Anecdote
THE FIRST OF SIX
Henry VIII had six wives. The best was his first. Catherine of Aragon was born on Dec. 16, 1485 and went on to live a tragic life. She was the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain and that Read more…
Anecdote
THE DEATH OF SITTING BULL
“The Battle of the Dark” occurred on Dec. 15, 1890. That battle ended in the deaths of twelve Native-Americans. One of them was the famous chief Sitting Bull. Tatanka Iyotake had been the most famous hostile since the Battle Read more…
Anecdote
Ernie Pyle and Capt. Waskow’s Death
Ernie Pyle, the most famous war correspondent of WWII, gained his fame from writing columns of the average G.I. Joes. His most famous column was about the reaction to the death of Capt. Henry Waskow. It was reenacted in the Read more…
Anecdote
THE LEBENSBORN
Today is the anniversary of the start of a typically horrible Nazi program. In 1935, the Nazis began to worry about the birthrate of Aryans in Germany. The Lebensborn (“Spring of Life) program was initiated to facilitate more babies. Read more…
Anecdote
BANNING WOMEN
When credit cards first came out, single and divorced women had to get a male co-signer in order to get one. This ended with the Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974. Until 1975, it was legal to ban women from Read more…
Anecdote
CHURCHILL FACTS
Here are some interesting facts about one of the most fascinating men of the 20th Century. He had a speech impediment – a lisp. He worked to improve it by reciting the phrase: “The Spanish ships cannot see for they Read more…
Anecdote
PEARL HARBOR FACTS
The Japanese got the idea for the attack from a book by Hector Bywater, a British naval authority. “1931: The Great Pacific War” describes a surprise attack on the Pacific Fleet, followed by attacks on Guam and the Philippines. Another Read more…
Anecdote
THE HISTORY OF THE PHONOGRAPH
In 1877, Thomas Edison began experimenting with a hybrid of the telephone and telegraph. He was hoping for a message that could be transmitted repeatedly over the telegraph. The message was to be a series of indentations on a Read more…
Anecdote
NISEI INTERNMENT
On Feb. 19, 1942, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order #9066 which called for the internment of Japanese-Americans as a matter of strategic military necessity. 110,000 – 120,000 were rounded up on the West Coast and shipped to the ten Read more…
Anecdote
SNOWBALLING IN THE CIVIL WAR
We tend to teach the Civil War as a series of battles, when in fact a typical Civil War soldier would have seen combat for at most a total of two weeks a year. That’s a lot of time Read more…