A Brief History On December 22, 69 AD, the reigning Emperor of Rome, Vitellius, was captured and murdered on the Gemonian Stairs in Rome, proving once again how dangerous it was to be a Roman Emperor. Digging Deeper The year 69 AD is also known as “The Year of the Four Emperors” which should give something of a clue as to how short one’s reign may be. The guy that succeeded Vitellius, known as Vespasian, managed to stay on the throne for 10 years, die of natural causes and be succeeded by his son Titus, who also died of natural…
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A Brief History On December 16, 1773, Americans proved that they were not willing to be pushed around by a government that levied onerous taxes upon them, and this displeasure was expressed in the civil act of defiance known to us today as The Boston Tea Party. Digging Deeper Today’s anti-tax minded Americans calling themselves the TEA (Taxed Enough Already) Party Movement (circa 2010) finds its origins in this step leading to the American Revolutionary War. The Tea Act of May 10, 1773 had been passed by Parliament in England to tax tea headed for the colonies in America, and…
A Brief History On December 10, 1906, President Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt became the first American to earn a Nobel Prize when he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his mediation of the Russo-Japanese War. (Woodrow Wilson, Jimmy Carter, and Barack Obama have also won Nobel Prizes since Roosevelt.) Digging Deeper Roosevelt was no stranger to accomplishing things and is immortalized on Mount Rushmore along with Washington, Lincoln and Jefferson. By no means a namby pamby wimpy pencil pushing politician, Roosevelt, though born into the moneyed class, was a man of the American West and rushed to serve our country…
A Brief History On December 4, 1977, Jean-Bedel Bokassa crowned himself Emperor of the Central African Empire. Previously the President of the Central African Republic, Bokassa apparently thought many little Bokassas would follow, as he named himself Bokassa I. Digging Deeper Bokassa was a military officer in the armed forces of the Central African Republic when he seized power in a military coup in 1966, naming himself President. Even that was not good enough, for 7 years later he named himself President for Life, probably to make it clear he did not plan on retiring. In 1976, this egoist declared…
A Brief History On December 1, 1824, it was determined that the vote for the presidential election of 1824 did not have a winner! Andrew Jackson of Tennessee had the most popular votes (151,271) and had won the most electoral votes (99), but a candidate needed to win 131 of the 261 available electoral votes in order to be elected president. Digging Deeper The main competition for Jackson, a war hero as well as former governor and senator, known as a man of the people (or a backwoods ruffian, depending on point of view) was a Northern elite, John Quincy…
