Category: History

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.

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

 

Cinco de Mayo

Cinco de Mayo is not Mexican Independence Day, a popular misconception.
Instead, it commemorates a single battle.

In 1861, Benito Juárez—a lawyer and member of the Zapotec tribe—was elected president of Mexico. At the time, the country was in financial ruin after years of internal strife, and the new president was forced to default on debt payments to European governments.

In response, France, Britain and Spain sent naval forces to Veracruz, Mexico, demanding repayment. Britain and Spain negotiated with Mexico and withdrew their forces.

France, however, ruled by Napoleon III, decided to use the opportunity to carve an empire out of Mexican territory. Late in 1861, a well-armed French fleet stormed Veracruz, landing a large force of troops and driving President Juárez and his government into retreat.

The Battle of Puebla
Certain that success would come swiftly, 6,000 French troops under General Charles Latrille de Lorencez set out to attack Puebla de Los Angeles, a small town in east-central Mexico. From his new headquarters in the north, Juárez rounded up a ragtag force of 2,000 loyal men—many of them either Indigenous Mexicans or of mixed ancestry—and sent them to Puebla.

The vastly outnumbered and poorly supplied Mexicans, led by Texas-born General Ignacio Zaragoza, fortified the town and prepared for the French assault. On May 5, 1862, Lorencez gathered his army—supported by heavy artillery—before the city of Puebla and led an assault.

The battle lasted from daybreak to early evening, and when the French finally retreated they had lost nearly 500 soldiers. Fewer than 100 Mexicans had been killed in the clash.

Although not a major strategic win in the overall war against the French, Zaragoza’s success at the Battle of Puebla on May 5 represented a great symbolic victory for the Mexican government and bolstered the resistance movement. In 1867—thanks in part to military support and political pressure from the United States, which was finally in a position to aid its besieged neighbor after the end of the Civil War—France finally withdrew.

To the shores of Tripoli….

On April 27, 1805, during the 1st Barbary War, after a march of over 500 miles from Alexandria, Egypt, U.S. Marines, and allied troops under the command of U.S. Army Lieutenant William Eaton, diplomatic Consul to Tripoli, and U.S. Marine Corps Lieutenant Presley O’Bannon, staged an assault, supported by U.S. naval gunfire, on the port city of Derna, Cyrenaica, on the Mediterranean sea shores of Tripolitania, taking the city in a little over an hour.

 

 

I had never heard of ‘LapuLapu Day’ before, but it turns out we all here have a sort of connection to the festival.

Lapulapu or Lapu-Lapu, was a Datu (chief) of Mactan, a Philippine island. Lapulapu is known for the Battle of Mactan in 1521, where he and his men defeated Spanish forces led by Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan on his voyage of circumnavigation. Magellan’s death in that battle delayed the Spanish occupation of the islands until the expedition of Miguel López de Legazpi reached the islands in 1565.

CCRKBA CELEBRATES 250TH ANNIVERSARY OF LEXINGTON, CONCORD: 2A BIRTHDAY

BELLEVUE, WA – This Saturday, April 19, 2025 marks the 250th anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord, the date which could easily be recognized as the birthday of the Second Amendment, and the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms calls on all freedom-loving Americans to join in the celebration.

“April 19th marks that day in history when the government of the era sent troops to seize the arms of Americans, and our ancestors replied with a decisive ‘No’,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “While the Declaration of Independence didn’t happen for another 15 months, the Revolutionary War actually began at Lexington Commons and the Concord North Bridge in the Spring of 1775, and it can honestly be said Americans have been fighting hard and shedding blood ever since to defend not just their natural right to be free from tyranny, but to protect and perpetuate what was and remains the uniquely American concept of freedom and liberty.

“The events of that April morning didn’t just show the British that our forefathers had drawn the proverbial line in the sand,” Gottlieb continued. “The two battles solidified the importance of our fundamental, individual right to keep and bear arms, and we honor the wisdom of our Founders to make it the cornerstone of our Bill of Rights.

“The Second Amendment,” he observed, “isn’t enshrined in our Constitution just so people can hunt ducks and deer. The right protected by the Second Amendment guarantees that Americans can defend themselves, their families and their homes from oppressive tyranny, and from crime and brutality. The Amendment doesn’t give us anything. Instead, it protects the fundamental rights we are born with from government infringement.

“The Founders knew what they were doing,” Gottlieb said. “They gave us a Republic, and the means to keep and protect it. They provided guarantees for our freedoms of speech, religion, the press and our privacy. We cannot be compelled to testify against ourselves, nor can we be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment, or deprived of legal representation. The right to keep and bear arms is our insurance policy that all of these other rights will not be trampled, nor turned into government-regulated privileges.

“The Second Amendment is part of our heritage,” he added. “Today it is sad there are so many willing to erase it, while at the same time it is gratifying there are so many more willing to protect it. The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms is going to make sure we keep it that way.”

Battle at Lexington Green, 1775

Twenty three year old Sylvanus Wood was one of the Lexington militia who answered the call that spring morning. Several years after the event he committed his recollection to paper in an affidavit sworn before a Justice of the Peace which was first published in 1858:

“I, Sylvanus Wood, of Woburn, in the county of Middlesex, and commonwealth of Massachusetts, aged seventy-four years, do testify and say that on the morning of the 19th of April, 1775, I was an inhabitant of Woburn, living with Deacon Obadiah Kendall; that about an hour before the break of day on said morning, I heard the Lexington bell ring, and fearing there was difficulty there, I immediately arose, took my gun and, with Robert Douglass, went in haste to Lexington, which was about three miles distant.

When I arrived there, I inquired of Captain Parker, the commander of the Lexington company, what was the news. Parker told me he did not know what to believe, for a man had come up about half an hour before and informed him that the British troops were not on the road. But while we were talking, a messenger came up and told the captain that the British troops were within half a mile.

Parker immediately turned to his drummer, William Diman, and ordered him to beat to arms, which was done. Captain Parker then asked me if I would parade with his company. I told him I would. Parker then asked me if the young man with me would parade. I spoke to Douglass, and he said he would follow the captain and me.

By this time many of the company had gathered around the captain at the hearing of the drum, where we stood, which was about half way between the meetinghouse and Buckman’s tavern.

Parker says to his men, ‘Every man of you, who is equipped, follow me; and those of you who are not equipped, go into the meeting-house and furnish yourselves from the magazine, and immediately join the company.’

Parker led those of us who were equipped to the north end of Lexington Common, near the Bedford Road, and formed us in single file. I was stationed about in the centre of the company. While we were standing, I left my place and went from one end of the company to the other and counted every man who was paraded, and the whole number was thirty-eight, and no more.

Just as I had finished and got back to my place, I perceived the British troops had arrived on the spot between the meeting-house and Bucknian’s, near where Captain Parker stood when he first led off his men.

The British troops immediately wheeled so as to cut off those who had gone into the meeting-house. The British troops approached us rapidly in platoons, with a general officer on horseback at their head. The officer came up to within about two rods of the centre of the company, where I stood, the first platoon being about three rods distant. They there halted.

The officer then swung his sword, and said, ‘Lay down your arms, you damned rebels, or you are all dead men. Fire!’ Some guns were fired by the British at us from the first platoon, but no person was killed or hurt, being probably charged only with powder.

Just at this time, Captain Parker ordered every man to take care of himself. The company immediately dispersed; and while the company was dispersing and leaping over the wall, the second platoon of the British fired and killed some of our men.

There was not a gun fired by any of Captain Parker’s company, within my knowledge. I was so situated that I must have known it, had any thing of the kind taken place before a total dispersion of our company.

I have been intimately acquainted with the inhabitants of Lexington, and particularly with those of Captain Parker’s company, and, with one exception, I have never heard any of them say or pretend that there was any firing at the British from Parker’s company, or any individual in it until within a year or two.

One member of the company told me, many years since, that, after Parker’s company had dispersed, and he was at some distance, he gave them ‘the guts of his gun.'”

250 years ago – to the day – some of our forefathers decided they would resist tyranny…at gunpoint.
This imaginary news ‘report’ is what we’d likely see published in today’s leftist controlled media.

Date Line – BOSTON,

Units of the Massachusetts Governor’s Counter Terrorist Task Force seeking to confiscate a cache of recently banned assault weapons were ambushed today by elements of a para-military extremist faction. Military and Law Enforcement sources estimated that 72 were killed and more than 20 injured before government forces were compelled to withdraw.

Speaking after the clash, Governor Thomas Gage declared that the extremist faction, which was made up of local citizens, has links to the radical right-wing tax protest movement. Gage blamed the extremists for recent incidents of vandalism directed against internal revenue offices.

The governor, who described the group’s organizers as “criminals,” issued an executive order authorizing the summary arrest of any individual who has interfered with the government’s efforts to secure law and order.

The military raid on the extremist arsenal followed wide spread refusal by the local citizenry to turn over recently outlawed assault weapons. Gage issued a ban on military style assault weapons and ammunition earlier in the week. This decision followed a meeting in early April between government and military leaders at which the governor authorized the forcible confiscation of illegal arms. One government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, pointed out that; “none of these people would have been killed had the extremists obeyed the law and turned their weapons over voluntarily…”

Government troops initially succeeded in confiscating a large supply of outlawed weapons and ammunition, however, troops attempting to seize arms and ammunition in Lexington met with resistance from heavily-armed extremists who had apparently been tipped off regarding the government’s plans.

During a tense standoff in Lexington’s town park, Major John Pitcairn, commander of the advance contingent of government troops, ordered the armed group to surrender and return to their homes. The impasse was broken by a single shot, which was reportedly fired by one of the extremists, however there is some doubt about who actually did fire it.
Eight civilians were killed in the ensuing exchange.

Ironically, the local citizenry blamed government forces rather than the extremists for the civilian deaths. Before order could be restored, armed citizens from surrounding areas had descended upon the guard units. Colonel Francis Smith, in command of the entire force, finding his troops overmatched by the armed mob, ordered a retreat.

Governor Gage has called upon citizens to support the state/national joint task force in its effort to restore law and order. The governor has also demanded the surrender of those responsible for planning and leading the attack against the government troops. Samuel Adams, Paul Revere, and John Hancock, who have been identified as ringleaders of the extremist faction, remain at large.

Luke 23

1  And the whole multitude of them arose, and led him unto Pilate.
2  And they began to accuse him, saying, We found this fellow perverting the nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Caesar, saying that he himself is Christ a King.
3  And Pilate asked him, saying, Art thou the King of the Jews? And he answered him and said, Thou sayest it.
4  Then said Pilate to the chief priests and to the people, I find no fault in this man.
5  And they were the more fierce, saying, He stirreth up the people, teaching throughout all Jewry, beginning from Galilee to this place.
6  When Pilate heard of Galilee, he asked whether the man were a Galilaean.
7  And as soon as he knew that he belonged unto Herod’s jurisdiction, he sent him to Herod, who himself also was at Jerusalem at that time.
8  And when Herod saw Jesus, he was exceeding glad: for he was desirous to see him of a long season, because he had heard many things of him; and he hoped to have seen some miracle done by him.
9  Then he questioned with him in many words; but he answered him nothing.
10  And the chief priests and scribes stood and vehemently accused him.
11  And Herod with his men of war set him at nought, and mocked him, and arrayed him in a gorgeous robe, and sent him again to Pilate.
12  And the same day Pilate and Herod were made friends together: for before they were at enmity between themselves.
13  And Pilate, when he had called together the chief priests and the rulers and the people,
14  Said unto them, Ye have brought this man unto me, as one that perverteth the people: and, behold, I, having examined him before you, have found no fault in this man touching those things whereof ye accuse him:
15  No, nor yet Herod: for I sent you to him; and, lo, nothing worthy of death is done unto him.
16  I will therefore chastise him, and release him.
17  (For of necessity he must release one unto them at the feast.)
18  And they cried out all at once, saying, Away with this man, and release unto us Barabbas:
19  (Who for a certain sedition made in the city, and for murder, was cast into prisn.)
20  Pilate therefore, willing to release Jesus, spake again to them.
21  But they cried, saying, Crucify him, crucify him.
22  And he said unto them the third time, Why, what evil hath he done? I have found no cause of death in him: I will therefore chastise him, and let him go.
23  And they were instant with loud voices, requiring that he might be crucified. And the voices of them and of the chief priests prevailed.
24  And Pilate gave sentence that it should be as they required.
25  And he released unto them him that for sedition and murder was cast into prison, whom they had desired; but he delivered Jesus to their will.
26  And as they led him away, they laid hold upon one Simon, a Cyrenian, coming out of the country, and on him they laid the cross, that he might bear it after Jesus.
27  And there followed him a great company of people, and of women, which also bewailed and lamented him.
28  But Jesus turning unto them said, Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children.
29  For, behold, the days are coming, in the which they shall say, Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bare, and the paps which never gave suck.
30  Then shall they begin to say to the mountains, Fall on us; and to the hills, Cover us.
31  For if they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry?
32  And there were also two other, malefactors, led with him to be put to death.
33  And when they were come to the place, which is called Calvary, there they crucified him, and the malefactors, one on the right hand, and the other on the left.
34  Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. And they parted his raiment, and cast lots.
35  And the people stood beholding. And the rulers also with them derided him, saying, He saved others; let him save himself, if he be Christ, the chosen of God.
36  And the soldiers also mocked him, coming to him, and offering him vinegar,
37  And saying, If thou be the king of the Jews, save thyself.
38  And a superscription also was written over him in letters of Greek, and Latin, and Hebrew, THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS.
39  And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him, saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself and us.
40  But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation?
41  And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man hath done nothing amiss.
42  And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.
43  And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise.
44  And it was about the sixth hour, and there was a darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour.
45  And the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was rent in the midst.
46  And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost.
47  Now when the centurion saw what was done, he glorified God, saying, Certainly this was a righteous man.
48  And all the people that came together to that sight, beholding the things which were done, smote their breasts, and returned.
49  And all his acquaintance, and the women that followed him from Galilee, stood afar off, beholding these things.
50  And, behold, there was a man named Joseph, a counsellor; and he was a good man, and a just:
51  (The same had not consented to the counsel and deed of them;) he was of Arimathaea, a city of the Jews: who also himself waited for the kingdom of God.
52  This man went unto Pilate, and begged the body of Jesus.
53  And he took it down, and wrapped it in linen, and laid it in a sepulchre that was hewn in stone, wherein never man before was laid.
54  And that day was the preparation, and the sabbath drew on.
55  And the women also, which came with him from Galilee, followed after, and beheld the sepulchre, and how his body was laid.
56  And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments; and rested the sabbath day according to the commandment.

Just to add to the history of today:

The Doolittle Raid, conducted on April 18, 1942, was an air raid by the United States Army Air Forces on Japan during World War II. Led by Lt. Col. James H. Doolittle, the specially modified B25 Mitchell bombers, were launched from the carrier USS Hornet (CV-8) and targeted military and industrial sites in Tokyo and other cities, marking the first American air operation to strike the Japanese homeland.

The raid aimed to, and did, inflict both material and especially psychological damage on Japan following the attack on Pearl Harbor, boosting American morale and demonstrating that Japan was vulnerable to American air attacks.

It also re-energized the Imperial Japanese Navy’s plan to assault and invade Midway Island, some historians saying that it caused Admiral Yamamoto to so hasten implementing the operation, the IJN didn’t fully prepare for it.

1775-

Isaiah Thomas -revolutionary patriot and printer of the Boston newspaper, The Massachusetts Spy, most influential for spreading revolutionary news in New England – on the advice of John Hancock, disassembles his printing press and under the cover of darkness, on the evening of April 16 moves it out of Boston, ferrying it across Boston Harbor to Charlestown, where his friend Timothy Bigelow hides it in the basement of his home in Worcester.

1775-
Massachusetts Colonial Governor General Thomas Gage receives instructions from Lord Dartmouth, King George’s Cabinet Minister as Secretary of State for the Colonies, authorizing the use of military force in Massachusetts and directing him to arrest leaders of the rebellion.