As a young man Bonaparte attended the French military college—the first Corsican to graduate from that distinguished institution. He spoke fluent Corsican and Italian and a heavily accented French. In 1785 he was commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant in the artillery. With his support of the French Revolution, Napoleon received a captain’s commission. He published a pro-revolution pamphlet and led his artillery in the siege of Toulon, where he was wounded and came to the attention of the Committee of Safety, who in effect ruled France. The revolutionaries ignored the historic protocols for advancement based on seniority or social standing, that the royal government had followed, and elevated loyal and successful men of the Revolution. The council promoted Napoleon to Brigadier General and sent him on campaign in Italy after he successfully defended the National Convention from attackers, by deploying his artillery and slaughtering the mobs.

Carlo Bonaparte (1746-1785), Napoleon’s father

The Revolutionary French army went to war with several other European nations simultaneously, especially Britain. Napoleon took his army to Egypt, defeating the Mamluks there, and awaited the British armies that would come to shore up their empire. Napoleon’s 13,000-man army defeated and destroyed city after city in the Middle East until his own fleet was destroyed in the Battle of the Nile by Lord Horatio Nelson. Most of the French army perished from bubonic plague and battle casualties before he returned to France, greeted as a hero.

Taking command of the French armies on behalf of the “Republic,” Napoleon channeled their revolutionary fervor into systematic campaigns against Austria, Prussia, Italy, Spain and Portugal, defeating them all in spectacular and bloody victories, with occasional peace treaties in between. Europe had never seen a warrior such as Bonaparte; he redrew the boundaries of nations and placed his relatives on thrones. In 1804 he crowned himself Emperor, a permanent First Consul, reminiscent of the Roman Caesars. The vast majority of the French electorate decided in his favor, although assassination plots were consistently being revealed by his secret service.

Joseph Bonaparte (1768-1844), appointed King of Spain by his brother Napoleon

Coalitions of his enemies continued wars against France unabated until 1814, with battles of unprecedented size and ferocity. In 1808, Napoleon invaded Russia, defeating the Tsar’s armies at Borodino, which resulted in a combined 80,000 killed. He failed, however, to capture Moscow, and the battles and long winter retreat cost France more than 350,000 dead. In 1813, the Sixth Coalition attacked France once more, finally defeating Napoleon’s army and sending him into exile on the Island of Elba. He escaped, however, and once more electrified the population with memories of the glory and elan of past French victories.

France rallied once more to Bonaparte’s banners as 200,000 men chose once more to follow their Emperor against England and Prussia. He lost it all to British General Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington and to Marshall Blucher of Prussia in the decisive Battle of Waterloo on June 18, 1815. Napoleon was forced to abdicate and went into exile once more, this time to the Island of St. Helena. In exile he wrote a biography of Julius Caesar, a tyrant to whom he favorably compared himself. Napoleon died in 1821, reconciled to the Catholic Church of his youth after many years excommunicated, and secure in his place in history.

There are multiple thousands of books on Napoleon, examining his military and political genius, his hypnotic effect on people, charismatic personality, and reforming zeal in French politics and culture. Although short in stature, he became a giant among the leaders of history, and defined the course of the rest of the 19th Century. France has never recovered the glory and place it possessed on the European continent, compared to the greatness achieved by Napoleon. His wars cost hundreds of thousands of young lives in every country and his campaigns are still studied in the military academies around the world. If you hold to elements of the Great Man Theory of History, Napoleon Bonaparte could be the poster boy par excellence, although in his day he was considered one of the greatest monsters of history, a picture of the sort of strong man who seizes power and restores order when revolution brings chaos and confusion.

In the Second World War from June 1944 to June 1945, the United States suffered about one million casualties out of the 1.25 million total of the entire war. Germany had surrendered on May 7, but Japan fought on, seemingly to extinction. The American Joint Chiefs and their leader George Marshall struggled to find a means to force the Japanese to quit. The conflict that began April 1 on Okinawa—an island considered part of Japan by the emperor—was using up American troops at an unprecedented rate, and the Japanese were fighting to the last cartridge, making suicide attacks or just killing themselves in their caves.

In the first six months of 1945, General Curtis LeMay sent B-29 bombers to destroy the industrial centers of Japan, culminating in the fire-bombing of Tokyo in March, which wiped out sixteen square miles of the city, killing more than 100,000 people, mostly civilians. By mid-June the six largest cities of Japan had been fire-bombed to ashes, causing the Japanese government to redouble its production efforts and recruit a citizen army of several million people to repel any invasion.

At the end of 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt had authorized the Manhattan Project, the development of a bomb that could use the power of nuclear fission as a weapon of mass destruction. Led by theoretical physicist Robert Oppenheimer, the top secret project scientists raced to create a usable weapon before the Germans or Japanese developed their own nuclear program. Within two years the Los Alamos Laboratories in New Mexico produced two bombs.

A special air command called the 509th Composite Group, commanded by Colonel Paul Warfield Tibbets, Jr. surreptitiously joined the more than 130,000 people working on the project, and prepared to deliver the atomic weapons over Germany or Japan. Germany surrendered before the atomic bombs could be used there, but Japan stubbornly refused to admit defeat as they prepared for an invasion of the homeland. In July, 1945, the weapon was successfully tested near Alamogordo, New Mexico, and the stage was set for the use of a weapon that could change history.

The “targeting committee” chose five potential sites in Japan that had military significance but had not yet been badly attacked. At the Potsdam meeting of “the Big Three,” Truman once again reiterated the American requirement of the “unconditional surrender“ of Japan and warned of a new destruction about to descend on them if they did not come to terms. The Japanese insisted on keeping their emperor. After much debate and soul-searching, the President gave the order to deploy the first atomic bomb.

On August 6, Paul Tibbets in command of the B-29 Enola Gay, named after his mother, lifted off for the six-hour flight from Tinian Island to the City of Hiroshima, Japan. At 31,000 feet, the bomb, named “Little Boy,” was released and detonated at about 1,900 feet above the city. About 80,000 people were killed by the blast and the ensuing firestorm. Another 70,000 were injured, and many died in the following days. Ground zero was about a one-mile radius, and 4.4-mile burn zone. Warfare, foreign policy, and history were changed forever.

At the age of nine, William Wilberforce began his formal schooling, falling under the influence of a godly teacher, then his aunt and uncle to whom he was sent upon the death of his father in 1767. His Methodist relatives were supporters of evangelist George Whitefield; Wilberforce became attracted to “evangelical religion.” At the age of twelve, however, William’s grandfather and mother, disturbed at his “nonconformity” brought him home to be placed under the influence of rigid Anglicanism. By the age of seventeen, Wilberforce had abandoned his attachment to evangelicalism, inherited a fortune from his grandfather, and entered Cambridge as a witty, party-loving, hail-fellow-well-met student. He excelled in his studies though rather lazy and hedonistic, earning two degrees.

While a twenty-one-year-old college student, Wilberforce, along with his friend William Pitt, became a Member of Parliament as an independent. He continued his life as a bon-vivant, welcomed at all the best parlors and gambling dens. Although his eyesight was bad and his stature thin and small, his shrewd mind and powerful and eloquent voice won him many admirers. In 1784, on a European vacation, his life changed forever when he came to faith in Christ and submitted his life to the pursuit of godliness.

Because outspoken Christian views and evangelistic zeal were frowned on by the upper classes as boring and socially unacceptable, Wilberforce considered leaving politics altogether. He sought counsel from his pastoral friend John Newton and his old friend William Pitt (“the Younger”), both of whom strongly urged him to remain in Parliament and serve Christ in the highest councils of the land. He chose to remain in public life and champion biblical morality whatever the cost socially. In 1787 Wilberforce began what eventually became a crusade to end the slave trade.

Wilberforce joined with Quakers and other fellow Anglicans in a campaign to inform the public about the horrors of the slave trade. His leadership of a remarkable fraternity, unique in British history, led to the formation of chapters of the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade all over Britain. They garnered hundreds of thousands of signatures for legislation relating to the abolition of the slave trade, and they coordinated their activities with like-minded groups in the other slave-shipping countries of Europe and the United States. Wilberforce commenced his anti-slave trade campaign in Parliament, in earnest, in 1789. In the 1790s, the French Revolution and the slave revolt in Haiti set back the forces of the anti-slave trade in England. The bills brought forth by Wilberforce were defeated again and again, and he was even accused of sympathies to the French. Undaunted, Wilberforce and his allies, now called the Clapham Sect, continued to meet, strategize and inform people, despite the criticism and success of their opponents. The parliamentary agreement to abolish the trade “gradually over time” and the War with France that broke out in 1795, slowed the cause for more than ten years.

The final phase of the campaign included a 400-page book by Wilberforce, and the building of a political coalition that finally ended in the abolition of the slave trade, with royal assent, in 1807, one year before the American Congress did the same. From 1812 to 1824, Wilberforce’s health deteriorated badly, but he kept up his proposals, now to end slavery altogether in the British Empire. The government was opposed to abolition of slavery itself, for it generated great wealth, especially for the vested interests of the aristocracy in the House of Lords. In his 60s, Wilberforce became the figurehead of abolitionism, having to leave Parliament with broken health. As he lay dying of the flu in 1833, he was informed that the government had finally agreed to the compromise that led to the full abolition of slavery in a bill the following year. William Wilberforce died knowing that his unique place in Christ’s Kingdom and the life-long efforts at moral reform—especially the ending of slavery in the Empire—had not been in vain.

Day was born during Henry VIII’s reign and joined the printing profession during the few years of young King Edward VI’s reign. His family origins are obscure, but his long career in printing took place in London. He likely began as an apprentice in the printing business before setting up his own presses, along with partner William Seres around 1546. Day and Seres specialized in religious books that were controversial, and received several valuable patents like Ponet’s Catechism, for popular Protestant titles. The Reformation was still in its formative years in England and there was an insatiable demand for godly literature. In the early days of their press, fully one-half of their published books attacked the superstitious doctrine of transubstantiation. They also published Continental Reformers in English. In 1549, Day and Seres amicably separated and John started his own printing presses, and joined the prestigious Stationer’s Company, a London printing guild. In 1551 he came out with a beautiful Bible, the book most in demand. His willingness to publish foreign authors, brought skilled Dutch printers to his door, men with whom he worked for the rest of his life.

Roman Catholicism was still strong in England although the monasteries had been coopted and destroyed. The Pope had not given up on retrieving the country for the Roman Church, keeping active priests in the homes of Catholic noblemen, preparing for an opportunity to restore the Roman Church and annihilate the leading Protestants. The accession of Mary Tudor to the throne appeared to be the very opportunity to accomplish those purposes.

Devoutly Catholic, “Bloody Mary” burned at the stake for heresy some of the best-selling authors of Day and Seres; others fled to the continent, as did most printers. There is some evidence that Day remained in England and published under a pseudonym, keeping Protestant literature alive during the Marian reign. He seems to have published Lady Jane Gray and John Hooper, both martyred for their faith. Day was eventually sent to the Tower of London for “printing naughty books.” Toward the end of Mary’s reign, he was released, and worked part time with a Catholic printer, biding his time till Mary was gone.

John Hooper (c. 1495-1555)

When Elizabeth became Queen, Day was back in business printing Reformation literature, including all the sermons of the martyr Hugh Latimer, Protestant catechisms, and various works of Continental theologians, and some scientific works. The high quality of his paper, woodcuts and binding earned him a royal patent to print a particular work “for life,” securing his reputation as a master-printer. He also published Psalters, so vital to worship in all the Protestant Churches and homes, and Bible portions, affordable for the poor.

John Day’s crowning achievement, the one that secured his place in history, was the one he undertook in 1563—John Foxe’s Acts and Monuments, better known as Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. That international best-seller enabled Day to move to even larger quarters. He invested his own money in the project, and also interviewed men who had been persecuted or had known the martyrs, as he himself had. The second edition in 1570 ran to 2,300 pages in two folio volumes. William Cecil, the Queen’s main counsellor ordered every cathedral to own a copy. Collectors’ prices of the Second Edition today start at $15,000.

No doubt John Day’s publishing success helped him in practical ways. His first wife bore him 13 children, as did his second wife. Puritans took the biblical injunction to be fruitful and multiply most seriously. Day seems to have had both a sense of humor (who would not with 26 children?) and a sense of the importance of the Reformation, for his printer’s device shows a rising sun and the words “Arise, For It Is Day!” The number of spiritual children that resulted from his publishing efforts, is known only to God. John Day died on July 23, 1584, probably around the age of sixty-two.