The 15 Most Decisive Battles of the World

There is a book which called “The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World: from Marathon to Waterloo” by Sir Edward Shepherd Creasy; which I have not read; referenced in the Merle Miller oral biography of Harry Truman, “Plain Speaking”. The book comes up when a friend of the former President recounts the 15 books which Truman recommended to him when the friend asked about how he should go about becoming better-rounded. And; as with most things connected to Truman; I was immediately interested in it. That was over 20 years ago and I still haven’t read it. It was written in 1851.

The other day I was thinking about the book and what it might hold within that would be applicable to today’s world. So, I went to Wikipedia for a brief summary of the book and the list of the battles themselves. As a result I feel as if I have been deprived of an education; in that I haven’t even heard of a good third of these battles, and certainly none of them were taught in high school. And yet, looking over the list and the attendant causes of these major events in history, I can easily see that war; at least the reasons behind them; have not really changed much over the thousands of years that they have been waged.

Mostly the battles were the result of tribal differences, land rights, religion and family squabbles gone way out of control. From the Battle of Gaugamela in 331 BC; which was primarily a war about the Persian subjugation of the entire known world; to our own Second World War; global domination has been a recurrent theme. So have family squabbles; as evidenced by the Battle of the Metaurus in 207 BC between Rome and Carthage, which were both controlled by 2 families who could not settle their differences. We had World War One, a conflict in which all the crowned heads of Europe were cousins.

If you want something more contemporary; let’s say the attempted Conquest of the Western World by Islam; then just look to the Battle of Tours in 732 AD. Sometimes referred to as the Battle of Poitiers, this was the final battle of the crusade in which Charles Martel blocked the Arab Conquest of Western Europe. That struggle has been reignited in recent years.

And, if you’re in the mood for a good Siege; along the lines of Savannah in the American Civil War; or even a relatively minor one; then the Siege of Syracuse in 413 BC will surely fit the bill.

In short, there would be much to be learned from reading this book. But the details are not as important as the overall pattern which emerges from the subject. Namely; that wars are fought over, and about, fairly predictable things; such as global power; religion; and even trade issues. The importance of knowing this cannot be understated.

Here is a link to the Wikipedia article about the book I have not read. There are more links there to take you on a journey that will make you understand that the more things change, the more they remain the same.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fifteen_Decisive_Battles_of_the_World

And here are the Battles which are listed by Sir Edward Shepherd Creasy in this book I haven’t read.

1.The Battle of Marathon

490 BC Excerpt

2.Defeat of the Athenians at Syracuse 413 BC

3.The Battle of Gaugamela 331 BC

4.The Battle of the Metaurus 207 BC

5.Victory of Arminius over the Roman Legions under Varus AD 9

6.The Battle of Châlons AD 451

7.The Battle of Tours AD 732

8.The Battle of Hastings AD 1066

9.Joan of Arc's Victory over the English at Orléans AD 1429

10.Defeat of the Spanish Armada AD 1588

11.The Battle of Blenheim, AD 1704

12.The Battle of Pultowa AD 1709

13.Victory of the Americans over Burgoyne at Saratoga AD 1781

14.The Battle of Valmy AD 1792

15.The Battle of Waterloo AD 1815

The painting at the top  is “Archimedes Directing the Defenses of Syracuse” by Thomas Ralph Spence and was painted in 1895.

Flag Day - 1960's TV Style

Today is Flag Day and I thought it might be cool to look back at the old TV sign offs. I always enjoyed the one with the jets streaking across the sky, but this one is pretty good. It showcases many of our nation's monuments, all while rolling the lyrics to the Star Spangled Banner across  the screen. I wonder if they even teach it in school anymore?

Heritage is something which must be nurtured from one generation to the next. Tradition does not stay alive of it's own accord. Take the time today and look at our flag and think beyond the current state of politics. That is not the real America represented by the flag.

The flag has been temporarily high jacked. It won't be the first time; or the last. But it's the actual meaning of the stars and stripes which count most. The meaning of the red and white stripes and the stars on a field of blue. Keep that spirit alive and we can't lose. What was it that David Crosby once wrote? "Teach your children well...."

"J. Edgar" with Leonardo DiCaprio, Armie Hammer and Naomi Watts

J. Edgar Hoover was a uniquely American enigma. He was, at first, a ruthless fighter against Communism in the days of the Palmer Raids, which took place in 1919 under the direction of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer and the Department of Justice. Those raids have long been ostracized as being illegal, but they really did save the nation in the early days of the 20th Century. The raids were mostly a reaction to labor related violence by the Unions. This was only 2 years after the Russian Revolution had ushered in Communism, and there was a real threat to America at the time. By September of 1920, explosions would rock Wall Street, when a wagonload of dynamite was set off at lunchtime, killing 38 and injuring scores. This was the environment in which J. Edgar Hoover "cut his teeth". It is also a small part of the history not made very clear to the audience in this film. Simply put, Mr. Eastwood has assumed too much of the average viewer.

The film is compelling, in that it keeps your attention. The direction of the actors is very well done, but the direction of the story; the screenplay; can leave the audience a bit confused as the story jumps back to the 1920's, and the Palmer Raids, and then jumps forward to the Nixon Era. Whole decades between the late 1930's and the 1960's are simply left out, or worse, merely alluded to, without any background information to help the younger viewer, as well as the uninformed, make sense of all the information imparted in the film.

Mr. Hoover's accomplishments in a forensic approach to solving crime cannot be understated. He set up the FBI's first fingerprint database, as well as introducing scientific methods to solving crimes. Ballistics, fibers, wood saw markings; all were carefully categorized under his tenure, and those accomplishments still yield results today. No matter what your politics may be, he was an innovative, though flawed, crime fighter.

Mr. Hoover is ably portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio as a conflicted man, both socially and morally. His relationship with Clyde Tolson, his assistant for almost his entire career, is not ignored, but neither is it explored for any indications that Mr. Hoover's famous "secret files" were largely due to a sense of "protectionism" of his own sexual preferences. This is a man who even had a file on Eleanor Roosevelt's dalliances with another woman, and informed the President of that fact. To his credit, that information was never made public during his tenure, but what about the files on Martin Luther King? Those he used to tempt Martin Luther King to kill himself on the eve of accepting the Nobel Peace prize. That episode is fully covered in the film.

The Kennedy years are virtually ignored, except for one scene showing J. Edgar calling Robert Kennedy to tell him the news of the assassination. Nothing further is said, or shown, concerning the FBI's complicity in covering up the events in Dallas.

J. Edgar's refusal to believe in organized crime, aka, the Mafia, is also overlooked here. How is it possible to have a film about the FBI without mentioning that it's director insisted, as late as 1964, that the Mafia, or any organized crime existed in America?

The film felt overly long, mostly due to the jumping forward and backward through almost 50 years of our nation's history in a hodge podge fashion. The film, in my opinion, would have been better served with a chronological approach to the story. Most viewers will find it helpful to read a bit about the man before they see the film. As it stands, the audience is left wondering if J. Edgar Hoover was a good man, or a bad man. The simple truth is, that just as we all are, he was a bit of both.

Thoughts on the MLK Memorial.

I don't know which of the errors concerning the Martin Luther King monument, which was unveiled last weekend in Washington, D.C. troubles me more. Maybe it's the fact that it was outsourced to China, while I would have preferred a monument done by an American, not necessarily of African-American descent. Dr. King is often quoted on being judged by the content of character, rather than the color of one's skin. But the monument should have been done by an American, as the whole Civil Rights Era was so uniquely American in it's context.

Maybe it's the way the Chinese artists cast him in a formidable, and almost unnapproachable stance,which was so unlike the man himself. Or perhaps I was troubled by the way in which they mangled the quote used on the monument. In it's short, clipped version the words sound arrogant and full of self praise. They were anything but that.

On February 4th, 1968, while speaking at Ebenezer Baptist Chiurch, a mere 8 weeks before his murder, Dr. King spoke of what his eulogy would be like if he were to pass away before his work was complete. He did not wish to be remembered as a supreme leader, he wanted to be remembered as a man who stood up for what is right, and beat the drum in that cause. He spoke with resignation, as a man who was fully reconciled with his own mortality, his eyes were moist, and his voice filled with emotion when he spoke these words;

"Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter."

This is the quote as it appears on the side of the monument;

"I was a drum major for justice, peace and righteousness."

Maya Angelou said it best when she opined that the statue, along with it's truncated quotation, "minimizes the man."

The Declaration Of Independence

In the run up to tomorrows celebration of July 4th, I hope that you will take the time to read the Declaration Of Independence. If you have never read it, well, you should. History repeats itself when we are not watching closely. And afterwards, when all of the analysis is done, you are left wondering why we didn't forsee this thing or that thing coming.

These men went far out on a limb to create a new society and they paid a price for their actions. 5 were captured as traitors, 12 had their homes burned, 2 lost sons in the war, and 2 sons were captured and imprisoned. Thomas Nelson of Virginia was present at Yorktown where British General Cornwallis had made his headquarters in Nelson's home. Nelson instructed General Washington to lay waste to it.

John Hart was driven from his home and his wifes deathbed, his 13 children were scattered and his fields and home were burned. Delegates Norris and Livingstone suffered the same fates. Francis Lewis lost his property, his wife was jailed and died in prison. These are just the more extreme examples of what happened to these men, whose lives would be forever changed by their signatures on this document.

These were 56 extraordinary men, of whom 24 were lawyers, 11 merchants and 9 farmers or plantation owners. They all had something to lose by signing this document. So here it is, complete with the names of the original signers. I hope that you will take a moment and read the full text.

The Declaration of Independence

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. --Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.

He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.

He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature.

He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:

For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing taxes on us without our consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:

For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:

For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in these colonies:

For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:

For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.

We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts: John Hancock, Samual Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island: Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut: Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York: William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey: Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania: Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware: Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland: Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia: George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina: William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina: Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia: Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

Source: The Pennsylvania Packet, July 8, 1776

The Beatles " The First U.S. Visit" An Apple Film 1991

This film will really get you back to the spirit of Beatlemania and the early 60's. It was filmed by Albert and David Maysles, who for some obscure reason, were granted unlimited access to the first tour. The film begins with the infamous Idewild Airport arrival on February 7th, 1964 and The Beatles initial appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. From there they move on to Washington, D.C. by train for a concert.

The most interesting thing about this film is that it preceeds "A Hard Day's Night" by about 6 months. The script for the movie was crafted from the experiences of this film, including the REAL train trip from New York to Washington, D.C. Apparently, Richard Lester(who is in the film) was taking notes the whole way and his subsequent film is certainly a direct result of this journey with The Beatles. The only thing missing is Paul's Grandfather, who was played in "A Hard Day's Night" by Wilfred Bramble.

The film also includes the 3 Ed Sullivan Appearances as well as concert footage of the Washington, D.C. event. But the real kicker to this film is the live, unscripted videotape on the train ride to D.C. This is improvisational comedy, talking, observances of America and a rare look at the Beatles as they were "off screen."

The scenes in the hotel are a priceless glimpse into what it is like to have thousands of people trying to get near you. Really, they were virtual prisoners, traveling the world and seeing very little of it. Also, in the cars and hotel room scenes you get a great idea of what they were listening to. Paul always has a transistor radio with him and stays mostly tuned to R and B, or soul stations. I found this very interesting, as they were crafting a new "pop" sound at the time.

Neil Aspinall, The Beatles' former press manager, was one of the Producers of this film, which was also released as "What's Happening! The Beatles in the USA.". An associate of the Fab Four for more than 45 years, his unique insights are also on record in this film.

I have long been a fan of The Beatles and shy away from all the nonsense stuff that floats around. I saw this film on a library shelf more than 18 years ago (it was released in the early 1990's) and never picked it up. Recently I was bored enough to take a look. I'm still singing.... and I may even grow my hair long again!