A Brief History On May 20, 1645, the forces of Prince Dodo (we do not make this stuff up!) of the Qing Dynasty conquered the city of Yangzhou, China, from the forces of the Southern Ming of the Hongguang Emperor. The Qing army commenced perhaps the greatest single incident atrocity/massacre in all of History by killing 800,000 people over the next 10 days. (See below for another candidate for worst massacre in History.) Digging Deeper China had long been fought over by rival warlords calling themselves “Emperor” and the carnage involved in these Chinese wars are among the deadliest in…
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A Brief History On May 12, 1593, History shows us a good example of the problems that develop when Church and State are not separate. Playwright Thomas Kyd was swept up with many others in a sweep of suspects in “libelous” postings (“divers lewd and mutinous libels”) around London, England, accused of posting letters denying the Holy Trinity and the Godliness of Jesus Christ (Arianism) and comments critical of the government. Kyd and the others were questioned and tortured by the Privy Council, as was the customary treatment of suspected blasphemers, and their lodgings were searched for evidence. Digging Deeper…
A Brief History On May 8, 1794, Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier, the man generally regarded as the Father of Modern Chemistry, was put to death on the guillotine during the Reign of Terror period of the French Revolution. It seems this man of noble birth who had such an enormous impact on the sciences of chemistry and biology was more than merely a scientist, but also a businessman and an agent of the Ancien Régime, the monarchy of France prior to the Revolution. Digging Deeper Born in Paris in 1743, Antoine was given a fine education (earning a degree in law…
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…