If you are only looking at recent history, this might be true, but there’s another that had more casualties than both of these together. In it, over 150 men, women, and children were killed. Unlike the two more recent shootings, it wasn’t the work of one shooter, it was done by the U.S. military and the victims were the Lakota people. It was the Wounded Knee Massacre.

In December of 1890, the 7th Cavalry Unit of the U.S. military went to Lakota reservation to take away the guns from the Lakota people. The Lakota had been bison hunters, but the numbers of those animals had been reduced by the U.S. military in an effort to starve out the people who were dependent upon them as a food source. The reservation land they had been granted had been reduced to a smaller and smaller area by white settlers and gold miners.

One story of the event says that a man named Black Coyote didn’t want to give up his rifle since he had paid a lot for it. His reluctance led to a scuffle, shots were fired, and then the massacre followed. Whether this is true or whether the Lakota just decided that they needed to make a stand, we can’t really know but it’s something to keep in mind when you hear someone say that we would be better off if only the government, and not the people, have guns.

The Turkish government responded to the pope’s comments by recalling its ambassador to the Vatican, and summoned the Vatican’s ambassador in Ankara to express its “great disappointment and sadness.”

It’s okay, Turkey, I get disappointed when people bring up my horrendous crimes against humanity too.

So, what actually happened and when?

In 1915 there were about 2 million Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire (Turkey) where their ancestors had lived for 3000 years. They were both an ethnic and religious minority in the Muslim-ruled country. (Armenia, when it was independent, was the first country to make Christianity its official religion.) The Turkish government wanted a solution to the “Armenian problem” so they decided to force them from their homes and send them into the Syrian Desert without food or water.

It began on April 24 of that year. On that day the government arrested and executed several hundred Armenian intellectuals – many Armenians were well-educated business owners, lawyers, doctors, and craftsmen, in contrast to the majority Turkish peasant farmers – and the rest were given a choice of walking until they dropped dead of exhaustion and exposure or stopping walking and being shot dead on the spot.

The military weren’t the only ones to get to join in the mass murdering fun. Killing squads made up of murders and ex-convicts went about crucifying (literally), drowning, and burning Armenians. They raped the women and kidnapped children, converting them to Islam and giving them to Turkish families. The children were given new Turkish or Arabic names and were beaten if they spoke Armenian.

In May, the Ottoman government began confiscating “abandoned” Armenian property. This resulted in a lot of property seizures since people were not allowed to take anything with them nor were they allowed to sell it before they left.

Ancient cities were leveled and all traces of Armenian culture was destroyed.

The genocide didn’t end until 1922. During those years the Armenian population in Turkey went from a couple million to fewer than 400,000.

The architects of the Armenian Genocide fled to Germany which promised not to prosecute them for their crimes. They were later located and assassinated by Armenian activists.

If you see similarities between the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust, you’re not imagining it. Hitler saw how little was done by other countries to come to Armenia’s aid and used it as a guideline for his own genocidal plans.

Thus for the time being I have sent to the East only my ‘Death’s Head Units’ with the orders to kill without pity or mercy all men, women, and children of Polish race or language. Only in such a way will we win the vital space that we need. Who still talks nowadays about the Armenians? – Adolf Hitler

At the time, Walter Brown was the head coach of the Boston Celtics, and he was in the same boat as Cohen, with the idea to have a mid-season All-Star game which will hold 20 of the NBA’s most talented players. Yet the Commissioner, Maurice Podoloff, wanted the game to be called off just days before the game would be played.

However, 1951 was not the best of years for the NBA, or basketball in general. There were many scandals in which college players were caught point-shaving which had an extremely negative effect on the entirety of the game of basketball. Haskell Cohen and Walter Brown, even in the midst of the overwhelming controversy at the time, decided that the game must still be played.  Yet the Commissioner, Maurice Podoloff, wanted the game to be called off just days before the game would be played, saying that it would be “a flop” and that “the league would look bad”.  The men did not back down, insisting the show goes on. The first ever All-Star Game was on March 2nd, 1951 and was  held at The Boston Garden in Boston Ma., with an outstanding turn out, having 10,094 fans show up to watch the stars of the NBA compete against each other. Like today, the teams competing were the best players from the East Division, and the best players from the West Division, with both sides playing against each other. The East easily defeated the West, with a final score of 111-94. The MVP was the Celtics’ very own Ed Macauley, racking in a game-high 20 points, while also holding Minneapolis Lakers star to just 4 field goals. The tradition of the NBA All-Star Game still carries on to this day, happening annually during the middle of the NBA season.

Presidential candidate Donald John Trump was born on June 14, 1946 in Queens, NY.  (This is where Prince Akeem – Eddie Murphy’s character visits in Coming to America.)

Donald Trump was the fourth of five children born to Mary Anne and Fred Trump. His mother was born in Scotland and his father was born in Queens to parents who had immigrated from Germany.

(Side note: His most direct immigrant ancestor was his mother, so why does Hillary Clinton and others concentrate on his German ancestry? That’s a rhetorical question, I know why – It’s to imply some relationship between Trump and Hitler…I guess she doesn’t know that Hitler was Austrian. Or maybe she’s sure her supporters are too ignorant to know.)

Let’s see how many cards he gets from supporters! Send them to:

Mr. Donald Trump
725 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10022

Get it in the mail soon so it gets there by the 14th!

Make a note because next year you’ll need to send it to:

President Donald Trump
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

It was August, 1968, and it had already been a year of mob violence and riots in many American cities. People were angry about our involvement in Vietnam (Hey, hey, LBJ! How many kids did you kill today?) And some important political leaders – Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bobby Kennedy – had been assassinated, taking away some of the guidance that might have eased the rioting.

President Lyndon Johnson had announced that he would not seek re-election, but his vice-president Hubert Humphrey decided to run. Anti-war activists saw him as someone who would continue the war policies of Johnson so they came to Chicago to protest the war.

The Republican convention that year was being held in Miami and some Democrats tried to get their convention moved there too. There was a phone strike in Chicago and reporters needed phone lines to get their stories in to their networks (this was before satellites and immediate streaming of news reports.)

Chicago’s mayor, Richard Daley, was a powerful part of the Democratic political machine and he was able to keep the convention from being moved out of his city.

Daley wanted Ted Kennedy to run. (This was before Kennedy left Mary Jo Kopechne to drown in his car. Not that it would have made any difference to Daley if it had happened earlier.) This challenge, plus the anti-war groups made it unsure that Humphrey would get the nomination.

There was in-fighting among the delegates on what to include in the Party Platform and delegations marched around the convention hall in protest. In spite of the division, Humphrey got a majority of the delegate votes and won the nomination. The convention ended with a tribute to Bobby Kennedy and a sign-carrying demonstration in support of Richard Daley (paid for by Richard Daley.)

Outside the convention hall, about 10,000 protesters met with almost 12,000 police, 7500 army troops, 7500 National Guards troops, and 1000 Secret Service agents. The protesters wanted to get close to the convention site, the armed forces wanted to stop them. The police viewed the protesters as their enemy but they also viewed the press who were reporting on the conflict as an enemy.

Protesters were stopped in their march to the convention hall. The police used their batons to beat protesters. Innocent bystanders and doctors that were trying to come to the aid of the injured were also beaten. Police used teargas on the protesters and sprayed them and other people in the area with mace.

In the end, Chicago police reported 589 arrests and said that 119 police and 100 protesters were injured. (Those numbers don’t sound fake, nope, not at all.)

Eight people were charged with the federal crime of crossing state borders to incite a riot (part of the Civil Rights Act). Mayor Daley later rewarded the police with a pay raise for beating down the dirty hippies their vigilance in keeping the peace.

In 1964, when Ali was still going by his birth name of Cassius Clay, he fought Sonny Liston in Miami. It was one of the most watched fights in history.

Muhammad Ali was born Cassius Clay, named after his father, who was named after a famous abolitionist, in Louisville, KY on January 17, 1942.

He began his boxing training at age 12 and fought his first professional fight in 1960. Over the next three years he had a perfect win record, 19 – 0. This put him in position to challenge Sonny Liston for his heavyweight title. They met in February 1964 and the fight lasted seven rounds, ending when Liston refused to answer the bell for that round. The match was declared a TKO in Clay’s (Ali’s) favor.

Here are the highlights from the fight.

“Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. Rumble, young man, rumble.” (Said by Clay/Ali before his fight with Liston.)