Browsing: Society

A Brief History On May 22, 2015, voters in Ireland passed a referendum legalizing same sex marriage. Digging Deeper With the passage of the Thirty Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of Ireland, the land of Shamrocks and Leprechauns became the first country in the world to legalize same sex (Gay) marriage by a direct vote of the people (referendum), meaning gay people have every right to be as miserable as everyone else!  (Kidding!) The gay marriage referendum passed with a 62.07% for and 37.03 against vote.  Turnout for the election was only 60% of registered voters, but that actually compares…

A Brief History On May 21, 1924, a pair of well to do college students from the University of Chicago kidnapped and murdered a 14-year-old boy, just for the thrill of committing murder and getting away with it.  They did not get away with it! Digging Deeper Richard Albert Loeb was the son of a wealthy lawyer that had been a vice president of Sears, a highly intelligent lad that skipped several grades in school, graduating from the University of Michigan at the age of 17.  Despite his intellect, Richard was described as lazy and obsessed with crime and detective…

A Brief History On May 18, 1958, the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter set the world speed record for an airplane by flying 1404.19 mph over a 15 mile course, at the same time becoming the first aircraft ever to hold both the world speed record and the world altitude record at the same time (91,243 feet on May 7, 1958). Digging Deeper An incredible plane in many ways, this little single jet engine powered interceptor went on to a production run of over 2500 planes and served with 15 different countries, until finally retired in 2004 (Italy). Designed as a Mach…

A Brief History On May 17, 1974, the Los Angeles Police Department engaged the radical Symbionese Liberation Army in one of the most famous gun fights in the history of the LAPD, a fight in which an incredible 9000 rounds of ammunition were expended! Digging Deeper The SLA was the radical group that had kidnapped heiress Patty Hearst and turned her into one of their minions. Led by an escaped African-American criminal, Donald DeFreeze, known to his members as “General Field Marshal Cinque” (and apparently the duped group members did not find this hilarious?), DeFreeze was in fact the only…

A Brief History On May 16, 1957, 54 year old ex-lawman Eliot Ness, he of future television and movie fame as leader of the “Untouchables,” died nearly broke and so forgotten that the Chicago newspapers did not even run an obituary. Digging Deeper Ness was a native Chicagoan, born in 1903, and even attended The University of Chicago, graduating with a degree in economics in 1925.  Taking a job as a background investigator for a credit company, Ness became interested in Law Enforcement and went back to The University of Chicago where he got a Master’s Degree in Criminology, the…