A Brief History On March 2, 1978, comic actor Charlie Chaplin suffered the indignity of having his coffin stolen from its grave in Switzerland. The grave robbers held Chaplin’s remains for ransom, but were soon caught and the coffin, complete with Charlie, was reburied, this time with reinforced concrete. Digging Deeper Chaplin was not the only celebrity to be victimized by grave robbers, and today we look at two other notable cases. Thomas Paine, American revolutionary, was improbably dug up in 1819 by an Englishman that brought the body to England for a more ceremonial interment, but lacking funds, he…
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A Brief History On March 1, 1954, the US conducted its highest yield nuclear weapon test ever, the Castle Bravo test at Bikini Atoll, a blast of 15 megatons, which created the largest ever radioactive contamination event in US history, mainly due to the atomized coral spread for miles spiked with lithium-7. Digging Deeper The Castle Bravo test gives us a pair of major trivia facts, while some other perhaps more fascinating trivia items include: Names, especially name changes and bizarre names, including Frank Zappa naming his kids Moon Unit and Dweezil. His other children had to settle for Ahmet…
A Brief History On March 1, 1939, the land version of an “Oops moment” happened at Hirakata, Osaka, when a Japanese Army ammunition dump exploded, killing 94 workers and soldiers. Digging Deeper Military operations are dangerous even when not in combat, with a variety of accidents that can cost lives, and dealing with high explosive munitions has caused major explosive accidents throughout military history. Some of these events include: The Delft, Holland explosion of a gunpowder storehouse in 1654 that leveled the city and killed over 100 Dutch citizens. The Birgu, Malta explosion of a gunpowder warehouse in 1806 that…
A Brief History On February 29, 2020, the American Trump administration and the Afghan Islamist group known as The Taliban, met in Doha, Qatar, and signed an agreement by which the US would pull out military forces and bring an end to the longest war in US history. Digging Deeper The Taliban agreed to cease hostilities to allow the US to safely pull out of Afghanistan in exchange for the US to stop offensive action. Unfortunately, both parties did not bother to include the Afghan government, an incredible oversight. The US lived up to its promise of restricting military operations…
A Brief History On February 28, 1983, the 11-season journey of TV viewers finally came to an end with the airing of the final episode of M*A*S*H. An incredible audience of 110 million people watched the bittersweet finale, with their beloved characters planning their return to a non-war America. Digging Deeper A major downer in the episode was key character Hawkeye Pierce receiving psychiatric care due to extreme trauma caused by an incident where he witnessed a mother smother her own baby to avoid detection by a communist patrol. The rest of the episode is a blur eclipsed by this…