Philocleon

@narendramodi I read in one book it said that Britain tried cultivating Assam because it was native to India. They were kind of hoping to cut China out as a middle man regarding source material

Tea is the soul of Assam! The tea from here has made its way across the world. This morning in Dibrugarh, I went to a tea garden and interacted with women working here. It was a very memorable experience.

@infantrydort I know it’s just a video game but a few missions set on Okinawa on Call of Duty: World at War really helped drive home for me how brutal the fighting was. They were literally prepared to sacrifice one man for every inch lost

On this day, 1 April 1945, U.S. forces landed on Okinawa. >82 days of fighting >12,000 Americans killed >Over 100,000 Japanese dead >Kamikaze attacks at scale An island that showed what the invasion of Japan would cost. And what a determined enemy will do when there is nowhere left to retreat.

@HomerPavlos I remember reading in A Peace to End All Peace by David Fromkin about the 1914 declaration of jihad. What a joke that was

To be clear. There is no good and bad Islam. There is Islam, and besides being a religion, it is also a political ideology. Its purpose is the destruction and conquest of the whole world. Not just the West, but also Africa, Asia, Australia, literally the whole world. When Constantinople fell, Muslims were declaring Jihad from the City. Jihad was commanding the conquer against the infidels. You are a fool if you think they don’t think about it. They haven’t changed. The last jihad that was declared form Constantinople was in 1914, almost 100 years ago. Any Muslim who tells you otherwise is lying. Islam commands: either you become a believer, a slave or you die. That's why combat-ready young men come illegally to Europe and the Western civilization; otherwise, they would stay in the East and the Muslim countries. Conquest was the goal from the beginning. They can't go in war with the West, so the make their women birth-machines, they kill, they murder, they rape, they steal and they destroy every value in your countries. Resist, or you will disappear; just as every nation who did not fight for its survival disappeared. Act before you go to meet the Sumerians in the abyss of non-existence and become merely a page in the history books. Also, NEVER forget my words: No discussion and debates with the enemy, with those who want you dead or enslaved - you, your women, and your children. No discussion either with those traitors who help their plan. This is important. - Homer Pavlos

@LandsknechtPike They left out Alfonso IX, aka The Slobberer (Baboso, in Portuguese). Reigned 1188-1240

I like how early Portuguese kings have nicknames that specify what exactly they did for their country. Afonso I "the Founder" Sancho I "the Populator" Afonso II "the Lawgiver" Denis I "the Farmer"

@ibrhmjms @SebaVenier96 @RomeInTheEast Actually the Ottomans lasted roughly 460 or so years if you take the fall of Constantinople in 1453 as a starting point. I think any country or civilization lasting as long as they have is quite the achievement. Heck, USA is celebrating 250 and we’re doing relatively ok

@SebaVenier96 @RomeInTheEast 600 yıl mı kısa? Zeka özürlü müsünüz?

For all you Roman history fans out there - how do you feel about Ottoman history? Do you find that empire interesting?

@CultureExploreX In Picard’s view Shakespeares works encompassed the spectrum of humanity and thus provided for those who wished to learn more about humanity plenty of material in which to do so

You do not honor other cultures by weakening your own. You honor them by standing firmly in what is yours. Shakespeare is not a symbol of domination. He is one of the clearest expressions of what human language can reach at its highest level. His work survived because generation after generation, across cultures, found truth in it. What they are calling decolonising is diluting something rooted, tested, and refined over centuries. This is what happens when a civilization loses confidence in its own inheritance. The idea that Shakespeare being universal is harmful reveals something deeper. It suggests that greatness itself has become suspect. That if something endures across time and place, it must be explained away, not studied. That instinct erases standards. Tradition is not exclusion. It is memory. It is the record of what a civilization discovered was worth preserving. Once you start apologizing for that, you create a vacuum where nothing holds. A culture that cannot defend Shakespeare will not be able to defend anything else that made it.

@CultureExploreX Even though this is science fiction in Star Trek:The Next Generation there were a few episodes where Captain Picard and Data, crew member and android, ran life like holographic simulations based off his works.

@theiaincameron However, The Republican, a local paper, pointed out something interesting. If the original pre oxbow Westfield River boundaries were observed then technically the parking lot and possibly the rest of the grounds would belong to the town of Agawam, which is on the other side

@theiaincameron This right here is a little oxbow remnant of the Westfield River. A few years ago Hard Rock was trying to pitch a casino on the Big E Fairgrounds in West Springfield. However, The Republican, a local paper, ran an interesting little article.

One of the United State's oddest geographical quirks is the so-called 'Kentucky Bend'. This parcel of land, an exclave of Kentucky, is surrounded on three sides by the River Mississippi (and the state of Missouri), and on its south side by Tennessee. But, why? 1/n

@HomerPavlos This is why for so long the greats like Homer were part of the canon of western civilization. If we want a return to greatness the classics help point the way

I will show you how the Iliad and Odyssey should be taught. No one will ever teach you what you will read in this post. Alexander the Great loved literature and reading. His teacher Aristotle gave him a copy of the Iliad, which he had annotated with comments on its symbolism and the secrets hidden by Homer. Alexander always kept it, along with his dagger, under his pillow. (Plutarch, Alexander 8.2). Here is an example: Athena and Ares are both war gods; she fights on the side of the Achaeans, while he fights on the side of the Trojans. Yet in the description of Achilles' shield, the two siblings appear as divine guides of the same army. In the Iliad, Homer presents the battle between Athena and Ares, the goddess of wisdom and the god of war and rage. Think about it a little: on one side logic, calm, wisdom, and on the other her eternal opponent, the conflict in our mind, rage and recklessness and anger that, when it overtakes us, we lose our reason and do not act with wisdom. Ares symbolizes our rage. Rage is something very important for humans. It belongs to the passions that man does not control from birth. Ares does not act with prudence; he is that anger that we must tame in difficult moments. After all Iliad is a work focused on Achilles' anger. That's where wisdom comes in, that is, Athena. Athena is always the one who will appear in battle against Ares and drive him away. Zeus, who symbolizes intellect, together with Hera who symbolizes flow, gave birth to Ares who symbolizes rage and to Athena who symbolizes wisdom. In the human mind there is this duality: if one wants to take a step toward philosophy (philo-sophia), they must tame the irrational parts of the soul, control situations without being dominated by rage. Athena will appear on the battlefield, but wearing the helmet given to her by Hades that makes her invisible. There she will turn the spear of the war god, who was fighting in front of the walls of Troy alongside Hector, saving Diomedes and giving the Greek warrior the opportunity to wound Ares. The wound was tended by Zeus himself, because the only one who can heal our soul is our own intellect, symbolized by Zeus. The entire battle being fought is inside our mind, and we must emerge victorious. When the philosopher Heraclitus wrote "War is the father of all and king of all," the phrase was ambiguous, with double meaning, something very common for the philosophers of that era. He did not mean only some bodily battle; he meant this eternal mental battle of duality that we must win and escape from, so as to reach deification with the help of prudence (phronesis). The duality of rage and wisdom is one of the many dualities that keep us imprisoned in the material world. The eternal battle toward the path of virtue. The Iliad is a work of immense teaching. One part of this teaching is how we will go from rage to the absence of rage. Once we achieve that, then we move on to the Odyssey, where as wise people, always having Athena by our side, we will manage to survive and return to our Ithaca. There lies our final labor: the victory over the Suitors who symbolize our passions that keep us enslaved. But as truly resourceful people, we will defeat them and secure a place in the Elysian Fields. There where the soul is freed from its bonds. - Homer Pavlos.

@mcgillmd921 Commodus wasn’t worthy of the title of Caesar

Gladiator gave us one of cinema’s great villains: Commodus murdering his father, Marcus Aurelius, to seize the throne. It made for great drama, but it wasn’t real history. Marcus Aurelius did not die by the hand of Commodus. He died in 180 AD, likely from illness, while on campaign near the Danube frontier. And Commodus did not steal the throne. Marcus had already named him heir years earlier. The tragedy isn't that Commodus murdered Marcus Aurelius. It’s that Rome’s philosopher-king chose Commodus as his heir. 👑 🏛️

@historyinmemes Dude was an absolute badass. Prototypical weekend warrior

Theodore Roosevelt drank roughly a "gallon of coffee a day" Accounts from family members, staff, and contemporaries paint Theodore Roosevelt as a prodigious coffee drinker, consuming staggering amounts throughout the day—often from a cup so large it was jokingly compared to a bathtub. Roosevelt’s days were relentless. He woke early, exercised hard, read constantly, and packed his schedule with meetings, correspondence, and nonstop decision-making. Coffee wasn’t a casual pleasure; it was fuel, helping sustain his breakneck pace long before modern stimulants or structured workdays existed. White House visitors frequently remarked on both the strength and sheer volume of the coffee served during his presidency. His appetite extended far beyond caffeine. Roosevelt was known for hearty meals, booming conversation, and near-constant engagement with those around him. He approached food, drink, and politics with the same philosophy he applied to life—boldly, energetically, and without restraint. While stories of him drinking a full gallon a day are likely exaggerated through retelling, there’s little doubt he consumed far more coffee than most. It became part of his legend, reinforcing the image of a president who lived at full throttle. As Roosevelt himself famously joked, he liked his coffee “strong enough to float a horseshoe,” a line echoed by many who experienced his famously potent brews firsthand.

@Habubrats71 The YF-12 was rather large for an interceptor

Who would win in a race between the XB 70 bomber and the YF 12 interceptor? They were both in test flight at Edwards Air Force Base California in the early 1960s along with the SR 71. When my father Butch Sheffield was in test flight for SR-71 in 1965, the YF 12 was there. Both aircraft were capable of sustained Mach 3 flight, the YF-12 was a dedicated interceptor designed for speed and altitude, whereas the massive XB-70 was a bomber that risked structural damage at top speeds. The YF-12 frequently operated at higher, more sustained Mach 3 speeds compared to the XB-70. Key Comparison: YF-12 vs. XB-70 Speed: The YF-12 held speed records, reaching over Mach 3.2 (274.84 MPH) The XB-70 was designed for Mach 3, but sustained, high-speed flight was less frequent due to structural stress. Purpose: The YF-12 was a lightweight interceptor (part of the Blackbird family), built to be quick and high-flying. The XB-70 was a massive, 500,000-pound bomber. Reliability at Speed: YF-12 pilots noted they flew more Mach 3 time in a single mission than the XB-70 did in its lifetime. Notably, the XB-70 was known to shed structural pieces when pushed to Mach 3. In a direct competition, the YF-12’s superior thrust-to-weight ratio and optimized titanium structure for high-speed intercept duties would provide a decisive victory over the heavy bomber So now you know, the YF 12 would definitely win. Linda Sheffield.

@ImtiazMadmood Proper citations from the Koran would be greatly appreciated

One hundred pearls of Mohammed's Islamic wisdom: 1. Ali murders an apostate—a harmless old man—chopping his head off. 😀🗡️🤪 Islam’s barbarity should be laughable fiction. 2. Muhammad promises Heaven if you kill a non-Muslim. In the vile chapter: ‘The Virtue of Killing an Infidel.’ 3. Muhammad puts his grandson in his lap, and starts kissing him while putting his tongue in his mouth, saying, ‘I love him, so love him!’ 4. Supplement: Qur’an mistakes a rabbi’s interpretation of Cain & Abel for the actual story. 5. Camel urine is the aperitif. 🐪🍸 The entrée is Muhammad gouging out their eyes and cutting off their hands and feet + Laughable self-serving ‘revelation’ (5:33) 6. Supplement: Muhammad’s Greatest Fanfiction: The Night Journey on the Flying Donkey 7. The Night Journey: (1) Muhammad steals the Zoroastrian story. (2) Rides flying donkey. (3) Commits worst Shirk imaginable. (4) Copies of Zoroastrian 5 daily prayers 8. Praise be to Allah for the sublime morals of the Islamic slave market! 🤗 Ibn Umar gropes a sex slave he wants to buy and rape. He grabs her butt, shakes her breasts, and slips hand between her thighs. 9. Muhammad says the black seed cures EVERY disease. Verily are not his words the grandest miracle! Because he told them on Opposite Day 10. Muhammad explains human excrement in Heaven. Food is belched out. Drinks are sweated out as musk cologne…eau de ‘toilette,’ so to speak 😉 11. O Muslim women, Rejoice! In Heaven, you’re in a harem. You and your harem-mates live in a giant hollowed-out pearl (!)—and your husband circles around the pearl,, having sex with you all. 12. Supplement: It was the regular practice of Muhammad’s Companions to rape prepubescent slave-girls 13. Ali rapes a slave girl. Muhammad says he's entitled to it. Part 2 14. A black man complains of being black. Muhammad urges him to be a Jihadi—getting him killed—and tells the corpse, ‘Allah has whitened your face. 16. Muhammad believes a talking wolf is in awe of him. Talking wolf says Muhammad’s more amazing than…a talking wolf! 🐺 17. Muhammad says sneaky Satan spends the night in your nose 😴 → 😈👃 18. Muhammad says Allah curses for eternity the sound of...wife-beatings?...holocausts?...No, it’s ‘singing at times of joy’! 19. O Muslim women, Rejoice! Meet your co-wives in Heaven: the virgin houris. Muhammad says they mock and curse you for annoying your husband. You’ll be living with them for eternity. 20. Muhammad’s insanity level tops 9000. Says whenever a rooster crows, it sees an angel. 👼 → 🐓🔊 And whenever a donkey brays, it sees a devil 21. Muhammad says Satan wants peace, and Allah wants war. Says Satan urges Muslims not to attack others…wait…Who’s the Evil One in Islam? 22. Muhammad says if a grieving woman wails, Allah will pour tar on her and light her on fire 😭 → 🔥😱🔥 23. Muhammad says an hour of jihad is better than 60 years (!) of prayer + Osama bin Laden quoted this hadith before 9/11 24. Muhammad approves of Abu Bakr telling pagan to ‘Suck Allat’s clitoris!’ This is equivalent to telling a Muslim, ‘Suck Allah’s penis!’ 25. Flat-earther Muhammad tells Muslims not to pray at noon because that’s the time of day Hell’s gates are opened—except it’s always noon somewhere on Earth! 26. Muhammad makes Islam a supremacist ideology. Says Muslims can’t be killed for murdering a non-Muslim. Values non-Muslims at 50% of Muslims. 27. Muhammad goes on a cursing spree and unleashes a homophobic TRIPLE curse on gay men. Men who have sex with livestock get only one curse. 28. Ibn Umar goes to the Islamic slave market shopping for a sex slave. He gropes a sex slave, and he’s ready to buy and rape her—but he can’t find her seller anywhere. Ugh, it’s so annoying! 29. Rich cowards rejoice as Muhammad reaches peak stupidity. Says paying someone to do jihad for you gets you more reward than doing jihad yourself. Ibn Umar denounces it 🤦 30. O Muslim women, Rejoice! In Heaven, you’re with your husband who’s ‘busy deflowering virgins’—and you’ll be so happy for him 😊 31. Muhammad wages war on laughter, ‘for much laughter kills the heart’ 😄 → ☠💔☠ 32. World History: 🧞 Genies ruled the earth for 2,000 years, then Allah had warrior angels chase them away to the sea, then Allah installed humans as new earth rulers. 33. Muhammad says Allah creates people for Hell by whacking Adam’s left shoulder! Allah then tells them—before they’ve done anything—‘For the Fire, and I don’t mind’ 😧🔥 34. Ali chops off man’s hand—and makes him wear it as a necklace 39. Muhammad says you better be afraid of Allah turning your head into a donkey’s head. 1400 years later, and it’s never happened…or has it... 😲 40. Umar sees a slave girl wearing a hijab, and he lashes her in the head with a whip. The hijab is for free women only. 41. 😈 → 😣💨 Muhammad says Satan gently coaxes you—‘as a man softly coaxes an animal’— to trick you into farting. 42: Muhammad says non-menstrual vaginal bleeding is caused by Satan kicking the woman’s womb. 43. Early Muslims discuss fondling and penetrating their new prepubescent sex slaves 44. Muhammad says the Anti-Christ is currently alive, on earth, enchained in a monastery on an island “in the east.” He shares the island with a beast resembling Cousin Itt of the Addams Family. 45. Muhammad says when a non-Muslim dies, Allah has an angel bludgeon him with an iron sledgehammer. Every animal on earth hears the beating and screams. 46. Muhammad says when a Muslim dies, his soul is perfumed with musk and placed in a shroud of white silk. Non-Muslims are put in a sackcloth and made to smell like rotting flesh. 47. Muhammad prays for Ibn Abbas to correctly interpret the Qur'an. Ibn Abbas then says the earth is spread over the back of a whale. 48. Muhammad says violent jihad is better than anything in the world. 49. Muhammad stones the death of a new mom because her child is illegitimate. 50. Muhammad says when you yawn, Satan enters your open mouth and then laughs at you from inside your body. 51. Muhammad says lizards may be transmuted Jews, so he doesn’t eat them. 52. Muhammad believes mice are transmuted Jews. 53. Muhammad says he’s competing against other prophets for the most followers—and thus, infertile women aren’t deserving of marriage. 54. Muhammad tells man he’ll have a winged horse made of rubies to fly him around in Heaven/ 55. Muhammad says: 1) A fly carries disease on one wing and the cure on the other, 2) The fly lands in your drink specifically with its disease-carrying wing, 3) You must dunk the whole fly in to get the cure 56. Umar threatens Muhammad’s wives: “It may be if he divorced you that Allah will give him instead of you, wives better than you.” Umar then meets with Muhammad, and "Allah" puts Umar’s exact words into the Qur’an (66:5) 57. A war captive about to be killed by Muhammad asks, “Who will look after my children?” Muhammad responds, “The Fire.” 58. Ignorant of the past and future, Muhammad says, “No people will ever prosper who appoint a woman as their leader.” All hail: Queen Hatshepsut, Cleopatra, Queen Elizabeth I & II, Catherine the Great 59.💘 Romance by Muhammad 💘: I (1) murdered your husband, (2) let a jihadi make you his sex slave, (3) saw how hot you are, so reclaimed you from the jihadi, (4) “married” (i.e., raped) you before we even got home, (5) didn’t pay you a dower because not making you a sex slave is your dower. 60. Muhammad says every Friday, all animals fear the End of the World is upon us. Their fear subsides once the sun rises (in the east 😉) 61. Muhammad says shooting stars are missiles shot at devils in the sky who are trying to overhear Allah’s revelation. 62. Muhammad says he’s exempt from ablution after sleep because he—unlike everyone else—is aware of his nighttime farts. He explains: “My eyes sleep, but my heart does not sleep.” 63. Muhammad orders a man killed—on no evidence—for having sex with Muhammad’s sex slave. It turns out he is a eunuch and has no penis. 64. Muhammad—who at age 53 deflowered his 9-year-old wife—stops men younger than that from marrying his teenage daughter because “she is young.” 65. While married to nine women, Muhammad—believing polygamy would hurt his own daughter—won’t let Ali marry another woman. 66. Muhammad says Allah gives only 50% credit for sitting prayers. He then gets caught praying while sitting. He justifies: “Yes, but I am unlike any of you.” 67. Muhammad says Allah allows all "Arabian" horses to pray at 5 am. 68. Muhammad says fish pray to Allah—seeking forgiveness for Islamic scholars 69. The Sheep Ate My Qur’an. 70. Al-Albani explains the legitimacy and current relevance of breastfeeding adult men 71. Following Muhammad's example, Aisha orders her nieces to breastfeed adult men 72. Muhammad—who deflowers a child—says a child is “mutilated” when raised Jewish or Christian. Says every child is born a Muslim. 73. Muhammad says the End of the World has begun. …1400 years later, still nothing 74. Muhammad says the illegitimate child is more evil than the parents. A Companion thinks he would rather donate a whip than free an illegitimate child-slave. 75. Muhammad “A Mercy to the World” commands the killing of people who drink wine four times 76. Muhammad says archangel Gabriel didn’t visit because of a puppy in his house. Muhammad then orders all dogs to be killed: the Medina dog massacre. 77. The angels do not enter a house in which there is a dog or an image.” 78. Muhammad says the "most virtuous charity" is slave labor for Jihad 79. Muhammad says artists—not sex slave owners, not child molesters, not murderers—will be “the most severely punished” by Allah 80. Muhammad forbids, REPEAT FORBIDS, you from sitting between the sun and the shade. That is the seat of Satan. 81. Muhammad says when you drink standing up, you're drinking with Satan—which is even worse than drinking with a cat. So, vomit it out. 82. Muhammad says all animals hear dead humans speak in their coffins 83. Umar divorces his new wife when he discovers she has some grey hair. Says, “A mat in a house is better than a woman who cannot bear children.” 84. Umar is afraid of the future—a future without stoning + the forgotten Verse of Stoning 85. Muhammad says the Muslims who invade India are guaranteed Heaven. One of history’s worst massacres ensues. 86. Muhammad says Indian aloeswood cures pleurisy and six (!) other diseases. 87. Muhammad oversells Hajj: 100,000 sins are forgiven when you shave your head. 49 murders are forgiven when you stone the pillars. Says Hajj prayers are as great as freeing an Arab (!) slave. 88. Hajj Part II: Muhammad copies the pagan Hajj practice of circumambulating the House of Saturn—oops, I mean the House of Allah—seven times. 89. Muhammad copies the pagan Hajj rituals of running between the hills and shaving the head 90. Muhammad warns that Allah will turn you into a monkey or pig if you deny predestination. But wait…Allah predestined you to deny it! 91. Muhammad says if you ask an improper question, Allah will make Sharia harsher for everyone. And you will be the greatest sinner. (Message: Don’t ask questions!) 92. Meet Munkar and Nakir, the angels who interrogate you in the grave. They give Muslims a spacious and bright 11,000 sq ft grave. They give Hypocrites and non-Muslims a grave that crushes their ribs. 93. Muhammad defines the limits of Islamic entertainment 94. Muhammad lets his 9-year-old wife—who he deflowered—still play with dolls with her friends 95. Muhammad tells a woman—beaten to the point her skin is green—to have sex with her wife-beating husband. Aisha says, “I have not seen any woman suffer as much as the believing women.” 96. Muhammad says Islam demands “enmity for the sake of Allah” and “hatred for the sake of Allah.” 97. Muhammad says Allah hates people and tells Gabriel to hate them too. Gabriel then spreads Allah’s hate for the people through heaven and earth. 98. Muhammad says a stone the weight of 7 pregnant camels would take 70 years to fall to the bottom of Hell. 99. Muhammad explains the cure for the evil eye: The envier takes a bath, and his used bath water is collected and poured over the victim. 100. Muhammad says the evil eye is the second leading cause of death among Muslims

@SoveyX I also plan on reading The General vs. The President. It’s about the conflict between MacArthur, commander of forces in Korea and President Truman over the use of atomic weapons. Should be interesting stuff

You’re asking what I’ve lived through? Cute. I grew up in Korea, which you call “South Korea” because you’ve never left your mom’s basement in Cleveland, but should’ve learned by the fifth grade. It is a country with a hostile regime 30 miles north that can hit my hometown with artillery. Not symbolic range. Real range. That’s the distance between Dallas and Fort Worth. I have been aware of this and fearful of it since I was conscious. Did you live in fear of Vancouver or Toronto hitting you with a maple syrup bomb? I could drive to the artillery pointed at my city in under thirty minutes. My grandparents lived through the Korean War. Cities flattened. Families split permanently. I am free today because the American military intervened. My father and grandfather are veterans. I support American veteran charities, and there’s a reason it’s one of the few words in my bio. I do not take that lightly. If they had not, my family would be living under a regime that enslaves its own people. The people north of that border are genetically identical to me. Same ancestry. On average, they are shorter and lighter because a dictatorship rationed calories and crushed an entire population for generations. That is not rhetoric. That is measurable. I am an American, and I love Americans. I am deeply grateful to this country. But do not confuse gratitude with ignorance. You read about communism in a classroom. I grew up within artillery range of it. If you have never lived with that proximity to tyranny, do not lecture me about what it feels like. Respectfully, shut your ignorant mouth.

@SoveyX Not sure if you heard of it but I read The Coldest Winter by David Halberstam. It taught me more than I ever thought I’d know about the Korean War

@mcgillmd921 Augustus:Btw

Nobody: Augustus: 1. In my nineteenth year, on my own initiative and at my own expense, I raised an army with which I set free the state, which was oppressed by the domination of a faction. For that reason, the senate enrolled me in its order by laudatory resolutions, when Gaius Pansa and Aulus Hirtius were consuls (43 B.C.E.), assigning me the place of a consul in the giving of opinions, and gave me the imperium. With me as propraetor, it ordered me, together with the consuls, to take care lest any detriment befall the state. But the people made me consul in the same year, when the consuls each perished in battle, and they made me a triumvir for the settling of the state. 2. I drove the men who slaughtered my father into exile with a legal order, punishing their crime, and afterwards, when they waged war on the state, I conquered them in two battles. 3. I often waged war, civil and foreign, on the earth and sea, in the whole wide world, and as victor I spared all the citizens who sought pardon. As for foreign nations, those which I was able to safely forgive, I preferred to preserve than to destroy. About five hundred thousand Roman citizens were sworn to me. I led something more than three hundred thousand of them into colonies and I returned them to their cities, after their stipend had been earned, and I assigned all of them fields or gave them money for their military service. I captured six hundred ships in addition to those smaller than triremes. 4. Twice I triumphed with an ovation, and three times I enjoyeda curule triumph and twenty one times I was named emperor. When the senate decreed more triumphs for me, I sat out from all of them. I placed the laurel from the fasces in the Capitol, when the vows which I pronounced in each war had been fulfilled. On account of the things successfully done by me and through my officers, under my auspices, on earth and sea, the senate decreed fifty-five times that there be sacrifices to the immortal gods. Moreover there were 890 days on which the senate decreed there would be sacrifices. In my triumphs kings and nine children of kings were led before my chariot. I had been consul thirteen times, when I wrote this, and I was in the thirty-seventh year of tribunician power (14 A.C.E.). 5. When the dictatorship was offered to me, both in my presence and my absence, by the people and senate, when Marcus Marcellus and Lucius Arruntius were consuls (22 B.C.E.), I did not accept it. I did not evade the curatorship of grain in the height of the food shortage, which I so arranged that within a few days I freed the entire city from the present fear and danger by my own expense and administration. When the annual and perpetual consulate was then again offered to me, I did not accept it. 6. When Marcus Vinicius and Quintus Lucretius were consuls (19 B.C.E.), then again when Publius Lentulus and Gnaeus Lentulus were (18 B.C.E.), and third when Paullus Fabius Maximus and Quintus Tubero were (11 B.C.E.), although the senateand Roman people consented that I alone be made curator of the laws and customs with the highest power, I received no magistracy offered contrary to the customs of the ancestors. What the senate then wanted to accomplish through me, I did through tribunician power, and five times on my own accord I both requested and received from the senate a colleague in such power. 7. I was triumvir for the settling of the state for ten continuous years. I was first of the senate up to that day on which I wrote this, for forty years. I was high priest, augur, one of the Fifteen for the performance of rites, one of the Seven of the sacred feasts, brother of Arvis, fellow of Titus, and Fetial. 8. When I was consul the fifth time (29 B.C.E.), I increased the number of patricians by order of the people and senate. I read the roll of the senate three times, and in my sixth consulate (28 B.C.E.) I made a census of the people with Marcus Agrippa as my colleague. I conducted a lustrum, after a forty-one year gap, in which lustrum were counted 4,063,000 heads of Roman citizens. Then again, with consular imperium I conducted a lustrum alone when Gaius Censorinus and Gaius Asinius were consuls (8 B.C.E.), in which lustrum were counted 4,233,000 heads of Roman citizens. And the third time, with consular imperium, I conducted a lustrum with my son Tiberius Caesar as colleague, when Sextus Pompeius and Sextus Appuleius were consuls (14 A.C.E.), in which lustrum were counted 4,937,000 of the heads of Roman citizens. By new laws passed with my sponsorship, I restored many traditions of the ancestors, which were falling into disuse in our age, and myself I handed on precedents of many things to be imitated in later generations. 9. The senate decreed that vows be undertaken for my health by the consuls and priests every fifth year. In fulfillment of these vows they often celebrated games for my life; several times the four highest colleges of priests, several times the consuls. Also both privately and as a city all the citizens unanimously and continuously prayed at all the shrines for my health. 10. By a senate decree my name was included in the Saliar Hymn, and it was sanctified by a law, both that I would be sacrosanct for ever, and that, as long as I would live, the tribunician power would be mine. I was unwilling to be high priest in the place of my living colleague; when the people offered me that priesthood which my father had, I refused it. And I received that priesthood, after several years, with the death of him who had occupied it since the opportunity of the civil disturbance, with a multitude flocking together out of all Italy to my election, so many as had never before been in Rome, when Publius Sulpicius and Gaius Valgius were consuls (12 B.C.E.). 11. The senate consecrated the altar of Fortune the Bringer-back before the temples of Honor and Virtue at the Campanian gate for my retrn, on which it ordered the priests and Vestal virgins to offer yearly sacrifices on the day when I had returned to the city from Syria (when Quintus Lucretius and Marcus Vinicius were consuls (19 Bc)), and it named that day Augustalia after my cognomen. 12. By the authority of the senate, a part of the praetors and tribunes of the plebs, with consul Quintus Lucretius and the leading men, was sent to meet me in Campania, which honor had been decreed for no one but me until that time. When I returned to Rome from Spain and Gaul, having successfully accomplished matters in those provinces, when Tiberius Nero and Publius Quintilius were consuls (13 B.C.E.), the senate voted to consecrate the altar of August Peace in the field of Mars for my return, on which it ordered the magistrates and priests and Vestal virgins to offer annual sacrifices. 13. Our ancestors wanted Janus Quirinus to be closed when throughout the all the rule of the Roman people, by land and sea, peace had been secured through victory. Although before my birth it had been closed twice in all in recorded memory from the founding of the city, the senate voted three times in my principate that it be closed. 14. When my sons Gaius and Lucius Caesar, whom fortune stole from me as youths, were fourteen, the senate and Roman people made them consuls-designate on behalf of my honor, so that they would enter that magistracy after five years, and the senate decreed that on thatday when they were led into the forum they would be included in public councils. Moreover the Roman knights together named each of them first of the youth and gave them shields and spears. 15. I paid to the Roman plebs, HS 300 per man from my father's will and in my own name gave HS 400 from the spoils of war when I was consul for the fifth time (29 B.C.E.); furthermore I again paid out a public gift of HS 400 per man, in my tenth consulate (24 B.C.E.), from my own patrimony; and, when consul for the eleventh time (23 B.C.E.), twelve doles of grain personally bought were measured out; and in my twelfth year of tribunician power (12-11 B.C.E.) I gave HS 400 per man for the third time. And these public gifts of mine never reached fewer than 250,000 men. In my eighteenth year of tribunician power, as consul for the twelfth time (5 B.C.E.), I gave to 320,000 plebs of the city HS 240 per man. And, when consul the fifth time (29 B.C.E.), I gave from my war-spoils to colonies of my soldiers each HS 1000 per man; about 120,000 men i the colonies received this triumphal public gift. Consul for the thirteenth time (2 B.C.E.), I gave HS 240 to the plebs who then received the public grain; they were a few more than 200,000. 16. I paid the towns money for the fields which I had assigned to soldiers in my fourth consulate (30 B.C.E.) and then when Marcus Crassus and Gnaeus Lentulus Augur were consuls (14 B.C.E.); the sum was about HS 600,000,000 which I paid out for Italian estates, and about HS 260,000,000 which I paid for provincial fields. I was first and alone who did this among all who founded military colonies in Italy or the provinces according to the memory of my age. And afterwards, when Tiberius Nero and Gnaeus Piso were consuls (7 B.C.E.), and likewise when Gaius Antistius and Decius Laelius were consuls (6 B.C.E.), and when Gaius Calvisius and Lucius Passienus were consuls (4 B.C.E.), and when Lucius Lentulus and Marcus Messalla were consuls (3 B.C.E.), and when Lucius Caninius and Quintus Fabricius were consuls (2 B.C.E.) , I paid out rewards in cash to the soldiers whom I had led into their towns when their service was completed, and in this venture I spent about HS 400,000,000. 17. Four times I helped the senatorial treasury with my money, so that I offered HS 150,000,000 to those who were in charge of the treasury. And when Marcus Lepidus and Luciu Arruntius were consuls (6 A.C.E.), I offered HS 170,000,000 from my patrimony to the military treasury, which was founded by my advice and from which rewards were given to soldiers who had served twenty or more times. 18. From that year when Gnaeus and Publius Lentulus were consuls (18 Bc), when the taxes fell short, I gave out contributions of grain and money from my granary and patrimony, sometimes to 100,000 men, sometimes to many more. 19. I built the senate-house and the Chalcidicum which adjoins it and the temple of Apollo on the Palatine with porticos, the temple of divine Julius, the Lupercal, the portico at the Flaminian circus, which I allowed to be called by the name Octavian, after he who had earlier built in the same place, the state box at the great circus, the temple on the Capitoline of Jupiter Subduer and Jupiter Thunderer, the temple of Quirinus, the temples of Minerva and Queen Juno and Jupiter Liberator on the Aventine, the temple of the Lares at the top of the holy street, the temple of the gods of the Penates on the Velian, the temple of Youth, and the temple of the Great Mother on the Palatine. 20. I rebuilt the Capitol and the theater of Pompey, each work at enormous cost, without any inscription of my name. I rebuilt aqueducts in many places that had decayed with age, and I doubled the capacity of the Marcian aqueduct by sending a new spring into its channel. I completed the Forum of Julius and the basilic which he built between the temple of Castor and the temple of Saturn, works begun and almost finished by my father. When the same basilica was burned with fire I expanded its grounds and I began it under an inscription of the name of my sons, and, if I should not complete it alive, I ordered it to be completed by my heirs. Consul for the sixth time (28 B.C.E.), I rebuilt eighty-two temples of the gods in the city by the authority of the senate, omitting nothing which ought to have been rebuilt at that time. Consul for the seventh time (27 B.C.E.), I rebuilt the Flaminian road from the city to Ariminum and all the bridges except the Mulvian and Minucian. 21. I built the temple of Mars Ultor on private ground and the forum of Augustus from war-spoils. I build the theater at the temple of Apollo on ground largely bought from private owners, under the name of Marcus Marcellus my son-in-law. I consecrated gifts from war-spoils in the Capitol and in the temple of divine Julius, in the temple of Apollo, in the tempe of Vesta, and in the temple of Mars Ultor, which cost me about HS 100,000,000. I sent back gold crowns weighing 35,000 to the towns and colonies of Italy, which had been contributed for my triumphs, and later, however many times I was named emperor, I refused gold crowns from the towns and colonies which they equally kindly decreed, and before they had decreed them. 22. Three times I gave shows of gladiators under my name and five times under the name of my sons and grandsons; in these shows about 10,000 men fought. Twice I furnished under my name spectacles of athletes gathered from everywhere, and three times under my grandson's name. I celebrated games under my name four times, and furthermore in the place of other magistrates twenty-three times. As master of the college I celebrated the secular games for the college of the Fifteen, with my colleague Marcus Agrippa, when Gaius Furnius and Gaius Silanus were consuls (17 B.C.E.). Consul for the thirteenth time (2 B.C.E.), I celebrated the first games of Mas, which after that time thereafter in following years, by a senate decree and a law, the consuls were to celebrate. Twenty-six times, under my name or that of my sons and grandsons, I gave the people hunts of African beasts in the circus, in the open, or in the amphitheater; in them about 3,500 beasts were killed. 23. I gave the people a spectacle of a naval battle, in the place across the Tiber where the grove of the Caesars is now, with the ground excavated in length 1,800 feet, in width 1,200, in which thirty beaked ships, biremes or triremes, but many smaller, fought among themselves; in these ships about 3,000 men fought in addition to the rowers. 24. In the temples of all the cities of the province of Asia, as victor, I replaced the ornaments which he with whom I fought the war had possessed privately after he despoiled the temples. Silver statues of me-on foot, on horseback, and standing in a chariot-were erected in about eighty cities, which I myself removed, and from the money I placed goldn offerings in the temple of Apollo under my name and of those who paid the honor of the statues to me. 25. I restored peace to the sea from pirates. In that slave war I handed over to their masters for the infliction of punishments about 30,000 captured, who had fled their masters and taken up arms against the state. All Italy swore allegiance to me voluntarily, and demanded me as leader of the war which I won at Actium; the provinces of Gaul, Spain, Africa, Sicily, and Sardinia swore the same allegiance. And those who then fought under my standard were more than 700 senators, among whom 83 were made consuls either before or after, up to the day this was written, and about 170 were made priests. 26. I extended the borders of all the provinces of the Roman people which neighbored nations not subject to our rule. I restored peace to the provinces of Gaul and Spain, likewise Germany, which includes the ocean from Cadiz to the mouth of the river Elbe. I brought peace to the Alps from the region which i near the Adriatic Sea to the Tuscan, with no unjust war waged against any nation. I sailed my ships on the ocean from the mouth of the Rhine to the east region up to the borders of the Cimbri, where no Roman had gone before that time by land or sea, and the Cimbri and the Charydes and the Semnones and the other Germans of the same territory sought by envoys the friendship of me and of the Roman people. By my order and auspices two armies were led at about the same time into Ethiopia and into that part of Arabia which is called Happy, and the troops of each nation of enemies were slaughtered in battle and many towns captured. They penetrated into Ethiopia all the way to the town Nabata, which is near to Meroe; and into Arabia all the way to the border of the Sabaei, advancing to the town Mariba. 27. I added Egypt to the rule of the Roman people. When Artaxes, king of Greater Armenia, was killed, though I could have made it a province, I preferred, by the example of our elders, to hand over that kingdomto Tigranes, son of king Artavasdes, and grandson of King Tigranes, through Tiberius Nero, who was then my step-son. And the same nation, after revolting and rebelling, and subdued through my son Gaius, I handed over to be ruled by King Ariobarzanes son of Artabazus, King of the Medes, and after his death, to his son Artavasdes; and when he was killed, I sent Tigranes, who came from the royal clan of the Armenians, into that rule. I recovered all the provinces which lie across the Adriatic to the east and Cyrene, with kings now possessing them in large part, and Sicily and Sardina, which had been occupied earlier in the slave war. 28. I founded colonies of soldiers in Africa, Sicily, Macedonia, each Spain, Greece, Asia, Syria, Narbonian Gaul, and Pisidia, and furthermore had twenty-eight colonies founded in Italy under my authority, which were very populous and crowded while I lived. 29. I recovered from Spain, Gaul, and Dalmatia the many military standards lost through other leaders, after defeating te enemies. I compelled the Parthians to return to me the spoils and standards of three Roman armies, and as suppliants to seek the friendship of the Roman people. Furthermore I placed those standards in the sanctuary of the temple of Mars Ultor. 30. As for the tribes of the Pannonians, before my principate no army of the Roman people had entered their land. When they were conquered through Tiberius Nero, who was then my step-son and emissary, I subjected them to the rule of the Roman people and extended the borders of Illyricum to the shores of the river Danube. On the near side of it the army of the Dacians was conquered and overcome under my auspices, and then my army, led across the Danube, forced the tribes of the Dacians to bear the rule of the Roman people. 31. Emissaries from the Indian kings were often sent to me, which had not been seen before that time by any Roman leader. The Bastarnae, the Scythians, and the Sarmatians, who are on this side of the river Don and the kings further away, an the kings of the Albanians, of the Iberians, and of the Medes, sought our friendship through emissaries. 32. To me were sent supplications by kings: of the Parthians, Tiridates and later Phrates son of king Phrates, of the Medes, Artavasdes, of the Adiabeni, Artaxares, of the Britons, Dumnobellaunus and Tincommius, of the Sugambri, Maelo, of the Marcomanian Suebi (...) (-)rus. King Phrates of the Parthians, son of Orodes, sent all his sons and grandsons into Italy to me, though defeated in no war, but seeking our friendship through the pledges of his children. And in my principate many other peoples experienced the faith of the Roman people, of whom nothing had previously existed of embassies or interchange of friendship with the Roman people. 33. The nations of the Parthians and Medes received from me the first kings of those nations which they sought by emissaries: the Parthians, Vonones son of king Phrates, grandson of king Orodes, the Medes, Ariobarzanes, son of king Artavasdes, grandson of king Aiobarzanes. 34. In my sixth and seventh consulates (28-27 B.C.E.), after putting out the civil war, having obtained all things by universal consent, I handed over the state from my power to the dominion of the senate and Roman people. And for this merit of mine, by a senate decree, I was called Augustus and the doors of my temple were publicly clothed with laurel and a civic crown was fixed over my door and a gold shield placed in the Julian senate-house, and the inscription of that shield testified to the virtue, mercy, justice, and piety, for which the senate and Roman people gave it to me. After that time, I exceeded all in influence, but I had no greater power than the others who were colleagues with me in each magistracy. 35. When I administered my thirteenth consulate (2 B.C.E.), the senate and Equestrian order and Roman people all called me father of the country, and voted that the same be inscribed in the vestibule of my temple, in the Julian senate-house, and in the forum of Augustus under the chario which had been placed there for me by a decision of the senate. When I wrote this I was seventy-six years old.

@SGTWipper1Each I’m out near Westover in Chicopee where we have the C-5 Galaxy. Don’t know of any other nicknames for it

Aircraft Nicknames: Got any to add? F-35: Fat Amy F-15 Strike Eagle: Mud Hen F-14: Turkey F-117: Stinkbug F-111: Vark F-104: Widowmaker F-105: Thud B-1B: Bone C-17: Moose C-5: Fred P-38: Fork-tailed Devil F4U: Whistling Death P-51: Spam Can S-3: Hoover SR-71: Habu

El sencillísimo y nada confuso mundo de las selecciones británicas e irlandesas

@Will_Tanner_1 Of course others will disagree but I think the repeated violent acts of treason Lee committed are far worse than what Brown I