Browsing: Places

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 February 15, 1949, even Indiana Jones would have been envious of the work of Gerald Lankester Harding and Roland de Vaux who began digging at the Qumran Caves where they later found the famous Dead Sea Scrolls, ancient Jewish documents that date back as far as the 3rd Century BC. Digging Deeper Some other contenders for the title of “Greatest Archaeological Find” include: The Rosetta Stone, found in 1799 by Napoleon Bonaparte’s expedition to Egypt, finally allowed researchers to interpret Egyptian hieroglyphics. King Tut’s Tomb, found in 1922, totaled over 5,000 objects from Ancient Egypt, the…

A Brief History On February 14, 1779, Captain James Cook, navigator, map maker, and explorer, was killed by native Hawaiians at the island of Hawaii near what is now Kealakekua. Cook is one of several notable explorers to die while exploring, including: Digging Deeper Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese sea captain often cited as the “first person to circumnavigate the Earth,” actually never completed his famous voyage as he was killed in a fight with natives in the Philippines in 1521. Robert Falcon Scott died trying to become the first person to reach the South Pole in 1912. Scott and four…

A Brief History On February 8, 1960, Queen Elizabeth II of the UK proclaimed that henceforth the House of Windsor and the surname Mountbatten-Windsor would apply to all her descendants. Digging Deeper The convoluted family ties in European royal houses are due to monarchs over the centuries coming from countries other than the country reigned over. Back in 1701, Sophia of Hanover, a German, became the heiress presumptive of the throne of Great Britain and Ireland, and her son became King George I, the first of the Hanoverian monarchs of Britain.  In 1901, the Germanic House of Hanover was superseded…

A Brief History On January 21, 2009, Israel pulled its military forces out of the Gaza strip after a three-week war with Palestinian Islamic extremist group Hamas.  While fighting in and around Gaza continued in the following weeks, the scale of the fighting was a mere shadow of the Israeli-Hamas fighting that began in October of 2023. Digging Deeper In what was called The Gaza War of 2008-2009, 13 Israelis and between 1,100 and 1,400 Palestinians were killed.  Lasting from December 27, 2008 until January 18, 2009, the war was just one of many Arab-Israeli wars and other armed and…