A Brief History On September 20, 2001, US President George W. Bush addressed congress and the American people and declared a “War on Terror.” Initial attacks against terrorist bases went well, but the war soon bogged down in Iraq, diverting the effort, and the US ended up in a 20 year occupation of Afghanistan, only for the Taliban to take over when the Americans left. Digging Deeper Some other declared wars that did not go well for the initiator include The War on Poverty, declared by President Lyndon Johnson in 1964, which saw massive federal spending and creation of programs…
Browsing: Business and Economics
Read More
A Brief History On September 17, 1961, downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania was the site of the first retractable roof arena in the world, although its purpose may surprise you! Digging Deeper The Civic Arena was built mainly as the home of the Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera, although it moved into the sporting world in a big way in 1967 when it became the home of the Pittsburgh Penguins NHL hockey team, until 2010, when it finally closed. Of course, the 17,000 seat arena also hosted many other sporting events, professional and amateur, including basketball, wrestling, boxing, soccer, figure skating, gymnastics, and…
A Brief History On September 6, 2013, ivory poachers in Africa poisoned and killed 41 elephants at the Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe. The WWF reports about 20,000 elephants are killed illegally each year in Africa by poachers, out of a world wide total of only 415,000 African elephants. Incredibly, in 1930 there were about 10 million wild elephants in Africa! Digging Deeper Despite strict anti-poaching laws, poaching takes a terrible toll on many types of animals. There may be about 30,000 Rhinos left in Africa, of which only 6000 are Black Rhinos, which numbered over 100,000 as recently as…
A Brief History On September 4, 1882, the Pearl Street Station opened for business in New York City, the first commercial provider of electric power to customers. Built and operated by the Edison Illuminating Company, a new era began of providing the public with mass quantities of electric power. Digging Deeper In the century plus since 1882, the US has seen an electrical grid fed by over 11,000 utility type electric plants. Coal originally fired most electric plants, but today natural gas provides over 38% of our electricity. Coal accounts for 22%, while nuclear energy provides almost 19% of our…
A Brief History On September 2, 1963, CBS Evening News made TV history by becoming the first major nightly news show to be 30 minutes long instead of only 15 minutes. Prior to this event, the evening news was 15 minutes of local and 15 minutes of national news. Digging Deeper Other big changes to TV news include NBC switching its national news shows to color in 1966, quickly matched by rivals ABC and CBS. Still, a majority of Americans watched the news in black and white until 1972 when color TVs finally became the majority. Cleveland’s Dorothy Fuldheim became…