Random Thursday

Time to return to War and Military from The Little Book of Answers by Doug Lennox! I'll admit this section is getting more interesting than I initially thought! It's not as boring as I thought it would be! Lol.

(image borrowed from Amazon)

We get the expression, "turning a blind eye" from the captain, Horatio Nelson of the British fleet near Copenhagen in 1801. Nelson was told that his commander has sent up flags to order his retreat. Nelson lifted his spyglass to his blind eye and said he couldn't see the signal and then went to lead a successful attack on the enemy.

That's rather interesting...and funny too! Lol.

(image borrowed from The Laurel of Ashville)

In the American Civil War, a Colonel Bee set up a poorly constructed telegraph between Placerville and Virginia City by stringing wires from trees. The wires resembled grapevines and soon earned the name "Grapevine Telegraph" or just "the grapevine." Sadly, the system was faulty and by the time messages were received they were very often outdated or just untrue. Soon saying, "I heard it through the grapevine" was used to explain how information was gained through gossip.

Makes you think of the song differently now!

(image borrowed from Delicious)

Croissants actually originated from Vienna. In 1683 the nations of Europe were at war with one another. The Turks took over Vienna, then the next year, Poland joined forces with Vienna to help lift the siege of the city, which finally took place in 1689. In celebration, a baker from Vienna made the crescent-shaped rolls by copying the crescent Islamic symbol on the Turkish flag.

Never knew that! For whatever reason I thought they were more French! Lol.

(image borrowed from World Atlas)

The Americans were the ones to add the most to the forces of the British in the war against Washington. By 1779 the Americans were fighting along with the British against the colonists. Washington had around 3,500 troops but a third of the American population opposed the revolution. About 8,000 loyalists later moved to Canada or joined the British Army.

(image borrowed from Wikipedia)

In the 16th century an army would start to attack a fortress by digging a series of trenches, or ditches for protection around the building. They would keep moving to the closer trench until they could storm the walls of the fortress. If a counterattack was successful the invaders would retreat by trying to hold each trench in reverse order. If they were to reach the last ditch and fail to hold that one, then the battle was lost.

Interesting. I didn't know that's where we got the expression, "last ditch effort."