1814 – War of 1812: The American schooner USS Carolina is destroyed. Freed of the last of Commodore Daniel Patterson’s makeshift fleet allows the British to move efficiently forward to the epic butt-kicking of the Battle of New Orleans.

1825 – First public railroad using a steam locomotive completed in England.

1862 – American Civil War: The Battle of Chickasaw Bayou begins. A prelude to the Siege of Vicksburg, Outnumbered over two to one, the Confederacy delivers ten casualties for every one they suffer. The North has plenty of Yankees and plenty of factories and we know how the story ends.

1871 – World’s first cat show held at the Crystal Palace in London. “What’s that? A cat. And that? Another cat.” Actually, I’ve been to a few cat shows. Fascinating, but cats are not nearly as widely different in their breeds as dogs can be. Think of the difference between a shih-tzu and a Saint Bernard… Then think of the fun and games if you bred a playful housecat the size of, say, a Labrador Retriever…

1922 – Japanese aircraft carrier H?sh? becomes the first purpose built aircraft carrier to be commissioned in the world. Unlike MOST Japanese carriers, she survives WW II and is used to return Japanese troops to their homeland after the war.

1929 – Soviet General Secretary Joseph Stalin orders the “liquidation of the kulaks as a class” in an effort to spread socialism to the countryside. That order results in the deaths of somewhere between five and fifteen million MILLION people. The number’s not important. It’s not like they’re gonna vote dimmocrat or something… Compared to Stalin, Hitler was bush-league.

1945 – The World Bank and International Monetary Fund are created with the signing of an agreement by 29 nations. Major functions include providing featherbeds for UN bureaucrats and funding third-World despots.

1972 – New North Korean constitution comes into effect. “Article 1: Kim is always right. Article 2: If Kim is wrong, see Article 1. Article 3: Succession: Next of Kim.”

1978 – Spain becomes a democracy after 40 years of dictatorship. That’s nothing. America was becoming a dictatorship after two hundred and thirty years as a democracy. I think Trump might’ve fixed some of that.

1985 – Proselytizing for the Religion of Peace, Palestinian guerrillas kill eighteen people inside Rome and Vienna airports.

1989 – The Romanian Revolution concludes, as the last minor street confrontations and stray shootings abruptly end in the country’s capital, Bucharest right after the dictator and his accomplice wife are executed.

2007 – Riots erupt in Mombasa, Kenya, after Mwai Kibaki is declared the winner of the presidential election, triggering a political, economic, and humanitarian crisis. Yawn! In Africa anything short of two wildebeests procreating triggers a political, economic, and humanitarian crisis, and I wonder if George Soros financed these like he did for “Pro-Hillary” riots here.