A Brief History On January 16, 1547, Ivan Vasilyevich IV was crowned Czar of All The Russias. Digging Deeper Digging deeper, we find Ivan not only becoming the first Czar (the Russian equivalent of Caesar, often spelled Tsar) but also getting the frightening moniker Ivan the Terrible! Ivan initially assumed the title Grand Prince of Moscow, what the Russian ruler was called then, when he was just 3 years old. He managed to crown himself Czar at age 17, somewhat precocious to say the least. Under Ivan’s forceful leadership, Russia expanded by conquering adjacent lands in central Asia and Siberia. …
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A Brief History On January 15, 2005, the serial murderer known as BTK (bind, torture, kill) was finally arrested while driving near his home in Park City, Kansas. Digging Deeper Digging deeper, we find Dennis Rader, a Lutheran church deacon and president of the church council, living in suburban Wichita and 60 years old at the time of his arrest. Rader got his nom de guerre courtesy of himself, as he had suggested several possible names for him to be called in messages left for the police and the media. In spite of the audacity of taunting police with messages, Rader went…
A Brief History On January 14, 1967, San Francisco saw the iconic counter-culture event “The Human Be-In.” Digging Deeper Digging deeper, we find the gathering, the brainchild of Michael Bowen, at Golden Gate Park. An evolution of 1950’s “beat-niks,” “the hippies” and “flower children” of the 1960s were looking for something other than the answers main stream America gave them, and they flocked to San Francisco, the Mecca of counter-culture. The Human Be-In became the inspiration for the musical play Hair, which of course celebrated the shift from men and boys having short hair to the (at the time) controversial…
A Brief History On January 13, 1842, the lone survivor of a British army in Afghanistan staggered into Jalalabad! Digging Deeper Digging deeper, we find Dr. William Brydon along with a British army consisting of 4,500 soldiers and about 12,000 tag along civilians (family and camp followers) leaving Kabul under pressure for the safety of another British stronghold in Jalalabad on January 6, 1842. One week later, only Dr. Brydon was spotted by lookouts at Jalalabad, and he did not look so good! A portion of his skull had been lopped off by an Afghan with a sword and he…
A Brief history On January 12, 1998, 19 European nations agreed to prohibit the cloning of humans. Digging Deeper Digging deeper, we find those 19 nations disappointed and dismayed that the two most powerful European countries, Germany and the United Kingdom, refused to sign the agreement! Does this refusal mean we shall soon see human clones? Not from Germany. They claimed their national laws were more restrictive than the agreement and they therefore did not need to sign. It seems they have some national angst as a result the genetic experiments of the Nazi era. (See the History and Headlines article on…