Military history is full of amazing feats, the greatest of these being when victory is achieved despite the odds being stacked against the winning side. These battles tell tales of determination and courage, leading to victories that no one thought possible.

10. Battle Of Longewala
1971

The Battle of Longewala was one of the first Western battles of the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971. It occurred when a large number of Pakistani troops and tanks entered India, meeting Major K.S. Chandpuri of the Indian army with his 100 men, some of whom were training to be mortar men, and their single Jeep, which was fitted with an anti-tank weapon. The major was occupying a fortified sand dune at Longewala, a small hamlet in the Thar desert, when his position came under bombardment early in the morning of December 5, 1971, killing five camels. By 4:00 AM on the same morning, around 55 Chinese T-59 tanks and US Sherman tanks controlled by the Pakistani force were spotted to the south, as well as a battalion of Pakistani infantry numbering around 3,000 and 24 artillery guns.

During the course of the night, the major and his men destroyed 12 enemy tanks, pushing back attack after attack from their sand dune with limited means of retaliation. Due to a lack of night vision in outdated Indian planes, air support was refused to the defenders until morning. When two Indian hunter planes arrived at dawn, the desert became a killing field, with nowhere for the enemy tanks to hide and sand making it difficult to maneuver. By 11:00 AM, after the men had held out against a column of tanks and a battalion of infantry, help arrived. Major Chandpuri was able to rout the enemy on December 6, with only eight enemy tanks escaping the wrath of the 101.

9. Battle Of Okehazama
1560

In the 1500s, Japan was in the midst of a massive civil war, with local warlords seeking control of the entire country. The Oda, a relatively weak family, was led by Oda Nobunaga, a reckless and unpredictable 26-year-old, thought by some to be mentally unstable. In 1560, Imagawa Yoshimoto, from the far more powerful Imagawa family, made an attempt to take Kyoto, crossing through Owari, controlled by the Oda family. Oda Nobunaga met the enemy army of between 20,000 to 40,000 with a force of 2,000, even after his generals had told him to surrender. Setting up camp at Zenshoji, a temple fortress, on June 11, 1560, Nobunaga ordered his men to construct a dummy army. When he arrived, Yoshimoto set up camp and allowed his men to eat and drink the loot they had captured from the easily conquered Oda fortresses, under the belief that victory against such a small defending force would be easy.

On June 22, Nobunaga and his army made their move. They left the fortress and sneaked into the hills overlooking the enemy force, with a thunderstorm silencing their noisy approach. Suddenly, they charged the drunk and unprepared enemy. Yoshimoto’s men fled in all directions to avoid the slaughter, leaving their leader unprotected. Yoshimoto, thinking the commotion was merely a drunken squabble between his men, was slain before he had any idea what was happening. The numerically inferior Oda force won the battle within two hours.

8. Siege Of Vienna
1529

In August 1526, Sultan Suleiman I, of the Ottoman Empire, successfully seized control of southern Hungary. After unsuccessful military attempts by Ferdinand I, the brother of the Holy Roman Emperor, to retake the land, the Ottomans marched to take control of Hungary on May 10, 1529.

After Ferdinand abandoned the city to (in effect) go and cry to his brother until he got help, the Marshall of Austria, Wilhelm von Roggendorf, took command of Vienna’s small garrison. He commanded the defense alongside a 70-year-old German mercenary, Niklas Graf Salm. The Viennese were able to muster around 20,000 men and 75 artillery guns to defend the city. The Ottoman army that arrived at Vienna in September numbered 100,000 men and 500 artillery pieces. The siege began with a bombardment of over 300 of those guns, used to cover attempts by the Ottomans to undermine the walls by digging tunnels.

Upon learning of these attempts, Niklas had bowls of water, filled with dried peas, placed around the walls. The dried peas floated on the surface of the water and, when disturbed by nearby digging, created ripples in the water, informing the defenders that the Ottomans were coming. Defenders then dispatched their own diggers to intercept the enemy’s digging attempts and destroy the mines. In one such instance, they nearly captured the Suleiman’s Grand Vizier. On October 6, 1529, 8,000 troops left the city in a rather risky raid that aimed to put a stop to the mining operations. They succeeded in destroying most of the attackers’ mines but took heavy casualties in doing so. On October 14, Suleiman’s forces retreated, having lost most of their mines to the defenders or rain and having taken heavy casualties.

7. Battle Of Galveston
1863

On January 1, 1863, John B. Magruder attacked the Union-occupied city of Galveston, Texas. The city wharf was occupied and heavily fortified by 260 men, as well as being covered by six Union gunboats with their many guns. The Confederates, on the other hand, had 21 pieces of artillery, 500 men, and two river steamers, Bayou City and Neptune, both with some cotton bales and a single gun protecting the flanks of the crew and boarding parties.

At around dawn, the Confederate artillery bombarded the Union boats, to little effect. A small rebel ground force attacked by land, though they met with tough resistance and their ladders proved too short to climb the Union defenses. At the same time, the two river steamers led an attack against the Union gunboats. After a failed attempt to ram the Union USS Harriet Lane, the Neptune sank instantly. All hope was pinned on the Bayou City, outnumbered six to one against far superior ships. The crew of Bayou Citysuccessfully rammed and overpowered the crew of the USS Harriet Lane. Meanwhile, the Union flagship USS Westfield became grounded in shallow water.

A truce was called for the two sides to consider their positions. Commodore Renshaw, on board the USS Westfield, decided to scuttle the ship, planting explosives. As they departed the ship in row boats, the explosion failed and Renshaw decided to return to the ship to see what was wrong. The ship exploded as they re-boarded, killing Renshaw and 13 of his crew. The Union ships retreated to sea the moment they saw their commander blown to kingdom come. Having lost their sea support, the Union forces surrendered. The Confederates suffered losses of 26 killed and 117 wounded. The Union suffered 400 captured, about 150 casualties on the ships, and the destruction of the USS Westfield.

6. Battle Of Tolvajärvi
1939

The Battle of Tolvajärvi was part of the Finnish counterattack at the start of the Winter War against the Soviet Union. The 139th Soviet Division, numbering some 20,000 men, 45 tanks, and 150 artillery, had been forcing the 4,000 Finns holding the Tolvajärvi area to retreat at a rapid pace. Colonel Paavo Talvela, of the Finnish army, planned to divide his already outnumbered forces and launch a pincer attack over two frozen lakes. Three groups of Finns, attacking the north, center, and south of Soviet defensive lines, would attempt to encircle the overwhelming forces and destroy as much of it as possible.

At 8:00 AM on December 12, 1939, the counterattack began. One group of Finns attacked the Soviet defenses to the north and met a far superior Soviet regiment that was planning to attack the Finnish flank. After four hours of vicious fighting the group of Finns was forced back, though they had kept the Soviets from being able to do anything against the other two attacks. On top of this, a small Finnish company stayed behind, proving too stubborn to defeat and preventing the 718th Soviet Division from sending reinforcements to the south.

The second group of Finns attacked the Soviets from the center, overwhelming an entire Soviet division despite their artillery support proving extremely weak. Advancing toward a hotel, which had been turned into a fortress and used as a command center by the Soviets, they captured the building after a bloody fight in which their commander was killed.

Finns to the south captured Kotisaari Island after bloody fighting. The victory was one of the Finns’ biggest of the war, boosting morale. They also captured vast supplies of weapons and killed over 1,000 Soviet soldiers compared to the 100 or so killed on the Finnish side.

5. Second Battle Of Lacolle Mill
1814

During the War of 1812, American forces tried numerous times to break through English and Canadian defense lines in lower Canada so that they could advance on Montreal. In February 1814, Major General James Wilkinson led a force of 4,000 men and 11 artillery pieces to try and seize Montreal. Early in the afternoon of March 30, Wilkinson, forced to use a bridge to cross the strong Lacolle river, met a British garrison at Lacolle Mill. Major Richard Handcock commanded the 180 British soldiers and Marines, along with 160 Canadian Fencibles (an infantry unit) nearby, which later reinforced him.

Wilkinson could only fire three of his 11 artillery guns on the enemy position, leading hours of bombardment to achieve little damage on the stone mill. Outnumbered 12 to 1, and relatively untouched by American attacks, the plucky Handcock, running out of ammunition and presumably insane, ordered a charge to capture the American artillery. The first charge failed, however, believing a single suicidal charge would be insufficient in securing his place in the annals of history, Handcock led a second charge after being reinforced with around 550 men, which captured the artillery briefly before being forced to retreat. By 6:00 PM, Wilkinson retreated, with the Americans having suffered 254 killed or wounded, while the far smaller British force suffered 61.

4. Battle Of Gate Pa
1864

The Battle of Gate Pa in April 1864 was part of the New Zealand Wars, and an ultimately successful attempt by the British to confiscate land from the Maori natives of New Zealand for refusing to accept colonial authority. Gate Pa, built on the doorstep of the main camp of the British, was a Maori fortress which came under attack by the British commander, Duncan Cameron, 1,700 soldiers and 17 artillery pieces on April 27.

Around 235 Maori warriors occupied the fortress, under the command of Rawiri Puhirake. On the 28th and 29th of April, artillery rained down on the fort, with 136 kilograms (300 lbs) of explosives falling on the fort for every member of the garrison. Whilst this would be overkill for any other defender, it was anything but, as only 15 defenders died in the barrage and the defenders eventually chose to stop firing in retaliation, wanting the British to believe that they’d been annihilated. With Cameron thinking the defenders were dead or dying, a British storming party was sent into the fortress and allowed to occupy it for a few minutes. Hiding in bunkers, trenches and under floorboards, the defenders suddenly opened fire on the now relaxed British soldiers.

The invisible enemy forced the British storming party to retreat, along with a second storming party. Around 120 British soldiers were killed in the mayhem, though the defenders took minimal casualties. With the Maori realizing that while all the artillery rounds in New Zealand couldn’t kill them, all the rounds in the British Empire might have a small chance, they evacuated Gate Pa that night. They took with them captured weapons, as well as Cameron’s pride.

3. Second Battle Of Sabine Pass
1863

On September 8, 1863, a small confederate force held off the Union invasion of Texas at the mouth of the Sabine river. After being forced from Texas the previous year, General William B. Franklin, of the Union, led an amphibious force, aiming to retake Sabine Pass, an entrance point into Texas by water. Four gunboats, 18 transports and 4,000 troops set sail. Lieutenant Richard W. “Dick” Dowling of the Confederates, along with 47 soldiers of the First Texas Heavy Artillery Regiment, were based in Fort Griffin, with six cannons that overlooked Sabine Pass. This small force was all that stood between the Union and a successful amphibious invasion of Texas.

When they saw the Union ships, they opened fire, disabling the Sachem and the Clifton while under fire themselves. Eventually, they had damaged or destroyed so many Union ships that they blocked the river, forcing the Union to retreat, and those grounded to skirmish with the Confederate force until they surrendered. The Confederates lost no men while 28 Union soldiers were killed, 75 were wounded, and 315 were captured in one of the most humiliating defeats of the Union.

2. Battle Of Vitkov Hill
1420

The Hussites were a Christian Protestant movement that attacked Catholic beliefs and practices. During the Hussite Wars in Bohemia (1419-1434), in which the Holy Roman Empire called a crusade against the Hussites, a small group of Hussite peasants held off a massive Crusading army. In February 1420, an army of 150,000 Crusaders marched on the city of Prague and laid siege. Jan Zizka, a Hussite commander, had been able to get his numerically inferior peasant army, who had defeated the Crusaders in previous skirmishes, into the city before it was besieged.

On July 12, 1420, the Crusaders, thinking that the city would be taken easily, attacked carelessly. The vastly outnumbered Hussite defenders focused on defending Vitkov Hill, a major part of the city’s fortifications. On July 14, after two days of fighting, the peasant army, fighting with only sharpened tools, had repelled every attack by the Crusaders, allowing a relief force to route the enemy and piss off the Pope to no end.

1. Battle Of Cerami
1063

Roger I was a Norman knight and Lord of Calabria who, along with his brother, led a successful conquest against Muslim Sicily from 1061 to 1091 and became Count of Sicily. In 1063, Roger was occupying Cerami, a small settlement in Sicily, with 130 knights when a far larger Muslim army met them on the battlefield. The small force survived an initial charge, fighting in a vicious battle that lasted throughout the day before the Muslim army fled under cover of night.

Sources from the time that suggest 15,000 Saracens were slain and that St. George appeared at the battle and smote the enemy with nothing but his pinky finger are likely exaggerated and arguably impossible. However, the Normans likely killed many times their own number, as the Muslim force included troops from both Sicily and Africa. Cerami was seen as the turning point of Roger’s conquests and the papacy even granted the Normans a papal banner for their valor.

American college courses are claiming to test the boundaries of Christianity while considering the varied forms of queer religion outside familiar religious institutions—in spirituality or spiritualism, in magic or neo-paganism, in erotic asceticism

This school year, students across America will attend courses on “Queering the Bible,” “Queering Childhood,” “Queering Theology,” and similar topics.

Students at Pomona College in Claremont, California, for instance, will have the opportunity to enroll in a brand new course titled “Queering Childhood,” which will examine “the figure of the Child and how this figuration is used by politics, law, and medicine to justify continued cultural investment in reproductive heteronormativity and productive ablebodiedness.”

“By reading the Bible with the methods of queer and trans* theoretical approaches, this class destabilizes long held assumptions about what the [B]ible—and religion—says about gender and sexuality.”

The course description explains that students will examine the childhoods of “queer and crip children,” as well as “childhoods against which the figure of the Child is articulated,” with reference to work related to “gender studies, childhood studies, disability studies, and queer theory.”

Colleges are not only attempting to “queer” childhood, they are teaching students to “queer” Christianity and religion in general, as well.

This fall, Eugene Lang College will offer a course titled “Queering and Decolonizing Theology,” where students will explore topics such as “the sexual ethics and ritualization found in the S&M community,” and “transgender Christs.”

“Christian theology is often depicted as a violent colonial force standing in particular opposition to LGBTQI lives. However, over the last 30 years people of faith, activists, and theorists alike have rediscovered what is queer within Christianity, uncovered what is religious within secular queer communities, and used postcolonial theory to decolonize lived religious practices and theologies,” the course description asserts.

According to the college, the course “explores secular philosophies of queer and postcolonial theory as well as their critical and constructive application to religion,” focusing on topics like “the sexual ethics and ritualization found in the S&M community, transgender Christs, and the mestiza (or mixed) cultures of Latin America.”

Similarly, students at Harvard Divinity School will be able to attend a course on “Queer Theologies, Queer Religions” this fall, which will explore the “project of ‘queer theology’” and how it relates to “larger aspirations of queer religion or spirituality in America.”

In this course, students will begin by “sampling the efforts to revise traditional Christian theologies in order to accept or affirm same-sex loves.” After that, they will move on to examining “forgotten possibilities in historical engagements between advocates of homosexual rights and established religious bodies (chiefly churches and synagogues).”

“We will consider the boundaries between queer theology and queer theory or between it and other political theologies,” the course description explains.  “We will test the boundaries of ‘Christianity’ while considering the varied forms of queer religion outside familiar religious institutions—in spirituality or spiritualism, in magic or neo-paganism, in erotic asceticism.”

Swarthmore College students, meanwhile, will survey “queer and trans* readings of biblical texts” during a course titled “Queering the Bible,” which will introduce them to “the complexity of constructions of sex, gender, and identity in one of the most influential literary works produced in ancient times.”

“By reading the Bible with the methods of queer and trans* theoretical approaches,” the description promises, “this class destabilizes long held assumptions about what the [B]ible—and religion—says about gender and sexuality.”

The University of San Francisco is also getting into the act with a course on “Christian Feminist Theology” that aims to “develop an understanding of how feminist scholarship provides one fruitful means towards reappropriation of central Christian insights about God.”

The course will facilitate “critical reflection upon the experience of God, and insights from feminist thought,” according to the description.

In a similar vein, students enrolled in the University of Pennsylvania’s “Gender, Sexuality, and Religion” course “will read religion through a variety of feminist and queer theory lenses- exploring the key characteristics of diverse feminist analyses of religion, as well as limits of specific feminist approaches.”

“In this course we will learn about women’s and men’s rituals, social roles, and mythologies in specific religious traditions,” the course description explains. “We will also look at the central significance of gender to the field of religious studies generally, with particular attention to non-binary genders.”

To that end, the course will address questions such as “How important are the gender differences in deciding social roles, ritual activities, and spiritual vocations?” and “How does gender intersect with nationality, language, and politics?”

Originally posted at: Russian-Faith.com

When former director of the BBC Mark Thomson admitted the corporation had “a left-wing bias,” the “revelation” was met with yawns and shrugs by Conservatives throughout the land (as if we did not know.)

What was shocking was the admission itself. That such a major figure was willing to break ranks shocked his liberal colleges and sent the liberal intelligentsia into hysterics.

But something strange has been happening over at the BBC production studios as of late. BBC bites have released two short videos mocking the sensitivity of the snowflake generation.

Their latest and hilarious video takes a swipe at the whiny Europhiles…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkUOwBCt_0g

Maybe the BBC have learnt their lesson as well and concluded not everyone has the luxury of thinking like a liberal; some people have to live in the real world? Maybe they are trying to stave off criticism from the right-wing? Maybe they have been infiltrated by Patriots and Brexiteers?

Whatever the answer, we just hope they keep producing more of it…

Theresa May today danced on the graves of thousands of Boer farmers and their families murdered in the ongoing campaign to force them off their land and out of existence in the country their forefathers built from nothing.

The Conservative leader has given perhaps the most shocking display of public support for discrimination ever by a UK Premier. Not just by her actions, but also by her endorsement of the blatantly racist plans of the Communist ANC regime to steal the land from Boer farmers and hand it over to their cronies.

“I welcome the comments that President Ramaphosa has already made, bearing in mind the economic and social aspects of it. I think he’s made some comments that it won’t be a smash and grab approach. I think there’s an opportunity to unlock investment.”

Ramaphosa’s real agenda is a matter of public record. For a supposedly Conservative British Prime Minister to support and fraternise with such a racist bigot in a key Commonwealth country is utterly shameful and should never be forgotten.

IN HIS MEMOIRS, POLITICAL VETERAN MARIO ORIANI-AMBROSINI WROTE WHAT RAMAPHOSA CONFIDED TO HIM IN A PRIVATE CONVERSATION IN THE EARLY 1990S, DURING THE NEGOTIATIONS FOR A NEW SOUTH AFRICAN CONSTITUTION: IN HIS BRUTAL HONESTY, RAMAPHOSA TOLD ME OF THE ANC’S 25-YEAR STRATEGY TO DEAL WITH THE WHITES: IT WOULD BE LIKE BOILING A FROG ALIVE, WHICH IS DONE BY RAISING THE TEMPERATURE VERY SLOWLY. BEING COLD-BLOODED, THE FROG DOES NOT NOTICE THE SLOW TEMPERATURE INCREASE, BUT IF THE TEMPERATURE IS RAISED SUDDENLY, THE FROG WILL JUMP OUT OF THE WATER. HE MEANT THAT THE BLACK MAJORITY WOULD PASS LAWS TRANSFERRING WEALTH, LAND, AND ECONOMIC POWER FROM WHITE TO BLACK SLOWLY AND INCREMENTALLY, UNTIL THE WHITES LOST ALL THEY HAD GAINED IN SOUTH AFRICA, BUT WITHOUT TAKING TOO MUCH FROM THEM AT ANY GIVEN TIME TO CAUSE THEM TO REBEL OR FIGHT.

Source: Kill the Boer by Ernst Roets.

By giving support and credibility to the Communist regime and its plan to dispossess the Boers of the land, May is not only co-signing the economic death warrant of South Africa, she also makes herself an accessory to the full-on persecution and dispossession of the Boers which is now so ominously close. Shame! Shame! Shame!

Priests and bishops roll up their sleeves and walk into rivers in their vestments. Hundreds of people of all ages–babies, youth, adults and the elderly–follow them into the water.

In recent years, mass baptisms have returned to Russia, necessitated by the mass return to Christianity of the nation after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Priests and bishops roll up their sleeves and walk into rivers in their vestments. Hundreds of people of all ages–babies, youth, adults and the elderly–follow them into the water, and the priest submerges each one into the water three times. The submerging into the water and reemerging into the sunlight symbolizes the death and resurrection of Christ.

At a time when many Christian churches are steadily losing their faithful to atheism or indifference, the sight is truly astounding.

Increasingly–and very symbolically–the day reserved form many mass baptisms has increasingly become July 28th, the day when Russians celebrate the anniversary of the baptism of Rus into Orthodox Christianity.

The national conversion occurred in 988, when Prince Vladimir, the Ruler of Russia, decreed that all those, who ‘his friends’ to be baptized into the Christian Faith. The significance and repercussions of this moment in the formation of Russia cannot be overstated. (See Putin Reaffirm Russia’s Commitment To Defend Christianity during this year’s celebrations)

The growing tradition of mass baptisms in the rivers for the Feast of the Baptism of Rus, according to priest Alexander Volkov, spokesman for the head of the Russian Church, is a “positive idea.”

He also stressed that Patriarch Kyril has been very insistent upon establishing structures that would help prepare people for baptism, in order to avoid shallow and thoughtless conversions.

To become a member of the Church, you need to attend several learning sessions that include talking to a priest and studying the Holy Scripture.

“Preparing people for entering the Church is very important. In that sense, we will probably witness this new practice of massive baptism in the time period close to the Day of Baptism of Rus, July 28th, grow and increase in many dioceses of our Church. I think that, in principle, this a step in the right direction”  Volkov said.

Mass baptisms did indeed take place in different regions of the country in the end of July. A large one, for example, was held in the far east of Russia and in Ekaterinburg (footage below from Ekaterinburg).

This ceremony is also very popular in the southern regions of Russia.

Originally Posted at: Russian-Faith.com

Donald Trump is right to keep hammering the Big Tech for their anti-conservative bias. And now it’s time for action to top off his very accurate words.

The bias of Google and literally ALL major Social Media platforms (Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Google) can only be described as criminal at this point. President Trump is aware of the situation and be it by Executive Order, through the FCC and/or Congress he will see that the censorship, bias, shadow banning and denial of essential modern business services ends.

This is absolutely election interference as the heads of these platforms are hell bent upon influencing the USA’s mid-term elections as a step on the road to having a Democrat-run Capitol move to impeach the President and destroy American democracy.

Yes, folks, that’s what’s at stake. Pray the President knows it – and acts decisively to stop it and to restore and preserve freedom! 

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Before dawn on the morning of August 24, 1572, church bells tolled in the Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois quarter of Paris. Just moments earlier, soldiers under the command of Henri, duke of Guise, had assassinated the admiral of France, Huguenot leader Gaspard de Coligny, in his bedroom.

They threw the body from the window to the ground below, where a hate-filled crowd later mutilated it, cutting off the head and hands, and dragged it through the streets of Paris. As Guise walked away from Coligny’s lodging, he was overheard to say “it is the king’s command.”

The killing unleashed an explosion of popular hatred against Protestants throughout the city. In the terrible days that followed, some 3,000 Huguenots were killed in Paris, and perhaps another 8,000 in other provincial cities – a fact which points to planning and organisation.

Some chroniclers put the total dead even higher. Huge numbers of survivors fled to England.

This season of blood—known as the Saint Bartholomew’s Day massacre—decisively ended Huguenot hopes to transform France into a Protestant kingdom. It remains one of the most horrifying episodes in the Reformation era.

The Knights Templar, a.k.a. the bad guys from the original Assassin’s Creed that you take out with pin-point accurate knife-punches to the back of the neck from horseback, are a popular facet of pop culture.

Which has meant that over the years, what exactly they did and who they were has been terribly muddied by the viciously anti-Christian clique that dominates Hollywood.

So, here are 10 facts you may not know about this not-so-secret ancient Order of Knights…