This day is called October 19, 2022. It’s early. Can’t get to sleep. I’m fortunate that it doesn’t happen more often than it does. Always looking for a reason to be grateful. Today is Dress Like a Dork Day, Evaluate Your Life Day, LGBT Day, Love Your body Day, National Seafood Bisque Day, New Friends Day, Rainforest Day, and my pick, International Gin and Tonic Day. Yum. Now some history. On this day in 202 BC the Battle of Zama was fought between the Roman army led by Publius Cornelius Scipio and the Carthaginian army led by Hannibal. The Romans won and this ended the 17-year Tunic War. Hannibal had 80 war elephants which didn’t help him. At the end of the day around 35,000 people were killed. Swords, spears, arrows, and elephants. Wow. On this day in 1781 Charles Cornwallis signed terms of surrender to George Washington and Comte de Rochambeau at Yorktown ending the US Revolutionary War. On this day in 1812 Napoleon Bonaparte and his army began their retreat from Moscow. Napoleon started his campaign with 500,000 and there were less than 100,000 when he decided to retreat. On this day in 1870 the first African Americans were elected to the House of Representatives. This is the day in 1960 that Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested in the Atlanta sit-in. On the same day, the US imposed an embargo on exports to Cuba. Today’s quotes come from Jonathan Swift who was an Irish satirist, author, poet, and cleric. Jonathan said, “Men are happy to be laughed at for their humor, but not for their folly.” “You should never be ashamed to admit you have been wrong. It only proves you are wiser today than yesterday.” “Every man desires to live long, but no man wishes to be old.” I’ll wrap this one up with “Every day is an opportunity to make a new happy ending.” Abide.
