On January 8, 1815, U.S. General Andrew Jackson defeated Great Britain in the Battle of New Orleans, the final engagement in the War of 1812.

On this day in 1997, the principality of Monaco began a yearlong celebration in honour of the 700th anniversary of the rule of the Grimaldi family, who seized power in 1297 and gained firm possession of Monaco in 1419.

On January 8, 1997 Mexican criminal Joaquín Guzmán (“El Chapo”), head of the Sinaloa drug cartel, was captured in Los Mochis after escaping prison some six months earlier; he was later extradited to the United States, where he was convicted of various crimes.

—

I’ve had several readers ask about the availability of the new edition of the waterproof SurvivalBlog Archive USB stick. The new 2005-2023 sticks are now in production. They should be completed, in hand, and orderable by January 20th. Watch for an ad in the blog’s right-hand bar, in about a week. This year the archive and bonus books had to be on a more capacious 32GB stick. Altogether, the contents will be just over 22 Gigabytes. This will leave room for archiving any of your own crucial files, e-books, and photos/document scans on your stick. Each year the SurvivalBlog Archive USB sticks sell out by March or April, so be sure to mark your calendar to place your order well before then. Thanks! – JWR

—

Today’s feature article is a review authored by SurvivalBlog Field Gear Editor Tom Christianson.