Infinite Wisdom

"In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable."

La Triviata

• Margarine was invented in 1869 by Hippolyte Mega-Mouris, who won a substantial prize from Napoleon III for developing a convenient butter substitute that did not require refrigeration, for use by the French Navy.
• Although there were some 5,000 British cavalrymen at Waterloo, the number of aristocrats among them was surprisingly low; one peer and two knights in their own right, plus 31 sons of peers, baronets, and knights, as well as three foreign noblemen, an Italian prince, a Hanoverian baron, and the son of a German countess.
• William J. Donovan, who commanded the 165^th Infantry – the “Fighting 69^th” – in World War I and headed the O.S.S. in the Second World War, is the only American to have received the nation's four highest awards, The Medal of Honor, the Distinguished Service Cross, the Distinguished Service Medal, and the National Security Medal.
• In the century following the Protestant victory at the Battle of the Boyne (July 1, 1690, O.S.), an estimated half-million Catholic Irishmen fled their native land for military service in France or Spain.
• Of those commanders of the 63 regiments of volunteers who served during the Mexican War (1846-1848) who are known to have had political ties, 16 were Whigs and 36 Democrats, President James K. Polk tending to favor his own party when making appointments; the other eleven regiments were commanded by Regular Army officers who expressed no political affiliation.
• During World War I, the U.S. Navy’s Cruiser and Transport Force carried 46 percent of the more than two million American troops who deployed to Europe, with another 48 percent being carried in British vessels
• During the reign of Louis XIV of France, the 16 heavy cavalry companies of the Gendarmerie, recruited exclusively from noblemen, each required a separate line of march, which must have proven quite annoying to generals planning campaigns.
• An estimated 28,000 defensive installations – coastal batteries, strong points, blockhouses, anti-aircraft sites, radar sites, and so forth – were built in Britain during the Second World War.

More...