October 14

1066 – The Battle of Hastings.

In one of the most important battles in history, William, Duke of Normandy led his invading army to victory over England's King Harold.

Prior to William's conquest, England was a loosely-held-together country faced with constant invasion and warfare...Amazingly, this invasion was the last successful invasion of England

Although it wasn't apparent at the time, the Norman conquest was a blessing for England, and it wasn't long until she was on par with the great powers of Continental Europe - later surpassing them, as one of the grandest empires in world history.

1322 - Robert the Bruce, King of Scotland, defeated King Edward II of England at Byland, forcing Edward to accept Scottish independence.

I’ll take any chance to push my proud progeny from the ‘Clan Bruce.’

1806 – The Battles of Jena and Auerstedt.

These were independent battles, fought between the forces of Napoleon and Frederick William III, of Prussia.

Jena was one of Napoleon's finest battles, but nowhere near as impressive as the French victory at Auerstedt...But Napoleon wrote the history of the battles, and made sure to play up his role.

The battles are earmarked together, because they were fought in close proximity, by the divided forces of Napoleon and Frederick's main armies.

Napoleon personally led the French at Jena and crushed the Prussians...At Auerstedt, Napoleons generals did likewise, to the Emperor's surprise, because the main Prussian force was at Auerstedt.

1832 - The Chickasaw Indians ceded their lands east of the Mississippi River to the United States. This cession avoided a pitched war between the two cultures, which the Chickasaw didn't have the manpower, technology, nor the military skill to win.

In the minds of the Chickasaw the whole world was their territory, and their whole world came to an end...Lucky for them, they gave up without a fight, or their belief would have become reality.

1933 - Nazi Germany announced it was withdrawing from the League of Nations and would take no further part in the Geneva Disarmament Conference.

This is one of the many promises Hitler kept.

He kept most of those he made before 1933, and broke most of the ones he made after...I hope you understand this reference. If not, you need to come by this blog much more often.

1944 - German Field Marshal Rommel, suspected of complicity in the July 20th plot against Hitler, was visited at home by two of Hitler's staff and given the choice of public trial or suicide by poison. He chose suicide and it was announced that he died of wounds:  WWII.

Rommel wasn't a major player in the plot, but he did have knowledge of it...And welcomed it.

Hitler knew it would be a propaganda nightmare to kill Rommel, so he gave him an offer:

1. Kill himself, and die with full military honors.

2. Be killed, along with his whole family, as a traitor of the German Reich.

He made the honorable choice.

1964 - Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was named winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.

The Nobel crowd has given many bizarre Prizes, but this one was very well earned and deserved.

1992 - Russia's worst serial killer, Andrei Chikatilo, was convicted of mutilating and killing 52 women and children. He was executed in 1994.

Andrei killed 52 Russian and was rightfully executed...Stalin killed millions of Russians and had statues built and songs sung in his honor.

Such is human history.

1994 - The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to PLO leader Yasser Arafat, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres.

The 'Hitler in a Head-Dress' was given a Peace Prize??? (See the first part of the 1964 comment.)

By this logic, the Nobel Clowns should have given Stalin a prize for keeping peace in the Ukraine.

Or give Obama one for doing nothing...Or give John Kerry one for working out a deal to give the Iranians a nuke.

1999 - President Bill Clinton accused Senate Republicans of recklessness and irresponsibility for defeating the nuclear test ban treaty, and pledged the United States would refrain from testing despite the treaty's rejection.

Hey Bill, if we don’t stay ahead of the ‘weapon’s curve,’ we will fall behind it..And pay dearly for such stupidity.

Reason #46,209 why we can't trust Democrats to protect our country.

August 28

1963 - 200,000 people participated in a peaceful civil rights rally in Washington D.C., where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his 'I Have a Dream' speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial.

16-minutes of pure American brilliance.

Like many great American leaders, Dr. King was no saint, but he was a great American.

His means, methods and quest were everything America should hope to be, and maybe will become...Too bad so many of his contemporaries and successors were/are nowhere near up to the challenge of polishing off his message, and instead have chosen to bastardize it.

I hope you can find 16-minutes to listen to his speech...I HAVE A DREAM .

388 - Magnus Maximus, usurping Roman Emperor, was executed by Theodosius.

Ho hum. Another coup attempt in the Empire...Which was slowly falling apart by this time.

430 - St. Augustine of Hippo died.

St. Augustine was one of the greatest of the Latin 'Fathers of the Church,' and his book, 'City of God' was the foundation for what became the Catholic Church of the Middle Ages, which not only dominated Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire, but also kept the continent from reverting to barbarism - well, as much as possible.

1565 - The oldest city in the U.S., St. Augustine, Fla., was established.

Interesting, the birth of this city is on the date of the death of the great saint.

1938 - The Mauthausen Concentration Camp opened in Austria.

This camp was nowhere near the scale of Auschwitz, but Mauthausen was a monster - the site of over 120,000 exterminated Jews at the hands of the ‘master race.' 

1990 - Iraq declared Kuwait the 19th province of Iraq, renaming Kuwait City Kadhima and creating a new district named after Saddam Hussein.

Saddam liked to think of himself as a modern-day Babylonian conqueror (like Sargon the Great) and ‘conquering’ Kuwait was the first of his goals.

He should have known the U.S. would never allow him to move toward the Saudis, though...We may have allowed him to play with Iran or Syria, but Kuwait and Saudi Arabia were out of the question.

April 4

1968 - Civil rights leader Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis.

The Reverend wasn’t a perfect man, but he was the perfect Civil Rights leader. His message of peaceful disobedience and cultural assimilation is the only one which would have worked, and had the movement been led by any other type of leader it would have failed...Sadly this has become evident by the clowns who have succeeded MLK and bastardized his efforts.

527 - Justinian I was crowned Byzantine Emperor.

Justinian was one of the greatest ‘Roman’ emperors, and his rule marks the complete demarcation between the ancient Empire and the Byzantine Empire proper...That said, I hope you understand the Byzantine Empire was the Roman Empire.

1581 - Frances Drake completed his second circumnavigation of the world.

Drake was one of the 'astronauts' of his time...And an excellent pirate, too.

1818 - The U.S. Congress decided the Flag of the United States would consist of 13 red and white stripes and 20 stars, with a new star to be added for every new state of the Union.

”I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, One nation under God, indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all.”

1896 - Gold was discovered in the Yukon, Alaska.

’Seward’s Folly’ proved to be very profitable...And then came the discovery of oil in Alaska, which made it incredibly profitable.

The Ruskies have to be kicking themselves on this one.

1945 - Hungary was liberated from Nazi occupation:  WWII.

Always be mindful of the word 'liberated' when it comes to the Russian Theatre of WWII...I’m quite certain the Hungarians would doubt they were 'liberated' by their soon-to-be Soviet overlords.

1949 - Representatives of eleven nations gathered in Washington, D.C. to sign the North Atlantic Treaty, creating the NATO alliance.

NATO, a dubious alliance since its inception, had a purpose as an alliance against Soviet aggression...That said, the dissolution of the Soviet Union should have led to the dissolution of NATO. Especially if our European 'friends' refuse to play a much bigger role in the alliance - financially and in personnel.

1973 - The ribbon was cut to open the World Trade Center in New York City.

On 9/11/01 the WTC disappeared...Never Forget. Never Forgive!!

1988 - The Arizona Senate convicted Governor Evan Mecham on two charges of official misconduct and removed him from office. Mecham was the first U.S. governor to be impeached and removed from office in nearly six decades.

I was only 17, but was in Arizona during this time, and Mecham shouldn’t have been impeached...He was a jackass, and an embarrassment to the state, but he committed no criminal acts or impeachable offenses. And if we impeached every political jackass there would be many empty political offices.

1989 - Democrat Richard Daley was elected mayor of Chicago.

Compared to Mecham, Daley should have been an absolute impeachment possibility...There have been few bigger crooks in American politics. Well, I guess his father may have been a bigger crook.

1992 - Bill Clinton's campaign acknowledged Clinton received an induction notice in April 1969 while attending college in Oxford, England; Clinton said the notice arrived after he was due to report, and his local draft board told him he could complete the school term.Considering Bubba’s history of truth-telling (or lack of it), I’m sure you believe this claim.

HOW DID WE ELECT A DRAFT-DODGING COMMANDER-in-CHIEF??? I know some of you did!!!

1995 - Francisco Martin Duran, who raked the White House with semi-automatic rifle fire in October 1994, was convicted in Washington of trying to assassinate President Bill Clinton. Duran was later sentenced to 40-years in prison.

I just don’t get it: Why isn’t an attempt on the President a capital crime? Even an attempt on a POS president like Clinton should lead to the shooter’s death.

March 21

47 B.C. - Julius Caesar defeated Ptolemy XII, Cleopatra's brother and rival, at Alexandria, Egypt.

I hope you aren't misinformed enough to think Cleopatra was an Egyptian...Many don’t know any better, and others like to falsely push this ridiculous idea. But please don't fall prey to historical ignorance. Even though it's likely not your fault, because the Liberal American education system probably led you there.

Alexander the Great conquered Egypt in 332 B.C., and between the time of his death and Roman occupation Egypt was ruled by the Ptolemaic Dynasty, founded by Ptolemy (one of Alexander’s generals)...Therefore Cleopatra was a Macedonian/Greek, not an Egyptian by any means.

Oh, and the Egyptians of this time were over 600 years from becoming Muslim, as well.

630 - Heraclius recovered the 'True Cross' from the Persians.

The True Cross is the cross which Jesus was crucified on.

Heraclius was a Byzantine Emperor, and who knows if his claim of capturing the Cross is true or not...Either way it was a rallying cry against the Persians, as many other relics would be in the future against the Muslims.

1804 - The Code Napoleon (Code Civil des Françaises), drafted by Boulay de la Meurthe and others, went into force throughout France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and French colonies. The code combined Roman Law with some of the radical reforms brought by the French Revolution with respect to conditions affecting the individual, tenure of property, order of inheritance, mortgages, contracts, and the like.

In other words, it attempted to Americanize the French legal system - sort of...The American colonies had such systems long before this time.

1965 - More than 3,000 civil rights demonstrators led by Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. began their march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. More than 25,000 people joined in the march by the time the marchers reached Montgomery, Alabama.

This was one of the high points of the Civil Rights Era, and an event which continued Dr. King's 'march' towards becoming one of the most important Americans in history...It's too bad his brand of civil rights activism was exterminated with his death, because it was replaced by a much less productive version - one which focused on differences and hate more than similarities and love.