July 15

1830 - The Sioux, Sac and Fox Indians ceded all their lands east of the Mississippi to the U.S. The terms being that the lands ceded were not opened to white settlement, expressly stipulating "The lands ceded and relinquished by this treaty are to be assigned and allotted under the direction of the President of the United States to the tribes living thereon, or to such other tribes as the President may locate thereon for hunting and other purposes."

There's no doubt the treaty was never intended to be followed, but truth be told the Indians were either going to give up their lands without a fight or be exterminated through conquest...Seems to me they made the better choice.

Such is the history of the world. We don’t cry for the Celts, Scythians, Hittites, etc., and we shouldn’t for the American Indians either - who by the way, did the same to each other before the white man arrived in the Americas...Those who do cry for them, however, need not worry because someday our people will be treated to the same fate.

1099 - The Muslim citizens of Jerusalem surrendered to the armies of the First Crusade. The Crusaders then proceeded to massacre thousands of unarmed men, women and children.

The Medieval Christian world was definitely semi-barbaric, and the Crusaders' actions in the Holy Land were anything but holy.

It's important to remember, the 11th Century Muslim world was more civilized than the Christians of their time...They were also more civilized than their 21st Century Muslim descendants.

The tables of time have been completely turned upside-down, and the West has lapped the Muslim world in almost every aspect of civilization...The great civilization of the Muslim world has went backwards in time and is often closer to that of the 8th Century than the 11th, and surely nowhere near modern-21st Century Western civilization.

1205 - Pope Innocent III issued a doctrine which doomed all Jews to perpetual servitude and subjugation because of the crucifixion of Jesus.

Another sign of Medieval Christianity's failings...And sadly, an excuse for Europe to increase its anti-Semitism, which has never waned.

1410 - The Battle of Tannenberg: Poles and Lithuanians defeated the Teutonic Knights.

The battle should really be called the Battle of Grunwald, but Tannenberg is much more well known.

It is one of the few times the Poles defeated the Germans, whose Knights were whipped and never fully recovered from the battle...Unfortunately for the Poles, a new German force emerged:  Brandenburg - which later became East Prussia, then Germany.

1834 - The Spanish Inquisition ended.

The Inquisition was founded in 1478 as a tool to forcefully convert Spanish Muslims and Jews to Christianity, and was also used to eliminate homosexuals...Over time it became little more than a state-run operation to control the Spanish people, and killed between 50,000-150,000 in its 350+ year history.

1918 - The Second Battle of the Marne began:  World War I.

The Marne is one of the last great battles of WWI, and nothing more than another tactical stalemate, even though on a strategic level it was won by the Allies...Over 280,000 casualties were had between the two, and the Germans were stopped from invading Flanders.

1937 - Buchenwald Concentration Camp opened.

Buchenwald was one of the most notorious Nazi camps, and home to the 'Bitch of Buchenwald' (Karl Otto Koch), one of the cruelest of the Nazis...Which is saying a lot.

Buchenwald wasn’t technically an extermination camp, but plenty of Jews met their end here, through starvation, exhaustion, torture, and as part of the vast Nazi science project...Particularly as subjects in the testing of treatments and vaccination against typhus disease.

1945 - Italy declared war on its former Axis partner, Japan:  WWII.

Ho hum! Another flip-flop for the Italians.

1979 - President Carter delivered his famous 'malaise speech' in which he lamented what he called a "crisis of confidence" in America.

After half a term of Jimmy Carter as president there is no surprise the American people were suffering such a “crisis.”

There have been very few American presidents who were more useless, and no 20th Century president allowed the world around him to turn on America’s fortunes as much as the ‘Peanut Farmer’...Unfortunately, we repeated the Carter years under President Obama.

1999 - China declared it invented its own neutron bomb.

The U.S. used to have this great weapon (and still may), but its production was officially ended by Jimmy Carter...Then restarted by Reagan, then ended by Bush the Elder.

Since the end of WWII, the U.S. has been ahead of the weapons curve, but we’ve dropped the ball on this one, and hopefully never have to face the prospect of this mistake at the hands of the Chinese or other forces.

Here's hoping we're secretly producing them.