Browsing: Society

A Brief History On May 11, 1945, the man that would become the famous actor and philanthropist, Paul Newman, was assigned to the USS Bunker Hill CV-17, an Essex class aircraft carrier off the coast of Okinawa when not one, but two Japanese suicide (Kamikaze) aircraft slammed into the ship, killing nearly 350 men and injuring another 300, with another 43 missing. Newman, a crew member on carrier aircraft torpedo bombers survived the devastating attack when the pilot of his plane was ill, and the crew had to wait for his recovery to report to the ship. He went on…

A Brief History On May 10, 1940, the United Kingdom invaded Iceland without the permission of the government of Iceland. With World War II in a dire phase for the British, German occupation of Iceland would have been catastrophic to cross Atlantic shipping, the lifeblood of Britain so despite Iceland’s neutrality, the British occupied the small country as a preventative measure. Today we will discuss some of the places England or the UK invaded that may not have been known to the casual person. Digging Deeper Iceland is strategically positioned to intercept shipping from North America to Northern Europe, especially…

A Brief History On May 9, 1671, Anglo-Irish Thomas Blood dressed up as a parson and attempted to steal the Crown Jewels of England.  A scoundrel in multiple ways, Blood convinced King Charles II to grant him a pardon! The nerve required to try such a bold heist is incredible, especially since death would have been the expected punishment. Today, we list 10 of the most ridiculously daring heists in history, some successful, and some not so successful. Digging Deeper 1. Theft of Crown Jewels, Tower of London, 1671. As introduced above, Mr. Blood had the audacity to try the…

A Brief History On May 8, 1794, Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier, the man generally regarded as the Father of Modern Chemistry, was put to death on the guillotine during the Reign of Terror period of the French Revolution. It seems this man of noble birth who had such an enormous impact on the sciences of chemistry and biology was more than merely a scientist, but also a businessman and an agent of the Ancien Régime, the monarchy of France prior to the Revolution. Digging Deeper Born in Paris in 1743, Antoine was given a fine education (earning a degree in law…

A Brief History On May 7, 2018, while the latest movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Avengers: Infinity War, is breaking box office records, we stop to ask about the main premise of the film, the arch villain Thanos and his plan to reduce life in the Universe by half in order to prevent an overpopulation catastrophe. Our question is, “Has anyone tried this plan in real life?”  In 1968, Paul and Anne Ehrlich published a book titled, The Population Bomb, a dire warning about the catastrophic consequences of overpopulation of people on Earth.  So far, those predictions have not…