Infinite Wisdom

"Except for brief and precarious interludes, there has never been peace in the world"

La Triviata

• In 1916, the venereal disease rate for British troops in France was 18.2 cases per thousand men, while that for personnel in Egypt was an impressive 75.31 per thousand, over 7.5 percent of strength.
• Some scholars estimate that during the latter second century (A.D. 150-200 ) the number of senior officer posts in the Roman Army -- tribunes, prefects, legates -- rose from about 500 to about 800, due partially to the addition of about five new legions, partially to the expansion of the auxilia, and partially to the introduction of new administrative posts.
• Bernard Freyberg, who would command the New Zealanders in North Africa and Italy during World War II, seems to have first engaged in combat during the Mexican Revolution, fighting as a 25-year old volunteer officer in the Battle of Zacatecas (June 23, 1914), in Pancho Villa's army, before deserting on the outbreak of World War I to make his way to Britain, where he wangled a commission in the Royal Navy from Winston Churchill, and by September was in action in Belgium with the Royal Naval Division.
• In the mid-sixteenth century, the annual upkeep for a Venetian war galley was abut 6,000 ducats, approximately the same as what it had cost to build the ship to begin with.
• In 1794, the Duke of Gordon found recruiting lagging for a regiment he wished to raise, and began travelling from village to village with his family and a piper, arranging for his daughters to dance a reel for any man who signed up, after which his wife would offer the official "King's shilling" between her lips, from which the recruit could take it with a kiss, and so formed the famous 92^nd Gordon Highlanders, now embodied in The Highlanders (Seaforth, Gordons and Camerons).
• During World War II former world heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey, then in his mid-40s, served for a time as a lieutenant in the New York National Guard, but soon accepted a commission in the Coast Guard and served as a physical fitness instructor at a basic training station in Manhattan Beach, Brooklyn.
• Although thousands of Native Australians served in the Australian armed forces during World War II, only one, Reginald W. Saunders (1920-1990), did so as an officer, being commissioned as a lieutenant in 1944, after yeas at the front in North Africa, Greece, and New Guinea, later rising to captain during the Korean War.
•  In 1532 Richard Roose, chef to the Bishop of Rochester, prepared a meal for Henry VIII which so disagreed with the Royal Innards that the king had him boiled alive.

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