A Brief History On February 23, 1903, the United States signed a lease with Cuba for a 45 square mile chunk of land on Guantanamo Bay on that island, a lease for $2,000 per year, payable in gold, and lasting in perpetuity (forever). Known by the US military as Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, it is the oldest US naval base outside the United States. Used as a coaling station (when ships were powered by coal) and as a general purpose naval base, the station known as “Gitmo” has since 2002 housed a prison for suspected terrorists captured during the War…

A Brief History On February 22, 2018, we have only one more day to wait for the nationwide debut of the new film by Alex Garland, the screenwriter of 28 Days Later and Dredd, and the writer/director of Ex Machina. This time around Garland wrote the screenplay and directed Annihilation, a film based on the Jeff  VanderMeer novel by the same name. Digging Deeper The VanderMeer story is the first of the “Southern Reach Trilogy” of stories (2014), with Annihilation followed by Authority and Acceptance. Will the second and third novels in the series be adapted for film? We do…

A Brief History On February 22, 2018, we take the opportunity to update our February 22, 2014 article titled “Norwegian Woman Becomes Most Successful Female Winter Olympian”, the tale of uber skier Marit Bjorgen. At the time, Marit had earned 6 Olympic Gold Medals in Winter Olympic competition, and in the 2018 Winter Games held in South Korea she has added another Winter Olympic Gold Medal! Digging Deeper Not only has Marit added another Gold Medal in the 4 X 5 km relay, she also threw in another Silver and another Bronze Medal into her treasure trove of Olympic awards.…

A Brief History On February 21, 1975, the highest ranking culprits in the Watergate Scandal were sentenced, including former Attorney General John Mitchell, and White House aides John Ehrlichman and HR Haldeman. Of course, the top banana in that bunch, President Richard M. Nixon, was forced to resign in 1974 in the face of certain impeachment. How does this compare to the “Russiagate” (or “Trumpgate”) Scandal that has tarnished the 2016 US Presidential election? Digging Deeper During the 1972 reelection bid by Richard Nixon for a second term as President, members of his campaign paid some burglars to break into…

A Brief History On September 17, 1978, Battlestar Galactica, an American science fiction television series, created by Glen A. Larson, that began the Battlestar Galactica franchise debuted on television.  The Battlestar Galactica, the namesake of the series, is an example of a large, fictional, capital military spacecraft. Frequently called space battleships and space cruisers, these spacefaring warships most often found in science fiction play similar roles to contemporary warships, although real spacecraft are used for military purposes.1 They may fight slow-paced battles across vast distances with long range guided weapons, never attaining visual contact,2 or fast-paced, relatively close range combat with unguided weapons and combat maneuvering.3 Smaller “space fighters” are fictional spacecraft analogous to fighter aircraft. Space fighters…