Category: Note

This is the birthday of novelist Taylor Caldwell (born 1900 – August 30, 1985). Today is also the birthday of Dr. Ludwig Vorgrimler (born 1912 in Freiburg, Germany; died 1983). Vorgrimler was the designer of the Spanish CETME rifle, from which sprang a plethora of roller-lock descendants from HK, including the G3, HK21, and MP5. His bolt design was also copied by the Swiss for their excellent PE57 and SIG 510 rifles. (Although the Swiss felt obliged to mount a “beer keg” charging handle on the right side of the receiver, for the sake of familiarity to Schmidt-Rubin shooters.) o …

September 6th, 1757 is the birthday of Marquis de Lafayette (often known simply as Lafayette), a French aristocrat and military officer who fought in the American Revolutionary War. He was a close friend of George Washington, Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson. George Washington met him through his connections in the Free Masons and was impressed with him. After he offered to serve without pay, Congress commissioned him as a Major General and he was an integral part of the battles at Brandywine and Valley Forge. o o o Today, we present another entry for Round 66 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction …

On September 5, 1774, fed up with the meddling of the crown and being mostly independent-minded, our nation’s founding fathers met together in the First Continental Congress, in Philadelphia, to lay the foundation of what would become the world’s greatest nation.

September 4, 1862 is the fateful day that General Lee invaded the North with 50,000 troops. Historians will banter back and forth about the real reasons for the civil war, but we will probably never fully understand. It is my personal belief that General Lee was gambling on a quick offensive because the South did not have the resources for a prolonged war. Whatever the case was, President Abraham Lincoln trampled the Constitution and created the foundation for the “Big Brother” government we have today.

On September 3rd, 1752, Great Britain and it’s colonies, including the future United States of America, officially adopted the Gregorian calendar, and it immediately became September the 14th.

September 2, 1969 is the day that the first automatic teller machine (ATM) made its first public debut, dispensing cash to customers at Chemical Bank in Rockville Center, New York. While being as indispensable to most people as cell phones and e-mail, they have introduced a whole new set of issues. Consumers are faced with scams, skimmers, and robbers, and even fake ATMs have been discovered. o o o JRH Enterprises is having a big Labor Day weekend sale on new PVS14 night vision devices with a 10 year warranty and DKX M3 Level III lightweight armor plates. You might …

September is Kilted to Kick Cancer Month. It was a wise move, not picking January. (Brrrr!) September is also National Preparedness Month. o o o Today, we present another entry for Round 66 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The nearly $12,000 worth of prizes for this round include: First Prize: A Tactical Self-Contained 2-Series Solar Power Generator system from Always Empowered. This compact starter power system is packaged in a wheeled O.D. green EMP-shielded Pelican hard case (a $1,700 value), A Gunsite Academy Three Day Course Certificate that is good for any one, two, or three day course (a …

August 31st, 1992 is the day that Randy Weaver surrendered to the Federal Authorities, ending the 10 day siege on Ruby Ridge. This is the incident that preceded the Waco siege and is known for the unconstitutional rules of engagement and overzealous actions by the jack booted thugs of the federal authorities that resulted in the death of two innocent people– Sammy and Vicki Weaver, Randy’s son and wife. It is notable that Randy was acquitted of all charges, except missing a court date and violating bail conditions, on an ATF sting operation where it is suspected that Mr. Weaver …

August 30, 2014 is the 95th birthday of Joachim Rønneberg, a hero of the Norwegian resistance during World War II. His exploits earned him the War Cross With Sword, Norway’s highest military honor. In April 2013, Rønneberg was presented with a Union Jack during a ceremony at the Special Operations Executive (SOE) monument in London to mark 70 years since the successful Gunnerside heavy water plant sabotage mission. o o o Today, we present another entry for Round 66 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The nearly $12,000 worth of prizes for this round include: First Prize: A Tactical Self-Contained …

August 29th is a mournful day, as we remember the anniversary of the death of “The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” – Isaiah 40:3. John, the Baptist, who heralded the first coming of our Lord and stood true to his belief in the face of death, was beheaded on this day in 29AD. In 1862, the Battle of Bull Run in Virginia began, along with the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing.

Readers of SurvivalBlog who use our RSS feed to stay up-to-date will notice that the entire article is no longer available via RSS. You must now click on the “Read More…” or the article title to actually read the entire article. We know this an inconvenience but we have had a series of copy-cat blogs who are posting the entire articles on their own sites using the RSS feed function. Most of these sites are little more than click-bait trying to get you to purchase products from their Amazon store or in their site. After dealing with a couple of sites that absolutely refused to adhere to our copyright and reposting rules on our provisos page, we have had to take the step of truncating the feeds. We’ve even had one site claim in our DCMA complaint against them that they are the originator and we are the poorly behaved competition. Perhaps we will loosen the feed restrictions again in a few months after these fly-by-night sites have collapsed and are gone.

On August 27, 1883, the most powerful volcanic eruption in recorded history occured on Krakatau, a small, uninhabited volcanic islan located west of Sumatra in Indonesia. Hear 3000 miles away, the explosions threw five cubic miles of earth 50 miles into the air, created 120 foot tsunamis and killed 36,000 people. o o o Ready Made Resources is now an authorized re-seller of the Harvest Right Freeze Drier Machine. It’s on sale right now and the price includes shipping. If you are looking to pick one up, this may be the time. SurvivalBlog has been using this new machine for …

August 26, 526, is the official anniversary of the invention of toilet paper by the Chinese. We celebrate this, though not because of its convenience. In fact, it has many shortcomings, some which are described within the articles and letters of SurvivalBlog. Our celebration of it is primarily because we now have an official metric of just how hard core of a prepper you are as well as a metric for just how economically unstable your country is. August 26, 1946 is also the official release date of George Orwell’s Animal Farm. o o o Today, we present another entry …

August 25th is a birthday shared by novelist Frederick Forsyth (born 1938) and American humorist Patrick F. McManus (born 1933). Forsyth was the author of The Day of the Jackal, The Odessa File, The Fourth Protocol, The Dogs of War, The Devil’s Alternative, and many others. McManus was born and raised in Sandpoint, Idaho, so his books could be classified as American Redoubt humor. When I met Pat a few years ago, Pat very kindly autographed my entire battered collection of his books. Some of these books had been so well-loved that the pages were falling out of their bindings. …

On August 24th, 410, Rome was overrun by the Visigoths in an event that symbolized the fall of the Western Roman Empire. This is a moment in history that we would do well to remember. An empire that ruled the world was corrupted from the inside to the point that they could not defend themselves from a much weaker enemy. This could conceivably be the beginning of the dark middle ages. o o o Today, we present another entry for Round 66 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The nearly $12,000 worth of prizes for this round include: First Prize: …