Browsing: Society

A Brief History On August 29, 1949, nuclear scientists in the Soviet Union (USSR) successfully tested their first atomic bomb, an implosion type device they called “First Lightning.”   Although the Soviet atom bomb program had started during World War II, the United States in coordination with scientists from Canada and the United Kingdom was the first nuclear power, testing the first atom bombs and dropping 2 of them on Japan in 1945. Digging Deeper The implosion type device is the type used in the Nagasaki bomb called “Fat Man.”  Greatly simplified, it consists of a hollow sphere of Plutonium surrounded…

A Brief History On August 28, 1917, ten women who were picketing the White House demanding women’s suffrage were arrested.  Civil rights are measures to protect individuals and groups against discrimination and to ensure that people are treated equally and that freedoms are not taken away.  Such rights should be blatantly apparent and should not require people struggling to achieve them in the first place.  Nonetheless, throughout history people have had to campaign and even fight for their rights. Digging Deeper August 28 has come up numerous times in the 20th century as a date that saw important pieces of the civil rights…

A Brief History On August 27, 1927, five steadfast women in Canada petitioned the Supreme Court of Canada to clarify if the word “persons” in the British North America Act included women.  These ladies from Alberta were disappointed when months later the Court ruled no, women were not “persons.” Digging Deeper The 5 Alberta women, known as “The Famous Five” or “The Valiant Five” were specifically seeking clarification of the wording to see if women could legally be appointed to the Senate.  This case was more or less a continuation of the women’s suffrage movement in Europe and in the…

A Brief History On August 24, 410, the city of Rome fell to foreign invaders for the first time in 800 years.  Although no longer the capital of the Roman Empire (that had moved to Ravenna in 402), Rome was still the symbol of the Roman culture and world. Digging Deeper Rome had suffered the indignity of a previous sack in 387 BC (or 390 BC  depending on dating system used) at the hands of the Gauls (from France).  The defeated Romans were forced to pay a ransom to get the Gauls to leave. In 410 AD, the invaders were…

A Brief History On August 26, 1970, the Women’s Liberation movement spearheaded by Betty Friedan held the Women’s Strike for Equality.  The event, under the auspices of the National Organization for Women (NOW), was held on the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, the amendment that allowed women in the US to vote. Digging Deeper The idea of the strike, which featured a 20,000 person demonstration in New York City, was to champion equal rights for American women vis a vis employment (both positions and pay), access to abortion, free child care, marriage rights,…