1782 – George Washington orders the creation of the Badge of Military Merit to honor soldiers wounded in battle. It is later renamed to the more poetic Purple Heart.

1794 – The Whiskey Rebellion begins: farmers in the Monongahela Valley of Pennsylvania rebel against the federal tax on liquor and distilled drinks. Let’s see – YOU grow the grain. YOU process the grain. YOU turn the grain into something of greater value, making a profit with YOUR labor. And the government takes a chunk. No, just can’t understand why they got mad. Not at all. Taxation is theft.

1802 – Napoleon orders re-instatement of slavery on St Domingue (Haiti). Apparently all that “Enlightenment” crap only goes so far. At the end of the day, somebody still needs to cut the sugar cane.

1909 – US issues first Lincoln penny with ears of wheat on the reverse. In 1959 the new Lincoln penny is issued with the Lincoln Memorial on the back. In 2009, four designs for the reverse are issued commemorating the 200th anniversary of Lincoln’s birth, and in 2010, the shield reverse is the new design. In 1982, the Mint switched from a 95-5 copper/zinc alloy to a 97.5% zinc, copper-plated coin. The pre-’82 pennies are worth more than face value based on copper content. 182 pre-82 pennies yield a pound of copper. Copper spot price today is $6.60.

1930 – The last confirmed lynching of black people in the Northern United States occurs in Marion, Indiana; two men, Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith, are killed. Note the word ‘black’. Lynching was also very commonly applied to white people when a portion of the local population saw the legal system failing to provide justice. Wait for it…

1933 – The Kingdom of Iraq slaughters over 3,000 Assyrians in the village of Simele. This date is recognized as Martyrs Day or National Day of Mourning by the Assyrian community in memory of the Simele massacre. Just the Religion of Peace™ doing a little proselytizing.

1940 – Churchill recognizes De Gaulle’s French government in exile. It’s easy because they’re ALL in London. De Gaulle does some ALL of his best governing while behind the skirts of Britain and America in WW II, later behind NATO…

1942 – World War II: the Battle of Guadalcanal begins – United States Marines initiate the first American offensive of the war with landings on Guadalcanal and Tulagi in the Solomon Islands.

1947 – Thor Heyerdahl’s balsa wood raft the Kon-Tiki, smashes into the reef at Raroia in the Tuamotu Islands after a 101-day, 7000-km (4375-mile) journey across the Pacific Ocean in an attempt to prove that pre-historic peoples could have traveled from South America.

1955 – Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering, the precursor to Sony, begins selling its first transistor radios in Japan.

1960 – Côte d’Ivoire becomes independent from France. Like the slow child of an inner city crack-whore, they never stood much of a chance.

1963 – Jacqueline Kennedy becomes first US First Lady to give birth (Patrick Kennedy) since Mrs Cleveland. We’re not sure that ‘First Lady’ Michael Michelle Obama even had a female reproductive tract.

1964 – Vietnam War: the U.S. Congress passes the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution giving US President Lyndon B. Johnson broad war powers to deal with North Vietnamese attacks on American forces. The lyin’ dimmocrat ba*tard is going to show us how to manage a war.

1998 – Bombings at United States embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya kill approximately 212 people. Perpetrators are… guess the religion!

1806 – Francis II, the last Holy Roman Emperor, abdicates, ending the Holy Roman Empire. It was neither holy NOR Roman for most of its history.

1890 – At Auburn Prison in New York murderer William Kemmler becomes the first person to be executed by electric chair. Ride the lightning!

1914 – World War I: First Battle of the Atlantic – two days after the United Kingdom had declared war on Germany over the German invasion of Belgium, ten German U-boats leave their base in Helgoland to attack Royal Navy warships in the North Sea.

1944 – The Warsaw Uprising occurs on August 1. It is brutally suppressed and all able-bodied men in Kraków are detained afterwards to prevent a similar uprising, the Kraków Uprising, that was planned but never carried out. The Poles foolishly thought that the Russians would press forward to help them defeat the Germans. Wrong! The Russians happily watched the Germans save them the trouble of having to kill off a lot of Poles who might’ve been troublemakers after the country was ‘liberated’.

1945 – World War II: Hiroshima is devastated when an atomic bomb, “Little Boy“, is dropped by the United States B-29 Enola Gay. Around 70,000 people are killed instantly, and some tens of thousands died in subsequent years due to burns and radiation poisoning. This and the next bomb precipitate the Japanese surrender, saving millions of lives on both sides had we been forced to invade Japan. One of those lives saved was my dad, destined to run a landing craft in the scheduled invasion.

1960 – Cuban Revolution: in response to a United States embargo, Cuba nationalizes American and foreign-owned property in the nation. Once the management of these resources is transferred to the care of the Cuban people, the little island nation leaps into a new era of prosperity, becoming the Switzerland of the Caribbean. Right? Now, since Cuba shows the same amount of ‘progress’ as American inner cities under dimmocrat control, Obama ‘normalizes’ relations with Cuba. Trump de-normalizes them a bit, later. And then we had Biden…

1965 – US President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act of 1965 into law, extending the franchise to the illiterate, stupid, and lazy, (largely dimmocrat) thereby accelerating the demise of America.

1991 – Tim Berners-Lee releases files describing his idea for the World Wide Web. WWW debuts as a publicly available service on the Internet. He stole the idea from Al Gore.

2008 – A military junta led by Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz stages a coup d’état in Mauritania, overthrowing president Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi. Politics as usual in Africa.

1620 – The Mayflower departs from Southampton, England, carrying would-be settlers, on its first attempt to reach North America; it is forced to dock in Dartmouth when its companion ship, the Speedwell, springs a leak.

1735 – Freedom of the press: New York Weekly Journal writer John Peter Zenger is acquitted of seditious libel against the royal governor of New York, on the basis that what he published was true.

1816 – The British Admiralty dismisses Francis Ronalds’s new invention of the first working electric telegraph as “wholly unnecessary”, preferring to continue using the semaphore.

1858 – Cyrus West Field and others complete the first transatlantic telegraph cable after several unsuccessful attempts. It will operate for less than a month. Cable faults are a bitch!

1861 – American Civil War: In order to help pay for the war effort, the United States government levies the first income tax as part of the Revenue Act of 1861 (3% of all incomes over US $800; rescinded in 1872). You know they won’t forget this one…

1861 – The United States Army abolishes flogging.

1864 – American Civil War: the Battle of Mobile Bay begins – at Mobile Bay near Mobile, Alabama, Admiral David Farragut leads a Union flotilla through Confederate defenses and seals one of the last major Southern ports. “Damn the torpedoes! Four bells. Captain Drayton, go ahead! Jouett, full speed!”

1914 – In Cleveland, Ohio, the first electric traffic light is installed.

1944 – World War II: At least 1,104 Japanese POWs in Australia attempt to escape from a camp at Cowra, New South Wales; 545 temporarily succeed but are later either killed, commit suicide, or are recaptured. On the same date, Polish insurgents liberate a German labor camp in Warsaw, freeing 348 Jewish prisoners and Nazis begin a week-long massacre of anywhere between 40,000 and 100,000 civilians and prisoners of war in Wola, Poland.

1962 – Apartheid: Nelson Mandela is jailed. He would not be released until 1990. He is released later. Wakanda is sure to appear any day now.

1964 – Vietnam War: Operation Pierce Arrow – American aircraft from carriers USS Ticonderoga and USS Constellation bomb North Vietnam in retaliation for strikes that reportedly attacked U.S. destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin. Ten years later in 1974, after sacrificing 50,000 American lives through mismanagement of the war, Congress essentially strangles South Viet Nam by capping military aid at a billion dollars. Hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese and and a couple million Cambodians then died was we “Give peace a chance”.

1966 – A group of red guards at Experimental High in Beijing, including Deng Rong and Liu Pingping, daughters of Deng Xiaoping and Liu Shaoqi respectively, beat the deputy vice principal, Bian Zhongyun, to death with sticks after accusing her of counter-revolutionary revisionism, producing one of the first fatalities of the Cultural Revolution. Yeah, the first of a few million.

1972 – Moody Blues release “Nights in White Satin“:

1974 – Watergate scandal: President Richard Nixon, under orders of the US Supreme Court, releases the “Smoking Gun” tape, recorded on June 23, 1972, clearly revealing his actions in covering up and interfering investigations into the break-in. His political support vanishes completely. Current findings of “Trump-Russia collusion” make Nixon look like a petty thief in comparison, but the Left has formed solid ranks to hide it.

1981 – Ronald Reagan fires 11,359 striking air-traffic controllers who ignored his order for them to return to work. To say that this cheesed off the unions is to make the Mother of All Understatements, not that Big Labor has ever needed an excuse to hate a Republican.

2015 – The Environmental Protection Agency at Gold King Mine waste water spill releases 3 million gallons of heavy metal toxin tailings and waste water into the Animas River in Colorado. “We’re from the government and we’re here to help.”

70 AD – The destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem by the Romans.

1532 – Bretagne, the home of my ancestors, is annexed to the Kingdom of France. Its name derives from the fact that much of its population is descended from settlers from Great Britain, who fled that island in the wake of the Anglo-Saxon conquest of England between the fifth and seventh centuries.

1693 – Date traditionally ascribed to Dom Perignon’s invention of Champagne. Bubbly wine? Try your favorite white and a Sodastream.

1789 – In France members of the National Constituent Assembly take an oath to end feudalism and abandon their privileges. It’s not enough to appease the Left. Many of the members will lose their heads in the coming revolution. It is well to understand this history when you hear the Leftists today talking about ‘privilege’. You can’t apologize and appease your way out of the conversation.

1790 – A newly passed tariff act creates the Revenue Cutter Service(the forerunner of the United States Coast Guard).

1854 – The Hinomaru is established as the official flag to be flown from Japanese ships. When painted the flight deck of a Japanese aircraft carrier it is especially noted as a fine aiming point.

1873 – American Indian Wars: While protecting a railroad survey party in Montana, the United States 7th Cavalry, under Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer clashes for the first time with the Cheyenne and Lakota people near the Tongue River; only one man on each side is killed.

1914 – World War I: Germany invades Belgium, a country otherwise known by its other name – ‘Gateway to Paris’. In response, the United Kingdom declares war on Germany. The United States declares its neutrality.

1915 – World War I: The German 12th Army occupies Warsaw during the Gorlice–Tarnów Offensive and the Great Retreat of 1915. Twenty-four years later they get to do it again.

1917 – The mainstream media Pravda calls for killing all capitalists, priests & officers. And thirty million die. Pretty much like the Left today, right?

1944 – The Holocaust: a tip from a Dutch informer leads the Gestapo to a sealed-off area in an Amsterdam warehouse where they find Jewish diarist Anne Frank and her family. Real Nazis kill little girls. “See something, say something”

1964 – Gulf of Tonkin incident: U.S. destroyers USS Maddox and USS Turner Joy “mistakenly” report coming under attack in the Gulf of Tonkin. Dimmocrat president Lyndon “Lyin’ Mah Ass Off” B. Johnson uses this to leverage increases in a American participation in Viet Nam, because, you know, he and his whiz kids totally knew how to manage a war.

1977 – US President Jimmy Carter signs legislation creating the United States Department of Energy to reduce American dependence on foreign oil. It’s as effective as anything else he did. Now the Left wishes to replicate this success by taking over healthcare.

1983 – Jean-Baptiste Ouédraogo, president of the military government of Upper Volta, is ousted from power in a coup d’état led by Captain Thomas Sankara, leading to…

1984 – The Republic of Upper Volta changes its name to Burkina Faso. Its unofficial name remains ‘Yet Another African Sh*thole’.

1991 – The Greek cruise ship MTS Oceanos sinks off the Wild Coast of South Africa. The actions of the captain and crew are studied and adopted by Italian cruise lines, as evidenced by the captain of the Costa Concordia.

2020 – Beirut Port explosion: At least 220 people are killed and over 5,000 are wounded when 2,700 tons of ammonium nitrate explodes in Beirut, Lebanon.

1031 – Olaf II of Norway is canonized as Saint Olaf by Grimketel, the English Bishop of Selsey probably because he DIDN’T invade England do a little raping and pillaging while there.

1492 – Christopher Columbus sets sail from Palos de la Frontera, Spain. Just think of how all those tax dollars wasted on “exploration” could have been better used to help the poor and the children.

1678 – Robert LaSalle builds the Le Griffon, the first known ship built on the Great Lakes. Rafts, pirogues, and canoes don’t count.

1829 – Gioacchino Rossini’s “William Tell” premieres in Paris. The overture to this work is one of those pieces of classical music forever embedded in the American psyche:

1900 – Firestone Tire & Rubber Company founded. I worked for Firestone 1980-1981.

1914 – World War I: Germany declares war against France, celebrates by invading Belgium for an appetizer. Parisian restaurateurs start printing new menus in German. You know, just in case. Or from habit.

1934 – Adolf Hitler becomes the supreme leader of Germany by joining the offices of President and Chancellor into Führer. But he speaks so well!

1958 – The nuclear submarine USS Nautilus travels beneath the Arctic ice cap on its way to the North Pole.

1960 – Niger gains independence from France. They’re in the news today, having trouble with that whole ‘democracy’ thing.

1977 – Tandy Corporation announces the TRS-80, commonly referred to as the ‘Trash-80?, one of the world’s first mass-produced personal computers. It’s wildly successful, which is why Tandy sits at the top of the computer heap these days.

2005 – President of Mauritania Maaouya Ould Sid’Ahmed Taya is overthrown in a military coup while attending the funeral of King Fahd in Saudi Arabia. Just Africa being Africa.

2018 – Two burka-clad men kill 29 people and injure more than 80 in a suicide attack on a Shia mosque in eastern Afghanistan. Just a doctrinal dispute among members of the Religion of Peace™.

216 BC – Second Punic War: Battle of Cannae – The Carthaginian army lead by Hannibal defeats a numerically superior Roman army under command of consuls Lucius Aemilius Paullus and Gaius Terentius Varro. It’s one of the classics of military butt-kicking, along with Waterloo and Little Bighorn.

1492 – The Jews are expelled from Spain: 40,000–200,000 leave. Sultan Bayezid II of the Ottoman Empire, learning of this, dispatches the Ottoman Navy to bring the Jews safely to Ottoman lands, mainly to the cities of Thessaloniki (in modern-day Greece) and Izmir (in modern-day Turkey).

1830 – Charles X of France abdicates the throne in favor of his grandson Henri. Wait one stinkin’ minute! Didn’t France have that whole revolution thing so they wouldn’t have to deal with kings and thrones and succession? Smooth move there, Gaston!

1934 – Gleichschaltung: Adolf Hitler becomes Führer of Germany. Ya’ll don’t need to get all worried, though. It’s just politics. A lot of talking. I mean, like, they can’t really DO any of that stuff, yaknow…

1939 – Albert Einstein and Leó Szilárd write a letter to Franklin D. Roosevelt, urging him to begin the Manhattan Project to develop a nuclear weapon. Yeah, that’s the “pacifist” Einstein recommending that we prepare to nuke the bastards.

1943 – Rebellion in the Nazi death camp of Treblinka. Fight and die. Or just die…

1943 – World War II: PT-109 rammed by the Japanese destroyer Amagiri and sinks. Lt. John F. Kennedy, future U.S. President, saves all but two of his crew.

1945 – World War II: End of the Potsdam Conference. Having endured six years of German occupation, Eastern Europe now looks at forty-five years under the loving care of the communists and the Soviet Union, which is NO improvement.

1964 – Vietnam War: Gulf of Tonkin Incident – North Vietnamese gunboats allegedly fires on U.S. destroyers, USS Maddox and the USS Turner Joy. Lyndon B. “Steal an election” Johnson uses this as an excuse to throw us solidly into Viet Nam so he and his “whiz kids” can show America how to manage a war.

1967 – New Orleans Saints play their first pre-season game. They lose to LA Rams 16-77, immediately blackmail the Louisiana legislature for a few million dollars or they’ll move out of New Orleans.

1998 – The Second Congo War begins although “The First Congo War” never really ended. Having thrown off the yokes of the white European oppressors, Africa has a bit of difficulty getting that ‘new era of freedom and democracy’ thing off the ground. Wakanda is just over the horizon, you know…

2018 – Apple Inc. became the first U.S. company to be valued at over $1 trillion.