January 30

1933 - Adolph Hitler was named German Chancellor.

German President Hindenburg, the Army, and others thought they could control and marginalize Hitler by putting him in this post.

"I will employ my strength for the welfare of the German people, protect the Constitution and laws of the German people, conscientiously discharge the duties imposed on me, and conduct my affairs of office impartially and with justice to everyone." - A. Hitler

That worked out well.

Hindenburg died in 1934, Hitler was hardly marginalized - let alone controlled - and the Nazi regime was about to 'make history.'

1648 - The Peace of Munster.

The Netherlands finally achieved independence from Spain...Over a hundred years before the American colonies broke from Britain.

1661 - Oliver Cromwell was ritually executed.

I love this kind of stuff.  So, what did English King Charles II do?  Two years after Cromwell had been dead, he was dug up, hanged, drawn and quartered, then his body was thrown in a pit and his head displayed on a pole outside Westminster Abby.

Such is the fate of those who overthrow their leaders and don't figure out a way to keep their own on the throne.

1717 - Surrounded by the Russian Army, the Lithuanian-Polish Parliament reduced its army by half and acknowledged Russian protection.

'Acknowledged Russian protection?' Very nice.

The Ruskies had them surrounded...And soon conspired with Germany and Austria to eliminate both nations.

1781 - The Articles of Confederation went into effect as the official government of the United States of America.

I hope you know there was a U.S. government between the period of American independence and the Constitution...If you didn't, you need to return to this blog much more regularly.

1835 - A gunman fired twice at President Andrew Jackson, the first attempt on the life of a U.S. President. Jackson wasn't injured.

The first, but not the last...I’m not hoping for Trump, or any future president, to take a shot (not by any means), but we are very overdue for another.

1862 - The U.S. Navy's first ironclad warship, the Monitor, was launched:  U.S. Civil War.

It’s nearly miraculous this 'can with a turret' didn’t sink immediately...The upcoming battle between the two ironclads (Monitor vs. Merrimack) proved to be a joke, but the era of wooden ships was about to come to an end with the introduction of these two ships.

1937 - Thirteen leading Communists were sentenced to death for allegedly participating in a plot, led by Leon Trotsky, to overthrow the Soviet regime and assassinate its leaders.

Was it true or not? Probably, probably not...Either way it was a good excuse for Uncle Joe to pull out the execution squads, and he didn't limit his retaliation to thirteen.

1939 - Adolf Hitler called for the extermination of European Jews:  WWII.

WhoooHooo!!!! Happy Extermination Day...Sick bastard.

1948 - Indian political and spiritual leader Mahatma Gandhi was murdered by a Hindu extremist.

A sad day for the world...Gandhi was a Socialist, but he was a good man, and a great Indian.

1953 - President Eisenhower announced he would pull the Seventh Fleet out of Formosa to permit the Nationalists to attack Communist China.

What a joke...The Nationalists would have been slaughtered en mass, as our troops found out in North Korea.

Nice bluff, Ike. Don’t make threats you don’t aim to keep.

1968 - The Tet Offensive began: North Vietnamese forces launched surprise attacks against South Vietnamese provincial capitals.

The war was a mess before, but this event caused LBJ to flinch (almost a full Turret’s twitch)...The U.S. eventually won the battle, as it did every other, but never regained its footing politically.

And never forget why we lost the war: Both parties (and many presidents) failed our country, but the Democrats (who controlled the presidency and Congress for most of it) were too weak to win the war, and the Republicans were given an unwinnable situation by the time Nixon became president.

1979 - The civilian government of Iran announced it decided to allow Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who'd been living in exile in France, to return.

Khomeini's return was one of the biggest mistakes of the Carter Presidency...Which says a lot.

It was expected Khomeini would fire up a revolution, but Carter didn’t have the stomach to have him assassinated...We know the rest of the story in Iran, but most overlook the overall effect this had on the Middle East, where various forms of Islamic fundamentalism are trying to take hold throughout the region.

2003 - President G.W. Bush put America's allies on notice that diplomacy would give way to a decision on war with Iraq in "weeks, not months."

THANK GOD Jimmy Carter wasn’t president after 9/11/01...Or Clinton, or Gore, or Kerry, or Obama, etc, etc, etc.……

January 23 (A Triple)

1368 - Emperor Hongwu established the Ming Dynasty in China.

This event ended Mongol rule in China, re-establishing Chinese rule by Chinese. It also set China on a path towards what some historians have called "one of the greatest eras of orderly government and social stability in human history."

1556 - The deadliest earthquake on record killed 830,000 in Shensi, China.

830,000 dead in one earthquake!  That is truly awesome - in a horrible way...How horrible?  It is more deaths than the U.S. lost in WWI, WWII, the Korean War, Vietnam War, and the various Persian Gulf/Wars on Terror combined.

1922 - The first successful test on a human patient with diabetes occurred when insulin was administered to dangerously ill Leonard Thompson.

Thankfully this happened in the 1920’s instead of today, and an unknown amount of human-beings have been able to live normal and decent lives as a result.

If it happened today, the manufacturer would have to jump though hoops to get it to the patients in need:

1. Pass exceedingly difficult FDA requirements. Including the normal process of testing, lobbying and payoffs.

2. Who knows if patients would even be able to get the new drug, because the cost would be astronomical - covering the cost of discovery, production, liability, testing, profit, and the cost to American taxpayers subsidizing it for the rest of the world.

3. A few patients would surely have negative reactions to the medicine, and the legal battles would cause the drug to be pulled from the market, even though its benefits to millions far outweigh the negative affects to a few.

Sadly, this is the reality of new medications in the U.S...Even more sad, it's not much of a stretch to believe there are many life-saving medications currently sitting on shelves waiting for their chance to help people while bureaucrats decide if they can be put on the market and for manufacturers to decide if it is profitable enough to put on the market.

638 - The first day of the Islamic calendar.

Congratulations.

1516 - Ferdinand II of Aragon died and was succeeded as King of Spain by his grandson Charles V.

The Habsburg lines were united (Holy Roman Empire/Austria and Spain/New World), and the rest of Europe let out a collective moan.

It had been over 700-years since one European ruler held such a vast amount of territory (Charlemagne), and the other powers could not allow this...As a result Charles had very few, if any, years of peace during his reign.

1668 - The Triple Alliance was founded:  Britain, the Netherlands and Sweden.

This was a defensive alliance against France, and was absolutely necessary with the 'Sun King' looking outwards towards new lands to dominate.

1793 - The Second Partition of Poland:  Prussia and Russia divided Lithuania and Poland.

I can’t think of any nation as geographically unlucky as Poland, sandwiched between the Russian and German beasts.

1812 - A 7.8 earthquake struck New Madrid, Missouri.

The New Madrid Fault Line is a monster, and the center of the U.S. is captive to it's reawakening...A reawakening which, if history proves correct, will likely make this 7.8 look small.

1948 - The Soviets refused U.N. entry into North Korea to administer elections.

From the very beginning the U.N. was a corrupt ‘Paper Tiger’ with no teeth...This should have been the day the U.S. withdrew from the Circle-Jerk Group.

1989 - The U.S. Supreme Court invalidated a Richmond, Virginia program requiring 30% of the city’s public works funds be set aside for 'minority-owned' construction firms.

What kind of ‘Reverse Racism' plan was this? I don’t know for certain, but I’d be willing to bet 30% of the city’s construction firms aren't owned by minorities, yet they thought they should get 30% of the contracts?

I’d also be willing to bet this had more to do with lining the pockets of a few minority owned companies (fraud), than to being a civil rights program.

1991 - Iraqi forces in Kuwait deliberately created a huge oil spill in the Persian Gulf.

This was a small act compared to what they later did, but Liberals would still prefer Saddam over President Bush...Even the EnviroNuts who 'supposedly' care about such things as oil spills.

2002 - John Walker Lindh, a U.S.-born Taliban fighter, was returned to the United States to face criminal charges that he conspired to kill fellow Americans.

What kind of message is sent that this POS wasn’t executed as a traitor?

2002 - The U.N. sent famine relief to Zimbabwe.

I’m sure ‘The Beast’ (President Mugabe) made sure all of this 'relief' went to the starving Zimbabwean people...Sure.

December 6

1865 - The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified, abolishing slavery.

It was overdue, and never would have happened without the Civil War...Never forget hundreds of thousands of white Americans died to keep the Union whole, and to bring about the freedom of their black brothers and sisters.

"Sometimes war is the only answer." - Dennis Prager

Keep this in mind every time you hear Liberals say otherwise.

1240 - Mongols under Batu Kahn occupied and destroyed Kiev, Russia.

FYI: The Mongols were also called Tartars and Tatars...If you’ve ever seen an old map or globe with much of Central Asia (including Russia) labeled as Tartary or Tartaria, this is why.

1812 - The majority of Napoleon Bonaparte's Grand Armeé staggered into Vilna, Lithuania, ending the failed Russian campaign.

What a disaster. After entering Russia with over 650,000 troops, the emperor returned to Paris with less than 10,000.

Like Hitler a century later, Napoleon took on much more than he could handle by invading Russia, and paid for it with the loss of his empire within three years.

1876 - The U.S. Electoral College picked Rutherford B. Hayes as president, although Tilden won the popular election. A questionable vote count in Florida ended and Hayes was ahead by 924 votes. The Democrat attorney general validated the Tilden electors.

Florida politics has always been interesting...Dirty and cheating politics isn't new, and isn't limited to any specific place, however.

1904 - Theodore Roosevelt confirmed the Monroe Doctrine with the pronouncement of the Roosevelt Corollary.

Teddy was the best. Here’s how he viewed American suzerainty over the Western Hemisphere:  Roosevelt proclaimed the United States, because it was a "civilized nation," had the right to stop "chronic wrongdoing" throughout the Western Hemisphere.

"Any country whose people conduct themselves well can count upon our hearty friendship. Chronic wrongdoing, however,...may force the United States to exercise an international police power."

1912 - China voted for universal human rights.

This is one of the funniest (and saddest) things I’ve ever read in my life...China is a long way from anything even close to acknowledging 'human rights.'

1917 - Former Czar Nicholas II and family were imprisoned by the Bolsheviks.

They weren't prisoners for long; instead they became dead...The Communists couldn't run the risk of a return of the Czar. Which is exactly what any good revolutionary would have done.

1924 - The U.S. Border Patrol was organized.

Any chance it can start patrolling? I don't blame the agents, I blame the politicians who've put restraints on the agents.

Again, can we please start patrolling the border?

1938 - France and Germany signed a treaty of friendship.

Hitler must have used all these treaties as toilet paper, and the French paid the price of appeasement and choosing bad 'friends' in less than a year.

1956 - Nelson Mandela and 156 others were jailed in South Africa on political charges.

South African apartheid was brutal and wrong, but it is mythology for anyone to see Mandela as anything other than an African Communist...Not a Stalinist or Maoist, but in the Marxist Utopian mold.

1991 - Senator Ted Kennedy, testifying at the trial of his nephew, William Kennedy Smith, denied hearing screams on the night Patricia Bowman said she was raped by Smith at the Kennedy estate in West Palm Beach, Florida.

That fat, drunk, bastard didn’t hear Mary Joe Kopeckne’s screams either, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t happen...So much for this ‘murderer’ being a legitimate witness.

2006 - Somalian Sheik Hussein Barre Rage, an Islamic courts official in Bulo Burto, said residents who do not pray five times a day will be beheaded.

Religion of peace? Or, religion of pieces?

November 21

1783 - Jean Francois Pilatre de Rozier and the Marquis Francois Laurant d'Arlandes made the first flight in a balloon, thus becoming the first men to fly. The pair flew nearly six miles around Paris in 25 minutes reaching an altitude of around 300 feet.

I hate giving the French credit for anything, but they were the first to get a human being off this great big ball we call Earth...An accomplishment which led to much bigger ones.

1806 - The Decree of Berlin: Emperor Napoleon banned all Continental trade with England.

Unfortunately for Napoleon, the Brits were in the process of blocking every European harbor with its superior navy, as well as attacking French merchants in the open seas...Thereby limiting Continental European trade to the continent itself anyway.

That said, neither blockade was very effective and did more to hurt non-combatants than those actually at war.

1938 - Nazi forces occupied western Czechoslovakia (the Sudetenland) and declared its people German citizens:  WWII.

This was the last good chance the Brits and French had to stop the Nazis, and end WWII before it began...Predictably, they chose to 'appease,' just as they had when the Germans reclaimed the Ruhr and overtook Austria, and instead prayed for "peace in our time." The result of such foolishness was tragic.

Less than a year after this ‘last chance’ the Germans attacked all of Europe with the greatest military power ever seen up to that time.

1981 - 400,000 Dutch demonstrated for peace in Amsterdam.

What 'peace' were they demonstrating for? They were demonstrating against President Reagan’s verbal and political assault on the Soviet Union.

If these joker’s had their way the U.S.S.R. would still be in full bloom.

We'll see how peaceful they remain when their country is taken over by Muslims...And exactly how will the Muslims take over?  The Dutch aren't having children, the Muslims are.

1999 - President Clinton called on prosperous nations to spread global wealth by helping poor countries with Internet hookups, cell phones, debt relief and small loans.

I think he must have 'inhaled' before making this statement...Only a Liberal could come up with such foolishness as Internet hookups for starving people without electricity.

The poor need food and clean water more than anything, not 'toys'...Maybe he's planning on them eating them, but I’d think it would be hard on the gut.

Along with basic necessities, they also need decent leaders who will allow them to live freely...Which is the longest of long shots.

2000 - President Clinton agreed not to punish China for exporting missile components to Iran and Pakistan after China promised to end future technological cooperation with countries seeking to develop missile weaponry.

I know it is hard to believe, but the Chinese didn’t keep their promise, and along with Russia, have been a large factor in the evolving nuclear crisis in Iran...Not that our so-called friends in Europe haven't had a hand in the matter, either.

2002 - The Baltic nations of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania joined former Communist states Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia as the next wave of NATO states.

Great!  Lets stomp around in the Ruskie's back yard when they are down...I'm sure this will turn out just fine.

The question these countries should be asking: 'is the U.S. as loyal an ally as they are to the U.S.?'...That question must be very scary.

2003 - The U.S. Air Force conducted a second test of the 'Mother of All Bombs,' officially the Massive Ordnance Air Blast.

Here’s hoping the MOAB is currently being fitted for use with bunker-busting technology, because it may need to be used on Iran’s nuclear facilities...Either that or low-grade nukes.

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.

July 1

1863 - The Battle of Gettysburg began (ended July 3):  U.S. Civil War.

General Lee won Day 1, but the battle got away from him in the next few...Gettysburg should be noted as one of the turning-points of the war - along with Vicksburg and New Orleans.

69 - Vespasian was proclaimed Roman Emperor.

Titus Flavius Vespasianus was the victor after a civil war, and reestablished peace in the Empire...He also founded the Flavian Line of Emperors.

1569 - The Union of Lublin: United Poland and Lithuania.

Unfortunately for both, the Russians, Prussians and Austrians weren’t much for respecting other nation’s sovereignty, and swallowed both up in due time.

1595 - An English fleet sacked Cadiz, Spain.

During this time the English made many raids on the Spanish fleet, and Cadiz was one of their favorite locations...There were many others, including the various Spanish ports in the New World.

It's important to understand, these 'naval' attacks were really nothing more than seafaring brigands, acting more like pirates than 'sailors.'

1898 - Theodore Roosevelt and his 'Rough Riders' waged a victorious assault on San Juan Hill in Cuba:  Spanish-American War.

I love Teddy Roosevelt, and he was a great man long before San Juan Hill, but it was this battle and his 'heroics' which gave him the final accomplishment he needed to be chosen as President McKinley's vice president...Funny thing is much of his legend in this battle is just that, and by modern standards he hardly warranted a Medal of Honor.

Thankfully, Teddy was every bit as good a president as his 'legend' as a soldier.

1991 - President GHW Bush nominated federal appeals court judge Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court, beginning a confirmation process marked by allegations of sexual harassment.

Nice excuse for the Democrats to begin a full-scale attack on an honorable black man...Can you imagine if the Republicans ever did this to a Democrat nominee?

May 3

425 - Pope Gelasius asserted his spiritual power was superior to the temporal power of the Roman Emperor.

At the time, this declaration was looked at as a joke by most...History has told a different story, however, because it was the Pope (Leo) who kicked Attila the Hun out of Italy (who knows why Attila really left?), and the Church which soon ruled Europe - not the Emperor, which proved Gelasius' proclamation to be true.

Looking back it was inevitable, even though at the time it was inconceivable, the Roman Empire would fall in less than a hundred years...It was equally inconceivable, though much less inevitable, the Church would become the main power broker in Europe for the next thousand years.

1791 - The Constitution of May 3:  A liberal bill of rights reforming gentry-ruled Poland-Lithuania, setting up a constitutional monarchy, was signed by King Stanislaw Augustus. It was only the second written constitution in the world - after the United States.

This sounds like a grand plan, but the reality was Poland-Lithuania were bit players in the Russo/German/Austrian playground, and within four years ceased to exist as a sovereign nation.

1944 - U.S. wartime rationing of most grades of meat ended.

Can you imagine if current-day Americans had to give up anything for a wartime effort? The ACLU and other Liberal Jackals would be howling like never before.

Well, maybe.  It is equally likely they'd start pushing the EnvironMentalist insanity of pure vegetarianism...At which point some new whacko's would emerge demanding equality between plants and animals - forcing us to eat dirt.

At which point some new whacko's would...

1971 - National Public Radio began programming.

There are thousands of free radio stations across America, so why do we need a taxpayer funded radio station? And why is it such a Liberal joke?

NPR should be on the chopping block of every National Budget...People who want Liberal radio can dial up Air America.  HAHAHAHA!

1979 - Margaret Thatcher and the Conservative Party won the British general election, making her the first woman prime minister of a major European nation.

The Iron Lady was a great leader, and paired with Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II as a major force behind the destruction of the USSR...She is one of the three most important women in the 20th Century.

1983 - After two years of debate, U.S. Roman Catholic bishops overwhelmingly approved a pastoral letter condemning the first use of nuclear weapons and virtually ruled out their use for retaliation.

Good for them...America is the most Christian nation on Earth, but is in no way bound to the edicts of any church.

This is not a 'separation of Church and State' issue...It is a separation of U.S. sovereignty and everything else issue.

When it comes to National Defense the rest of the world can 'sit & spin.'

1989 - PLO leader Yasser Arafat ended a two-day visit to France and stated the PLO charter calling for the destruction of Israel had been "superseded" by a declaration urging peaceful coexistence of the Jewish state and a Palestinian state.

It may seem like it, but Yasser wasn’t speaking out of both sides of his mouth on this matter...He was speaking out of his ass.

1992 - An international conference in Geneva ended 30-months of arduous negotiations over whether to ban land mines with a weak compromise treaty giving countries nine years to switch to detectable, self-destructive devices.

Another case of a nice idea in theory having absolutely no basis in reality.

As long as humans are on the planet they will be at war with one another, and no one will be able to stop them from finding newer, more effective means of killing each other...Also, how were these jackasses going to enforce such a marvelous idea?

"WITH SPITBALLS?" - Zell Miller

2000 - Executive Order #13,153 was issued by President Bill Clinton, authorizing the Education Department to reward low performing schools by sending them more money and other resources.

Why 'reward' poor performance? And how horrible for President Bush to insist on higher standards for schools to receive such 'rewards. Just horrible.

We are raising a generation of morons. A process begun by the 60's idiots, and there is no end in sight. In fact, it's only getting worse.

2001 - The United States, a member of the U.N. Human Rights Commission since its inception, was ousted from its seat. It was restored the following year.

The U.S. was out, but China and Cuba were in...Reason #3,721 the U.S. should 'oust' itself from the Circle Jerk Group completely and permanently.