A Brief History On this date, December 12, 1098, in what is now Syria, Crusaders massacred 20,000 Muslims and ate some of them! Digging Deeper Digging deeper, we find European Christians launching what is now known as the First Crusade, an attempt to take back lands overrun by the sweeping Muslim hordes. Besieging a city at Ma’arra (various spellings) the Crusaders were at the walls on December 12, 1098 when the Muslims inside finally surrendered after about a month of resistance. Promises of the safety of residents to the contrary, the Crusaders began the systematic slaughter of the population. Frustrated…
Browsing: Society
Read More
A Brief History On this date, December 11, 1981, during a time of renewed tension in the Cold War, the United States was eager to help “friendly” countries resist communist rebellions and the USSR was doing all they could to “convert” non-communist countries to Marxism. With this backdrop, the U.S. had been training anti-insurgency forces in El Salvador and helped form the first such unit there. Unfortunately, this day saw a bloody and wrongly applied use of that force when the village of El Mozote and the area suffered the massacre of abut 900 innocent people. Digging Deeper Digging deeper,…
A Brief History On this date, December 9, 1946, the “Subsequent Nuremberg Trials” began with the “Doctors’ Trial,” prosecuting doctors alleged to be involved in human experimentation. Digging Deeper As if shooting and blowing people up is not bad enough, the Nazis of Germany’s World War II regime took the horror of war a step further! Digging deeper, we find on this date in 1946 the start of 23 trials at Nuremberg of 20 doctors and 3 Nazi officials for war crimes concerning the cruel use of “medical research.” The bizarre excuse for what passed for research included experiments with…
A Brief History On December 8, 1980, John Lennon, the former Beatle and one of the most famous musicians of the 1960s and 1970s was mercilessly gunned down, shot in the back on a New York sidewalk, thus joining the ranks of peace lovers who were not allowed to be left in peace, men such as Abraham Lincoln, “Mahatma” Gandhi, Martin L. King Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy. Digging Deeper Digging deeper, we find Lennon, only 40 years old when murdered, writer and co-writer of so many great Beatles hits as well as so many of his solo songs, many…
A Brief History Most Americans know that on December 7, 1941, the Japanese launched a massive aerial surprise attack against U.S. military forces on the Hawaiian island of Oahu, mainly at Pearl Harbor. Every year on this date we are reminded of that “dastardly attack” by the various news media and by educational television channels running Pearl Harbor documentaries and conspiracy programs. What many Americans today do not seem to remember, are the other Japanese attacks launched that day! Digging Deeper These neglected battles and American lives lost get only a fraction of the coverage of Pearl Harbor, and they…