Between September 9 and 11 in the year 9 A.D., Roman general Publius Quinctilius Varus managed to lose three full Roman legions—Legio XVII, XVIII, and XIX—to the German tribes under Arminius in the Battle of Teutoburg Forest.
The Roman legions were ambushed on the march, in crappy weather, in a heavily forested area on muddy ground, [...]
Entries Tagged as ‘history.’
September 9, 2009
on this date in history.
August 28, 2009
relics.
Relic (noun)
Etymology: Middle English relik, from Anglo-French relike, from Medieval Latin reliquia, from Late Latin reliquiae, plural, remains of a martyr, from Latin, remains, from relinquere to leave behind
Date: 13th century
1 a : an object esteemed and venerated because of association with a saint or martyr 2 plural [...]
August 27, 2009
a market survey.
I’ve asked this question on Twitter, but I’d like to get a few more opinions, so I’m asking it in this spot as well:
Would a setting of Nazi Germany be a handicap for a YA novel in the American market?
Would the unfamiliarity of the setting make the novel less appealing to the average YA [...]
July 4, 2009
happy birthday, america!
Two hundred and thirty-three years ago, a bunch of anti-authoritarian misfits got together in Philadelphia, and wrote a declaration that boldly said, “We’re our own country now. Anybody got a problem with that?”
America: where our unofficial national motto is “You’re Not The Boss Of Me”. May she survive the combined efforts of politicians from [...]
June 8, 2009
paging leonid brezhnev.
I’ve been catching a ton of Russian spam in my blog’s Akismet filter lately. The sheer volume of it is so annoying right now that it makes me a little nostalgic for the Cold War, when the Soviets had nothing to export but crummy shoes and those little hand-painted Babushka dolls…
June 6, 2009
june 6, 1944.
Omaha. Utah. Juno. Sword. Gold.
American and British soil, all of them—paid for in full on June 6, 1944.
May 1, 2009
the shape of things to come.
Now that Chrysler is worker-owned and government-run, we can look forward to curbing capitalist profiteering and consumerist excess by building the cars Americans need (whether they know it or not.)
Maybe after 40 years of central planning and public ownership, Chrysler will be able come up with something comparable to the crown jewel of socialist automotive [...]
May 1, 2009
break out the red banners.
Today is May Day, the international Day of Labor, which all the little Communists celebrate by not going to the jobs they don’t have anyway.
March 30, 2009
hunting the fail whale.
Last night, I said on Twitter:
Good thing government bailed out the whaling industry in the late 19th century. Where would we get lamp oil now?
If government in the 1800s had handled the whaling industry like they’re now handling the car and financial industries, we’d have the tenth generation of whalers on Nantucket right now, collecting [...]
March 25, 2009
how does one say "d’oh!" in japanese?
Here’s the story of Tsutomu Yamaguchi, who survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on August 6th, 1945.
He was in Hiroshima on a business trip that morning, and suffered burns when the atomic bomb leveled much of the city. He spent the following night in Hiroshima, and then returned to his home city…of Nagasaki. He arrived [...]
