A Brief History On June 24, 1398, the Hongwu Emperor of China died.  Soon after this emperor’s death, one of his sons, Zhu Di (1360-1424), began an ultimately successful rebellion to seize the throne from the Hongwu Emperor’s teenage successor, a nephew of Zhu Di.  By 1402, Zhu Di’s nephew was dead and Zhu Di, now known as the Yongle Emperor, began a reign that has gone down in history as one of the most famous and significant in all of Chinese history.  During his reign of over twenty years, the Yongle Emperor’s famed eunuch admiral Zheng He (1371-1433) conducted…

A Brief History On October 6, 1977, the Soviet aircraft design bureau, Mikoyan-Guryevich, flew their MiG-29 supersonic fighter for the first time.  In service since 1983, over 1600 of these highly capable air superiority and fighter bomber jets have been built, and incredibly (for a fighter aircraft) the plane is still in production. Digging Deeper Conceived as the lower end mix of fighter jets, similar to the American F-16 vis a vis the F-15, the MiG-29 is the smaller, cheaper half of the Su-27/MiG-29 mix of Soviet (now Russian) fighters.  (Note: Twice as many MiG-29’s have been built as have…

A Brief History On October 5, 1986, the British newspaper the Sunday Times ran a story featuring information and photographs from Mordechai Vanunu, a former technician who had worked in the Israeli nuclear program, that detailed secrets about the Israeli nuclear weapons program, confirming, as suspected, that Israel did indeed possess such bombs. Digging Deeper The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) recognizes the U.S., the UK, Russia, China and France as nuclear powers and seeks to limit other nations from gaining that status.  Of course, India and Pakistan are known to have nukes, and North Korea is believed to recently have developed…

A Brief History On October 4, 1997, the second largest money robbery in U.S. history took place in Charlotte, North Carolina at Loomis, Fargo and Company, with $17.3 million in cash taken.  The ensuing investigation was spearheaded by the FBI and resulted in about 95% of the money being recovered and in 24 convictions.  Unfortunately, unlike the super sleuths on television and in the movies, real-life cops do not always solve crimes.  Here we list 10 Things Police Know That You Might Not.  Heck, maybe you do know some of them, or at least suspect a couple, but in my experience as…

A Brief History On October 3, 1995, in one of the most ridiculed jury findings in American history, a criminal jury found OJ Simpson not guilty of the murder of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ron Goldman. Digging Deeper Simpson had been an American hero, born into a working family and raised in the projects of San Francisco after his parents separated in 1952.  OJ developed rickets as a child, and wore leg braces until age 5.  A star high school football player, Simpson first played at the Community College level before transferring to USC where he…