Anniversary of Custer's Last Stand - 1876 (Edited).

We have all heard of 'Custer's Last Stand' but I never really knew what it was about, so I looked it up, and for the benefit of any of you, dear readers, who didn't know it either, I have tried to paraphrase it for you.

Gen Custer’s troops hoped to capture an Indian village containing mostly women and children, and thus convince Indian warriors to return to the reservation where the US Army wanted them to be so that they could better monitor their movements.  Custer was supposed to wait at the mouth of the Little Bighorn River for reinforcements, but when his scouts spotted the Lakota Indian Chief, Sitting Bull nearby, he decided to mount an attack. 

It was a decisive Indian victory, with 268 US dead, including Custer and his two brothers, and 55 wounded.    After this decisive Indian victory at Little Bighorn the US Army poured troops into the Badlands, the homelands of many of the Indians who had fought against Custer, and in the ensuing skirmishes captured many of the Indians who had fought against Custer, but some, including a band led by Chief Sitting Bull, managed to flee across the border into Canada.  

I have not been sleeping well, but made up for it today, I woke up at 2.15 pm and Bubbles - bless her heart - was lying quietly beside the bed, but as soon as I woke she jumped up to go outside.  I think I suffer from Non 24 Circadian Rhythm Disorder.  And I got that diagnosis from television advertising, not the internet :-)  

Also widely advertised on television is a remedy for Toe Nail Fungus.   TOE NAIL FUNGUS.   I'd never heard of it, and just wonder how many people are suffering from it, that its remedy warrants massive advertising on prime time television.

In the news............One of the escaped convicts has been shot, but the other is still on the run,.  It has further  been revealed that another prison officer gave them access to the catwalk behind their cells so that they could do something tricky to the electric switches, which would enable them to cook in their cells.    They must have got down there, looked round  the catwalk and started plotting their escape.   And this is supposed to be a high maximum security prison!! 

Following the massacre in South Carolina the Confederate flag has become - or more likely,  I'm just becoming aware of it - a symbol of racial divide and hatred.  Never having learned American history to the extent that Americans are taught it, I thought it was simply an issue confined to history books, I did not appreciate that  it is a controversy still causing pain and distress, so if I have touched nerves with my ignorant and ill advised comments, I do sincerely apologise.

I want to say however, who  remembers the show, 'The Dukes of Hazzard'?  I remember the stars being dark haired young men, so I was stopped in my tracks to discover  they are now as old and white haired as I am.

By the way...........the anniversary of Custer's Last Stand was the 25th June, but I often post this after midnight of the day I'm writing about, and I can't do anything about the date at the top.