History
The expression "officer of the line" is possibly rooted in the 18th- and 19th-century Royal Navy practice of employing sail-powered warships in line formations to maximize the effectiveness of side-mounted cannons. The ships were called ships of the line and their officers were termed line officers. The term also derives from "walking the line" and in many military circles is believed to have come from a "line in the sand" which two groups of officers once used in a political argument to gain power.
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Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of the genesis or the old mythology repeats itself in the experience of every child. He too is a demon or god thrown into a particular chaos, where he strives ever to lead things from disorder into order.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“It takes a great deal of history to produce a little literature.”
—Henry James (1843–1916)
“What you don’t understand is that it is possible to be an atheist, it is possible not to know if God exists or why He should, and yet to believe that man does not live in a state of nature but in history, and that history as we know it now began with Christ, it was founded by Him on the Gospels.”
—Boris Pasternak (1890–1960)