'Botanical Sexism' Could Be Behind Your Seasonal Allergies
https://share.google/rTErZfDeR2SnWzfEn
Friday, June 5, 2026
June 6 is D-Day: quotes (Shakespeare, Eisenhower, Churchill), lots of links
There's so much available on this subject - the information below consists of things I found of particular interest.
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian.'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispian's day.'
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words-
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester-
Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb'red.
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.
~ William Shakespeare (King Henry V, Act IV, Sc. 3)
 |
| via Wikimedia Commons - embiggen here. |
Good luck, and let us all beseech the blessings of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.
~ General Dwight D. Eisenhower (wiki) (Order of the Day for 6 June 1944, excerpts)
And here's the story of The Speech Eisenhower Never Gave On The Normandy Invasion - he had prepared it in case the mission failed:
Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based upon the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone.
This vast operation is undoubtedly the most complicated and difficult that has ever taken place. It involves tides, wind, waves, visibility, both from the air and the sea standpoint, and the combined employment of land, air and sea forces in the highest degree of intimacy and in contact with conditions which could not and cannot be fully foreseen.
Then darkness enveloped the whole American armada. Not a pinpoint of light showed from those hundred of ships as they surged through the night toward their destiny, carrying across the ageless and indifferent sea tens of thousands of young men, fighting for ... for ... well, at least for each other.
June 6 is anniversary of D-Day (wiki) in 1944, the date of the long-awaited allied invasion of Europe, on the Normandy coast of France. Preparations for Operation OVERLORD had been underway for over a year, but because of exemplary allied operational security and several elaborate deception schemes, the German high command remained unsure of the time and location of the actual landings and as a result found themselves unexpectedly back-footed in organizing an effective defense.
Thus, in the largest military operation in history, the Allies were able to land 160,000 troops in France on the first day, and by the end of August, three million – 47 divisions – were ashore. Organized under the aegis of OVERLORD’s naval element, Operation NEPTUNE, more than 4,100 landing craft and transports supported the crossing, and these were protected by more than 1,200 warships, including 200 destroyers, destroyer escorts, frigates, corvettes and sloops. By 25 August, Paris had been liberated, and Germany surrendered early the following May.
German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel (1891-1944) - in charge of the Normandy defenses - is widely quoted as having observed before the event,
"Glauben Sie mir, meine Herren, die ersten vierundzwanzig Stunden dieser Invasion werden entscheidend sein! Das wird für die Alliierten, aber auch für die Deutschen, der längste Tag werden - der längste Tag."
(Believe me, gentlemen, the first twenty-four hours of this invasion will be decisive! It will become for the Allies, as well as for the Germans, the longest day - the longest day.) This quote is the source of the classic John Wayne D-Day epic The Longest Day.
The Atlantic has an excellent set of Scenes From D-Day, Then And Now, and here are Life Magazine's archives of photos from before and after D-Day in England and France, and their collection of color photos of the ruins of Normandy.
The Atlantic has an excellent set of Scenes From D-Day, Then And Now, and here are Life Magazine's archives of photos from before and after D-Day in England and France, and their collection of color photos of the ruins of Normandy.
The British D-Day museum has a roundup of information, including this explanation of why the expression "D-Day" was used:
When a military operation is being planned, its actual date and time is not always known exactly. The term "D-Day" was therefore used to mean the date on which operations would begin, whenever that was to be. The day before D-Day was known as "D-1", while the day after D-Day was "D+1", and so on. This meant that if the projected date of an operation changed, all the dates in the plan did not also need to be changed. This actually happened in the case of the Normandy Landings. D-Day in Normandy was originally intended to be on 5 June 1944, but at the last minute bad weather delayed it until the following day. The armed forces also used the expression "H-Hour" for the time during the day at which operations were to begin.
Forecasting The Weather For D-Day - not an easy task in those days.
From 2014 - D-Day Ceremony Includes 'Interpretive Dance' of the Battle.
And od course there's a Lego re-enancment.
Saturday, April 25, 2026
Fettuccine with Genovese Sauce (Fettuccine with Smothered Onions)
Fettuccine col Sugo di Cipolle (Salsa Genovese)
Fettuccine with Smothered Onions
(Adapted from a recipe in Marcella Hazan’s More Classic Italian Cooking, 1978)
This essentially reproduces a dish much enjoyed at the restaurant Da Gemma in Amalfi in April 2002. In Hazan’s recipe I have substituted fettuccine for spaghetti and added the beef extract to give a slightly meatier flavor. In fact, the extract can be omitted to yield an entirely vegetarian dish. An interesting discussion of the historical origins of Genovese sauce (La Genovese) is found in Naples at Table by Arthur Schwarz (1998).
(Serves four to six.)
6 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1-1/2 pounds onions, sliced very thin (about 6 cups)
Freshly ground black pepper; salt to taste
1/2 cup dry white wine
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
2/3 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1 tablespoon beef extract, such as Better Than Bouillon (low salt)
3/4 pound of fettuccine (best, but spaghetti or linguine work also)
1. Put the olive oil and onions into a large saute pan, cover, and cook over low heat for at least 45 minutes, stirring occasionally. (The onions should soften and reduce in bulk.)
2. Uncover the pan, increase the heat to medium, and cook the onion until it becomes a deep, brownish gold. (This takes a while, but do NOT caramelize the onions.)
3. Add salt and pepper to taste and then add the wine and the beef extract. Cook until the wine has largely boiled away, stirring constantly. Finally, add the parsley, stir, and the sauce is essentially done. (Turn off the heat, but keep it warm.)
4. Meanwhile, you should have cooked the pasta until al dente in salted boiling water. Drain the pasta and add it to the onions (or vice versa), and toss well over low heat. Add the Parmesan cheese and toss again thoroughly.
5. Serve immediately in warmed pasta bowls, passing additional grated cheese if desired.
Friday, April 17, 2026
T'was the eighteenth of April in seventy-five: The midnight ride of William Dawes and Samuel Prescott (and Paul Revere)
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere.
'Twas the eighteenth of April in seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.
~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (wiki) Paul Revere's Ride, stanza 1)
The entire poem is at the bottom of this post.
Paul Revere (wiki) gets all of the credit, but he never actually finished that famous ride, and in fact warned the British that the Americans were coming. William Dawes and Samuel Prescott were left out of the poem and subsequently most elementary history books: it was actually Samuel Prescott who completed the midnight ride.
Revere covered 13 miles in less than two hours, but he was not working alone. British patrols were posted along the roads, which is why more than one messenger was used for the mission.
In addition to omitting the efforts of Dawes, Prescott and dozens of nameless midnight riders, Longfellow's poem contains other errors as well; most notably, the signal of two lanterns hanging in the Old North Church was a signal from Revere, not a signal to Revere. In his defense, Longfellow didn't intend for the work to be an historical account - the 1860 poem was meant to inspire his countrymen on the eve of the Civil War.
 |
| Click to embiggen. |
Here's William Dawes' story:
I am a wandering, bitter shade,
Never of me was a hero made;
Poets have never sung my praise,
Nobody crowned my brow with bays;
And if you ask me the fatal cause,
I answer only, "My name was Dawes."
 |
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere;
But why should my name be quite forgot,
Who rode as boldly and well, God wot?
Why should I ask? The reason is clear --
My name was Dawes and his Revere.
When the lights from the old North Church flashed out,
Paul Revere was waiting about,
But I was already on my way.
The shadows of night fell cold and gray
As I rode, with never a break or a pause;
But what was the use, when my name was Dawes!
History rings with his silvery name;
Closed to me are the portals of fame.
Had he been Dawes and I Revere,
No one had heard of him, I fear.
No one has heard of me because
He was Revere, and I was Dawes.
~ Helen F. Moore (1851-1929) ("The Midnight Ride of William Dawes," Century Magazine, 1896)
As every schoolchild knows, Paul Revere's ensuing midnight ride called the local militia to arms, and the battles of Lexington and Concord followed the next day. Largely obscured by the great renown of Longfellow's poem, "Paul Revere's Ride" (included in his Tales of a Wayside Inn of 1863), is the fact that two other men - William Dawes (1745-1799) and Dr. Samuel Prescott (1751-1777) - also rode that night to spread the alarm. Moreover, it can be argued that Revere was the least successful of the three, because although he and Dawes were both captured by the British, Dawes escaped to arouse Lexington, and then Prescott carried the word to Concord.
For some, the midnight ride conjures images of Paul Revere riding through the night, shouting out, "The British are coming! The British are coming!" But this phrase would have made no sense to the colonists; everyone at that time thought of themselves as British. Instead, Revere spread his message subtly by saying something along the lines of, "The Regulars are coming." The troops were known as Regulars, Redcoats or The King's Men. The troops called the colonists country people, provincials, Yankees, peasants or rebels.
Here's Longfellow's entire poem:
Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.
He said to his friend, "If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light,--
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm."
Then he said "Good-night!" and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The Somerset, British man-of-war;
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon like a prison bar,
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.
Meanwhile, his friend through alley and street
Wanders and watches, with eager ears,
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack door,
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers,
Marching down to their boats on the shore.
 |
| Old North Church |
Then he climbed the tower of the Old North Church,
By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the sombre rafters, that round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade,--
By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town
And the moonlight flowing over all.
Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead,
In their night encampment on the hill,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still
That he could hear, like a sentinel's tread,
The watchful night-wind, as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent,
And seeming to whisper, "All is well!"
A moment only he feels the spell
Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread
Of the lonely belfry and the dead;
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent
On a shadowy something far away,
Where the river widens to meet the bay,--
A line of black that bends and floats
On the rising tide like a bridge of boats.
Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
Now he patted his horse's side,
Now he gazed at the landscape far and near,
Then, impetuous, stamped the earth,
And turned and tightened his saddle girth;
But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry tower of the Old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still.
And lo! as he looks, on the belfry's height
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns.
A hurry of hoofs in a village street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet;
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.
He has left the village and mounted the steep,
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides;
And under the alders that skirt its edge,
Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.
It was twelve by the village clock
When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.
He heard the crowing of the cock,
And the barking of the farmer's dog,
And felt the damp of the river fog,
That rises after the sun goes down.
It was one by the village clock,
When he galloped into Lexington.
He saw the gilded weathercock
Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
And the meeting-house windows, black and bare,
Gaze at him with a spectral glare,
As if they already stood aghast
At the bloody work they would look upon.
It was two by the village clock,
When he came to the bridge in Concord town.
He heard the bleating of the flock,
And the twitter of birds among the trees,
And felt the breath of the morning breeze
Blowing over the meadow brown.
And one was safe and asleep in his bed
Who at the bridge would be first to fall,
Who that day would be lying dead,
Pierced by a British musket ball.
You know the rest. In the books you have read
How the British Regulars fired and fled,---
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farmyard wall,
Chasing the redcoats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.
So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,---
A cry of defiance, and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo for evermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.
The Revolutionary War began the next day - April 19, 1775. Here's Emerson:
By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled;
Here once the embattled farmers stood;
And fired the shot heard round the world.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, Concord Hymn (stanza 1)
Remember the kerfuffle when Sarah Palin mentioned that Revere actually told the British that the Americans were coming and the "intellectuals" on the left, who got their history from the poem, made much of what an idiot she was?
 |
| Revere captured by Regulars (source) |
I observed a Wood at a Small distance, & made for that. When I got there, out Started Six officers, on Horse back, and orderd me to dismount;-one of them, who appeared to have the command, examined me, where I came from, & what my Name Was? I told him. it was Revere, he asked if it was Paul? I told him yes He asked me if I was an express? I answered in the afirmative. He demanded what time I left Boston? I told him; and aded, that their troops had catched aground in passing the River, and that There would be five hundred Americans there in a short time, for I had alarmed the Country all the way up. He imediately rode towards those who stoppd us, when all five of them came down upon a full gallop; one of them, whom I afterwards found to be Major Mitchel, of the 5th Regiment, Clapped his pistol to my head, called me by name, & told me he was going to ask me some questions, & if I did not give him true answers, he would blow my brains out. He then asked me similar questions to those above. He then orderd me to mount my Horse, after searching me for arms. He then orderd them to advance, & to lead me in front. When we got to the Road, they turned down towards Lexington. When we had got about one Mile, the Major Rode up to the officer that was leading me, & told him to give me to the Sergeant. As soon as he took me, the Major orderd him, if I attempted to run, or any body insulted them, to blow my brains out. We rode till we got near Lexington Meeting-house, when the Militia fired a Voley of Guns, which appeared to alarm them very much.
Further reading:
There's an excellent breakdown at the Journal of the American Revolution's blog: Dissecting the Timeline of Paul Revere’s Ride, and this article at the same publication is also worthwhile: How Paul Revere’s Ride was Published and Censored in 1775.
PaulRevereHouse.org's article on the real story has an interactive map.
PaulRevereHouse.org's article on the real story has an interactive map.
HowStuffWorks: What happened to the two other men on Paul Revere's ride?
Saturday, April 11, 2026
The first shots of the Civil War were fired on April 12, 1861 at Fort Sumter
The first shots of the American Civil War (wiki) were fired on April 12, 1861 at Fort Sumter:
 |
| Bombardment of Fort Sumter by Currier & Ives |
On Thursday, April 11, 1861, Confederate Brig. Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard dispatched aides to Maj. Anderson to demand the fort’s surrender. Anderson refused. The next morning, at 4:30 a.m., Confederate batteries opened fire on Fort Sumter and continued for 34 hours.
The firing continued all day, although much less rapidly since the Union aimed to conserve ammunition. "The crashing of the shot, the bursting of the shells, the falling of the walls, and the roar of the flames, made a pandemonium of the fort," wrote Union Capt. Abner Doubleday, the fort's second in command.
On Saturday, April 13, Anderson surrendered the fort. The generous terms of surrender allowed Anderson to perform a 100-gun salute before he and his men evacuated the fort the next day; although no soldiers had been killed in the battle, an accidental explosion during the salute killed one of the gunners and mortally wounded another.
Carrying their tattered banner, the men marched out of the fort and boarded a boat that ferried them to the Union ships outside the harbor. They were greeted as heroes on their return to the North.
Two days later, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln (wiki) issued a proclamation calling for 75,000 volunteer soldiers to quell the Southern “insurrection.”
Here's an animated map showing the daily changes to the front over the course of the war:
Legend:
Maroon = Confederate States of America and territories
Red = Areas occupied by Confederate forces
Pink = Gains for that Day
Dark Blue = United States of America and territories
Blue = Areas occupied by Union forces.
Light blue = Gains for that day
Yellow = Border states / disputed areas.
Related posts:
It's Stonewall Jackson's birthday - here's the story of his left arm's separate grave.
The Gettysburg Address was seven score and eleven years ago.
Gorgeous remastered and colorized images from the Civil War era, including Lincoln and Mark Twain
There's lots more on Fort Sumter at CivilWar.org and the Smithsonian.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)