A Brief History On November 20-21, 2016, four American police officers were shot in ambush style attacks in San Antonio, Texas, St. Louis, Missouri, Gladstone, Missouri, and Sanibel, Florida. The officer in the San Antonio shooting died of his head wounds, the other officers have survived their wounds so far. Digging Deeper Shootings of police officers are dramatically up, especially the ambush/assassination style killing where the officer is sitting in his patrol car and a suspect walks up and shoots the unsuspecting officer, or as in the case of Dallas, a sniping type incident. More police have been shot to…
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A Brief History On November 20, 1861, certain representatives of some Kentucky counties calling themselves the Confederate Government of Kentucky seceded from the Union of the United States of America. In honor of this action, a star on the Confederate States of America flag represented the Confederate State of Kentucky. Digging Deeper Well, well, well! Not so fast! The actual legitimate government of Kentucky had no such ideas about seceding from the Union and officially Kentucky, although a slave state, did not secede and join the Confederacy. Obviously sentiments in this “border” state were divided, and officially the State considered…
A Brief History On November 19, 1703, one of History’s most celebrated prisoners died while still in prison, an unidentified man known to us as “The Man in the Iron Mask.” Ironically (even the word “ironically” is ironic in this case!), the mask kept over the prisoner’s face was black velvet, not iron. The iron part of the story came from a work by Voltaire in 1771 when he claimed the mask was an iron one. Voltaire also claimed the man was an illegitimate brother of the French King, Louis XIV. Novelist Alexandre Dumas (he of The Three Musketeers fame)…
A Brief History On November 17, 1894, the murderous career of HH Holmes, one of the first modern documented serial killers, came to an end when he was arrested in Boston, Massachusetts. A thoroughly evil man, Holmes not only was a killer, he was also a bigamist, kidnapper, and con artist. In fact, he actually had a “house of horrors” hotel built specifically so he could murder people and dispose of the bodies covertly! His actual death toll is unknown, but estimates as high as 200 seem possible. Digging Deeper The World’s Fair Hotel located in Chicago, Illinois, was built…
A Brief History On November 4, 1979, a mob of angry Iranians stormed the US Embassy in Tehran and took 90 people hostage. Americans made up 52 of those hostages, and included US Marines assigned to the embassy and diplomatic workers. Violation of an embassy by another country is normally considered an act of war, but in this case the US never treated it as such, and 52 of our citizens remained hostages for 444 days. No reprisals were ever carried out. Digging Deeper The mob storming the embassy claimed to be college students associated with the group Muslim Student…