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The year was 1490. The location, Qingyang, China. It was a spring evening in this central Chinese city when something strange began to occur in the sky above. For one, there was a recently discovered comet that was coming into view: Comet C-1490 Y1. But this comet pales in comparison to the really strange event that was about to occur. The Meteor Shower That Killed 10,000 People | 19:18 Swegle Studios | 459K subscribers | 709,238 views | July 8, 2025

Retired Navy Capt. E. Royce Williams has been keeping a secret for more than 50 years. To his friends, family, and others he served with, Williams was known as a decorated fighter pilot, who led a successful career in the Navy, where he served for more than 30 years and flew more than 220 missions in Korea and Vietnam. However, even his wife wasn’t aware of what he’d done on Nov. 18, 1952. That morning, Williams was continuing what had become a daily routine for him as a young Navy pilot stationed onboard the USS Oriskany off the coast of...

A heroic battle, the longest dogfight in the history of US Naval aviation, was forgotten, buried among the closest held secrets of the cold war, for over sixty years.

The world of totalitarian dictators is getting a bit of a shake-up this week, as something that has been intensely speculated upon in the South Korean government and media has come to pass at least on some level: North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un has reportedly designated his teenage daughter as his official heir, indicating that she would be groomed to continue his family line and dictatorship. That said, it’s difficult to say how much media manipulation and spycraft is involved here–there are many in the South Korean government, media and public who believe that one of Kim Jong Un’s...

North Korea is executing schoolchildren for watching South Korean TV shows and listening to K-Pop, including Netflix’s hit series “Squid Game,” according to Amnesty International. Escapees told the human rights group that teenagers and even middle school students have been publicly executed, sent to labor camps or subjected to brutal public humiliations for consuming foreign media banned by the regime. The accounts are based on 25 in-depth interviews conducted in 2025 with North Koreans who fled the country between 2012 and 2020, the organization said. Most were between ages 15 and 25 when they escaped. One interviewee said people, including...

Korean War hero Royce Williams is being awarded the Medal of Honor, and his actions are something not even Hollywood could have dreamed up. Congressman Darrell Issa announced on Wednesday that President Donald Trump officially informed Williams of his MoH. The Medal of Honor is the nation's highest military award. It is only awarded for actions so heroic that oftentimes, the person earning it is killed. Williams is still with us in 2026, and his once-secret actions are now out in the public. Buckle up for one of the most insane war stories you'll ever hear.

The host city for World Youth Day 2027 will be Seoul, South Korea. The fact that an American Pope will be presiding and that Korean culture generally is pretty popular in the US means that interest in attending should be pretty high among Americans. I suspect that some of my own kids may find their way over there for the event. This being the case, what better time for American Catholics to find out about the vibrant past and hopeful future of the Church in Korea? Seoul is a particularly appropriate site for WYD 2027 considering that Catholicism had its...

This post is the first in a series drawn from a new book entitled Martyrs of Blood, Martyrs of Sweat: The Letters of Saint Andrew Kim Dae-geon and Venerable Father Thomas Choe Yang-eop, as translated and edited by Brothers Anthony and Han-yol of the Community of Taizé, published by Arx Publishing. This engrossing work contains all of the extant correspondence of these first two native Korean Catholic priests. Andrew Kim would go on to be martyred and later canonized a saint. Thomas Choe perished of exhaustion and sickness after ministering in his native land for over a decade. During their...

SEOUL, Jan 14 (Yonhap)-A special counsel team has requested the death penalty for former President Yoon Suk Yeol over his failed imposition of martial law, describing him as the ringleader of an insurrection who sought to stay in power by seizing control of the judiciary and legislature. Special Counsel Cho Eun-suk's team made the request during the final hearing of Yoon's trial at the Seoul Central District Court on Tuesday, just over a year after the then president declared martial law on Dec. 3, 2024, with the stated aim of eradicating anti-state forces. The court plans to hand down its...

SEOUL, Jan 12 (Reuters) - South Korean authorities have launched an investigation focused on the possibility civilians may have flown drones that North Korea said violated its ‌airspace, the Defence Ministry said on Monday. President Lee Jae Myung has vowed a swift ‌probe and said on Saturday if civilians had indeed operated the unmanned aircraft, it would be a "serious crime" that threatened South Korea's security and peace on the Korean peninsula. South Korea is ⁠willing to jointly conduct ‌the investigation with North Korea but has not made the proposal, a defence ministry spokesperson said ‍citing Minister Ahn Gyu-back. North...

Hyun-bo Son, a Korean pastor known for his outspoken stance on biblical teachings, remains jailed on election law charges. His case gained fresh international attention recently after his son, Chance Son, spoke in Arizona at Turning Point USA's AMFEST, sharing his father's story with thousands of attendees… Support from Americans is also growing. That includes the late Charlie Kirk, who met Pastor Son in Seoul at a conference during Kirk's final international appearance. Son said, "My father was able to share what's happening in Korea, especially to the Christian leaders, including himself. And also the possibility that my father could...

More than 4,000 elementary, middle and high schools across Korea have shut their doors as the country’s student population shrinks, new data shows. According to the Ministry of Education’s latest figures, revealed on Sunday by Rep. Jin Sun-mee of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea, since 1980, 4,008 schools under 17 regional education offices nationwide have closed as of March this year. During the period, the number of enrolled students decreased from 9.9 million to 5.07 million. Elementary schools account for the majority of closures, with 3,674 shut down permanently, compared with 264 middle schools and 70 high schools. Over...

SIXTY-EIGHT years ago tomorrow, Japan attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor. In the brutal Pacific war that would follow, millions of soldiers and civilians were killed. My father — one of the famous flag raisers on Iwo Jima — was among the young men who went off to the Pacific to fight for his country. So the war naturally fascinated me. But I always wondered, why did we fight in the Pacific? Yes, there was Pearl Harbor, but why did the Japanese attack us in the first place? ... The one who had the greater effect on Japan’s...

For more than seven decades, the family behind electronics giant Samsung amassed one of Asia’s largest private art collections....The Lee Kun-hee collection, which was started by its namesake’s father, Samsung founder Lee Byung-chul, is unprecedented in its scope and scale. Almost all the 23,000 donated items went to the National Museum of Korea and the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art...."Korean Treasures: Collected, Cherished, Shared” is showing at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art in Washington, DC through February 1, 2026.

At Mass this morning, our good priest reflected in his homily on thankfulness, as is proper on this Thanksgiving Day here in the US. He specifically called out how we Americans can tend to obsess over our First World problems which can cause us to forget to give thanks for the blessings we have. He gave a general example of the millions upon millions of people on earth who wonder how they will feed their children anything at all each day. Meanwhile, we get upset if the baked potatoes get a little burnt, or if the pasta sauce is watery....

South Korea’s ousted conservative President Yoon Suk Yeol faces more criminal charges on Monday as prosecutors allege that he flew drones over North Korea in a deliberate bid to stoke tensions and justify his plans to declare martial law. Yoon set off the most serious political crisis in South Korea’s recent history when he imposed martial law on Dec. 3, 2024 and sent troops to surround the National Assembly. He was later impeached and removed from office, and is in jail standing trial on charges including masterminding a rebellion. His successor and liberal rival, President Lee Jae Myung, approved legislation...

On September 24, 2025, a South Korean court confirmed Pastor Son Hyun-bo’s detention, rejecting his appeal for review. To most Western readers, this name may mean little. But in Korea, Son is no fringe figure. He leads Segero Church in Busan, one of the country’s largest congregations, baptizing over 1,000 new believers annually. His arrest marks a chilling escalation in what many now call a war on religious liberty. Son’s story reads like a Korean epic. In 1993, he took over Noksan Jeil, a dying Presbyterian church in Busan with twenty members. He renamed it “Segero”—“To the World”—and built it...

Since Beijing announced a new visa to attract young science and technology graduates, a backlash has erupted online, forcing the government to respond.When the Chinese government announced a new visa to attract young science and technology talent, it advertised the move as another step toward becoming the leading scientific power, one to which people from around the globe would flock.To many in China, it was a gross mistake.In the days before and since Oct. 1, when the visa was supposed to come into effect, commenters have accused the government of inviting foreigners to steal jobs from Chinese people, at a...

The Department of Defense has ordered a review of all labs following revelations that the number of labs that received live anthrax samples is larger than first reported."As of now, 24 laboratories in 11 states and two foreign countries are believed to have received suspect samples. We continue to work closely with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), who is leading the ongoing investigation pursuit to its statutory authorities. The Department will continue to monitor the situation and provide updates to the public," Defense Department said in a statement.The Defense Department had previously reported labs in nine states...

If there's any recording worth keeping of Charlie, or sharing with the likes of those who don't know what he stood for, it's this one. It's no accident that God had this speech be one of the final marks he left on earth.