Random News and Notes 8 August

On this date:

• 1570 – Charles IX of France signs the Treaty of St. Germain, ending the third war of religion and giving religious freedom to the Huguenots.
• 1588 – Off the coast of Gravelines, France, Spain’s so-called “Invincible Armada” is defeated by an English naval force under the command of Lord Charles Howard and Sir Francis Drake.
• 1844 – Brigham Young is chosen to head the Mormon Church, succeeding Joseph Smith.
• 1863 – General Robert E Lee tenders his resignation over the loss at Gettysburg. Confederate President Jefferson Davis astutely refuses.
• 1876 – Thomas Edison patents the mimeograph.
• 1899 – First residential refrigeration unit is patented by Albert T Marshall.
• 1918 – The Battle of Amiens begins. Of the 27, 000 German casualties on August 8, an unprecedented proportion—12,000—had surrendered to the enemy.
• 1927 – The first national congress of the Ku Klux Klan opens.
• 1937 – The Japanese Army occupies Peking.
• 1940 – The German Luftwaffe attacks Great Britain for the first time, beginning the Battle of Britain.
• 1942 – U.S. Marines capture the Japanese airstrip on Guadalcanal.
• 1943 – U.S. forces complete the capture of the Marianas Islands.
• 1945 – The Soviet Union declares war on Japan two days after the US drops Little Boy on Hiroshima.
• 1950 – U.S. troops repel the first North Korean attempt to overrun them at the Battle of Naktong Bulge, which continued for 10 days.
• 1963 – England’s “Great Train Robbery;” 2.6 million pounds ($7.3 million) is stolen.
• 1974 – Richard Nixon announces he will resign the Presidency.
• 2000 – The Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley is raised to surface, 136 years after it sank following its successful attack on USS Housatonic in the outer harbor of Charleston, South Carolina.

Frank Kendall was the Secretary of the Air Force under POTATUS. He also seems to be in some small legal jeopardy. It is being reported that he was the one responsible for leaking the highly classified details of the defensive systems on the VC-25A/B transports. You may know them better by the call sign they use – Air Force 1. Late yesterday the Pentagon stripped Kendall of his security clearances and eligibility for sensitive positions due to an unauthorized disclosure about the Boeing 747-8 donated by Qatar and now retrofitted as Air Force One. A July 2026 New York Times report using Kendall as an anonymous source revealed the plane lacks some antimissile systems found on prior models.

Depending on what the charges end up being, Kendall faces up to 10 years for each count of unauthorized disclosure of national security information. I really hope to see a swift prosecution on this one, pour encourager les autres.

Residents in Seville Spain have taken to spreading pig bones and offal on the future site of a mosque. The protest targeted land bought by Fundación Mezquita Sevilla for the city’s first purpose-built mosque in centuries, after authorities granted a permit despite opposition. Residents spread pig bones and cuts of pork, claiming scripture deems such sites impure for mosques.

While it may work in the short term, there are cleanup procedures the islamists will use to “purify” the site.

Late last night, Todd Blanche was confirmed as the Attorney General. The vote was 50-49. Collins and Murkowski were the GOP holdouts. Blanche had this to say on Twitter:

To the dedicated public servants of the Department of Justice, thank you for your work each day to uphold the law and keep our country safe.
God bless America.