THE PENOBSCOT CAMPAIGN – Most sources refer to this military campaign as the Penobscot Expedition, but I feel the word campaign is far more accurate. At any rate, if it had been a success this combined land and sea effort against the British in 1779 would be hailed to this very day. Unfortunately, its failure has relegated it to the Memory Hole for most people.
This campaign was an attempt to drive the British out of the portion of Maine that they had seized and renamed New Ireland. Because Maine is central to this affair, I will first clarify a few things that some Americans as well as non-Americans can get thrown off by.
*** In general, we are all familiar with the original 13 Colonies that broke away from England during the American Revolution. Because Maine is not named among those 13 colonies, some people are confused when it is mentioned as the location for various battles of the Revolutionary War.
Maine was a district of Massachusetts at the time. Similarly, Kentucky was not one of the 13 Colonies, but it was a department of Virginia, which is why Daniel Morgan’s Kentucky Rifles were part of America’s army during the war. Continue reading
Cratinus was one of the Big 3 in Attic Old Comedy along with Aristophanes and Eupolis, both of whom were much younger than he was. From the fragmentary evidence available on Dionysalexandros, it appears to be a possibly unique hybrid of Attic Old Comedy and traditional Satyr Plays. 
For the most part the silly conspiracy theories about the establishment of the United States are good only for laughs. One of my favorites, however, features a speech from a mysterious figure usually associated with Freemasons, Rosicrucians and/or the Bavarian Illuminati of Adam Weishaupt. 
“They (the British) may stretch our necks on all the gibbets in the land. They may turn every rock into a scaffold, every tree into a gallows, every home into a grave and yet the words of that parchment can never die!” 
APRIL 2nd – Off the coast of Delaware the British frigates HMS Perseus and HMS Roebuck spotted the South Carolina Navy’s schooner the USS Defense, captained by Thomas Pickering. Outnumbered, the Defense fled and the British vessels pursued her from roughly 6:00am to 1:00pm. 
Before MST3K we had The Texas 27 Film Vault! In the middle 1980s, way down on Level 31 Randy and Richard, machine-gun toting Film Vault Technicians First Class, hosted this neglected cult show which debuted Saturday February 9th, 1985. Balladeer’s Blog continues its celebration of the program’s FORTIETH anniversary year with this schlock film set on the 4th of July. 
SERIAL: Before showing Frogs our members of the Film Vault Corps (“the few, the proud, the sarcastic”) showed an episode of the 1950 Columbia serial Atom Man vs Superman. Kirk Alyn starred as Superman with Lyle Talbot as his archenemy Lex Luthor. 
MISS LIBERTY 
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