A Brief History On September 5, 1698, Czar Peter I of Russia (Peter the Great) enacted a tax on beards.  This tax targeted the nobility in an effort to “westernize” Russia and proved highly unpopular.  Many laws in the US have also been unpopular, and today we ask you to tell us which law you think is the worst law in US history, giving you some samples to choose from. Digging Deeper “Blue Laws” against Sunday business practices Income Tax in 1861 and again in 1909 with the 16th Amendment Insanity defense Mandatory use of automotive seat belts, first in…

A Brief History On September 4, 1998, a pair of Stanford University students founded what has become the premier internet search engine, Google, although Google is also heavily involved in other areas, such as software, AI, electronics, advertising, and cloud computing. Digging Deeper Larry Page and Sergey Brin founded Google, a company the BBC has called the “most powerful company in the world,” in the aptly named Menlo Park, California, an allusion to the site of Thomas Edison’s invention laboratory.  The 25 year old students, one from the USA and the other born in Moscow, Russia, were already college graduates…

A Brief History On September 3, 1976, an American Viking 2 spacecraft landed on the surface of Mars.  People have always dreamed of a Mars space expedition, and although this effort did not land any humans on the Red Planet, the fact that the US was able to successfully land a spacecraft on Mars certainly made the prospect of someday landing people on Mars more likely. Digging Deeper Viking 2 landed in an area called Utopia Planitia and was actually the second American spacecraft to land on Mars, the first being Viking 1, on July 20, 1976.  The first Earth…

A Brief History NASA’s planned launch of a new gigantic rocket called Artemis scheduled for August 29, 2022 has been scrubbed due to a problem with an engine, with a new launch date scheduled for September 2, 2022.  The launch vehicle is intended to take Americans to the Moon once again, perhaps in 2025 or 2026.  (See our other space based articles.) Note:  The rescheduled launch for September 2 was changed to September 3, but on September 3 NASA once again rescheduled the launch for September 5.  We’ll See!  Now they say September 27! Digging Deeper So why call this…

A Brief History On September 2, 1984, Sydney, Australia was the scene of a major shoot-out between rival motorcycle gangs Bandidos and Comancheros.  Contrary to the popular opinion that mass shootings only occur in the US, a total of 7 people were killed and 12 were wounded in the incident known as the “Milperra massacre.” Digging Deeper Apparently the answer to our question is that, “Yes, other countries do have motorcycle gangs.”  Our previous article, Mass Shooting…in Canada??? tells the story of another such motorcycle gang related mass shooting, this time in Canada. In fact, Wikipedia has an article about…