cannabineer
Ursus marijanus
She was doing so well, and then she blew it.
On this day:
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BarnBuster
Virtually Unknown Member
On December 21, 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 from London to New York explodes in midair over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all 243 passengers and 16 crew members aboard, as well as 11 Lockerbie residents on the ground. A bomb hidden inside an audio cassette player detonated in the cargo area when the plane was at an altitude of 31,000 feet. The disaster, which became the subject of Britain’s largest criminal investigation, was believed to be an attack against the United States. One hundred eighty nine of the victims were American.
Islamic terrorists were accused of planting the bomb on the plane while it was at the airport in Frankfurt, Germany. Authorities suspected the attack was in retaliation for either the 1986 U.S. air strikes against Libya, in which leader Muammar al-Qaddafi’s young daughter was killed along with dozens of other people, or a 1988 incident, in which the U.S. mistakenly shot down an Iran Air commercial flight over the Persian Gulf, killing 290 people.
Sixteen days before the explosion over Lockerbie, the U.S. embassy in Helsinki, Finland, received a call warning that a bomb would be placed on a Pan Am flight out of Frankfurt. There is controversy over how seriously the U.S. took the threat and whether travelers should have been alerted, but officials later said that the connection between the call and the bomb was coincidental.
In 1991, following a joint investigation by the British authorities and the F.B.I., Libyan intelligence agents Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah were indicted for murder; however, Libya refused to hand over the suspects to the U.S. Finally, in 1999, in an effort to ease United Nations sanctions against his country, Qaddafi agreed to turn over the two men to Scotland for trial in the Netherlands using Scottish law and prosecutors. In early 2001, al-Megrahi was convicted and sentenced to life in prison and Fhimah was acquitted. Over the U.S. government’s objections, Al-Megrahi was freed and returned to Libya in August 2009 after doctors determined that he had only months to live. In December 2020, reports surfaced that the U.S. Justice Department would unseal criminal charges in against another suspect in the bombing, Abu Agila Mas’ud.
In 2003, Libya accepted responsibility for the bombing, but didn’t express remorse. The U.N. and U.S. lifted sanctions against Libya and Libya agreed to pay each victim’s family approximately $8 million in restitution. In 2004, Libya’s prime minister said that the deal was the “price for peace,” implying that his country only took responsibility to get the sanctions lifted, a statement that infuriated the victims’ families. Pan Am Airlines, which went bankrupt three years after the bombing, sued Libya and later received a $30 million settlement.
PAN AM FLIGHT 103 INVESTIGATION AND LESSONS LEARNED
US Gov Justice Dept. Indictment PanAm 103
Libya considers extraditing alleged Lockerbie bomb-maker
Abu Agila Masud is accused of packing explosives into a suitcase that downed Pan Am Flight 103, in charges brought by the US
injinji
Well-Known Member
1988 - Paul Jeffreys
On December 21, 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 from London to New York explodes in midair over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all 243 passengers and 16 crew members aboard, as well as 11 Lockerbie residents on the ground. A bomb hidden inside an audio cassette player detonated in the cargo area when the plane was at an altitude of 31,000 feet. The disaster, which became the subject of Britain’s largest criminal investigation, was believed to be an attack against the United States. One hundred eighty nine of the victims were American.
Islamic terrorists were accused of planting the bomb on the plane while it was at the airport in Frankfurt, Germany. Authorities suspected the attack was in retaliation for either the 1986 U.S. air strikes against Libya, in which leader Muammar al-Qaddafi’s young daughter was killed along with dozens of other people, or a 1988 incident, in which the U.S. mistakenly shot down an Iran Air commercial flight over the Persian Gulf, killing 290 people.
Sixteen days before the explosion over Lockerbie, the U.S. embassy in Helsinki, Finland, received a call warning that a bomb would be placed on a Pan Am flight out of Frankfurt. There is controversy over how seriously the U.S. took the threat and whether travelers should have been alerted, but officials later said that the connection between the call and the bomb was coincidental.
In 1991, following a joint investigation by the British authorities and the F.B.I., Libyan intelligence agents Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah were indicted for murder; however, Libya refused to hand over the suspects to the U.S. Finally, in 1999, in an effort to ease United Nations sanctions against his country, Qaddafi agreed to turn over the two men to Scotland for trial in the Netherlands using Scottish law and prosecutors. In early 2001, al-Megrahi was convicted and sentenced to life in prison and Fhimah was acquitted. Over the U.S. government’s objections, Al-Megrahi was freed and returned to Libya in August 2009 after doctors determined that he had only months to live. In December 2020, reports surfaced that the U.S. Justice Department would unseal criminal charges in against another suspect in the bombing, Abu Agila Mas’ud.
In 2003, Libya accepted responsibility for the bombing, but didn’t express remorse. The U.N. and U.S. lifted sanctions against Libya and Libya agreed to pay each victim’s family approximately $8 million in restitution. In 2004, Libya’s prime minister said that the deal was the “price for peace,” implying that his country only took responsibility to get the sanctions lifted, a statement that infuriated the victims’ families. Pan Am Airlines, which went bankrupt three years after the bombing, sued Libya and later received a $30 million settlement.
PAN AM FLIGHT 103 INVESTIGATION AND LESSONS LEARNED
US Gov Justice Dept. Indictment PanAm 103
Libya considers extraditing alleged Lockerbie bomb-maker
Abu Agila Masud is accused of packing explosives into a suitcase that downed Pan Am Flight 103, in charges brought by the USwww.telegraph.co.uk
Former Cockney Rebel bass player Paul Jeffreys was one of the passengers killed by a terrorist bomb on Pan Am flight 103. The plane crashed over Lockerbie, Scotland.
I had never heard of these guys before this morning.
injinji
Well-Known Member
Leave it to me to be a day late and a dollar short.
On December 21st, 1864 Sherman took Savanna, ending his march to the sea.
en.wikipedia.org
On December 21st, 1864 Sherman took Savanna, ending his march to the sea.
Sherman's March to the Sea - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
BarnBuster
Virtually Unknown Member
On December 22, 1956, a baby gorilla named Colo enters the world at the Columbus Zoo in Ohio, becoming the first-ever gorilla born in captivity. Her birth made headlines around the world including the Today show, the New York Times, and Time and Life magazines. Weighing in at approximately 4 pounds, Colo, a western lowland gorilla whose name was a combination of Columbus and Ohio, was the daughter of Millie and Mac, two gorillas captured in French Cameroon, Africa, who were brought to the Columbus Zoo in 1951. Before Colo’s birth, gorillas found at zoos were caught in the wild, often by brutal means. In order to capture a gorilla when it was young and therefore still small enough to handle, hunters frequently had to kill the gorilla’s parents and other family members.
Gorillas are peaceful, intelligent animals, native to Africa, who live in small groups led by one adult male, known as a silverback. There are three subspecies of gorilla: western lowland, eastern lowland and mountain. The subspecies are similar and the majority of gorillas in captivity are western lowland. Gorillas are vegetarians whose only natural enemy is the humans who hunt them. On average, a gorilla lives to 35 years in the wild and 50 years in captivity.
At the time Colo was born, captive gorillas often never learned parenting skills from their own parents in the wild, so the Columbus Zoo built her a nursery and she was reared by zookeepers. In the years since Colo’s arrival, zookeepers have developed habitats that simulate a gorilla’s natural environment and many captive-born gorillas are now raised by their mothers. In situations where this doesn’t work, zoos have created surrogacy programs, in which the infants are briefly cared for by humans and then handed over to other gorillas to raise.
Colo’s first keeper, a second-year veterinary student named Warren Thomas, was credited for both Colo’s birth and her survival. He defied orders from then-Zoo Director Earl Davis to keep Colo’s parents, Baron Macombo and Millie Christina, apart. Despite Director Davis’ concerns that his prized gorillas would hurt each other if kept together, Thomas allowed them to spend time together, which resulted in the birth of Colo. Thomas also found Colo, still in her amniotic sac, shortly after birth and provided mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to revive the lifeless baby. Thomas had a long zoo career including 16 years as the director of the Los Angeles Zoo.
Colo, who generated enormous public interest, went on to become a mother, grandmother, and in 1996, a great-grandmother to Timu, the first surviving infant gorilla conceived by artificial insemination. Timu gave birth to her first baby in 2003.
She leaves behind an extended family, including three children, 16 grandchildren, 12 great grandchildren and three great-great grandchildren.
“Colo touched the hearts of generations of people,” the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium said. “She was an ambassador for gorillas and inspired people to learn more about the critically endangered species and motivated them to protect gorillas in their native habitat.”
On January 17, 2017 Colo died in her sleep. At 60 years of age she was the oldest gorilla on record and exceeded her normal life expectancy by more than two decades.
Today, there are approximately 750 gorillas in captivity around the world and an estimated 100,000 lowland gorillas (and far fewer mountain gorillas) remaining in the wild. Most zoos are active in captive breeding programs and have agreed not to buy gorillas born in the wild.
BarnBuster
Virtually Unknown Member
On December 22, 2001—just months after the 9/11 attacks—Richard Reid boarded American Airlines Flight 63 from Paris to Miami with homemade bombs hidden in his shoes.
During the flight, Reid tried to detonate his shoes, but he struggled to light the fuse. Crew members and passengers noticed and restrained him.
The plane diverted to Logan International Airport in Boston, and Massachusetts State Police officers took Reid into custody. Reid told FBI agents that he made the shoes himself.
On October 4, 2002, Reid pleaded guilty to eight terrorism-related charges. A judge sentenced him to life in federal prison.
The FBI’s December Artifact of the Month is the pair of shoes Reid—also known as the “shoe bomber”—tried to detonate. FBI bomb techs determined that the shoes contained about 10 ounces of explosive material.
During a preliminary hearing, an FBI agent revealed how dangerous the homemade bomb was. She said that bomb techs determined that the bomb would have blown a hole in the plane’s fuselage and caused the plane to crash if it had detonated.
Reid pleaded guilty in U.S. federal court to eight federal criminal counts of terrorism, based on his attempt to destroy a commercial aircraft in flight. He was sentenced to three life terms plus 110 years in prison without parole and was transferred to ADX Florence, a super maximum security prison in Colorado, United States. In 2009, Reid went on a hunger strike and was force-fed and hydrated for several weeks.
Captured al-Qaeda terrorist conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui stated at his sentencing hearing in 2006 that Reid was a co-conspirator in the September 11 attacks on the United States, and that Moussaoui and Reid had intended to hijack a fifth aircraft and crash it into the White House in Washington, D.C., as part of the attacks that took place that day. Department of Justice investigators and the federal prosecutors were skeptical of Moussaoui's claim that Reid was involved in the plot.
BarnBuster
Virtually Unknown Member
During the American Revolution, Patriot General George Washington crosses the Delaware River with 5,400 troops, hoping to surprise a Hessian force celebrating Christmas at their winter quarters in Trenton, New Jersey. The unconventional attack came after several months of substantial defeats for Washington’s army that had resulted in the loss of New York City and other strategic points in the region.
At about 11 p.m. on Christmas, Washington’s army commenced its crossing of the half-frozen river at three locations. The 2,400 soldiers led by Washington successfully braved the icy and freezing river and reached the New Jersey side of the Delaware just before dawn. The other two divisions, made up of some 3,000 men and crucial artillery, failed to reach the meeting point at the appointed time.
At approximately 8 a.m. on the morning of December 26, Washington’s remaining force, separated into two columns, reached the outskirts of Trenton and descended on the unsuspecting Hessians. Trenton’s 1,400 Hessian defenders were groggy from the previous evening’s festivities and underestimated the Patriot threat after months of decisive British victories throughout New York. Washington’s men quickly overwhelmed the Germans’ defenses, and by 9:30 a.m. the town was surrounded. Although several hundred Hessians escaped, nearly 1,000 were captured at the cost of only four American lives. However, because most of Washington’s army had failed to cross the Delaware, he was without adequate artillery or men and was forced to withdraw from the town.
The victory was not particularly significant from a strategic point of view, but news of Washington’s initiative raised the spirits of the American colonists, who previously feared that the Continental Army was incapable of victory.
10 Facts about Washington's Crossing of the Delaware River
General George Washington and the Continental Army famously crossed the Delaware River on December 25-26, 1776.
www.mountvernon.org
George Washington Crosses the Delaware
This key moment of the American Revolution, made iconic in a portrait by Emanuel Leutze, was a major victory for General George Washington during the fight for the colonies’ independence. But its artistic depiction, a staple in classrooms across the country, does not tell the whole story about...
www.nationalgeographic.org
BarnBuster
Virtually Unknown Member
"A powerful earthquake off the coast of Sumatra, Indonesia, on December 26, 2004 sets off a tsunami that wreaks death and devastation across the Indian Ocean coastline. The quake was the second strongest ever recorded and the estimated 230,000 dead made this disaster one of the 10 worst of all time.
It was 7:58 a.m. when the tremendous quake struck beneath the Indian Ocean 160 miles west of Sumatra. Not only did it register at approximately a 9.3 magnitude (only the 1960 Chile earthquake measured higher at 9.5, though there may have been stronger tremors prior to the invention of seismographic equipment) and last nearly 10 minutes, the quake moved a full 750 miles of underwater fault line earth up to 40 feet. The movement of the earth–there is evidence that huge boulders weighing thousands of tons were pushed several miles along the ocean floor–caused a massive displacement of water. It is estimated that the resulting tsunami had two times the energy of all the bombs used during World War II.
Within 15 minutes, tsunami waves were crashing the coast of Sumatra. At the north end of the island was a heavily populated region known as Aceh. There, waves reached 80 feet high over large stretches of the coast and up to 100 feet in some places. Entire communities were simply swept away by the water in a matter of minutes. The death toll in Indonesia is estimated at between 130,000 and 160,000 people, with an additional 500,000 people left homeless. About a third of the victims were children.
The huge waves missed the coast of Indonesia on the north side and went on to Thailand, where between 5,000 and 8,000 people died. The tsunami also moved east across the Indian Ocean. In Sri Lanka, the tsunami came ashore about 90 minutes after the earthquake. Although the waves were not as high as in Aceh, they still brought disaster. Approximately 35,000 people lost their lives and half a million others lost their homes. In addition, about 15,000 people died in India. The killer waves even reached 5,000 miles away in South Africa, where two people perished.
In total, about 190,000 people are confirmed dead with another 40,000 to 45,000 missing and presumed dead. Although billions of dollars of humanitarian aid poured in to the affected region in the aftermath of the disaster–an estimated $7 billion within the first 18 months—some areas are still suffering from the massive devastation."
injinji
Well-Known Member
This tragedy reached all the way to the sandhill. You see, back then I still smoked good cigars. . . . .
raratt
Well-Known Member
RIP Archbishop Tutu.
abcnews.go.com
Desmond Tutu, South Africa's moral conscience, dies at 90
Desmond Tutu, South Africa’s Nobel Peace Prize-winning activist for racial justice, has died at 90
BarnBuster
Virtually Unknown Member
Born in 1953 to a wealthy landowning family, Bhutto grew up in the privileged world of Pakistan’s political elite, receiving degrees from Harvard and Oxford. Her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, founded the populist-leaning Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) in 1967. He then served as president and prime minister from 1971 to 1977, when he was ousted in a bloodless military coup led by General Mohammad Zia ul-Haq and charged with authorizing a political opponent’s murder.
Her father’s overthrow and subsequent execution in April 1979 thrust a young Benazir Bhutto into the political spotlight. She and her mother, Nusrat, whom she succeeded in 1982 as the PPP’s chairperson, spent several years in and out of detention for protesting his arrest and campaigning against General Zia. In August 1988, Zia died in a plane crash; three months later, Bhutto won the general election and formed a government, becoming the first woman—and, at 35, the youngest person—to head a Muslim state in modern times. Dismissed in 1990 after less than half a term as prime minister, she was reelected in 1993 and served again until 1996. Both times, she was removed from office by the sitting president—Ghulam Ishaq Khan in 1990 and Farooq Leghari in 1996—amid charges of corruption and incompetent governance.
After her second dismissal from office, Bhutto and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, faced allegations of various forms of financial misconduct, including accepting multimillion-dollar kickbacks and laundering money through Swiss banks. Zardari spent eight years in prison, while Bhutto lived in exile in London and Dubai with the couple’s three children. In 2007, under pressure from Bhutto’s supporters within the U.S. government, President Pervez Musharraf granted amnesty to Bhutto, Zardari and other Pakistani politicians with pending graft charges. On October 18 of that year, despite a spate of death threats from Islamic militants, Bhutto returned to Pakistan with plans to participate in the 2008 general election. On the day of her arrival, she narrowly escaped a suicide bomb attack on her convoy that killed at least 136 people and injured more than 450.
On December 27, 2007, as Bhutto was waving to a crowd at a PPP rally in Rawalpindi, a gunman opened fire on her bulletproof vehicle. A bomb then exploded near the car, killing more than 20 people and wounding 100 others, including Bhutto. She was pronounced dead later that night and buried the next day in her hometown of Gardi Khuda Bakhsh, next to her father’s grave. The exact cause of her death remains in dispute: A subsequent investigation by Britain’s Scotland Yard ruled that Bhutto died of head injuries caused by the force of the explosion, while the PPP maintained that she died from gunshot wounds.
Bhutto’s death sparked widespread violence across Pakistan, with riots and demonstrations leading to violent police crackdowns. The political turmoil caused international fears of instability in a nuclear-armed nation already embroiled in a fight against Islamic extremists. In the weeks and months following Bhutto’s death, Pakistani moderates and Western leaders waited anxiously to see who would emerge as her successor. Zardari, who had taken the helm of the PPP after his wife’s assassination, was elected president of Pakistan in September 2008.
In the month following Bhutto’s murder, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and Pakistani officials named Baitullah Mehsud, a Pakistani militant with links to al-Qaeda, as the mastermind behind the assassination. Mehsud, who denied the charge, was killed in a U.S. drone attack in August 2009.
The United Nation's inquiry concluded that Pakistani intelligence, the ISI, played a key role in the cover-up and intimidated the Pakistani police from doing their job. It may have been even quietly encouraging the assassins through former officials who had well-known contacts with the extremists. Benazir, before her death, had alleged that former ISI officials were plotting her demise with al Qaeda, including former Director General Hamid Gul. Munoz tells us the then ISI Director Nadeem Taj met with Bhutto early in the morning of her murder to try to persuade her to stop campaigning for office.
"Getting Away With Murder: Benazir Bhutto's Assassination and the Politics of Pakistan," by Heraldo Munoz
Published by W.W. Norton (2014) Reviewed by Bruce Riedel
www.lawfareblog.com
UN report on Bhutto murder finds Pakistani officials ‘failed profoundly’
Security arrangements by Pakistan’s federal and local authorities to protect assassinated Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto were “fatally insufficient and ineffective” and subsequent investigations into her death were prejudiced and involved a whitewash, an independent United Nations inquiry...
Scotland Yard report into assassination of Benazir Bhutto released - CNN.com
IP-455 Press Release 8 February 2008 The findings of a Scotland Yard inquiry into how Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto died after being attacked during a political rally in Rawalpindi were presented to the Government of Pakistan today.
www.cnn.com
raratt
Well-Known Member
RIP John, there will never be an equal. I miss the sweat factor and field goal doinks. 
www.yahoo.com
NFL legend John Madden dies at 85
The NFL announced Madden, the icon known for being the Raiders' longtime head coach as well as for his broadcasting career and the video game series that bore his name, died "unexpectedly" according to the league.
www.yahoo.com
DarkWeb
Well-Known Member
Oh manRIP John, there will never be an equal. I miss the sweat factor and field goal doinks.
NFL legend John Madden dies at 85
The NFL announced Madden, the icon known for being the Raiders' longtime head coach as well as for his broadcasting career and the video game series that bore his name, died "unexpectedly" according to the league.
I'm not a big football fan.......but he really made the game. He was awesome and a voice and personality you can't forget.
BarnBuster
Virtually Unknown Member
On December 29, 1890, in one of the final chapters of America’s long Indian wars, the U.S. Cavalry kills 146 Sioux at Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota.
Throughout 1890, the U.S. government worried about the increasing influence at Pine Ridge of the Ghost Dance spiritual movement, which taught that Native Americans had been defeated and confined to reservations because they had angered the gods by abandoning their traditional customs. Many Sioux believed that if they practiced the Ghost Dance and rejected the ways of the white man, the gods would create the world anew and destroy all non-believers, including non-Indians. On December 15, 1890, reservation police tried to arrest Sitting Bull, the famous Sioux leader, who they mistakenly believed was a Ghost Dancer, and killed him in the process, increasing the tensions at Pine Ridge.
On December 29, the U.S. Army’s 7th cavalry surrounded a band of Ghost Dancers under the Sioux Chief Big Foot near Wounded Knee Creek and demanded they surrender their weapons. As that was happening, a fight broke out between an Indian and a U.S. soldier and a shot was fired, although it’s unclear from which side. A brutal massacre followed, in which it’s estimated almost 150 Native Americans were killed (some historians put this number at twice as high), nearly half of them women and children. The cavalry lost 25 men.
The conflict at Wounded Knee was originally referred to as a battle, but in reality it was a tragic and avoidable massacre. Surrounded by heavily armed troops, it’s unlikely that Big Foot’s band would have intentionally started a fight. Some historians speculate that the soldiers of the 7th Cavalry were deliberately taking revenge for the regiment’s defeat at the Little Bighorn in 1876. Whatever the motives, the massacre ended the Ghost Dance movement and was the last major confrontation in America’s deadly war against the Plains Indians.
Conflict came to Wounded Knee again in February 1973 when it was the site of a 71-day occupation by the activist group AIM (American Indian Movement) and its supporters, who were protesting the U.S. government’s mistreatment of Native Americans. During the standoff, two Native Americans were killed, one federal marshal was seriously wounded and numerous people were arrested.
(20 Medal's of Honor were awarded during this massacre. There is a bill in congress "Remove the Stain Act" to rescind the Medals. bb)
'Remove the Stain Act' Moves Forward as House Passes Defense Bill | Currents
WASHINGTON — The U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday passed the National Defense Authorization Act, which includes legislation to address the slaughter of hundreds of Lakota men, women and children at the Wounded Knee massacre a century ago. ...
nativenewsonline.net
BarnBuster
Virtually Unknown Member
The execution of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein took place on 30 December 2006. Saddam Hussein was sentenced to death by hanging, after being convicted of crimes against humanity by the Iraqi Special Tribunal for the Dujail massacre—the killing of 148 Iraqi Shi'ites in the town of Dujail—in 1982, in retaliation for an assassination attempt against him.
The atmosphere of the execution drew criticism around the world from nations that oppose as well as support capital punishment. Saddam Hussein's body was returned to his birthplace of Al-Awja, near Tikrit, on 31 December and was buried near the graves of other family members.
After being sentenced to death by an Iraqi court, Saddam requested to be executed by firing squad rather than hanging, claiming it as the lawful military capital punishment and citing his military position of commander-in-chief of the Iraqi military. This request was denied by the court. Two days prior to the execution, a letter written by Saddam appeared on the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party website. In the letter, he urged the Iraqi people to unite, and not to hate the people of countries that invaded Iraq, like the United States, but instead the decision-makers. He said he was ready to die as a martyr and he said that this is his death sentence.[4] In the hours before the execution, Saddam ate his last meal of chicken and rice and had a cup of hot water with honey.
United States President George W. Bush mentioned on 4 January 2007 that he wished that the execution "had gone on in a more dignified way." Bush later stated, in a 16 January 2007 interview with U.S. television host Jim Lehrer, that Saddam's execution "looked like it was kind of a revenge killing." Bush said he was "disappointed and felt like they fumbled the Saddam Hussein execution. It reinforced doubts in people's minds that the Maliki government and the unity government of Iraq is a serious government. And it sent a mixed signal to the American people and the people around the world."
Saddam Hussein Is Sentenced to Death (Published 2006)
An Iraqi tribunal convicted Mr. Hussein of crimes against humanity and sentenced him to death by hanging for the brutal repression of a Shiite town.
Timeline: Saddam's Violent Road to Execution
Saddam Hussein has a long history of using violence to achieve political ends. Read a selective list of events from his life, including milestones leading up to his trial, death sentence and execution.
www.npr.org
BarnBuster
Virtually Unknown Member
On December 31, 1935, the now ubiquitous winner-take-all board game Monopoly was patented (Patent Number 2,026,082). Since that day, it has been translated into 37 languages and evolved into over 200 licensed and localized editions for 103 countries across the world. The game of capitalism, competition and business strategy has firmly established itself as a significant piece of popular culture.
Charles B. Darrow of Germantown, PA created the game known today during the Great Depression. In 1934, he presented the game to executives at Parker Brothers and was rejected. A year later, after he sold 5,000 homemade copies of the game, Parker Brothers bought the game.
Some controversy has surrounded the invention of the game, whether it was created by Charles Darrow in 1934 or Elizabeth Phillips, who had patented Landlord's Game in 1904 (Patent Number 748,626; see also Patent Number 1,509,312) as means of educating citizens on Henry George's single tax movement.2 Parker Brothers bought the Landlord's Game rights from Phillips for $500 with an agreement to manufacture the game for distribution and thus was free to pursue development with the game known today as Charles Darrow's Monopoly.
By 2010, over 250 million sets of Monopoly® had been sold since its invention and the game had been played by over half a billion people making it possibly the most popular board game in the world
injinji
Well-Known Member
Are you planning on taking tomorrow off? It is understandable if you do want a day off every now and then. You just need to let us know so we can prepare ourselves.
BarnBuster
Virtually Unknown Member
BarnBuster
Virtually Unknown Member
"On December 31, 1999, the United States, in accordance with the Torrijos-Carter Treaties, officially hands over control of the Panama Canal, putting the strategic waterway into Panamanian hands for the first time. Crowds of Panamanians celebrated the transfer of the 50-mile canal, which links the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and officially opened when the SS Arcon sailed through on August 15, 1914. Since then, over one million ships have used the canal.
Interest in finding a shortcut from the Atlantic to the Pacific originated with explorers in Central America in the early 1500s. In 1523, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V commissioned a survey of the Isthmus of Panama and several plans for a canal were produced, but none ever implemented. U.S. interest in building a canal was sparked with the expansion of the American West and the California gold rush in 1848. (Today, a ship heading from New York to San Francisco can save about 7,800 miles by taking the Panama Canal rather than sailing around South America.)
In 1880 a French company run by the builder of the Suez Canal started digging a canal across the Isthmus of Panama (then a part of Colombia). More than 22,000 workers died from tropical diseases such as yellow fever during this early phase of construction and the company eventually went bankrupt, selling its project rights to the United States in 1902 for $40 million. President Theodore Roosevelt championed the canal, viewing it as important to America’s economic and military interests. In 1903, Panama declared its independence from Colombia in a U.S.-backed revolution and the U.S. and Panama signed the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty, in which the U.S. agreed to pay Panama $10 million for a perpetual lease on land for the canal, plus $250,000 annually in rent.
Over 56,000 people worked on the canal between 1904 and 1913 and over 5,600 lost their lives. When finished, the canal, which cost the U.S. $375 million to build, was considered a great engineering marvel and represented America’s emergence as a world power.
In 1977, responding to nearly 20 years of Panamanian protest, U.S. President Jimmy Carter and Panama’s General Omar Torrijos signed two new treaties that replaced the original 1903 agreement and called for a transfer of canal control in 1999. The treaty, narrowly ratified by the U.S. Senate, gave America the ongoing right to defend the canal against any threats to its neutrality. In October 2006, Panamanian voters approved a $5.25 billion plan to double the canal’s size by 2015 to better accommodate modern ships.
Ships pay tolls to use the canal, based on each vessel’s size and cargo volume. In May 2006, the Maersk Dellys paid a record toll of $249,165. The smallest-ever toll—36 cents—was paid by Richard Halliburton, who swam the canal in 1928."
(This article answers many questions about the why and what of our turning over canal management, things I never knew. Their book "The Big Ditch: How America Took, Built, Ran, and Ultimately Gave Away the Panama Canal" looks interesting if you have further interest,BB)
Panama Canal: Troubled History, Astounding Turnaround
In their new book, "The Big Ditch", HBS professor Noel Maurer and economic historian Carlos Yu discuss the complicated history of the Panama Canal and its remarkable turnaround after Panama took control in 1999.
another book told from Panama's point of view:
Erased : the untold story of the Panama Canal / Marixa Lasso.
as far as the actual construction of the canal, this book is probably the best one to read:
The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914 By David McCullough