Today in History: Dec. 17

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

At 10:35 a.m. on this date in 1903, for about 12 seconds, Orville Wright took the first sustained motorized aircraft flight at Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina.

The Wright Brothers flew a total of four times that morning and afternoon. Orville and Wilbur took turns flying and they stopped for the day with a crash of the flyer from an altitude of about ten feet. That last flight covered 852 feet in 59 seconds.

Almost as important as the flights themselves was the fact that the brothers had five witnesses present. One of them, John T. Daniels, took the famous photo at the top of this article. Orville is the pilot in the photo, and Wilbur is running alongside.
Read More

Five Birthdays in Prison for Ali al-Nimr

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

Ali Mohammed al-Nimr will turn 22 on Wednesday, December 21. It will be his fifth birthday spent in prison.

There are two things about Ali Mohammed al-Nimr that we know today (December 16, 2016), and they are the same two sad, maddening things that we know about Ali al-Nimr every day: He remains in prison in Saudi Arabia and he is awaiting his fate. He still phones his father and mother once a week, which his father reports to the world via Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. He is continuing his college studies in prison.

Reprieve, the international human rights organization, created a page this week for people to sign a birthday card for Ali. In the last hour, the number of signatures on it has climbed from 3000 to 3700 to more than 4300 as of 1:41 p.m. EST. The photo at top is from that card; here is the link: “Wish Ali al-Nimr a Happy Birthday.”
Read More

Today in History: Dec. 16

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

The Boston Tea Party took place on this date in 1773. Years of resistance against British colonial rule came to a head over an Act of Parliament from earlier in the year that was passed to force the colonies to purchase tea from the British East India Tea Company, which had a surplus of tea and was struggling.

The American colonists saw the point behind the Tea Act: Behave yourselves, Parliament appeared to be telling the them, and act like a part of the Empire.
Read More