Infinite Wisdom

"What is the difference between an incompetent naval officer and a great naval officer? -- about ten seconds."

La Triviata

• When the liner Franconia arrived at Liverpool in November, 1943, carrying more than 8,000 veterans of the British Eighth Army, most of whom had been in North Africa since at least 1940, so many men rushed to the rail in order to get their first glimpse of "Blighty" in years that the ship took on a pronounced list and her skipper refused to dock until they had distributed themselves more equitably.
• In the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1891), shooting clubs became popular in France, to help prepare everyone for a rematch, so that by 1891 there were over 900, some of which had more than a thousand members, such as that associated with the 120^th Infantry Regiment, at Montpelier, in the south.
• At the height of World War II, 60 percent of American women over the age of 30 were in the workforce, 75-percent of whom were married. 
• In 62 BC, the Tribunes of the People Lucius Marius and Marcus Porcius Cato “the Younger” introduced a law against “exaggerated claims of victory,” some Roman generals, among them Pompey the Great, having become addicted to inflating their successes, and even disguising defeats as victories.
• On August 11, 1942, the U.S. Patent Office issued Patent No. 2,292,387 to German immigrants Hedy Lamarr, the noted actress, and George Antheil, an avant garde composer, for their “Secret Communications System,” actually a frequency-hopping spread-spectrum electro-mechanical device that used a kind-of piano roll to change between 88 frequencies, making radio-guided torpedoes harder to detect or jam, a concept that underlies the technology used today in Wi-Fi and some wireless telephone systems.
• In 1828 it required four weeks of bureaucratic infighting before Portuguese customs officials agreed that a battalion of British volunteers for the liberal Dom Pedro in his civil war for the throne against the reactionary Dom Miguel did not have to pay a 15 percent import fee on their uniforms.
• Realizing that the rise of Nazi Germany threatened Swiss security, in 1936 the government proposed to raise SFr 235 million through bond sales, only to end up with nearly SFr 335 million.
• The 63 minute British documentary Desert Victory - The Battle of Alamein ,released in the Spring of 1943, and actually filmed during the fighting and subsequent pursuit of the Axis forces, cost the lives of four of the crew, and seven others were wounded.

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