The Symzonia Review

why we need global warming now. step four

2009-01-23T15:35:00.003-05:00

The Fourth Step Among the things about humans that I find annoying, and there are many such things, is that so many people claim that there was a Golden Age in North and South America before the European conquests of the continents. They envision a world where Indians[i] lived in harmony with the planet and treated the earth on which they lived with the respect due a deity or deities. What utter nonsense. The Indians of that period were humans like us, which means that they trashed the land as much as we seem to be so fond of doing today. Is it merely coincidence that all large mammals and predators in North America became extinct at precisely the time that humans began wandering over North America? How very convenient they made it for humans that after thriving for hundreds of thousands of years in the verdant lands of North America these beasts should chose to go extinct just when humans appeared[ii]. Is it possible, however, that humans might have had just a tiny bit to do with the poor creatures’ demise? Is the Pope Catholic? The Noble Savage? A Golden age? “Native Americans were living in balance with Nature – but they had their hands on the scale[iii].”[i] I refuse to use the politically correct phrase Native Americans. It is awkward and self-conscious. Additionally, and perhaps more importantly, it is inaccurate. Aboriginal peoples, Mohawks, Sioux, Iroquois, Klamath, and Shinnecock, Montaukett or any of a multitude of tribal names would be more appropriate. These people first started arriving on the continent thousands of years before anyone in Europe even knew that there was a place that could be named America. Actually, my referring to Indians as Indians actually only compounds an error made in the 15th century, when an Italian itinerant captain and navigator was hired by a couple of Spanish monarchs to find a quick way for their boats to get to India so they could take abuse and take advantage of those Indians. Columbus left Spain and sailed west certain in his belief that that was the best way to get there. When he accidently bumped into North America (By this time the land had been named America in a bit of self-promotion by cartographer Amerigo Vespucci.), he was certain that he had reached India and that all the people that he found there had to be Indians, right? It all is getting very complicated here, so maybe we should just call the people in North America by their tribal names. Even better, let’s just call the lot of them Phil.

why we need global warming now step three

2009-01-23T14:50:00.004-05:00

posted by Dean Perchik 8:47 AM 0 comments
Thursday, July 17, 2008
The Third Step
From the very moment our ancestors climbed down from the trees and walked upright across the savannahs of Africa, humans have left their mark wherever they went. At times, those marks have not been either terribly attractive or even pleasant. From the time humans invented the wheel, assuming, of course, that we invented it, each new advance in technology has proven to be less than beneficial to the planet than might be hoped for. Shortly after the domestication of the horse, humans (with the same proviso as given for the wheel.) invented the saddle. This made the pace of things going from bad to worse that much faster. Now instead of having to walk all the way to your neighbors’ village to beat the hell out of them you could ride there in relative comfort. In addition, if you put a box on top of a couple of the wheels that you made, you could then lug all of his stuff back to your village and not have to go back again and again and again. I believe that is what is referred to as effective time management.Considering our track record, Mankind’s entry into the nuclear age certainly does not hold the promise that it once did for us as a species or, for that matter, any species that is not us. I do believe that all the other species share my concern about the future. As Bill Bryson has pointed out, “life, in short just wants to be. …for the most part it doesn’t want to be much.” How else can you explain the lichens that grow in Antarctica? They can’t be terribly ambitious can they? Another concern ,this one raised by Jared Diamond, is a new one for me. At what point will the human population, with its ceaseless need for food, begin farming to the point where the planet reaches and exceeds its photosynthetic capacity? Isn’t that neat? Aren’t you happy, now you have something brand new to worry about, just when you were thought that you were running out of things to worry about. In his book, A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson made an observation of humans that bears repeating:Of the small portion of the planets surface that is dry enough to stand on, a surprisingly large amount is too hot or cold or dry or steep or lofty to be of much use to us. Partly, it must be conceded, this is our fault. In terms of adaptability, humans are pretty amazingly useless.
posted by Dean Perchik 9:53 AM 0 comments
Wednesday, July 16, 2008

why we need global warning now! step TWO

2009-01-23T08:56:00.003-05:00

The second step
Time is nothing more than a convenient convention that humans have adopted so that everyone can keep track of stuff. It really makes no difference at all what method one uses to keep an eye on things, so long as everyone agrees. Andrew Dickson White, in his book A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom (1896) improves on the work started by James Ussher in the seventeenth century. White comments on John Lightfoot’s use of the James Ussher’s chronology by informing a waiting world that “in the seventeenth century, in his great work, Dr. John Lightfoot, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, and one of the most eminent Hebrew scholars of his time, declared, as the result of his most profound and exhaustive study of the Scriptures, that "heaven and earth, centre and circumference, were created all together, in the same instant, and clouds full of water," and that "this work took place and man was created by the Trinity on October 23, 4004 B.C., at nine of the clock in the morning.[i]” How remarkable that God finished His creation just in time for a bit of breakfast [ii]. Now you can go about your day with confidence that God is in his Heaven and all is right with the world. Sorta, kinda.Dinosaurs roamed the earth for a long time, from the Triassic Period to the Cretaceous. They were a successful bunch of critters; they were around for almost 200 million years so I guess it would be appropriate to say that they roamed the earth for a very, very, very long time. The reasons for their rather abrupt departure to take up residence in museums[iii] around the planet are subject to a lot of debate. Some say that an enormous object hit the planet in the Yucatan peninsula (That has to hurt!), changing the earth’s climate; others say that the dinosaurs simply ate themselves out of their homes. Whatever the reason or reasons for their disappearance, you have to admit that they had a decent run. Humans on the other hand first appeared maybe 200,000 years ago. It appears that humans will have to wait a while before contacting the editors at Guinness World Records so that the human name could be included in their book. That assumes, of course, that we do not kill ourselves off in the not-too-distant future.[i] Lightfoot took liberties with Ussher’s work however. Ussher’s cosmology had the same date, but nowhere did he specify 9 a.m.[ii] In a statement that must have infuriated some Creationists, Edward P. Tryon, of Columbia University, said of its creation that, “I offer the modest proposal that our Universe is simply one of those things that happen from time to time.”[iii] The man credited with changing the primary role of a museum from a purely academic one to a recreational one to which ordinary people would be allowed access is Englishman Richard Owen. Owen achieved this distinction by virtue of the fact that he was given the job of directing London’s Natural History Museum. What makes Owen unique is that he got this position in spite of his extremely well documented, career-long fondness for stealing other people’s work. In 1846, the Royal Society gave Owen a medal. It was for a paper that he had presented on an extinct mollusk. Granted, it was a brilliant paper. Nevertheless, Channing Pierce had presented the same paper to the same society in 1840.
posted by Dean Perchik 8:18 AM 0 comments
Saturday, May 31, 2008
The first step
An ivestigation into why global warming is a good thing.Apparently, when sheets of ice the size of Brazil start dropping of the Antarctic ice shelves, it is easy to accept the idea of global warming. Having done so, we also see that things in our unceasing war against the environment are starting to heat up rapidly. We have seen the event horizon yet we still consider ourselves as being just a drop of water in an endless sea. If you think you can buy yourself out of this mess, think again because all our money will not another minute buy.[i]It is inevitable that the earth will become interstellar wreckage. Research has not yet determined if that will be in a billion years or next summer. It could be caused by a natural event such as a rogue planet (yes, there are such things[ii]) slamming into us. On the other hand, it could be the result of a human-caused global cataclysm, in which the only survivors will be Keith Richards and bugs. Respecting the latter cause, and in light of recent reports on the effects of global warming, deforestation, and research into a whole lot of other things that make me feel uncomfortable and inconvenienced, I find myself becoming less certain about the bugs.If you look at the condition of societies around the world, it is far too easy to conclude that we are only one rider away from the Apocalypse. Of the four, I am putting my money on the pale horse. Many people believe that every word in the Bible is the literal truth and use it to guide their lives accordingly. Take the book of Genesis for example. The creationists believe that people should use this as proof of Divine intervention in the creation of our home planet and its wonders. I am not so sure about that but then again I don’t even think that Phil Collins is a particularly good drummer.Exhaustive, and apparently exhausting, research has proven that our planet’s climate is changing, and that change is not for the better. Unless you happen to be particularly cantankerous, it is beyond dispute that global warming is a fact. The elusive Northwest Passage, which the search for fueled the early Voyages of Discovery, is open and will soon be navigable. If you make long-term investments in real estate, Kansas City will eventually be offering oceanfront lots for sale. Eventually, tropical predators will descend on Manhattan, if they are not already there. With New York, things like that are hard to tell. Some are of the opinion that this is a bad thing. However, I am not one of those who feel that way. Global warming? An end to life as we know it? I hope so because it is about time! In the interests of fair play, I think that we should be gracious and step aside so that another species can have a shot at this planet.Calendrical eccentricities are one of the more unpleasant facts of life when anyone concerns themselves with dates. I will be using dates a great deal, in what you are reading. Many times, these dates will be approximations, such as 200 million years ago. Other times, the dates will be very specific. For the specific dates, I am relying on the calendar currently in wide use around the world, the Gregorian calendar. I will not use the Julian day calendar unless it is unavoidable. I don’t know what Joseph Scaliger had running through his head when he chose to name his hideous day calendar after his father, Julian. Personally, I think that whatever his reasons were it was a terrible thing for him to have burdened his father with and I’m just not intrigued enough to want to find out. Many people want to repay their fathers for a variety of reasons but I doubt if his dad was very happy to have an awkward and difficult to mange calendar named after him. Similarly, using the Maya Long Count calendar is out of the question and the Mayans know why. [i] Bits and pieces shamelessly stolen from the band Kansas’s song Dust in the Wind.[ii] A rogue planet is a large interstellar object, having a mass, gravity, size and, possibly, an atmosphere that meets the criteria for a planet but has escaped capture by a star’s gravitational field and as a result wanders through the universe.

why we need global warming step one

2009-01-22T18:05:00.003-05:00

The first step
An ivestigation into why global warming is a good thing.Apparently, when sheets of ice the size of Brazil start dropping of the Antarctic ice shelves, it is easy to accept the idea of global warming. Having done so, we also see that things in our unceasing war against the environment are starting to heat up rapidly. We have seen the event horizon yet we still consider ourselves as being just a drop of water in an endless sea. If you think you can buy yourself out of this mess, think again because all our money will not another minute buy.[i]It is inevitable that the earth will become interstellar wreckage. Research has not yet determined if that will be in a billion years or next summer. It could be caused by a natural event such as a rogue planet (yes, there are such things[ii]) slamming into us. On the other hand, it could be the result of a human-caused global cataclysm, in which the only survivors will be Keith Richards and bugs. Respecting the latter cause, and in light of recent reports on the effects of global warming, deforestation, and research into a whole lot of other things that make me feel uncomfortable and inconvenienced, I find myself becoming less certain about the bugs.If you look at the condition of societies around the world, it is far too easy to conclude that we are only one rider away from the Apocalypse. Of the four, I am putting my money on the pale horse. Many people believe that every word in the Bible is the literal truth and use it to guide their lives accordingly. Take the book of Genesis for example. The creationists believe that people should use this as proof of Divine intervention in the creation of our home planet and its wonders. I am not so sure about that but then again I don’t even think that Phil Collins is a particularly good drummer.Exhaustive, and apparently exhausting, research has proven that our planet’s climate is changing, and that change is not for the better. Unless you happen to be particularly cantankerous, it is beyond dispute that global warming is a fact. The elusive Northwest Passage, which the search for fueled the early Voyages of Discovery, is open and will soon be navigable. If you make long-term investments in real estate, Kansas City will eventually be offering oceanfront lots for sale. Eventually, tropical predators will descend on Manhattan, if they are not already there. With New York, things like that are hard to tell. Some are of the opinion that this is a bad thing. However, I am not one of those who feel that way. Global warming? An end to life as we know it? I hope so because it is about time! In the interests of fair play, I think that we should be gracious and step aside so that another species can have a shot at this planet.Calendrical eccentricities are one of the more unpleasant facts of life when anyone concerns themselves with dates. I will be using dates a great deal, in what you are reading. Many times, these dates will be approximations, such as 200 million years ago. Other times, the dates will be very specific. For the specific dates, I am relying on the calendar currently in wide use around the world, the Gregorian calendar. I will not use the Julian day calendar unless it is unavoidable. I don’t know what Joseph Scaliger had running through his head when he chose to name his hideous day calendar after his father, Julian. Personally, I think that whatever his reasons were it was a terrible thing for him to have burdened his father with and I’m just not intrigued enough to want to find out. Many people want to repay their fathers for a variety of reasons but I doubt if his dad was very happy to have an awkward and difficult to mange calendar named after him. Similarly, using the Maya Long Count calendar is out of the question and the Mayans know why. [i] Bits and pieces shamelessly stolen from the band Kansas’s song Dust in the Wind.[ii] A rogue planet is a large interstellar object, having a mass, gravity, size and, possibly, an atmosphere that meets the criteria for a planet but has escaped capture by a star’s gravitational field and as a result wanders through the universe.

2009-01-21T21:21:00.000-05:00

On the 21st of J une in 1898, the New York Kerosene Oil Engine Company filed its incorporation papers with the New York County Clerk. The filing fee of 1/8 of 1% of the worth of the capital stock of the company amounted to $62.00[i]. If you do the math, the net worth of the corporation works out to be roughly $50,000. Not a particularly large amount, even for the latter part of the 19th century, but it was enough to make the Company a going concern. The principals of the company had very ambitious plans however and they had resolved to do whatever was necessary to bring those plans to fruition, even if it meant diluting each individual’s stake in the Company.
On November 23, 1901, the shareholders of the company, Feodor Hirsch, James W. Eaton and George R. Moran[ii], filed with the New York County Clerk a Certificate of Increase of the Capital Stock of the company, adding Augustus A. Low, scion of the Low family, as a partner. Using money that had been bequeathed to him by his father, Augustus was in a position of being able to give the company a $500,000 boost. I am not an accountant but I believe, perhaps naively, that $500,000 was a tidy bit of change at the dawning of the 20th century.
With the addition of Augustus Low to the mix there was set in motion a chain of events that would, in less than three years time, bring about the launching of a 38’ wooden vessel named the Abiel Abbot Low. Abiel Abbot Low was Augustus’ father, who had died on January 10, 1893, and I believe that Augustus named the boat after him as a sort of homage. His partners probably had little say in the matter. With the money Augustus brought to the company, he had some small measure of influence in matters such as this.
By December of 1901, George R. Moran was no longer with the company[iii], leaving Hirsch and Eaton with the task of putting to use Low’s money. At the time of Low’s investment the sport of power boating was in its infancy. In the early years of the 20th century there quite a few companies vying for a share of the burgeoning market for powerboats. Feodor Hirsch had designed an internal combustion engine that was rated at 10hp. Quite a few competing firms manufactured engines which generated significantly higher horsepower than Hirsch’s engine. New York Kerosene Oil was in a quandary as to how to make their offering stand out in the crowd. What they needed was an angle. They needed significant high-profile publicity that would highlight the reliability of their particular engine. To this end the company had the boat built and outfitted it with their 10 hp engine.
The Low was 38’ in length, had a beam of 9’ and a draught of 3’ 8”. It featured the new 10hp engine. Were I to plan to make a transatlantic crossing with what for the purpose intended is an incredibly tiny boat, I think that it might occur to me to ask for a bigger engine. Either that or hope that someone acting on my behalf would ask for a competency hearing. Ah what the heck, maybe I would go hog-wild and ask that someone throw in a couple of oars. The boat was really rather nice to look at but one must have at least some standards in matters such as this. While I do have a fondness for ridiculous undertakings, one really does have to draw the line somewhere. Fortunately, for History, Captain Newman and his son Edward, who was 16 years of age at the time of the trip, liked the ship just as it was and they had no reservations about making the trip, at least none that they chose to share with anyone. They liked the boat and were more than happy, even anxious, to take it on its maiden voyage.One possible explanation for Newman’s eagerness to get underway was the weather in New York. The City had been experiencing a heat wave for quite some time, one result of that being the blossoming of the mosquito population and the accompanying spread of disease. The newspapers of the day published
[i] New York County Clerk’s receipt dated June 21, 1898
[ii] Not connected with Moran Towing by either consanguinity or professional affiliation.
[iii] New York Times, December 18, 1901

AUGUST 4

2008-10-04T08:43:00.001-04:00

Giovanni Battista Castagna was born on the 4th on 1521. Somehow, he finagled his way into the papacy on September 15, 1590, taking the name Pope Urban VII. He contracted malaria and died twelve days later[i]. Some are of the opinion that becoming pope is more than enough distinction in a career in the theological field. Castagna wanted more though. His papacy is the possibly the shortest one. Boniface VI may have come in first; the records are unclear. Are you annoyed by all the restrictions on where you can and cannot smoke?
[i] It took the College of Cardinals 8 days to elect Cardinal Castagna pope. He would assume the name Gregory XIV

AUGUST 3

2008-10-04T08:37:00.003-04:00

Elisha Graves Otis was born on the 3rd in 1811. His name lives on to this day and is so generally associated with elevators that many believe that he invented the damn things. He did not. What he did invent was the safety device[i] that kept the elevators from falling and sending its passengers to an agonizing and painful death, something that I believe most people probably want to avoid. To plug his work, in 1853, at the Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations in New York City[ii], he set up an elevator, got in it, raised it up and then had an assistant cut the only cable holding the cage of the elevator. The crowd was impressed that the thing didn’t simply fall and squish Otis like a bug on a windshield and Otis probably managed to get a bunch of customers for his little invention.
[i] He was given patent number 31,128
[ii] Elisha did eventually build elevators and his first one was installed in 488 Broadway, New York, New York in 1857.

AUGUST 2

2008-10-03T18:09:00.001-04:00

Have you ever abandoned a project before you had completed it? If so, did you regret it? Well, Elisha Grey[i], born on the 2nd in 1835, did and I am pretty sure that, man, he had to have regretted giving it up a whole lot. He was an inventor. He made a bunch of money with a telegraph and then turned his sights on a telephone. On February 14, 1876, he filed a caveat with the US Patent Office. A caveat isn’t a formal patent application but is a sort of heads up to the agency; it didn’t contain drawings or specifications, just a general description of the invention. On the same day, Alexander Graham Bell filed the same thing, though several hours after Grey. At first, Grey fought Bell’s application and in one action Bell was found guilty of interference, whether electrical, social or financial is unclear. After that, Grey simply never followed up on his filing. A patent for the telephone, number 174,465 was issued to Bell on March 7. This probably pissed Grey off to no good end.
[i] In 1887 Gray was granted several patents for his "telautograph", and several similar devices which were early fax machines.

augu8st 1

2008-10-03T17:48:00.002-04:00

No, no, no, I got here first, that’s my seat! Get out now!! Maria Mitchell[i] (I know that sounds a lot like Margaret Mitchell but she is not Margaret, trust me) was born on the 1st in 1818. You know how some girls always have their heads in the clouds? Well, of course she became an astronomer. In 1847, she discovered what was then referred to as a telescopic comet, one that couldn’t be seen with the naked eye because comets had to be properly dressed in the 19th century. King Frederick VI of Denmark[ii] was offering a gold medal to everyone who found one of those, though for a king he was kind of cheap – only the first discoverer of a particular comet would get a medal. A couple of days after she found it, so did Francesco de Vico. They both applied to the king for the prize, but de Vico got his papers in a couple of days before Maria did. While not quite the fight that Harrison had to endure to get his chronometer recognized, after of bit of dancing around, the prize was handed to Maria. Which was kind of neat because at the time the only other woman credited with discovering a comet was Caroline Herschel[iii]. The comet she found was named Miss Mitchell’s Comet. The modern designation is C/1847 T1, which really lacks the charm of Miss Mitchell’s Comet, but I was not consulted, so don’t blame me.
[i] Marie’s parents, William and Lydia Coleman Mitchell, were Quakers and they insisted that she get the same quality education that her brothers and other boys in their Nantucket, Massachusetts community received.
[ii] I find it interesting that Frederick was a schizophrenic.
[iii] Astronomer Sir William Herschel was Caroline’s brother.

july 31

2008-10-03T17:25:00.000-04:00

What the heck is potash? In addition, just why does it need a process? I am not sure that I understand what a process even is. But if people are going around inventing processes, can I get one too? I don’t know if I even need one, but if potash got one, I want one too. Whatever potash is, it apparently does need a process because on the 31st, in 1790, Samuel Hopkins was awarded the first patent[i] in the United States. It was for a potash process[ii].
[i] The patent was signed by both George Washington, as President and Thomas Jefferson as Secretary of State.
[ii] The application had been filed on April 10, 1790, and in it, Hopkins had sought a patent on an improvement "in the making of Pot ash and Pearl ash by a new Apparatus and Process."

July 30

2008-07-30T00:45:00.001-04:00

I am fairly certain that most people enjoy going out to dinner, particularly if you are someone’s guest. Having a good dinner at a nice restaurant with someone else picking up the tab is an opportunity that no one would pass up. There are times however where you might want to turn down the invitation. On the 30th in 1975, Anthony Provenzano and Anthony Giacalone invited James Hoffa to have dinner with them at a restaurant in Michigan. Shortly after dinner, Hoffa disappeared and unless he really is buried in the end zone at Giant’s Stadium, we’ll never see him again. What should have given Jimmy Hoffa a clue was that Mr. Provenzano referred to himself Tony Pro. Never, never go to dinner with someone who has a nickname even similar to that one. Tony Jack for instance. Maybe you should just consider not going out to eat with anyone named Anthony; no good can come from it.
Sometimes, the things you worry the most about just seem to disappear and end up not being the threat you thought they would be. Mr. Provenzano (pictured below) had been indicted in 1975 and charged with conspiracy to shake down the Teamsters Union’s pension fund. In January of 1976, the case was ready to go to trial. Amazingly, on the eve of the trial the chief witness against Tony Pro, Herman Goldfarb, began to suffer from a serious heart ailment and the trial had to be adjourned. How very lucky Mr. Provenzano was!
Hoffa’s (pictured below) formal education ended in the 9th grade when he dropped out of school following the Stock Market Collapse o 1929.

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July 29

2008-07-29T03:23:00.002-04:00

John Graves Simcoe was the first lieutenant governor of Upper Canada. As such, he had a certain amount of power. A man in his position had a lot of leeway in what he could and couldn’t do. I mean, seriously, who would be foolish enough as to object to any of his plans? On the 29th in 1793, he took it into his head to build a fort and a settlement. Ultimately, the damn thing would become one of the most pleasant places on the planet – Toronto, Ontario, Canada. By planet, I mean earth, as I can’t speak about the other ones because I haven’t been to them yet, though I’m working on it.
Toronto was not Simcoe’s first choice for the location of the fort. He would have preferred to put it at London, Ontario, but was over-ruled. However, if he had done that, the CBC would have had to move all of its facilities out of Toronto, so I guess this time second choice worked out just fine all around.
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July 28

2008-07-28T04:38:00.002-04:00

On the 28th in 1958, George Patrick John Rushworth Jellicoe, 2nd Earl Jellicoe made his maiden speech in Great Britain’s House of Lords concerning the British problems in Iraq. In the speech, he told those in attendance that “…like all your Lordships, I felt, and feel, a deep sense of shock, indeed revulsion, at the brutal butchery…”
Jellicoe seems to have had a rather refreshing character for a politician. As a rule, not to say that politicians follow many rules, groups of politicians tend to adopt a stoicism that borders on pathological. Jellicoe, according to someone who knew him, on the other hand, tends to “wear his weaknesses on his sleeve. He is too frank. I suppose though, that is no bad thing. He was not flamboyant but he was a hedonist. He is the sort of non-pompous person who does not try to hide his weaknesses”

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July 27

2008-07-27T03:49:00.003-04:00

Jeanne Baré was born on the 27th in 1740. Disguised as a man, she was a member of of Louis Antoine de Bougainville's expedition on the ships La Boudeuse and Étoile, which made a circumnavigation of the planet. This voyage made Baré the most likely candidate for being the first woman to have completed a voyage of circumnavigation.
Jeanne had begun dressing as a man after losing a lawsuit which left her with very little money. In order to get a job, she dressed as a man. On this voyage, her true gender remained unknown to the captain and the crew until the expedition put in at Tahiti for supplies at which point the natives outted Jeanne, and she was hurried back to the ship. I can’t find any source indicating what happened there and I can only guess why she had to be ‘hurried’ back but the implication is clear.
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July 26

2008-07-26T05:29:00.002-04:00

On the 26th in 1882, Richard Wagner's opera Parsifal premiered in Bayreuth, Bavaria, Germany. Parsifal would be the last work from Wagner. He would die on February 13, 1883. It is unclear from contemporary sources exactly how many of those in attendance committed suicide. The pianoforte solo in Franz Liszt's La lugubre gondola was written for Wagner and conjures a black-shrouded funerary gondola bearing Richard Wagner's body on the Grand Canal in Venice.

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July 25

2008-07-25T04:02:00.003-04:00

The Department of the Treasury maintains a Bullion Depository on the grounds of Fort Knox in Kentucky. Why would anyone name a fort, particularly one holding that such huge piles of cash, in Kentucky after some itinerate bookseller from Boston, Massachusetts? Is the Department of the Treasury going to at some point move into Borders? It just might be because that while Henry Knox, born on the 25th in 1750, was a bookseller from Boston he was also a general in the American Revolutionary War. He’s the guy who got George Washington, his troops and all their supplies across the frozen Delaware River so that they could go off and win the Battle of Trenton. He also got them, with all the prisoners they had taken, back again without loosing a single man.
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July 24

2008-07-24T04:41:00.001-04:00

On the 24th in 1832, Benjamin Bonneville led the first wagon train across the Rocky Mountains, opening the California Trail. His ultimate goal was to reach the Williamette Valley (Honestly, isn’t that everyone’s goal?) in Oregon and open the Oregon Trail but unfortunately didn’t reach Oregon before the snow set in and he never made it. He turned around and went back to Missouri. Bonneville would eventually return to Washington, D.C. but went by way of New York City, where he was the guest of John Jacob Astor and hung out with Wildman Washington Irving.

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July 23

2008-07-23T03:21:00.005-04:00

On the 23rd in 1962, Telstar, the first telecommunications satellite, went into service. The first television broadcast was an address by President Kennedy. Kennedy's schedule ran late however and the broadcast began with the partial transmission of a baseball game being played by the Philadelphia Phillies and the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field. The Phillies beat the Cubs 5 to 3. Telstar went out of service on February 21, 1963 when it was exposed to radiation by the explosion of a nuclear bomb in an operation conducted by the United States called Starfish Prime

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July 22

2008-07-22T04:06:00.003-04:00

On the 22nd in 1793, Alexander MacKenzie[ arrived at Bella Coola, British Columbia, Canada ending a journey that he had begun in Montreal, Canada; this trip was the first recorded transcontinental journey across the North American continent north of Mexico.

The North West Company, a major competitor of the Hudson’s Bay Company in the Canadian West, had employed MacKenzie. The two companies would merge when fierce battles began to be fought between each other when competing for the Canadian the fur business. I guess hostile takeovers go back to the eighteenth century.

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July 21

2008-07-21T03:25:00.002-04:00

Jesse James was a skilled and dedicated professional, constantly working to improve his skills. Were he alive today, he would probably be the chairman of Enron or Halliburton. On the 21st in 1873, when he was CEO of the James-Younger Gang, he pulled off the first train robbery. He derailed a locomotive of the Rock Island Railroad and escaped with $2,337 in cash. Unfortunately, the train’s engineer, John Rafferty, died in the crash and I am certain that it really ticked Jesse off that he had missed an earlier transcontinental express which was carrying a far greater bunch of cash. When he was finally caught, Mr. James probably felt a bit like Ken Lay did when the Department of Justice showed up at his door.

Maybe being too close to your family is not such a good idea. You also might want to think about the kids you hang out with. Jesse had his brother Frank hung out with and they liked to play with the Younger boys, Cole, James, John, and Robert, colleagues in the Old West outlaw game.

To see where this project is heading, please visit http://www.symzonia.org

July 20

2008-07-20T13:50:00.001-04:00

On the 20th in 1921, Alice Mary Robertson became the first woman to preside over the House of Representatives in the United States Congress. She was the second woman[i] in the House, but the first female representative from Oklahoma. There would not be another female representative from Oklahoma until 2006[ii].

[i] Jeannette Rankin represented Montana from 1917 to 1919.
[ii] Mary Fallin was elected to represent Oklahoma's 5th congressional district.

July 19

2008-07-19T06:03:00.002-04:00

On the 19th in 1843, the SS Great Britain was launched. Isambard Kingdom Brunel built the vessel. It was the first ocean going vessel with an iron hull and a screw propeller and at the time was the largest vessel afloat in the entire world. In 1828 Isambard had built the Thames Tunnel which, oddly enough ran under the Thames River in England.

July 18

2008-07-18T01:50:00.002-04:00

On the 18th in 1792, John Paul Jones, hero of the American Revolutionary war, died quietly in his bed at home. After the war in America, Jones entered into the service of the Russian navy. In retirement, he moved to Paris, where he would spend the rest of his days.

John Paul Jones was of a very diminutive stature. In fact, he was tiny. It was Abigail Adams’s opinion that she “should sooner think of wrapping him up in cotton wool and putting him in my pocket, than sending him to contend with cannon ball.”

July 17

2008-07-17T01:06:00.002-04:00

Marie-Madeleine-Marguerite d'Aubray, Marquise de Brinvilliers, made her mark due chiefly to her mastery of the fine art of poisoning. Every charity event she attended ended up providing her with the use of a fresh batch of the hideous poor people who went to those things just so they could be used by Marie as guinea pigs whenever she came up with a new batch of poison. She paid many visits to hospitals so that she could test run her stock of poisons on the yucky poor and downtrodden that hung out in those places. She managed to conceal her crimes for quite a while. All good things must come to an end however, and one fine, sunny day she turned her gaze towards her father and siblings. Apparently, de Brinvilliers felt that there was a rift in the fabric of her family’s lives. Most members of a family have ‘issues’ with the other members. Marie-Madeleine however, must have had some really serious issues with her family because she, together with her lover, Godin de Sainte-Croix took out her father, brother, and two sisters. She wanted them out of the way so that she would be in position to assume control of the family’s business and inherit all of their property; One day, reality showed up on her doorstep and knocked her on the back of her head to get her attention. Reality then, on the 17th in 1676, proceeded to extract payment for all of de Brinville’s crimes. At the time, French had a very odd view of just what the procedure for properly executing someone should be. They had to have paid a lot of attention to that because executions were public affairs, sort of like an Oregon county fair today. The first thing the dear girl had to do was drink 16 pints of water (To be frank, I really doubt that the dear girl could have been that thirsty.). Once that bit was out of the way, Marie was taken to a guillotine. Once at the place of execution, she had her clothes taken off. I imagine that was a big hit with the spectators, though I rather think that it must have been embarrassing for poor Marie. The spectators also missed the best part, seeing her head stuck on a pike, because she was immediately burned at the stake.

American serial killer, Edmund Kemper killed 10 people. One of his signature acts was to decapitate his female victims and put their head on a stick. Today he remains in Vacaville State Prison where he has been sine 1974. Recently, when asked what he thought when he saw a pretty woman, Ed said, “I wonder how her head would look on a stick.”

July 16

2008-07-16T02:18:00.003-04:00

On the 16th in 1931, Ethiopia’s emperor, Haile Selassie[i] I (pictured), signed that country’s first constitution. Selassie, probably called ‘Hi’ by his friends as a kid, was not a slacker by any means; he traced his family line back to King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, not too shabby at all. However, I can trace mine, back to Rinaldo Rossetti and Alma Hansen, so I’m not that impressed. He must have been an extremely popular monarch though, because some people considered him Jesus Christ returned to earth. Selassie’s followers would become the founders of the Rastifari movement. They grabbed the name from Haile’s name before he became emperor, which was Rasta Fari Makonnen[ii], Rasta meaning prince. Selassie did nothing to call into question the idea being kicked around at the time that he was actually God incarnate. I mean really, who would? Being considered God has lots of perks attached to it. Jim Jones[iii] felt the same way, though he didn’t fare nearly as well as Selassie did.
[i] His name means “Power of the Trinity”.
[ii] As a kid, Selassie probably hung out with Arthur Rimbaud, a rapidly dissipating poet sort of guy, who was a close friend of Selassie’s daddy Ras Makkonnen.
[iii] After graduate school at Indiana University, Jones sold pet monkeys door-to-door to raise the money to fund his own church which he planned to name Wings of Deliverance. He ultimately decided on the name Peoples Temple.

July 15

2008-07-15T02:57:00.002-04:00

On the 15th in 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte found himself for the second time in British hands. He had previously escaped from his exile on Elba, returned to France and raised an army that he would use to once again take over most of Europe. After his defeat to the British at Waterloo, Napoleon knew that the game was up. Of course, he plea-bargained, doesn’t everyone? He then surrendered to the captain of the HMS Bellerophon, Sir Frederick Lewis Maitland. He stepped onboard the ship fully confident that by throwing his imperial self on the mercy of the British monarch he would be allowed to live in freedom and luxury in London or be allowed to change planes and simply head off to America. The plea deal must have not worked out though, because upon surrendering he was immediately sent with, horror of horrors, only a few servants to St. Helena in the South Atlantic where he would spend the rest of his days, when compared to the Tower Of London, in luxury. (The picture was done much earlier in Napoleon’s career. As for the look, as Billy Joel pointed out, all it takes is looks and a whole lotta money)

The Bellerophon had a heck of a career. She participated in the battles, the Glorious First of June, the Battle of the Nile and the Battle of Trafalgar. She met an inglorious end, though. In 1815, she was converted into a prison ship before being broken up in 1835.

July 14

2008-07-14T00:22:00.003-04:00

On the 14th in 1865, Edward Whymper and his party made the first ascent of the Matterhorn. Why? Because it was there, I suppose. On the way down, four of the party would fall to their deaths. Years later, Whymper would recall later that "Every night, do you understand, I see my comrades of the Matterhorn slipping on their backs, their arms outstretched, one after the other, in perfect order at equal distances—Croz the guide, first, then Hadow, then Hudson, and lastly Douglas. Yes, I shall always see them…"

July 13

2008-07-13T04:09:00.001-04:00

On the 13th in 1919, the British rigid airship R34 arrived at its base in East Fortune, England. On the trip the R34, the crew had accomplished a couple of firsts. When it had arrived in Mineola, New York on July 6, the landing crew at Mineola, which had zero experience handling large, rigid airships, compelled the R34’s captain, Major Pritchard, to parachute to the ground, thus making him the first person to reach America by air. When the party completed the return trip, begun at Mineola, a small town on New York’s Long Island (a rather unimaginative name because it's an island and it's really kind of long) and which took 75 hours, the R34 had completed the first West to East crossing of the Atlantic Ocean by an aircraft.

July 12

2008-07-12T02:03:00.001-04:00

George Eastman was born on the 12th in 1854. He would change the world of photography not with a camera, but with a roll film to use in the thing. With one of the first cameras that he marketed, he used the slogan “You push the button, we do the rest.” The cameras used roll film and came with a roll capable of taking 100 pictures. All a customer would have to do was to take the pictures and then return them to Eastman, who would develop and print the pictures. The cost for the processing was $10 and when your pictures were returned to you, you would also receive a new 100-exposure roll of film. Which meant the cost of the film had to be what, maybe a quarter?

July 11

2008-07-11T05:06:00.002-04:00

Babe Ruth made his entrance to Major League Baseball on the 11th in 1914, playing for the Boston Red Sox. The team won the game but Ruth did not get a single hit, although the guy pinch hitting for him scored the winning run.

July 10

2008-07-10T00:47:00.001-04:00

The Battle of Britain waged from July 10 to August 31 in 1940, was principally an air battle. The Royal Air Force waged war against incredible odds as it fought for its life. In this battle, pilots from all of its dominions assisted Britain. Pilots from the United States also served in the Royal Air Force during this battle. Among the Americans to fly for the RAF was V. C. “Shorty” Keogh. Keogh was attached to 609 Squadron of the RAF. He acquired his nickname by virtue of the fact that he was so short that he had to place cushions on the seat of his Hawker Hurricane in order to see out the front of the plane’s cockpit.

July 9

2008-07-09T04:35:00.002-04:00

Edmund Burke died on the 9th in 1797. He was an Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist, and philosopher probably best known for the quote "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing". The unfortunate truth, however, is that nowhere in Burke’s work or the records of his speeches does that line appear. He was however, a source of good quotes though not always ones with an optimistic view of the world in which he lived. Consider this: "But the age of chivalry is gone. - That of sophisters, economists, and calculators, has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished for ever." Yikes! He had been born on January 12, 1729.

July 8

2008-07-08T04:42:00.002-04:00

July seems to be a month just chock full of holidays. For instance, the 4th is celebrated in the United States as Independence Day. On the 8th, Skagway, Alaska celebrates Soapy Smith’s wake. Soapy Smith was a well liked (He would have to be, wouldn’t he?) con man who was shot to death in 1898. His last words were “My God, don’t shoot!” Ireland celebrates the Battle of the Boyne on the 12th and, of course, the 14th is France’s Bastille Day, which George Plimpton for some reason used to celebrate with a lavish fireworks display in East Hampton, New York.

July 7

2008-07-07T02:05:00.002-04:00

On the 7th in 1865, Mary Surratt became the first woman to be executed by the United States federal government. She was hanged after her conviction for her role in Abraham Lincoln’s assassination and the attempted assassination of Vice-president Andrew Johnson[i] and Secretary of State William H. Seward[ii]. What could a shy, retiring widow, the mother of a son[iii] who disappeared and left her alone have done to warrant a necktie party? Actually, not much at all. She just owned the boarding house where the plans for the assassinations were drawn up and provided the guns and supplies that John Wilkes Booth would need as he fled Washington after shooting Abe, that’s all.
[i] Booth gave George Atzerodt the task of killing Andrew Johnson. George would get drunk and wander off, leaving Johnson untouched.
[ii] One of Booth’s accomplices was Lewis Powell, who was formerly one of John Mosby's Rangers. Powell attempted to kill Seward while Booth reserved Lincoln for himself.
[iii] John Surratt was a courier for the South’s Secret Service. He had gone to Canada to get intelligence from the Confederacy’s Secret Service office there.

July 6

2008-07-06T03:01:00.002-04:00

Annette Marie Sarah Kellermann was born on the 6th in 1887. She was a professional swimmer from Sydney, Australia. Apparently, she took her profession quite seriously. Many credit her with the introduction of synchronized swimming. In 1907, she performed the first water ballet at the New York Hippodrome Theater, located at 43rd Street and the Avenue of the Americas (Sixth Avenue) in New York City.

July 5

2008-07-05T02:00:00.002-04:00

Have you ever wished that you had a bit of warning about what was going to happen in your life so that you could prepare yourself? I know that I have. At times, a heads up would have come in quite handy. Joan of England, also known as Joan of the Tower because she was born in the Tower of London got a huge heads up when she was born on the 5th in 1321. Being born in the Tower of London doesn’t suck quite as much as you might assume. At least it doesn’t when you are also the youngest daughter of King Edward II and Queen Isabella of France. Pursuant to the Treaty of Northampton, upon her birth she became engaged to marry David II of Scotland, which she did on July 17, 1328. Joan was married when she was 7 years old. My guess is that her mommy and daddy waited that long to see if she was going to survive infancy.

July 4

2008-07-04T03:12:00.002-04:00

The signing of the American Declaration of Independence began on the 4th[i] in 1776. Only two people, Thomas Jefferson[ii], president of the Congress, and John Hancock, its secretary signed it on that day. Though the Declaration was largely written by Jefferson, Franklin and John Adams[iii] heavily edited it. It seems that editors just have to get their sticky fingers into everything. I guess Jefferson was a decent writer, but besides that whole, “We hold these truths to be self-evident…” thingy who has read anything else he wrote? What was he, some sort of one-trick pony? Come on, one paragraph and you are read over two hundred years later? Sheesh!
[i] Also on the 4th, in 1789, the Marquis de Sade was transferred out of the Bastille, where he had been imprisoned, and moved to another prison. Had he remained until the 14th he would have been freed, along with the other 6 people held there.
[ii] When he signed the Declaration Jefferson, and Washington, both owned over 200 slaves each. Jefferson must have liked the work of William Shakespeare a lot; when he visited the Bard’s house in Stratford-on-Avon, England, he got down on his knees and kissed the ground.
[iii] John Adams was in the practice of starting his day with a large mug of hard cider, a practice that he inculcated in his son John Quincy Adams when young John Quincy was 12 or 13 years old. Interestingly, Another of Adams’s sons, William, became an alcoholic. John Quincy appears to not have also gone that route.

July 3

2008-07-03T03:30:00.002-04:00

Franz Kafka, you know, the guy that wrote a whole book about some clown who turns into a huge, creepy bug without his even having had to take anything the night before, was born on the 3rd in 1883. He was a very controversial literary figure who was widely thought to have a great deal in common with lunatics. However he was of the opinion that he had “hardly anything in common with myself and should stand very quietly in a corner, content that I can breathe.”
During his life, Kafka published only a couple of short stories. His novels were not published until after he was dead. Today, he only needs one name to be known, sort of like Cher or Madonna. Which only goes to prove that sometimes dying can be a good career move.

July 2

2008-07-02T03:05:00.003-04:00

Delaware was the 12th of the 13 American colonies to approve the resolution before the Continental Congress that would authorize the colonies to declare their independence from Great Britain. Providing even more evidence that New Yorkers are never on the cutting edge, that colony abstained. There were five men in the Delaware contingent. Three were split two to one on the issue, two favoring independence. The two were decidedly against it. One of the delegates in favor, Caesar Rodney was not present because he was seeing his doctors. Delaware was deadlocked! Rodney was tall, very thin and he covered his face with a flamboyant silk scarf to hide the ravages of skin cancer (think 18th century Michael Jackson). Apparently seeing which way the wind was blowing and believing that Delaware should speak with one voice in such a grave undertaking, the two opposed to independence simply didn’t show up for the voting. Another tradition that has been handed down to us, though observed with less noble intentions today. The 2nd in 1776 was the close of voting on the issue. At 9 o’clock that evening, as the doors of Congress were being locked at the close of business, who should show up at Congress’s door? None other than Caesar. He had ridden 80 miles on horseback, changing horses several times, to get to Philadelphia to cast his vote. While only 12 of the 13 colonies approved the declaration of independence, with such a resounding approval everything was pretty much downhill from this point. It was a piece of cake. All that remained after the signing of the Declaration for the colonies’ independence to be secured was to sign the document, wage a world war and lose millions of dollars and thousands of lives. No biggy.

At the time of the passing of the resolution for a Declaration of Independence, more than 500,000 people, more than 20%, of all the people in the United States were slaves.

July 1

2008-07-01T04:58:00.003-04:00

I’m pretty sure that this is one day that Hernan Cortes, boss of the gang ‘The Conquistadors’ thinks he should have just called in sick and simply taken the day off and gotten a break from all that conquering stuff he was into. On the 1st in 1520, much like the rumble between the Sharks and Jets in West Side Story or the Bloods and Crips in Forest Hills, Cortes and his homies got into a rumble with Cuitláhuac (pictured), who was the leader of the gang ‘The Aztecs’. In this battle, the underdogs would score a victory that almost, but not quite, wiped out Cortés’s Conquistadors. Today the event is known as La Noche Triste (Night of Terrors). I don’t known how the rest of the rumble went but I do know that today in Mexico pretty much everyone does speak Spanish.

June 30

2008-06-30T04:21:00.002-04:00

Is it one of the requirements of the American Immigration and Naturalization Service that in order to obtain an entry visa French acrobats have to be completely out of their minds? On August 7, 1974, Philippe Pettite repeatedly walked back and forth between New York’s World Trade Center towers on a tightrope that had been strung between the roofs of the two buildings. On the 30th in 1859, acrobat Jean François Gravelet-Blondin, known as The Great Blondin, crossed Niagara Falls numerous times on a tightrope. He did it blindfolded in a sack, pushing a wheelbarrow, on stilts, and carrying his manager, Harry Colcord, on his back. Doing all that he worked up quite an appetite so on one trip, he sat down midway to cook and eat an omelet.
When he was five years old Blondin was sent to the École de Gymnase to study acrobatics, and, after six months training as an acrobat, made his first public appearance as "The Little Wonder".

June 29

2008-06-29T05:09:00.001-04:00

Thomas Henry Huxley was a scientist who kept it all in its proper perspective when he said, “the great tragedy of science is the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.” He also gave the world a clear indication of the role that skepticism should play in the human experience when he noted, “Not far from the invention of fire … we must rank the invention of doubt.” He died on the 29th in 1895. Huxley was widely known to be Darwin’s bulldog.

June 28

2008-06-28T05:21:00.003-04:00

John Baker Omohundro died on the 28th in 1880. As a frontier scout, cowboy and actor he was known as Texas Jack. When the Old West was dying and that way of life turned in to a sideshow, Texas Jack hooked up with William F. Cody and embarked on a successful career as a performer and as the star of many dime novels. He reached a level of celebrity that paid rather well. Which goes a long way towards explaining the difference of the appearance that he gave as a frontiersman (left) and then as an actor (right).
Buffalo Bill Cody was awarded a Medal of Honor in 1872 for gallantry in action while serving with the 3rd Cavalry Regiment. The medal would be revoked on February 27, 1917 because he was a civilian at the time of the action. The army would restore it to him in 1989. They apparently understood his excuses for being a no-show at the ceremony.

June 27

2008-06-27T04:35:00.002-04:00

Joshua Slocum was born in the middle of the 19th century. I stumbled upon him when I was looking for the wreck of the General Slocum, a steamship that caught fire and burned to the waterline on June 15, 1904, resulting in the deaths of over 1,000 people. This just goes to show you that key-word searches are sometimes wildly off base. There was however a bit of the mariner in Joshua Slocum, quite a lot actually. But simply having the last name Slocum does not make for a connection with the steamship General Slocum tragedy. The steamship was not named for Joshua or anyone in his family. I enjoyed finding Joshua however because I learned that on the 27th in 1898 Joshua Slocum, at the helm of his 37’ sloop-rigged sailboat, pulled into the harbor in Newport, Rhode Island. His journey had begun with his sailing, alone, out of Fairhaven, Massachusetts on April 24, 1895. His arrival in Rhode Island marked the end of the first solo circumnavigation of our world. In 1900, he wrote the book Sailing Alone Around the World. Slocum disappeared in November 1909 when sailing his boat, the Spray, through Strait of Magellan.

June 26

2008-06-26T04:23:00.002-04:00

Abner Doubleday has a name closely tied to the game of baseball. He was born on the 26th in 1819. Legend has it that he invented the game in a cow pasture owned by Elihu Phinney in Cooperstown, New York, in 1839, which might explain why the Baseball Hall of Fame is located there. What is rarely mentioned however, is that Doubleday also commanded a Union force during the American Civil War and fired the first shot in the defense of Fort Sumter at the opening of that battle.

June 25

2008-06-25T04:36:00.002-04:00

Admiral of the Fleet Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma was born on the 25th in 1900. He died when a bomb placed on his boat by the IRA exploded on August 27, 1979. It would be callous of me to ask at this point “What’s small, white and travels at 300 miles per hour?” The answer, of course, is Lord Mountbatten’s deck shoe across Donegal Bay.

June 24

2008-06-24T04:56:00.002-04:00

When does a person cross a line and changes from being a freedom fighter to being a terrorist and traitor? Apparently, it happens when the people holding all the cards say so. On the 24th in 1497, Cornishmen Michael An Gof and Thomas Flamank were taken from their cells in the Tower of London, executed and then had their heads unceremoniously put on pikes, which were then placed on London Bridge. I have thus far been unable to discover who got the contract for the t-shirts and postcards.

June 23

2008-06-23T04:23:00.003-04:00

On the 23rd in 1887, the Rocky Mountains Park Act became law in Canada. This act was drafted, passed and became law for the sole purpose of creating Canada’s first national Park, Banff National Park. Following as it does on the heels of Yellowstone National Park, created in 1872, Banff became the second National Park in all of North America. The Yosemite National Park, established by President Abraham Lincoln in 1864, was the first.

June 22

2008-06-22T04:07:00.003-04:00

Do you put off cleaning up until someone says, “you had better clean this place up, it’s a death trap”? I am bad about housecleaning but I like to think that my place isn't all that bad. Honestly, my place could be a lot worse. In Ohio, a small state that borders Pennsylvania, fronts on that skinny little Great Lake, and is just across the border from Canada, things finally did get just that bad. On the 22nd in 1969, Ohio’s Cuyahoga River caught fire. It’s not all as bad as it seems tough. At the very least Randy Newman, Adam Again and R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe have all gotten decent songs out of the thing.

June 21

2008-06-21T03:52:00.006-04:00

On the 21st in 1964, members of the Ku Klux Klan murdered Andrew Goodman (left), James Chaney (center) and Michael ‘Mickey’ Schwerner (right), in Mississippi.
[When Goodman attended Queens College, in New York, one of his classmates was singer Paul Simon. Chaney, from Meridian, Mississippi had joined the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE) in 1963 and was engaged in fieldwork with Goodman and Schwerner when the small group was arrested for a traffic violation on the day of the murders. They had been released and were heading for home when two cars filled with members of the KKK stopped and then shot them. The Mississippi Klan’s Imperial Wizard, Sam Bowers had ordered Schwerner's (pictured below) "elimination" in May 1964.

June 20

2008-06-20T04:51:00.001-04:00

In Cleveland, Ohio, Charles Waddell Chesnutt was born on the 20th in 1858. His parents, Andrew Chesnutt and Ann Maria (Sampson) Chesnutt, were a couple described in contemporary records as being “free persons of color”. Charles’s grandfather was white and was as a consequence of mixed race. Photographs of him, such as the one at right, clearly confirm that he could have easily ‘passed’ for white. As an adult, he became an author, essayist and political activist. Many of his novels, essays and activism focused on social issues, the novels in particular. In 1905, Chesnutt gave a speech to the Boston Historical and Literary Association based on one of his essays titled "Race Prejudice; Its Causes and Its Cure." The work startlingly foreshadows Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech given in 1963. Clearly, Chesnutt was a driven man. Part of the force that drove him so forcefully can possibly be traced to the fact that when he was an infant, his parents tried to sell him into slavery. The deal only fell through when the prospective buyer could not come up with the full $23 that the couple was demanding for their son.

June19

2008-06-19T04:05:00.002-04:00

On the 19th in 1865, General Gordon Granger and the 2000 troops under his command arrived at Galveston Island, Texas. Granger’s purpose in going to Texas was to seize the state and enforce the emancipation of the slaves being held in Texas. Granger must have been a very busy guy. He was about two and a half years late. Granted, for much of that time, there had been a war going on but, still, the Emancipation Proclamation was issued on September 22, 1962 and went into effect January 1, 1863. Juneteenth is a widely observed (in Texas anyway) holiday commemorating the freeing of the slaves.

June 18

2008-06-18T04:07:00.004-04:00

It has been said, though I am uncertain by whom, that the family that prays together stays together. While that may be true, some times the family that prays together ends up doing it together professionally. Gervase and his identical twin brother Thomas were born in Maidstone, England in the twelfth century. Thomas was ordained as a priest on February 16, 1163. Subsequently he ordained his brother Gervase. The two brothers both ended up at the abbey of Christ Church, Canterbury. In the 1170s, Gervase assumed the duties of the abbey’s chronicler. Shortly after sunset on the 18th in 1178, as he sat in his office, Gervase was approached by five monks who reported to him that they had seen “two horns of light on the shaded part of the moon.” What they had witnessed was the impact of a meteorite on the moon (Today known as the Giordano Bruno crater). Some astronomers suspect that the force of this meteorite hitting the Moon is responsible for the slight oscillation of the Moon’s distance from earth.

Thomas would be a bit more familiar if I mentioned that his last name was Beckett and that he was assassinated on December 29, 1171. As St. Thomas Beckett, he really hit the big time and is today venerated as a saint and a martyr by both the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches.

June 17

2008-06-17T03:47:00.003-04:00

Joseph Addison (pictured at right) died on the 17th in 1719. In 1711, he and Richard Steele started the newspaper The Spectator. The paper advised readers that its intention was to "to enliven morality with wit, and to temper wit with morality... to bring philosophy out of the closets and libraries, schools and colleges, to dwell in clubs and assemblies, at tea-tables and coffeehouses." Each issue contained a measly 2,500 words but had an impressive circulation of 3000 per issue. The paper lasted for 55 issues in its original run, which would end in 1712. In 1714, Addison, working alone, revived it and it ran for another six months.
In one issue of the Spectator, Addison provided a profile of a man known as Bully Dawson, a gambler of wide notoriety in England. Dawson had been quoted elsewhere as, following the overturning of a coach he was in as having said “Twas the greatest Piece of Providence that ever befel him, for it had saved him the Trouble of bilking the Coachman”.

June 16

2008-06-16T06:10:00.001-04:00

Following the infamous hijacking of commercial airliners on September 11, 2001, security searches on all forms of transportation have been extraordinarily heightened. For instance, a couple of years ago, a person was travelling by train from New York to Oregon. In Chicago, he had reserved a sleeping compartment for the long, uninteresting run from there to the beautiful state of Oregon. He boarded the train, placed his bags in his compartment, and was at once confronted by agents of both the DEA and Homeland Security. They asked him if he had any weapons or drugs, including prescription drugs. He was a heart patient and answered honestly that he had lots of drugs in his bag but that the only weapon he had was a scathing wit. After looking at the medication that he had, and not feeling particularly threatened by his weapon, they said ‘Thank you’ and went on their way. A great deal of the problem with the new security measures arises from the fact that they are so new and unfamiliar. The hijackings on September 11 weren’t the first planes to be taken over, far from it. Had the security measures been put in place years ago, no one would now feel terribly uncomfortable or inconvenienced by them. The first hijacking of a commercial airliner occurred on the 16th in 1947. The PBY Catalina seaplane Miss Macao was on a flight from Macao to Hong Kong when a passenger with a machine gun seized the cabin in an attempt to hijack the plane in order to steal the gold onboard. A crewmember startled the gunman who opened up with the machine gun. For some reason, the plane then crashed, killing 26 of the 27 onboard.

June 15

2008-06-15T04:49:00.001-04:00

Following as he did Richard the Lionheart as King of England, King John had a very hard act to follow. That is a bit like any band having to follow Jimi Hendrix at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967. On the 15th in 1215, however, King John gave it a shot. That is the day he placed his seal on the Magna Carta. For the first time, an English monarch had at least some limitations placed on his power. It doesn’t matter, as far as King John’s reputation is concerned, that virtually all of the provisions in the document have been since been repealed. He Q rating at the time had to be pretty high. What also, in all likelihood, had a bit of a drag on King John’s career path was that returning from some place or other he lost all of the crown jewels that he had been foolish enough to bring with him. He lost them when the party carrying them misjudged an incoming tide as they passed through The Wash in East Anglia and the entire collection was lost. Combine that with King John contracting dysentery at the same time, from which he would quickly die, and it would be safe to say that he wasn’t having a particularly good time.

June 14

2008-06-14T05:04:00.002-04:00

On the 14th in 1919, John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown, climbed in to the cockpit of a modified Vickers Vimy twin-engine bomber and lifted off from an airfield in St. John's, Newfoundland to begin their journey to Clifden, Ireland. If successful, theirs would be the first nonstop transatlantic flight. They made it, though they crash-landed in a bog in Clifden, Ireland, on June 15.
Alcock was the pilot of the flight. He died on December 18, 1919 when he crashed while delivering the new Vickers Viking amphibious airplane to the Paris air show. Brown lived until October 4, 1948.

June 13

2008-06-13T05:05:00.002-04:00

On the 13th in 1965, Truman Capote wrote the final word in his epic novel ‘In Cold Blood’ bringing to an end years of personal turmoil and battle with the English language.
Capote was moved to write the book after reading an article in the November 16, 1959, edition of The New York Times which said in part “A wealthy wheat farmer, his wife and their two young children were found shot to death today in their home. They had been killed by shotgun blasts at close range after being bound and gagged ... There were no signs of a struggle, and nothing had been stolen. The telephone lines had been cut.”

June 12

2008-06-12T06:05:00.002-04:00

John Augustus Roebling was born on the 12th in 1806. He was an engineer, perhaps most famously associated with New York’s Brooklyn Bridge. While he did begin the design for the iconic bridge and developed the process for making the metal wire used in its construction that makes the bridge so beautiful, before completing the design he died. His son Washington Augustus Roebling did the remaining design work. The firm that built the bridge was Joseph A. Roebling Sons.

June 11

2008-06-11T05:06:00.003-04:00

On the 11th in 1863, Julia Margaret Cameron celebrated her 48th birthday. As a gift, her daughter gave her the first camera she had ever owned. I can’t be certain but I kind of think that she liked the gift. A lot! In less than a year, she had established herself as one of the foremost photographers in England and was a member in good standing of the Photographic Societies of England and Scotland. The simple gift had fired her imagination and she discovered that she “longed to arrest all the beauty that came before me and at length the longing has been satisfied.” Among many others, she photographed Charles Darwin, Alfred Lord Tennyson and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

June 10

2008-06-10T03:14:00.003-04:00

Think about it, someone has to be first in any new endeavor, right? In 17th century Massachusetts, it was Sixty-year old Bridget Bishop. She died on the 10th in 1692, at the conclusion of her trial on charges of witchcraft during the infamous Salem Witchcraft Trial she was hanged. There is a widespread belief that the convicted witches were burned at the stake. While that was widely true of European witches, the ones in Salem, Massachusetts were hung. In all, 14 women and 5 men were hanged. Five more died in prison while awaiting trial and one man Giles Corey (pictured) who refused to plead either guilty or not guilty or testify in his trial was, pursuant to English common law, subjected to "peine forte et dure” and simply crushed to death on September 19, 1692. Tell me, can you get ruder than that? Apparently, the plea Nolo contendere had not been invented.

June 9

2008-06-09T02:55:00.003-04:00

Bertha Felicitas Sophie Freifrau von Suttner was born on the 9th in 1843 in Prague, then part of the Austrian Empire. For a brief time in 1896, she worked for Alfred Nobel. She had responded to an advertisement seeking a secretary-housekeeper for his home in Paris. Her employment with him was brief but the two maintained a life-long friendship and correspondence. Bertha was a successful novelist as well as a radical pacifist. It was her largely her relationship with Nobel that convinced him to include a Nobel Peace Prize in his yearly awards. In 1905, she would become the first recipient of a Nobel Peace Prize .

Holger Madsen and Carl Theodor Dreyer made a movie about her life, Die Waffen niede, in 1914. She is currently depicted on the Austrian 2 euro coin.
Bertha only worked for Alfred for one week and then left to secretly marry Arthur Gundaccar Freiherr von Suttne, a man whom her family had forbidden her to marry. I guess that showed her parents who’s boss, huh?

June 8

2008-06-08T02:37:00.002-04:00

Smith Wigglesworth was born on the 8th in 1859, in Yorkshire, England. He was an influential minister in the early days of Pentecostalism. That faith places great reliance on faith healing. Laying on of hands as a means of achieving a healing is, from what I understand, a significant feature of the faith. At one point, his work took him to Sweden. He ran into a wall with the Swedish authorities when they forbade him to include the laying on of hands as part of his service. He was a flexible kind of guy however and was able to develop a sort of “corporate healing” where an afflicted person would lay their own hands on themselves to achieve the desired result. It seems to me that that takes a lot of the charm out of the whole experience, but you have to play the cards that you are dealt. Smith was a firm believer in faith healing. I mean he would have to be, wouldn’t he? He was a professional after all. He claimed that God had cured him of hemorrhoids, though I don’t want to even consider how his followers may have been able to confirm this. Not surprisingly, Smith also claimed that he could bring people back from the dead. His claims to this skill included bringing one follower back when the fellow was in his coffin at his own funeral. Apparently, Smith loved his wife dearly. He had to bring her back from the dead not once, but three times. Wigglesworth began claiming healing powers when he was eight years old.

June 7

2008-06-07T05:35:00.003-04:00

Richard Henry Lee (right) was a Virginian and the sixth president of the Continental Congress. On the 7th in 1776, he presented to the second Continental Congress a resolution, which has come to be known as the Lee Resolution. The resolution read in part “Resolved, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved. That it is expedient forthwith to take the most effectual measures for forming foreign Alliances. That a plan of confederation be prepared and transmitted to the respective Colonies for their consideration and approbation.” When the resolution was put to a vote 12 of the 13 colonies voted to approve it. The single exception was New York, which chose to abstain. And some people wonder where New Yorkers get their contentious and disagreeable natures.

John Adams’s view of the work of the congress was that “I believe that if it was moved and seconded that we should come to a resolution that three and two make five, we should be entertained with logic and rhetoric, law, history, politics, and mathematics concerning the subject for two whole days, and then we should pass the resolution unanimously in the affirmative.”

June 6

2008-06-06T05:12:00.001-04:00

Claude Jean Allouez was born in Saint-Didier-en-Velay, France on the 6th in 1622. He would become a Jesuit missionary. From 1667 to 1669 his work took him to what is now Wisconsin where he ministered to the Potawatomi (Keepers of the fire) and Mesquakie (The people of the Red Earth) Indians. On the death of Father Jacques Marquette (pictured below) in 1675, Allouez was ordered by his superiors to continue Marquette’s work with the Indians. He did so until his own death on August 28, 1689.

June 5

2008-06-05T05:03:00.003-04:00

On the 5th in 1851, Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin or, Life Among the Lowly began its serialization in the newspaper the National Era. It would take ten months to complete the run, at which time it was published in book form. In the first year, the book would sell over 300,000 copies in the United States and more than tens times that number internationally.
The passage of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 moved Stowe (pictured left) to write the anti-slavery novel.
Contemporaries of Stowe felt that she had created the main character in her book by reading the work of Josiah Henson (pictured right), a freed slave from Maryland living in Canada who published his memoirs of life in slavery, The Life of Josiah Henson, Formerly a Slave, Now an Inhabitant of Canada, as Narrated by Himself in 1849.
By 1854, Stowe could be proud that her book had been translated into 60 different languages, including Yiddish.

June 4

2008-06-04T03:12:00.004-04:00

In 1917 on the 4th the first Pulitzer Prizes[i] were awarded and three women, Laura Elizabeth Richards[ii], Maude H. Elliot[iii], and Florence Hall, won a Pulitzer for their biography of Julia Ward Howe.
[i] At the same awards ceremony, Jean Adrien Antoine Jules Jusserand won the first Pulitzer for history for his book With Americans of Past and Present Days. Herbert Bayard Swope won the award for Journalism for his work in the New York World. Swope is believed to be the first journalist to use the term cold war.
[ii] In addition to being Richards’ mother and the subject an award-winning book, Julia Ward Howe also wrote the words to popular song The Battle Hymn of the Republic.
[iii] Laura Richards was her sister.

June 3

2008-06-03T04:48:00.003-04:00

On the 3rd in 1800, John Adams, the first vice-president and the second president of the United States, became the first American president to occupy the White House. Following as he did George Washington, he had an extremely tough act to follow. Nevertheless, the cream always rises to the top and as Benjamin Franklin noted of Adams, “he means well for his country, is always an honest man, often a wise man but sometimes, in some things, absolutely out of his senses.” Three out of four ain’t bad though and I just wish our contemporary leaders scored as well in the measure of a man.

In his youth, Adams turned to politics after watching James Otis, Jr. argue a case against an English law authorizing warrantless searches, in a Massachusetts court. Shortly before Otis died, on May 23, 1783, he had said to his sister “I hope, when God Almighty in his righteous providence shall take me out of time into eternity that it will be by a flash of lightning." He was shortly thereafter struck and killed by a bolt of lightening as he stood in the doorway of a friend’s house.

June 2

2008-06-02T05:04:00.004-04:00

H. L. Mencken (left), the sage of Baltimore, observed that democracy is the theory that “the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard”. John Randolph (right), a senator from Virginia, who was born on the 2nd in 1773, also distilled the role of democracy into a nice little sound bite when he said, “I am an aristocrat. I love liberty. I hate equality.”
Randolph was a slave owner. In his will, dated 1819, he included a provision that his slaves were to be freed. In a codicil added in 1821, he bequeathed the money necessary for the freed slaves to relocate to Ohio. A number of his former slaves resettled in Shelby County, Ohio. Randolph also observed, “We all know our duty better than we discharge it.”

June 1

2008-06-01T05:04:00.002-04:00

Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury, was born in England on the 1st in 1563. He was a diplomat and minister to Queen Elizabeth I and King James I. He had a rather striking appearance. Whenever you are involved in public service, you have to expect that not everyone is going to like you. Cecil’s contemporaries described him as being “a slight, crooked, hump-backed young gentleman, dwarfish in stature, but with a face not irregular in feature, and thoughtful and subtle in expression, with reddish hair, a thin tawny beard, and large, pathetic, greenish-coloured eyes, with a mind and manners already trained to courts and cabinets, and with a manner almost ingenuous, as compared to the massive dissimulation with which it was to be contrasted, and with what was, in aftertimes, to constitute a portion of his own character" Even his own boss, the Queen, often referred to him as “my elf” and “my pygmy”. He dealt with the attitude of his adversaries as best he could but I am certain did not particularly care for Elizabeth’s comments. And I’ll bet that he was never asked what bridge he lived under, like someone I know.
It was widely believed by his contemporaries, that Robert was the prime mover behind the Gunpowder Plot, in which Guy Fawkes tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament on the notorious Fifth of November in 1605.

May 31

2008-05-31T03:12:00.002-04:00

On the 31st in 1669, inveterate gossip Samuel Pepys reluctantly announced that he would no longer write in his diary. He cited poor eyesight as his reason for stopping but I think he simply got tired of people sending him notes saying “Sorry, not for us at this time, good luck elsewhere.”
Pepys would continue maintaining his 17th century version of People magazine, or National Enquirer if you prefer, but would do so with the aid of scribes. At the end of his last entry, he also had the decency to say goodbye as well as offer an apology for his having to censor his work: “And thus ends all that I doubt I shall ever be able to do with my own eyes in the keeping of my journal, I being not able to do it any longer, having done now so long as to undo my eyes almost every time that I take a pen in my hand; and, therefore, whatever comes of it, I must forbear: and, therefore, resolve, from this time forward, to have it kept by my people in long-hand, and must therefore be contented to set down no more than is fit for them and all the world to know; or, if there be any thing, which cannot be much, now my amours to Deb. are past, and my eyes hindering me in almost all other pleasures, I must endeavour to keep a margin in my book open, to add, here and there, a note in short-hand with my own hand. And so I betake myself to that course, which is almost as much as to see myself go into my grave: for which, and all the discomforts that will accompany my being blind, the good God prepare me!”

May 30

2008-05-30T05:29:00.002-04:00

Amelia Earhart[i] by virtue of her many long-distance airplane flights is well known. Well because of that and because she disappeared over the Pacific and was never seen again. On December 28, 1920,[ii] Amelia went on her first airplane ride as a passenger. Earhart’s days as a serious flier began in October 1922 when she set a record for altitude achieved[iii]. She followed this with the impressive string of firsts for which she is rightfully well known. However, she was not the only woman to engage in feats of such derring-do. Born on the 30th in 1907, Elly Beinhorn Rosemeyer was almost ten years younger that Amelia, but she managed to offer some stiff competition in the girl-flier game. In 1931, she began long-distance flights between her home in Germany and West Africa. In March 1932, Elly became the second woman to fly solo, non-stop, from Europe to Australia. No, the first woman to do that was not Earhart; it was England’s Amy Johnson[iv], when she landed in Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia on May 24, 1930.
[i] Amelia was taught how to fly by Anita ‘Neta’ Snook Southern, the first female aviator in Iowa and the first female student accepted to the Curtiss Flying School in Virginia. She taught Amelia to fly using a surplus Curtiss JN-4, an open cockpit bi-plane.
[ii] She attended a fair in Long Beach, California and from the moment the airplane, piloted by Frank Monroe Hawks, lifted off the field, Amelia was convinced that she had to fly. On June 2, 1933, Hawks would set the west-east transcontinental airspeed record. He flew from Los Angeles, California to Brooklyn, New York in 13 hours, 26 minutes and 15 seconds.
[iii] Earhart reached an altitude of 14,000 feet.
[iv] Amy Johnson left Croydon, England on her flight to Australia on May 5, 1930 and landed in Darwin, Australia on May 24. I realize that I could have put her in the main body of this thing. I could probably have made the whole issue about her, but I found Rosemeyer first, so I consigned Amy to the notes section. So sue me. In the Second World War, Johnson served as a pilot in Britain’s Air Transport Auxiliary, ferrying warplanes and military personnel from the UK to pretty much anywhere in the world except to aircraft carriers.

May 29

2008-05-29T03:00:00.002-04:00

Rhode Island may have been the first of the United States to outlaw slavery but it was the last of them to ratify the Constitution and became the last of the original 13 colonies to join the United States. It didn’t do that until the 29th in 1790.
I know that the USA didn’t exist until 1776. I also know that I’m pushing it here. On May 18, 1652, the governing body of the area that was destined to be Rhode Island passed a law abolishing slavery.

May 28

2008-05-28T05:06:00.001-04:00

The Hippocratic Oath, taken by all physicians, reads in part, [n]ever to do deliberate harm to anyone for anyone else's interest. I wonder how a certain physician, born on the 28th in 1738 was able to reconcile his advocacy of a form of capital punishment to which his name would be given. I speak of course of Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin. Guillotin was very strongly opposed to the very idea of capital punishment but felt it necessary for France to develop a more humane manner in which the sentence of death could be carried out. On October 10, 1789, the good doctor strongly advocated the development of a machine to carry out the death sentence. His intentions were undeniably honorable but when the French Revolution morphed into the Terror, and people were being beheaded with the Guillotine at the rate of 35,000 a month, I am certain that he must have regretted not keeping his big mouth shut.

May 27

2008-05-27T03:05:00.002-04:00

If the planet, yes our planet, is ever consumed by a mushroom cloud, you can thank John Douglas Cockcroft (pictured). He was born on the 27th in 1897. He was a very bright and talented English physicist. In 1928 be began working with a similarly gifted Irish physicist, Ernest Walton. Isn’t it nice that these smart guys had someone to hang around with? The pair began fooling around, trying to see how they could annoy protons. Sometimes when people hang out with the wrong crowd they get into all kinds of trouble that they had not thought about. It’s the same old story, you try marijuana because all the other kids in school are and you want to hang out with the cool kids. The next thing you know, you are addicted to heroin and chopping people into little bits. That sort of the way it works with physicists. Some guy in the lab starts bombarding inert gases with protons and you want to try it too. Before you know it, you are bombarding lithium with protons and you’re splitting the atom, ultimately giving the world the atomic bomb. Were these guys grounded for a whole week? Nope. Were they even sent to bed without dinner? No! For some reason they were both given the Nobel Prize for physics.

May 26

2008-05-26T04:45:00.003-04:00

Darwin’s place in history is undeniably secure. His Origin of Species turned the world upside down. While today his theories seem a commonplace, when he published his work the effect was truly astounding. Did Darwin’s work spring fully formed from his pen on to the written page? I think not. In the late 1700s Scotsman James Burnett, Lord Monboddo, proposed the theory that humans were evolved from primates, specifically the orangutan. Monboddo also believed that humans were born with tails but that midwives removed the appendages at birth. While in his sunset years he would disavow this theory, you have to give him credit for at least thinking it all through. Lord Monboddo died on the 26th in 1799.

John Edmonstone taught Darwin taxidermy and ignited Darwin’s interest of the diversity of life in the rainforests of South America. Edmonstone was a freed black slave from Guyana, South America. John had learned taxidermy under the tutelage of Charles Waterton, a very wealthy, very eccentric, aristocrat and explorer.
In his foreword to Origin of Species, Darwin credits Aristotle not, as many in Scotland did, Moboddo, with hinting at the idea of natural selection
Moboddo was no slacker in the smarts department. He graduated from Marischal College, Aberdeen in 1729. He continued his studies at both Edinburgh University and the University of Groningen. At Edinburgh University, he was given a law degree and was admitted to the Faculty of Advocates in 1737.

May 25

2008-05-25T03:52:00.002-04:00

On the 25th in 1961, President Kennedy convened a joint session of Congress. By itself, this would hardly be a remarkable event because for the most part, what Presidents have to say is generally neither terribly helpful nor interesting. His reason for holding the session however assured JFK’s place in the pantheon of truly great visionary presidents. During the session, he revealed his belief “that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before the decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth.” In documents from his administration that have only recently been de-classified, it has been revealed that the man Kennedy had in mind was none other than Lyndon Baines Johnson.
Johnson’s father Samuel Ealy Johnson, Jr. served 5 terms in the Texas legislature and ruffled a lot of feathers by his constant attacks, made on the floor of the legislature, on the Ku Klux Klan in Texas

May24

2008-05-24T05:17:00.001-04:00

Benjamin Nathan Cardozo was born on the 24th in 1870. In time, he would become a well-respected jurist who had a law school named after him. The list of important decisions he would write is far too long to be included here. I have always thought that someone who achieved as much as a man like Cardozo did must have been incredibly gifted. Apparently, I was wrong. Cardozo’s own words explain his success. He said “[i]n truth, I am nothing but a plodding mediocrity—please observe, a plodding mediocrity—for a mere mediocrity does not go very far, but a plodding one gets quite a distance. There is joy in that success, and a distinction can come from courage, fidelity and industry.”

May 23

2008-05-23T05:59:00.001-04:00

Our modern political apparatus seems to be a bit plodding at times. Personally, I yearn for simpler times when a person could see immediate results from their actions. There was a time when national political agendas were dealt with in very expeditious ways. Take for example the Second Defenestration of Prague, which took place at Prague Castle on the 23rd in 1618, when two Imperial Governors, Wilhelm Graf Slavata and Jaraslav Borzita Graf von Martinicz, and their scribe Philip Fabricius were simply tossed out of the Castle’s windows. The three tumbled 50 feet on to a large pile of horse poop. This act ushered in the Thirty Years War. Apparently, the people of Prague were getting lazy with the passage of time, because in the First Defenestration of Prague, on July 30, 1419, seven of the town’s council members were tossed out windows onto the raised spears of the assembled rabble. Messy? Generally speaking, quite messy. Effective? Perhaps. There can be no denying however the fact that these tactics produce plainly observable results in a timely manner. Nevertheless, upon quiet, sober reflection, I think that I am safe in saying, without fear of contradiction, that defenestration of political rivals probably is not a particularly good idea. Unless, of course, someone should double dare you to do it.

May 22

2008-05-22T05:06:00.002-04:00

It should be apparent to even the most casual of observers that the world of politics can at times be just a tad contentious. I think, however, contemporary politicians have a long way to go before they surpass their predecessors. On the 22nd in 1856, Senator Preston Brooks (pictured), of South Carolina, beat Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts with a cane in a hallway of the United States Senate.
Brooks, from South Carolina, had become quite angry by a speech that Sumner had made that criticized the pro-slavery violence in Kansas during the Bloody Kansas period. It had been Brooks’ original plan to challenge Sumner to a duel but was talked out of that by a colleague who pointed out that the etiquette of dueling required the participants to be of the same social standing. Feeling that Sumner was on par with a common drunkard, Brooks quickly abandoned that option.
Charles Sumner was the senator from Massachusetts and the one of the states’ most ardent opponents of slavery.

May 21

2008-05-21T04:53:00.002-04:00

As everyone should recognize, justice takes time. In the nation’s Supreme Court, it takes just a little bit longer. Alfred Moore was born on the 21st in 1755. He started out as a judge in North Carolina but in 1799 made the jump to the Supreme Court of the United States. In his five years on the bench, Moore wrote exactly one opinion. This is not to say that he did not serve with distinction. He did. Standing 4’ 5” tall, he has the distinction of being the shortest judge to serve in the Supreme Court.

May 20

2008-05-20T05:08:00.002-04:00

If you are contemplating buying a home in today's rather dismal real estate market, you are of course, looking into the area in which your home will be located. It has often been said that there are only three things that you need to consider: They are location, location, location. To those should be added a fourth - insurance coverage for your new home. If you are looking to by a home in Codell, Kansas however, the four things become insurance, insurance, insurance, and insurance. Did I hear you ask why that is? The answer is very simple - on the 20th in 1916, 1917 and 1918 the town was struck by tornadoes. No, not tomatoes, tornadoes!

May 19

2008-05-19T05:42:00.002-04:00

At times, it seems as if the weather gets just a bit odd. Charles Hoy Fort made a career out of collecting, among other things, abnormalities in the weather and today the Fortean Society continues his work. On the 19th in 1790, the skies over New Jersey, New England, and parts of Canada became so dark that candles had to be lit at noon. Instead of taking into consideration, the widespread forest fires that were raging all over New England at the time, many people concluded that the darkness heralded the end-times spoken of in the Bible’s Book of Revelation. Abraham Davenport, a member of the state of Connecticut’s legislature had this to say about it: “I choose, for one, to meet Him face to face, no faithless servant frightened from my task, but ready when the Lord of the harvest calls; and therefore, with all reverence, I would say, let God do his work, we will see to ours. Bring in the candles.” The event has come to be known as New England’s Dark Day. I think the mere fact that I am writing this is clear and convincing proof that God did not pick that particular moment to destroy His creation. But hey, you never know.
Fort was born on August 6, 1874 in Albany, New York. When he turned 18, he left New York to tour Europe so that he in his words could “put some capital in the Bank of Experience.”

May 18

2008-05-18T06:13:00.003-04:00

Apparently being God’s messenger on Earth is not all that it is cracked up to be. Just think about it for a moment. Consider that Father Devine, David Koresh, Jim Jones, Marshall Applewhite, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, and scores of others have all met with singularly unpleasant ends. At first the only woman that sprang to my mind was Tammy Faye Bakker, she of the ludicrous make-up. Then it occurred to me that I had overlooked someone. I had failed to consider a dainty woman born at the end of the nineteenth century. How could I have overlooked the saintly, sweet, demure Aimee Semple McPherson? On the 18th in 1926, she disappeared from a very lovely beach in Venice, California.

May 17

2008-05-17T04:15:00.003-04:00

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

2008-05-16T06:01:00.003-04:00

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

2008-05-15T05:17:00.002-04:00

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

2008-05-14T04:27:00.002-04:00

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

2008-05-13T05:13:00.002-04:00

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

2008-05-12T05:53:00.002-04:00

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

2008-05-11T05:23:00.001-04:00

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.

May 10

2008-05-10T06:42:00.002-04:00

On the 10th in 1872, the Equal Rights Party nominated Victoria Woodhull to be its candidate for the Presidency of the United States of America, making her the first woman to be nominated for that exalted position. Interestly, Woodhull’s name never appeared on the ballot.
Victoria Claffin Woodhull managed to make two fortunes. The first one she made touring as a magnetic healer, a venture that was highly successful. Her second fortune came with the help of her benefactor, Cornelius Vanderbilt. With Vanderbilt’s assistance, she opened the firm of Woodhull, Claffin & Company and became one of the first female brokers on the New York Stock Exchange. The brokerage was a family affair. She collaborated with her younger sister Tennessee Claffin. Do not even think about asking me about her first name. What do I know? I didn’t name her. On May 14, 1870, she took the money that she made in the stock exchange, and Victoria and her sister would start a newspaper, Woodhull & Claffin’s Weekly. The paper had a six-year run but is now notable primarily for the fact that in its December 30, 1871 issue it published the first English language version of Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto.
Frederick Douglass was her running mate. Born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, it was as Frederick Douglass that he would achieve fame. Douglass was born into to slavery in 1818 in Talbot County, Maryland. In 1838, using documents borrowed from a sailor, a free black man, he made his way to New York City. Once there abolitionist sympathizers bought Douglass his freedom by paying off the man in Maryland who owned him.
The first time a women’s name appeared on a ballot was in the 1968 United States presidential elections when Charlene Mitchell’s name appeared on the ballot as the Communist party’s candidate for President. Mitchell was also the first black person nominated for the post. She didn’t win.

May 9

2008-05-09T05:52:00.001-04:00

Even by the somewhat casual standards of the late 17th century, Thomas Blood was a brazen sort of guy. After having fought in the service of Oliver Cromwell, he had been awarded some very lucrative land grants in his native Ireland. When the monarchy was restored in 1660, Blood was stripped of these land grants. A boy has to do something to earn his daily bread and Blood decided to kidnap and hold for ransom James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormonde, a minor noble. Blood wasn’t particularly good at that however, so he and a couple of friends attempted to steal the British Crown Jewels on the 9th in 1671. Well actually, to be accurate, he and his associates did steal the British Crown Jewels. However, he and his confederates were captured before they could successfully make their way out of the Tower of London, where the jewels were being stored.
In the eighteenth century, the Tower also contained a menagerie, which was open to visitors. The price of admission was the sum of three halfpence or the supply of a cat or dog for feeding to the lions.

May 8

2008-05-08T05:09:00.002-04:00

Why didn’t somebody just give this Mahatma guy a freaking sandwich? On the 8th in 1933, Gandhi began a 21-day fast as a protest of the rather tacky behavior of a certain empire on whom the sun used to never set, in India. Gandhi not only survived the hunger strike but also was also able to get the British out of India. Certainly, Irishman Bobby Sands must have wished that he had Gandhi’s luck. Sands not only did not survive his hunger strike but he wasn’t even able to get the British out of Ireland.

May 7

2008-05-07T04:50:00.002-04:00

Have you ever noticed how incredibly bright the Sun is? Has anyone ever told you that it is never a good idea to stare directly at the Sun? I know that it was certainly mentioned to me. Apparently, no one ever told David Fabricus about that being a bad idea. Born in Germany, David died on the 7th in 1617. He dabbled in astronomy. The telescope was not in wide use at the time and the observations that David made were with the naked eye. His son, Johannes, was sent to school in the Netherlands and on one of his visits home, he brought with him a telescope. It is rarely recommended, but among the first things David and his son did with this new-fangled telescope was direct it at the sun so they could both get a better look at it. Aside from a headache and blurred vision resulting from staring directly at the sun, the two men discovered Sunspots. Their observations would also lead to their discovery that the sun rotated much as the earth does.

May 6

2008-05-06T05:16:00.002-04:00

At 7:25 in the evening on the 6th in 1937, the German zeppelin Hindenburg burst into flames as it attempted to land in Lakehurst, New Jersey. Of the 36 passengers and 61 crewmembers onboard the Hindenburg, only 13 passengers and 22 members of the crew died. Considering how quickly, completely, and violently the fire engulfed the craft, it seems to me to be a surprisingly low death rate. Part of the charm of rock and roll is its tendency to go more than a little bit overboard. Maybe I’m getting old but I think it is going just a bit too far over the top to stage this fire and kill 45 people merely to come up with an incredibly good album cover for Led Zeppelin’s first album release.
The Led Zeppelin album cover was actually a drawing of the original UPI photograph done by artist George Hardie.

May 5

2008-05-05T06:07:00.002-04:00

The United States’ Patent Act of 1790 allowed women, for the first time, to be granted patents. Sensing an opportunity to finally get in on a good thing, Mary Dixon Kies applied for a patent for a technique for weaving straw with silk and thread, though just why someone would want to do that is unclear. Apparently, in the early 19th century, straw weaving was a big deal and provided a pretty good living to people. On the 5th in 1809, Mary was the first woman to be granted a patent.
Fellow American Betsy Metcalf invented a method of braiding straw in 1798. She chose to not patent her process because she didn't want her name being sent to Congress. Kies was unable to successfully to defend her patent and she died penniless in Brooklyn, New York in 1837.

May 4

2008-05-04T06:34:00.002-04:00

On the 4th in 1865, Abraham Lincoln was buried in Springfield, Missouri. Taking into consideration the fact that Honest Abe was assassinated on the 15th of April, in an era that pre-dates reliable refrigeration, my guess is that unless they had a very chilly Spring he was probably just a little bit ripe at the time of the service.
What has come to be viewed as Lincoln’s life work, the abolition of slavery , would become the law of the land when the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States constitution, which abolished slavery, was ratified and become law on December 31, 1865.

Maay 3

2008-05-03T06:11:00.002-04:00

Whatever else he may have been, Lord Byron must have been quite a swimmer, because on the 3rd in 1810 while touring Asia Minor he successfully swam the Hellespont, from Sestos to Abydos. A remarkable accomplishment, even if you are “mad, bad and dangerous to know.” Byron is referred to simply as Byron because his full name, George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, just took too long to say. Byron’s daughter, Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace ccollaborated with Charles Babbage on the development of an analytic engine, a very early attempt at building a computer.

May 2

2008-05-02T06:26:00.002-04:00

When I look at the current state of affairs in the ethical constitutions of the people currently heading sensitive government agencies, I find myself troubled by our president’s high turnover rate among his appointments. I also find myself troubled by the revolving door in the offices of high-level appointees. I would feel much more comfortable if there was at least the appearance of stability. You might say that I am yearning for the safety and assurances that accompany things that could only have happened in a world long before the 9/11 tragedy. Consider if you will, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, that happy breeding ground of extreme paranoia. John Edgar Hoover became that newly created bureau’s first director with his appointment by President Coolidge on the 10th in 1924. Hoover remained steadfastly at the helm until his death on the 2nd in 1972. While there have long been rumors of Hoover’s fondness for wearing women’s clothing I am less troubled by those then other hallmarks of his time in the directorship because he certainly had the legs for it.
[i] Calvin Coolidge formed the FBI on the remains of the Bureau of Investigation, of which Hoover was the sixth director. Hoover took the reins from the fifth director, William J. Burns (pictured left below), who was forced to resign because of his role in the notorious Teapot Dome scandal. That is another story deserving of greater attention than I can give it here.
[ii] After Hoover’s death, the rules of the game were changed to insure that no future director could serve for longer than 10 years.