Lest We Forget - A short collection of interesting facts and events from history

There is an ancient military saying “ The Turks are known for their horsemen, the Persians for their Archers, and the Indians for their Armies ”. Alexander is regarded as one of the greatest of conquerors the world ever saw. Starting from small kingdom of Macedonia, he went on to conquer vast stretches of land in Central Asia including Ancient Persia and western India. Now we all have read in our school textbooks about how Alexander fought King Porus and after defeating Porus at the Battle of the Hydapes (the river Indus), his soldiers felt homesick and so Alexander decided to return to Macedonia. Offcourse Alexander himself could never return to Macedonia and died on his way back in Babylonia due to a mosquito bite. An emperor who ruled most of the then known world died due to a small mosquito. Now why would someone who was so determined on conquering the entire world, give up his dream after a battle with an Indian king. A fact that many historians agree on is that the ...

While a number of schools around the world have been awarded battle colours in recognition of their alumni serving in armies, the La Martiniere school in Lucknow, built by Claude Martin, is the only school in the world to have won Battle Honours. A battle honour is usually awarded to military units for the bravery and courage of their troops during a battle. These honours are usually printed on the regimental colours. La Martiniere school got this honour for the role played by its students in the defence of the Lucknow Residency during the Siege of Lucknow in the Indian revolution of 1857. When the siege started, 67 students of the school along with the principal and other staff were inside the Residency campus of the British. Since the british were short of troops, the boys were assigned military duties and displayed bravery during clashes with the Indian troops over the next 1 year. The most notable being them handling all the visual and telegraph communications from the Residen...