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…
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A Brief History On October 23, 1983, 241 US servicemen (220 Marines of 1st Battalion 8th Marines Regiment, 18 US Navy sailors, and three US Army soldiers) were killed when a truck bomb was driven into the building where the men were quartered. Digging Deeper The Marines had been deployed to Beirut by President Ronald Reagan in response to turmoil within Lebanon after the Israeli withdrawal following the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Reagan promised the Marines would stay no longer than 30 days. He lied. With no particular mission other than just to be there as a presence, the Marines…
A Brief History On April 26, 1859, Daniel Sickles, Congressman, Army general, and diplomat, became the first person to successfully use the “temporary insanity” defense to beat a murder rap. Digging Deeper While serving as a U.S. Representative from the state of New York, Sickles shot Phillip Barton Key II, District Attorney for Washington, D.C., who also happened to be the son of Francis Scott Key, the author of the lyrics in the American National Anthem. Sickles killed the man for having an affair with his wife. This provocation was considered sufficient by the jury to justify not punishing Sickles for his crime of passion, which of course…
A Brief History On October 16, 1991, 35 year old loser George Hennard crashed his truck into the front of a Luby’s Cafeteria in Kileen, Texas, hopped out of the pick-up, and began shooting, eventually killing 24 people (including himself) and wounding another 27. Up to this point, the Luby’s Cafeteria shooting was the deadliest non-school shooting in US history. (Note: This tragedy was greatly eclipsed by the horrific mass shooting at Las Vegas, Nevada on October 1, 2017, in which a single gunman shot and killed 58 people, with another 413 reporting wounds or injuries.) Digging Deeper Although this…
A Brief History On April 8, 2013, the Dawlat al-ʻIraq al-Islāmīyah, “Islamic State of Iraq” (ISI) claimed territory in the Levant and thereby became “The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant”. Now known as just “The Islamic State”, this so-called “caliphate” is arguably one of the most evil entities in human history. This article lists some of the most horrendous crimes against humanity in chronological order. Digging Deeper 1. Beheading Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (October 30, 1966 – June 7, 2006), a militant Islamist from Jordan who ran a paramilitary training camp in Afghanistan, became known after going to Iraq and being responsible for a series of bombings, beheadings, and attacks…