Browsing: Politics

A Brief History On May 7, 2018, while the latest movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Avengers: Infinity War, is breaking box office records, we stop to ask about the main premise of the film, the arch villain Thanos and his plan to reduce life in the Universe by half in order to prevent an overpopulation catastrophe. Our question is, “Has anyone tried this plan in real life?”  In 1968, Paul and Anne Ehrlich published a book titled, The Population Bomb, a dire warning about the catastrophic consequences of overpopulation of people on Earth.  So far, those predictions have not…

A Brief History On May 6, 2018, we ponder the premise of the incredibly popular movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), Avengers: Infinity War. Specifically, the plan that super villain Thanos has for life in the Universe, which is to randomly eliminate half of all living beings as a solution to overpopulation. We turn to our creative and intelligent readers to help us make sense of such an apocalyptic scenario.  (Note: See our article on May 7, 2018 for a discussion of real life attempts to limit human population.) Digging Deeper In the case of half of all the…

A Brief History On May 4, 1979, Margaret Thatcher, the leader of the Conservative Party, was sworn in as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, the first woman to lead a major Western Power in the era of elected leaders. Known as “The Iron Lady,” a name bestowed upon her by Soviets, Thatcher served from 1979 to 1990, resigning in 1990 after maintaining only a slim majority of support of her own party. Digging Deeper Thatcher, born Margaret Hilda Roberts in 1925, was Oxford educated in Chemistry and went on to work as a chemist before studying the law and…

A Brief History On April 29, 1945, the British Royal Air Force aided by units of the Australian, New Zealand, Canadian, and Polish Air Forces began Operation Manna over the occupied part of the Netherlands (Holland) with the acquiescence of the German occupiers. The United States Army Air Forces started their own, similar, operation 2 days later called Operation Chowhound. As you may guess from the code names given the operations, the military action was feeding the starving civilian population of occupied Netherlands, dropping food from bomber aircraft. Digging Deeper In all, more than 11,0000 tons of food were dropped…

A Brief History On September 24, 1272, Prince Edward of England, leader of the Ninth Crusade, left Acre (Syria) for Sicily to recover from wounds. There he heard of the death of his son and later the death of his father. The evacuation of Edward marked the end of the Ninth Crusade, the last of the Medieval religious Crusades (though there is sometimes referenced a Tenth Crusade that is not really related to what we think of as the Historical Crusades). Digging Deeper Edward’s wounds were caused by an assassin wielding a poisoned dagger. Though Edward was able to kill…