1. Before the Boston Tea Party, the British actually lowered tea taxes, not raised them.

2. England’s King George I was actually German.

3. Abel Tasman “discovered” Tasmania, New Zealand and Fiji, on his first voyage, but managed to completely miss mainland Australia!

4. Ethnic Irishman Bernardo O’Higgins was the first president of the Republic of Chile.

5. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams both died on the same day – the 50th anniversary of the U.S. Declaration of Independence.

6. When the American Civil War started, Confederate Robert E. Lee owned no slaves. Union general U.S. Grant did.

7. Kaiser Wilhelm II, Tsar Nicholas II and George V were all grandchildren of Queen Victoria.

8. Karl Marx was once a correspondent for the New York Daily Tribune.

9. Josef Stalin once studied to be a priest.

10. Henry Kissinger and Yassir Arafat won the Nobel Peace Prize. Gandhi never did.

11. The Constitution of the Confederate States of America banned the slave trade.

12. The Finnish capital of Helsinki was founded by a Swedish king in 1550.

13. The “D” in D-Day stands for “Day” – “Day-Day”

14. There was a New Australia in Paraguay in the 1890s.

15. A New Orleans man hired a pirate to rescue Napoleon from his prison on St. Helena.

16. Like Dracula (Vlad Tepes), there really was a King Macbeth. He ruled Scotland from 1040 to 1057.

17. In 1839, the U.S. and Canada fought the bloodless “War of Pork and Beans”.

18. Despite the reputation, Mussolini never made the trains run on time.

19. The world powers officially outlawed war under the 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact.

20. Ancient Egypt produced at least six types of beer. [See them drinking their lovely beer in the picture above.]

In December 1944, when the German army launched the surprise Battle of the Bulge, Major General Maxwell D. Taylor, commander of the 101st Airborne Division, was away, attending a staff conference in the United States. In Taylor’s absence, acting command of the 101st and its attached troops fell to McAuliffe. At Bastogne, the 101st was besieged by a far-larger force of Germans under the command of General Heinrich Freiherr von Lüttwitz.

On December 22, 1944, through a party consisting of a major, lieutenant, and two enlisted men under a flag of truce that entered the American lines southeast of Bastogne (occupied by Company F, 2nd Battalion, 327th Glider Infantry), General von Lüttwitz sent the following ultimatum to Gen. McAuliffe:

To the U.S.A. Commander of the encircled town of Bastogne.

The fortune of war is changing. This time the U.S.A. forces in and near Bastogne have been encircled by strong German armored units. More German armored units have crossed the river Our near Ortheuville, have taken Marche and reached St. Hubert by passing through Hompre-Sibret-Tillet. Libramont is in German hands.

There is only one possibility to save the encircled U.S.A. troops from total annihilation: that is the honorable surrender of the encircled town. In order to think it over a term of two hours will be granted beginning with the presentation of this note.

If this proposal should be rejected one German Artillery Corps and six heavy A. A. Battalions are ready to annihilate the U.S.A. troops in and near Bastogne. The order for firing will be given immediately after this two hours term.

All the serious civilian losses caused by this artillery fire would not correspond with the well-known American humanity.

The German Commander.

McAuliffe square Bastogne

According to various accounts from those present, when McAuliffe was told of the German demand for surrender he said “nuts”. At a loss for an official reply, Lt. Col. Harry Kinnard suggested that his first remark summed up the situation well, which was agreed to by the others. The official reply: “To the German Commander, NUTS!, The American Commander” was typed and delivered by Colonel Joseph Harper, commanding the 327th Glider Infantry, and his S-3, Major Alvin Jones, to the German delegation. Harper offered an explanation of the meaning of the word to the Germans, telling them that in “plain English” it meant “Go to hell.”[1]

According to an article in the Daily Mail the reply was not “Nuts,” but a four letter expletive that was changed for propaganda purposes for domestic consumption[citation needed]. But that was not the case, according to Vincent Vicari, McAuliffe’s personal aide, who was there at the time. As quoted by Richard Pyle of the Associated Press Dec. 12, 2004, Vicari said, “General Mac was the only general I ever knew who did not use profane language. ‘Nuts’ was part of his normal vocabulary.”

The threatened artillery fire did not materialize, although several infantry and tank assaults were directed at the positions of the 327th Glider Infantry. In addition, the German Luftwaffe entered the attacks on the town, bombing it nightly. The 101st was able to hold off the Germans until the 4th Armored Division arrived on December 26 to provide reinforcement.

For his actions at Bastogne, McAuliffe was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross by General Patton on Dec. 30, 1944, followed later by the Distinguished Service Medal.

After the Battle of the Bulge, McAuliffe was given command of his own division, the 103rd Infantry Division of the US 7th Army, which he led from January 15, 1945, to July 1945.

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