Infinite Wisdom

"Moral force is, unhappily, no substitute for armed force, but it is a very great reinforcement"

La Triviata

• In 1902 Lt. Col. Charles á Court Repington, “widely hailed as the most brilliant young staff officer in the British Army,” was forced to retire from the service after being named as a co-respondent in a highly public divorce, whereupon he became the military correspondent for The Times, which made him very influential as a proponent of military reform over the next two decades, and at much better pay.
• In gratitude for liberating Greece from the domination of Philip V of Macedon in 198 BC, the city-state of Chalkis rendered divine honors to Titus Quinctius Flamininus, instituting a priesthood and annual festival that continued for at least three centuries, thus making him the first Roman to become a god since Romulus in 716 BC, and the first to attain such status in his lifetime.
• One the eve of the Revolution of 1910, the average age of the four major generals in the Mexican Army was slightly over 77, while many colonels were in their 80s, captains in their 70s, and lieutenants in their 60s.
• Working on the basis of an emergency management plan adopted in 1934, on August 24, 1939, one the day after the signing of the Nazi-Soviet pact, the directors of the British Museum initiated the secret transfer of the priceless treasures in their charge to a deep unused subway tunnel in central London, a process that was completed on September 10^th, by which time Britain had been at war with Germany for a week.
• From 1832 to 1881, at least a third of all second lieutenants in the French Army were former enlisted men, the highest proportion in any European army, though because they were usually older than normal for their rank, they were less likely to reach higher grades, so that only about a fifth of colonels were former enlisted men and usually only one or two generals out of about 200 on active duty.
• Asked for the watchword as he lay dying, Antoninus Pius (March 7, A.D. 161), who presided over the empire for 30 years at the very peak of the Pax Romana, the emperor replied, "Equanimity."
• In 1819 the Duke of Kent, and his brother, the Prince Regent (later George IV), could not agree on an appropriate name for the former's first-born, and so called upon yet another brother, the "Grand Old Duke of York", for a compromise, and adopted his proposal, “Alexandria Victoria," half of which she would use when she ascended the throne in 1838.
• In an incident that never appeared in the press, in March of 1942, the accidental discharge of all the pieces in a battery of eight anti-aircraft guns located on the Brooklyn side of the East River, caused a seven-inch shell to strike the 37th floor of the Equitable Life Insurance Building at 120 Broadway, near Wall Street, prompting panicky citizens to flood police switchboards with reports of a possible German attack; the other seven shells fell harmlessly into the river. 

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