The Battle of Lepanto, October 7, 1571

A fresco from the wall of a chapel depicts the Battle of Lepanto, St-Etienne-de-Tinee, Cote D'Azur, France. (CORBIS)

434 years have passed. Yet this war is not over. The original dedication of the Church for this day was to Our Lady of Victory. Many churches carry this name as well as the name of the new dedication for this day to Our Lady of the Rosary.

Pope St. Pius V prayed the Rosary and believed through the intercession of the Blessed Mother, the Austrian (?) fleet under Don Juan (?) was victorius. (Austria's border's once include the Mediterrean Sea, the royal houses of Spain and Austria were allied at this time.)

It was also one of the greatest days of emancipation of slaves. This battle was the last to be fought primarily by oared ships. The Ottoman fleet had 15,000 Christian slaves. 10,000 of which were liberated after the battle.

The beginning of Lepanto by G.K. Chesterton

WHITE founts falling in the Courts of the sun,

And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run;

There is laughter like the fountains in that face of all men feared,

It stirs the forest darkness, the darkness of his beard;
It curls the blood-red crescent, the crescent of his lips;

For the inmost sea of all the earth is shaken with his ships.

They have dared the white republics up the capes of Italy,

They have dashed the Adriatic round the Lion of the Sea,

And the Pope has cast his arms abroad for agony and loss,

And called the kings of Christendom for swords about the Cross.

The cold queen of England is looking in the glass;

The shadow of the Valois is yawning at the Mass;

From evening isles fantastical rings faint the Spanish gun,

And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.

So in a real sense, the Crusades did not end in 1291 with the fall of Acre but continued and continues to this days.

We call the enemy Al-Qaeda but what do they call themselves? During the Clinton administration and after the 1993 American humiliation in Mogadishu and the first bombing of the World Trade Center, bin Laden proclaimed in 1998 the Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders.

Before the takeover of the Iranian embassy in Teheran, who thought the 21st century's principal conflict would be rooted in the 16th century?