"No dream is too big. No challenge is too great. Nothing we want for our future is beyond our reach."
"We will make America strong again. We will make America proud again. We will make America safe again. And we will make America great again."
"Together, We will make America strong again. We will make wealthy again. We will make America proud again. We will make America safe again. And yes, together, we will make America great again. Thank you. God bless you. And God bless America."
"I try to learn from the past, but I plan for the future by focusing exclusively on the present. That's where the fun is."
"Part of being a winner is knowing when enough is enough. Sometimes you have to give up the fight and walk away, and move on to something that's more productive."
"If I were a liberal Democrat, people would say I'm the super genius of all time. The super genius of all time. If you're a conservative Republican, you've got to fight for your life. It's really an amazing thing."
"The most basic duty of government is to defend the lives of its own citizens. Any government that fails to do so is a government unworthy to lead."
Napoleon Bonaparte (born Napoleone di Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French emperor and military commander who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led successful campaigns during the Revolutionary Wars.
He was the leader of the French Republic as First Consul from 1799 to 1804, then of the French Empire as Emperor of the French from 1804 until 1814, and briefly again in 1815. His political and cultural legacy endures as a celebrated and controversial leader. He initiated many enduring reforms, but has been criticized for his authoritarian rule. He is considered one of the greatest military commanders in history and his wars and campaigns are still studied at military schools world wide.
Napoleon was born on the island of Corsica into a family descended from Italian nobility. He was resentful of the French monarchy, and supported the French Revolution in 1789 while serving in the French army, trying to spread its ideals to his native Corsica. He rose rapidly in the ranks after saving the governing French Directory by firing on royalist insurgents. In 1796, he began a military campaign against the Austrians and their Italian allies, scoring decisive victories, and became a national hero.
Two years later he led a military expedition to Egypt that served as a springboard to political power. He engineered a coup in November 1799 and became First Consul of the Republic. In 1804, to consolidate and expand his power, he crowned himself Emperor of the French.
Differences with the United Kingdom meant France faced the War of the Third Coalition by 1805. Napoleon shattered this coalition with victories in the Ulm campaign and at the Battle of Austerlitz, which led to the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire. In 1806, the Fourth Coalition took up arms against him. Napoleon defeated Prussia at the battles of Jena and Auerstedt.
He then marched the Grande Armée into Eastern Europe, and defeated the Russians in June 1807 at Friedland, forcing the defeated nations of the Fourth Coalition to accept the Treaties of Tilsit.
Two years later, the Austrians challenged the French again during the War of the Fifth Coalition, but Napoleon solidified his grip over Europe after triumphing at the Battle of Wagram.
Hoping to extend the Continental System, his embargo against Britain, Napoleon invaded the Iberian Peninsula and declared his brother Joseph the King of Spain in 1808. The Spanish and the Portuguese revolted in the Peninsular War aided by a British army, culminating in defeat for Napoleon's marshals. Napoleon launched an invasion of Russia in the summer of 1812. The resulting campaign witnessed the catastrophic retreat of Napoleon's Grande Armée. In 1813, Prussia and Austria joined Russian forces in a Sixth Coalition against France, resulting in a large coalition army defeating Napoleon at the Battle of Leipzig.
The coalition invaded France and captured Paris, forcing Napoleon to abdicate in April 1814. He was exiled to the island of Elba, between Corsica and Italy. In France, the Bourbons were restored to power.
Napoleon escaped in February 1815 and took control of France. The Allies responded by forming a Seventh Coalition, which defeated Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in June 1815. The British exiled him to the remote island of Saint Helena in the Atlantic, where he died in 1821 at the age of 51.
Napoleon had a lasting impact on the world, bringing modernizing reforms to France and Western Europe and stimulating the development of nation states. He also sold the Louisiana Territory to the United States in 1803, doubling the latter's size. However, his mixed record on civil rights and exploitation of conquered territories adversely affect his reputation.
Patton was one of the great figures of World War II, renowned for his style, aggressiveness, and brash quotes. His success on the battlefield was occasionally interspersed with missteps in the press and in relations with our British allies.
One of the few allied generals with combat experience leading tanks in World War I, Patton led the Western Task Force during the TORCH landings and then II Corps through the remainder of the North Africa campaign. In Sicily, Patton led the Seventh Army, winning the “race to Messina” as his aggressiveness (and some say hunger for notoriety) outpaced the British Eighth Army.
Patton was briefly sidelined after two incidents in Sicily where he slapped and verbally abused soldiers suffering from battle fatigue during visits to field hospital. When the story made the press, there were calls for Patton’s relief, and only the intervention of Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower and Gen. George C. Marshall saved his career.
Due to both this incident and the preparations for the invasion of France, Patton did not participate in the fighting on mainland Italy, but returned to England. Denied command of the American landing force, Patton still played a critical role in the invasion. As the commander of the “First United States Army Group (FUSAG),” Patton played a key part in Operation FORTITUDE, designed to convince the Germans that the real Allied landing would occur at the Pas-de-Calais. FUSAG was in reality a “phantom army:” an intricately constructed fictitious army of decoys, props, and fake radio signal traffic. The Germans could not believe the main invasion would go forward without the involvement of such an accomplished general as Patton, and kept key formations in the Pas de Calais region even after the D-Day landings.
Patton again returned to combat in August 1944, when the Third Army was activated. After initially clearing the Brittany peninsula, Patton led the Third Army across France, culminating with the capture of the fortress city of Metz in November.
Perhaps Patton’s most famous action came the next month, with the Battle of the Bulge. Patton’s Third Army was south of the main German attack against the U.S. First Army in the Ardennes. When the assault began on December 16th, Third Army was still engaged in heavy fighting around Saarbrücken, Germany. Patton quickly issued contingency orders to begin preparation to disengage and pivot north for offensive operations against the southern shoulder of the Bulge. At a conference with Eisenhower and other senior generals on the 19th, Patton shocked the room by announcing that he could begin his counterattack within 48 hours. By the 26th the lead elements of Third Army had broken through to make contact with the encircled 101st Airborne Division in Bastogne.
Patton continued to lead Third Army through the rest of the war, into Germany and to the Elbe, and remained in Germany during the subsequent. Patton unsuccessfully appealed for a transfer to the Pacific Theater, and when Japan surrendered he was disappointed, writing in his diary, “Yet another war has come to an end, and with it my usefulness to the world.”
Barely three months after the official end of World War II, and almost a year after his heroics during the Battle of the Bulge, Patton was critically injured when the automobile he was riding in collided with another Army vehicle in a low speed collision. Patton struck his head on the glass partition and suffered a compression fracture and dislocation of the cervical third and fourth vertebrae, resulting in a broken neck and cervical spinal cord injury that rendered him paralyzed from the neck down. He died in the hospital 12 days later.
In accordance with his wishes, Patton was buried with his men at Luxembourg American Cemetery. He is the only four star general buried at an American Battle Monuments Commission cemetery, and arguably, one of the most famous. Indeed, while he was initially buried in the middle of a plot like every other service member, the large number of visitors to his grave caused significant damage to the cemetery grounds and the Graves Registration Service moved his remains to their current location at the front of the grave plots (Plot P, Row 1, Grave 1) before turning the cemetery over to ABMC.>