A Brief History On October 12, 1945, Corporal Desmond T. Doss of Lynchburg, Virginia was awarded the Medal of Honor, the highest award for valor given to only the bravest of our military heroes.  A remarkable aspect of this award was that Doss was a lifelong conscientious objector and refused to bear arms against any other person, enemy or not. Digging Deeper Doss was the nation’s first conscientious objector to be honored by a Medal of Honor, and to make the feat that much less likely, he lived to receive his medal and died at the age of 87 in…

A Brief History On October 11, 1779, Polish cavalry officer and American Brigadier General, Casimir Pulaski, died of wounds incurred during the Battle of Savannah (Georgia) during the American Revolutionary War.  Pulaski, known as “The Father of American Cavalry,” had fought in Poland against the Russians, and was forced to flee his own country, taking his military skills to America where he became a hero of the American Revolution.  Pulaski was not the only major Polish officer to fight for America’s Independence, and of course other foreign born people also served in America during the Revolutionary War.  Here we list…

A Brief History On October 10, 2017, we look back on our previous October 10th articles about political scandals, “9 Sensational, Sorry and Stupid Political Scandals” and “More Political Scandals!”, and “10 Famous Politicians and Their Salacious, Scandalous, Sex Scandals” (July 18) by taking this opportunity to regale you with even more tales of politics and politicians gone wild.  There seems to be a never-ending fountain of such events, for which we are sure the late night comedians are grateful.  Of course, we also have individual articles about certain political scandals as well.  What other scandals would you like included…

A Brief History On October 12, 1492, Christopher Columbus, the Italian adventurer sailing into the unknown in the name of the Spanish Crown, landed in the Bahamas, the landing that became known as the “discovery” of America (or, “The New World” if you prefer).  In New York City, 300 years later, the first “Columbus Day” was celebrated, an event that became a regular holiday in the United States, a day especially treasured by Italian-Americans, and Italians everywhere.  (Note: Columbus Day 2017 is celebrated on Monday, October 9th.) Digging Deeper Christopher Columbus is ranked among the greatest explorers and discoverers of…

A Brief History “Winter Dreams” is a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) that first appeared in Metropolitan Magazine in December 1922, and was collected in All the Sad Young Men in 1926. “Winter Dreams” is considered one of Fitzgerald’s finest stories and is frequently anthologized.  In the Fitzgerald canon, it is considered to be in the “Gatsby-cluster,” as many of its themes were later expanded upon in his famous novel The Great Gatsby in 1925. Digging Deeper: Background The short story was based upon Fitzgerald’s unsuccessful romantic pursuit of socialite Ginevra King (1898–1980).  A wealthy heiress from a Chicago banking family,…