1776 – American Revolution: the United States Declaration of Independence is approved by the Second Continental Congress.

1803 – The Louisiana Purchase is announced to the American people.

1826 – Thomas Jefferson, third president of the United States, dies the same day as John Adams, second president of the United States, on the fiftieth anniversary of the adoption of the United States Declaration of Independence. If this pattern carries on, Barack HUSSEIN Obama will die on May Day.

1840 – The Cunard Line’s 700 ton wooden paddle steamer RMS Britannia departs from Liverpool bound for Halifax, Nova Scotia on the first transatlantic crossing with a scheduled end. Before that, it was “We’ll get there when we GET there!”

1845 – Near Concord, Massachusetts, Henry David Thoreau embarks on a two-year experiment in simple living at Walden Pond. It’s pretty easy when you can skip into town for a real meal or your buds from the borough come out and bring you food and drink… But ol’ Henry never mentioned that. But it works even better when the Feddle Gummint holds a gun to MY head so that several generations of freeloaders can practice ‘simple living’ with free food and free housing and free phones.

1879 – Anglo-Zulu War: the Zululand capital of Ulundi is captured by British troops and burnt to the ground, thus, ending the war and forcing King Cetshwayo to flee. Back when the Brits had balls…

1886 – The people of France offer the Statue of Liberty to the people of the United States as down payment for future rescues.

1911 – A massive heat wave strikes the northeastern United States, killing 380 people in eleven days and breaking temperature records in several cities. Rioting environmentalists burn SUVs in an act of revenge.

1918 – Bolsheviks kill Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and his wife and children. That’s what the OTHER side does…

1951 – William Shockley announces the invention of the junction transistor.

1976 – Israeli commandos raid Entebbe airport in Uganda, rescuing all but four of the passengers and crew of an Air France jetliner seized by Palestinian terrorists. Negotiations go a lot faster at the muzzle of an Uzi. Nothing translates ideas into Arabic quite like properly aimed gunfire.

1976 – American people celebrate the 200th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. I personally celebrated it as a tank commander in annual gunnery training at an army training center in Baumholder, Germany.

1977 – The George Jackson Brigade plants a bomb at the main power substation for the Washington state capitol in Olympia, in solidarity with a prison strike at the Walla Walla State Penitentiary Intensive Security Unit. “Brigade” indeed. There were six fruitcake members of the vibrant diversity.