Browsing: Society

A Brief History On August 21, 1982, elements of the 860 man French contingent of the Multinational Force in Lebanon (MNF) arrived in Beirut.  A few days later United States Marines followed adding another 850 troops, and the next day 575 Italian troops arrived.  The MNF was a US brokered peace keeping force with the intention of saving lives among Lebanese in the wake of the June 1982 invasion of Lebanon by Israel in pursuit of Palestine Liberation Organization fighters.  The MNF was assigned the mission of evacuating PLO fighters and Syrian troops from Lebanon so that the Israeli forces…

A Brief History On August 14, 2003, an enormous electrical blackout struck the Northeast and upper Midwest of the United States and a large part of Western Ontario, Canada, leaving about (or “aboot” in the Great White North) 55 million people without electricity for a period lasting between 7 hours and 2 days. As is nearly always the case, the government response was a knee jerk reaction to lie to the public! While the 9/11 terrorist attacks were still fresh in the minds of North Americans, the US Government assured the public that the power outage was NOT a terror…

A Brief History On August 9, 1969, members of the Manson Family, followers of cult leader Charles Manson, murdered actress Sharon Tate, her unborn baby, coffee heiress Abigail Folger, and 3 other people.  Although definitely nutty people with bizarre, cult ideas about sparking a race war through senseless murder, none of these people successfully played the insanity card.  Charles Manson died in prison in November of 2017 one seriously deranged dude that seemed to be a shoo in for the loony bin.  We previously discussed “9 Blatantly Nutty People Not Found Insane” and today we nominate another 3 goofy people…

A Brief History On August 6, 1945, the American Boeing B-29 Superfortress named Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, killing about 70,000 people right away and perhaps a few tens of thousands later from wounds, burns, and radiation. Ever since this first use of a nuclear weapon against living, human targets the specter of possible nuclear war has hung over the world, casting a pall on humanity. Created by Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ Science and Security Board in 1947, the Doomsday Clock (https://thebulletin.org/2018-doomsday-clock-statement/) was invented as a way to chart the ongoing threat…

A Brief History On August 5, 1620, 2 small English sailing ships left Southampton Water in England on a trip to the New World, carrying a group of Puritans seeking a land where they could practice their brand of religion without interference. The larger of the 2 ships, the Mayflower, has gone down in history as one of the most famous ships in the English speaking world, while the other, the Speedwell, became an historical afterthought. On July 22, 1620, the pinnace Speedwell left Delfshaven, now part of Rotterdam in the Netherlands, with a cargo of English Pilgrims bound for…