Hey, remember the other day when Marc Antony had a birthday? Well it's not looking like he's gonna be celebrating today... though with him you can never be sure... On this date in 27 BC, his enemy, former comrade Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus, is named "Augustus" by the Senate. As in "Emperor Augustus", though he apparently didn't like to admit he was actually the emperor. I guess it made him feel better to pretend that he was just the "first citizen" or something. Everybody knew the difference, of course. And they all knew that the Republic was gone, but if it gave a good feeling to the guy who had life and death power over everyone else, then I suppose that was a good thing.
In Spain in 1492, Isabella continues (or since it's January, maybe "begins") her pretty good year. Somebody gives her a gift. It's a grammar of the Spanish Language. It might not sound like a good move to gift your monarch a book on how to speak her native tongue, but I presume it was more about the part where nobody had ever written down the rules, being too busy speaking it. I dunno. But it was apparently considered noteworthy.
In 1547, Ivan IV becomes Czar of all the Russias. (Czar is of course a corruption of "Caesar" so I guess that takes us back to Augustus). At any rate, Ivan goes down in history as "The Terrible", though some historians claim that was kind of a grandiose title, akin to "Magnificent" or something. But it does also have a tiny little hint of being a brutal, vengeful ruler; which he certainly was. He had an unhappy, unsecure childhood, and his adulthood wasn't pretty either. Most of the people around him wanted him either dead or under their control. When that happens, a ruler tends to want everyone around him to be either dead or under control too. So it turns into a struggle to see who can get the right people dead/under control faster. Ivan sometimes suffered major setbacks, but in the end he pretty much won.
If you're a darn Papist, then you better keep it a secret in England. Starting on this date in 1581, at least. Since as of now it's illegal. One could argue that England still isn't a big fan of Catholics even now, but they're getting better. For a while. In a couple decades, they're probably gonna be in trouble again, but we'll see.
In 1605, the world is first introduced to Don Quijote de la Mancha, when the first part of Cervantes' work is published. In Spain. So it turns out that giving the Queen a Spanish grammar book wasn't so crazy after all, since Cervantes wrote in Spanish. Nice how these things ultimately work out.
In 1991, the US and a few other countries start shooting at the Iraqi military. They only keep it up for a few days, by which time even a bloodthirsty tyrant has figured out how things are gonna end... not that he ever admits it publicly. Sorta like how the Japanese Emperor never said he was surrendering, but rather doing the unthinkable, or whatever he called it. As a young captain in the Army Reserves at the time, I was ready to go. And I for one was not that critical of President Bush for calling off the war when he did. Clausewitz said that war is a continuation of politics by other means, in the one quote everyone knows. (It's not accurate, but bear with me). Bush said from Day 1 that Iraq had to withdraw from Kuwait- that was the reason for the War. When Iraq was no longer in Kuwait, the war ended. That's using war as a means of supporting your policies, as it should be. Thus there was no mission creep, and by normal standards, Iraq was defeated and everyone knew it. Plus, if Saddam had been removed from power, then what? There would have been a vacuum there, which Iran would have been more than happy to move into. Sorta like they've done, now that Saddam and the US are both gone from Iraq. Unfortunately, due to mistakes made under the Second Bush and a few more mistakes made under his successor, as well as the changes in the world since the 1980s, it turned out poorly. And will get even worse in the next few years. Oh well. At this point, I think we have larger problems and a lot more of them.
No comments:
Post a Comment