Browsing: Society

A Brief History On July 18, 1290, King Edward I of England, also known as “Edward Longshanks” or alternatively “The Hammer of the Scots,” issued the Edict of Expulsion, a royal decree ordering all Jews out of England.  At the time, about 16,000 Jews resided in not so Merry Old England.  Along with so many other pogroms, massacres, and forcible expulsions, Jewish people have had such a history of discrimination and exclusion that they have their own day of fasting and remembrance of various calamities and disasters, called Tisha B’Av, known as the “saddest day on the Jewish calendar.” Digging…

A Brief History On August 6, 1945, near end of World War II, a modified Boeing B-29 Superfortress heavy bomber dropped a uranium gun-type (“Little Boy”) bomb on Hiroshima.  Three days later, on August 9, a plutonium implosion (“Fat Man”) bomb was dropped by another B-29 on Nagasaki. The bombs immediately devastated their targets and, over the next two to four months, the acute effects of the atomic bombings killed 90,000–146,000 people in Hiroshima and 39,000–80,000 people in Nagasaki.  World War II was one of the most deadly wars in history.  Over 15,000,000 people were killed in combat. 25,000,000 more…

A Brief History On July 12, 1917, the local sheriff deputized 2,000 men as a posse to do the dirty work for the local mining company, called Phelps Dodge Corporation, and forcibly and illegally “deported” 1,300 people to New Mexico.  The deported people were striking miners and their supporters, most of which were Mexican Americans.  Echoes of this shameful event are evident today when we are on the precipice of another announced mass round up and deportation of undocumented (i.e., “illegal”) Mexicans from the United States, to be conducted legally by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) at the…

A Brief History On July 9, 1962, the United States Defense Atomic Support Agency and Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) launched a rocket from a remote Pacific Ocean island called Johnston Island (or Johnston Atoll), a rocket carrying a thermonuclear bomb (aka, Hydrogen Bomb) into space.  The Thor rocket carried a W49 thermonuclear warhead, a 1.4 megaton yield device, that was detonated 250 miles above the Earth, about 900 miles West-Southwest of the Hawaiian Islands.  The blast took place about 11 pm local time in Hawaii. Digging Deeper This particular nuclear test in space was called Starfish Prime, an operation within…

A Brief History On July 8, 1775, the Continental Congress, forerunner of what would become the government of the United States, signed the so called “Olive Branch Petition,” a last ditch effort to prevent a war of independence against Britain by the American Colonies.   Adopted by the Continental Congress on July 5th, the signing made this last effort at peace official.  The acceptance of this American overture to the British government had little chance of success, especially since the Continental Congress had already authorized the invasion of Canada and on July 6, 1775, had issued a “Declaration of the Causes…