Eclectic Amateur

438 years ago today, the Holy League defeated the Turkish fleet at the Battle of Lepanto.

White founts falling in the courts of the sun,
And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run,
There is laughter like the fountains in that face of all men feared,
It stirs the forest darkness, the darkness of his beard,
It curls the blood-red crescent, the crescent of his lips,
For the inmost sea of all the earth is shaken with his ships.
They have dared the white republics up the capes of Italy,
They have dashed the Adriatic round the Lion of the Sea,
And the Pope has cast his arms abroad for agony and loss,
And called the kings of Christendom for swords about the Cross…
— G. K. Chesterton, Lepanto

In the unsung heroes department, find Colonel Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck. What this man managed to do with a mere handful of troops and no support in World War I is simply astounding. Even more astounding is the respect he kept from his African troops and his British foes after the Great War (when he was destitute after a failed political career, it was British soldiers who collected money to provide him a pension).