March 28

1979 - America's worst commercial nuclear disaster occurred inside the Unit Two reactor at the Three Mile Island plant near Middletown, PA. A series of human and mechanical failures caused the cooling system to malfunction, resulting in damage to the reactor's core and the leakage of radioactivity into the atmosphere. Wide spread hysteria, fed by the anti-nuclear crowd and mismanagement of the disaster by numerous government agencies (with many false reports!) resulted in the crippling of the U.S. nuclear power plant industry and a cost of hundreds of billions to the taxpayers, ultimately leading to power shortages.

Of course this was a horrible failure, but it was contained and taught us much about how to handle such events.

The world has been lucky to not have a huge ‘accidental’ atomic explosion, but this is the risk we take when playing with the atom...A risk which must be continued, improved on, and expanded. We just need to be extremely mindful of the power we are using, and constantly careful to maintain its safety.

Or we can plant windmills all over the place.

193 - Roman Emperor Pertinax was assassinated by the Praetorian Guard.

By this time, the empire was falling apart and assassinations occurred often. The most interesting part of this event is how the next emperor was chosen...Didius Julianus became Roman Emperor as the highest bidder in a Praetorian Guard auction.

Nice way to pick the leader of the greatest state in the Western world.  It’s a miracle the Empire lasted almost another 300-years.

That said, at our current level of debt, debauchery, graft and criminality it's debatable if the U.S. will have as much staying power as these Romans did.

1871 - Parisians experimented with socialism and democracy in the 'Paris Commune.' Two months later, the national government shut it down, murdering between 30,000 to 100,000 people.

Experimenting with socialism, democracy and 'commune(ism)' sounds like a powder-keg...It's not surprising the Frenchies tried it though. They are still dabbling in it to a lesser extent.

1898 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled a child born in the U.S. to Chinese immigrants was a U.S. citizen, and could not be deported under the Chinese Exclusion Act.

Talk about opening the flood-gates...I’m sure the Supremes never worried about 10-20 million Chinese coming in, but a similar possibility is becoming fact on our Southern border.

1930 - The Turkish cities of Constantinople and Angora were renamed Istanbul and Ankara.

Why would they change these names?  To erase their history as Western cities, and re-write history to begin at the time of Mohammad.

Unfortunately, it's highly unlikely the West will ever recover the great city of Byzantium/Constantinople.

1939 - Madrid surrendered to Generalissimo Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War.

The end of the Spanish Civil War marks the end of the prelude to WWII. Just about every European participant in WWII took part in the Spanish 'training exercise'...Some learned much (Germany), some learned nothing (the rest).

The Main Event started six months later.

1939 - Adolf Hitler denounced Germany's 1934 Non-Aggression Pact with Poland.

This pact was one of the longest agreements Hitler kept (five years)...Soon after this, he broke all of them.

1945 - The last V-1 'buzz bomb' attack on London occurred:  WWII.

Just imagine if the Nazi’s developed the atom bomb before having to surrender...There is little doubt they would have loaded one up on either the V-1 or V-2.

Thankfully Churchill and FDR insisted on the 'Germany First' strategy.
 
1986 - Libyan leader Moammar Qaddafi presided over a rally in which he proclaimed victory over the United States in a just-ended confrontation in the Gulf of Sidra.

The Libyan Drag Queen was truly nuts...I wonder if he feels he won his latest round as well?