January 11

532 - The Nika Revolt: A general revolt against Byzantine emperor Justinian.

This event wasn't a revolution - it was a massive riot. One of the largest in history...It almost destroyed Justinian, which would have likely brought on a much quicker downfall of the Byzantine Empire - which was nothing less than a continuation of the Roman Empire in the East.

Luckily, Justinian's wife, Theodora, helped him 'keep his head' and gave him the inner strength to put down the riot...Not only did Justinian survive the riot, ending up the greatest Byzantine emperor, but he rebuilt Constantinople which helped strengthen the empire enough to last another 1000 years.

1879 - The Zulu War began:  South African colonials vs. Britain.

Shaka was dead, but he trained his people well...Unfortunately for the Zulus, the Brits were also trained, and had modern weapons.

1922 - Insulin was first used to treat diabetes. Leonard Thompson, from Canada, was the first patient.

Diabetes is a horrible disease, and it's hard to imagine what it would be like without the genius of such medicines.

1923 - France and Belgium occupied the Ruhr as a way to collect reparations from Germany.

I hope they collected plenty because the Ruhr was quickly reclaimed by Germany when Hitler took power, and the Germans soon returned to France and Belgium...Payback-for-payback is a bitch.

1929 - In the Soviet Union, the Bolsheviks officially reduced the workday to seven hours.

Hahahahaha!!! Those silly communists had such a way with words.

I bet if you asked any person who lived in the Soviet system how long their workday was they’d say much longer than seven hours a day...Maybe they meant seven before lunch and seven after lunch.

Oops.  I forgot, lunch was a myth, too.

1943 - The Soviet Red Army encircled Stalingrad:  WWII.

Hitler's army was enveloped, and his insistence on capturing Stalingrad was about to end in disaster...German Field Marshall von Paulus surrendered shortly after this, and the Soviet rout was on.

1944 - President Franklin D. Roosevelt, in his 'State of the Union,' proposed a National Service Act and a new set of rights, including: a right to a job, a right of decent income to farmers, a right to a decent home, a right to medical care, etc.

Sounds like FDR was proposing the U.S. become Utopia. Unfortunately, for Liberals, America is a place situated in 'REALITY,' and is based on 'LIBERTY,' not 'EQUALITY.'

We have the freedom (Liberty) to make our lot in life. We are not owed anything except opportunity, and Equality isn’t an attainable goal, or even a goal worth wanting, because the only way to make everyone Equal is to make everyone 'MISERABLE.'

Incredibly, President Obama attempted to revive FDR's silly program...Which led to the electoral disasters of 2010-2016 for Democrats - ultimately giving rise to the presidency of Donald Trump.

1989 - 140 nations agreed to ban chemical weapons.

How many have kept this agreement?  Did the U.S. keep it?

2000 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled state employees cannot go into federal court to sue over age bias.

This sounds like a simple ‘states rights’ issue, but some cried because they’d rather have their 'Uncle' (Sam) control everything...Most notably the federal courts, and their Liberal agenda.

2002 - The first al-Qaeda prisoners arrived at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

I'm so glad President Obama is using his last days in office freeing these poor prisoners...I'm sure we'll be much safer for such actions.

January 9

1905 – 'Bloody Sunday': The name given the day the Russians in St. Petersburg started their long struggle against the Tsarist regime, beginning the Russian Revolution of 1905.

Do not confuse this with the ‘Communist Revolution' in 1917...This was an attempt by the people to force the Czar to give them representation, which he eventually did with the establishment of the Duma/Parliament. Not that it did much for the people.

What it did do, however, was give the people a taste of revolt...It also gave some of the future communist leaders of the 1917 Revolution a little practice in rabble-rousing - particularly Leon Trotsky.

1861 - The first hostile act of the U.S. Civil War occurred when the Confederate 'Star of the West' fired on Fort Sumter.

Understand this action was not part of the Battle of Fort Sumter, but it was an inevitable beginning to the most destructive war in American History...It's also important to keep in mind this war had to be fought, because sometimes war is the only answer.

1945 - American troops invaded the Philippine island of Luzon and went on to liberate Manila:  WWII.

MacArthur “returned”...I love the guy, but the fact MacArthur staged and filmed his wading ashore is more than a little wacky. But he did what he promised, and eventually liberated the Philippines.

Unfortunately, by this time recovering the Philippines was probably unnecessary and delayed the endgame of destroying the Japanese Empire.

1945 - Major Raymond Cromley, head of the top secret 'Dixie Mission,' sent a cable to U.S. military headquarters in Chunking which said Mao Tse-tung would like to send a group to President Roosevelt to explain the situation in China. Ambassador Patrick J. Hurley, who opposed the meeting, intercepted the message and failed to pass it to Roosevelt:  WWII.

Who knows how this would have affected post-WWII China, but it is a strange event, and a case of treason in my opinion by Ambassador Hurley.

1951 - The United Nations headquarters officially opened in New York City.

Ugh!! Why did we have to put the 'Circle Jerk Group' on American soil? Amsterdam, Paris, or even Damascus would have been a much more logical site.

1991 - Major League Baseball banned Pete Rose from being in the Hall of Fame.

For gambling on baseball, Pete was 'banned for life', and he should be banned from the Hall 'for life', as well...Which means Rose should be inducted as soon as he dies.

2000 - The controversial 'Sensation' art exhibit ended its three-month run at the Brooklyn Museum, which had gotten into a fight with New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani over what the mayor called the exhibits offensive anti-Catholic content.

Here’s a quote about the content of the show: “Chris Ofili's work titled 'The Holy Virgin Mary;' it is this work - a depiction of a black Madonna adorned with elephant dung and sexually-explicit photos.”

Very nice.

This kind of "dung" is protected by the First Amendment in Liberalville. Which is also the same insane asylum where saying the 'Pledge of Allegiance' is considered a violation of the mythical ‘separation of church and state’ clause.

By the way, has anyone found that part of the Constitution yet?

2002 - Lawyers advised the Pentagon the Geneva Conventions do not apply to the Taliban or al Qaeda and the president has the authority to suspend the Geneva Conventions.

I want to get sick every time I hear about the 'Geneva Conventions'...The only fools who follow them is the U.S.

"War is Hell," and should only be entered into if it is going to be fought as a battle to get out of Hell...Playing by 'rules of nicety' is ridiculous. Heaven knows our enemies don't worry about such idiocy.

January 8

1926 - Abdul-Aziz ibn Saud established the Kingdom of Hejaz - later renamed Saudi Arabia.

A country was created out of the desert wasteland...What a cruel irony their only valuable resource is the most important resource on Earth:  Oil.

And the world’s most irresponsible and lunatic people happen to control a large portion of the world's share of it.

1815 - The Battle of New Orleans:  War of 1812.  U.S. forces, led by General Andrew Jackson defeated the British in the last battle of the war.

The war ‘officially’ ended on December 24, 1814, but news of the peace treaty hadn’t reached the South yet...That's a good story, but not reality.

The truth is the Brits were hoping for a victory in New Orleans to use as a way of restarting the war, or at the very least to use as a bargaining tool against the U.S. in peace negotiations.

Instead the Brits got whooped, and it was beautiful for Jackson to slap the Brits around to the tune of 2,044 British casualties to only 71 for the U.S. troops...It was the last time the Brits returned to the U.S. with bad intentions.

1871 - Prussian troops began bombarding Paris:  Franco-Prussian War.

This became a reoccurring theme for the next 70-years between the Germans and French...Amazingly, they are friends now, but sooner or later the French will be Germany’s whipping-boy again.

1918 - President Wilson outlined his 'Fourteen Points for Peace':  World War I.

It all sounded nice, his idealistic plan for a world forever free from conflict, but the reality was (and always will be) the world isn’t a pretty place...The League of Nations was created out of Wilson’s Utopian pipe-dream, but the U.S. didn’t even join it, and WWII was less than 25-years away.

1954 - President Dwight Eisenhower proposed stripping convicted communists of their U.S. citizenship.

This was a move which would have been completely against the First Amendment, and never made it past the Supreme Court...He could have done more to destroy communism in America had he done more to destroy it internationally.

1964 - President Lyndon Johnson declared a 'War on Poverty.'

In order to crush poverty he increased welfare, which increased the 'political indentured servitude' of America’s poor and minorities by tying them to the Democrat Party...All along knowing these people would never be able to pull themselves out of their poor state as long as the Democrat Party was around to 'help keep them down.'

I have to admit it has been the greatest political strategy in American history, even though it's also been one of the most destructive social experiments in that same history.

1997 - The state of Arkansas put three men to death in the second triple execution since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976.

Gotta love a ‘triple’...It's good anytime a criminal scumbag is removed from this world. It's even better when three go at a time.

1998 - 'Unabomber' suspect Theodore Kaczynski tried to commit suicide just hours before stunning a packed courtroom by saying he wanted to be his own lawyer and argue he was sane. He appeared in court with a red mark on his neck and missing his undershorts, leading police to conclude he attempted to kill himself in his cell at the Sacramento County Jail. He was placed under security surveillance.

On the next day, they should have tossed a rope in his cell...Instead the state of California will be paying to incarcerate this piece of garbage for the rest of his life. What a sad joke.

1998:  World Trade Center bomber Rahmzi Ahmed Yousef was sentenced to life in prison.

Six people died and over a thousand were injured, yet this terrorist was given a life sentence instead of being executed.  Like Kaczynski, this case is a sad joke.

2002 – The 'No Child Left Behind Act,' was signed into law by President Bush.

Another case of 'Bad if (R) and Good if (D)'...Also, don't forget, this was a 'bi-partisan' bill, co-authored by two Republicans and two Democrats (one being Ted Kennedy).

The media and the Left love to snipe at this act, but if the same bill had been passed under Bill Clinton or Obama they’d be saying it is a great law.

2002 - The Bush administration sent a secret report to Congress, the 'Nuclear Posture Review,' which said the Pentagon needed to be prepared to use nuclear weapons against seven nations: China, Russia, Iraq, North Korea, Syria, Iran, and Libya.

The press and Congressional Democrats went nuts over this report...But it's a matter of National Defense, which should have been done long before this date.

The president’s first priority is protecting the nation. Neglecting to acknowledge our enemies, and finding ways to destroy them, would be a complete dereliction of duty...Something Democrats have become expert at.