A Brief History On January 21, 1977, newly inaugurated President Jimmy Carter created perhaps the biggest controversy of his presidency by pardoning Viet Nam War era draft dodgers. Digging Deeper Digging deeper, we find the United States in the 1960s and 1970s severely divided over support for the war in Viet Nam. With Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Senator Eugene McCarthy and other prominent Americans vociferously opposed to the war, large portions of the population sided with them. The anti-war feeling went beyond just the political aspects and dove into the moral aspects for each individual soldier as well. The…
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A Brief History On January 18, 1967, self-confessed “Boston Strangler” Albert DeSalvo was convicted of several rapes and related crimes, but not of murder. Digging Deeper Digging deeper, we find no one was actually convicted of the murder of the 13 victims of the “Boston Strangler” although DeSalvo had confessed. Due to some inconsistencies in his details of the murders and in analysis of the manner of each murder, there is much disagreement about whether or not DeSalvo really was the murderer he said he was, with some researchers claiming there must have been more than one killer. Raping and…
A Brief History On January 17, 1966, a U.S. Air Force B-52 hit a KC-135 tanker plane in mid-air causing 4 nuclear bombs to fall on Spain! Digging Deeper Digging deeper, we find the U.S. in the middle of the cold war and therefore keeping bombers flying or on the runway with live hydrogen bombs at all times. The B-52 Stratofortress was the mainstay of the U.S.A.F.’s bomber force and with aerial refueling could hit any target in the world. Spain was not on the list! Of the 4 Mk28 thermonuclear bombs that fell that day, one fell in the…
A Brief History On January 16, 1547, Ivan Vasilyevich IV was crowned Czar of All The Russias. Digging Deeper Digging deeper, we find Ivan not only becoming the first Czar (the Russian equivalent of Caesar, often spelled Tsar) but also getting the frightening moniker Ivan the Terrible! Ivan initially assumed the title Grand Prince of Moscow, what the Russian ruler was called then, when he was just 3 years old. He managed to crown himself Czar at age 17, somewhat precocious to say the least. Under Ivan’s forceful leadership, Russia expanded by conquering adjacent lands in central Asia and Siberia. …
A Brief History On January 15, 2005, the serial murderer known as BTK (bind, torture, kill) was finally arrested while driving near his home in Park City, Kansas. Digging Deeper Digging deeper, we find Dennis Rader, a Lutheran church deacon and president of the church council, living in suburban Wichita and 60 years old at the time of his arrest. Rader got his nom de guerre courtesy of himself, as he had suggested several possible names for him to be called in messages left for the police and the media. In spite of the audacity of taunting police with messages, Rader went…
