A Quick One...

I am in the middle of Knight's tome-sized biography of Lord Nelson titled The Pursuit of Victory...all 860 pages of it...
I had to talk about this because it is crazy. Maybe the age of things interests me or maybe because I did the earlier post on Jefferson and Madison being so young that I found my newest age fact something to talk about too....

First... to Jefferson and Madison for a moment...
One of the French officers that came over during the American Revolution (and who became a friend to Madison and Jefferson throughout their lives) was the Marquis De Lafayette.  He contributed heavily to the war effort and helped the Americans secure a win against Britain.  So.... he was born on 6 September 1757.  Now do the math... that means that at the Onset of the American Revolution, the Marquis was a teenager.  This guy was A TEENAGER and he was doing some crazy stuff...
I had to just say that because of the whole Jefferson and Madison thing, man. I feel very under-accomplished. 

Now...the other thing.
So Lord Nelson is a famous British naval figure and do you want to know when Lord Nelson began his career.  Let me ask you this...what were you doing when you were twelve?  Well, ol' Nelson here was joining the British navy accompanying his Uncle out to sea.  This was not uncommon, actually...it was a good idea to start out as early as possible so you could move up and make a career for yourself in the Navy.  TWELVE! Nelson had a crappy childhood near Norfolk, England no doubt and his dad Edmond was not exactly the nicest man on earth, but... still... twelve.
yea.
I think the most complex thing I did at twelve was complain about homework.