Browsing: Military

A Brief History On October 8, 1806, British forces fighting the French at Boulogne employed Congreve rockets, the same type of rockets mentioned in the National Anthem of the United States (“…and the rockets red glare…”). Here nine people or things named “Rocket” are listed.   Digging Deeper 9. Congreve Rockets. These weapons of war were actually developed to replicate the Mysorean rockets which had been used in India against the British in the late 18th century.  The Mysorean Rockets were the first iron-cased rockets to have been successfully utilized in combat.  The British rocket program began in 1801, and the Congreve rocket was the…

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A Brief History On October 6, 1976, the former dictator (Prime Minister) of Thailand, Thanom Kittikachorn, returned to Thailand after he had fled the country in 1973, which generated mass protests.  The ensuing crushing of the protesters in an incident that became known as the Thammasat University Massacre made way for a military coup in which the military seized power from the elected civilian government.  It is a widespread belief that countries run by the military are second rate.  This article elaborates on this conception and the things dictatorships and military governments commonly do that fuel it. Digging Deeper If your country’s leader wears a military…

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A Brief History On October 1, 2001, Mullah Omar agreed to a proposal by the head of Pakistan’s most important Islamic party to have terrorist Osama bin Laden taken to Pakistan where he would be held under house arrest and tried by an international tribunal.  This proposal was not realized and soon after an American-led coalition invaded the country, overthrowing Omar’s Taliban, but remaining in the country even to this day.  Here 9 places that have seen bitter fighting for control of territory that is not exactly prime land are listed.  Some of the places may briefly have had a…

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A Brief History On September 24, 2009, the first use of a long range acoustic device (LRAD) for crowd control in the United States took place in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania during the G-20 summit that was being held there.  The first use had been in Georgia (the country, not the state) in 2007.  Digging Deeper Although it is also known as a sound cannon, its manufacturer, the LRAD Corporation, does not call it a weapon but rather a “directed sound communications system.”  It is a device that looks like a loudspeaker, however instead of projecting beautiful music, it generates deterring sounds that are pain inducing, and it can send those sounds…

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A Brief History On September 21, 1993, Russian President Boris Yeltsin triggered the Russian Constitutional Crisis of 1993 by throwing out the constitution and dissolving Parliament.  The resulting chaos included the worst riots and fighting seen in Moscow since the 1917 revolution. Digging Deeper Relations between Yeltsin and Parliament had been deteriorating for some time when Yeltsin decided to dissolve Parliament, although he did not have the power to do so according to the constitution.  In turn, Parliament declared Yeltsin’s decision null and void, impeached him and barricaded themselves within the parliament building known as the White House.  Both sides made…

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