Infinite Wisdom

"Where Rommel is, there is the front."

La Triviata

• Shortly before the Islamist terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, the Armed Forces had approximately 1,800 dogs on active duty, a figure that by mid-2011 has risen to about 2,700.
• The first use of "artillery" on the battlefield, as opposed to during sieges, seems to have occurred in 353 B.C., during the Greek "Third Sacred War," when the Phocian commander Onomarchus deployed catapults to deliver converging fire from his flanks during the ambush of a Macedonian army under the great King Philip II, who was forced to retire in some disorder.
• Hammocks, of Caribbean origin, a feature of maritime life in Spanish and Portuguese ships from the end of the fifteenth century, were not introduced into English service until 1597, when a Royal Warrant was issued authorizing the Royal Navy to procure canvas for their manufacture.
• French casualties in World War I – whether killed, wounded, or missing – averaged 37,000 for each of the 51 months of the war, though for August and September of 1914 casualties actually averaged 164,000 a month.
• When he became interim-president of Mexico, in 1858, Benito Juarez, arguably about the 50^th head-of-state since independence in 1821 (counting repeat appearances by putschists such as Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna), was the first chief executive of the country who had not been a soldier.
• As a young man in 1842, Friedrich Engels, later co-author with Karl Marx of The Communist Manifesto, served as an Einjährig-Freiwilliger -- one year volunteer officer cadet -- in the Prussian Guards Artillery, garrisoned in Berlin, earning a commission as a reserve lieutenant.
• In 1940, amidst great secrecy, the Bank of England shipped about 2,000 tons of gold to Canada, to preserve it from falling into enemy hands should the Germans succeed in invading Britain.
• James Madison's original proposal for what would become the Second Amendment, read "The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed and well regulated militia being the best security of a free country; but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms, shall be compelled to render military service in person."

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