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…

A Brief History On January 11, 1960, by killing his own mother, serial murderer Henry Lee Lucas committed his first known murder of 3,000 he later confessed to! Digging Deeper Digging deeper, we find drifter and loser Henry Lee Lucas leading a life of crime that he blamed on his miserable childhood. Lucas’ father had died young leaving a bizarre, abusive wife to raise the kids.  Lucas’ mother once shot a mule that had been a gift to Lucas and also severely beat him for accepting a teddy bear from a school teacher when he was a boy.  (Apparently, he was not allowed to accept…

A Brief History On January 10, 1810, Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of the French, divorced Josephine, Empress of the French, the only woman Napoleon ever really loved. Digging Deeper Digging deeper, we find Napoleon and Josephine married on March 9, 1796, beginning a love and lust-filled marriage marred by indiscretions on both sides! Napoleon, arguably the most important mortal man in history (the subject of more books than any other man, except for Jesus) married Josephine and later crowned her Empress, a title he refused to strip her of even when they divorced. Josephine, actually born Marie Josephe Rose Tascher de La Pagerie…

A Brief History On January 9, 1839, the first practical photographic process (Daguerreotype) was revealed by the French Academy of Sciences. Digging Deeper Digging deeper, we find many people had been working on the development of practical photography, but Daguerre, a French chemist, was the first to produce a process that was portable, not the size of an entire room, and that resulted in images of reasonable quality. One of the great discoveries by Daguerre was the ability to use paper coated with concoctions containing silver and other chemicals instead of the image being produced on a metal plate.  That…