Category: History

Today, June 24, back in 1947 was the day which led to the coining of the term "flying saucer."

Pilot Kenneth Arnold saw what appeared to him to be a series of fast flying objects that he afterwards described as skipping on the air like a saucer being skipped across the water.

He was misquoted by the press, though, as having said that he saw "flying saucers." Arnold tried to correct the impression, saying that he didn’t say that the craft were saucer shaped but that they moved like a someone skipping a saucer on the water.

His actual description was: "They were half-moon shaped, oval in front and convex in the rear. …they
looked like a big flat disk." What he thus described as more like a "flying wing" aircraft design (something we puny humans had actually already built). Nertheless, the term (and the shape) stuck.

He also didn’t say anything about them being from outer space. In 1947, hot on the heels of WWII and all the weapons and aviation research it involved (including what we were retrieving from the Nazis via classified projects like Operation Paperclip), might have made a more terrestrial explanation plausible.

But that didn’t stick either.

GET THE STORY.

St. Catherine’s Monastery (left), also known as the Monastery of the Transfiguration,  is the world’s oldest monastery.

Built in the 6th century at the foot of Mt. Sinai in Egypt (or at least the traditional location of Mt. Sinai, since we’re not sure of its exact location), the monastery houses the largest collection of ancient Christian manuscripts besides the collection belonging to the Vatican.

Now the monks there are using hi-tech means to try to read some of the more faded manuscripts in its collection.

The monastery’s librarian, Fr. Jusin (a fellow Texan! Yee-haw!) has been digitizing manuscripts with a camera capable of 72 megapixel resolution. Many will be online later this year.

The process holds out the prospects of helping us better understand the history of the text of the Bible (including potential new evidence regarding the original reading of uncertain passages) and may even turn up previously unknown texts, as at Oxyrhynchus.

GET THE STORY.

MORE ON ST. CATHERINE’S MONASTERY.

St. Catherine’s Monastery (left), also known as the Monastery of the Transfiguration,  is the world’s oldest monastery.

Built in the 6th century at the foot of Mt. Sinai in Egypt (or at least the traditional location of Mt. Sinai, since we’re not sure of its exact location), the monastery houses the largest collection of ancient Christian manuscripts besides the collection belonging to the Vatican.

Now the monks there are using hi-tech means to try to read some of the more faded manuscripts in its collection.

The monastery’s librarian, Fr. Jusin (a fellow Texan! Yee-haw!) has been digitizing manuscripts with a camera capable of 72 megapixel resolution. Many will be online later this year.

The process holds out the prospects of helping us better understand the history of the text of the Bible (including potential new evidence regarding the original reading of uncertain passages) and may even turn up previously unknown texts, as at Oxyrhynchus.

GET THE STORY.

MORE ON ST. CATHERINE’S MONASTERY.

Today, June 18, in 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte went to his Waterloo.

Literally!

And I don’t mean a waterslide theme park!

The Battle of Waterloo took place today in Waterloo, Belgium, where the ornery French dictator (is there any other kind?) was defeated by a valiant alliance of non-French persons, bringing his reign of obnoxiousness and tyranny to an end forever.

No word on whether the victors celebrated their victory by victoriously eating Freedom Fries afterward.

LEARN MORE ABOUT THE BATTLE.

HEREZA PICTURE OF THE WATERLOO MEMORIAL.

Today, June 18, in 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte went to his Waterloo.

Literally!

And I don’t mean a waterslide theme park!

The Battle of Waterloo took place today in Waterloo, Belgium, where the ornery French dictator (is there any other kind?) was defeated by a valiant alliance of non-French persons, bringing his reign of obnoxiousness and tyranny to an end forever.

No word on whether the victors celebrated their victory by victoriously eating Freedom Fries afterward.

LEARN MORE ABOUT THE BATTLE.

HEREZA PICTURE OF THE WATERLOO MEMORIAL.

33 years ago today–June 17, 1972–five men were caught breaking into yonder building, leading to congressional hearings that would so dominate television that they would shove off the air all the cartoon programs I, as a young feller, wanted to watch in the afternoons after school.

The building is the Watergate building, and the congressional hearings were over the Watergate scandal.

In case you’re a young feller yourself (or young enough not ot remember Watergate), this is the scandal that (a) led Richard Nixon (he was a president) to resign and (b) led to every subsequent government scandal having the suffix "-gate" applied to it. Watergate was the first.

GET THE STORY.

GET A LIST OF "-GATE" SCANDALS.

33 years ago today–June 17, 1972–five men were caught breaking into yonder building, leading to congressional hearings that would so dominate television that they would shove off the air all the cartoon programs I, as a young feller, wanted to watch in the afternoons after school.

The building is the Watergate building, and the congressional hearings were over the Watergate scandal.

In case you’re a young feller yourself (or young enough not ot remember Watergate), this is the scandal that (a) led Richard Nixon (he was a president) to resign and (b) led to every subsequent government scandal having the suffix "-gate" applied to it. Watergate was the first.

GET THE STORY.

GET A LIST OF "-GATE" SCANDALS.

Know what yonder document is?

It’s the Magna Carta (Latin, "Great Charter").

The document is considered a landmark in the development of constitutional government.

Basically, a buncha barons twisted King John of England’s arm into ceding a buncha his authority.

It was signed today, June 15, in A.D. 1215 at Runnymede, which is not a kind of soft cheese, despite its name.

The document was immediately repudiated by him, plunging England into a civil war.

He died during the civil war (of dysentery–ouch!).

Pope Innocent III–who had bad relations with John–also didn’t cotton to the document.

LEARN MORE.

AND MORE.

Y’know that whole key/kite/lightning experiment thingie that Ben Franklin did to prove that lightning is electrical (something that seems obvious to us today)?

Well, that happened today, June 15, in 1752.

Fortunately, Franklin was insulated at the time.

Others trying Franklin’s proposed experiment weren’t.

Wikipedia notes: "Others, such as Prof. Georg Wilhelm Richmann of St. Petersburg, Russia, were spectacularly electrocuted during the months following Franklin’s experiment."

Ouch!

LEARN MORE.

See Londo?

See Londo preen?

Preen, Londo, preen.

Now: See the brooch thingie that Lond’s wearing on his jacket?

I wanna know what it is.

Thing is: I’ve see other high men of state in historical pictures and illustrations wearing them, but I’d assumed that they were just pieces of jewelry of some kind.

A piece back I got evidence that they were more than that: I have reason to believe that thingies like this (in Earth history, anyway) are some kind of insignia used by political parties.

I have specific reason to think that such insignia were used by the liberal and conservative parties in England in the 19th century and that ministers of parliament would wear them to signify their party affiliation.

I’ve done some Googling, but I haven’t turned up anything on them–like what they were called.

So: Does anybody know there name or can anybody provide a link to some web info about them?

Much obliged, folks!