Infinite Wisdom

"My mother bore me a general, not a warrior."

La Triviata

• In the spring of 1941 Walter Reuther, head of the United Auto Workers, proposed that given the worsening world situation, the automobile industry should prepare to convert to making airplanes, only to be told to mind his own business, though had the manufacturers agreed aircraft output would have attained full production perhaps a year earlier than was the case.
• The ancient historian Polybius tell us that in 264 B.C., the Roman general Appius Claudius defeated the Syracusans in a battle, but another Greek historian, Philinus, tells us that the result was just the opposite, leading some modern analysts to conclude that the action was a draw.
• During the era of Zulu greatness, from 1816 through 1879, young soldiers were not permitted to marry until they had been blooded in battle.
• Because on his mother’s side he was the grandson of and heir to Queen Isabella of Castile and King Ferdinand of Aragon, and on his father’s the grandson of and heir to Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I of the Holy Roman Empire and Duchess Mary of Burgundy, Charles von Hapsburg (1599-1558) ultimately bore some 300 titles, beginning with Holy Roman Emperor, King of the Romans, Italy, and Spain, Archduke of Austria, and Duke of Burgundy.
• Japanese Navy Lt. Shigharu Murata, who, on December 12, 1937, led the aircraft that “accidentally” bombed the USS Panay (PR-5) in the Yangtze River, later commanded the torpedo bombers in the first wave of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.
• During World War I, the Royal Navy grew from about 145,000 personnel to 410,000, an achievement exceeded during World War II, when personnel rose from 161,000 to 750,000.
• On November 9, 1912, Cadet Dwight D. Eisenhower, of the West Point football squad, flubbed a tackle of Jim Thorpe, who went on to score a touchdown, which helped the Carlisle Indian School thump the Military Academy, 26-6.
• Since 1868, when it abolished its 80 man army, the principality of Liechtenstein has never become embroiled in a war, probably because, despite its lack of armed forces, the place is so tiny, so isolated, and, until recently, so poor, no one was particularly interested in conquering it.

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