May 17

Bartholomew Roberts, a Welshman, was born on the 17th in 1682. His name at birth was John Robert. Why he assumed the name Bartholomew is puzzling. Perhaps he felt that John Robert didn’t have enough zing to it. In any event, as children tend to do, he grew up and as an adult made a career choice to become a pirate. His motto appears to have been ‘Better being a commander than a common man’. He even managed to secure an appropriate nickname for his chosen life’s work, though I’m uncertain as to why he chose Black Bart, which somehow strikes me as more appropriate a sobriquet for a 19th century American Old West bandit than it does for an 18th century Welsh maritime outlaw.

May 16

When two people meet and fall in love, it is not terribly surprising that they should choose to marry. An announcement of marriage will generally be met with sincere congratulations from the families of the bride and groom. Occasionally the announcement of a wedding will be met with more questions than plaudits. One such wedding occurred on the 16th in 1836. That was the day that Edger Allan Poe married Virginia Eliza Clemm. The questions had much to do with the pair’s difference in ages, Poe was 27 and Clemm was 13. However, they had much more to do with the fact that Virginia was Edgar’s first cousin.

May 15

On the 15th in 1800, James Hadfield attempted to assassinate King George III while the king was attending a performance at the Drury Lane Theater in London, England. Upon firing a shot at the king during the playing of the British national anthem, and missing, Hadfield said to his majesty “God bless your royal highness; I like you very well; you are a good fellow." Of course, Hadfield was charged with attempted murder. He would be acquitted of the murder charges by reason of insanity. Considering George III’s own shaky grasp on reality, it is ironic that it was only Hadfield who had to spend the rest of his life as a resident of the Bethlem Royal Hospital. This is the hospital for the insane from which we get the word bedlam.
Confirming yet again that God does indeed work in mysterious ways His wonders to perform, also on the 15th but in 1252, Pope Innocent IV(pictured below) issued the papal bull exstirpanda, which authorized the torture of heretics in the Inquisition. I am certain that God is still scratching his head and asking Himself ‘Geez, why did I do this?’

May 14

At 4 p.m. on the 14th in 1804, in a steady, cold rain a party led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark left Camp Dubois, near present day Hartford, Illinois and headed west. President Jefferson had selected them to head the Corps of Discovery. Their task was to map and explore the vast new lands that the nation had acquired from France in the recent Louisiana Purchase.

May 13

On the 13th in 1787, Captain (later Admiral) Arthur Phillip of His Majesty’s Royal Navy pointed the bows of his small fleet of eleven ships into the English Channel, left Portsmouth’s harbor and headed for New South Wales. The voyage gave a very new meaning to the word transportation. The ships, with 11 boatloads of convicts were bound for Australia. Phillip would establish the first European colony on the Australian continent. The site would eventually become the city of Sydney. In the meantime, it would serve as a place to stick all the criminals who were crowding English jails. Following the successful start of the colony, judges could sentence the poor souls appearing in the criminal courts to ‘transportation’ to Australia. Surprisingly, the addition of this sentencing option was probably rather well received because the English jails, particularly London’s notorious Bridewell prison, were not really known for being particularly nice and those being sentenced to serve a term of imprisonment more than half a world away from home actually endured improved conditions of confinement. Bridewell Prison, in an earlier incarnation, was Bridewell Palace and was a residence used by England’s King Henry VIII.

May 12

A girl medical professional! How cute can you get? Florence Nightingale was born on the 12th in 1820. Obviously, she made many lasting contributions to the nursing field and medicine in general. Perhaps more importantly, she was also the author of a report proving that people admitted to a hospital died at a rate of 90% while those who did not seek hospitalization died at a rate of only 60%. You should remember that the next time you’re tossed into the back of an ambulance for yet another trip to the ICU of your friendly neighborhood hospital. I know that I do.

May 11

The American Civil War is marked by extraordinary brutality, much death and even more international intrigue. Brisk naval warfare is not generally associated with that war. However, the Confederacy waged war against the Union off the coasts of New England and South America, and virtually all the ports in between and came remarkably close to winning the Civil War. Another of its hallmarks is the technological advances in the means by which war was waged. One advance was in the area of naval warfare. This war saw the introduction of iron clad ships of war. The abandoning wood in the construction of war ships was illustrated by the ironclads (The Monitor and Merrimack being the most famous examples) and the battles that they fought. Despite the impression that the Civil War was fought primarily on land, the Confederacy, with the assistance of both France and Great Britain, waged a very aggressive maritime battle against the Union. In the Battle of Hampton Roads, the Union’s ironclad USS Monitor faced the Confederacy’s own iron clad, the CSS Virginia. On the 11th in 1862, the crew of the Virginia scuttled her. In a striking bit of irony, the CSS Virginia had been built using the remains of the Union’s steamship the USS Merrimack (a screw frigate and namesake of the ironclad), which the Union had earlier set on fire in an unsuccessful attempt to scuttle it to prevent its being taken into service by the confederacy’s naval forces.