Browsing: Politics

Digging Deeper On October 13, 1929, Joze Plecnik, Slovenian architect, revealed his memorial to Napoleon Bonaparte on the Square of the French Revolution in Ljubljana, Slovenia.  A major influence on the architecture of Slovenia, Plecnik was not a favorite of the communists after World War II and fell from influence.  Plecnik and others have left beautiful, imposing, or impressive memorials and monuments to remind us of those memorialized.  Here we list 10 of the author’s favorites, not necessarily the most famous or biggest, but the ones that touch or impress me the most. Digging Deeper 10. Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument,…

A Brief History On October 12, 1216, King John of England capped off what had to be one of the least glorious chapters in the history of Britain by losing his crown jewels.  Conducting a campaign across his country in an effort to retain his crown, some of John’s baggage train was lost in “quicksand and whirlpools” of the “Wash,” an estuary in East Anglia (a squarish bay of about 15 miles by 15 miles into which 4 major rivers flow). Digging Deeper John and his brothers, including Richard the Lionheart, later Richard I, King of England, etc., took part…

A Brief History On October 10, 1967, the Outer Space Treaty, formally known as the Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies (we will stick to the short version!) went into effect. Digging Deeper The treaty had been signed on January 27, 1967,  by the United States, the Soviet Union, and the United Kingdom, while in the years since over 100 other countries have subsequently signed. The basic idea of the treaty is to declare outer space, the Moon and other celestial bodies (planets,…

A Brief History On this date, September 29, 1825, American soldier, revolutionary, and farmer Daniel Shays (c.1747–1825) died at age 78 in Sparta, New York.  In those storied 78 years, Shays became most famous for being one of the leaders of Shays’ Rebellion, a populist uprising against controversial debt collection and tax policies in Massachusetts in 1786 and 1787.  The seeds of that rebellion were planted nearly a decade earlier amidst a revolution… Digging Deeper In a bitter struggle against the most powerful industrializing nation on earth, the thirteen colonies that would later be called the United States of America (U.S.)…

A Brief History On this date, September 28, 48 BC, Pompey the Great was assassinated on the orders of King Ptolemy of Egypt after landing in Egypt.  Although we know of this incident, many open problems concern Ancient Egypt, and some of them may never be solved.  Egyptian archaeology is in a state of constant transition, with much of the terminology and chronology in dispute.  The archaeological record is incomplete, with countless relics and artifacts missing or destroyed.  New archaeological discoveries can call into question previous conclusions about Ancient Egypt.  Furthermore, there are internal problems of overall cohesion of various…