Browsing: Society

A Brief History On October 30, 1995, the people of the Canadian province of Quebec voted by the narrow margin of 50.58% to 49.42% to remain a Canadian province.  Quebec, the largest province of Canada by size, was the heart of New France until the British won the Seven Years War in 1763, and with it sovereignty over Quebec. Digging Deeper The Quebecois as the people call themselves maintain their French heritage, and the French language is spoken by the majority of people in the province.  A reminder of this French heritage can be found on their automobile license plates,…

A Brief History On October 29, 1918, a disheartened and disgusted German Navy had enough of the slaughter, mismanagement, and bungling of World War I and mutinied when ordered to sail out for one last ‘glorious’ mission that amounted to a suicide mission when the war was already lost. Digging Deeper The German High Seas Fleet had basically been bottled up in port after the enormous naval Battle of Jutland, in which an outnumbered Imperial German fleet acquitted itself quite well.  Despite many pleas by the Navy for other chances to contribute to the war effort, German leadership kept them…

A Brief History On October 27, 1914, the virtually brand new British Super-Dreadnaught battleship, HMS Audacious, hit a mine off the North coast of Ireland and sunk without ever being used in combat.  Of course, the British government did not tell the truth to the British people, a disturbing trend followed by governments all over the world throughout history. Digging Deeper Audacious was commissioned in August of 1913, a state of the art King George V class battleship, 598 feet long and displacing 23,400 metric (long) tons.  Armed with a main battery of 10 X 13.5 inch guns in 5…

A Brief History On October 26, 1881, Tombstone, Arizona saw the Earp brothers and Doc Holliday faced off with the Clantons and  the Cowboys in perhaps the most famous gunfight in US history, The Gunfight at The O.K. Corral. Digging Deeper This notorious shootout has been the subject of numerous major motion pictures as well as books, articles, and all sorts of cultural references.  But what of the guns involved in the gunfight? The most famous character involved, Wyatt Earp, was not in charge.  He and Morgan Earp were appointed “special policemen”  assisting their brother, Virgil, who was the city‘s…

A Brief History On October 25, 1415, the Battle of Agincourt was fought between the English personally led by King Henry V and the French, led by representatives of King Charles VI, resulting in a history changing victory by the English over the greater numbers of the French. Digging Deeper The English army was manned by a preponderance of bowmen armed with the famed English longbow.  A weapon much more powerful than the hunting bows of today, the longbow required a strong man trained over a long period of time to employ it properly.  Designed for mass volleys rather than…