A Brief History On August 10th or 11th, 991, a Viking invasion of England resulted in The Battle of Maldon, fought in Essex near the River Blackwater. Digging Deeper English King Aethelred, called Aethelred the Unready, was represented in the battle by Earl Byrhtnoth leading the English fighters against between 2000 and 4000 Vikings led by a man named Olaf, perhaps Olaf Tryggvason. English reaction to incursions of Vikings varied at the time from submitting to the invaders and paying tribute to military resistance. In this case, fighting the Vikings did not go well for the English and victory was…
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A Brief History On August 8, 2017, country and pop music superstar Glen Campbell passed away. Campbell had a Gold and Platinum singing career and a successful acting career as well, and the first song that put him in the public eye was “Universal Soldier,” reaching #45 on the charts. Digging Deeper Written by singer/songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie, an indigenous Canadian woman, her original rendition did not rock the airwaves, but when Scottish singer Donovan and American Glen Campbell covered the song in 1965 the tune became an anti-war icon. Other famous anti-war tunes such as Edwin Starr’s “War,” PF Sloan’s…
A Brief History On August 2, 2022, US Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, is on a trip to Asian countries, one of which may be Taiwan, an island that officially considers itself to be the true and legitimate government of China. Digging Deeper Mainland China, the world’s most populous country, considers Taiwan to be part of China and a place with no right to independence let alone claiming sovereignty over all of China. The US back in 1979 made the choice to recognize the Communist regime of China as the sole legal government of that country, while ending diplomatic…
A Brief History On August 2, 1990, led by dictator Saddam Hussein, the military forces of Iraq invaded and annexed their smaller neighbor, the oil rich constitutional monarchy of Kuwait. Iraq was coming off a disastrous war (1980-1988) with Iran and Hussein was looking for an easy win. Digging Deeper This naked aggression by Iraq was poorly calculated, as the rest of the world, including much of the Arab world, disapproved of the action, and many nations joined forces to create a huge and powerful military force to counter that invasion, evicting the Iraqis from Kuwait in 1991 in a…
A Brief History On July 26, 1948, President Truman issued Executive Order 9981, which ordered the desegregation of the US military, a move many Americans thought was long overdue. Digging Deeper At times presidents cannot or will not wait for congress to act on a subject and they take it into their own hands by issuing an “Executive Order.” Franklin Roosevelt holds the record for the most executive orders with a whopping 3522. Second place is Woodrow Wilson with 1803 and Teddy Roosevelt is the only other president with over a thousand at 1081. Question for students (and subscribers) to…