A Brief History On February 8, 1993, General Motors Corporation announced a lawsuit against NBC’s Dateline “news” show for falsely portraying Chevrolet pickup trucks as fire hazards! Digging Deepr Digging deeper, we find the announcement accompanied by a 2+ hour rebuttal to the November 1992 show where Dateline showed Chevrolet trucks exploding from side impacts. It turns out, however, that Dateline could not get the trucks to burst into flame by broadsiding them with another vehicle, so they used explosives to make their “news” happen! The show generated much disgust and hatred toward General Motors and encouraged lawsuits against them, although…
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A Brief History On February 4, 1999, New York City police fired 41 bullets at an unarmed immigrant, Amadou Bailo Diallo, hitting him 19 times! Digging Deeper Digging deeper, we find the aftermath of this shooting going across the country like a tidal wave, with cross currents of both support for the police yet condemnation for the officers involved. Early morning in the Bronx on that tragic day, fate paired Amadou Bailo Diallo, a 23-year-old born in Liberia, with 4 undercover NYPD officers who were on the lookout for a serial rapist known to be armed. With the misfortune of looking…
A Brief History On February 3, 1913, a dark day indeed for Americans, the 16th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States was adopted, making it legal to institute an income tax! Digging Deeper Digging deeper, we find that income taxes did not meet constitutional requirements for the federal government to levy such taxes and an amendment was required to allow congress to pass laws levying such taxes. Prior to implementation of the income tax, the main sources of revenue for the United States government were tariffs and excise taxes. Since those taxes raised prices for everyone, they proportionately…
A Brief History On February 2, 1887 (or 1886), the first Groundhog Day celebration took place in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, and such celebrations have been taking place over and over again ever since (on each February 2nd)! Newsflash: On February 2, 2019, Phil gave a grateful nation a prediction of an early Spring for 2019! By failing to see his shadow, the famous rodent gave some welcome news to a country digging out from an epic cold snap. Thanks Phil! Digging Deeper Digging deeper, we find Pennsylvania largely settled by people of German descent, often referred to incorrectly as the Pennsylvania…
A Brief History On January 30, 1703, 47 Japanese samurai avenged the forced suicide of their feudal lord. Digging Deeper Digging deeper, we find that the Japanese code of Bushido was an Eastern code of honor similar to the old European code of chivalry. Samurai who became leaderless were called Ronin (a term made memorable by Robert DiNiro in the 1998 movie Ronin, set in modern times) and were bound by honor to avenge the death of their lord and leader. The 47 Ronin at the center of this incident were left leaderless when their lord was forced to commit suicide after having…