I naturally never expect to keep any of the vows I make to myself regarding things I'd like to learn about, so it's with pleasant, unfamiliar surprise that I note: hey, I've actually succeeded in getting down the basics of major 20th-century warfare. Conflicts only recently ensconced in a total, gunpowder-tanged fog for me, I can now briefly sketch in complete, if possibly muttered sentences. A colossal achievement, given my piss-poor track record with committing historical fact to memory. But I may've leaned on my own horn prematurely: listening to London Calling earlier this evening, I realized that that album contains over a half dozen explicit or sturdily implied historical references I'm distinctly, clangingly ignorant of. I feel this, uh, needs remedying. A rock & roll album shouln't be better-informed than I am. So much tedium ahead! I will finally have to grasp the Spanish Civil war, is the big one. Must I?