Infinite Wisdom

"Death took you in your prime,
      dying, you brought dark grief to your mother Pheidia.
But the poem on this stone above you sings
      of how you died doing battle for your beloved fatherland."

La Triviata

• Between 1815 and 1860, the total tonnage of ships in the Royal Navy was consistently greater than the combined tonnage of both Russia and France.
• Although early in 1942 senior Allied political and military leaders feared a Japanese invasion of Australia, the Imperial Army General Staff had concluded such an undertaking would require 12 divisions and 1.5 million tons of shipping, which could not be secured without impeding the overall war effort.
• Although it would become the premiere naval power of Greece for most of the following century, Athens did not introduce pay for naval service (as opposed to unpaid militia duty) until 480 BC, just in time for the Battle of Salamis, and some 40 years after nearby Eretria had done so.
• During World War II, F. Van Wyck Mason (1901-1978), the highly successful author of numerous mysteries, historical romances, and popular histories (Proud New Flags, etc.) served as Chief Historian on Dwight D. Eisenhower’s staff, and received several citations for bravery while covering the fighting.
• The Roman soldier and scholar Gaius Plinius Secundus – a.k.a. Pliny the Elder (A.D. 23-79) reported that he decided to write his now lost history of the German campaigns of Nero Claudius Drusus (38-9 BC) after the general’s ghost appeared to him in a dream; a spiritual visitation that occurred, perhaps not coincidentally, during the reign of the late commander’s son, the Emperor Claudius (r. A.D. 41-54).
• The first Russian plan to invade India from Central Asia was developed in 1801 when, inspired by a suggestion from French First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte, the rather dim Tsar Paul (r. 1796-1801) ordered a Cossack expedition of 30,000 men to be organized; after causing some concern in London, the operation was cancelled when Paul was assassinated and succeeded by his son Alexander I (r.1801-1825).
• While on a cruise in the South Pacific during the late nineteenth century, an officer on American warship died, and, as was the custom, his belongings were inventoried by three fellow officers, including the future Admiral Robert Coontz, who found among the man’s possessions “Pictures of 187 unknown females.”
• Although World War I broke out in August of 1914, planning for the 1916 Olympics, to be held in Berlin, continued on the theory that the conflict would be a short one, and the games were not actually cancelled until March of 1915.

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