Browsing: Society

A Brief History History’s worst war and its associated genocide is an dark chapter in human history overflowing with bizarre episodes.  This article presents a timeline of the most notable such incidents, some depressing and others inspiring! Origins of World War II On September 24, 1884, Hugo Schmeisser was born in Jena, in what was then the German Empire. On August 22, 1902, Helene “Leni” Riefenstahl was born in Southern Bavaria in Germany.  Thirty years later she would meet Adolf Hitler, the man who helped her become the greatest female filmmaker of the 20th century, but that association would nearly destroy her…

A Brief History World War I (and the revolutions that occurred during it) was without any doubt one of the largest, deadliest, and most significant war in human history.  It was also not without its more bizarre and epic moments… A Prologue On March 28, 1910, aviation history was made when French aviator, Henri Fabre, made the first take off by an airplane from water in a seaplane of his own design. On October 9, 1911, an accidental bomb explosion in China lead to the ultimate fall of China’s last imperial dynasty. On April 17, 1912, Russian Imperial soldiers fired on a crowd of…

A Brief History On March 31, 1889, the Eiffel Tower was completed in Paris, France and has stood as a symbol of that city ever since. The tallest man-made structure in the world at that time, it remained the tallest until 1930 when it was surpassed by the Chrysler Building in New York.  Many cities have a structure that is readily recognized as the most prominent symbol of that city.  Here is an inexhaustive list of 10 of the most iconic ones, with follow-up lists planned to cover other iconic structures that exist in such other major world cities as…

A Brief History On March 23, 1983, President Ronald Reagan proposed the development and deployment of what he called The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), which would become known as “Star Wars” and would cost around one trillion dollars!  Unfortunately, the commendable idea of making the US invulnerable to attack by Soviet ballistic missiles had 2 major problems, besides the economy ruining cost.  The first problem was that if it could work, the so called Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) theory that kept either side from nuking the other because such an exchange would result in everybody gets blasted, a no-win scenario…

A Brief History On March 22, 1943, a battalion of military police fighting for Germany was attacked by Byelorussian partisans near the village of Khatyn. Digging Deeper The Nazi 118th Battalion was commanded by a German officer, but mostly manned by Ukrainians that hated the Soviet regime, criminals, and Soviet prisoners of war and deserters willing to oppose the Soviet Union. Suffering 4 men dead from the attack by partisans, including their commander, the enraged battalion went through the village of Khatyn and forced all the population into a barn. The Nazis, having committed similar atrocities throughout Belarus and other…