2012 – The U.S. diplomatic compound and special mission annex in Benghazi, Libya are attacked, resulting in four deaths; Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, US Foreign Service officer Sean Smith; CIA contractors Tyrone S. Woods and Glen Doherty.
Two operational members of 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment – Delta; Marine Gunnery Sergeant Tate Jolly and Army Master Sergeant David Halbruner, on a separate mission, volunteer to accompany the relief forces, resulting in them receiving their respective service’s Navy Cross and Distinguished Service Cross for their actions in combat.
Category: History
Lest we forget.
How United Flight 93 Passengers Fought Back on 9/11
The coordinated terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 unfolded at nightmarish speed. At 8:46 a.m., the first plane struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Sixteen minutes later, a second jet hit the South Tower. At 9:37, an airliner hit the Pentagon. Within hours, thousands had died, including hundreds of first responders who’d rushed to the scenes to help.
But after the events quieted and the scope of the damage came into relief, it became clear that there was at least one element of the al-Qaeda terrorist plot where the damage had been mitigated—with the fatal crash of United Airlines Flight 93.
Like the three other planes hijacked on September 11, Flight 93 was overtaken by al-Qaeda operatives intent on crashing it into a center of American power—in Flight 93’s case, likely the White House or the U.S. Capitol. But instead of hitting its intended target, the United jet went down in a field in rural Pennsylvania. While all 44 people aboard the plane were killed, countless people who might have perished in Washington were spared because of a passenger revolt—a heroic struggle undertaken with whatever low-tech weapons they and the cabin crew members could muster.
Brendan Koerner, author of The Skies Belong to Us, a book about domestic airline hijackings in the 1960s and 1970s, says that in the hundreds of cases he studied for his book, he never came across anything like Flight 93’s passenger revolt.
“The attitude of passengers tended to be that airlines would give the hijackers what they wanted, and so there was relatively little threat to the passengers,” Koerner says. “There aren’t really that many instances of passengers getting involved.”
7:39–7:48 a.m.: The terrorists board, likely one man short
On the morning of September 11, four terrorists boarded United Airlines Flight 93 at Newark International Airport: Ziad Jarrah, a trained pilot; and three others, who were trained in unarmed combat and would help storm the cockpit and control the crowd. All four sat in first class.
There was one fewer hijacker on Flight 93 than the five-man crews that commandeered the other three planes, leading the 9/11 Commission Report to speculate that the United Airlines hijacking operated with an incomplete team. That commission speculated that an intended fifth hijacker—Mohammed al-Qahtani—had been refused entry to the country in early August at Orlando International by a suspicious immigration official, who thought al-Qahtani wanted to overstay his visa and live in the United States.
8:42 a.m.: The flight departs late
UA 93 left its gate at Newark International at 8:01 am, only one minute later than scheduled. But heavy traffic on the runway delayed takeoff for approximately 42 minutes.
As a result, one of the flights (Flight 11) was hijacked nearly half an hour before UA 93 had even left the runway, and both of the World Trade Center towers would be hit before the hijackers on Flight 93 had taken over their plane.
9:24 a.m.: Airline dispatcher warns United 93 about cockpit intrusion
With multiple hijackings unfolding across the country, United Airlines dispatcher Ed Ballinger sent a text message warning to pilot Jason Dahl: “Beware any cockpit intrusion—two a/c [aircraft] hit World Trade Center.”
Dahl, seemingly confused, wrote back, “Ed, confirm latest mssg plz—Jason.”
While flying 35,000 feet above eastern Ohio, United 93 suddenly lost 7,000 feet as the terrorists rushed the cockpit. In the cockpit, the captain or first officer could be heard shouting “Mayday!” and “Get out of here!” into a radio transmission.
Sometime before 9:30 a.m.: Hijackers kill a passenger in first class
Tom Burnett, a first-class passenger on the flight, called his wife from the back of the plane at 9:30 to report the hijacking. On the call, Burnett told his wife, Deena, that a passenger had been knifed in front of the other passengers. On a subsequent call a few minutes later, he told her the passenger had died.
9:32 a.m.: Hijacker Ziad Jarrah threatens the passengers via the intercom
“Ladies and Gentlemen: Here the captain, please sit down keep remaining sitting. We have a bomb on board. So, sit.”
9:35 a.m.: Jarrah redirects the jet’s autopilot toward Washington, D.C.
At approximately the same time, recordings from the cockpit capture the sound of a flight attendant pleading for her life, then falling silent.
9:35–9:55 a.m.: Passengers and crew call their loved ones
For approximately 20 minutes, passengers and crew relayed information about their hijacking…and received word of the grim news on the ground. Planes had, by this point, struck both of the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon. The passengers knew they were staring down a similar fate.
Passenger Jeremy Glick told his wife Lyz that passengers were voting on whether or not to storm the cockpit in an attempt to take back the plane.
“I have my butter knife from breakfast,” he reportedly joked.
Burnett told his wife that the passengers were going to wait until they were above a rural area before attempting their action.
Flight attendant Sandra Bradshaw boiled water, to throw on the hijackers.
Those on the flight who couldn’t get through to their loved ones left heart-wrenching voicemails instead. Flight attendant CeeCee Lyles called her husband, told him she loved him, and asked that he take care of her children.
“Are you guys ready?” one of the passengers, Todd Beamer, could be heard saying to the others while on a call with a telephone operator. “Let’s roll.”
9:57 a.m.: The passenger revolt begins.
The cockpit voice recorder captured the sound of passengers attempting to break through the door: yelling, thumping and crashing of dishes and glass. In response, Jarrah tried to cut off the oxygen and began pitching the plane left and right, to knock the passengers off balance.
9:58 a.m.: Jarrah instructed another hijacker to block the door.
9:59 a.m.: Jarrah began pitching the plane up and down, again hoping to neutralize the passenger assault.
10:00 a.m.: The hijackers discuss crashing early
Still approximately 20 minutes away from their target, the hijackers recognized that they would soon lose control of the aircraft.
“Shall we finish it off?” Jarrah asked one of the other hijackers in the cockpit.
“Not yet,” was the reply. “When they all come, we finish it off.”
In the background, a passenger screamed to another, “In the cockpit. If we don’t, we’ll die!”
10:01 a.m.: The hijackers decide to crash the plane
Jarrah again asked the other hijacker if he should crash the vehicle. This time, he was told, “Yes, put it in it, and pull it down.”
Jarrah pulled the control wheel hard to the left, causing the plane to fly upside down, and then to crash into the ground at a speed of 580 miles per hour.
It was 10:03 a.m.
September 11, 2021:
In a series of coordinated attacks, moslem Al Qaeda terrorists hijack 4 passenger jet aircraft and use them to crash into towers 1 & 2 of the World Trade Center in New York City, and the Pentagon, killing 2,977 people. The passengers of the 4th jet, United Airlines Flight 93, attempt to retake it from the hijackers, and succeed in keeping the hijackers from completing their mission to crash it into the Capitol Building in Washington D.C., instead crashing it in Pennsylvania.
Never forgive. Never Forget.
7:59 a.m.: American Airlines Flight 11, a Boeing 767 with registration number N334AA, carrying 76 passengers (excluding the hijackers) and 11 crew members, departs 14 minutes late from Logan International Airport in Boston, bound for Los Angeles International Airport. Five hijackers are on board. Hijacker and ringleader Mohamed Atta would pilot the plane into the North Tower (Tower 1) of the World Trade Center.
8:14: United Airlines Flight 175, a Boeing 767, with registration number N612UA carrying 56 passengers (excluding the hijackers) and 9 crew members, departs 14 minutes late from Logan International Airport in Boston, bound for Los Angeles International Airport. Five hijackers are on board. Lead hijacker-pilot Marwan al-Shehhi would pilot the plane into the South Tower (Tower 2) of the World Trade Center.
8:14: Flight 11 is hijacked over central Massachusetts, turning first northwest, then south heading straight to New York.
8:20: American Airlines Flight 77, a Boeing 757 with registration number N644AA with 58 passengers (excluding the hijackers) and 6 crew members, departs 10 minutes late from Washington Dulles International Airport, for Los Angeles International Airport. Five hijackers are on board. Lead hijacker-pilot Hani Hanjour will pilot the plane into the West side of The Pentagon.
8:42: United Airlines Flight 93, a Boeing 757 with registration number N591UA with 37 passengers (excluding the hijackers) and 7 crew members, departs 42 minutes late from Newark International Airport (later Newark Liberty International Airport), bound for San Francisco International Airport. Four hijackers are on board. Lead hijacker-pilot is Ziad Jarrah. At this time, Flight 175 is being hijacked and Flight 11 is about to descend to New York and is 4 minutes away from crashing.
8:42–8:46 (approx.): Flight 175 is hijacked above northwest New Jersey, about 60 miles (100 km) northwest of New York City, continuing southwest briefly before turning back to the northeast. At this time estimate, Flight 11 is about to descend over New York and is just minutes away from crashing.
8:46:40: Flight 11 crashes into the north face of the North Tower (1 WTC) of the World Trade Center, between floors 93 and 99. All passengers aboard are instantly killed with an unknown number inside the building. The aircraft enters the tower on impact.
8:50–8:54 (approx.): Flight 77 is hijacked above southern Ohio, turning to the southeast. The transponder is turned off by hijacker-pilot Hani Hanjour.
9:03:00: Flight 175 crashes into the south face of the South Tower (2 WTC) of the World Trade Center, between floors 77 and 85. All passengers and crew are killed together with an unknown number inside the building. Parts of the plane, including the starboard engine, leave the building from its east and north sides, falling to the ground six blocks away.
9:28: Flight 93 is hijacked above northern Ohio, turning to the southeast.
9:37:46: Flight 77 crashes into the western side of The Pentagon. All 58 passengers and crew were killed aboard the aircraft, as well as an additional 125 (including emergency workers) on the ground. The crash starts a violent fire.
9:45: United States airspace is shut down by the Federal Aviation Administration; all operating aircraft are ordered to land at the nearest airport, and international flights are not permitted into the airspace.
9:57: The passengers aboard Flight 93 begin a revolt, planned by Todd Beamer, Mark Bingham, Tom Burnett, Jeremy Glick, and others, moving against the hijackers in an attempt to take back the plane.
9:59:00: The South Tower of the World Trade Center collapses, 56 minutes after the impact of Flight 175. Impact speed of the plane is considered one of the likely factors of the shorter amount of time between impact and collapse than that of the North Tower.
10:03:11: Flight 93 is crashed by its hijackers as a result of fighting in the cockpit 80 miles (130 km) southeast of Pittsburgh in Somerset County, Pennsylvania. Later reports indicate that passengers had learned about the World Trade Center and Pentagon crashes and were resisting the hijackers. The 9/11 Commission believed that Flight 93’s target was either the United States Capitol building or the White House in Washington, D.C. but Khalid Sheikh Mohammed claims that the United States Capitol was the main target.
10:15: All five stories of the Pentagon on the West side where American 77 crashed collapse due to the fire started by the crash.
10:28:25: The North Tower of the World Trade Center collapses, 1 hour and 42 minutes after the impact of Flight 11. The Marriott Hotel, located at the base of the two towers, is also destroyed.
5:20:33 p.m.: 7 World Trade Center, a 47-story building, collapses after fires started inside the build
Tokyo Harbor 80 years ago today
The surrender of the Empire of Japan ending World War II was formally signed on the deck of the battleship USS Missouri BB-63
September 1, 2025
Observed the first Monday in September, Labor Day is an annual celebration of the social and economic achievements of American workers. The holiday is rooted in the late nineteenth century, when labor activists pushed for a federal holiday to recognize the many contributions workers have made to America’s strength, prosperity, and well-being.
Early Adopters
Before it was a federal holiday, Labor Day was recognized by labor activists and individual states. After municipal ordinances were passed in 1885 and 1886, a movement developed to secure state legislation. New York was the first state to introduce a bill, but Oregon was the first to pass a law recognizing Labor Day, on February 21, 1887. During 1887, four more states – Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York – passed laws creating a Labor Day holiday. By the end of the decade Connecticut, Nebraska and Pennsylvania had followed suit. By 1894, 23 more states had adopted the holiday, and on June 28, 1894, Congress passed an act making the first Monday in September of each year a legal holiday.
McGuire v. Maguire: Who Founded Labor Day?
Who first proposed the holiday for workers? It’s not entirely clear, but two workers can make a solid claim to the Founder of Labor Day title.
Some records show that in 1882, Peter J. McGuire, general secretary of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and a co-founder of the American Federation of Labor, suggested setting aside a day for a “general holiday for the laboring classes” to honor those “who from rude nature have delved and carved all the grandeur we behold.”
But Peter McGuire’s place in Labor Day history has not gone unchallenged. Many believe that machinist Matthew Maguire, not Peter McGuire, founded the holiday.
Recent research seems to support the contention that Matthew Maguire, later the secretary of Local 344 of the International Association of Machinists in Paterson, New Jersey, proposed the holiday in 1882 while serving as secretary of the Central Labor Union in New York.
According to the New Jersey Historical Society, after President Cleveland signed the law creating a national Labor Day, the Paterson Morning Call published an opinion piece stating that “the souvenir pen should go to Alderman Matthew Maguire of this city, who is the undisputed author of Labor Day as a holiday.” Both Maguire and McGuire attended the country’s first Labor Day parade in New York City that year.
The First Labor Day
The first Labor Day holiday was celebrated on Tuesday, September 5, 1882, in New York City, in accordance with the plans of the Central Labor Union. The Central Labor Union held its second Labor Day holiday just a year later, on September 5, 1883.
By 1894, 23 more states had adopted the holiday, and on June 28, 1894, President Grover Cleveland signed a law making the first Monday in September of each year a national holiday.
A Nationwide Holiday
Many Americans celebrate Labor Day with parades and parties – festivities very similar to those outlined by the first proposal for a holiday, which suggested that the day should be observed with – a street parade to exhibit “the strength and esprit de corps of the trade and labor organizations” of the community, followed by a festival for the recreation and amusement of the workers and their families. This became the pattern for the celebrations of Labor Day.
Speeches by prominent men and women were introduced later, as more emphasis was placed upon the economic and civic significance of the holiday. Still later, by a resolution of the American Federation of Labor convention of 1909, the Sunday preceding Labor Day was adopted as Labor Sunday and dedicated to the spiritual and educational aspects of the labor movement.
American labor has raised the nation’s standard of living and contributed to the greatest production the world has ever known and the labor movement has brought us closer to the realization of our traditional ideals of economic and political democracy. It is appropriate, therefore, that the nation pays tribute on Labor Day to the creator of so much of the nation’s strength, freedom, and leadership – the American worker.
玉音放送 “The Jewel Voice Broadcast”
At 12 Noon Japan Standard Time, 15 August 1945, NHK, the Japan Broadcasting Corporation aired a speech Emperor Hirohito had recorded the previous day, accepting the Allies demand to surrender, or else.
And even after two “or else’s ” at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it still took the Emperor himself to make the decision and force his cabinet to accept the surrender. That’s just how much the Japanese goobermint, especially the military, didn’t want to quit, but were forced to.
1:53-6:23 Speech by His Imperial Majesty the Showa Emperor.
9:14-13:45 Same speech but read more fluently by NHK announcer.
大東亜戦争終結ノ詔書, Daitōa sensō shūketsu no shōsho
Imperial Rescript on the Termination of the Greater East Asia War
To our good and loyal subjects:
After pondering deeply the general trends of the world and the actual conditions obtaining to our empire today, we have decided to effect a settlement of the present situation by resorting to an extraordinary measure.
We have ordered our government to communicate to the governments of the United States, Great Britain, China, and the Soviet Union that our empire accepts the provisions of their Joint Declaration.
To strive for the common prosperity and happiness of all nations as well as the security and well-being of our subjects is the solemn obligation which has been handed down by our imperial ancestors, and which we lay close to heart. Indeed, we declared war on America and Britain out of our sincere desire to ensure Japan’s self-preservation and the stabilization of East Asia, it being far from our thought either to infringe upon the sovereignty of other nations or to embark upon territorial aggrandizement.
But now the war has lasted for nearly four years. Despite the best that has been done by everyone—the gallant fighting of the military and naval forces, the diligence and assiduity of our servants of the state, and the devoted service of our 100 million people—the war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan’s advantage, while the general trends of the world have all turned against her interest.
Moreover, the enemy has begun to employ a new and most cruel bomb, the power of which to damage is indeed incalculable, taking the toll of many innocent lives.
Should we continue to fight, it would not only result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation, but also it would lead to the total extinction of human civilization.
Such being the case, how are we to save the millions of our subjects or to atone ourselves before the hallowed spirits of our imperial ancestors? This is the reason why we have ordered the acceptance of the provisions of the Joint Declaration of the Powers.
We cannot but express the deepest sense of regret to our allied nations of East Asia, who have consistently co-operated with the empire towards the emancipation of East Asia. The thought of those officers and men as well as others who have fallen in the fields of battle, those who died at their posts of duty, or those who met with untimely death and all their bereaved families, pains our heart day and night.
The welfare of the wounded and the war sufferers, and of those who have lost their homes and livelihood, are the objects of our profound solicitude.
The hardships and sufferings to which our nation is to be subjected hereafter will certainly be great. We are keenly aware of the inmost feelings of all you, our subjects.
However, it is according to the dictate of time and fate that we have resolved to pave the way for a grand peace for all the generations to come by enduring the unendurable and suffering what is insufferable.
Having been able to safeguard and maintain the structure of the imperial state, we are always with you, our good and loyal subjects, relying upon your sincerity and integrity. Beware most strictly of any outbursts of emotion which may engender needless complications, or any fraternal contention and strife which may create confusion, lead you astray, and cause you to lose the confidence of the world.
Let the entire nation continue as one family from generation to generation, ever firm in its faith of the imperishableness of its divine land, and mindful of its heavy responsibilities, and the long road before it.
Unite your total strength to be devoted to the construction for the future. Cultivate the ways of rectitude; foster nobility of spirit; and work with resolution so that you may enhance the innate glory of the imperial state and keep pace with the progress of the world.
14th day of the 8th month of the 20th year of Showa.
August 14, 1945
With his cabinet tied and deadlocked on whether to end the war or continue on, Emperor Hirohito uses his personal prestige and decides to surrender, and later records the Imperial Rescript on the Termination of the Greater East Asia War and instructs the government to transmit to the Allies the full acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration and surrender of Japan.
A group of Imperial Army officers begin an attempt at a coup d’état to stop the surrender, confiscate the recording and occupy the Imperial Palace.
America Must Never Apologize for Dropping the Bombs on Japan.
This week marks the 80th anniversary of President Harry Truman’s fateful decision to drop atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (respectively, Aug. 6 and 9, 1945). To date, those two bombings represent the only instances in which nuclear weapons have been deployed in war. At least 150,000 Japanese perished — a majority of them civilians. But the bombings were successful in achieving their intended effect: Japan announced its formal surrender to the Allies six days after the second bombing, thus finally bringing the bloodiest conflict in human history to an end.
For decades, ethical opposition to Truman’s decision has mostly come from left-wing critics. That seems to be changing. Last year, Tucker Carlson claimed that nuclear weapons were created by “demonic” forces and asserted that the United States was “evil” for dropping the bomb on Japan. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard also posted a highly peculiar video in June that, while falling short of apologizing for the bombs, did pointedly warn of “warmongers” who are bringing the world to the brink of “nuclear holocaust.”
This is misguided. Looking back eight decades later, Truman’s decision deserves not condemnation but a tragic and grudging gratitude. It was the right decision, and America must never apologize for Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Critics often portray Truman’s decision as an act of monstrous brutality — a flex of raw military might by a sadistic and trigger-happy superpower. But such characterizations, drenched in presentist moral narcissism, do a grave disservice to the reality on the ground and the countless lives Truman undoubtedly saved. They are also a grave disservice to the memory of all those killed by the Japanese at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. Carlson and his fellow ultra-pacifists should visit Pearl Harbor and stand over the sunken USS Arizona, the final resting place of more than 900 sailors and marines. One can still see and smell the oil leaking from the ships, all these decades later; it is an extraordinary experience.
Shocking sensory intakes aside, the sober reality is that the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, no matter how morbid and macabre, were strategically and morally correct.
When Truman authorized the use of the atomic bombs, he faced a truly appalling alternative: a full-scale land invasion of Japan. Operation Downfall, the planned invasion of the Japanese home islands, had projected American and Japanese casualties potentially reaching as high as a million lives each. The Imperial Japanese, steeped in a kamikaze warrior ethos, had proven time and again — at Iwo Jima, Okinawa and elsewhere — that they would fight to the last man, woman and child. Schoolchildren were being trained to attack American troops with sharpened bamboo sticks. Fighting to the death was not mere speculation; it was core Imperial Japanese doctrine.
The under-discussed truth is that Imperial Japan was just as ruthless and barbaric as its Nazi German wartime ally. And the atomic bombs — absolutely horrific though they were — finally shocked Japan into surrender. They punctured Japan’s carefully curated myth of divine invincibility and left Tokyo’s bellicose leadership with no doubt that continued resistance could only mean utter annihilation.
More than 100,000 Americans had already been killed in the Pacific theater, and those who had survived were overjoyed by Truman’s decision: They knew they would live and return home to their wives and children.
Truman’s decision also affirmed a deeper American nationalistic sentiment: that from an American perspective, the safety and security of American lives must necessarily be prioritized over foreign lives. Truman did not see any moral virtue in sacrificing our soldiers on the altar of an abstract globalism or a relativistic humanitarianism. His first obligation as commander in chief was to protect American lives by securing a final, unconditional end to the war. In this, he succeeded — resoundingly.
Critics often claim Japan was already on the brink of surrender. They point to back-channel diplomacy and note the Soviet declaration of war the day prior to the bombing of Nagasaki. But Truman didn’t have the benefit of postwar memoirs or archival research. He had bloodied maps, hundreds of thousands of dead soldiers, grieving families, and military intelligence suggesting the Japanese military would never accept unconditional surrender without a shock so great it shattered their will to fight.
This, too, reflects a clarity that modern Western leaders often lack: the resolve to act decisively, to bear the weight of terrible decisions in pursuit of peace and justice. Truman’s choice was not only militarily sound but morally defensible. The bombings were not, as many armchair critics have argued over the decades, a cheap form of ethical utilitarianism; Truman’s decision to bomb was simply reflective of how real war-and-peace decisions must be made in the heat of the moment, when the stakes are the highest.
It is fashionable now to question the morality of Truman’s decision from the safety of the present. But it is an act of historical myopia to pretend that the atomic bombings were gratuitous or overly callous. They were not. They were the tragic price of a brutal victory and the necessary cost of hard-fought peace.
War, we know, is hell. Indeed, that is a very good reason to avoid starting wars in the first place. But once upon a time, Western societies understood that once a horrific war has been initiated, there can be no substitute for absolute victory. That lesson has long been forgotten. It is past time to learn it once again.
80 years ago, today, the beginning of the end of World War 2 started with the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. One would have thought that this one, single bomb, instantly destroying most of the city and killing 80,000 to 100,000 people would have convinced the Japanese government to surrender, but it didn’t, and we had to repeat the demonstration 3 days later on the alternate target city of Nagasaki. Even then, a group of Japanese Army officers attempted a coup to take over the government and continue the war.
That was just how obdurate the Japanese military and government was.
Original Thomas Jefferson letter will hit the auction block on July 4
A letter written by Thomas Jefferson will go up for auction on July 4. Estimators value the letter, which discusses the right to bear arms and the Treaty of Paris, at $90,000.
As America celebrates its 249th birthday on July 4, a unique piece of American history from one of the founding fathers will hit the auction block.
A letter written by Thomas Jefferson that asserts the rights of democratic citizens to “exercise in arms for defense of their country” will go up for bids in an auction from the Raab Collection. Estimators value the letter at $90,000.
This is the first time the letter has been made available for purchase since 1982.
Written on Dec. 31, 1783, and addressed to Benjamin Harrison, then the governor of Virginia and a fellow signer of the Declaration of Independence, the letter addresses a number of topics. Jefferson muses on the spread of democracy across the world and the political fate of the Treaty of Paris, which formally ended the war between the U.S. and Great Britain.
The letter could be of particular interest to Second Amendment enthusiasts, which would be somewhat ironic since the Second Amendment would not be written until six years after it was penned. Despite that, Jefferson makes a passionate case for the right to bear arms in his note to Harrison, writing that Democratic citizens wanted “to exercise in arms for the defense of their country: of 80000 men able to bear arms among them it is believed scarcely any will refuse to sign this demand.”
Jefferson also expresses concerns that the Treaty of Paris might not be ratified by Congress in time for it to be sent back to Britain and made official.
“We have yet but seven states, and no more certain prospects of nine than at any time heretofore. We hope that the letters sent to the absent states will bring them forward,” he writes.
(Harrison, in a follow-up note that is not part of the auction, would write back to calm his fears that the treaty would pass.)
“This letter speaks to us today on many levels,” said Nathan Raab, president of the Raab Collection and author of The Hunt for History. “We can see the power and inspiration of Jefferson’s pen, as he can begin to reflect on the success of his work and the American Revolution and witness democratic ideals spreading worldwide.”
To Benjamin Harrison
Annapolis, Dec. 31, 1783.
Sir
Letters from Holland from the middle to the last of September inform us that the citizens of the Dutch states are all in commotion. The conduct of the Prince of Orange having been such as greatly to strengthen the republican party, they are now pressing in the firmest tone a restoration of their constitutional rights. Friesland, as usual, leads the way.
They have demanded of the sovereign assembly of the states that the power of the Stadtholder to change or reinforce the garrisons be limited or taken away, and that themselves be authorized to exercise in arms for the defence of their country: of 80000 men able to bear arms among them it is believed scarcely any will refuse to sign this demand.
The Hollanders have referred to a Committee in their last assembly the examination of the power by which the prince undertakes to appoint flag officers of their fleet, and that he be desired to abstain from the exercise of it. There happens to be vacant the place of admiral. The other states seem to be in the same temper, and are now regularly exercising themselves in arms under the ensigns of their respective towns. Tho each state is to chuse their Stadtholder out of the Orange family they consider themselves not bound to chuse the eldest, and of course that they may chuse different ones.
The state of Europe at present seems favorable to the republican party, as the powers who might aid the prince are either fatigued with the late war, or likely to be engaged in the ensuing one.
We have yet but seven states, and no more certain prospects of nine than at any time heretofore. We hope that the letters sent to the absent states will bring them forward.
Bunker Hill and the Right to Bear Arms
250 years ago today the last major action fought between the British Army and an army comprised of militia members took place just north of Boston. The Battle of Bunker Hill technically took place on Breed’s Hill, but the location matters less than the outcome. While the British technically won the battle by forcing the citizen army from the field, they paid an enormous price; suffering twice the number of casualties than the colonists fighting in defense of their liberties, including 19 officers killed and another 62 wounded.
Though the Continental Army had been created by an act of the Continental Congress just a few days earlier, the men who fought against the Redcoats on that steamy June afternoon were serving as militia members; part of the Army of Occupation created by the Provincial Congress in the days after the fighting at Lexington and Concord. George Washington wouldn’t arrive until July, 1775, and it was Artemus Ward who was the commander-in-chief of the militia forces during the fighting at Bunker Hill (though Israel Putnam and William Prescott were the ones in command on the battlefield itself).
Some of the citizen-soldiers who fought at Bunker Hill had seen the heat of battle before, but many were untested before they faced the might of the British Empire.
The first assault was begun by the column of light infantry on the far beach, the American left flank, and was followed by the cannonading of Charlestown on the right flank, which set the town in flames; then came the slow forward movement of the main battle line: two ranks of scarlet-clad grenadiers and light infantrymen, almost 2,000 in all, marching in full kit pounds of knapsacks, blankets, food, and ammunition—across irregular fields of knee-deep grass broken by fences and low stone walls.
The American troops—no more than 1, 500 men at any time, at the end only half that—held their fire until the first British line was within 150 feet of the barricades; when they fired it was almost at point-blank range, and the result was slaughter. The British front line collapsed in heaps of dead and wounded—”as thick as sheep in a field.” General Howe’s entire staff was wiped out in the main attack against the rail fence. Great gaps appeared in the once parade-perfect ranks, and the survivors spun back.
The British regrouped and once again made their way up the hill, only to be rebuffed by another wave of fire. On their third attempt, however, the Redcoats gained the upper hand.
Again the advancing line was thrown back by the defenders’ fire, and again great gaps were torn in the marching ranks. But this time the fire was less intense and it could not be sustained. The 700 exhausted defenders had been sent no reinforcements; they had no supplies except what they had carried with them the night before.
As the third charge neared the line of fortification their powder ran out, and though they fought desperately with everything they could lay hands on, they could no longer force the British back. Grenadiers and light infantrymen poured over the parapets and through the thin barricades, and dove into groups of defenders. The Americans turned and fled up over and around Bunker Hill to the roads that led to safety. So the battle came to an end.
The British had taken Bunker Hill, but they were still pinned down in Boston, and their position in Charleston offered them no tactical advantage against the tens of thousands of militia members in the surrounding fields and towns.
The colonists fighting for their rights as Englishmen, still more than a year away from declaring independence, saw the tactical loss as a moral and spiritual victory. Farmers, mechanics, and fishermen, along with lawyers, doctors, and merchants, stood their ground and held their own against a larger, better equipped, and far better trained army.
“ Up until the Battle of Bunker Hill, and really even following the events of Lexington and Concord, there was this pervasive opinion among the British military establishment that militiamen and colonials were not a serious threat.
In fact, one British officer in the runup to revolution remarked that he could march across the entire continent unscathed with just 5,000 men,” [American Rifleman Executive Editor Evan] Brune said.
“And those kinds of suppositions were quickly put to rest following the really true bloodbath that was the assault on Bunker Hill by British infantry. The British suffered more than 900 casualties trying to take these defensive fortifications over three assaults.”
The memories of Bunker Hill (as well as Lexington and Concord) were still fresh on the minds of many Americans when the Second Amendment was enshrined in the Constitution sixteen years later. They knew the value of the militia, but more importantly, they recognized the inherent right of the people to keep and bear arms in defense of themselves and their free states.
I’m guessing that most of the politicians on hand for today’s anniversary events won’t acknowledge that right in their remarks. Heck, most of the local politicians who’ll show up consider the Second Amendment a dead letter; an artifact of history that has no relevance today. The right of the people to keep and bear arms, however, is just as important and valuable today as it was in 1791; both as a safeguard for individual security and protection against tyranny.
Oh, I almost forgot. Today is also ‘Flag Day’ which was instituted in 1916, When President Woodrow Wilson issued a presidential proclamation that designated June 14 as ‘Flag Day’.
In 1777 the same Second Continental Congress passed the Flag Resolution;
“That the flag of the thirteen United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation.”
Different people had their own interpretations of that specification and even the story of George Washington employing Betsy Ross to sew a flag doesn’t have much to back it up. The nation didn’t have a ‘standard’ flag until the new U.S. Congress passed the Flag Act of 1794, when 2 stars a 2 stripes were added due the entry of Vermont and Kentucky into the Union.
Francis Hopkinson’s flag for the U.S.
Hopkinson’s flag for the U.S. Navy
The ‘Star Spangled Banner’ design which flew over Ft McHenry during the was of 1812 and inspired Francis Scott Key to write our National Anthem.
Tiananmen Square Anniversary: Chinese-American Warns U.S. to Protect Gun Rights
Today is the anniversary of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) troops storming Tiananmen Square to massacre the freedom protesters who had gathered there. A survivor of the CCP’s tyranny who now lives in the U.S. has a message for Americans this anniversary: Don’t give up your guns.
Lily Tang Williams is an American citizen now, an entrepreneur who is running for Congress in New Hampshire. But the self-described “Survivor of Mao’s Cultural Revolution” remembers all too well the nightmare of Communist rule in China, and on the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, she emphasized how vitally important the right to keep and bear arms is in preventing such massacres by dictatorial regimes.
Williams took to X to commemorate the anniversary and reaffirm the United States’ Second Amendment. She included a screenshot of her previous post, which warned that the “champion of all the mass killings in this world is always a tyrannical government.”
Her previous post referred to the slaughter by the CCP troops of thousands of students at Tiananmen Square, and expressed regret that the students in 1989 did not have guns like the ones she is able to own now in America. “I am a Chinese immigrant and an American citizen by choice. I once was a slave before and I will never be one again,” Williams wrote.
The U.S. State Department and Secretary Marco Rubio put out a statement, too, honoring the “bravery” of the Chinese freedom protesters and explaining:
In the spring of 1989, tens of thousands of students gathered in Beijing’s largest public square to mourn the passing of a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader who tried to steer China toward a more open and democratic system. Their actions inspired a national movement.
Hundreds of thousands of ordinary people in the capital and throughout China took to the streets for weeks to exercise their freedoms of expression and peaceful assembly by advocating for democracy, human rights, and an end to rampant corruption.
The CCP responded with a brutal crackdown, sending the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to open fire in an attempt to extinguish the pro-democracy sentiments of unarmed civilians gathered on Beijing’s streets and in Tiananmen Square.
The fact that the civilians were unarmed is precisely what Williams was warning about in her statements.
On her website, Williams says, “I grew up under Mao’s cultural revolution in China and fled communism for the freedom of the United States. Now, I fear the country I love is becoming the country I left.” It is a fear that many of us have experienced in recent years as we witnessed the attacks on our rights by the Biden administration, and now the increasing dictatorial activism of the judiciary. But one way to deter government tyranny is to exercise our Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms, to be ready always to stand up for ourselves and our liberties, as the Founding Fathers were.
Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto IJN:
“In the first six to twelve months of a war with the United States and Great Britain I will run wild and win victory upon victory. But then, if the war continues after that, I have no expectation of success.”
Well, after the disaster of the Battle of Midway on June 4, 1942 the Japanese never had success. Their Imperial Navy suffered a blow from which it never recovered. Although the war continued for three more years, from that day on, America was headed for victory.
May 29: The Last Day of the World
“On May 29, 1453,” the state-run Turkish broadcaster TRT World reported happily on Thursday, the 572nd anniversary of the fateful day, “a 21-year-old Sultan Mehmed II led the Ottoman army to a decisive victory over the Byzantine Empire. The conquest of Istanbul remains a shining jewel in the crown of the Ottoman Empire.” Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s desire to restore the lost glory of that empire is well known, but those who are the children and heirs of the victims of its bloody expansion look on this anniversary with somewhat less enthusiasm than TRT World displayed.
Some Greek Orthodox Christians to this day refer to May 29, 1453, as “the last day of the world.” In a very real sense, that is exactly what it was: the end of over two thousand years of the Roman Empire, the end of what had for centuries been the world’s foremost power and leading Christian state. The conquest of Constantinople meant the eclipse of Christianity in Asia Minor, which had been such an important center of the faith that three of Paul’s New Testament epistles — Galatians, Ephesians, and Colossians — were addressed to Christian congregations there.
Constantinople had been the center of Christianity in the eastern part of the Roman Empire, and the second see in the Church, after only Rome. After the East/West schism of 1054, Constantinople was the heart of Orthodox Christianity. As “The History of Jihad” recounts in detail, however, on Tuesday, May 29, 1453, the armies of the Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II finally broke through Constantinople’s defenses after a long siege, marking the end of the great Christian Roman Empire.
The conquerors were extraordinarily brutal, raiding monasteries and convents, emptying them of their inhabitants, and plundering private houses. They entered Hagia Sophia, which for nearly a thousand years had been the grandest church in Christendom. The faithful had gathered within its hallowed walls to pray during the city’s last agony. The Muslims halted the celebration of Orthros (morning prayer), while the priests, according to legend, took the sacred vessels and disappeared into the cathedral’s eastern wall, through which they shall return to complete the divine service one day. Muslim men then killed the elderly and weak and led the rest off into slavery.
The Byzantine scholar Bessarion wrote to the Doge of Venice in July 1453, saying that Constantinople had been “sacked by the most inhuman barbarians and the most savage enemies of the Christian faith, by the fiercest of wild beasts. The public treasure has been consumed, private wealth has been destroyed, the temples have been stripped of gold, silver, jewels, the relics of the saints, and other most precious ornaments. Men have been butchered like cattle, women abducted, virgins ravished, and children snatched from the arms of their parents.”
When the slaughter and pillage were finished, Mehmed II ordered an Islamic scholar to mount the high pulpit of the Hagia Sophia and declare that there was no God but Allah, and Muhammad was his prophet. The magnificent old church was turned into a mosque; hundreds of other churches in Constantinople and elsewhere suffered the same fate. Millions of Christians joined the ranks of the dhimmis; others were enslaved, and many were killed.
Once the Muslims had thoroughly subdued Constantinople, they set out to Islamize it. According to the Muslim chronicler Hoca Sa’deddin, tutor of the sixteenth-century Sultans Murad III and Mehmed III, “churches which were within the city were emptied of their vile idols and cleansed from the filthy and idolatrous impurities and by the defacement of their images and the erection of Islamic prayer niches and pulpits many monasteries and chapels became the envy of the gardens of Paradise.”
It has come to be known as Black Tuesday, the Last Day of the World. Ever since, many Greek Christians regard Tuesday as unlucky. The world has forgotten what happened on Black Tuesday and on so many other days like it from India to Spain, and today persists in the fantasy that Islam does not contain an imperialist impulse and that Muslims can be admitted without limit into Western countries without any attempt to determine how many would like ultimately to subjugate and Islamize their new countries, the way their forefathers did to Constantinople so long ago.
Related: Is the West Suffering From an Absence of Islam?
There are, however, some people who remember — and they want to do it again. Back in 2008, Sheik Ali Al-Faqir, former Jordanian minister of religious endowment, said this on Al-Aqsa TV: “We proclaim that we will conquer Rome, like Constantinople was conquered once…” Hamas MP and Islamic cleric Yunis Al-Astal said this, also on Al-Aqsa TV several years ago: “Very soon, Allah willing, Rome will be conquered, just like Constantinople was, as was prophesized by our Prophet Muhammad.”
The man who was the most popular Islamic TV preacher until his death several years ago, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, also remembered. In writing about “signs of the victory of Islam,” he referred to a hadith: “The Prophet Muhammad was asked: ‘What city will be conquered first, Constantinople or Romiyya?’ He answered: ‘The city of Hirqil [that is, the Roman emperor Heraclius] will be conquered first’ – that is, Constantinople… Romiyya is the city called today ‘Rome,’ the capital of Italy. The city of Hirqil [that is, Constantinople] was conquered by the young 23-year-old Ottoman Muhammad bin Morad, known in history as Muhammad the Conqueror, in 1453. The other city, Romiyya, remains, and we hope and believe [that it too will be conquered].”
Mehmed the Conqueror was motivated by exactly the same religious ideology that motivates the Islamic warriors of the contemporary era. They remember, and still celebrate, what happened in Constantinople on May 29, 1453. For free people in the West and elsewhere, May 29 should be a day for all those threatened by Islamic jihad and Sharia oppression to redouble our efforts to resist, so that more such catastrophes may never again destroy the lives of free people.
CBS News warns that if we don’t stop burning ancient carbon, 25% of Florida will soon be underwater.
Oh wait, silly me, this was broadcast 43 years ago. pic.twitter.com/XtITXQAKAt
— Chris Martz (@ChrisMartzWX) May 13, 2025
May 8, 2025
80 years ago, today, the Germans surrendered to the Allies, ending World War 2 in Europe. As the veterans called the ‘Greatest Generation’ steadily succumb to the ravages of time, let’s not forget the sacrifice of those few still living and dead.
VE – Victory in Europe DAY. Under terms of the surrender by Germany, the order for “all German military, naval and air authorities and to all forces under German control to cease active operations” takes effect.
“The western world has been freed of the evil forces which for five years and longer have imprisoned the bodies and broken the lives of millions upon millions of freeborn men. They have violated their churches, destroyed their homes, corrupted their children and murdered their loved ones. Our armies of liberation have restored freedom to those suffering peoples, whose spirit and will the oppressor could never enslave.”
— President Harry S. Truman, V-E Day Proclamation, 8 May 1945