Infinite Wisdom

"Those that weren’t scared, weren’t there."

La Triviata

• During the Second World War, America’s school children contributed $2 billion to the war effort through savings stamp and bond drives, worth today between $25 and $45 billion, depending upon what index is used.
• Commissioned in 1895 and 1896, the Indiana Class battleships – Indiana (BB-1), Massachusetts (BB-2), and Oregon (BB-3) – were so badly designed that when both turrets were trained on the same broadside the ships listed about 5 degrees, which greatly reduced gunnery range.
• On July 14, 2006, four Revolutionary War flags -- the standard of the 2^nd Connecticut Light Dragoons and three colors of the 3^rd Virginia Line -- which had been in private hands in Britain since their capture in 1779 and 1780 by the notorious Banastre Tarleton, were sold by Sotheby’s for $17.4 million, not including the house’s cut.
• The ancient Balearians (from Mallorca and the adjacent islands), the finest slingers in the world for centuries, reportedly denied food to boys in training food until they could hit it with a sling bullet.
• Although, when the Japanese invaded Burma in January of 1941, the country had about 26,000 elephants between domesticated and wild ones, by the time a motley host of British, Indian, Colonial, American, and Chinese forces liberated the country in July of 1945, only about 2,500 were still living, the rest having perished in the fighting or from overwork, a death rate of over 90 percent.
• Although Christmas of 1941 was a grim time for the nation, everyone tried to carry on with traditional festivities for the sake of the children, and as in most other homes, the White House had a party at which gifts were distributed to the presidential children and grandchildren and various guests, among them Winston Churchill, though Franklin Roosevelt was himself so distracted he neglected to open his gifts, which were found in a closet some weeks later by a housekeeper.
• Between America’s entry into World War I in April of 1917 and the Armistice of November 11, 1918, although 75 percent of the nearly 240,000 men who attempted to enlist in the Marines were rejected, the Corps still grew from about 17,000 men to about 75,000.
• On July 18, 1948, Italian Communist leader and Stalinist stooge Palmiro Togliatti, was wounded in an assassination attempt, and later commemorated the incident by purchasing the pistol used for 600 lire (about $20.00 in today’s money). 

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