Browsing: Society

A Brief History On June 13, 1944, during the Battle of Villers-Bocage, German tank ace Obersturmführer Michael Wittmann proved what could be accomplished by proper use of a superior weapon system when he directed his Tiger I tank against British armor (armour for you Brits), destroying an amazing 2 anti-tank guns, 15 armored personnel carriers, and 14 tanks!  Only a week after the D-Day invasion of Normandy, France, the battle was an attempt by the British to break out of the Normandy beachhead and advance on the city of Caen. Digging Deeper A member of the dreaded SS (Schutzstaffel), Wittmann…

A Brief History On June 12, 1775, British General Thomas Gage declared martial law in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.  Gage offered amnesty and a pardon to all rebels that would lay down their arms, except Samuel Adams and John Hancock, who were deemed traitors that would be hanged if captured.  The American Revolution had already had a de facto beginning by this point, with the Boston Massacre (1770), the burning of the Gaspee in Rhode Island (a British customs schooner, 1772), the Boston Tea Party (1773), and the Battles of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775.  Fearing an outright…

A Brief History On June 7, 1962, a right wing French Nationalist terror group, the Organisation Armée Secrète, usually referred to as the OAS, set fire to and burned the library at the University of Algiers in Algeria, destroying half a million books.  Calling themselves “counter-terrorists”, “self-defense groups” or simply “the resistance,” the aim of these French nationalists was to prevent the independence of Algeria, forcing the country to remain part of France.  Usually we think of terrorist groups as rebels or an independence movement, but in this case the group was trying to keep “France” as they saw it…

A Brief History On June 3, 2017, radical Islamist terrorists once again struck London, England, with an attack that killed 8 people and injured another 48, as well as costing all 3 terrorists their lives.  The weapons used in the attack were a delivery van and knives.  The unarmed public and the 4 unarmed police officers on the scene were helpless to stop the attackers, though armed police that finally responded shot the 3 terrorists dead.  It took armed police 8 minutes to arrive, which undoubtedly seemed much longer to the victims.  All 3 terrorists were also found to be…

A Brief History On June 2, 1886, President of the United States, Grover Cleveland, aged 49, married 21 year old Frances Folsom in the White House, a wedding that today may well draw negative comments, but received no particular censure at the time.  Cleveland is not alone as a world leader that married someone much older or younger than himself, and today we discuss 5 such pairings of chronologically distant people, one of which in each relationship was an important leader. Digging Deeper 1. US President Grover Cleveland (49), Frances Folsom (21). Cleveland was the second US president to married…