General Jacob Bayley remains one of the most obscure figures of American Revolutionary War leadership. Yet in our present age of debilitated moral strength, feeble character, and flexuous purposes, the details of his life and deeds are both instructive and edifying.
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One of the most impressive names in the annals of American Revolutionary War leadership is that of General John Stark of New Hampshire. Few of his peers equaled him in fighting prowess, tenacity, and strength of character; and while his name may be unfamiliar today, this is only because he was an apolitical animal who scrupulously refused to seek the garlands of notoriety and fame.
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The Canadian explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson, who lived from 1879 to 1962, changed his birth name when he was in college. He was originally known as William Stephenson, and was born in Manitoba, Canada. His biographers do not know exactly what prompted him to make such a startling reinvention of identity.
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Painting is a perishable art. Pigment fades and flakes with the centuries; and the passage of millennia leaves us nothing of painting but dust and memories. From antiquity have survived statues, tombs, mosaics, some murals here and there, artifacts of all kinds, and the sublime monuments of architecture; but of the great Greek and Roman painters, we have no original works.
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On July 27, 1880, General George Burrows led just under 2,500 British and Indian troops into the field near Maiwand, Afghanistan, to intercept an Afghan force led by Ayub Khan. Burrows, however, was not aware that he was confronting a force that numbered around 25,000 Afghan warriors. The terrible engagement that followed, known to history as the Battle of Maiwand, was one of the major battles of the Second Anglo-Afghan War.
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As February 10, 1864 dawned at Libby Prison, the remaining inmates awaited the inevitable hurricane of outrage and disbelief that they knew was coming. All through the night, men had made their way through Col. Thomas Rose’s tunnel and out of Rat Hell to the dark streets of Richmond. Now they would have to face the music once the morning count was conducted.
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The greatest prison camp escape in American history took place at Libby Prison in Richmond, Virginia, in February 1864. On a cold winter night, 109 Union officers crawled through a suffocating, claustrophobic tunnel from a Confederate hell-hole to an empty lot near the building, and from there tried to make their way through hostile country to Union lines more than fifty miles away. Many of them won their freedom, but many were recaptured and sent right back to prison.
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By 1916, the year of his death, Lord Horatio Kitchener had for years been a venerated and legendary figure throughout the British Empire. The campaigns in Gallipoli and Mesopotamia had dimmed some of his luster, but his name remained a revered one. The official announcement of his death thus came as a deep shock; and even today, after more than a hundred years, the nebulous circumstances of his death continue to invite speculation as to whether some element of foul play was involved.
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Governments looking for a pretext to justify a predetermined course of action will undoubtedly find one. Some outrage can be seized upon, some barbarity can be dangled before the public, or some looming danger can be created to whip up support for a policy. It is an ancient stratagem, and an effective one. A convincing casus belli needs only the correct manner of its deployment.
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The late 19th century saw an intense competition between the British and Russian empires for influence in central Asia. Once act of this “Great Game” was the Second Afghan War, which was fought between 1878 and 1880. Britain’s goals were two-fold: to keep tsarist forces out of Afghanistan, and to create a friendly buffer state between the British Raj and Russian territory.
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Quintus Curtius 
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