April 12 (A Double)

1861 - The American Civil War began when Confederate forces fired on Fort Sumter, South Carolina.

Lincoln would have loved to have crushed the Confederates in the month of April, but he didn’t have the forces (much of the U.S. Army was from the South and remained with the Confederacy), nor did he have adequate leadership...This was the reality of the time, which resulted in a four year war instead of a short one.

1945 - President Franklin Delano Roosevelt died of a cerebral hemorrhage, and was succeeded by Vice President Harry S Truman.

As far as the war effort went this was a positive for the U.S., even though the Germans and Japanese saw it as a possible ray of hope for themselves...They couldn't understand the U.S. isn't defined by its leader, and thought the war might have turned in their favor, which was wishful and stupid thinking.

FDR’s health was horrible, and he should never have run for a fourth term - nor a third to be honest. Luckily he chose Truman as his V.P., a man with the testicular fortitude to do what was necessary to end the war, including pulling the trigger on the 'Atom Bombs.'

1204 - The Fourth Crusaders captured Constantinople and mercilessly sacked it.

Most don’t understand this event, because they weren't properly taught history...Which is why you must come here every day.

At the time, Constantinople was the capital of the Byzantine Empire, a Christian city, not an Islamic city - it is Istanbul, Turkey, today.

Why did the Crusaders sack it? Pure greed and blood lust. There was no logical, logistical, tactical or strategic reason. They simply did it because they could - and it was an opportunity to take a few shots at the Orthodox Patriarch and Byzantine Emperor.

1782 - The Battle of Saints: The British Navy won its only naval engagement against the Colonists in the American Revolution, off the coast of Dominica.

The war was all but over, but the Brits figured they might as well give the Americans a going away present.

1864 - The Fort Pillow Massacre: General Nathan Bedford Forrest's men slaughtered black Union troops:  U.S. Civil War.

General Forrest was one of the most brilliant Civil War commanders, and one of the most bizarre - he's also one of my favorite to study...He was a slave trader, an untrained soldier who entered the war as a volunteer, the most feared commander by the Union, and the most hated by his own Confederate leaders.

He was also the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.

All that said, the Fort Pillow Massacre has as many versions to the story as there were participants in the event, and I’d advise you to read up on NBF and the battle.

1935 - Germany prohibited the publishing of 'non-Aryan' writers.

Why these clowns decided on the term 'Aryan' instead of Germanic or Nordic is beyond me.

Aryan = An English word derived from the Vedic Sanskrit and Avestan term arya, meaning 'noble' or 'lord.' In the 19th century, the term was often used to refer to what we now call the Proto-Indo-Europeans. More accurately, and more modernly, Aryan refers to the Indo-Iranian language sub-family, or to its Indian sub-branch known as Indo-Aryan (Iranian).

I highly doubt this was Hitler's aim...But no one ever accused the Nazi’s of historical accuracy.

1944 - The U.S. Twentieth Air Force was activated to begin the strategic bombing of Japan:  WWII.

By this time Japan was pretty much neutered, having few planes or ships to protect herself from the American onslaught...Japan could have surrendered, which would have ended it's suffering.

Instead they refused to capitulate, and forced the U.S. to destroy it...Never forget, they brought their suffering on themselves by attacking Pearl Harbor and refusing to give up.

1955 - Dr. Jonas Salk's polio vaccine was termed "safe, effective and potent" by the University of Michigan Polio Vaccine Evaluation Center.

How many millions of people owe their life, or at least their quality of life, to the genius of Dr. Salk? The number is uncountable, which is why he should be acknowledged as one of the century's great men.