History

Bizarre Flag Facts �C Q & As

nan — 2007-07-27

Test your Patriotic Knowlege of the American Flag:

Question: Is it ok to fly the American Flag upside down?
Answer: The flag should never be displayed with the union down, except as a signal of dire distress in instances of extr

Oil Shortgages - A Solution

Steve Gillman — 2007-07-27

Many of us remember the oil shortages of the late seventies. They caused more than just the inconvenience of occasional gasoline rationing. Several elderly people actually died in the New York City area because of a lack of heating oil. Some people t

Wahabism the Evil roots of Muslim Terrorism

Robert Maegh — 2007-07-27

Writing about Wahabism and Salafi-Islam, could fill many books. I will however in this article, try to make clear why it is of tremendous importance in our time. Both movements are considered as the origin of Islamic terrorism. A lot of recent Islami

Conflict in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) PART I

Kumar — 2007-07-27

India and Pakistan have in the past fought four wars over J&K and held several talks to resolve the 56 year old problem, but till now no tangible results have emerged, except for a composite dialogue. Although, both India and Pakistan are trying to m

Flag of Mexico - Dia de la Bandera

nan — 2007-07-27

The Flag of Mexico is rich with historic symbolism. The tricolors of green, white and red with the coat-of-arms centered in the white middle stripe were adopted by Mexico following their independence from Spain during the War of Independence in 1821.

Argentina's Economy in a Nutshell

Dave Brown — 2007-07-23

Argentina's Economy

Contrary to conventional economic wisdom, rich countries tend to stay rich and poor countries tend to stay poor. The exceptions tend to be those "economic miracles", like Japan, that have lifted themselves from the

History of Olmec Civilisation

blott — 2007-07-23

A History of Olmec Civilization.
The first relatively modern awakening to the existance of the Olmecs
was when plantation workers in 1862 came upon hat they thought was a large, buried, iron kettle. Upon further excavation, and driven

Another Look at Mahatma Gandhi

Sam Vaknin — 2007-07-23

Many myths abound about Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand known as Mahatma "Great Souled") Gandhi (1869-1948).

He was not born to a poor Indian family. His father was dewan (chief minister) of Porbandar, the capital of a small principality i

The First Serial Killer - Ed Gein

Sam Vaknin — 2007-07-23

Ed Gein is also known as The Butcher of Plainfield, The Plainfield Butcher, The Mad Butcher, The Plainfield Ghoul.

A serial killer who served as the inspiration to numerous films, among them Psycho, The Silence of the Lambs, Maniac, Th

Augusto Pinochet, President of Chile, born 1915

Vassil — 2007-07-23

After seizing power in a bloody CIA-backed coup, General Augusto Pinochet ruled Chile with a rod of iron for two decades, during which human rights violations became the norm of Chilean life.

Hailing from an upper-middle class backgrou

Ferdinand Marcos - President of the Philippines, 1917-1989

Vassil — 2007-07-23

A trained lawyer, Marcos was convicted of assassinating a political opponent of his father in 1939 and, from his condemned cell, argued his case up to the Philippine Surpreme Court, where he won an acquittal.
During the Second World War, Marco

A Moment of Truth about Maxim Gorky

Sam Vaknin — 2007-07-10

Maxim Gorky (1868-1936) is widely considered a Bolshevik author, closely allied with the likes of Lenin and Stalin. But this is far from the truth.

Gorky's real name was Alexei Maximovich Peshkov. He chose the pseudonym "Gorky" - "bitt

Another Look at Indians (Native Americans, Amerindians)

Sam Vaknin — 2007-07-10

Native Americans are often cast in the role of victims of White aggression and unbridled avarice-driven or gratuitous violence, especially in the territories known collectively today as the United States. But the first massacre was perpetrated by Ind

Facts and Figures about the Presidents of the USA

Sam Vaknin — 2007-07-18

The first president of the united States was not George Washington.

Washington was the first president under the Constitution of June 21, 1788, ratified by 1790.

The first constitution of the USA was titled "Articles of

Human-made Monsters

Sam Vaknin — 2007-07-18

Humans made monsters by inhuman treatment abound in literature. In "The Man Who Laughs", published in 1869, the French author, Victor Hugo (1802-1885), described the comprachicos thus:

"The comprachicos (child buyers) were strange and

Lindbergh, Charles Augustus

Sam Vaknin — 2007-07-18

Charles Augustus Lindbergh was the first person to cross the Atlantic in a nonstop flight. This made him an instant celebrity. When, in 1932, his 19-months old son was kidnapped and murdered, the nation was appalled.

Finally, a German

More about the Prohibition

Sam Vaknin — 2007-07-18

Prohibition - the legal enforcement of abstinence from alcoholic beverages - is not an American invention. The USA was preceded by the Aztecs, ancient China, feudal Japan, the Polynesian islands, Iceland, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Russia, Canada, and

The Abdication Crisis Revisited

Sam Vaknin — 2007-07-18

The love affair of Edward, Prince of Wales (Edward VIII) and Wallis Simpson in 1936 is the stuff of romantic dramas. Alas, reality was a lot less inspiring. Even as she was being wooed by her regal paramour - and while still being married to Ernest A

The Armenian Genocide

Sam Vaknin — 2007-07-18

The Armenian massacres in Turkey started in the 19th century and continued well after the Armenian genocide of 1915 in which some 600,000 Armenians perished. The Armenians were also raided by Kurdish tribesmen on a regular basis. An Ottoman military

The Building of the Pentagon

Sam Vaknin — 2007-07-18

The Pentagon was completed in 16 months. It was built on a swamp and on the area of the old Washington airport. Trucks hauled some 5.5 million cubic yards (4.2 million cubic meters) of junk and soil and dumped it in the marshes. The building's founda

The Constitution of the Weimar Republic

Sam Vaknin — 2007-07-18

The Weimar Republic was established in February 1919 in defeated Germany and lasted until March 1933, when it was replaced with Hitler's Third Reich. The Constitution of the Weimar Republic was adopted in August 1919. It created a bicameral house of

The Family of Jesus Christ

Sam Vaknin — 2007-07-18

Was Jesus born 2002 years ago? Was he born in year zero?

The first year AD was 1 - so, Jesus could not have been born in year zero. The very concept of zero was invented much later.

Numerous historical minutia in the gos

The First September 11

Sam Vaknin — 2007-07-18

September 11, 2001 was not the first time an airplane crashed into a skyscraper. Actually, such tragedies are more common than is thought.

On July 28, 1945, for instance, a U.S. Army B-25 bomber traveling at 200 miles (c. 370 kilometer

The Story of the Guillotine

Sam Vaknin — 2007-07-23

The guillotine was first put to lethal use on April 25, 1792, at 3:30 PM, in Paris at the Place de Greve on the Right Bank of the Seine. It separated highwayman Nicolas Jacques Pelletier's head from the rest of his body.

The device was

The Teapot Dome Scandal

Sam Vaknin — 2007-07-23

With the exception of Watergate, there has never been a scandal more egregious and with wider implications than the Teapot Dome affair during the presidency of Warren G. Harding. It involved the secret leasing to private companies of oil-containing t

The Uganda Scheme

Sam Vaknin — 2007-07-23

Theodore Herzl, the visionary who founded Zionism, was an assimilated Jew, who did not consider Palestine the optimal choice for a resurgent Jewish nationalism.

When the British offered to him a homeland in East Africa (today's Uganda)

The USSR That Could Have been - Lenin's New Economic Policy

Sam Vaknin — 2007-07-23

Mikhail Gorbachev (1931- ) was not the first to introduce Perestroika - the economic liberalization of the communist system along capitalistic lines.

During the Russian civil war (1918-1922) the Bolsheviks implemented what they called

Dr. Walter Freeman's Frontal Lobotomies at Athens (Ohio) State Hospital

Gary Cordingley, MD, PhD — 2007-07-10

Few chapters in the medical history of Athens County, Ohio, are more notorious or fascinating than that concerning Walter Freeman, M.D., and the more than 200 frontal lobotomies he performed at the Athens State Hospital in seven visits between 1953 a

Chavez's Inspiration - Simon Bolivar

Sam Vaknin — 2007-07-10

Simon Bolivar (1783-1830) is a Latin American folk hero, revered for having been a revolutionary freedom fighter, a compassionate egalitarian and a successful politician. He is credited with the liberation from Spanish colonial yoke of Venezuela, Col

The Aung San Family in Myanmar

Sam Vaknin — 2007-07-10

Aung San Suu Kyi is a much revered opposition leader in Myanmar (Burma) (born 1945). She has bravely resisted - and still does - the murderous military regime in her homeland and has won the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize.

Her mother was amba

Myths of the American Civil War

Sam Vaknin — 2007-07-10

The Civil War (1861-5) has spawned numerous myths and falsities.

The Republicans did not intend to abolish slavery - just to "contain" it, i.e., limit it to the 15 states where it had already existed. Most of the Democrats accepted thi

Terrorists and Freedom Fighters

Sam Vaknin — 2007-07-10

"'Unbounded' morality ultimately becomes counterproductive even in terms of the same moral principles being sought. The law of diminishing returns applies to morality."
Thomas Sowell

There's a story about Robespierre that has th

Slavery in the USA

Sam Vaknin — 2007-07-10

Spanish settlements in the territory of the current-day USA owned slaves as early as 1526. Twenty one African chattel slaves were first brought to British North America ( to Jamestown, Virginia) in 1619. They joined white indentured laborers (servant

The American Revolution

Sam Vaknin — 2007-07-10

The American Revolution was a civil war between Loyalists to the British crown (aka Tories, about one fifth of the population), supported by British expeditionary forces, and Patriots (or Whigs) in the 13 colonies that constituted British North Ameri

Thousands of Failures, but Thousands of Patents

Sean North — 2007-07-10

Thomas Edison failed thousands of times before he revolutionized the world by inventing and patenting the incandescent light bulb. Because of his desire to create the incandescent light, he was one of the most persistent people in history. The invent