Browsing: Politics

A Brief History On November 8, 1923, a World War I decorated disaffected and discontent German veteran led his Nazi Party followers in an unsuccessful coup against the German Weimar government, an event known to history as The Munich Beer Hall Putsch. The failure of this attempted coup resulted in Adolf Hitler being convicted of treason and sentenced to prison where he wrote his Nazi bible, Mein Kampf. Despite a five year sentence, Hitler served only 9 months in jail and on his release resumed his quest for power at the head of the Nazi Party. Would Hitler and the…

A Brief History On November 4, 1979, a mob of angry Iranians stormed the US Embassy in Tehran and took 90 people hostage. Americans made up 52 of those hostages, and included US Marines assigned to the embassy and diplomatic workers. Violation of an embassy by another country is normally considered an act of war, but in this case the US never treated it as such, and 52 of our citizens remained hostages for 444 days. No reprisals were ever carried out. Digging Deeper The mob storming the embassy claimed to be college students associated with the group Muslim Student…

A Brief History On October 27, 1988, President Ronald Reagan made one of his most shocking Cold War related announcements while President when he decided to have the newly completed US Embassy in Moscow mostly destroyed and started over again! Digging Deeper The US and Soviet Union were nearing the end of the Cold War that had gone on since the end of World War II, and each country had a hard line leader that was unlikely to back down. President Reagan in the US was a staunch anti-communist and cold-warrior, and the USSR was led by Mikhail Gorbachev, a…

A Brief History As the NFL completes week 5 of the 2016 football season, Forbes informs us that the sit down, kneel down protest mania sparked by San Francisco Forty Niners quarterback Colin Kaepernick is hitting the NFL where it counts, costing the venerable football league as many as a third of its valued television viewers. Digging Deeper Kaepernick and other NFL players are protesting against their perceived racism by the police in the United States, and are claiming police are gunning down African-American men and boys for no apparent reason. Although a sizable minority of Americans seem to agree…

A Brief History On October 16, 1972, a Cessna 310 light airplane carrying Congressman Nick Begich (D-Alaska) and Congressman Hale Boggs (D-Louisiana) along with the pilot and Begich’s aide disappeared on a flight from Anchorage to Juneau. The disappearance of two members of Congress is a big deal, and a massive search was mounted, continuing for 39 days until no hope of finding the plane’s occupants alive remained. No trace of the plane or its passengers was ever found, and this incident led to legislation requiring Emergency Locating Transmitters on all US commercial flights. Digging Deeper Incredibly, both men were…