1797 – Colonel William Tate and his force of 1000–1500 soldiers surrender after the Last invasion of Britain. Tate, the ‘French’ commander, is Irish-American, and half his force is Irish.

1836 – Samuel Colt receives an American patent for the Colt revolver.

1870 – Hiram Rhodes Revels, a Republican from Mississippi, is sworn into the United States Senate, becoming the first African American ever to sit in the U.S. Congress.

1919 – Oregon places a 1 cent per U.S. gallon tax on gasoline, becoming the first U.S. state to levy a gasoline tax. This is known as ‘the camel’s nose under the tent’…

1932 – Adolf Hitler obtains German citizenship by naturalization, which allows him to run in the 1932 election for Reichspräsident. See what happens when you screw around with immigration law?

1933 – The USS Ranger is launched. It is the first US Navy ship to be built solely as an aircraft carrier. Her first combat action is against the French in North Africa.

1954 – Gamal Abdel Nasser is made premier of Egypt, after having Israel kick his butt in 1948. He tries two rematches, 1956 and 1967, loses those, too.

1956 – In his speech On the Personality Cult and its Consequences Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev denounces the cult of personality of Joseph Stalin. What!??! There are consequences to a personality cult? Somebody tell the dimmocrats.

1964 – Speaking of personality cults, North Korean Prime Minister Kim Il-sung calls for the removal of feudalistic land ownership aimed at turning all cooperative farms into state-run ones. This single brilliant move turns North Korea into a cornucopia of riches. South Koreans line up at the DMZ, clamoring to get in. Right?!?

1991 – The Warsaw Pact is declared disbanded. After all those years of me and a million other American soldiers waiting for them to come streaming through the Fulda Gap…