Things I didn’t know: When St. John Philby got married in India in 1910, his best man was Bernard Law Montgomery. The Philby marriage of course produced H.A.R. “Kim” Philby, the greatest traitor of the 20th century. From the same book, Anthony Cave Brown’s biography of Sir Stewart Menzies, I learned the old World War II headquarters…
Category: Brush-Up On Your History
Brush-Up on Your History: Failed Constitutional Amendments That Would Have Changed How America Wages War
The U.S. has mulled a few constitutional amendments, including some radical ideas about the government and warfare. What if war were unconstitutional? Yes, it sounds like something John Lennon would say, but it was actually an attempted amendment to the Constitution in 1927. Alternatively, what if the U.S. was unable to supply equipment, aid, or…
Brush-Up on Your History: The Four Forgotten Men Who Secretly Put Adolf Hitler in Power
In 1929, Adolf Hitler was a strange combination of has-been and never-was. The fame and following he’d garnered after his failed 1923 coup d’etat–and subsequent jailing and publication of his autobiography (Mein Kampf)–had severely waned. His Nazi party had a paltry number of seats in Parliament and showed no signs of picking up steam. The…
Brush-Up on Your History: How the Assassination of Julius Caesar Changed The World
Caesar’s death paved the way for the Roman empire after a bloody cycle of civil wars, and secured him the hallowed immortality he always craved Spurinna was a haruspex. His calling was vital, if a little unusual, requiring him to see the future in the warm entrails of sacrificial animals. At the great festival…
Brush-Up On Your History: Why the Civil War Was NOT about Slavery
Conventional wisdom of the moment tells us that the great war of 1861—1865 was “about” slavery or was “caused by” slavery. I submit that this is not a historical judgment but a political slogan. What a war is about has many answers according to the varied perspectives of different participants and of those who…
Brush-Up On Your History: The Most Unexpected Animals To Have Served in War
Glow worms, bats, and sea lions, oh my. Here are some of some of the strangest uses of animals in warfare. When you talk about animals in war, most people immediately think of military working dogs, who continue to serve with U.S. troops in support of the Global War on Terror. However, horses, camels, elephants,…
Brush-Up On Your History: The Crusades and Syria
[Taken from the blog Bionic Mosquito.] The Battle for Syria Part I There ran down the edges of the desert a string of cities and their connecting road – Aleppo, Homs, Damascus…. As long as these cities remain in enemy hands, the seacoast (Lebanon and Israel) will not be secure. But this isn’t…
Brush-Up On Your History: When Terrorist First Attacked the U.S.
A hundred years ago this month, the nation was blindsided by the first act of terrorism on U.S. soil—at the hands of Mexican troops commanded by the revolutionary Pancho Villa. It has been 100 years since the first act of terror on U.S. soil was committed by revolutionary Francisco “Pancho” Villa. On March 9, 1916…
Brush-Up on Your History: America’s Secret War Plan to Invade Canada
The end of a war only rarely settles the central questions that started the conflict. Indeed, many wars do not “end” in the traditional sense. World War II, for example, stretched on for years in parts of Eastern Europe and the Asia-Pacific. Even as the guns fell silent along the Western Front in 1918, the…
Brush-Up On Your History: Churchill was a Terrible Debtor and a Huge Party Monster
Despite Winston Churchill’s popular image, Britain’s most celebrated statesman spent much of his seemingly extravagant life on the edge of a financial cliff, according to retired banker and Oxford history scholar David Lough. In Lough’s “No More Champagne: Churchill and His Money,” he outlines how Churchill flirted with severe debt while projecting an image of wealth, with his…