April 24

1877 - Russia declared war on the Ottoman Empire.

The Russian's had been sparring with the Ottomans since the time of Peter the Great, and by this time the Turks were a shell of their former greatness.

Russia put together a coalition of Christian nations in the Balkans against their longtime nemesis in the region, and when the war ended in 1878 and much of the region established at least a portion of freedom from Ottoman rule...The real winner, however, was Russia - who gained much territory in the Caucasus and firmly solidified itself as the hegemon of the Slav/Orthodox Christian world.

The Turks lost big, but were able to hold onto a semblance of their empire for another 40-years...It would be a brutal 40-years.

1184 B.C. (traditional date) - The Greeks entered Troy using the Trojan Horse.

Trickery has always been involved in military maneuvers, and the Greeks were masters...Partially because they were brighter than most of their opponents, but also because they were almost always out-manned by their opponents and had to use deception and technology to overcome numbers.

1558 - Mary Queen of Scots, aged 16, married the Dauphin of France, the future Francis II.

This was going to be a problem. Scotland was a Protestant nation, and Mary was Catholic. Marrying a Frenchman was bad enough, but the fact he was also a Catholic was too much for the Scots to bear...And then she had to deal with her English friends to the south.

Needless to say, Mary’s reign was rocky and ended messy, with her execution at the order of another strong woman - Queen Elizabeth I.

1877 - Federal troops moved out of New Orleans, ending the North's military occupation of the South following the Civil War.

The war ended in 1865, and the occupation ended in 1877...Keep this in mind:  Winning wars is often easier than winning the peace.  And sometimes keeping a war footing is necessary to enforce peace.  The Romans couldn't enforce the Pax Romana without their Legions, and the U.S. can't continue the Pax Americana without its various forces, either

1915 - Armenian Martyr's Day:  The Turkish massacre of Armenians began.

Like most of the minority population in the Ottoman Empire - which was actually the majority but had no power - the Armenians were brutalized by the Turks...That said, this event saw the murder of an estimated 600,000-1.5 million Armenians, and should be noted along with the other barbaric tragedies of the 20th Century.

1961 - President John Kennedy accepted "sole responsibility" for the Bay of Pigs.

He was ultimately responsible for it...And should have immediately begun making new plans for a full-scale invasion of Cuba.

There is no excuse for a having a communist nation 100 miles off of American shores. Every U.S. president since this time has failed on this issue, and every American should be disgusted with this fact.

1980 - The United States launched an abortive attempt to free the American hostages in Iran, a mission which resulted in the deaths of eight U.S. servicemen.

Jimmy Carter was (is) a joke, and he sent these eight troops to their death with no hope of success...It's fair to say this was Carter's 'Bay of Pigs,' and it failed as miserably as his hero's plan.

You either use the military or you don’t, and when you choose to do so you must do it completely with full force...The hostages should have been saved and the Ayatollah should have been assassinated.

But this is what you get when you vote for Liberals/Democrats as Commander-in-Chief.