military seized power from the elected civilian government.  It is a widespread belief that countries run by the military are second rate.  This article elaborates on this conception and the things dictatorships and military governments commonly do that fuel it. Digging Deeper If your country’s leader wears a military…

A Brief History On October 6, 1945, Billy Sianis and his pet billy goat were ejected from Chicago’s Wrigley Field during Game 4 of the 1945 World Series thereby (allegedly) cursing the Chicago Cubs for at least the next sixty years!  Thus, one of the greatest of sports curses was born. Digging Deeper First off, while those in Chicago are probably more apt to be familiar with this story than our many followers from outside of Chicago, please dear non-Chicagoans rest assured that we are not making up this entry in our daily reporting on cracked events in world history!…