A Brief History On May 11, 1713, Finnish residents of Helsinki burned their own capital city to the ground rather than allow the Russian invaders to possess their city during the Great Northern War.  The Russians, under Czar Peter the Great, had territorial designs on their neighbors just as the Russians of today under Vladimir Putin are trying to conquer Ukraine. Digging Deeper Ironically, it was the Russian residents of Moscow that burned their own city in 1812 to prevent Napoleon Bonaparte and his invading French Grande Armée from enjoying their pyrrhic victory over the Russians.  The Soviets again used…

A Brief History On May 10, 1922, the US annexed an atoll in the North Pacific, an unoccupied, mostly underwater formation called Kingman Reef.  Between Hawaii and Samoa, the 7.4 acre reef is known as the Kingman Reef National Wildlife Refuge administered by the US Fish and Wildlife Service. Digging Deeper Other than the 50 states and Puerto Rico, the US owns many territories, mostly islands in both the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans.  Some of these include the US Virgin Islands in the Caribbean, American Samoa, the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, Palau, the Marshall Islands, and the Federated States…

A Brief History On May 9, 1941, German submarine U-110 was forced to the surface by a British corvette and a destroyer that were escorting a convoy attacked by the sub.  U-110 had been a successful attack submarine, but on this day, depth charges forced the boat to the surface. Digging Deeper Damaged and in danger of sinking, the captain ordered the sub abandoned and scuttled, but in their haste to get off the sub that was also under fire from the British, the crew failed to scuttle the sub. U-110 was not sinking, so the British kept German sailors…

A Brief History On May 8, 2019, a British teenager became the first patient to receive bacteriophage therapy to treat an antibiotic resistant infection.  The use of bacteriophages, which are viruses that attack bacteria cells, to treat bacterial infections was an idea that went back many decades but was superseded by the widespread use of antibiotic drugs. Digging Deeper Those same antibiotics, while highly successful, have caused mutations in bacteria that make those pathogens resistant to the antibiotics and difficult to treat with normal methods.  The use of genetically altered bacteriophages results in fewer side effects and less chance of…

A Brief History On May 7, 1992, the State of Michigan ratified the 27th Amendment after a two century struggle to pass this “common sense” law, namely that Congress cannot give itself a raise during a current term. Digging Deeper Laws are by nature political, and therefore differences of opinion about what is a “good” law generates fierce debate, but we offer some ideas for laws that we think are good and invite you to nominate your own ideas. Term limits for elected officials, especially in Congress, and also for the Supreme Court and Federal Courts. Mandatory ethical standards for…