Infinite Wisdom

"You stow your gaff; third-class train traveling is better than first-class marching."

La Triviata

• On September 5, 1944, a 5.6-to-5.8 magnitude earthquake centered about 70 miles southwest of Montreal, between Cornwall, in Ontario, and Massena, in New York, caused some panic because many people believed they were under attack by German or Japanese aircraft.
• During the Lombardy War of 1859 French and Piedmontese soldiers made a notable discovery, being the first troops to realized that railroad embankments and cuts made excellent improvised field fortifications.
• The first ship to be struck in an organized kamikaze attack (i.e., omitting "body attacks" carried out on the spur of the moment by overly enthusiastic or wounded pilots), was the USS Santee (CVE-29), hit in the forward part of her flight deck at 0740 on Oct. 25, 1944, by a "Zero" fighter probably flown by Petty Office 1^st Class Kato Toyobumi, which inflicted extensive damage, though the ship survived; of six escort carriers struck that day, the last, St. Lo (CVE-63) became the first actually sunk in a planned suicide attack.
• During World War I about 160,000 horses were recruited in Australia for service on the various fronts, of which only one is known to have returned "Down Under," Sandy, who had belonged to Maj. Gen. Sir William Bridges, commander of the Australian Imperial Force, who had died at Gallipoli.
• Reportedly, “Blue Grass State” militia musters in the early nineteenth century often found senior officers beginning the day with a "Kentucky Breakfast," consisting of a quart of whiskey, a beef steak, and a bull dog, who was assigned to eat the steak.
• During the 1890s, graduates of Jesuit secondary schools provided 13 percent of the entering students of France's premier military academy, École Polytechnique, which trained engineering and artillery officers, as well as 18 percent of new cadets at the infantry and cavalry academy at St. Cyr, and 22 percent of those enrolling in the École Naval at Brest.
• When Herman Göring was appointed Reichsminister for Aviation -- in effect head of the Germany’s new Luftwaffe -- in April of 1933, he had not piloted an aircraft in about ten years.
• During the Russo-Japanese War, Japan, a nation of 46.1 million, put some 1.1 million men into uniform, of whom 73,685 perished, about 6 percent of those under arms.

More...