THE ULTIMATE
On this day, May 1st 1769, Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington was born in Dublin, a member of an Anglo-Irish aristocratic family.
Wellesley served as Prime Minister twice, heading Tory Party governments. He is more famous, though, for having defeated the French Emperor, Napoleon, at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 - bringing the Napoleonic Wars to an end. He fought in 60 battles in his military career, in places as far afield as India, Spain and Portugal, France and Northern Europe including Denmark and the Netherlands / Belgium. He met Britain's other leading military hero of the time, Admiral Nelson, just once, in September 1805, in the waiting room to the Secretary of War's Office. Nelson was already famous, Wellington yet to be. Wellington recalled that Nelson started the conversation in a vain and silly manner, but when he came back after enquiring who the young General was, Nelson's approach changed and the two engaged as equals. Nelson was to fight and die in the Battle of Trafalgar only weeks later. Another coincidence is that Wellington when sailing back from India to Britain, stopped on the island of St. Helena and stayed in the same building that Napoleon would be exiled to!
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