Browsing: Politics

A Brief History On March 1, 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of the French, returned to France from exile on the island of Elba to reclaim his empire.  Of course, his great comeback only lasted about 100 days, but in that time he reshook Europe.  Other people, teams and companies have also made impressive comebacks from near defeat, death, ruin or other calamities.  Here we list 10 of those that rank among the greatest.   Digging Deeper 10. John Travolta, 1994. After becoming a teen idol on television and having experienced success with movies such as Grease, Saturday Night Fever and Urban…

A Brief History On February 21, 1973, the Israeli Defense Force sent American-built F-4 Phantoms to shoot down a Boeing 727 operated by Libyan Arab Airlines.  Flight 114 had taken off from Tripoli and was headed to Cairo when it got lost over Egypt due to weather and equipment malfunction.  Digging Deeper The two Phantoms intercepted the jet liner over the Sinai desert after it had strayed there from the Suez Canal.  The Sinai had been occupied by Israel since the 1967 Six-Day War.  The failure of Egypt to shoot missiles at the plane, and the seeming approach toward a secret Israeli nuclear (possibly bomb making?) facility exacerbated the situation, especially since…

A Brief History This past week has been a doozy for controversial remarks by high-profile world leaders! Digging Deeper First, on Wednesday, February 4, 2015, Pope Francis said, “One time, I heard a father say, ‘At times I have to hit my children a bit, but never in the face so as not to humiliate them.’ That’s great. He had a sense of dignity. He should punish, do the right thing, and then move on.”  This comment has been taken as an endorsement by the Head of the Catholic Church of parental spanking within reason.  Most Americans seem to agree with his…

A Brief History On February 1, 1960, four African-American college freshman from North Carolina Agricultural and Mining University, who later became known as the “Greensboro Four,” made some minor purchases at a Greensboro, NC, Woolworth store and then sat at the “whites only” segregated lunch counter where the white proprietor refused them service and ordered them to vacate the premises. Digging Deeper Intentionally challenging racial segregation, the 4 young black men stayed at the counter until the store closed.  The next day, the scene was repeated, except this time with 20 or more African-American college students, among them females from…

A Brief History In having his marriage Anne of Cleves annulled and immediately marrying Catherine Howard, Henry VIII committed his biggest marital blunder following his divorce from Catherine of Aragon.  By leaving Anne of Cleves, he left perhaps his most suitable wife after Catherine for the least suitable one of them all! Digging Deeper Nowadays Catherine Howard would be considered little more than a school girl, but she did not even have that going for her as reading and writing provided her great difficulty, her education having been sorely neglected.  In fact, despite being the granddaughter of a duke, not only was so little attention…