Category: Note

On July 5, 1601, the siege of Ostend began when a Spanish force under Archduke Albert VII of Austria, with 12,000 men and 50 siege guns, laid siege to a small garrison of fewer than 2,000 Dutch at the strategically important fortress of Ostend, Flanders. — And on July 5, 1891, an intense hailstorm killed 16 horses near Rapid City, South Dakota. — Please pray for all of those affected by the floods in Texas! — 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 …

Happy Independence Day! Today, Americans go through the motions of celebrating the remnants of our once preciously cherished liberty. Please don’t refer to it as just: “The Fourth of July.”  Give it meaning, and do your best to help restore our freedom and rein in the size and power of the state and Federal governments. – JWR — Independence Day is also the birthday of Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) and of General Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807–1882) — Today’s feature article is by SurvivalBlog’s founder and Senior Editor, James Wesley, Rawles (JWR). — We are in need of entries for Round 119 of …

On July 3, 1250, Louis IX of France was captured by Baibars’ Mamluk army at the Battle of Fariskur while he was in Egypt conducting the Seventh Crusade. He later has to ransom himself. — On July 3, 1890, the Idaho Territory became the 43rd state in the Union. — The “Big Beautiful” Budget Reconciliation Bill failed several key votes in the House of Representatives yesterday and last night. That means that the bill is now being reopened to amendments!  So, Rep. Clyde’s amendment may be offered again, with the SHORT Act removing SBRs and SBSes from the NFA, as …

After a stab in the back to gun owners by the RINOs of the U.S. Senate, the Budget Reconciliation Bill is now back in the House of Representatives. Please repeatedly contact your U.S. congressmember by phone and e-mail and demand that they vote for Rep. Andrew Clyde’s new (July 1st) House Amendment restoring the full versions of the Hearing Protection Act and the SHORT Act to the bill. We are now within inches of getting this important legislation passed. It will only take about five more House member votes to get this passed!!!  Please phone the Capitol switchboard: (202) 224-3121. …

On July 1, 1836, US President Andrew Jackson announced to Congress a bequest by James Smithson of 100,000 gold sovereigns to found the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. — On July 1st, 1997, the crown colony of Hong Kong officially reverted to Chinese sovereignty, ending 156 years of British rule. There have been sporadic protests by locals, ever since then. — July 1st, 1535, Sir Thomas More went on trial for treason for refusing to accept King Henry VIII as head of the Church of England. — And on July 1st, 1863 is the anniversary of the beginning of the Civil …

An Important Note: Please repeatedly contact your state’s two U.S. Senators by phone and e-mail and demand that they overrule the unelected Senate Parliamentarian’s recent bogus ruling that the Hearing Protection Act and the SHORT Act did not qualify as “tax measures” under the Byrd Rule. Clearly, the National Firearms Act of 1934 IS INDEED part of the Federal tax code, and any modification to NFA-’34 is indeed “tax-related.”  Tell your Senators:  Vote NO on the entire bill, unless the Hearing Protection Act and the SHORT Act are fully restored! If they can overrule the Senate Parliamentarian on Senator Dan …

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 …

On June 24, 1374, a sudden outbreak of St. John’s Dance caused people in the streets of Aachen, Germany, to experience hallucinations and begin to jump and twitch uncontrollably until they collapsed from exhaustion. There is now conjecture that this strange outbreak was caused by rye bread contaminated with ergot fungus — a mycotoxin. — June 24th is the birthday of rifle-toting abolitionist pastor Henry Ward Beecher. (Born 1813, died March 8, 1887.) He and his adherents from his church smuggled so many Sharps rifles to Bleeding Kansas that the Sharps rifles picked up the nickname Beecher’s Bibles. The Infogalactic …

On June 23, 930, the world’s oldest parliament, the Icelandic Parliament — the Alþingi — was established. — To reiterate and expand on my note posted yesterday: My e-mail inbox has been full of queries from readers about the USAF bomber strikes on Iranian nuclear weapons development sites. Folks want to know if this might mean WW3. For some articles on that topic, see our June 19th Odds ‘n Sods column.  There could indeed be some escalation.  There is certainly the risk of an Iranian sub-critical  “dirty bomb” being detonated, most likely at an American container seaport. And there is …

On June 22, 1476, the army of Charles the Bold invaded Switzerland. Their first engagement was the Battle of Morat which was fought about 30 kilometers from Bern. The successive Burgundian invasions were successfully repelled by the pike tactics of the well-trained and organized Swiss militias. — June 22, 1633: Galileo Galilei was coerced by Pope Gregory XV to recant his belief in heliocentrism–that the Earth orbits the Sun. The Vatican did not concede that it was wrong until October 31, 1992. — And on June 22, 1848, the Barnburners (an anti-slavery party) nominated Martin Van Buren for President. — …

June 21, 1672: Grand Pensionary of Holland Johan de Witt was seriously wounded by a knife-wielding would-be assassin. — June 21st is the birthday of Rex Applegate (June 21, 1914 – July 14, 1998), author of Kill or Be Killed. He was the friend and mentor of SurvivalBlog’s Field Gear Editor Emeritus, Pat Cascio. — 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 used for any of their one, two, or three-day course …