The capital and largest city of the province of West Flanders, Bruges. The city was a magnet for merchants and various passerby in the fifteenth century.
With the onset of the bitter winter cold, the Continental Army under General George Washington, still in the field, enters its winter camp at Valley Forge, 22 miles from British-occupied Philadelphia. Washington chose a site on the west bank of the Schuylkill River that could be effectively defended in the event of a British attack.
During 1777, Patriot forces under General Washington suffered major defeats against the British at the battles of Brandywine and Germantown; Philadelphia, the capital of the United States, fell into British hands. The particularly severe winter of 1777-1778 proved to be a great trial for the American army, and of the 11,000 soldiers stationed at Valley Forge, hundreds died from disease. However, the suffering troops were held together by loyalty to the Patriot cause and to General Washington, who stayed with his men. As the winter stretched on, Prussian military adviser Frederick von Steuben kept the soldiers busy with drills and training in modern military strategy.
When Washington’s army marched out of Valley Forge on June 19, 1778, the men were better disciplined and stronger in spirit than when they had entered. Nine days later, they won a victory against the British under Lord Cornwallis at the Battle of Monmouth in New Jersey.
Steven Spielberg's highest grossing films in the 20th century were Jaws, E.T., and Jurassic Park. Jaws was released in 1976 and set the highest grossing record at $193 million. By 1993, E.T. had grossed over $700 million only to be beaten by Jurassic Park that year when the dino film grossed over $900 million!
President Kennedy and Russian leader Nikita Khrushchev removed the missiles from Cuba and brought them back into the custody of the Soviet Union, which prevented an immediate threat of nuclear war.
