George Clinton

Thomas Jefferson  – July 4, 1826 was an American Founding Father who was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the third President of the United States . At the beginning of the American Revolution, Jefferson served in the Continental Congress, representing Virginia. He then served as a wartime Governor of Virginia . Just after the war ended, from mid-1784 Jefferson served as a diplomat, stationed... in Paris, initially as a commissioner to help negotiate commercial treaties. In May 1785, he became the United States Minister to France. He was the first United States Secretary of State during the administration of President George Washington. Upon resigning his office, with his close friend James Madison he organized the Democratic-Republican Party. Elected Vice-President in 1796, under his opponent John Adams, Jefferson with Madison secretly wrote the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, which attempted to nullify the Alien and Sedition Acts and formed the basis of states' rights.
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The Battle of Jutland took place in the North Sea between the German High Seas Fleet and British Grand Fleet on the afternoon and evening of 31 May... 1916, continuing sporadically through the night into the early hours of 1 June. The battle was the only direct engagement between the two fleets throughout World War I. The war had already been waged for two years without any major sea battle, and many of the people present did not expect that this patrol would end differently. Lack of experience still accounted for a number of mistakes by the combatants. The battle has been described in a number of phases, the last of which is the subject of this article. The battle began when scouting battlecruiser forces of the two fleets met at around 1430 in the afternoon of the first day. Initially the British force of six battlecruisers and four fast battleships commanded by Vice-Admiral Sir David Beatty gave chase to five German battlecruisers commanded by Vice-Admiral Franz Hipper. The German ships set course back towards where they knew the main German fleet was waiting, planning to lead the British ships into a trap.
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In the Battle of Villagarcia on 11 April 1812, British cavalry commanded by Lieutenant-General Sir Stapleton Cotton routed a French cavalry force... led by General de Brigade Charles Lallemand at the village of Villagarcia in the Peninsular War. Cotton intended to trap the French cavalry, which was separated by a number of miles from the main body of the French army, by executing simultaneous frontal and flank attacks. The plan came close to disaster when the forces making the frontal assault pushed forward prematurely. The situation was saved by the timely arrival of John Le Marchant's force on the French left flank. The recent fall of the French occupied fortress city of Badajoz, on 6 April 1812, allowed the Anglo-Portuguese forces under Wellington to take the strategic offensive. Prior to moving the bulk of his forces north where he would launch his Salamanca campaign Wellington entrusted a considerable proportion of his available cavalry to a force under General Sir Rowland Hill who was ordered to drive the retreating French army of Marshal Soult, who had failed in his attempt to relieve Badajoz, back into Andalusia to the south.
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In the Siege of Badajoz , the Anglo-Portuguese Army, under the Earl of Wellington, besieged Badajoz, Spain and forced the surrender of the French... garrison. The siege was one of the bloodiest in the Napoleonic Wars and was considered a costly victory by the British, with some 3,000 Allied soldiers killed in a few short hours of intense fighting as the siege drew to an end. Enraged at the huge amount of casualties they took in seizing the city, the troops broke into houses and stores consuming vast quantities of liquor with many of them then going on a rampage. Ignoring or threatening their officers commands to desist, and even killing several, the troops massacred as many as 4,000 Spanish civilians. It took three days before the men were brought back into order. After capturing the frontier towns of Almeida and Ciudad Rodrigo in earlier sieges, the Anglo-Portuguese army moved on to Badajoz to capture the town and secure the lines of communication back to Lisbon, the primary base of operations for the allied army.
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The Battle of Pirano on 22 February 1812 was a minor naval action of the Adriatic campaign of the Napoleonic Wars fought between a British and a... French ship of the line in the vicinity of the town of Piran in Adriatic Sea. The French Rivoli, named for Napoleon's victory 15 years earlier, had been recently completed at Venice. The French naval authorities intended her to bolster French forces in the Adriatic, following a succession of defeats in the preceding year. This was the only battle ever fought in the sea nowadays belonging to Slovenia. To prevent this ship challenging British dominance in the theatre, the Royal Navy ordered a ship of the line from the Mediterranean fleet to intercept and capture Rivoli on her maiden voyage. Captain John Talbot of HMS Victorious arrived off Venice in mid-February and blockaded the port. When Rivoli attempted to escape under cover of fog, Talbot chased her and forced her to surrender in a five hour battle, Rivoli losing over half her crew wounded or dead. The Treaty of Tilsit in 1807 had resulted in a Russian withdrawal from the Adriatic and the French takeover of the strategic island fortress of Corfu.
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