February 18

1405 - Emir al Kebir Timur 'i-Leng' (Tamerlane) died while leading an expedition to China.

How can one person be known by so many names? Timur - also known as Temur, Taimur, Timur Lenk, Timur i Leng, Tamerlane, Tamburlaine, or Taimur-e-Lang, which translates to Timur the Lame.

No matter what he was called, this Turko-Mongol was a fantastic leader, and one of the few to go down in history with 'the Great' after his name - a well earned title.

1536 - France and the Ottoman Empire signed a trade and military alliance against the Holy Roman Empire.

It's important to remember the Ottomans held large chunks of Eastern Europe and were major players in the European power structure...It's also important to remember the French have always been willing to take on any allies - even Muslims who wanted to crush Christian Europe.

1546 - Martin Luther, German Augustinian Friar and leader of the Protestant Reformation, died.

Luther is one of the twenty most important people in history...Anyone could have taken on the Church, but very few could have survived its attacks, and almost none could have won.

1861 – Jefferson Davis was inaugurated the Confederacy’s provisional president at a ceremony held in Montgomery, Ala...“All we ask is to be left alone,” Davis stated.

Thankfully President Lincoln was at the helm...If a man of lesser qualities had been president, the America we know today would be a much different place.

1932 - Japan declared Manchurian independence from China.

How nice of the Japanese...In reality, Japan placed a puppet in charge of Manchuria and held it for themselves, but the headline is nice.

1962 - Robert F. Kennedy said U.S. troops would stay in Vietnam until Communism was defeated.

Or until peaceniks flooded his party and forced the defeat of our proud military.

I have no doubt the war would have went differently if JFK hadn’t been assassinated...If nothing else, a reasonably Conservative leader would have been Commander-in-Chief, instead of LBJ.

1979 - Snow fell in the Sahara Desert.

Global Cooling at its finest.

1985 - General William C. Westmoreland and CBS reached an out-of-court settlement in Westmoreland's $120 million libel suit from a CBS News documentary, 'The Uncounted Enemy: A Vietnam Deception.'

You’d think CBS would have learned, but they obviously haven’t and continue to put out 'hate-the-military propaganda.'

1998 - President Bill Clinton's foreign policy team encountered jeers during a town meeting at Ohio State University while trying to defend the administration's threat to bomb Iraq into compliance with U.N. weapons edicts. "One, two, three, four, we don't want your racist war," shouted some of the handful of hecklers at The Ohio State University in Columbus, catching Secretary of State Madeleine Albright off guard and drowning out what she was trying to say.

This puts a big challenge to the 'Bombs with (D) = Good, Bombs with (R) = Bad' theory.

That said, I’m sure Halfbright was 'caught off guard,' because she had no reason to think 'her people' would turn on her.