Author: James Wesley Rawles

On June 29, 1194, Sverre Sigurdsson was crowned King of Norway, after years of dispute. — June 29, 1922: France granted 1 km² at Vimy Ridge “freely, and for all time, to the Government of Canada, the free use of the land exempt from all taxes”, for a memorial ground. The Canadian Army had famously captured that ground from the German Army in April,1917. — SurvivalBlog Writing Contest Today we present another entry for Round 119 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round include: First Prize: A Gunsite Academy Three Day Course Certificate. This can be …

On June 28, 1846, the saxophone was patented by Antoine-Joseph “Adolfe” Sax. It was intended to fill the gap between brass and woodwind instruments. Never fully adopted by most symphony orchestras, the saxophone has nevertheless had amazing popularity in jazz music. — June 28th, 1703 was the birthday of theologian and hymn writer John Wesley, who died March 2, 1791. His name is so well-known and subconsciously recalled that I quite often get mail mis-addressed to “John Wesley Rawles”, and there was even a brief publisher’s misprinting of one of my book cover spines, that way. – JWR — Today’s …

On June 27, 1709 in the Great Northern War: Peter the Great of Russia defeated Charles XII of Sweden at the Battle of Poltava. Charles then went into exile in Bender, in the Ottoman Empire.  The painting above is titled The Battle of Poltava by Pierre-Denis Martin. — June 27th, 1893: Great stock crash on the New York Stock Exchange, known as the Panic of 1893. — Today is the birthday of the late Leroy James Sullivan (born June 27, 1933 – September 22, 2024), an American firearms inventor. Jim Sullivan designed several “scaled-down” versions of larger firearms. He also …

On June 26, 1794 the Battle of Fleurus was a major victory by forces of the First French Republic under General Jean-Baptiste Jourdan over the Coalition Army (Great Britain, Hanover, Dutch Republic, and Habsburgs). It marked the first use of a military reconnaissance balloon. — June 26th is the birthday of Marine Corps Lt. General Chesty Puller (born 1898, died October 11, 1971). Perhaps America’s finest-ever maverick officer, Puller was part of what I call the Even Greater Generation. — SurvivalBlog Writing Contest Today we present another entry for Round 119 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for …

On June 25th, 1530, German Protestant princes forced Holy Roman Emperor Charles V (pictured) to hear their Confession of Faith — a statement of Lutheran theology, now known as The Augsburg Confession. — On June 25th, 1798, the US Congress passed the Alien Act, allowing the president to deport dangerous aliens. — June 25th, 1876: Native American forces led by Chiefs Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull defeated the U.S. Army troops of Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer in a bloody battle near southern Montana’s Little Bighorn River. The Battle of Little Bighorn–also called Custer’s Last Stand – marked the most …