Digging Deeper On October 13, 1929, Joze Plecnik, Slovenian architect, revealed his memorial to Napoleon Bonaparte on the Square of the French Revolution in Ljubljana, Slovenia. A major influence on the architecture of Slovenia, Plecnik was not a favorite of the communists after World War II and fell from influence. Plecnik and others have left beautiful, imposing, or impressive memorials and monuments to remind us of those memorialized. Here we list 10 of the author’s favorites, not necessarily the most famous or biggest, but the ones that touch or impress me the most. Digging Deeper 10. Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument,…
Browsing: Military
Read More
A Brief History On October 9, 1966, the war torn nation of South Viet Nam was the scene of not one, but two notable massacres you may never have heard of. While much scorn has been heaped on alleged massacres and atrocities by Americans, by the forces of South Viet Nam, by the Viet Cong, and by the North Vietnamese Army, these massacres were committed by another entity entirely. Digging Deeper On this fateful day, the Republic of Korea (ROK) forces (aka South Korean) allied with the US and South Viet Nam perpetrated massacres at separate locations, Binh Tai and…
A Brief History On October 6, 1977, the Soviet aircraft design bureau, Mikoyan-Guryevich, flew their MiG-29 supersonic fighter for the first time. In service since 1983, over 1600 of these highly capable air superiority and fighter bomber jets have been built, and incredibly (for a fighter aircraft) the plane is still in production. Digging Deeper Conceived as the lower end mix of fighter jets, similar to the American F-16 vis a vis the F-15, the MiG-29 is the smaller, cheaper half of the Su-27/MiG-29 mix of Soviet (now Russian) fighters. (Note: Twice as many MiG-29’s have been built as have…
A Brief History On October 5, 1986, the British newspaper the Sunday Times ran a story featuring information and photographs from Mordechai Vanunu, a former technician who had worked in the Israeli nuclear program, that detailed secrets about the Israeli nuclear weapons program, confirming, as suspected, that Israel did indeed possess such bombs. Digging Deeper The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) recognizes the U.S., the UK, Russia, China and France as nuclear powers and seeks to limit other nations from gaining that status. Of course, India and Pakistan are known to have nukes, and North Korea is believed to recently have developed…
A Brief History On October 2, 1942, the Royal Navy teamed up with the Cunard White Star Line to pull off yet another of Naval History’s great “Oops” moments. In this incident, the giant luxury liner, RMS Queen Mary, collided with her own escort, the HMS Curacoa, an anti-aircraft cruiser, sinking the hapless cruiser. Digging Deeper Back on July 3, 2014, History and Headlines featured a list of 10 “Oops” Moments in Naval History. Today, we have another tale to add to this pantheon of blunders at sea. The RMS Queen Mary had been converted to use as a troop…