922 AD – After much hardship, Abbasid envoy Ahmad ibn Fadlan arrived in the lands of Volga Bulgars. What he sees and writes about is one of the stories that intertwine in the movie The 13th Warrior.

1846 – The Donner Party of pioneers departs Independence, Missouri for California, on what will become a year-long journey of hardship and cannibalism ideas for a new recipe book.

1862 – American Civil War: U.S. federal troops occupy Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Now it’s full of bureaucrats and politicians, which is just as bad…

1865 – American Civil War: the Battle of Palmito Ranch: the first day of the last major land action to take place during the Civil War, resulting in a Confederate victory, in Texas. Of course, the war had been officially over for a month.

1942 – World War II: The U.S. tanker Virginia was torpedoed in the mouth of the Mississippi River by the German U-Boat U-507. Most people don’t know that German U-Boats terrorized the American East and Gulf coasts for a year after Pearl Harbor. Took us a while to get our act together and we lost a lot of men and materiel while doing it.

1949 – The Soviet Union lifts its Blockade of Berlin. We (us and the RAF) airlifted 13,000 tons of food daily. We should have just nuked Moscow instead…

1962 – Douglas MacArthur delivers his famous “Duty, Honor, Country” valedictory speech at the United States Military Academy, using three words in ways that the Left (and most of Congress) doesn’t understand…

1978 – In Zaïre, rebels occupy the city of Kolwezi, the mining center of the province of Shaba. The local government asks the U.S., France and Belgium to restore order because the rebels have interrupted the orderly flow of graft and corruption.

2002 – Former US President Jimmy Carter arrives in Cuba for a five-day visit with Fidel Castro becoming first President of the United States, in or out of office, to visit the island since Castro’s 1959 revolution. Jimmy Carter never met a dictator he didn’t like. And just when you thought Jimmuh Carter was the deepest depravity found in an American president, Obama comes along…