A Brief History On September 24, 2015, yet another religious related tragedy occurred when as many as 2,000 faithful Muslims in Saudi Arabia for the Hajj were stampeded and suffocated when a large crowd met another large crowd at a road intersection and chaos resulted. The worst tragedy in a long line of Hajj related tragedies, some estimates were as high as over 2,400 dead, the worst Hajj related disaster. Digging Deeper In previous articles we have discussed tragedies and disasters related to religious events and locations, and asked the question, “What do these tragedies mean?” If you are a…
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A Brief History On September 21, 1170, invading Normans, Vikings that had settled in France, captured the Kingdom of Dublin and established their own Irish kingdom replacing a previous Viking kingdom in Ireland from the 9th Century called Dyflin. Digging Deeper Vikings, the premier seafarers of the 8th through the 11th Centuries, spread their DNA far and wide in their travels, both in trade and in conquest. Many Europeans today have genes passed down from the Vikings, people from modern Norway, Denmark, and Sweden, countries that today have a combined population of only around 22 million. Places that have Viking…
A Brief History On August 23, 1898, a new age of exploration began when the Southern Cross Expedition set sail for Antarctica in the aptly named ship, Southern Cross. Digging Deeper Thus began the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, a British venture exploring the Southernmost part of the Earth, an era that ended in 1922. Inspired by previous Antarctic explorers, Norwegian born Carsten Borchgrevink first gazed on Antarctica from the deck of a whaling ship, prompting his desire for further exploration. Carsten pursued financing in Britain and succeeded in organizing the expedition with the Southern Cross, the first such visit…
A Brief History On August 21, 1791, a voodoo, or alternately “vodou,” ceremony at Bois Caïman, Haiti was the scene of the first major assembly of African slaves in Haiti, an event that led to the slave rebellion known as the Haitian Revolution. Digging Deeper White European colonial slave owners viewed the voodoo ceremonies as harmless exercise of the slave religion, making such rituals the only opportunity for large numbers of slaves to meet. Dutty Boukman, a voodoo priest and slave looked up to by other slaves, was named by a mysterious woman who appeared during the ceremony as the…
A Brief History On August 19, 1991, leader of the USSR Mikhail Gorbachev was placed under arrest while on vacation in Foros, Ukraine. This first step in the action called “The August Coup” was the first step that resulted in the dissolution of the largest country in the world. Digging Deeper The USSR was formed in 1922 from the Russian Empire that disintegrated during World War I and included much of the old empire plus new territory to create a giant communist country consisting of a federation of 15 national republics. The Western democracies had an uneasy relationship with the…