A Brief History On December 8, 1980, John Lennon, the former Beatle and one of the most famous musicians of the 1960s and 1970s was mercilessly gunned down, shot in the back on a New York sidewalk, thus joining the ranks of peace lovers who were not allowed to be left in peace, men such as Abraham Lincoln, “Mahatma” Gandhi, Martin L. King Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy. Digging Deeper Digging deeper, we find Lennon, only 40 years old when murdered, writer and co-writer of so many great Beatles hits as well as so many of his solo songs, many…

A Brief History Most Americans know that on December 7, 1941, the Japanese launched a massive aerial surprise attack against U.S. military forces on the Hawaiian island of Oahu, mainly at Pearl Harbor.  Every year on this date we are reminded of that “dastardly attack” by the various news media and by educational television channels running Pearl Harbor documentaries and conspiracy programs. What many Americans today do not seem to remember, are the other Japanese attacks launched that day! Digging Deeper These neglected battles and American lives lost get only a fraction of the coverage of Pearl Harbor, and they…

A Brief History Just after 4 pm on this date, December 6 in 1989, an apparently mentally disturbed Marc Lepine went to the Université de Montreal and entered the École Polytechnique building armed with a Ruger Mini-14 carbine, a knife, and murder in his heart fueled by a hatred for “feminists.” Digging Deeper Digging deeper we find a twenty-five-year old son of an Algerian father and French-Canadian mother who was instilled with a deep disrespect and hatred of women by his abusive father.  Not fairing particularly well with his personal attempts to gain a college education, Lepine (born Gamil Gharbi,…

A Brief History On December 5, 1945, a flight of U.S. Navy TBM Avenger torpedo bombers flew into history, providing grist for the paranormal mill that the Bermuda Triangle became! Digging Deeper The training flight of Avengers took off from Naval Air Station (NAS) Ft. Lauderdale at around 1410 hours (military time) for a routine navigation training flight.  Oddly, although necessary for over water navigation (remember, maps would not help!) each airplane was missing its clock.  Assuming the pilots had wrist watches, the flight took off as normal.  Things seemed to be going as planned, with a practice bomb drop…

A Brief History On December 5, 1933, history was made that would change the United States (back) forever!  Well, you never know, so maybe not forever.  In any event, this date was the day Prohibition ended in the United States, although its legacy lives on in HBO’s Boardwalk Empire. Digging Deeper The 18th Amendment to the Constitution, known as the Volstead Act had been passed in 1920 riding a wave of anti-alcohol sentiment, largely by women that had previously been active in the women’s suffrage movement. Apparently, women especially were likely to be anti-alcohol as they saw drunkenness as a…