A Brief History On May 27, 1998, Michael Fortier was fined $200,000 and sentenced to 12 years in prison for failing to warn authorities about the conspiracy to blow up the Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Fortier’s wife, Lori, was also named as an accomplice, but escaped prosecution and was given immunity in exchange for her testimony against bombers Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. Digging Deeper On April 19, 1995, Nichols and McVeigh carried out a domestic terrorist plot in which they blew up the Federal Building in Oklahoma city by means of a rented truck filled with explosives, killing…
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A Brief History On May 27, 2015, in a surprising move, the overwhelming Republican majority in the Nebraska State Legislature joined with Democrats to overturn the Governor’s veto of the bill making Nebraska the 19th state (plus Washington, DC) to outlaw the death penalty. Digging Deeper The vote was 30-19. The governor vowed to execute the 10 inmates still on death row. Question for students (and subscribers) to ponder: Should capital punishment be abolished? If you liked this article and would like to receive notification of new articles, please feel welcome to subscribe to History and Headlines by liking us on…
A Brief History On May 25, 1521, the famous imperial general assembly known as the Diet of Worms was concluded by the Edict of Worms, an order by Holy Roman Emperor Charles V that declared the Protestant reformer Martin Luther an outlaw. Worms, Germany is not the only place with a name that sounds “funny” in English, and here we list 10 such places. Stay tuned for sequel lists as there are many more! Digging Deeper 10. Worms, Germany. Through the years, this city of 80,000 people has been the scene of many “diets.” Not gatherings where slimy annelids were feasted on,…
A Brief History Last year, on May 23, 2014, we ran a list of 10 Favorite Guns of The Gangsters. This year, we offer the counterpart, and list some of the most popular weapons of Law Enforcement officials. A few decades ago, the list would have prominently featured revolvers such as the S&W Model 10 and the S&W Model 36, but time and fashion have changed things a bit. Most police agencies frown on rimfire calibers as less reliable than center fire, and calibers less than .32 ACP are just too anemic for anything other than last ditch panic weapons. …
A Brief History On May 23, 2006, Chooseco published an updated version of The Abominable Snowman as the first of their reissues of the Choose Your Own Adventure gamebooks from the early 1980s so dear to this author’s heart. Digging Deeper Bantam Books published the original series from 1979 (the year of this author’s birth) to 1998. As such, I grew up reading these books and still have most of them on shelves in my personal library. If you have children aged 10 to 14, I strongly encourage you to share these volumes with them as a way of getting them…