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Milestones

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June 18, 1815, thirteen kilometers south of Brussels, the small town of Waterloo where ended 23 years of bloody European Wars (and you thought Brexit was bad!)

The iconic 1881 painting by Elizabeth Thompson, Lady Butler, "Scotland Forever!"
Scotland_Forever!.jpg
The Charge of the Royal Scots Greys cavalry regiment.

The Old Guard's last stand at Waterloo:
waterloo39-1024x640.jpg
The retort of General Pierre Cambronne to a request to surrender:
"La Garde meurt mais ne se rend pas!" ("The Guard dies but does not surrender!")
 
Praefectus Praetorio said:
June 18, 1815, thirteen kilometers south of Brussels, the small town of Waterloo where ended 23 years of bloody European Wars (and you thought Brexit was bad!)
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"France has lost a battle! But France has not lost the war!"
These were, day by day 125 years later, the words from a French Brigadier General, spoken from a BBC studio in London.
Hardly know by the people, but on the contrary so much in the French Army, due to his constant irritating of his superiors with his unconventional ideas about tank warfare. The same ideas that had inspirated the Wehrmacht's strategy for their invasion of France and the Low Countries - with success.
That 18th of June 1940, General De Gaulle made an appeal to the French population to continue fighting. His act had something of a little Greek drama, since by doing so, De Gaulle choose sides against his years long commander and mentor, Field Marchal Pétain, who had made an armistice with Hitler, and who was setting up an autoritarian regime in France, and a client state to The Reich.
 
Juneteenth
On June 19, 1865, Gen. Gordon Granger of the Union Army issued the following order in Galveston, Texas: “The people are informed that in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property, between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them, become that between employer and hired labor. The freed are advised to remain at their present homes, and work for wages.
The last part of the old Confederacy where Emancipation was proclaimed by the occupying Army.

A day of celebration for the descendants of former slaves.

“This historic moment would not have been possible without the courage and sacrifice of the nearly 200,000 former enslaved and free African Americans who fought for liberty alongside more than 2 million Union servicemen. As a nation, we vow to never forget the millions of African Americans who suffered the evils of slavery.”
 
Praefectus Praetorio said:
The Old Guard's last stand at Waterloo:

The retort of General Pierre Cambronne to a request to surrender:
"La Garde meurt mais ne se rend pas!" ("The Guard dies but does not surrender!")
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I always thought this an interesting painting ... bravery, tragedy, valor, death ... all for what? ... male egos!
 
windar said:
Have women leaders been that peaceable? Margaret Thatcher, Indira Ghandi, Golda Meir? Not so much.. Aung San Suu Kyi got the Nobel Peace Prize and then what is going in in Myanmar now?
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Always have to be contrary, don’t you Goldman? Blahhhhhhhh
 
Barbaria1 said:
Alright, alright ... enough ... I get it. How about Mother Theresa? :rolleyes:
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I have little patience for attacks on “the male ego” (sorry Barb). It is a silly and counterproductive exercise to ascribe all virtue to one gender or another. (BTW virtue comes from the Latin word vir, meaning a virtual man.) I appreciate that educated and independent women like Barbara have run into their share of uncouth, boorish, and just plain rude men. But they are that way because they are uncouth boorish and rude, not because they have male egos.
To me, the male ego, especially when discussing the martial virtues referenced above, is related to a courage and willingness to sacrifice for standards and values. In the limited courage I have shown in my life, I have done so, inspired by the example of men in history.
The best example to me comes from Roman history/myth in the story of Horatius at the Bridge. The Romans had overthrown their Etrucan King Lars Porcina to establish their independence (the Romans ever after hated kings and even the most corrupt Emperor never used the title of Rex, king.) The Etruscans marched with a large army to reconquer Rome.
Publius Horatius Cocles was an officer in the army of the early Roman Republic who defended the Pons Sublicius from the invading army. By defending the narrow end of the bridge, he—along with two others—was able to hold off the attacking army long enough to allow other Romans to destroy the bridge behind him, blocking the Etruscans' advance and saving the city. Since the bridge would be destroyed behind him and he couldn’t swim (especially with heavy armor) it was a suicide mission.
Thomas Babington, Lord Macaulay, wrote a set of poems called The Lays of Ancient Rome. In one he had Horatius volunteer and in so doing express what male ego should be about.

Then out spake brave Horatius,
The Captain of the gate:
“To every man upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late.
And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds
For the ashes of his fathers
And the temples of his gods.

There are things worth risking death for.
 
Praefectus Praetorio said:
I have little patience for attacks on “the male ego” (sorry Barb). It is a silly and counterproductive exercise to ascribe all virtue to one gender or another. (BTW virtue comes from the Latin word vir, meaning a virtual man.) I appreciate that educated and independent women like Barbara have run into their share of uncouth, boorish, and just plain rude men. But they are that way because they are uncouth boorish and rude, not because they have male egos.
To me, the male ego, especially when discussing the martial virtues referenced above, is related to a courage and willingness to sacrifice for standards and values. In the limited courage I have shown in my life, I have done so, inspired by the example of men in history.
The best example to me comes from Roman history/myth in the story of Horatius at the Bridge. The Romans had overthrown their Etrucan King Lars Porcina to establish their independence (the Romans ever after hated kings and even the most corrupt Emperor never used the title of Rex, king.) The Etruscans marched with a large army to reconquer Rome.
Publius Horatius Cocles was an officer in the army of the early Roman Republic who defended the Pons Sublicius from the invading army. By defending the narrow end of the bridge, he—along with two others—was able to hold off the attacking army long enough to allow other Romans to destroy the bridge behind him, blocking the Etruscans' advance and saving the city. Since the bridge would be destroyed behind him and he couldn’t swim (especially with heavy armor) it was a suicide mission.
Thomas Babington, Lord Macaulay, wrote a set of poems called The Lays of Ancient Rome. In one he had Horatius volunteer and in so doing express what male ego should be about.

Then out spake brave Horatius,
The Captain of the gate:
“To every man upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late.
And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds
For the ashes of his fathers
And the temples of his gods.

There are things worth risking death for.
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Ummmmmm ... I was just joking earlier :confused:
 
Praefectus Praetorio said:
To me, the male ego
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PrPr, you are making the same error you blame the gender-people for. There is not a thing like male or female ego. There is your ego and mine and Barbs. There are gender roles that expect a few attributes of females and males, but these are socially imprited, not biological.
Back to Publius Horatius Cocles - in history there are not only men but a lot of women who have shown courage and heroism (and here on CF there are realy a lot of them:)).
But I am with you as far as there are values that are worth risking ones death for.
Btw - never take Barbs provocations seriously. Just crucify her.
 
Why is 14th of July France's national holiday? Right! Because of the Bastille. The beginning of the French Revolution, in 1789.
But why is it not June 20th? That day in 1789, 230 years ago, a far more important event took place in the onset of the revolution : the Tennis Court Oath, where the repesentatives of the Third Estate (the commoners) vowed "not to separate, and to reassemble wherever circumstances require, until the constitution of the kingdom is established".
An appeal to draw power from the king to the 'National Assembly', as the Third estate had renamed itself recently. A revolutionary act that defied the monarchy's rule in an unprecedented way.
 
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