New Look for Arlington

It's a little bit difficult to stay on top of the news these days. It seems that this memorial pile of sculpture at Arlington National Cemetery, erected in 1914 as a sign of peace and North / South brotherhood, has been declared by the Biden regime to be a sign of oppression and racism that must be destroyed. 

Which means that they must be looking for a new sign of peace and North / South brotherhood, right? I have a suggestion. From North to South America, I think we can agree on this: Shakira. A new memorial to the internationally acclaimed entertainer has been installed in her home town of Barranquilla, Colombia. I bet for another 697 million Colombian Pesos, sculptor Yino Márquez would be willing to make a another copy for Washington, DC.

It will be a lasting memorial of peace, brotherhood, dance music, and hips that, unlike politicians, don't lie!

In Fourteen Hundred and Ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue

Today, 12 October 2023, is the traditional Columbus Day. 

Over at thenewneo.com is a reprise of a 2022 post that revealed to me an odd fact: it was not our indigenous peoples or other ethnic minorities that started the anti-Columbus thing, it was white supremacists. 

Neo quotes a National Review  article (the link seems dead since then) by  Jennifer C. Braceras which pulls the cover off the Klan [the emphasis is Neo's]:

Here, in the United States, the anti-Columbus movement was sparked by white supremacists nearly 100 years ago. In the 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan promoted negative characterizations of Columbus in order to vilify Catholics and immigrants, many of whom celebrated Columbus not only as a source of ethnic and religious pride but also as a symbol of the free and diverse society that resulted from the European presence here. The Klan tried to prevent the erection of monuments to the Great Navigator, burned crosses in opposition to efforts to honor him, and argued that commemorations of his voyage were part of a papal plot. Rather than honor a Catholic explorer from the Mediterranean, Klansmen proposed honoring the Norseman Leif Eriksson as discoverer of the New World and a symbol of white pride.

I didn't know "identity politics" of that kind went back that far.  Also hadn't thought much about whether back in history (apart from religious iconoclasts) anybody was  getting all worked up about statues.

Neo quotes this long section from TheHill.com, which I found educational:

In the 1920s, from coast to coast, members of the Ku Klux Klan opposed Columbus. In Richmond, they tried to stop the erection of a Columbus monument. In Pennsylvania, they burned fiery crosses to threaten those celebrating Columbus. The Klan newspaper, The American Standard, attacked honoring Columbus – on the basis that a holiday for him was some sort of papal plot.

The Klan was no fan of Columbus. He stood athwart their nativist desire for a country pure in its Anglo-Saxon and Protestant origins.

What Americans have forgotten is that white supremacy has historically sought not only the denigration of African-Americans and Jews but also of Catholics – and among them Hispanics – ascribing to the latter all manner of harmful stereotypes as brutal criminals and sexual predators. This narrative is known throughout the Spanish-speaking world and in academic circles as the “Black Legend.”

Historian Philip Wayne Powell wrote of this smear campaign: “The basic premise of the Black Legend is that Spaniards have shown themselves, historically, to be uniquely cruel, bigoted, tyrannical, obscurantist, lazy, fanatical, greedy, and treacherous; that is, that they differ so much from other peoples in these traits that Spaniards and Spanish history must be viewed and understood in terms not ordinarily used in describing and interpreting other peoples.”…

In the rush to judge and deface, few remember that it was Spain that forbade slavery of most Native Americans and made them Spanish citizens. Fewer still remember that Columbus seems to have faced arrest by his fellow explorers for punishing – even executing – those who had abused Native Americans. And almost no one recalls that it was not Columbus but the exaggerating zealot Bartolome De Las Casas, who is most often cited in smearing Spanish exploration and with it Columbus, who was the one who proposed African slavery for the New World.

Anyway when I was growing up, every 12th of October my mother would recite the 1492 poem (well at least the beginning). The beginning is pasted below. The poem seems to be widely credited to Jean Marzollo, an editor at Scholastic Books. But Jean was born in 1942 and my mother learned the poem in the 1930s. Go figure. Here you go: 

In fourteen hundred ninety-two

Columbus sailed the ocean blue.

He had three ships and left from Spain;

He sailed through sunshine, wind and rain.

He sailed by night; he sailed by day;

He used the stars to find his way.

A compass also helped him know

How to find the way to go...

Careful! We might learn something!

A university is a collection of departments that agree not to talk to each other. 

I ran into an article claiming that cows radically changed the marine ecosystem in the second half of the 19th century. The title of the piece is "How Cows Destroyed an Entire Marine Ecosystem in California." It's from 2021 so it's not particularly fresh as a topic, but I thought it would be a good example of what can happen. 

This article is a summary of a scientific study called "Nineteenth-century collapse of a benthic marine ecosystem on the open continental shelf." The study is real science with sample taking, sample analysis, radiocarbon dating, and top-level sciencey language. Basically it proves that long ago there were gravel dwelling filter-feeders in clear waters, but by the mid 20th century these were replaced with various mud dwellers living in mud. 

The study area was small, including three Southern California areas. The study says, "These three sites are Short Bank in Santa Monica Bay, and the western and eastern parts of the Palos Verdes shelf."  Having ascertained that this change in the biome occurred, and having quantified the organisms involved, possible causes are sought. Those mentioned are: a.) sewage effluent; b.) global warming; c.) siltation owing to livestock grazing and farming.

The study emphasizes: "Heavy grazing has many negative effects, but most notable in this context is soil compaction from trampling that increases surface runoff of rain and thus the potential for soil erosion. Sediment transport to the sea, always episodic in this semi-arid setting, was thus almost certainly much higher during the nineteenth century than during preceding millennia of occupation by native hunter–gatherers." 

"Thus almost certainly" is what somebody writing a report says when the data is thinnest and most suspect. It's what you say instead of something firm and sciencey. Well, the causes are secondary. The conclusion of the study is that we need to study this topic more. (More funding! More studies! More beach time!)

Here's a free suggestion for the next study. Lay off the global warming and the cows and the peaceful, ecologically-aware indigenous hunter-gathers, and think about these two words: HYDRAULIC MINING.

Before gold was discovered in Coloma, California in 1848, gold was discovered in the San Gabriel Mountains in 1842. Here's an article about it that would be a really good resource except the San Bernardino Sun wants to sit on it like a broody hen rather than let you read it. But here are a whole bunch of pictures that feature hydraulic mining. Yeah, it was horrifically damaging to the environment; the original San Gabriel mines pretty much choked out everybody that relied on Placerita Canyon water. Hydraulic mining was such a big deal and caused so much environmental damage that I'm surprised ecologists don't know about it. But then, the scientists are products of a university, where the History people never talk to the Biology people. 

On the Death of Rush Limbaugh

Rush Limbaugh passed away on Ash Wednesday, 17 February 2021, a bit more than a year after making public the diagnosis of his late stage lung cancer. 

Soft tissue cancers, even in this 21st century, are too difficult to sense and diagnose early. By the time you're feeling a problem, the cancer has too often spread too far to treat. (Yeah, the cigars. I don't want to talk about it. Nobody "deserves" cancer.)

It is a mark of Rush's good cheer and courage that he opted to endure treatments so he could remain behind the golden Excellence In Broadcasting microphone as much as possible, for as long as possible, through the past year. With half his brain tied behind his back (just to make it fair), AND terminal cancer.

Rush Limbaugh came into my life during the Reagan administration, as a talk show host on KFBK radio out of Sacramento, California, in 1984. The mix of news, commentary, and humor captured my attention. The man was utterly unique at the time. Though many me-too show hosts have tried since then, with mixed success, I believe that to the end Rush was utterly unique. 

The time he convinced a caller that her phone contained a camera that allowed him to see through the handset. The jokes about Rio Linda. The fake commercials. Bump music -- Rush invented that! Biting satire. Insightful commentary. Wise advice to younger callers. 

In 1988 the show went to New York and national syndication. It was a big risk, and I was worried that that would be the end. So glad I was 100% wrong! Oh, those days! Oh to hear Rush, daring to do what nobody else seemed willing to do: the thorough fisking of Democrat Michael Dukakis when he was running against "Dubya's" dad! 

Rush got me through the Clinton years, through September 11, 2001, through the Obama years.  

Though not a daily listener, I will miss him.

Let me state: Rush Limbaugh was neither divisive nor polarizing. Quite the opposite. Before we had The Rush Limbaugh Show, millions of Americans were isolated and voiceless. Since the presidential administration of Lyndon Baines Johnson (and possibly longer than that), Americans that believed in America were being separated and divided and told to sit down and shut up, because fuck you, that's why. The Left are the divisive and polarizing ones; Rush Limbaugh was a voice for America in a way that brought millions together, and if nothing else showed us that it's okay to speak up and speak out for the Good, the True, the Beautiful -- to speak up and speak out for America. 

I will miss him. Many millions will.

Passage of History

Did you know that Microsoft Excel can't do date calculations before January 1, 1900?  True.  Hasn't been updated since that's the way it was in the MS-DOS first release and original BASIC days.  It doesn't do the logical thing and convert the negative values to absolute values and blah blah blah.  It just gives you "##################" cells.  Weird.

Anyway to deal with the past you have to shift your earliest date to after 01/01/1900 and shift all your other dates forward accordingly, which can introduce errors because 2000  did  have a February 29 leap day but normally centuries do not.  If you're striving for precision, you'll have to come up with a C++ program or something.

This came up because last week I had a hunch that turned out to be sort of true.  The civil war was as long before World War II as we now are from World War II.  Roughly.

Actually, August 4 of 2022 will be (+/- a day?) as long after the attack on Pearl Harbor as the attack on Pearl Harbor was after the firing on Fort Sumter. 

Macron puts some French dressing on his internationalist salad

"Patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism: Nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism. In saying 'our interests first, whatever happens to the others,' you erase the most precious thing a nation can have, that which makes it lives, that which causes it to be great and that which is most important: Its moral values."

-- French President Emmanuel Macron, Sunday 11 November 2018,during his speech at the Paris Peace Forum at the Villette Conference Hall in Paris, as part of the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the armistice that ended World War I.

In other words, Macron is saying that a patriotism that is not internationalism (open borders, EU and UN first, peace-at-any-price) is not patriotism at all.  

Wow.  The dictionary thinks nationalism is a synonym of patriotism.  

That's pretty sick and culturally suicidal.  Which is to say, that's pretty French of him.  

And the rest . . . is history

Having been given a mission by United States President Millard Fillmore in 1852, and having been pecking away at Asian diplomacy in various places, and having made overtures to the Edo powers in 1853, Commodore Matthew C. Perry was given permission to land at Kanagawa near what is now Yokohama, on 8 March 1854.  During the following weeks he and his counterparts in Edo worked out what is called the Treaty of Kanagawa, opening Japan to American trade.

Ostensibly about trade in the general sense, the mission was largely about coal, since this was the dawn of the steamship era.  Be that as it may, trade commenced.

Yeah there were some speed bumps on the road to understanding, but now the people of Japan even beat us in baseball sometimes, which is the definition of  friends.

So we owe it to Commodore Perry and President Fillmore that we now have Daiso, Ghibli movies, manga, Akitas, sushi, red bean buns, and a host of other wonders!    ^_^ 

What's old is new again

The upper image is the cruiser Olympia, launched in 1892 (commissioned in 1895) as U.S.S. Olympia (C-6).  She currently lies in the Independence Seaport Museum in Philadelphia.  The museum site says Olympia is the oldest steel warship still afloat!

The lower picture is the new super-duper stealthy guided missile destroyer U.S.S. Zumwalt (DDG-1000).  Yeah, the one with all the problems, like the ammo-less main gun...

But what struck me is that the hull designed to let naval gunfire bounce off (it didn't work that well...) has been brought back to let radar beams bounce off (well, off and up, not off and back to the source).

Wet chemical photo processing -- remember?

Digital pictures put an end to the ubiquitous film processing kiosks and strip mall stores.  Now smartphones are doing away with digital cameras ("experts say"). While contemplating the vagaries of why I never have my camera when my 5 megapixel phone camera won't do, I remembered the heyday of Fotomat.

They weren't all bulldozed.  And the Libyans didn't plow into all of them, either.  Some have new life as caffeine filling stations. 

That means these sites are still doing a form of wet process chemical alchemy, after all.

Why the heck do we have a Labor Day anyway?

Let's take a little trip in the Wayback machine to the last quarter of the 19th century:

1884 - Grover Cleveland , Democrat, elected president

·    corruption, trusts, suppression of civil rights

1888 - Benjamin Harrison, Republican, elected president

·    civil service reform (largely blocked by Democrats and corrupt Republicans)
·    civil rights enforcement of voting rights for African Americans (largely blocked by Democrats and corrupt Republicans)
·    modernization of U.S. military
·    reciprocal tariffs against tariff-exacting countries in Central America and Europe
·    currency stabilization, silver coinage
·    antitrust legislation (Sherman Antitrust Act)
·    beginning of electrification
·    ecological progress -- national forests, historic site preservation
·    price of German pork products skyrockets due to U.S. tariff reciprocation to German embargo of U.S. pork
·    Wounded Knee -- not good!
·    wage stagnation -- not good!
·    lost shaky majority in congress in mid-term elections, legislative agenda blocked -- not good!

1892 - Grover Cleveland, Democrat, elected president  -- again!

·    gold standard comes back: given international speculation in gold, destabilizes currency
·    corruption, trusts, suppression of civil rights
·    massive recession / inflation / unemployment -- the "Panic of  1893"
·    rise of "big money" (J.P. Morgan, et al.) in Federal government
·    worker riots
·    violent suppression of Pullman riots / anarchists
·    Cleveland signs Labor Day Holiday act June 28, 1894
·    Cleveland uses 12,000 U.S. military personnel to shut down railroad strike

A-a-and, back to the present.

So.  What did we learn?  Let's see.  The press has always been corrupt and always full of liars? Labor bosses back Democrats and expect the workers to go back and lick the hand that beat them?  Supporting a return to the gold standard is either engaging in crazy cargo cult economics or paving the way for manipulation by trusts and cartels?  Republicans have always been the real environmentalists?

Yes, but what does that have to do with Labor Day?

It's a bone Democrat Cleveland threw the American Federation of Labor after beating down the Pullman Strike.  But he was only recognizing a thing that was already happening.

It turns out that starting in Manhattan in the early 1880s there were worker parades in early September.  It's kind of like declaring, "We may be powerless, but we can party!"

So Labor Day is a nationally established secular version of every Jewish holiday:  "They tried to kill us; they didn't; let's party!"

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I was born under a wandering star, the song said.

Actually I was born under 48 very stable stars.

The 48 star flag of the United States was used from 1912 until 21 August 1959, at which time I was a chubby little crumb cruncher working with a dozen or so teeth.

Happy Birthday, USMC

In 1775, Congress (whatever passed for a Congress in the not-yet-declared-independent portion of the British empire in what is now the New England States) voted to raise two battalions of Continental Marines.  Thus, 10 November 2016 is the 241st birthday of the military body that is now the United States Marine Corps.  That's, like, old.

Korean Cease-Fire 1953

27 July marks the anniversary of the signing of a cease-fire agreement in Panmunjom in 1953.

The Korean War Conflict never ended.

The Kim dynasty continue their version of Two Steps Forward One Step Back.

But the Forgotten War continues to be forgotten by most in the West or allied to the West.

JAPAN SURRENDERS!

Seventy years ago, the formal articles of the unconditional surrender of Japan were signed aboard USS Missouri (BB-63).

"It's V-J Day!  Go kiss a sailor!,"  as my mother used to say.  (Dad, of course, was in the Navy!)

Hiroshima Day

The atomic bombs made my life possible.  At the time Truman gave the go-ahead, my father was on an LST in the Pacific, preparing for the invasion of the Japanese home islands.

The use of the atomic bombs saved lives, compared to anticipated casualties from the planned invasion.

The tyranny of the government of Imperial Japan was the cause of so much suffering.

Yes those photos are ghastly.  But every time Hiroshima Day rolls around I thank the One True God® that the bombs were used and the surrender was secured.

Korean War Martyr

U.S. Army 19th Infantry troops had been in action along the Kum River through 16 July 1950. They intended to disengage but their retreat was blocked by Communist forces.

Quotes below are from the wikipedia article:

"U.S. troops from the 19th Infantry, desperate to move around the roadblock to obtain supplies and care for wounded, began moving through the surrounding hills. One tank was able to make it through the roadblock to evacuate the 19th Infantry's wounded commander, but by 19:00 commanders ordered the regiment to move its wounded along the ridges to the east of the roadblock."

"...At 21:00, about 100 men of the 19th Infantry moved into the hills to the east of the town. They carried with them about 30 wounded, including several litter-bound patients too seriously wounded to walk. Some of the group of 100 were ordered to carry these men, but many of them separated from the group in the mountains. By the time they reached the top of the mountain, officers decided some of the seriously wounded could not be carried any further, as their carriers were exhausted.

"The regimental medical officer, Captain Linton J. Buttrey, and Chaplain [Franciscan Roman Catholic priest] Herman G. Felhoelter remained behind with the wounded, intending to move them when another group of troops came through who could carry them."

The chaplain urged the medical officer to escape. Buttrey was wounded but survived.

"...[O]bservers from the 19th Infantry's regimental Headquarters and Headquarters Company watched through binoculars from a distance as a patrol of young-looking and possibly untrained North Korean troops approached the site of the wounded. The troops were armed with Soviet-made rifles and PPSh-41 "burp guns". As Felhoelter knelt to pray over the wounded U.S. soldiers, the North Korean troops shot him in the head and back. They then proceeded to shoot and kill all of the 30 critically wounded soldiers with their automatic weapons before withdrawing into the wilderness."

Father Felhoelter had received the Bronze Star as a chaplain in World War II.  He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross posthumously.

U.S. Navy Nurses

13 May 1908 is the date of the official establishment of the U. S. Navy Nurse Corps.

President Theodore Roosevelt signed the bill that created the Corps by act of Congress.

So Teddy not only brought us the Great White Fleet, but also some Great White Dress Uniforms.

The original Navy Nurses became known as "The Sacred Twenty"

[wikimedia photo]

Desert Storm - The Ground War

On this day, 24 February, in 1991, I was working at the machine shop.  The radio news broke in over the "Classic Rock" music we listened to.  (Believe me, those songs were nowhere near as "classic" then as they are now -- ahem, oldies station!, ahem -- about as "classic" as a fuzzy half-pint of cottage cheese forgotten in the back of the refrigerator.) The news report gave sketchy information about major ground action launched from Kuwait into Iraq. 

I remember my stomach being in knots.  Was this going to be "another Vietnam" -- i.e., "quagmire" -- as the media hoped insisted?  Or would it be another Grenada? 

The armed pacification of Iraq was stopped short by Sec. Def. Colin Powell with the okay of President George H. W. Bush.  But then of course we had to go back (March 2003 under President George W. Bush) and dig Saddam Hussein  out of his hole (December 2003).  One thing led to another, until the petulant man-child light-bringer psychopathic malignant narcissist  President Barack Obama pulled out the remaining U.S. troops, even in the absence of a status of forces agreement with the free government of Iraq (December 2011).

And then came "insurgency" and ISIS. 

So the 1991 invasion turned out not to be a quagmire nor a Grenada.  But it is looking like it is turning into another Vietnam after all.  Having won the military conflict, having established and seen the beginnings of a free republic, the Democrats have once again sold out a victory purchased with priceless blood.  In Vietnam: Communism, the killing fields, slavery and misery.  In Iraq: Islamo-Socialism, the killing fields, slavery and misery. 

I HOPE that is not the final conclusion. 

Bill of Rights Day - December 15

Bill of Rights Day - December 15

[originally published on my posterous.com pages, December 15 2011]

 

Let's celebrate Bill of Rights Day!

 

The Bill of Rights was ratified on December 15, 1791.

These first ten amendments to the United States Constitution formally recognize our innate freedoms.  We have rights because we are human beings.  Rights are not things that are bestowed by a government.

Amendment I - Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Government can neither impose a state religion upon you nor punish you for exercising the religion of your choice. You may express your opinions, write and publish what you wish, gather peacefully with others, and formally ask government to correct injustices.

Amendment II - A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Individuals ("the people") have the right to own and use weapons without interference from the government.

Amendment III - No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

The government cannot force you to house its agents.

Amendment IV - The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

You may not be arrested or "detained" arbitrarily. No agency of government may inspect or seize your property or possessions without first obtaining a warrant. To obtain a warrant, they must show specific cause for the search or seizure and swear under oath that they are telling the truth about these reasons. Furthermore, the warrant itself must state specifically and in detail the place, things, or people it covers. Warrants that are too general or vague are not valid; searches or seizures that exceed the terms of the warrant are not valid.

Amendment V - No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

No one outside the military may be tried for a serious crime without first being indicted by a grand jury (of citizens). Once found not guilty, a person may not be tried again for the same deed. You can’t be forced to be a witness or provide evidence against yourself in a criminal case. You can’t be sent to prison or have your assets seized without due process. The government can’t take your property without paying market value for it.

Amendment VI - In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense.

Trials cannot be unreasonably postponed or held in secret. In any criminal case against you, you have a right to public trial by a jury of unbiased citizens (thus ensuring that the state can’t use a "party-line" judge to railroad you). The trial must be held in the state or region where the crime was committed. You cannot be held without charges. You cannot be held on charges that are kept secret from you. You have a right to know who is making accusations against you and to confront those witnesses in court. You have the right to subpoena witnesses to testify in your favor and a right to the services of an attorney.

Amendment VII - In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

The right to trial by jury extends to civil, as well as criminal, cases. Once a jury has made its decision, no court can overturn or otherwise change that decision except via accepted legal processes (for instance, granting of a new trial when an appeals court determines that your rights were violated in the original proceeding).

Amendment VIII - Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Bail, fines, and punishments must all fit the crime and punishments must not be designed for cruelty.

Amendment IX - The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

You have more rights than are specifically listed in the Bill of Rights.

Amendment X - The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

The U.S. federal government has only those specific powers granted to it by the Constitution. All other powers belong either to the states or to individuals.

The Ninth and Tenth Amendments, taken together, mean that the federal government has only the authority granted to it, while the people are presumed to have any right or power not specifically forbidden to them. The Bill of Rights as a whole is dedicated to describing certain key rights of the people that the government is categorically forbidden to remove, abridge, or infringe. The Bill of Rights clearly places the people in charge of their own lives, and the government within strict limits - the very opposite of the situation we have allowed to develop today.

[from  Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership ]

Molotov-Ribbentrop

I'll do the aside as a warmup to the main point:  Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov gave his name most famously to a bottle of gasoline with a rag wick in the top for use as an improvised incendiary device.  "Molotov" was a nom de guerre based on the Russian word for "hammer" -- as in, "Hammer and Sickle".  But the name of the incendiary device was created by the "counter-revolutionary" Finns.  Russian cluster bombs dropped on the Finns were called "Molotov's bread baskets" by the people on the receiving end.  In response they gave back (notably to open Soviet tank turrets) a little home-made burn-baby-burn, calling them "Molotov cocktails".

Anyway.  It was on this day in 1939 that Soviet Russia and Nazi (National Socialist Workers' Party) Germany came to a nonaggression agreement that came to be named after its chief negotiators, Vyacheslav Molotov and Joachim von Ribbentrop: the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. 

Things were a bit complex for the Axis at that time, since German ally Japan was engaging in an undeclared war with Russia.  Further, Germany had eyes for Poland, and did not want Stalin to interfere there.  Put simply, under the terms of the pact the Soviets were free to turn their back on Europe long enough to stop Japan at the border of Mongolia, and the Nazis were free to expand into western Poland.

Smart Diplomacy!  All the tyrants were or should have been relatively pleased:  Japan got to keep Manchuria, Russia got to keep Mongolia, Germany got western Poland, and then Russia got eastern Poland.

Russia also got dibs on Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and part of Romania.  Germany was supposed to get East Prussia and Lithuania, but Stalin got to Lithuania first.  This is a historical example of the maxim, "Anybody who would go that far probably won't stop there."

On 22 June 1941, Hitler decided to invade Russia.  And the rest, as they say, is World War II History.