February 10

1258 - Huegu (Hulega Khan), Mongol leader and grandson of Genghis Khan, seized Baghdad following a four day assault. Mongol invaders from Central Asia took over Baghdad and ended the Abbasid-Seljuk Empire. Some 200,000-800,000 people were killed and looting lasted 17 days.

1. There’s a huge difference between 200,000 and 800,000 people.

2. Even the democidal butchers of the 20th Century (Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, etc) would be envious of that many executions in a 17-day span...Especially considering they pulled it off without modern methods of killing.

3. The Abbasid's were the last of the Arab rulers in the Middle east until the end of WWII.

1763 - The Treaty of Paris ended the French-Indian War.  France ceded Canada, and all its territories in North America east of the Mississippi River to England.

Too bad the Brits didn’t kick all the Frenchies out of Canada when they took it over.

1933 - Adolph Hitler proclaimed the end of Marxism.

In a twist of fate, it was the Marxist-Leninist-Stalinists who put the final dagger in Hitlerism.

1942 - The first World War II Medal of Honor was awarded posthumously to 2nd Lt. Alexander Ramsey for his heroism at the Battle of Bataan.

Ramsey is just one of the hundreds of thousands of heroes from WWII...It’s hard to imagine what the world would have been like without them, but it's possible the Nazi and Japanese Empires might still be haunting the world.

2005 - North Korea announced for the first time it has nuclear arms and rejected moves to restart disarmament talks anytime soon, saying it needs the weapons as protection against an increasingly hostile United States.

Thanks for announcing what every one's known for years, Dr. Ill.