Anecdote
If
When King Philip of Macedonia invaded Greece in 338 B.C., he defeated an Athenian/Theban army at the Battle of Chaeronea. Resistance ceased as all the other Greek city-states submitted to Philip’s victorious army. All except Sparta. When Philip arrived outside Sparta, he halted his army and awaited the Spartan emissaries Read more
Anecdote
THE OPIUM DREAM POEM
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was a poet and an opium addict. One day in 1797, he went to sleep under the influence, after having read about Kubla Khan’s palace at Zanadu. When he awoke, he began to feverishly copy down a poem he had dreamed. It began with the famous line: Read more
Picture
Litter Bearers
Litter bearers (also called “stretcher bearers”) don’t get enough credit. Possibly the most famous litter bearer was Ernest Hemingway during the Spanish Civil War. This sketch by combat artist Howard Brodie (see the previous picture post for more information on him). His words at the bottom say it all for Read more
Anecdote
KISMET, HARDY
In the middle of his dramatic victory in the Battle of Trafalgar, Admiral Horatio Nelson was shot by a French sniper and mortally wounded. Nelson was carried below deck while the battle raged. The captain of the HMS Victory was able to come visit Nelson as he lay dying. Nelson Read more
Picture
I’ve Served My Time in Hell
Howard Brodie was a combat artist for the Army when he was sent to the island of Guadalcanal. He sketched this drawing for Yank magazine. Brodie depicts five tired infantrymen on the march. Brodie wrote on the drawing “the stench of dead Japanese was nauseating”. You see a dead Japanese Read more
Anecdote
MOZART BY A NOSE
Mozart once bet fellow composer Haydn that he could not play a piano composition that Mozart had written that day. Haydn accepted the bet and sat down at the piano with the music in front of him. He started out well, but then reached a part of the composition Read more
Picture
Sub at Sea
The painting is called “Sub at Sea” by Adolf Bock. It is a u-boat in the Atlantic in WWII. U-boats like this one sank 175 warships and 2,825 merchant ships in the Battle of the Atlantic. The most successful u-boat commander was Otto Kretschmer who sank 47 ships in 15 Read more
Uncategorized
NOW I’VE SEEN BOTH SIDES
In his book Utopia, Thomas More wrote that before they married, couples should see each other naked so they would avoid disappointment. One day, a friend named Sir William Roper asked More for the hand of one of his daughters in marriage. When Roper mentioned More’s piece of advice about Read more
Picture
BURNING THE CAPITOL
In 1814, during the War of 1812, British Admiral Cockburn (yes, that was his name) was determined to embarrass the Americans by attacking their capital. He was also interested in revenge for the sack of York in Canada. He brushed aside a force of militiamen (with President Madison witnessing in Read more