A Brief History On December 5, 1964, Captain Roger Donlon, US Army Special Forces, became the first Army Special Forces member (ever) and the first US military person to earn a Medal of Honor in the Viet Nam War. Digging Deeper Donlon took a roundabout path to his moment of greatness, being born in Saugerties, New York among 10 children in 1934. Donlon joined the Air Force in 1953 after a year at the New York State College of Forestry, and was appointed to West Point in 1955. For personal reasons Donlon quit West Point, but enlisted in the Army…
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A Brief History On December 4, 1977, Jean-Bedel Bokassa crowned himself Emperor of the Central African Empire. Previously the President of the Central African Republic, Bokassa apparently thought many little Bokassas would follow, as he named himself Bokassa I. Digging Deeper Bokassa was a military officer in the armed forces of the Central African Republic when he seized power in a military coup in 1966, naming himself President. Even that was not good enough, for 7 years later he named himself President for Life, probably to make it clear he did not plan on retiring. In 1976, this egoist declared…
A Brief History On December 3, 1971, amid the background of the Bangladeshi War of Liberation when East Pakistan was attempting to secede from West Pakistan, the military forces of Pakistan launched a pre-emptive assault against India, attacking airfields and military installations and triggering the Indo-Pakistani War, 13 days on the brink of a far larger disaster. Digging Deeper After World War II when imperial nations were forced to give up colonies, the British reluctantly gave India, the largest and richest colony, their long overdue independence. India was made up largely of a Hindu population, with a large Muslim minority. …
A Brief History On December 1, 1824, it was determined that the vote for the presidential election of 1824 did not have a winner! Andrew Jackson of Tennessee had the most popular votes (151,271) and had won the most electoral votes (99), but a candidate needed to win 131 of the 261 available electoral votes in order to be elected president. Digging Deeper The main competition for Jackson, a war hero as well as former governor and senator, known as a man of the people (or a backwoods ruffian, depending on point of view) was a Northern elite, John Quincy…
A Brief History On November 29, 800, the Frankish King Charlemagne (aka, Charles I) traveled to Rome and The Vatican to investigate charges of adultery and perjury against Pope Leo III, another soap opera in the long saga of the papacy. Digging Deeper Charlemagne as King of the Franks (France), was seen as the leading Catholic monarch of the time, and as such, the protector of the faith and the Pope. Leo had been unanimously elected Pope on the death of Pope Adrian I, but the friends and relatives of Adrian apparently resented Leo and undertook to discredit the reigning…