Category: +Did You Know?

The Texas Tower Sniper Incident

Did You Know? The “Texas Tower Sniper” incident occurred Aug. 1, 1966, when the deranged gunman Charles J. Whitman opened fire at the University of Texas in Austin, killing 16 and wounding 32. I was there, though I was a baby, with my mother in student housing (if I have my family stories correct). My father was closer, in another building, and when the gunfire rang out, people in the room where he was rushed to the window to see what was happening. My father instead stepped back. LEARN MORE.

Final Solution Ordered

Did You Know? Under instructions from Adolf Hitler, Nazi official Hermann Göring, ordered SS General Reinhard Heydrich to “submit to me as soon as possible a general plan of the administrative material and financial measures necessary for carrying out the desired final solution of the Jewish question.” The date was July 31, 1941. LEARN MORE.

Dude, Your Made-Up God Has a Measuring Cup on His Head

Did You Know? When the Greeks gained control of ancient Egypt, Pharaoh Ptolemy I (who was Greek) invented a Greek-style Egyptian god to try and unite the two peoples. Unlike the animal-headed gods of Egypt, Serapis was depicted as a man, but his head wasn’t entirely normal. He was depicted with a basket used for measuring grain on his head. Go figure. LEARN MORE.

I Guess We Know the Last Part of His History

Did You Know? Joseph Smith is reported to have said “No man knows my history,” but we do know some of it. On June 27, 1844 he died in a gunbattle after shooting and wounding three members of a lynch mob while incarcerated in the Carthage, Illinois jail. He was in jail because he had previously ordered the destruction of a newspaper in Nauvoo, Illinois after its first (and only) edition was critical of him. Despite the circumstances of his death, he is often portrayed as a martyr by Mormons. LEARN MORE.