Today in History - August 21, 2013

Tuesdays suck, I have way too much to do, and I don't feel like wasting any of that time that could be spent working or napping by informing you morons who are too lazy to use the internet yourselves. On that note, happy Wednesday! There was a Scotland fact today, but it wasn't very interesting, so I'll leave it be and instead lead off with this!

CANADA WINS THANKS TO POLAND

August 21, 1944 - Canadian and Polish forces liberate the town of Falaise, Calvado, in France. I actually know a bit about this, and not JUST because it was a key plot element to Call of Duty 3. I've been to Falaise, thank you very much. This was a crucial victory towards the end of the Normandy campaign, because it was one of the last links in a massive encirclement that the Allies performed to trap something like a million German soldiers, forming what became known as the Falaise Pocket. The eventual surrender of the pocket was the largest German surrender to any Western Allies in the war, and it might have been the largest German surrender period, but I'm not certain. Good to know that Canada actually did play a role in something useful. Then again, it was Strel's idea to surround the enemy on Company of Heroes last night, so there you go. You Canadians are one-trick ponies. Also, I didn't have to look any of that up, I just know it already, because I'm awesome. Which also means I could be wrong, somebody find out if I was wrong.

That was actually out of order chronologically, but I felt like our friends from the untamed north deserve some credit after the Canada beating that was Monday. Anyway, let's go back in time a few years.

August 21, 1942 - The U.S. Marine Corps successfully holds back the Imperial Japanese Army at the Battle of the Tenaru River. This battle was interesting for a number of reasons, the first of which is the simple fact that this is the battle where we got our image of the Japanese as relentlessly charging machine guns with wave after wave of troops. They just didn't understand that that tactic only works for Russia. Thus we see the inferiority of sake to vodka. The other thing that I like about this battle is that it did NOT take place at the Tenaru River. All of the Marine maps had been mislabeled, and the area that had been MARKED as the Tenaru River, where the battle was fought, was ACTUALLY the Ilu River. In honor of this Japanese defeat, I thought I'd write a haiku. Then I remembered that haikus are stupid, so I decided to write a real poem about dumb Marines.

Silly Marines on a silly island,
Wasted all of their time making bad maps.
At least they knew how to dig in the sand,
So they could kill all those silly dumb Japs.

You're welcome.

That's apparently it for today, August 21st is I guess a boring day to do things of historical significance. I know you guys were expecting more than two facts, so if you're disappointed just... I dunno... Ponder the fact that Canada needed the help of Poland - yes, Poland - to do something impressive. Or reread my racist poem about the Japanese and admire it's structure and form. Or don't do anything of those stupid things and just quit your bitching and find some other way to waste time today.

lmao Canada....

Haha, I guess that'll do for now.

It was actually pretty awesome, there were a lot of monuments to Canadian regiments when I went there. Also, they had an American, British, Canadian, and Polish storyline in that game, and the Canadian was my favorite. It didn't have all the drama that the American and British one did, and it wasn't Polish.