A Brief History As I write this article, the world is currently experiencing a global pandemic unlike anything I can ever recall happening in my lifetime and as such, I first want to say that I hope that my students and subscribers are all doing as well as they can be given the current circumstances many are facing around the world. As an educator, I also think it is important for all of us to be informed about the history of events and issues that still affect us today. Thus, this article presents some playlists hosted on this site’s YouTube…
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A Brief History On April 11, 1079, Bishop Stanislaus of Kraków, Poland, later Saint Stanislaus, was executed either by the order of or perhaps by the direct hand of King Bolesław II of Poland. After the execution, the body of the slain Bishop was chopped up into small pieces and scattered in the forest, presumably to be eaten by the forest critters. Lo and Behold! The pieces of the body of the future Catholic Saint reassembled themselves! Digging Deeper While no word of any coming back to life was noted, chroniclers did say that 4 eagles guarded the body of…
A Brief History On April 10, 1944, 2 Jewish inmates of the German concentration camp at Auschwitz, in Poland, escaped to tell the world of the horrors they had witnessed. (The name of the camp is Oświęcim in Polish.) They soon reported the incredible conditions of the camp and the ongoing extermination of European Jews by the Nazi regime of Germany. Their report, known as the Vrba–Wetzler report, shocked the world and resulted in the government of Hungary, an ally of Germany during World War II, to stop deporting Hungarian Jews to Germany for extermination in the dreaded concentration camps.…
A Brief History On April 9, 1388, at the Battle of Näfels, a military force of the Old Swiss Confederation fought a much larger force representing the Austrian royal family, the Habsburgs. In a stunning example of David beating Goliath, the Swiss soldiers won a rousing victory, an indication of why other powerful European countries have been leaving Switzerland alone for many years now. Digging Deeper At the Battle of Näfels, the Swiss fielded a modest troop of only about 400 or so fighting men against a superior Austrian force numbering around 6500 soldiers. The attacking Austrians at first forced…
A Brief History On April 8, 2006, the bodies of 8 people murdered by gunshot wounds were found in a field a couple of miles (5 kilometers for the metric oriented) North of Shedden, Ontario, Canada, an event labeled as the “Shedden Massacre.” The bodies were found inside 4 cars by the local farmer. (If you were a fan of Sons of Anarchy on television, perhaps you have a bit of a clue as to the nature of motorcycle clubs.) Digging Deeper Canada, a particularly friendly nation (as this author can attest, having gone there probably close 100 times over…