A Brief History On December 20, 1991, the parents of a Palestinian American girl were sentenced to death for the first degree murder of their daughter, a murder committed in the name of “honor,” believing their daughter had shamed the family by living a decadent American style life and having a romantic relationship with an African American man. Digging Deeper Despite the death sentences, the father died in prison six years later while the mother’s sentence was commuted to life in prison. The vast time span between being sentenced to death and actual execution in the US is over 19…
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A Brief History On December 19, 2016, Berlin, Germany, was the scene of a horrific mass murder by a frustrated asylum seeker from Tunisia who hijacked a truck and drove it into a crowd of people at a Christmas Market, leaving a dozen dead and scores injured. Digging Deeper While firearms are usually given the most attention when it comes to mass murder, the sad fact is that people with murderous intent have shown surprising ingenuity in the employment of alternate means of committing their heinous acts, such as motor vehicles, bombs, edged weapons, poisons, aircraft, and fire. The perpetrator…
A Brief History On December 18, 1995, a Lockheed L-188 Electra airliner driven by four large turboprop engines crashed in Angola, leaving 141 of the 144 people aboard dead. First flown in 1957 and entering service in 1959, the Electra was the first big turboprop powered airliner made in the USA. Digging Deeper While turboprop aircraft may look like the old fashioned prop planes of the past powered by internal combustion engines, the turboprop variety uses basically a jet engine or turbine engine to provide power, using a lower cost fuel and a lighter weight engine, allowing for lower take…
A Brief History On December 17, 1957, the United States successfully launched their first Intercontinental Ballistic Missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. The SM -65 Atlas became operational in September of 1959, closely following the Soviet R-7 Semyorka that had become operational in February of that year. Digging Deeper With the advent of these ICBMs, either the US or USSR could launch an unstoppable fleet of nuclear bombs at each other anywhere on the Earth. The stunning numbers of nuclear tipped missiles and nuclear warheads fielded by the two main Cold War powers included a maximum of 32,000 nuclear…
A Brief History On November 15, 2024, we take pleasure in reviewing a new book about some of the less well known and popular ancient civilizations, aptly titled The Other Ancient Civilisations by renowned scholar and archaeologist Raven Todd DaSilva of London, England, which is hinted at by the British spelling of “civilization” in the title. Digging Deeper A book suitable for the casual reader or college classroom, the author blends academic information with an eminently readable style that does not bore or confuse the reader. Each of the 20 chapters about one of the title civilizations starts with a…