In honor of Emil Faber. Catchall thread for various historical articles/videos/etc...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdTEiUDHaZo

58 minutes ago, Mlodj said:

In honor of Emil Faber. Catchall thread for various historical articles/videos/etc...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdTEiUDHaZo

Almost done.

I love listening to Brits talk about themselves.

Cats have barbed Ds in order to prevent premature escape of the mate and to scoop out the semen of other suitors.

IS knowledge good really? All knowledge?

10 minutes ago, DEagle7 said:

Cats have barbed **** in order to prevent premature escape of the late and to scoop out the semen of other suitors.

IS knowledge good really? All knowledge?

What would Fawn Liebowitz do?

Thank you France and Spain. The American Revolution was on the verge of defeat, but survived by nothing short of a miracle in October 1981.

From Nathaniel Philbrick's "In the Hurricane's Eye."

By the end of September, the allied forces had started to accumulate the men, provisions, equipment, and cannons they needed to start the thirteen-mile march to Yorktown. No one could quite believe they’d reached this point. There were at least 8000 French soldiers, a similar number of Continentals, and over 3000 American militia, for a total of almost 19,000 soldiers. (Even Washington’s twenty-six-year-old stepson, Jacky Custis, who had shown no previous interest in participating in the Revolutionary War, had decided that now was the time to join his stepfather’s army.) On top of that, approximately 20,000 French sailors were stationed on the ships scattered across the lower portions of the Chesapeake. In total, close to 40,000 French and Americans were temporarily gathered in this portion of Virginia to face Cornwallis’s army of between 7000 and 9000 soldiers. For a few brief weeks in the autumn of 1781, the largest concentration of people in North America (more than half of them French) existed not in Philadelphia (the most populous city in America) but on and around a peninsula between the York and James rivers. Writing on September 28, Jonathan Trumbull called it "a most wonderful and very observable coincidence of favorable circumstances.” That morning the army marched out of Williamsburg and approached to within two miles of the British fortifications. "The line being formed,” Washington recorded in his diary, "all the troops, officers, and men lay upon their arms during the night.” The Siege of Yorktown was about to begin.

Once they’d been directed to the appropriate place, they began placing narrow strips of pine along the line marked by the engineers, just six hundred yards from the enemy’s fortifications. "We had not proceeded far in the business,” Martin wrote, "before the engineers ordered us to desist and remain where we were and be sure not to straggle a foot from the spot while they were absent from us.” Standing motionless in an open field within easy cannon shot of the British was not a pleasant duty. Making it even worse was the knowledge that should they be discovered by the enemy and identified as sappers, they would invariably be killed. Not long after the departure of the engineers, a tall man in a long overcoat appeared out of the blackness. "The stranger inquired what troops we were,” Martin remembered, “[and] talked familiarly with us a few minutes.” Before leaving to find the engineers, the stranger reminded them not to reveal "what troops we were” if they should be taken prisoners. "We were obliged to him for his kind advice,” Martin wrote, "but we considered ourselves as standing in no great need of it; for we knew as well as he did that Sappers and Miners were allowed no quarters, at least are entitled to none by the laws of warfare.” Eventually the engineers returned in the company of "the aforementioned stranger.” "By the officers often calling him ‘Your Excellency,’ we discovered that it was George Washington. Had we dared, we might have cautioned him for exposing himself too carelessly to danger at such a time, and doubtless he would have taken it in good part if we had.” Like the young warrior king in William Shakespeare’s play Henry V, Washington had left an indelible impression on his men as he chatted with them on a dark night before battle.

From Wiki. His name should be familiar to every American.

Francisco Saavedra de Sangronis (1746–1819) was a Spanish government official and soldier whose work in Cuba during the American Revolutionary War laid the foundations for the defeat of British forces in Florida and at Yorktown.

Saavedra and Yorktown

In January 1781 he was finally released by the British, and began work in Havana. After making initial recommendations for administrative changes, over the next few months he helped to organise, and actually took part in Gálvez' successful siege of Pensacola, the key British base in Florida. On his return he found that his recommendations had been accepted by the Spanish government, and key officials had been replaced. In July, at the request of the Minister (José de Gálvez, Bernardo's uncle), Saavedra, who spoke and wrote French fluently, met in the French colony of St. Domingue with Admiral de Grasse to discuss the best ways of using the large French fleet he had brought across the Atlantic, and they agreed a plan for the following year, known as the Grasse-Saavedra Convention. First priority was to aid the French and American forces in the United States, preferably by attacking the British force in Virginia under Lord Cornwallis. Next was to regain control of Caribbean islands captured by the British. The final goal of the plan was the capture of Jamaica, by far the richest British possession in the West Indies. 

To finance phase 1, Saavedra obtained 100,000 pesos from the Spanish treasury in neighboring Santo Domingo. The Spanish had planned to finance the French and North Americans with pesos shipped through Veracruz from the mines in Mexico. The ships had not arrived, and then, finding that most of the Government money from Havana had been sent on to Spain, he appealed to Cuban citizens, who raised a further 500,000 pesos in a matter of hours.^[1]

On August 17, the frigate Aigrette departed Cuba with the funds and rendezvoused with the remaining French fleet the following day, setting course for Chesapeake Bay. On August 30, they arrived off the Virginia coast, and by September 5, Robert Morris finally obtained 26,600 pesos from the French army’s treasurer to compensate the Continental Army soldiers. Eyewitness reports state this was the only payment the troops received throughout the war. Just over a month later, these American forces, alongside their French allies, achieved the critical triumph at Yorktown.^[1]