A Brief History On July 4, 1946, the Philippines became an independent country after having been under colonial rule by Spain and then the US for 381 years. Today, we look at countries that spent even more years under colonial rule than the Philippines. Digging Deeper Guyana, 387 years under Dutch then British rule, and English is the official language. Cuba, 389 years under Spanish rule. Angola, 400 years, first visited by the Portuguese in 1484 and later colonized, gaining independence in 1975. Ghana, 426 years dominated by European countries including Portugal, the Netherlands, Britain, Sweden, and Denmark! Jamaica, 454…
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A Brief History On July 1, 1966, Canada had its first ever color television broadcast in Toronto, Ontario. Back when color TV hit the airwaves in the US, 1950 and 1951, no normal people had color TVs anyway. 1950s color TVs were horrible, with round screens that cut off a lot of the picture and garish colors like a bad cartoon. Digging Deeper TVs from the 1950s and early 1960s did not come with remotes, and they took forever to warm up, starting with a little dot of light in the middle that grew into a picture. Using CRTs and…
A Brief History On June 29, 1974, famed ballet dancer with the Kirov Ballet, Mikhail Baryshnikov, defected from the USSR while on tour in Canada. Baryshnikov went on to great success in ballet in the US, while branching into dramatic acting and television as well, with an estimated net worth today of about $45 million. Digging Deeper Baryshnikov is not the only Soviet citizen to defect to the West in order to seek more freedom and opportunities and today, we list some other such famous defectors. In 1961, Rudolf Nureyev, possibly the greatest male ballet dancer, defected while in Paris,…
A Brief History On June 28, 1926, Mercedes-Benz, a company known for quality and luxury in automobiles, formed by merging companies founded by German engineers Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz. Digging Deeper Benz pioneered auto making, and his 1885 effort is considered the first practical production auto. Daimler followed with his car the next year. While Mercedes-Benz has a long history of fame for quality and reliability, in 2023, the firm’s cars came in a dismal 29th out of 30 car makers for reliability according to Consumer Reports. Fellow Teutonic car makers also did not lead the pack, with Mini…
A Brief History On June 25, 1906, heir to a railroad and coal fortune, Harry Kendall Thaw of Pittsburgh shot and killed famed architect Stanford White. Thaw shot the man in front of hundreds of witnesses at the theater on the rooftop of Madison Square Garden. Digging Deeper Why would Thaw throw away a life of luxury by shooting a man? For a variety of reasons, including White’s prior involvement with Thaw’s wife, the notion that White was blocking Thaw’s social climb, and due to mental illness, shown by Thaw’s successful use of the insanity defense. You may wonder why…