The First Book of Factoids | Page 6

should
liberate it"
And, later, after a victory against the Spaniards in 1819:

"The triumphal arches, the flowers, the hymns, the acclamations, the
wreaths offered and placed upon my head by the hands of lovely
maidens, the fiestas, the thousand demonstrations of joy are the least of
the gifts that I have received," he wrote. "The greatest and dearest to
my heart are the tears, mingled with the rapture of happiness, in which I
have been bathed and the embraces with which the multitude have all
but crushed me."
Venezuela became independent in 1811 and Bolivar, being a minor -
though self-aggrandizing - political figure, had little to do with it. After
his first major military defeat, in defending the coastal town of Puerto
Cabello against royalist insurgents out to oust the newly independent
Venezuela, he advocated the creation of a professional army (in the
Cartagena Manifesto). Far from being a revolutionary he, justly,
opposed the reliance on guerrilleros and militiamen.
He then reconquered Caracas, Venezuela's capital, at the head of a
small army and declared himself a dictator. He made Congress award
him the title of El Libertador (the Liberator). The seeds of his
personality cult were sown. When he lost Caracas to the royalists in yet
another botched campaign, he retreated and captured Bogotá, the
capital city of Colombia in December 1814.
After a series of uninterrupted military defeats, Bolivar exiled himself
to Jamaica. In a sudden conversion, he published the Jamaica Letter
(1815) in which he supported a model of government akin to the British
parliamentary system - yet, only following a phase of "guided
leadership" (identical to Hitler's "Fuhrerprinzip").
But the self-anointed leader did not hesitate to desert his soldiers and
leave them stranded after yet another of his military exploits - an
attempt to capture Caracas - unravelled in 1816. He simply defected to
Haiti, letting his loyal troops fend for themselves as best they could.
There followed a string of successful - even brilliant - battles and
coalitions with local warlords and politicians which culminated in the
liberation of Peru. In 1824, Bolivar was declared dictator - or, to be
precise, "Emperor" - of Peru and commander in chief of its army.
Bolivar liked power and its trappings. In the constitution he composed
in 1826, he suggested that the president of Bolivia - the name given to
the entire region, except Peru - should be appointed for life and should
have the right to choose his successor.

This president - presumably, Bolivar - was described unabashedly by
Bolivar himself as:
"The sun which, fixed in its orbit, imparts life to the universe. ...Upon
him rests our entire order, notwithstanding his lack of powers ...a life
term president, with the power to choose his successor, is the most
sublime inspiration amongst republican regimes."
In a letter to Santander, the Liberator expounded:
"I am convinced, to the very marrow of my bones, that our America
can only be ruled through a well-managed, shrewd despotism."
The National Geographic describes how:
"William Tudor, the American consul at Lima, wrote in 1826 of the
'deep hypocrisy' of Bolívar, who allowed himself to be deceived by the
'crawling, despicable flattery of those about him.' Later, John Quincy
Adams would define Bolívar's military career as 'despotic and
sanguinary' and state baldly that 'he cannot disguise his hankering after
a crown.' In Bogotá the U. S. minister and future president, Gen.
William Henry Harrison, accused Bolívar of planning to turn Gran
Colombia into a monarchy: 'Under the mask of patriotism and
attachment to liberty, he has really been preparing the means of
investing himself with arbitrary power.' "
When, in 1828, a constitutional convention in Colombia rejected
amendments to the constitution that he proposed, Bolivar assumed
dictatorial powers in a coup d'etat.
Now, Bolivar was the oppressor. He has murdered, or exiled his
political rivals throughout his career. He confiscated church funds and
imposed onerous taxes on the populace. Consequently, the "Liberator"
faced numerous uprisings and narrowly escaped an assassination
attempt. By the time he died he was so despised that the government of
Venezuela refused to allow his body onto its soil. It took 12 years of
constant petitioning by the family to let his remains be interred in the
country that he helped found.
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/7609/eng/bio.html
http://wekker.seagull.net/bolivar/biograf_menu.html
Bra
Mary Phelps Jacob - a rich socialite - received the first patent for a bra
in 1914. Her corset - replete with whaleback bones was visible under a
brand new evening gown she purchased. She used handkerchiefs and

ribbon to replace the bones. The bra was born. she sold the patent to
Warner Brothers Corset Company in Bridgeport, Connecticut, for
$1,500. They made $15 million over the next 30 years. Bras were one
size fits all until 1928.
An interesting coincidence: one of the forerunners of