73 AD, Masada falls to the Romans. You may know Masada, it was a Jewish stronghold during the Jewish Revolt in the Holy Land. The reason you may know Masada is that the history channel carts it's antiquated ass out all the time show the amazing skills the Romans had for sieges. Also, in case you were wondering, the Romans won.
1746, the battle of Culloden is fought between the Scottish Jacobite Rebels and the holier than though British. the Scots had been toiling under Hanoverian British rule for some time now and were rather hoping to restore one of their Stuart monarchs to the throne. So one of the rightful heirs to the Scottish/English throne was Charles Stuart, known to his friends as Bonnie Prince Charlie, or 'The Young Pretender', not to be confused with his father 'The Old Pretender', or the Freddy Mercury cover of 'The Great Pretender'.
Charlie raised an army of Scottish rebels (called Jacobites) and defeated the British Army in Scotland, failing however in the long run to defeat the garrison in Edinburgh. Mind you many Scottish people at the time weren't particularly enthused by the prospect of another rebellion, they had had quite a few and they usually ended with everyone dead. So to assuage the fears (most people steal Shakespeare quotes, I steal Lincoln) of the rebel army and the locals Charlie explains that "We are going to get help! Yes, tonnes of help from the British Jacobites, what you've never heard of them, well...they're a silent majority in England and with this excellent news that I won they will rise up! Oh, and also the French will invade! They have nothing better to do right?" So the army marches along happily waiting for a force of French troops to come briskly to England and start kicking ass, never mind the whole "ENGLAND RULES THE WAVES" thing. Well Charlie marched South and moved ever closer to London and King George II, but trouble was comin' for him. Charles was informed that the French invasion fleet was still being organized, that the garrison in London outnumbered him by 1,000, plus cavalry, and that there were two separate armies headed his way, one led by George's son, the Duke of Cumberland and another led by George Wade. There were also spurious rumours that another army was flanking them, but this was fiction. Oh yeah, and those awesome English Jacobites, they never came forward, but more highlanders were beginning to mass in Scotland to join up when he returned.
Charlie decided then (with deep resentment, because he's an idiot) to hand over command to Lord George Murray, who says "Let's go home and see if we can actually win this rebellion." Well the Army headed north and kept getting harassed by British troops, as well as lack of footwear (all that marching really wears holes in your shoes made of paper). Cumberland arrives in Edinburgh and tells everyone "Listen up, I'm in charge up here, so we're going to head to Aberdeen and train, then go and kill us some wild Scots." After the cheering died down they went and did this. Charlie, being the prick he is, demanded that the army be placed back under his control, he wanted to fight a defensive action against Cumberland.
So lets look at the two armies shall we? First off we have the Jacobites, an army comprised of Scottish clans. these clan based regiments bore the name of their originating family, and were led by officers from that clan, while the soldiers were all people who were tenants of the clans land. Generally to get the men to fight you had to be at the front of the ranks, which naturally meant an enormously high mortality rate for officers in the Jacobite army, so I suppose leadership was one of their biggest problems.
On the other side we have the British Army, a well trained constantly mobile, brutally efficient fighting force. I mean Christ, for most of the campaign the Scots had pitchforks and axes instead of guns.
Onto the battle! So Today in History Charles decides that it's best to organize his men in a flat marshy area near Culloden. The one tactic that made the Scots dangerous was their feared 'Highland Charge' which primarily involved enormous bearded men running at break neck speed down a hill with swords until either they were dead, or the other guy was. So fighting on pock marked flat terrain was the antithesis of what a person in charge of 7,000 Scots would want to do. The council of war asked Charles to 'please reconsider, we could fight a guerrilla campaign' to which Charles flatly refused 'No bitches, this Cumberland be all up in my shit!'
So how did the battle go? Well the British stood around with long range guns and picked off highlanders, until of course Charlie demanded a charge. So now the already beleaguered Scots moved towards the murderous fire, until finally bloody and beaten they retreated. So in total some 2,000 Scots were killed in the fighting and retreat, oh, and Charlie, he fled the battle quick as a bunny and made his way East towards Skye. The British lost 50 men, bummer for the Highlands.
Charles made good his escape from Scotland and returned to France deciding it was against his best interest to ever come back. Meanwhile the now totally pissed off British proceeded to put the screws to the Highlands, raiding family residences and searching for signs of rebels. it was straight up Star Wars in Scotland after that, except I guess Luke goes back to Tatooine in this one. Now here's your comic...
Alright lets carry on then, oh and visit harkavagrant.com
1917, Lenin rolls on into Petrograd after his exile in Switzerland, looks like shits about to hit the fan in Russia!
1943 Dr. Albert Hofmann discovers that LSD makes you turn into a Ralph Steadman painting.
1947, the term "Cold War" is coined, and thank heavens, the runner up was "A War Where Neither of Us Shoots Because We're Afraid of Causing An Apocalypse".
1990, Dr. Kevorkian does his first assisted suicide, fun times.
