1607 – English colonists of the Jamestown settlement make landfall at Cape Henry, Virginia for the first British colony in North America.
1805 – That “shores of Tripoli” thing: United States Marines captured Derne, Tripoli under the command of First Lieutenant Presley O’Bannon. A freakin’ FIRST LIEUTENANT! Today we’d have to let the State Department petition the UN to get permission for us to even THINK about using harsh words. Back then, a lieutenant of Marines just goes ahead and takes the city. And we call this “progress”.
1933 – The Department of Homeland Security Gestapo, the official secret police force of Nazi Germany, is established.
1956 – SS Ideal X, the world’s first successful container ship, leaves Port Newark, New Jersey for Houston, Texas. She held 58 standard 33-foot containers. Now, 95% of the world’s non-bulk cargo goes in containers, and modern ships may carry 18,000 or more 20-foot containers.
1963 – In Libya, amendments to the constitution transform Libya (United Kingdom of Libya) into one national unity (Kingdom of Libya) and allows for female participation in elections. You can bet that after Barack and Hillary’s ‘Arab Spring’, the groups running the country now could give a damn about women voting. Or voting in general.
1970 – The Convention Establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization enters into force. The Red Chinese and Soviets ignore it.
1986 – A nuclear reactor accident occurs at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the Soviet Union (now Ukraine), creating the world’s worst nuclear disaster. Comparing the Chernobyl reactors to the American version is like comparing apples to oranges, but every time you talk about nuclear power, the bunny-hugging left wants to bring up three-Mile Island (where the safeties worked) and Chernobyl, which didn’t have that same level of safety.
1805: There is one advantage to slow communications – when it takes months to write home for instructions and get a reply by sailing ship, even politicians may delegate the power to respond to changing conditions and get the job done to a commander they send overseas. The commander there was Commodore Preble, and Preble made the decision to land a force and occupy Tripoli. As the leader of a detachment of only 8 marines, O’Bannon was just the man on point. (Sailors and mercenaries filled out the landing force to about 500 men.)
1805 – You might want to update this. I suspect that such a One LIght might indeed be permitted to do the same today, with the blessing of both President Trump and SecDef Mattis. Congress would, however, impeach and remove both of them and then demand said One Light be executed for his actions.
1933 – And the FBI, CIA, and NSA, as well as UK’s MI5 and MI6 and Germany’s BND enthusiastically follow that precedent. With full blessing from their governments.
1970 – Quite frankly, when “intellectual property” enjoys eternal protection, while patents only last for ?13? years, I have no problem with both China and Russia telling them to blow their “laws” out their donkeys.