1806 – Construction is authorized of the Great National Pike, better known as the Cumberland Road, becoming the first United States federal highway.

1879 – Anglo-Zulu War: Battle of Kambula: 2,200 British forces defeat 20,000 Zulus. Discipline, rifles and six cannon prove to be more than guts and spears and handful of captured rifles can overcome. The Zulus have just lost the war, like there was ever a doubt.

1886 – Dr. John Pemberton brews the first batch of Coca-Cola in a backyard in Atlanta. There’s’ a lot of money to be made in the sale of flavored water.

1911 – The M1911 .45 ACP pistol became the official U.S. Army side arm. I carried an M1911A1. Still own one, a brilliant design of the sainted John M. Browning. A man carrying a 1911 is NOT poorly armed, despite the proliferation of dozens of iterations of ‘combat Tupperware”.

1936 – In Germany, Adolf Hitler receives 99% of the votes in a referendum to ratify Germany’s illegal reoccupation of the Rhineland, receiving 44.5 million votes out of 45.5 million registered voters. Just because it receives a majority vote doesn’t make it right. That’s why we (used to) have the Constitution.

1961 – The Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, allowing residents of Washington, D.C., to vote in presidential elections. There’s a bundle of dimmocrats there.

1971 – A Los Angeles, California jury recommends the death penalty for Charles Manson and three female followers. And he stay alive until he dies of old age, unlike his victims… Our enlightened overlords call this “justice”.

1973 – Vietnam War: The last United States combat soldiers leave South Vietnam.