A Brief History On September 5, 1698, Czar Peter I of Russia (Peter the Great) enacted a tax on beards. This tax targeted the nobility in an effort to “westernize” Russia and proved highly unpopular. Many laws in the US have also been unpopular, and today we ask you to tell us which law you think is the worst law in US history, giving you some samples to choose from. Digging Deeper “Blue Laws” against Sunday business practices Income Tax in 1861 and again in 1909 with the 16th Amendment Insanity defense Mandatory use of automotive seat belts, first in…
Browsing: Business and Economics
A Brief History On August 16, 2008, the Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago, Illinois, topped out, and immediately became the tallest residence above ground level of any building in the world. Digging Deeper Towering, an appropriate adverb, 1,389 feet high, the skyscraper bearing the name of the future President of the United States cost about $847 million dollars in those-days dollars and would not open until January 30, 2009. When completed with its spire in 2009, Trump International became the 7th tallest building in the world, and boasted 98 floors with 2.6 million square feet of floor space.…
A Brief History Because the Northeast blackout of August 14–16, 2003 came only two years after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the first thought in the minds of many people was that a terrorist attack had occurred. Of course, the US government quickly reassured the public that no such attack had taken place, even though they did not have an answer as to why the outage occurred. Digging Deeper The problem turned out to be a software bug in the portion of the electrical grid controlled by FirstEnergy, an Akron, Ohio based electrical utility. Tree branches contacting power…
A Brief History On August 5, 2010, 33 Chilean miners were trapped underground 2300 feet deep in a copper and gold mine, an incredible 3 miles from the entrance to the mine. Their lives certainly seemed to be over, but 69 days later they emerged, alive! Digging Deeper The incident, called the Copiapó mining accident, received frantic efforts by the mine’s owners and then the national mining company to save the miners. Little hope remained 17 days later as rescuers continued to drill exploratory holes to locate the lost men, when rescuers were startled to find a note attached to…
A Brief History On July 4th, 2022, Americans celebrate their Independence Day, a holiday that signifies their freedom. During the month of June 2015, Americans experienced a host of developments in the expansion of this freedom, so we of course featured an article about those changes. In any case, to paraphrase Bob Dylan, the times sure were a-changin’ in June 2015, and here in 2022, those times STILL are a changin’! Digging Deeper Since 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed and it seemed as if the Cold War was over, we have all lived under the belief that nuclear war…
