A Brief History On October 28, 1948, Swiss chemist Paul Muller was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine or Physiology for his work in 1939 demonstrating the effectiveness of DDT as an insecticide. Digging Deeper As you can tell by the date of the research, World War II interfered with normal international scientific intercourse, resulting in the delay in recognition for Muller. The DDT itself did not wait for the end of the war to make itself useful, and was put to widespread use, mainly by the United States, to greatly reduce the incidence of insect borne diseases in war…
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A Brief History On October 27, 1914, the virtually brand new British Super-Dreadnaught battleship, HMS Audacious, hit a mine off the North coast of Ireland and sunk without ever being used in combat. Of course, the British government did not tell the truth to the British people, a disturbing trend followed by governments all over the world throughout history. Digging Deeper Audacious was commissioned in August of 1913, a state of the art King George V class battleship, 598 feet long and displacing 23,400 metric (long) tons. Armed with a main battery of 10 X 13.5 inch guns in 5…
A Brief History On October 26, 1881, Tombstone, Arizona saw the Earp brothers and Doc Holliday faced off with the Clantons and the Cowboys in perhaps the most famous gunfight in US history, The Gunfight at The O.K. Corral. Digging Deeper This notorious shootout has been the subject of numerous major motion pictures as well as books, articles, and all sorts of cultural references. But what of the guns involved in the gunfight? The most famous character involved, Wyatt Earp, was not in charge. He and Morgan Earp were appointed “special policemen” assisting their brother, Virgil, who was the city‘s…
A Brief History On October 25, 1415, the Battle of Agincourt was fought between the English personally led by King Henry V and the French, led by representatives of King Charles VI, resulting in a history changing victory by the English over the greater numbers of the French. Digging Deeper The English army was manned by a preponderance of bowmen armed with the famed English longbow. A weapon much more powerful than the hunting bows of today, the longbow required a strong man trained over a long period of time to employ it properly. Designed for mass volleys rather than…
A Brief History On October 24, 1990, the Italian Prime Minister addressed the Italian parliament about the existence of Operation Gladio, a NATO program in Italy and other countries, even some non-treaty nations, whereby a secret army would wage guerrilla war against the Soviets should they overrun any of these countries. Digging Deeper During World War II, the British set up their Home Guard to fill this role in case Britain was overrun by the Germans. The idea is to have loyal patriots spread throughout the land, trained in sabotage and communications skills with secret caches of arms conducting secret…