Hodgepodge


Battle of Seattle, 1999
Back in the day, people were far less afraid to make their voices heard, because they had far less to lose and were pushed to more severe circumstances. The battle of Seattle was a unique riot, because most of the riots that have taken place in the U.S. prior to it were over racial injustice, the most notable one from my generation being a result of the police brutality of Rodney King going unanswered.

The Seattle riots in 1999 weren't racially motivated, but instead motivated by the World Trade Organization meeting scheduled to take place there, and peoples' concerns over tightening international laws in favor of capitalism. For about a day, there was a peaceful demonstration with overwhelming numbers, but that soon turned into rioting after both police exacerbated the situation with force, and anarchists showed up and started breaking everything. What resulted was 40,000 people trying to burn the city down.

Living Family Heritage and Me Ancestry
I have known since its inception that Ancestry is not a reliable source for tracing family lineage, so you can imagine my frustration when people still use it and say they found out they are X, Y, and Z. Even despite several investigative news reports coming to the surface, Ancestry and services like it continue to grow in popularity and rewrite peoples' history. To address this, they always fall back on their "limited scientific capabilities," but it should be noted that most of them only analyze a fraction of each DNA sample and don't share their data with anyone, which makes it by definition unscientific.

CBC: Twins - 5 DNA ancestry kits, all different results

CBC Twins YouTube Video

Tufts University: Pulling Back the Curtain on DNA Ancestry Tests

Simpsons Already Did It

The Great Fire of London, 1666


Ben Johnson on Historic UK

Museum of London

London Fire Brigade

Barefoot Bandit

HistoryLink.org 2022 article on Colton Harris-Moore through 2019

Updated March 2024
Bill Liam East
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