A Brief History On September 7, 1936, Benjamin died. Ben was the last Thylacine, better known as the Tasmanian Tiger or Tasmanian Wolf, a carnivorous marsupial of Australia, Tasmania, and New Guinea. The introduction of Dingoes and climate change cut into their population, and hunting pressure did the rest. Digging Deeper Now that we have no living Thylacines, should scientists use cloning to resurrect the species? Are there any moral or practical reasons not to? What about other extinct species? Some of the critters we would like to see brought back through cloning include the Wooly Mammoth and the Wooly…
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A Brief History This article presents a chronological list of notable events that happened on September 6th. For each date below, please click on the date to be taken to an article covering that date’s event. Digging Deeper On September 6, 1620, the Mayflower sailed from Plymouth, England, headed for the “New World” in America. On September 6, 1803, pioneering atomic theorist John Dalton of England first assigned symbols to represent atoms of various elements. On September 6, 1939, the Battle of Barking Creek in the skies over England became an historic event for Britain’s RAF, the first loss of an RAF…
A Brief History On September 6, 2013, ivory poachers in Africa poisoned and killed 41 elephants at the Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe. The WWF reports about 20,000 elephants are killed illegally each year in Africa by poachers, out of a world wide total of only 415,000 African elephants. Incredibly, in 1930 there were about 10 million wild elephants in Africa! Digging Deeper Despite strict anti-poaching laws, poaching takes a terrible toll on many types of animals. There may be about 30,000 Rhinos left in Africa, of which only 6000 are Black Rhinos, which numbered over 100,000 as recently as…
A Brief History This article presents a chronological list of notable events that happened on September 5th. For each date below, please click on the date to be taken to an article covering that date’s event. Digging Deeper On September 5, 1698, Czar Peter I of Russia (Peter the Great) enacted a tax on beards. On September 5, 1698, Czar Peter I of Russia (Peter the Great) enacted a tax on beards. (NOTE: The link in the date for this entry leads to a different article than the other mention to this same event above.) On September 5, 1725, Louis…
A Brief History On September 5, 1980, the Gotthard Road Tunnel from Uri Canton to Airolo in Switzerland opened for travel, at the time the longest highway tunnel in the world at 10.5 miles long. Today, we look at some other real and fictional tunnels: Digging Deeper The Channel Tunnel, or, “Chunnel,” connecting France and England with an under the sea section of 23.5 of its 31 mile length. The Time Tunnel, a TV show from 1966 to 1967, featuring two lost time travelers going from one historical adventure to another. The Delaware Aqueduct, the longest tunnel in the world,…