A Brief History On February 28, 1983, the 11-season journey of TV viewers finally came to an end with the airing of the final episode of M*A*S*H.  An incredible audience of 110 million people watched the bittersweet finale, with their beloved characters planning their return to a non-war America. Digging Deeper A major downer in the episode was key character Hawkeye Pierce receiving psychiatric care due to extreme trauma caused by an incident where he witnessed a mother smother her own baby to avoid detection by a communist patrol.  The rest of the episode is a blur eclipsed by this…

A Brief History On February 27, 2015, Russian physicist Boris Nemtsov found out personally why publicly taking issue with Vladimir Putin is dangerous to his health.  A liberal leaning politician, Nemtsov had become a vocal critic of Russian dictator Putin since about 2000, ultimately leading to the assassination of Nemtsov. Digging Deeper Nemtsov had expressed fear of being murdered at Putin’s behest only a couple weeks before the murder, a murder by five Chechen men contracted for the killing.  Nemtsov was gunned down while walking across Moscow’s Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge shortly before midnight. Despite being the victim of a crime,…

A Brief History On February 26, 1909, the Palace Theatre in London, England, boasted the first public showing of color motion picture film, a product called Kinemacolor invented by English hypnotist and magician, George Albert Smith in 1906. Digging Deeper Smith’s invention had been demonstrated to professionals prior to the public display, and the process used red/orange and blue/green filters with regular black and white motion picture film to give the colorized effect. Kinemacolor was used commercially from 1909 until 1915, because a rival, William Friese-Greene, sued for a patent of a process he called Biocolour and won his case…

A Brief History On February 25, 1933, the USS Ranger was launched at Newport News, Virginia, as the first American aircraft carrier built for the purpose of carrying aircraft.  Smaller than later aircraft carrier types, Ranger nonetheless operated effectively throughout World War II, providing important naval air power, mostly in the Atlantic. Digging Deeper The fourth US ship designated as an aircraft carrier, Ranger followed ships converted from a collier and the unfinished hulls of two battlecruisers.  Lexington and Saratoga were more than 100 feet longer than Ranger, and Langley much smaller. Ranger was impressive for its day, 769 feet…

A Brief History On February 24, 2022, Russia declared the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk to be “independent states” and commenced an invasion of Ukraine with the aim of taking over the country in a matter of days.  The invasion did not go as planned, and two years later the war continues, a major catastrophe for Russia’s military and economy. Digging Deeper Russia, in its various incarnations, has been no stranger to botched and ill-considered military adventures, and today we look at a two of those. The Russo-Japanese War of 1904 to 1905 was an effort by Russia to…