The Reconstruction Era in the USA,
Began with a wish to see fairer play,
That from 1863, after emancipation,
Lincoln and Johnson longed for transformation.
So they experimented by giving land to former slaves,
But in the Southern States that was bound to cause waves,
The Radicals, angry, tried to impeach,
But by one vote in the Senate, the law was put out of their reach.
Ulysses S Grant was not above using the military,
To support reconstruction and suppress insurgency,
He favoured a free labour economy,
With African-American equality.
Rutherford Hayes tried to protect Reconstruction legislation,
But Sourhern Democrats claimed widespread corruption throughout the nation.
Reconstruction was more a failure than a success,
But it had its achievements nevertheless.
It had many features of considerable note,
Like giving the black man the right to vote.

Yesterday, my darling Anita wrote a piece on tacos filled with blackened fish…which inspired me to write this poem…

I really do love a good taco..
It is the very best kind of snacko!
Shredded chicken, spiced mince,
Guacamole is prince,
And this is a meal crackerjacko!

A taco’s a really great dish,
My love likes to use blackened fish,
Or stuff it with chilli,
And a bit of Caerphilly,
And you have a meal quite delish!

This little berry flavours my favourite gin,

With 9 other botanicals all chucked in,

As far as I’m concerned, that’s win win,

So crack open a bottle, let the fun begin!

Some great poets came out of World War I,
But in terms of movies, not much has been done.
They should have done loads of them on Verdun,
A battle the French apparently tactically won!

This assault started in February 1916,
With many a skirmish in between,
Before ending in December with losses obscene,
By which time the whole thing was a well-oiled machine.

Falkenheyn believed that Verdun’s sixty forts,
Were essential to French morale – that’s what he thought,
And the French would fight till the last resort,
And without any visible English support.

Falkenhayn wanted to “bleed France white”,
And 2.5 million gun shells proved he had might,
But he was mistaken, he did not get it right,
For Petain and the French were up for the fight.

In July the English began the war on the Somme,
So the French would get some respite since the war had begun,
And then rally and retrench and get the war won,
There were 700,000 dead by the time this battle was done

Grigol Dvali, one of my Google+ buddies, on the Thinkers commmunity, alerted me to this extraordinary man. So thank you Grigol.

Simo Hayha was a sniper supreme

He shot in conditions very extreme,

It was often minus 40 degrees,

He was dressed in white, he moved on skis,

He killed 505 Russian men,

That is 5 a day, and then

The daylight only lasted hours

But he was set on destroying Russian manpower.

The Russians, amazed at his vicious attack,

Found a sniper to shoot him back,

They shot away half of Simo’s jaw,

But he survived and saw the end of this war,

He rose really fast up through the ranks,

Because his nation wanted to give him thanks.

Have you ever heard of the Winter War?
Who it was fought by and what it was for?
It was fought between Finnish and Soviet troops,
Over land that Russia wished to recoup.
They wanted it to provide a serious buffer,
So that Leningrad would not fall or suffer.
The Russians had one hundred times more tanks,
Thirty times more aircraft, for which they gave thanks,
And three times more men than the Finnish side,
But they had white uniforms in which they could hide!
They also fought this long battle on skis,
In temperatures of -30 degrees!
And although they lost, they did not lose much,
They still had their dignity, courage and such.
The Winter War, 1939 – 1940,
A little known chapter in history.

Fe del Mundo, an extraordinary broad*,
Was the first female to get a Harvard Medical Degree award,
She was valedictorian in Manila in 1933,
And the president offered to pay a scholarship overseas,
She joined Harvard Medical School in 1936,
Ten years before women belonged to its mortar and bricks’
Del Mundo only got in due to an oversight,
But the head of paediatrics wanted her so put up a fight,
She had to be moved out of an all male dorm,
So her admission was way beyond the norm.
She mastered in Chicago then returned to the Phillippines,
And became one of the Red Cross’s figurines,
She set up a hospice and worked with kids,
Her fame preceded her, whatever she did.
To fund a kid’s hospital, she sold her home,
And virtually everything else that she owned,
She handed over the ownership of it to her board of trustees,
And continued research into infectious disease.
She gave up the hospital in 1957,
But continued to work there 24/7,
She took up residence on the second floor,
So she could continue to always be a part and do more,
She did hospital visits at 99,
From the wheelchair which she had to use at the time,
She finally died of a heart attack, an angel from heaven,
Just before she reached 100 in 2011,

*slang British term for woman

Santa Anna labelled himself Napoleon of the West,

But was he an idiot, as some have confessed?

He led the Mexican Army in its fight against Spain,

Bloody and brutal, independence their aim.

He lost his leg in a battle against the French,

And had it buried it with full honours in its very own trench.

He then used a prosthetic till “captured” by the USA,

Where it resides in Springfield to this very day!

The Mexican Government repeatedly request it’s return,

But it’s a museum exhibit from which we can learn?!

*Antonio de Padua María Severino López de Santa Anna y Pérez de Lebrón, or Santa Anna

Dick Turpin was a butcher, but that’s not for what he’s known,
He was a killer, thief and highwayman -a legend overblown.
He started life in Essex, but then he moved to York,
Early on, he took to crime and really walked the walk.
He earned his keep nefariously, on his horse, Black Bess,
And began to regard a human life less and less and less.
When he was finally captured, they put him on public trial,
And even he could not escape by dint of bribe or guile.
He was sentenced to be hung, and was in ’39,
A blaggard and a rascal and a philistine.

Let me introduce you to “Amazing Grace”,
Please don’t ever forget this face
A computer programmer, US Navy Commodore,
She’d a hunger for knowledge, a thirst to explore.
She was a teacher at Vassar, but joined the Naval Reserve,
During World War II, she thought it her duty to serve.
One of the first programmers in computer history,
She was determined to make them less of a mystery,
She introduced the computer term ‘de-bugging’,
When a moth tried to give her computer a mugging.
She set her clock backwards, which some might find strange,
But this was to challenge her students being allergic to change.
During her lifetime she was awarded 40 global degrees,
To honour her brilliance and her expertise.
She tried to retire twice and finally did so at eighty,
At the end of a career that was stellar and weighty.
United States Navy Admiral Grace Hopper (1906–1992) was one of the first programmers in the history of computers. Grace tried to retire twice, in 1966 and 1971, but both times she was recalled to active duty indefinitely. She was promoted to commodore in 1983, a title that was later renamed to “rear admiral, lower half”, and finally retired for the last time in 1986 at the age of 80. In the course of her lifetime, Grace Hopper was awarded 40 honorary degrees from universities around the world, along with numerous awards and honors including:

• First winner of “Computer Science Man of the Year” award from the Data Processing Management Association in 1969
• First person from the United States and the first woman from any country to be made Distinguished Fellow of the British Computer Society in 1973
• First woman to receive the National Medal of Technology as an individual in 1991
•  At her retirement she was awarded the Defense Distinguished Service Medal, the highest non-combat award possible by the Department of Defense.