A Brief History On April 28, 1944, an Allied training mission in preparation for the upcoming D-Day invasion of France went from bad to worse, resulting in a bizarre exercise defeat that was kept secret (kind of) from the public for years.  (Typical government modus operandi!) Digging Deeper Exercise Tiger as the operation was called began on April 22, 1944 with drills moving men and equipment preparing to embark on invasion shipping.  On April 26 the embarkation was complete and the “invasion” fleet of 9 LST landing ships escorted by 2 destroyers, 3 torpedo boats and 4 gunboats sailed for the…

A Brief History On April 27, 1805, the United States Marine Corps conducted one of their first famous missions, one immortalized in the Marines’ Hymn, by taking the Tripolitan city of Derna and raising the American flag, the first time the Flag of the United States was raised on foreign soil. Digging Deeper The First Barbary War, also known as The Barbary Coast War or the Tripolitanian War, was fought by the United States against the North African states of Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli, collectively known as “The Barbary States,” the last three on the list being associate with…

A Brief History On April 27, 33 BC, Roman politician Lucius Marcius Philippus, a step-brother to the future emperor Augustus (r. 27 BC–AD 14), celebrated a triumph for his victories while serving as governor in one of the provinces of Hispania.  The Roman triumph was a civil ceremony and religious rite of ancient Rome held to publicly celebrate and sanctify the success of a military commander who had led Roman forces to victory in the service of the state or, originally and traditionally, one who had successfully completed a foreign war. Digging Deeper Philippus ascended Rome’s ladder of political and…

A Brief History On April 26, 1336, famed Italian scholar and poet Francesco Petrarca (better known as Petrarch) ascended Mont Ventoux, a mountain in the Provence region of southern France. Digging Deeper Petrarch is famous for much more than mountain climbing.  Often considered the founder of Humanism, his rediscovery of Cicero’s letters is also often credited with initiating the 14th-century Renaissance.  Petrarch is additionally acknowledged as the first to develop the concept of the “Dark Ages” existing between the Classical Era of Greece and Rome and his own era of Renaissance. A true “Renaissance man”, this polymath also traveled widely in Europe, served…

A Brief History On April 25, 404 B.C., during the Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.), Lysander’s Spartan armies defeated the Athenians and the war finally ended. Digging Deeper The Peloponnesian War was an ancient Greek war fought by Athens and its empire against the Peloponnesian League led by Sparta.  The war dragged on for nearly three decades and expanded beyond Greece to as far away as Sicily with neither side apparently able to win a decisive, war-ending battle, at least until the skillful Spartan general Lysander (died 395 B.C.) entered the fray. Unlike some of his predecessors, the new Spartan general, Lysander,…