Day: August 20, 2025

Preparedness Notes for Wednesday — August 20, 2025

On or about August 20, 480 BC: The Battle of Thermopylae.  In one of history’s most famous “last stands”, 7,000 warriors from an alliance of Greek states led by Leonidas I blocked the pass of Thermopylae for a week against an invading Persian army estimated at 120,000-300,000 strong, led by Xerxes I. — August 20, 1935 was the birthday of former Congressman Ron Paul. Dr. Paul is to be commended for fighting the good fight for many years. Happy 90th Birthday! — August 20th, 1866 was the day that President Andrew Johnson formally declared the end of the Civil War. …


The “Come as You Are” Collapse–Have the Right Tools and Skills

Introductory Note From JWR: This article is an update and small expansion to a succinct post that I made back in February, 2008. When the Second World War broke out in September, 1939, the United States had nearly two full years to ramp up military training and production before decisively confronting the Axis powers. In the mid-1970s, looking at the recent experience of the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, the Pentagon’s strategic planners came to the realization that the next major war that the US military would wage would not be like the Second World War. There would not be the luxury …


SurvivalBlog Readers’ & Editors’ Snippets

Our weekly Snippets column is a collection of short items: responses to posted articles, practical self-sufficiency items, how-tos, lessons learned, tips and tricks, and news items — both from readers and from SurvivalBlog’s editors. Note that we may select some long e-mails for posting as separate letters. — Mark J. in Oregon wrote: “I run honey bees. I have 16 hives going. Russian bee genetics. I get the queens from Foley in Iowa.   They don’t get the mites… they fly in 45 degree weather — snow and rain…. They don’t have hive collapse. The first queen I got was pure …