A Brief History On November 10, 1793, the government of revolutionary France celebrated the “Festival of Reason” as it rejected traditional religion (mostly Catholicism in France) and inserted a philosophy known as the “Cult of Reason” as the national “religion.”  Nationwide, real women dressed up in white Roman dress and impersonated “Goddesses of Reason.” Digging Deeper This new government had renounced all forms of deities for a secular, scientific explanation of the universe and all in it.  Despite having Goddesses of Reason dancing around, the framers of this Cult of Reason were also careful to warn against worshipping science, liberty,…

A Brief History On November 9, 1979, the computers that served the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), the American and Canadian anti-nuclear defense agency, wrongly reported that a massive Soviet nuclear strike was on the way, triggering an alert that nearly caused the U.S. to launch its own massive retaliatory nuclear strike. Digging Deeper Luckily for the citizens of the Northern Hemisphere, and perhaps the entire earth, a frantic manual check of satellite data and early warning radars showed the alarm to be false, and NORAD cancelled the alert, narrowly averting the accidental start of a massive nuclear war. At that point in…

A Brief History On November 8, 1950, early in the Korean War, a U.S. Lockheed F-80 Shooting Star, America’s first operational jet fighter, flown by U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Russell Brown, shot down a Soviet-built MiG-15 piloted by a North Korean pilot, in the first air-to-air combat between jet planes in aviation history. Digging Deeper The F-80 was a reliable and rugged airplane whose service life with the USAF lasted into 1975 and longer elsewhere, however, it was outclassed by the MiG-15.  The Shooting Stars fighting in Korea were effective at shooting down piston-engine communist airplanes (Yak-9, IL-10), but their air-to-air record for shooting down MiGs was 6 for 13 of…

A Brief History On November 7, 1775, in an announcement known as “Dunmore’s Proclamation,” the first movement to free African-Americans from slavery (also known as “emancipation”) took place when the Royal Governor of Virginia offered freedom to any slave willing to fight for the British against the Colonies in the American Revolution.  Between 800 and 2,000 black slaves accepted the offer, inciting rage and fear among Virginia’s slave holders.  Over the course of the Revolution, an estimated 100,000 slaves tried to take advantage of similar British offers, and at least 3,000 of them were sent to Nova Scotia as freemen.…

A Brief History On November 6, 1935, the Hawker Hurricane, the first modern British fighter plane, made its first flight.  Although destined to live hidden in the glow of the Supermarine Spitfire, almost 15,000 Hurricanes were built from 1937 to 1944, and this rugged warrior was the primary British fighter during the Battle of Britain, accounting for 60% of the air-to-air kills. Digging Deeper The Spitfire, utilizing the same famous Rolls-Royce Merlin V-12 engine and armed with the same 8 x .303 caliber machine guns as the Hurricane, made its first flight only a few months after the Hurricane’s maiden…