Noah's Ark.

Noah's ark is the boat built by the Biblical character Noah and his family. At the command of God, the God of the ancient Hebrews is depicted as regretting he'd created such wicked creatures as human beings, according to the story, Noah was to build a boat that could accommodate his extended family and a lot of animals. Some Bible folks say he only needed to bring about 16,000 pairs of breeders. (He just needed to bring "kinds" of animals, not samples of each species, which some moronic interpreters think is the intended meaning.) Others say that the number of species needed ranged from 1.5 million to 4 or 5 million. Of course, we're including insects and maybe a few bacteria or viruses. Anyway, the craft had to be big and had to be constructed to endure the divinely planned universal flood aimed at destroying every other person and animal on earth. Aquatic animals pose a minor problem since most can live only in sweet water or salt water but not both. A universal flood would mix the seas with the sweet water lakes, rivers, and streams.

In Genesis 6:19-21, it is written:
And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female.
Of fowls after their kind, and of cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after his kind, two of every sort shall come unto thee, to keep them alive.
And take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and thou shalt gather it to thee; and it shall be for food for thee, and for them.
In Genesis 7:2-3, it is written:
Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female.
Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female; to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth.

Issued on 5/12/2007.

Red Cloud.

Red Cloud , (1822 – December 10, 1909) was a war leader and    the head Chief of the Oglala Lakota (Sioux). His reign was from 1868 to 1909. One of the most capable Native American opponents the United States Army faced, he led a successful conflict in 1866–1868 known as Red Cloud's War over control of the Powder River Country in northeastern Wyoming and southern Montana. After the Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868), he led his people in the important transition to reservation life. Some of his US opponents thought of him as overall leader of the Sioux, but this was mistaken. The large tribe had several major divisions and was highly decentralized. Bands among the Oglala and other divisions operated independently, even though some individual leaders such as Red Cloud were renowned as warriors.
This is his farewell address to the Lakota people on July 4, 1903
"My sun is set. My day is done. Darkness is stealing over me. Before I lie down to rise no more, I will speak to my people.
"Hear me, my friends, for it is not the time for me to tell you a lie. The Great Spirit made us, the Indians, and gave us this land we live in. He gave us the buffalo, the antelope, and the deer for food and clothing. We moved our hunting grounds from the Minnesota to the Platte and from the Mississippi to the great mountains. No one put bounds on us. We were free as the winds, and like the eagle, heard no man's commands.
"I was born a Lakota and I shall die a Lakota. Before the white man came to our country, the Lakotas were a free people. They made their own laws and governed themselves as it seemed good to them. The priests and ministers tell us that we lived wickedly when we lived before the white man came among us. Whose fault was this? We lived right as we were taught it was right. Shall we be punished for this? I am not sure that what these people tell me is true.
As a child I was taught the Taku Wakan (Supernatural Powers) were powerful and could do strange things. This was taught me by the wise men and the shamans. They taught me that I could gain their favor by being kind to my people and brave before my enemies; by telling the truth and living straight; by fighting for my people and their hunting grounds.
"When the Lakotas believed these things they were happy and they died satisfied. What more than this can that which the white man offers us give?
"Taku Shanskan is familiar with my spirit and when I die I will go with him. Then I will be with my forefathers. If this is not in the heaven of the white man I shall be satisfied. Wi is my father. The Wakan Tanka of the white man has overcome him. But I shall remain true to him.
"Shadows are long and dark before me. I shall soon lie down to rise no more. While my spirit is with my body the smoke of my breath shall be towards the Sun for he knows all things and knows that I am still true to him."
Issued on 1987.

Crazy Horse.

Crazy Horse , literally "His-Horse-Is-Crazy" or "His-Horse-Is-Spirited" , ca. 1840 – September 5, 1877) was a Native American war leader of the Oglala Lakota. Celebrated for his ferocity in battle, Crazy Horse was recognized among his own people as a visionary leader committed to preserving the traditions and values of the Lakota way of life. When the War Department ordered all Lakota bands onto their reservations in 1876, Crazy Horse became a leader of the resistance. Closely allied to the Cheyenne through his first marriage to a Cheyenne woman, he gathered a force of 1,200 Oglala and Cheyenne at his village and turned back General George Crook on June 17, 1876, as Crook tried to advance up Rosebud Creek toward Sitting Bull's encampment on the Little Bighorn.

 After this victory, Crazy Horse joined forces with Sitting Bull and on June 25 led his band in the counterattack that destroyed Custer's Seventh Cavalry, flanking the Americans from the north and west as Hunkpapa warriors led by chief Gall charged from the south and east.
Following the Lakota victory at the Little Bighorn, Sitting Bull and Gall retreated to Canada, but Crazy Horse remained to battle General Nelson Miles as he pursued the Lakota and their allies relentlessly throughout the winter of 1876-77. This constant military harassment and the decline of the buffalo population eventually forced Crazy Horse to surrender on May 6, 1877; except for Gall and Sitting Bull, he was the last important chief to yield.

On January 8, 1877, Crazy Horse's warriors fought their last major battle at Wolf Mountain, against the US Cavalry in the Montana Territory. His people struggled through the winter, weakened by hunger and the long cold. Crazy Horse decided to surrender with his band to protect them, and went to Fort Robinson in Nebraska. 

He left the reservation without authorization, to take his sick wife to her parents, General George Crook ordered him arrested, fearing that he was plotting a return to battle. Crazy Horse did not resist arrest at first, but when he realized that he was being led to a guardhouse, he began to struggle, and while his arms were held by one of the arresting officers, a soldier ran him through with a bayonet.

     Crazy Horse is commemorated by the incomplete Crazy Horse Memorial in the Black Hills of South Dakota near the town of Berne — a monument carved into a mountain, in the tradition of the Mount Rushmore National Memorial. The sculpture was begun in 1948. When completed, it will be 641 ft (195 m) wide and 563 ft (172 m) high.

Crazy Horse has also been honored by having two highways named the Crazy Horse Memorial Highway. In South Dakota, the SDDOT designated US-16/US-385 between Custer and Hill City, which passes by the Crazy Horse Memorial. And in November 2010, Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman approved designating US-20 from Hay Springs to Fort Robinson in honor of Crazy Horse, capping a year-long effort by citizens of Chadron. The designation may extend east another 100 miles through Cherry County to Valentine.

                                                  

                                          «  We don’t sell the land which we walk! », Crazy Horse.

Issued on 1982.

Etablissement Francais dans l'Inde.

  French India Company is a general name for the former French possessions in India. The first French expedition to India is believed to have taken place in the first half of the 16th century, during the reign of François I. when two ships were fitted out by some merchants of Rouen to trade in eastern seas. In 1667 the French India Company sent out another expedition, under the command of François Caron, which reached Surat in 1668 and established the first French factory in India. Between 1720 and 1741, the objectives of the French were purely commercial. All factories were fortified for the purpose of defense. In the 18th century the town of Pondichéry was laid out on a grid pattern and grew considerably. Pierre Benoît Dumas (1735–41) expanded the Pondichéry area and made it a large and rich town. the most famous French Governor of Pondichéry and all French India arrived in 1741, Joseph François Dupleix began to cherish the ambition of a French Empire in India but his superiors had less interest. French ambition clashed with the British interests in India and a period of military skirmishes and political intrigues began. Under the command of the Marquis de Bussy-Castelnau, Dupleix's army successfully controlled the area between Hyderabad and Cape Comorin. But then Robert Clive arrived in India in 1744, a dare-devil British officer who dashed the hopes of Dupleix to create a French Colonial India. In 1761 Pondichéry was razed to the ground by the British in revenge and lay in ruins for four years. During the next 50 years Pondichéry changed hands between France and Britain with the regularity of their wars and peace treaties.
The independence of India in August 1947 gave impetus to the union of France's Indian possessions with former British India. The lodges in Machilipatnam, Kozhikode and Surat were ceded to India in October 1947. An agreement between France and India in 1948 agreed to an election in France's remaining Indian possessions to choose their political future. Governance of Chandernagore was ceded to India on 2 May 1950, then it was merged with West Bengal state on 2 October 1955. On November 1, 1954, the four enclaves of Pondichéry, Yanam, Mahe, and Karikal were de facto transferred to the Indian Union and became the Union Territory of Pondichéry. The de jure union of French India with India did not take place until 1962, when the French Parliament in Paris ratified the treaty with India.

Nyassa.

The Nyassa Company was granted a charter by the Portuguese government to establish economic development and maintain Portuguese control in Nyassa (Niassa) Province and Cabo Delgado and was officially incorporated in March 1893. In the late 19th century Portugal’s dominance of Mozambique was being threatened by Great Britain and Germany, who planned to divide Mozambique between them.

Portugal, lacking the capital to colonize Mozambique properly, leased the territory and its people to charted companies. By 1891 one third of the country was handed over to three British companies, the Mozambique Company, the Zambezi Company and the Nyassa Company. 

Although founded by Bernard Daupais, a merchant from Lisbon, the Nyassa Company was pimarily owned by British and French interests. The company lost its purpose when its territory was transferred to the control of the Portuguese colonial government on 27 October 1929 after the government refused to grant an extension of its concession.

German Occupation of Belgium WW1.

Following the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the German Army opened the Western Front by first invading Luxembourg and Belgium, then gaining military control of important industrial regions in France. The tide of the advance was dramatically turned with the Battle of the Marne. Both sides then dug in along a meandering line of fortified trenches, stretching from the North Sea to the Swiss frontier with France. This line remained essentially unchanged for most of the war.
Between 1915 and 1917 there were several major offensives along this front. The attacks employed massive artillery bombardments and massed infantry advances. However, a combination of entrenchments, machine gun nests, barbed wire, and artillery repeatedly inflicted severe casualties on the attackers and counter attacking defenders. As a result, no significant advances were made.
In an effort to break the deadlock, this front saw the introduction of new military technology, including poison gas, aircraft and tanks. But it was only after the adoption of improved tactics that some degree of mobility was restored.
In spite of the generally stagnant nature of this front, this theater would prove decisive. The inexorable advance of the Allied armies in 1918 persuaded the German commanders that defeat was inevitable, and the government was forced to sue for conditions of an armistice.

Issued on 1918.

Thessaly, Ottoman Occupation.

Thessaly was an important territory during the Greco-Turkish War of 1897, also called the Thirty Days’ War. It began in Crete, where the Greek population was still under Ottoman control. In late 1896 a rebellion broke out on Crete, and on 21 January 21, 1897 a Greek army landed in Crete to liberate the island from Ottoman control and unite it with Greece. The European powers, however, intervened, and proclaimed Crete an international protectorate.
The Greek army retreated to the mainland, where it next attempted to advance northwards into Thessaly and Epirus.
The Greek army, consisting of two divisions, was unable to capitalize on its early incursions across the Macedonia – Thessaly border and suffered defeats in several battles around the mountain passes between Macedonia and Thessaly south of Mount Olympus. The Greek front collapsed on 12 April 1897, and the Greek forces began to retreat into the Thessalian plain. Within two weeks and with little resistance, the Turkish army controlled all of Thessaly, including its major towns of Larissa and Volos.

Stamps were issued for Turkish occupation forces in Thessaly on 16 April, 1898. They were printed in an unusual 8-sided design. 300.000 series were printed. The last known date of usage is 9 June 1898. After the Turkish army left, Thessaly became Greek territory again. The remainders of these stamps were sold to two dealers in Paris and Vienna.

Issued on 16/04/1898.