Well, we're gonna start off with a kind of "good news bad news" deal. It's sorta bad news if it's 1822 and your name is Alexis St. Martin. But the news is better if you're a doctor named William Beaumont, and you work at the fort on Mackinaw Island.
Young St. Martin was accidentally shot in the stomach on this date. Beaumont cared for him, though the prognosis for gut-shot patients wasn't good. At any rate, the victim survived and flourished, except for a hole which led into his stomach. So Beaumont did what any doctor would do: he had his illiterate patient sign a paper agreeing to be his servant, and then conducted experiments on him, to see how the stomach works.
The nice folks at Mackinaw Island like to point out that St. Martin outlived the doctor by a few decades, and had a passel of kids, so in the end he did alright for himself. And we learned a lot about how the stomach works, which is useful.
In 1882, the Shewan defeated the Gojjame at the battle of Embabo, capturing Negus Tekle Haymanot in the battle. And well... I don't think I have to explain the significance of THAT, do I?
In 1917, US Marines charge into Belleau Wood. An awful lot of them stay there in the prone "I'm dead" position for the next eternity or so. It's the bloodiest day in the history of the Marine Corps, which is impressive when you consider some of the places they charged into during WWII.
Speaking of WWII, today marks the end of the Battle of Midway. This is the part where the Japanese carriers all turn into flaming masses of steel. Four of them, inside of roughly 15 minutes. A cruiser joins them, but really, nobody other than the crew of that ship really cares.
And of course two years later, and half a world away.... It's D Day in Normandy. Largest amphibious invasion ever, and one that will presumably never be topped. Allied troops storm into the gates of Hell, and survive. I'll try to post more about this later. No promises though.
Spare a thought for those men on this date. You owe them an awful lot.
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