Sublime

Called “natural-born musicians,” Hawaiians were considered critical to military success.19

While Eisenhower wrestled with the bookkeeping, MacArthur settled in. He’d met his second wife, Jean, on the trip over. His only son, Arthur MacArthur IV, was born in Manila, with Manuel Quezon as the godfather. MacArthur took up residence in the penthouse of the Parsons-designed Manila Hotel. He became a fixture of Manila society, even receiving a

Pacific Bill.” As it passed parliament in February 1881, the legislation authorized the Canadian Pacific Railroad to link with the Canada Central Railway at Callander, near Georgian Bay, and to run westward to some Pacific port in British Columbia. Generously subsidized with $25 million in direct support and a twenty-five-million-acre, checkerboard

Life at the War Office was very strange at first. Millis had to share an office with Lieutenant-Colonel Gubbins, who also came under Joe Holland in some capacity or other. It was quite a pleasant office on about the fourth floor and as Gubbins was a half colonel it had a carpet. But it was not very large, and had to accommodate Gubbins plus his mil

Every bone in Jim Hill’s body drew him toward an impassioned stand on the war between Britain, France, and Russia, on the one side, and Germany and Austria-Hungary, on the other. After all, he had been born in the British Empire, had been reared on English culture, and remained fondly attached to his native Canada.

McKinley, meanwhile, called for 125,000 volunteers to carry the war to the Caribbean. The army was swamped with applicants. And bouncing up and down enthusiastically at the head of the line was one Theodore Roosevelt, assistant secretary of the navy. Roosevelt’s eagerness to leave his post and join the army baffled his friends. “Is his wife dead? H

In 1903 Secretary of War Elihu Root brought the Army, which had a similar structure, reluctantly into the twentieth century. The power of independent branch chiefs such as the adjutant general and the chief of engineers was broken, a general staff system established, and the entire uniformed service brought under the command of a single military he

Walter is assured a place in history because he is the Lord Rothschild to whom Arthur James Balfour, the British Foreign Secretary, addressed the famous Balfour Declaration of 1917, saying His Majesty’s Government viewed with favor the establishment of a national home for the Jews in Palestine. It was written in the form of a letter beginning “Dear

Piotr Tarczynkski, a twenty-six-year-old factory clerk, had been ill for some weeks before he was mobilised. But when he informed the commanding officer of his artillery battery that he was ailing, the colonel responded with a brisk patriotic speech, “and told me he was sure that once I found myself in the saddle I would feel much better.” Equipmen