Infinite Wisdom

" . . . to be frightened is one thing, and to show fear is something different."

La Triviata

• Queen Ada of Caria – on the south coast of Turkey – ruled as a Persian vassal from 344 BC until ousted by court intrigue in 340, but when Alexander the Great captured the kingdom in 334, she adopted him as her heir, whereupon he chivalrously gave it back to her, enabling her to rule until her death in 326 BC.
• On night during the 1920s, Royal Tank Corps Private John H. Ross was reprimanded for returning late to barracks, but got off by explaining that his dining companions – among them Randall Davidson, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Winston Churchill – since he was actually T.E. Lawrence “of Arabia” serving incognito.
• On May 29, 1945, over 50,000 troops landed at the port of New York, in the first repatriation of World War II veterans following the surrender of Germany, 21 days earlier.
• In 220 BC, King Prusias I of Bithynia (230-182 BC), in what is now northwestern Turkey, declared war on Byzantium (Istanbul), on the pretext that the city had broken a promise to honor him with a statue.
• As part of the Sikh baptism ceremony, crystallized sugar is added to a bowl of clean water and stirred with a double edged sword as prayers are recited, symbolizing both the sweetness and the steel required of the faithful.
• Chinese general Wu Qi (440-381 BC) reportedly dressed and ate just as the ordinary troops in his army did, slept on the ground with them, marched alongside them, and even took part in their daily fatigue duties.
• Early in 1920, a trio of American destroyers stopped at Gibraltar bound for the Middle East, whereupon their crews celebrated liberty in the Prohibition-free port so exuberantly that the British authorities invited the ships to leave several days ahead of schedule.
• During the Second World War, the Royal Air Force’s Air-Sea Rescue Service was credited with saving 13,267 lives.

More...