Takin' the day off

There's not much going on today, so I thought I'd take the day off.
In lieu of actual content, enjoy this demonstration on how not to get a car out of snow drift:

History Spotlight, 1/30

Charles I

On this day in history, 1649, King Charles I of England was beheaded by his own subjects. This doesn't seem like a big deal to us in the 21st century - after all, less than 150 years later the French would be chopping the heads off royals with merry abandon. But in 1649 in England, this was a very big deal. English kings had been killed by their subjects before: Edward II died from having a red hot poker thrust into his nethers and one of the Richards was starved to death in a dungeon. But this was all done as if there was a sense of shame about it. Both kings died in such a manner as to not leave a mark on the body and the actual killing was done far out of sight of the public. Charles I was put on trial, found guilty and publicly executed.

England had always been a very different place from Continental Europe. When the King of France wanted some money, he levied a tax and took it. If the King of England wanted money he had to go, cap in hand, to Parliament and ask if it was OK with them to levy a tax. This dates all the way back to 1215 and the Magna Carta and several other tussles between Parliament and the monarchy over the years. King Charles, however, was not English. You'll recall that his Dad, King James I had already been King James VI of Scotland long before he ascended to the throne on the death of Elizabeth I. The Scots had a Parliament, but it was not nearly as powerful as the English model. James was perfectly willing to play "go along to get along" with the English Parliament, but Charles was a different breed of cat. Charles not only knew he was ordained to rule by God, he didn't care who else knew it.

Things came to a head when Charles's good friend (and maybe lover, who knows?) George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham was placed in charge of an invasion of Spain. It was a disaster. Buckingham was many things to many people, but a good general he was not. Charles tried to put Buckingham in command of another try at Spain and Parliament informed him in no uncertain terms that, if he wanted the money, he was going to get rid of Buckingham. This outraged Charles, who was not used to being told what to do by his subjects. Then, to make matters worse, Buckingham was found mysteriously stabbed to death. Then, to make matters even worse, the whole country erupted in spontaneous celebrations while Charles mourned his friend. Nobody except Charles liked Buckingham. A few more events like that and it was go-time for the English Civil War.

The Duke of Buckingham

Charles and the rest of the Royalists would up on the losing side of that one. General Oliver Cromwell was on the side of the Parliamentarians and he had all kinds of novel ideas about how to run an army. Like providing their supplies, good food and leaders who weren't completely incompetent. The English Civil War was actually a number of smaller wars. Charles would lose, make nice for awhile and then go back to his old dickish ways and it would be war again. Cromwell realized that the only way to take care of the Charles issue for good was to "cut his head off with the crown on it!" In other words, don't just kill the king, kill the monarchy. And that's what he did on January 30, 1649.

Oliver Cromwell

It didn't work out much better for Cromwell. He ran England as the Lord Protector until he died in 1658 and then England was thrust into anarchy again. General Gorge Monck realized that England needed the monarchy, if only to give the populace somebody to look up to and sent for Charles's son (also Charles) from wherever he was hiding in France to restore the Stuart line. Charles II was actually a pretty good guy, but he had a skill for delayed vengeance. And so, it was also on this day in 1661 that King Charles II had Oliver Cromwell's corpse dug up, tried and ritually executed.

History Spotlight, 1/29

Senator Henry Clay

On January 29, 1850, Senator Henry Clay submitted the Compromise of 1850 to the US Congress hoping to quell the sectarian divisions that had divided the nation over slavery. The whole issue wasn't that the South had slaves, but whether or not the slavery would expand along with the rest of the nation.

Arg, this is one of those thorny historical issues on which I don't really have the firmest grasp.

OK, so, here we go: The South liked slavery and the North was, at best, ambivalent towards it. But, what about new states added to the Union, like all those southwest territories grabbed from Mexico during the Mexican-American War? And what of California? You'll remember that gold was discovered in California just two years before. The US very much wanted California to become a state, for obvious reasons.

It all comes down to control of the US Senate. Every state added to the Union added two more Senators. Every slave state meant to more pro-slavery Senators and every non-slave state meant two more "at best, ambivalent" Senators. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 set it up so that, each time a free state was added (Maine on March 25, 1820) a slave state was added too (Missouri on August 10, 1821). States added below 36 degrees 40 minutes would be slave and states added above would be free.

If you're thinking, "That sounds like an unworkable solution," you're right. The whole antebellum history of the US is one unworkable solution to slavery after another.
Things went on that way for a few years until the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended the Mexican-American War and added vast tracts of land to the Union, almost all of it below 36 40. This threatened to throw off the balance in the Senate, so a new unworkable compromise had to be hammered out.

Enter Henry Clay and the Compromise of 1850. The Compromise consisted of five main elements:
1) California was to be admitted as a free state.
2) The trade of slaves (but not slavery) was abolished in Washington, DC.
3) The territory of Mexico and Utah were organized under the principle of popular sovereignty. Slavery wasn't expressly allowed, but neither was it expressly prohibited.
4) Texas had to give up much of its land claims in the west (Texas was, if you can imagine, and even more vast tract of land than it is today) in exchange for the US paying off its debt from the war with Mexico to the tune of $10 million.
5) Last, and most certainly least, was the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act. In the pantheon of abhorrent laws passed in the US, the Fugitive Slave Act must stand triumphant. Briefly, it said that any US citizen had to assist in the arrest, capture and return of slaves to their Southern masters. This meant that, even if you were a Northerner, even if you were an abolitionist, it was your duty to capture slaves. Moreover, this also meant that, if you were an escaped slave, you weren't safe until you made it to Canada. This law had the unintended consequence of causing "on the fence" Northerners to see the brutality of the slave-hunters first hand and knocked many of them off the fence onto the abolitionist side.

In the end, it didn't work out. The Compromise was as unworkable as the rest and the Union slid even further towards civil war. But, as the historian Robert Caro points out in his excellent book Master of the Senate, the compromises may have only delayed the Civil War, but that delay bought the infant Union precious time. If the Civil War had begun in 1851 when public opinion in the North was still very much divided on the subject of slavery rather than 1861 when it had firmly coalesced against slavery (a large part of that due to the Fugitive Slave Act) the outcome might have been very different.

History Spotlight, 1/28

73 seconds after liftoff on January 28, 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger suffered a catastrophic failure of one of its right solid rocket booster o-rings. The jet of burning fuel leaking out ignited the main rocket booster and caused the destruction of the orbiter. The destruction of the Challenger is a textbook case of what happens when a bureaucracy is more interested in achieving results than listening to warnings.

So, what went wrong? The contractor who made the O-ring, Morton Thiokol, had only certified the O-rings to work at temperatures above 53 degrees and it was 31 degrees at the launch site. The evening before launch, engineers for Morton Thiokol made their case to NASA to scrub the launch and await favorable weather conditions.

Well, maybe a diversion is in order to explain what the O-rings were supposed to do. The two solid rocket booster (the two on either side of the big one) are made in six sections and welded in to three sections at the factory. At the launch site, the three sections are made into one big booster using the O-rings as joints. So, these rubber O-rings have to withstand temperatures of many thousands of degrees.

When the engineers at Morton Thiokol expressed their reservations at launching in such cold weather, the NASA managers countered that there were two O-rings for each joint and that, if one failed, the other would kick in. This was exactly the wrong kind of thinking. The O-rings were designated as a "Criticality 1" component, meaning that if they went, the shuttle and its occupants would be destroyed. During the investigation afterwards, when Sally K. Ride was grilling NASA managers before Congress, she pointed out that they were not supposed to rely on the backup for Criticality 1 components. The backup was there for an unforeseen failure, sure, but it was not supposed to take the place of the primary and leave no backup at all. In the end, the Morton Thiokol engineers were overruled by their management and NASA management and the launch went as scheduled.

From about a half-second after liftoff to about three seconds after liftoff dark grey puffs of smoke could be seen coming from near the bottom of the right solid rocket booster. This was caused by the casing of the booster buckling under the stress of ignition allowing hot gases of 5,000 degrees to shoot out. This had actually happened several times before and every time, the primary O-ring had fallen out of its place and sealed the breech, so NASA and Morton Thiokol said, "It works well enough!" and wrote it into the design specifications If you're thinking that this is a rather half-assed way to run the most advanced space program in history, you're right. "Well enough" is good for lawn mowers, not for space shuttles.

Puff of smoke

Because of the cold weather, neither O-ring could not fall out of its groove and seal the breach and both were soon mostly vaporized from all the hot gasses rushing past. At that point, corrosion from the burning solid rocket fuel had built up enough to seal the breach and the shuttle continued lifting off, with no one the wiser. As the shuttle lifted off, it throttled up to 104% power, standard operating procedure. Unfortunately, the force of the atmosphere blowing by the solid rocket booster ripped off the "scab" of corroded rocket fuel and allowed the burning fuel to spray out through the joint.

Plume of flame.

The burning fuel jet caused an unbalanced thrust in the rocket and it slammed in to the main booster, causing it to dump its entire load of hydrogen at once. The aerodynamic forces (upwards of 20g, while the orbiter had been designed to only handle 5g) caused the orbiter to break up. It is possible that the astronauts were alive afterward, as several of the Personal Egress Air Packs had been activated, but there was no way they could have survived impact with the Atlantic Ocean at 200g.
The O-rings were the direct cause of the tragedy, but the root cause was NASA and Morton Thiokol's dependence on "well enough."

History Spotlight, 1/27

The trial of Guy Fawkes and the other conspirators in the Gunpowder Plot began on this day in 1606. The Gunpowder Plot was another chapter in the fun Catholic/Protestant violence that raged in England in the 16th and 17th centuries, in this case it was Catholic-on-Protestant violence.
Let's start with the gist of the plot. At the time, the basement of the Houses of Parliament was run like a self-storage operation. You paid your shillings and rented a spot and put your stuff in it. Guy Fawkes rented many lockers and filled them with gunpowder in advance of opening day when the King James I, most of his family and all the members of Parliament would be there. Once they were disposed of the idea was to start a rebellion in the heavily Catholic north and put a Catholic back on the throne.
It didn't work out as planned.
Catholics had hoped that the James I would turn the tide of anti-Catholicism that had gripped England since at least Bloody Mary was on the throne (and she was probably the cause of a lot of it). After all, his mother, Mary Queen of Scots was practically a Catholic martyr in England having been beheaded by Elizabeth I for attempting to usurp the throne. But James was only a baby when Mary was killed and he was raised as a Protestant. Plus, rocking the boat wasn't really the way James rolled. So, while the English Catholics had hoped for James to encourage toleration of Catholics, he wasn't about to tick off the powerful Protestant factions.
The Catholics, for their part, were feeling desperate. Bloody Mary had burned plenty of Catholics, but nobody seemed to remember that. As always, the victors write the history books and, in this case the history book was John Foxe's Book of Martyrs. This book laid out in lurid, gory detail the death of every Protestant at the hands of the Catholics, with the last third being reserved for Bloody Mary's executions.
They started moving in the gunpowder in 1604 but, due to plague, the opening of Parliament was delayed again and again. By the time Parliament did open, they had managed to hide 36 barrels of gunpowder - enough to reduce the Houses of Parliament to rubble.
The plan failed for the reasons these things fail, because somebody talked. The somebody in this case was Sir Francis Tresham who had been brought on board because he was rich and could help the planned rebellion in the North. Tresham had an attack of conscience, especially when he realized that his brother-in-law, Lord Monteagle, was one of the ones due to go up in smoke. Monteagle received an anonymous letter saying basically, "Don't go to Parliament on this day," and promptly alerted the proper authorities who searched the basement. They found, down there, Guy Fawkes sitting on a barrel of gunpowder with a slow burning fuse, a watch and matches. You don't need to be McMillan & Wife to figure this one out.
Fawkes was tortured into giving a confession and giving up all of his conspirators. The rebellion, needless to say, failed. Guy Fawkes went on trial on January 26, 1606 and was executed on January 31, 1606. The thing that cracks me up is knowing that all of these trust-fund anarchists who run around with their Guy Fawkes V for Vendetta masks on are, in actuality, paying homage to a Catholic terrorist.

History Spotlight, 1/26

Douglas MacArthur, one of only five men to earn the rank of five-star general, was born on this day in 1880 in Little Rock, Arkansas. He was born in the uppermost floor of the Little Rock Armory while his father, the Civil War hero Arthur MacArthur, Jr, was stationed there. Douglas MacArthur always said that his first memory of was of the "sound of the bugle." He grew up on various military posts that his father was stationed to all over the American West and that's where he learned from his father, and from the men he saw around him his dedication to the military.
In 1898, Douglas MacArthur enrolled in the US Military Academy at West Point. His mother, Pinky MacArthur, is said to have rented a hotel room with an view of her son's dormitory window so she could keep an eye on him and make sure he was keeping up with his studies.
It must have worked because he graduated first out of a class of 93 in 1903.
After West Point, he served in the Army in the Corps of Engineers in the Philippine colonial wars as his father's aide-de-camp.
Douglas MacArthur first came to the public spotlight during the US occupation of Vera Cruz, Mexico after the Tampico Affair sent US/Mexico relations into the dumper. MacArthur was involved behind enemy lines and wound up in a very exciting railroad chase back to that safety of American lines. He was nominated for the Medal of Honor, but was declined because he had exceeded his orders.
During World War One, MacArthur was promoted to full colonel and transferred his branch of the army from the Corps of Engineers to the Infantry. He was stationed on the front lines and believed in leading from the front. He frequently refused to wear a gas mask and always could be seen with a swagger stick, beckoning his men forward. He had this bright yellow scarf that he would wear, not only to show his men that he was at the front, but to demonstrate that he had no fear of the enemy.
He was again nominated, and again didn't get the Medal of Honor. In what has to be the winner for "Most Embarrassing Move by the Mother of a Historical Figure", Pinky started calling Congressmen and hassling them about why her son wasn't getting his Medal of Honor. Douglas put his foot down with his mother for one of the very few times in his life and ordered her to lay off the Congressmen.
After the war, MacArthur became superintendent of West point and did a lot to bring the curriculum into the modern age. He also had another big falling out with his mother when he married socialite, party girl and divorcee, Louise Cromwell Brooks. But the marriage didn't last and they were divorced by 1929. I'm sure Douglas heard about that from Pinky.
During the thirties, he was involved in the Bonus Brigade scandal. The whole thing stated during World War One, when members of the military were promised some kind of super bonus for their old age, to be paid out in 1945. In 1932, during the Great Depression, many of these veterans decided that they'd like to get their bonus early and marched on Washington to make their case. They weren't exactly being models of "peaceable assembly" and had set up a shanty town and taken over a number of buildings. MacArthur, who was Chief of Staff, was ordered by Hoover to disperse the protesters and he did it with his usual zealousness. Tear gas, tanks, bayonet charges, the works. By the time the smoke cleared, the Bonus Marchers were a cause celebe and MacArthur was mired in a national scandal.

History Spotlight, 1/25

The League of Nations, one of President Woodrow Wilson's dreams laid out in his Fourteen Points for Peace, was founded today in 1919. The League never really worked as planned. Because it was tied so closely to the Treaty of Versailles it had problems from the start being perceived as a "Victor's Club." As the Twenties wore on and the Treaty Of Versailles's weaknesses became more evident it was difficult for the League to not get associated with it.

A big problem the League had was that the US never ratified the Treaty of Versailles and so never joined the League. This hurt the League's image because the man who was the driving force behind its creation couldn't even get his own country to join. But more than the image, the United States' refusal to join meant that all that US money wasn't going to be flowing in along with the US military power.

The League faced an uphill battle in the US from the start. In order for the US to join the League the Treaty of Versailles had to be ratified in the US Senate. Standing in the way of that was Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, chairman of the US Foreign Relations committee. Lodge and Wilson didn't like each other and didn't like each other's politics, to put it mildly. Lodge's main sticking point with the League was the requirement that member nations come to the military aid of the other members in the event of an attack. Lodge wasn't an isolationist - in fact, he was quite the little Imperialist - but he didn't want to see the US drawn in to every two-bit bushfire war every time two podunk countries made mean faces at each other. As far as the American people were concerned, they were on Lodge's side. Wilson's high-handed manner of dealing with Congress and refusal to compromise (Vermont readers can see echoes of Wilson in Howard Dean's relationship with the state legislature during his time as governor) didn't help matters any.

Still, Wilson was making progress, both in the Senate and with the American people as a whole. He went on a number of whistle-stop tours of the country giving speeches and making his case. On October 2, 1919, Wilson suffered a massive stoke putting him in bed for the next six months. When the treaty came to a vote in the Senate on November 19, 1919, it went down, hard. Wilson never regained his health enough to have another go and the US never joined.

History Spotlight, 1/24

On January, 24, 1848, James W. Marshall, foreman at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California finds shiny rocks in the water wheel. He quietly brought them to mill's owner, John Sutter, and they had them even more quietly tested. It was gold, and the California Gold Rush had begun.
For his part, Sutter didn't want gold on his land. He was trying to start a large farm and the last thing he needed was mobs of prospectors trampling his property and getting underfoot. Good luck with that.
Rumors started to fly, with patient zero being the guy who did the tests. Soon Samuel Brannan, a newspaper publisher, heard the rumors and broke the story in March, 1848. He also had the presence of mind to set up a store selling prospecting supplies. He would walk through the streets of San Francisco holding a vial of gold dust and bellowing, "Gold! Gold! Gold from the American River!"
News spread slowly in those days and it wasn't until August 19, 1848 that the New York Herald broke the story on the East Coast. In an address to Congress on December 5, 1848, President James K. Polk confirmed the presence of gold in California to a joint session of Congress. After that, it was Katy bar the door.
As he had expected, Sutter was ruined. All of his workers quit to hunt for gold and the prospectors stole his cattle and destroyed his land.
All told, 300,000 people (known as "forty-niners") flocked to California from all over the world during the years of the Gold Rush. There were three ways to get to California from the East Coast of the US and none of them were very much fun. The most common way during the early days was to hop a ship and take the long way around South America. It was 18,000 miles and took eight months and you had all the pleasure of a long 19th century sea voyage. The second way was to take a ship to Panama, cross the isthmus and hop a north bound ship on the other side. This had the problems of the first way, plus a week in a tropical jungle. On top of that, there wasn't exactly scheduled service between Darien and San Francisco, so when you got there you had to hang out and hope a ship came by sooner or later and that the captain would be willing to take you on as a passenger. Many captains of ships didn't even like going to San Francisco because their crews would abandon ship to become prospectors. The third way, most common for later Gold Rush prospectors, was to trek it overland across the continental US. With this method there was the grim prospect of Indians, animals, getting lost, disease and starvation.
The California Gold Rush made a very few men fabulously wealthy, but most others were lucky just to break even. It changed San Francisco from a tiny, one-horse town with a population of 1,000 in 1848 to a thriving city of 25,000 in 1850. It also solidified US claims to land on the West Coast and made California into a state.

History Spotlight, 1/23

The bathyscaphe Trieste is an early deep-diving submarine designed by Auguste Piccard from Switzerland and built in Italy in the 1950's (the character of Captain Picard from Star Trek: The Next Generation is named after him). It spent some time puttering around the Mediterranean before being bought by the US Navy for $250,000.

It has a two-chambered design. The first chamber is the pressure chamber, where the two crew members sit. It is designed to withstand a pressure of 1.25 tons per square inch, which is actually a higher pressure that would be found in the deepest part of the oceans, but it never hurts to over-engineer this kind of thing. Oxygen was recycled through a rebreather system that used canisters of lime to scrub the carbon dioxide out of the used air. Because there was no way to build a sphere big enough for two people and strong enough to withstand the pressure and yet still be neutrally buoyant, the second chamber was a float chamber filled with gasoline. Gasoline is lighter than water and, unlike air, incompressible even at high pressure. The pressure sphere had one window: a several-inch thick cone of Plexiglas.

For ballast, the Trieste carried nine tons of iron shot, held in place in hoppers by electromagnets. If the power failed, the magnets would automatically release the shot and the vessel would float to the surface on its own. A pretty neat design element, and one I wouldn't have thought of until I was seven miles down without power.

On October 5, 1959, the Trieste left for Guam aboard a freighter to take part in Project Nekton: deep dives in the Mariana Trench, the deepest part of the ocean on Earth. 49 years ago today, January 23, 1960, the Trieste touched down at a depth of 35,761 feet (almost seven miles!) on the floor of the Challenger Deep in the southern part of the Mariana Trench. Its crew was Jacques Piccard (Auguste's son) and Lieutenant Dan Walsh, US Navy. It was the first time any craft, manned or robotic, had made it that deep. They spent only 20 minutes on the bottom in near-freezing temperatures, but that was enough time to record soles and flukes, proving that vertebrate animals could survive at that depth, albeit in a much flatter configuration.

The Trieste never went back to the Challenger Deep and was gradually phased out by smaller, more nimble craft like the Alvin, which uses some kind of super foam to provide both buoyancy and structural support. But the Alvin can only go down to 15,000 feet. The only other craft to go to the bottom of the Challenger Deep was the Japanese unmanned submersible Kaiko in 1995. With the loss of that vessel at sea in 2003 and the Trieste in pieces on display in the Naval Historical Center in Washington, DC, no vessel on Earth today is capable of braving such depths.

History Spotlight, 1/22

On this day in 1952, the de Havilland Comet, the world's first jet airliner entered service for the British Overseas Airways Corporation. The version produced for the military is still in service and is expected to stay in service until 2020 - nearly 70 years.

Its early flights were not without issues, however. On January 10, 1954, while taking off from Rome's Ciampino Airport, a Comet broke up and crashed into the sea. All 35 aboard died. As the cause was not apparent, the fleet was grounded while a committee was formed to search. The Royal Navy had found, and was recovering, the craft when the committed delivered its verdict: an onboard fire. Several modifications were made to Comets and they were placed back in service.

On April 8, 1954, a South African Airways Comet en route from London to Johannesburg crashed near Naples. Again, all Comets were grounded and a new committee was formed. Winston Churchill himself ordered the Royal Navy with raising the wreck and assisting the committee.

An identical craft was subject to repeated pressurization and depressurization, over 3,000 in all. It finally failed from metal fatigue near a front window. The committed found that the square windows allowed areas of high stress in the corners (over 40,000 psi). The Comet's windows were redesigned to be round and the skin was thickened and the problem never resurfaced. And that's why jet airliners have rounded windows. You can see the square windows in this picture:

History Spotlight, 1/21

On this day in 1921, Vladimir Illyich Lenin, patriarch of the Soviet Union, suffers a massive stroke and dies. This was only the beginning for his body.

Within two days of his death, the Soviet government contacted the noted pathologist Professor Alexei Abrikosov. They gave him the task of, at first, just preserving Lenin until the burial. As thousands and thousands of people flocked to Moscow to see the body lying in state, the temporary mausoleum began to look permanent. By 1929(so much for a few days!) the decision was made to just go for broke and keep him around permanently. I always figured that Stalin liked keeping his rival on display like that. A new mausoleum was built, Lenin was given a sparkling fresh coat of shellac and there's he's been since then.

Well, mostly. In October 1941, Lenin's corpse was evacuated to Tyumen, in Siberia over fears that the Nazis would capture Moscow. Lenin was returned to his spot after the war. From 1953-1961, he had Stalin as a roommate. Stalin would still be there too, if it weren't for the Kruschev-era de-Stalinization. If my theory up above is true, isn't a creepy Twilight Zone twist? Stalin puts Lenin in the mausoleum as some kind of ghoulish vengeance and then winds up there himself!

The method used to preserve the body permanently is right out of Re-Animator and is suprisingly simple. The exact process has only recently come to light since the demise of the Soviet Union. In the first stage, back in 1929, Lenin was treated with a chemical that was known as "balsam" but which turns out to be glycerin and potassium nitrate. Every 18 months, Lenin is given a two-month long chemical bath consisting of glycerin, potassium acetate, distilled water, and quinine (for its disinfectant properties). The sarcophagus is kept at 61 degrees and at a humidity of 80-90%. As might be guessed, the main issue with Lenin is drying out.

Lenin also presents a variety of problems on a day-to-day basis. First, are dark spots. These are easily treated with hydrogen peroxide to bring out color. Second, are wrinkly patches. A weak mixture of acetic acid and distilled water smooths them right out. Finally are pesky damp spots, which are a sign of bacterial growth and treated with a disinfectant.

Many people have questioned the reality of Lenin's corpse. Its waxy appearance plus the fact that only the hands and head show leads them to believe that at least some of the corpse has been replaced with an artificial substitute. The family that still maintains Lenin (Alexei Abrikosov's descendants) swears that the corpse is real.

There have been a couple of attempts, since the fall of the USSR, to give Lenin a decent burial. Boris Yeltsin tried twice, but both times was confronted with an unrelated crisis and lacked the political capital to get it done. So, there Lenin rests. Viewing hours are every day except Monday and Friday from 10 am to 1 pm. There is no smoking, talking or photography in the mausoleum.

History Spotlight, 1/20

On this day in 1801, President John Adams appointed John Marshall as the fourth Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Marshall would serve for over 30 years and is responsible for many of the ways the Constitution is interpreted and the Supreme Court operates even today.
For example, one of the first things Marshall changed was in the way the Court hands down decisions. Prior to Marshall, each Justice would write his own opinion and hand it down, similar to the way things work in Britain or Australia. Marshall changed it so that the Court would hand down a single opinion. Since Marshall was the Chief Justice, he was the one who got to write this opinion and got to influence the Court's direction.
Marshall also created the doctrine judicial review, which says that the Supreme Court can rule on (and perhaps strike down) laws that it feels aren't Constitutional. Most people today don't realize that power isn't in the Constitution somewhere (in the back, maybe) but it was Marshall who created it.
In the election of 1800, Thomas Jefferson and his Democratic-Republicans defeated John Adams and the Federalists. Jefferson wasn't sworn in until March 4, 1801 and between the election and the inauguration, Adams and the Federalists still controlled Congress. They passed the Judiciary Act of 1801, which created ten new federal level courts for Adams to fill with Federalists. The night before the inauguration Adams went through a flurry of appointments. A man named William Marbury was the recipient of one of these "Midnight Judge" appointments but he hadn't been delivered his commission by the time Jefferson was sworn in the next day. It was assumed that the commissions would be delivered by the incoming Sectretary of State, James Madison. Almost as soon as he was sworn in, Jefferson ordered the remaining undelivered commissions to be retracted. Without the official commissions the judges and justices of the peace were unable to start their jobs and, as far as Jefferson was concerned, it was problem solved.
Congress, now controlled by the Democratic-Republicans moved quickly to pass the Judiciary Act of 1802, which voided the Judiciary Act of 1801. The also canceled the impending Supreme Court term and postponed the next one for almost a year in order to delay a ruling on the constitutionality for all of these judiciary acts for as long as possible to allow them to become entrenched.
The upshot of the case was that Marbury got his commission, but more importantly, the Court ruled that the Judiciary Act of 1802 was unconstitutional and that the Supreme Court had the right to review laws that Congress passed.

History Spotlight, 1/19

It was on this day in 1917 that German Foreign Secretary Arthur Zimmerman sent the infamous Zimmerman Telegram, offering Mexico much of the land (Texas, Arizona and New Mexico) they lost during the Mexican-American War and financial aid for an alliance against the US, who was not, at that point, at war.

Mexican President Venustuiano Carranza declined for several reasons. First, it would mean war with the US and they didn't want that. Second, Germany may have had all the money in the world, but the only place to buy arms in the Western hemisphere was from the US. On top of that, the Royal Navy still ruled the waves so it would be impossible for Germany to supply all the arms that were required. Third, Mexico wasn't looking forward to the conquest and pacification of a large population of English-speaking, fervently patriotic Texans. Finally, The "ABC Powers" (Argentina, Brazil and Chile) had mediated between Mexico and the US over the Tampico Affair and had averted a war between the two powers. Mexico picking a fight with the US would annoy the three most powerful countries in South America. So, president Carranza said, "Thanks, but no thanks," and that might have been the end of it.

It would have been the end of the telegram if the British hadn't intercepted it. This was a golden chance to get the US into the war on the Allied side. German trans-oceanic cables had been cut and the Americans were allowing them to use theirs under diplomatic cover as a friendly gesture. Anti-German feeling in the US was already running hot due to the resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare by Germany and the British felt that it would only take one little push to get the job done.

There were just a couple of problems. First, they would have to get the telegram to the Americans without letting on that they were listening into messages sent under American diplomatic cover. Second, they needed to have a cover story for how they got the message without revealing that they had deciphered the German codes.
For the first problem, they figured that the message would have been relayed from the German Embassy in Washington to Mexico City via commercial telegraph lines so they just bribed an employee of the telegraph company in Mexico for a copy of the encrypted message.

For the second problem, they circulated they story that they had stolen the decrypted telegram in Mexico City. Germany was unwilling to consider the possibility that their code had been broken launched a hunt for a traitor that didn't exist.

On February 18, 1917, the British showed the telegram and corroborating evidence to the American government. Reaction was, at first, incredulous and the outraged as the telegram was independently verified. At first, the German and Mexican governments tried to make it seem as if the telegram was a British forgery, but the evidence continued to mount up until Arthur Zimmerman himself was forced admit to having sent the telegram.

This, coupled with the sinking of the Lusitania a few years earlier and the resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare on February 1, 1917 only served to further inflame American passions against Germany. On April 2, 1917, President Wilson asked Congress to declare war on Germany and on April 6, they complied.

History Spotlight, 1/18

It was on this day in 1535 that Francisco Pizarro, Spanish conquistador, founded the city of Lima, Peru.
Pizarro had led a couple of expeditions down the West coast of South American with differing levels of success. The first one was a failure: he only made it to Columbia (from Panama) and lost a ton of men to disease, hunger and hostile natives. The names given to ports along the way speak of the hard times: Porto del Hambre (Port of Hunger) and Porto Quemado (Burned Port).
The governor of Panama, Pedro Arias Davila, refused to authorize a second expedition, seeing Pizarro as a losing horse. But it was at that point that Davila decided to go exploring northwards in Honduras. His successor, Pedro de los Rios, gave Pizarro his support. It wasn't exactly full-throated support, but it was enough for Pizarro to get going.
Pizarro left Panama with a fleet of 160 ships headed south. They got to the San Juan River (at the modern boundary of Columbia and Bolivia) and split into three groups. Pizarro's group would head upriver to explore the interior. His second-in-command, Diego de Alamgro would head back to Panama for supplies and reinforcements. The chief pilot, Bartolomo Ruiz headed south to explore the coastline.
Ruiz had the best luck, at least from his point of view. He encountered, and subsequently robbed, a raft full of natives from the city of Tumbes. He relieved them of the burden of many yards of cloth, fine ceramics and, most especially, lots of gold and silver. Ruiz's eyes lit up at that and he turned around to meet up with Pizarro.
As it turns out, Pizarro had been having and extremely difficult time in the interior and was only too happy to break off that aspect of the expedition. At that point Alamgro got back with the supplies and troops.
Meanwhile, Governor de los Rios has been hearing all about Pizarro's disastrous first expedition and rumors about what was going on on the second. He decides to not only not authorize a third expedition, but to recall the second. He sent two ships to go get Pizarro.
This only stiffened Pizarros resolve, leading to an agry confrontation where he drew a line in the sand and gave his men the option of going home or staying with him, saying, "There lies Peru with its riches; Here, Panama and its poverty. Choose, each man, what best becomes a brave Castilian" Only thirteen men out of hundreds stayed with him. These were to become known as "The Famous Thirteen."
Pizarro sent Ruiz and Almagro back for provisions and to try and change de los Rios's mind, while Pizarro built a camp to wait it out. After much wrangling and argument, the governor grudgingly gave them a six-month extension and that was all Pizarro needed. In this time, Pizarro discovered the native city of Tumbes, which was a major trading city, even at that time. With undeniable proof of the riches of Peru, Pizarro tried for a third expedition, but was still rebuffed by the governor. He decided to go over his head to King Charles I of Spain. He was dazzled by Pizarro's tales of fabulous riches and quickly authorized the conquest of Peru.
In 1535, he landed on the coast of Ecuador and met up with fellow conquistador, Hernando de Soto and proceed to to Tumbes. The found the town a smoking ruin and all of the people dead. The locals blamed the Punians, a local warlike tribe Pizarro had tangled with before. With his plans of using Tumbes as a base shot, he moved inland and established the city of, San Miguel de Piura, one of the first European-established cities in South America,
de Soto left on various short expeditions to explore the immediate environs of San Miguel and soon brought back a representative of the famed Incan Empire He brought an offer to meet their Emperor, Atahualpa who was relaxing and recuperating in the hot springs at the city of Cajamarca after giving his brother a good shellacking in a civil war.
Pizarro left on the two-month journey to Cajamarca with about 170 men. Things didn't go that well with Atahualpa. For starters, Atahualpa wasn't buying that "We're gods!" routine for a second. He was content to let the common rabble believe it - after all, they thought he was a god too - but he wasn't going to. Secondly, he was fresh on the tails of a massive victory over his brother. Third, it was 80,000 of Atahualpa's men versus under 200 of Pizarro's. Atahualpa can be forgiven for being confident.
Pizarro, for his part, was in a bit of a pickle. He knew that a stand-up fight with Atahualpa was suicide. He also knew that he couldn't retreat without looking weak and inviting an attack. Furthermore, he couldn't just hang out because the more time spent fraternizing with the natives, the more they would come to the same conclusion that Atahualpa had: these guys were frauds. On top of that reinforcements were 2,000 miles away.
This standoff led to the Battle of (or Massacre at, if you like) Cajamarca. Pizarro invited Atathualpa into the walled city for a nice dinner and chat. For reasons unknown, Atahualpa left all of the 80,000 outside the city and only brought in his retinue. Once they reached the center of town, the signal was given and the Incas were attacked with cavalry charges, (which they had never seen) and massed gunfire (which they had never received). Atahualpa was captured and held for a ransom of one 22x17 room full of gold and two 22x17 rooms full of silver (nobody mentions how high the ceiling was). After the ransom was received, Pizarro had Atathualpa executed anyway.

History Spotlight, 1/17

One of the largest armed robberies in United States history, the Great Brink's Robbery took place today in 1950 in Boston.

It all started with Tony "Fats" Pino, a local burglar and low-level mafioso. After Brink's moved its vault to a new location in 1948, Tony began to quietly study the routes of the armored cars and the daily routines of the business. Pino realized from his studies that the famed Brink's reputation was just a facade. He move from observation to actively casing their Boston office. He would actually break in at night and study the procedures from the inside.

By now, Tony was no longer thinking small. A place this wide open was just asking to be hit and hit hard. During these almost-nightly recon missions, Tony and two associates, Joey "Specs" O'Keefe and Stan "Gus" Gusciora broke into the Brinks office and made duplicate keys for nearly all the locked doors in the building. He began to assemble a team of crooks of different skills to assist him in his big score.

At 6:55 PM on January 17, 1950, seven robbers, wearing Brinks uniforms, dark Navy pea coats and Halloween masks, entered the Brink's office. Using their forged keys, the robbers surprised five brinks employees on the second floor, bound and gagged them and started scooping up cash.

By 7:30 PM they left the building and went to a safe place to divide the cash. Each man got his cut and agreed to not spend any of the money for six years, at which time the statute of limitations would have run out.

At first, there were almost no clues. While Brink offered a $100,000 reward for information leading to arrest, all the cops could find was a length of rope used to bind the guards and a chauffeur's cap. Later on, several pieces of the getaway truck were found in a salvage yard in Stoughton, MA.

And that's about all there was in the way of leads for several months. The cops leaned on "all the usual suspects" for information, but nobody knew anything. It wasn't until June, when O'Keefe and Gusciora were picked up on a burglary charge in Pennsylvania that things began to unravel. With O'Keefe looking at at least 3 years and Gusciora looking at anything from 5 to twenty years, all that money began to look handy for a legal defense. Via an informer, the cops learned that O'Keefe and Gusciora had demanded money from from Tony Pino to hire a lawyer.

O'Keefe was in such a need for money that, after he was released on bail, he kidnapped another one of the robbers (Vincent Costa, who was also Tony Pino's brother-in-law) and held him for ransom. Pino paid a little ransom money, but soon decided that O'Keefe needed to be dealt with. He hired a hitman, Elmer "Trigger" Burke to kill O'Keefe, but Elmer only managed to seriously wound O'Keefe. It was while O'Keefe was in the hospital that the FBI approached him and pointed out that his friends weren't very friendly and maybe he should find a new class of friends. O'Keefe agreed to talk.

At the trial, eight of the gang members received life sentences and O'Keefe got four years - more time than he would have gotten had he just done his time from the Pennsylvania robbery. Of the $2.7 million, only $58,000 was ever recovered. The rest is rumored to be hidden in the hills north of Grand Rapids, MN.


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History Spotlight, 1/16

On this day, in 1707, the Scottish Parliament ratifies the Act of Union, paving the way for the creation of Great Britain. Union between England and Scotland had been tried before. Edward I tried it by force during the Scottish wars in the 1290's. It didn't take. When James VI of Scotland assumed the English throne on the death of his aunt Queen Elizabeth I in 1603, he said that he wanted to be known as the King of Great Britain, rather than the somewhat wordy "King James I of England and VI of Scotland." This didn't take, either. The English parliament was concerned that James would want to run the country in the authoritarian manner that he had run Scotland and the Scots were worried that James was going to "go native" and wind up as just another English oppressor. When James got distracted by other matters, most people just breathed a sigh of relief and let the issue drop.

Later on, during the Commonwealth (this is after the English Civil War, in which the Scots supported the losing side), Oliver Cromwell conquered Scotland and created the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland. It lasted until Cromwell died and the Stuart line was restored.

Scotland, however, was playing a game of "Keeping up with England" that it was destined to fail. England had always been a trading powerhouse and Scotland wanted a slice of that sweet moneycake by setting up their own trading outpost in the New World. The place the selected was the peninsula of Darien in Panama. The first big problem with this was that Spain owned Panama and didn't like the Scots horning in on their action. The second, even bigger problem, is that the guy they got their intel from on Darien was a drunk and a swindle and probably had never been there.

He told the Scots that Darien was a paradise on Earth (in reality it was a malarial swamp) and that the natives were friendly and peaceable (they were about as friendly as you would imagine natives who had been getting kicked around by the Spanish for 200 years might be).

Scotland raised the funds for the first expedition and sent a thousand hopeful Scots to Panama, armed with Bibles and combs (they had been told the natives loved to comb their hair). Some months later, when the second wave of settlers came through, all they found was graves. What malaria, dysentery and starvation didn't do, the natives took care of.

As it turns out, England, ever ruthless had been actively sabotaging the project from the start. England didn't want Scotland as a trading rival - they didn't want Scotland as a rival for anything. And when Spain asked England to do something about those pesky Scots in Darien, they were only too happy to oblige. The English Parliament passed laws forbidding any English person or company from investing in the Darien scheme. As Scotland had already invested almost all of its money on this, the much hoped-for infusion of English cash was cut off.

With the failure of the Darien scheme, the Scots were out something like 500,000 pounds - almost two-thirds of their national revenue. At that point, England made them an offer they couldn't refuse. England would give Scotland equal access to English ports and trade and pay off Scotland's debts (called "The Equivalent) if only Scotland would sign one little piece of paper. That paper, the Act of Union would basically cause Scotland to cease to exist as an independent country. There would be no Scottish parliament (there would be a Parliament of Great Britain, but that would be in London) and no Scottish monarchs. Many Scots saw it (and still do) as the deal with the Devil and it was on this day in 1707 the Scotland signed in blood.

History Spotloght, 1/15

It was on this day in 1559, that Queen Elizabeth I was crowned in Westminster Abbey. But who cares about her, it's also the 89th anniversary of the Great Boston Molasses Flood.

Like most disasters, several factors combined to create it. For starters, the tank owned by the Purity Distilling Company at 529 Commercial Street in the North End, was poorly constructed and insufficiently tested. Basic saftey checks, such as filling the tank with water to check for leaks, were bypassed. The tank's molasses leaks were dealt with by painting the tank brown (so the leaks didn't show). In fact, it leaked so badly that neighborhood residents would stop by with a container and help themselves. Not helping matters any was a warm front that passed through the evening before raising temperatures from 2 degrees to 41 degrees, which started the fermentation process in the tank, which created carbon dioxide, which further increased the pressure on an already shaky structure. The tank itself was massive: 50 feet tall, 90 feet in diameter and holding over 2 million gallons of molasses.

At 40 minutes past noon on on January 15, 1919 neighborhood residents heard a rattling sound like a machine gun as the rivets popped, followed by a low rumbling sound, similar to a train passing by. As the tank burst, a massive wave of molasses 15 feet high and moving at 35 mph was unleashed upon the neighborhood. The wave moved with such force that girders of a nearby elevated train were broken and cars were strewn about like toys. A fire station just east of the tank was moved off its foundation and other buildings were completely demolished. 21 were killed and 150 were injured.

As the wave subsided, several blocks were left inundated in molasses at a depth of about 3 feet. People, horses and dogs struggled to get to their feet in the sticky mess and breathe while their lungs were clogged with molasses. The force of air ahead of the wave picked up a truck and tossed it into Boston Harbor.

The first responders wer 116 sailors from the nearby USS Nantucket who waded into the soup to pull out survivors. In the meantime, the Red Cross arrived and set up aid station to tend the wounded and keep people warm. After four days, the search for survivors was called off.

In the end, the cleanup took 87,000 man hours and Boston Harbor was brown (well, brown-er) until summer. The United States Industrial Alcohol Company, owner of Purity Distilling originally tried to blame a bomb planted by anarchists, but nobody was buying that. After three years of trials, USIA was found liable to the tune of $600,000 (about $6.6 million in today's dollars)

A plaque at the site reads:

On January 15, 1919, a molasses tank at 529 Commercial Street exploded under pressure, killing 21 people. A 40-foot wave of molasses buckled the elevated railroad tracks, crushed buildings and inundated the neighborhood. Structural defects in the tank combined with unseasonably warm temperatures contributed to the disaster.

Neighborhood residents say that, on hot summer nights, you can still smell molasses in the air.

History Spotlight, 1/14

The Treaty of Paris, signed on September 3, 1783, is ratified by the United States on this day in 1784 officially ending the American Revolution. The signers were Ben Franklin, John Adams and John Jay, for the US, and Member of Parliament David Hartley for King George III. Other belligerents in the war (France, the Netherlands, and Spain) got their own treaties later on.
The ten main points of the treaty are:
1) All 13 colonies are free and sovereign and the King lets go of all claims to them.
2) Establishing the boundaries between the United States and British North America (that's Canada to you and me). The map made by John Mitchell (a whopping 6.5 feet by 4.5 feet) used to determing the border contained numerous inaccuracies which would cause no end of mischief. For example, the Northwest Angle, that little bit of Minnesota on the northern side of Lake of the Woods is completely isolated from the rest of the continental United States. This is because the the Treaty of Paris said that the border ran from the Lake of the Woods due west to the Mississippi, but the Mississippi is much farther south than that. Another area was the Republic of Indian Stream, that little piece of New Hampshire that sticks up into Canada.
3) Fishing rights to US fishermen in the Grand Banks, off the coast of Newfoundland and in the Gulf of St Lawrence.
4) Recognizing the the validity of debts on either side.
5) Giving back confiscated Loyalist lands to their rightful owners. Many states wound up ignoring this one.
6) Preventing future confiscation of property owned by Loyalists.
7) Prisoners of war on both sides to be released.
8) Great Britain and America to have equal access to the Mississippi River.
9) Land captured by the US outside of the provisions of the treaty are to be returned without compensation.
10) Ratification to occur within six months.

In addition to, this Britain gave Spain back Florida (which was East and West Florida at the time) Unfortunately, nobody knew exactly where the northern border of Florida was, which would cause no end of trouble when Andrew Jackson was riding around down there during the Creek War. Also causing problems in Florida is the fact that Spain didn't sign any treaty allowing the Americans access to the Missippi and used their position in Florida to make a general nuisance of themselves.

History Spotlight, 1/13

One this day in 1942 one of the worst civil right abuses in modern US history gets rolling when FDR signs Presidential Proclamation 2537, requiring resident aliens to report and change of address, employment or name to the FBI. This would lead in turn to Executive Order 9066 which required that all American citizens of Japanese descent (as little as 1/16th Japanese ancestry) on the West Coast be kept in "internment camps."

California of the early 20th century was rife with anti-Asian sentiment, of an intensity not seen in other parts of the county. This was, of course, because there weren't many Asians in the other parts. Asians (or "Mongolians" as they were known) were added to the anti-miscegenation laws of the time. The Federal Immigration Act of 1924, which was supported by the eugenicsts of the day, put severe limits on almost all immigration but fell upon the prospective Asian immigrants especially hard.

When the Empire of Japan struck Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, war fever hit the whole country, but especially on the West Coast where they feared an iminent invasion. This may not be as far fetched as it sounds - after all the Japanese war machine had made almost unbelievable advances in the Western Pacific and many people felt that the oil fields and industry of the US Pacific Coast would be an irresistible temptation. Of course, this couldn't be further from the truth - the Japanese Empire had overextended itself just getting to Hawaii - full assaults California or the Panama Canal would have been nearly impossible.

But that didn't stop the hysteria. Various groups (including the California State Legislature) issued reports stating that the Japanese never could be fully assimilated into American culture and would be prone to committing acts of espionage or sabotage. California Attorney General Earl Warren petitioned the US government to remove all Japanese people from the West Coast.

On February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt signed the infamous Executive Order 9066 which allowed the military to designate so-called "military areas" in which any person within may be excluded. By the end of the war, the exclusion zones would comprise all of the West Coast and most of the East Coast (about one-third of the country) Interestingly, most of these rules didn't apply in Hawaii, where you would think war fever would be at it's peak. The problem was that people of Japanese descent were about one third of the total Hawaiian population and the islands would have shut down if that much of the population had to be incarcerated.

Many Japanese living on the West Coast initially tried to get somewhere on the East Coast or the Midwest, either living with friends or family. But most of those states were not looking forward to a mass movement of Japanese into their territory. "There would have been Japs hanging from every pine tree," said Wyoming Governor Nels H. Smith. On March 27, 1942, a freeze order was issued, preventing any more Japanese people from leaving the West Coast. They were initially put in "assembly centers" such as hastily converted horse stalls on in empty fairgrounds. They were soon shipped out to one of ten regional internment centers as far away as Arkansas. The head of the War Relocation Authority, Milton Eisenhower (brother of Dwight) resigned in disgust and advised his successor that he would have trouble sleeping at night. The camps weren't on the level as the depravity seen in the German, but barbed wire and machine gun nests are the same everywhere.

In 1988, President Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which provided an offical government apology and $20,000 for each surviving detainee.

History Spotlight, 1/12

Irish politician and spiritual founder of modern Western Conservatism, Edmund Burke was born today in 1729. Burke is best known for his support of the American Revolution and for his opposition to the French Revolution.

In the lead up to the American Revolution, Burk saw that the Colonists had a just disagreement over taxes. In a speech before Parliament, he said, "...leave America, if she has taxable matter in her, to tax herself."

One of the big disagreements the Americans had with the Crown was that they were doing business with all these companies that operated out of Britain and also paying taxes back to the Crown and not really seeing much of a return on all that money. Burke's feeling was that, if American was forced to do business with Britain and also forced to pay taxes on that business then they should also be able to reap the benefits of that business or else it would be nothing more than slavery in all but name. A smug modern like me would point out that the Americans did have the benefit of having one of the finest armies in the world protecting their frontier from the French and Indians without having to invest the manpower or industrial capacity, but I don't think they saw it that way and, in any event, I've always been a bit of a Royalist.

Burke also noted that the rebelling American colonists were still Englishmen (Protestant Englishmen) the same people who had, less than 100 years before, thrown off the yoke of a Catholic monarchy in the Glorious Revolution on 1688. Now, these same people were trying to simply assert some degree of autonomy in their economic dealings (this being March 1775, the colonies weren't yet in open rebellion until the Battle of Lexington and Concord in April, 1775)

With the French Revolution of 1789, Burke was appalled by the violence, especially when a mob of enraged Parisians marched on the palace at Versailles to force King Louis XVI to return to Paris. As the brutality escalated, Burke became more and more horrified. By 1790, he had escalated into openly denouncing the Revolution. The problem he had is that he was always dogged by rumors that he was a closet Catholic. His father was Protestant (his family had emigrated from England during the reign of Henry II back in 1172) but his mother was Catholic and, although he had been raised Anglican and taken an oath against the supremacy of the Pope and against the doctrine of transubstantiation, tongues still wagged. His point was that just getting rid of the monarchy didn't automatically mean that freedom flowed into the vacuum.

Burke was the obverse side of a coin shared with the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rosseau. Where Rosseau believed that mankind's natural inclination in the absence of governmental or societal influences is to freedom. Burke believed, if not the exact opposite, then that freedom wasn't a given in the absence of government. This argument about human nature is still being waged today, and probably will be for the foreseeable future.

History Spotlight. 1/11

One of the more controversial (and best dressed) figures of the British Raj, George Curzon, was born today in 1859. He was the Viceroy of India from 1899-1905.

All during Britain's time in India there was someone on the ground running things for either the East India Company or the Crown. Prior to the Indian Mutiny of 1857, that person was called the Governor-General. After the Mutiny, the Crown took over the whole country from the Company and the position of Governor-General got changed to "Governor General and Viceroy," or just Viceroy, because that was less wordy. The Viceroy reported directly to the Crown on matters relating to India.

In 1899, Curzon was appointed Viceroy of India. He arrived in the middle of a famine that was raging over most of the subcontinent. After a period of drought in 1899, the summer monsoons failed. Coming on the heels of another failed monsoon and famine in 1896, the population was suffering. Curzon's reaction to the famine was actually pretty good - better than other administration's reactions had been, at least. Famine relief and irrigation projects were begun and a summer monsoon in 1900 that wasn't a total dud helped between three and five million people in the affected provinces.

Curzon's reaction to the problem wasn't the issue, it was his reaction to his reaction that was the issue. He didn't want the government's emergency famine relief programs to become an excuse to go all crazy and, you know, start trying to feed the millions of people who starved to death on a daily basis in late-19th Century India. After the famine ended, he not only stopped the emergency assistance, he cut back the regular assistance to the poor to pre-famine levels and made it much harder to get assistance. His infamous quote is, "...any government which imperiled the financial position of India in the interests of prodigal philanthropy would be open to serious criticism; but any government which by indiscriminate alms-giving weakened the fiber and demoralized the self-reliance of the population, would be guilty of a public crime." Oh, snap!

Of course, it's important to recognize that Curzon was reacting as someone of his time would have. That kind of obsessive devotion to the tenants of the free market is practically unknown to people in the 21st century, but it was pretty common among the Victorians and they honestly thought they were helping people.

In Curzon's plus column for his time in India is his refurbishment of the Taj Mahal. By the time of Curzon's administration, it had fallen on hard times. The 1857 Mutiny had been especially hard on it and it had become overgrown with vegetation and a bazaar had take occupancy in the front section. Curzon was always very keen on Indian culture (he wasn't one of the viceroys who wanted to make "brown Englishmen") and architecture. He ordered the bazaar to move out, removed the vines and had the damage from the fighting (and looting) during the Mutiny repaired.Curzon's star as viceroy quickly faded and he resigned under a cloud. Later on, he became foreign secretary in 1919, but he didn't get along with Prime Minister Lloyd George and didn't last very long.

History Spotlight, 1/10

Today, in 49 BC, Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon, started a civil war. The Rubicon was a river in northern Italy flowing east to the Adriatic Sea. Over the years which river was the Rubicon has been forgotten, but most scholars (the ones writing Wikipedia articles at least) think that it's the current Piscatello River.
During Caesar's time, the Rubicon was considered the northern border of Italy and there was a prohibiton against Roman legions crossing it. This was to stave off military coups or the other nastiness that can happen when you got tons of bored soldiers sitting around drinking.
The Roman government had been having difficulties for a long time. A sucession of leaders ranging from inept to downright crazy had irked the populace. The Marian reforms, named after Gaius Marius, increased the effieciency of the Roman legions. Prior to the reforms, in order to be admited to the Roman military a person had to had to have property worth 3000 sesterces in value, be a member of the fifth census class, and he had to supply his own armor and weapons. The military units were also raised and commanded by the elected Roman consuls, so you got a lot of units being commanded in the field by politicians who may not know what they're doing.
Marius changed this so that the landless could join the military and didn't have to pay for their own weapons. He also offered them the possibility of advancement and pay increases, and for people who had no land in a society where land is everything this was a golden opportunity. He also standardized training and equipment and gave command to people who were good at it and perhaps not landowners. Basically, it sounds to me like he came up with Oliver Cromwell's New Model Army 1500 years before Cromwell. In addition to the other reforms, he provided retirement pay (including land in conquered regions) and allowed foriegeners to become Roman citizens after a period of service.
Sounds great, right? The problem lay in the fact that, over time, the soldiers' loyalty would shift from Rome to the general that commanded them. After all, if you're a soldier and you're on campaign in Africa or Gaul, who are you going to be more loyal to. A bunch of politicians in Rome who think you're a third-class (at best!) citizen or the guy whose tactics and leadership are keeping you alive?
Caesar had a seat in the senate, was a miltary hero and was seen as a champion of the common man. His political alliance with Crassus and Pompey had just broken up in acrimony anbd it looked like they were both going to take their armies and rumble. The senate sided with Pompey and asked Caesar to disband his army. He sent them back a letter that said, basically, "Pompey first," which enraged the senate. They thought they were in charge! Caesar asked him men to support him agains the senate and they said, "Sure!" The senate, and Pompey, said, "You get back here and disband that army, young man and don't cross the Rubicon." Caesar crossed and it was go-time.
This would end with Caesar installing himself as dictator and getting stabbed to death on the senate floor.

History Spotlight, 1/9

Man, it's getting difficult to keep these at 500 words. Sorry about the length, but it's about Lord Nelson.

On this day in 1806, Admiral Horatio Nelson was laid to rest in St Paul's Cathedral, after he had died the previous October at the Battle of Trafalgar. The Battle of Trafalgar was a naval battle that took place between the British Navy and the allied forces of France and Spain during the several wars collectively known as the Napoleonic Wars between 1803 and 1815.In 1805, Napoleon controlled most of continental Europe, but Britannia, as usual for that time, controlled the waves. Nappy set up what was called the "Continental System" which forbade any European country that Nappy controlled (that is, most of them) from doing any business at all with the British. Tne British, being a "nation of shopkeepers" (as Napoleon sneeringly dismissed them) needed that trade were forced to take the war off the seas and onto land.

With the Third Coalition (Austria, Portugal, Russia, Britain and assorted others) getting creamed on the Continent by Napoleon (considered to be one of the finest military minds of the age) he had the idea of an invasion of Britain. It makes a certain amount of sense: look at the allies listed above and see who the linchpin of that alliance is. Russia's a big dog, sure (and Napoleon would attempt to settle scores with them in 1812, disastrously for him) but Britain has a killer navy, a huge empire -and don't think for a minute France had forgotten how the British muscled them out of India in the 18th Century- and an army that is second only to France's and not by much. Nappy knows he needs to take Britain out, and take them out now.

By way of comparison, think about what the Japanese mindset was prior the US entry into World War II. They were running roughshod over Asia without much resistance and their only serious regional competitor was the US. At the time, all the US was doing was enacting an oil and steel embargo (remember when we use to use oil embargos on other people? Man, that was sweet) and making various diplomatic grumpy noises. But the Japanese knew that war with the US was going to come sooner or later and they might as well strike from a position of strength. Same deal with Napoleon (except that France was already at war with Britain). He knew that, at some point, Britain was going to have to be dealt with, so why not do it while their ground armies are getting shellacked on the Continent? Hell, it makes sense to me but you'll notice that, like the Pope, I have no divisions.

There are two troubles with that line of reasoning: 1) the British aren't stupid, they know what Nappy's planning and 2) the most powerful navy the world had ever seen is flying the Union Jack and sitting in the English Channel.

On October 21, 1805, Admiral Nelson was in command of his flagship, the HMS Victory and 27 other ships of the line. The Franco-Spanish fleet fielded 33 ships-of-the-line, including some of the largest ships in the world at the time. The majority of the ships were French becuase the Spanish were very much the junior partner in that alliance.

The usual way to have a naval battle in the early 19th Century was to line everybody up in parallel lines, good guys on one side, bad guys on the other, and just start blasting. This was an improvement over the old system (everybody sailing at each other in a mess and blasting until only one side was left afloat) because it allowed for better communication, defense and withdrawal if needed. The problem lay in that last part. If one side decides that its losing too much, they withdraw and the battle is a draw. Repeat until you're sick of it. Knowing that there was an invasion force on those ships, Nelson desperately wanted to wipe them out. This he did in a novel way.

Instead of forming up into a tidy scrimmage line, Nelson formed his forces into two lines and sailed them right at the enemy line, one in the center and one near one of the ends. He planned to cut the line in half, surround the halves and prevent them from withdrawing. He also hoped to cut off the enemy flagship so that they couldn't see their admiral's signals. This was going to be a risk because, although the British could close quickly, there was going to be an aggravating amount of time that they were going to be exposed to the full force of enemy guns and would not be able to respond. Nelson had an ace in the hole however: he knew that British sailors were some of the finest in the world, British gunners were the most trained and that every last man-jack of them knew that he was fighting for his homeland. Furthermore, he knew that the enemy gunners were poorly trained and would be supplemented by the ground forces, most of who knew nothing about firing cannons at ships at sea.To make a long story short (too late), at the start of the battle, Nelson sent the famous signal to his fleet "England expects that every man wil do his duty" and the battle was joined. The battle was a resounding success, and demonstrated to the world that Britain was indeed the preeminent naval power on the globe. Tragically, Nelson caught a bullet from a French sharpshooter and died as the battle was ending. His last words were, "Thank God I have done my duty for God and my country."

The Apotheosis of Nelson

Nelson remains one of Britain's most famous and loved heroes and his column in Trafalgar Square is a must-visit stop for tourists. He faces the Channel, always vigilant.

History Spotlight, 1/8

Yesterday, we were in the 16th Century with Henry VIII and company. Today, we’re going to jump forward roughly 200 years to 1746 with Bonnie Prince Charlie and his occupation of Stirling Castle.

What happened in between, briefly: Henry VIII begat two useless monarchs: Edward IV (who died young) and Bloody Mary (who probably should have). Then came Elizabeth I, who everybody knows. She had no children and the crown would have gone to her cousin, Mary, Queen of Scots (Mary Stuart) if it weren’t for the fact that Elizabeth had Mary’s head cut off. The crown goes to James VI of Scotland (Mary’s son) and he also becomes James I of England. He dies, his son Charles I becomes king. After the English Civil Wars end, General Oliver Cromwell cut Charles's head off (“with the crown on it!”) Cromwell ruled as Lord Protector until he died. In the chaos that followed, General George Monck said, “Mister, we could use a man like Charles Stuart again,” and brought back Charles I’s son back from the Continent and made him Charles II.

Charles II was a lot of fun – when you think of “Merrye Olde Englande” you’re probably thinking of the reign of Charles II. Charles's son, James II was much less fun, and a closet Catholic to boot. His wife was much less closeted and when they started raising their son as a Catholic, all the ghosts of Bloody Mary's reign came back. A group of Parliamentarians known as "The Immortal Seven" invited William of Orange and his wife Mary across the Channel to run the place in The Glorius Revolution. OK, we're almost there. After William and Mary, the reign passes to Queen Anne, the last of the Stuarts. After Anne, the throne passes to the Georges (I, II, and III) of Hanover and that's where we stand in the 18th Century. That's 200 years in 200 words, try getting that at your fancy-pants East Coast Ivy League college, hippie.

But what about James II's kid, James Francis Edward Stuart? After all, he was next in line for the throne, and for all the beatings the Great Chain of Being took during Cromwell's reign and the Glorious Revolution, many people still believed in it and believed that the rightful king had been forced out. As a baby, James Francis escaped England during the Glorious Revolution to France. After his father's death in 1701, his cousin Louis XIV of France proclaimed him King of England, mostly because it would really annoy the English. He made a couple of half-hearted attempts to retake the throne, but none were ever successful and he finally retired in Rome on a tidy Papal pension.

From there, the broken sword of the Stuart line was taken up by his son Charles Edward Stuart, aka Bonnie Prince Charlie, and we're finally getting to the point of this essay. The Scots had never really gotten behind the Glorious Revolution. It took them months to even bother to acknowledge the rule of William and Mary, and that wasn't until some dirty dealing by the English in the Massacre at Glen Coe, where hundreds of old men, women and children were put on a forced march in their bed clothes in a driving blizzard. After the English made Scotland an offer they couldn't refuse and forced the Act of Union on them in 1707 (under Queen Anne) the bad blood got worse. The Scots had always loved the Stuarts (even when they were dethroning them). After all Mary, Queen of Scots was one of theirs and James was James VI of Scotland long before he was James I of England. It was a case of "Local Boy Makes Good."

In 1743, Bonnie Prince Charlie raise enough fund for a small (two ships) navy and a company of soldiers and landed on the Scottish coast where the Jacobites (Jacobus is the Latin form of James - don't get it mixed up with the Jacobins who were in the French Revolution) welcomed him with open arms. His Army grew rapidly and by 1746 he had liberated most of Scotland, including Stirling Castle one of the most important castles in Scotland, and was marching south. He made it almost to London (Scotland conquering England!) but, ignoring his commanders' advice to take the city, turned around and started marching back north. The English took the advantage and Field Marshal George Wade mostly destroyed the Scottish army as it retreated. Bonnie Prince Charlie never succeeded in capturing the throne and retreated to the Continent, where he lived in luxury and indolence until he died 1788.

This is where we get the little-used 6th verse of the national anthem of the United Kingdom:

God grant that Marshall Wade
May by Thy mighty aid
Victory bring
May he sedition hush
And like a torrent rush
Rebellious Scots to crush
God save the King!

History Spotlight, 1/7

On this day in 1536, King Henry VIII of England's first wife, Catherine of Aragon dies of natural causes. Cathy was actually Henry's brother Arthur's wife in a political marriage meant to solidify relations with Spain (Cathy was Ferdinand and Isabella's youngest child) and annoy the French. When Arthur died of a "mysterious sweating sickness" the marriage was still necessary, so Henry married her when he ascended to the throne. This was to cause lots of problems in the future.

Catherine of Aragon

Henry's big wish was to have a son to carry on his line. Cathy gave birth to five sons and a daughter. All five sons died. Modern thinking has it that the children were sickly because Henry was crawling with sexually transmitted diseases, which he then passed to his wife who gave them to her fetal children. At the time, of course, nobody had any idea about that sort of thing and Henry alternately blamed himself (for marrying his brother's wife - he found an obscure Biblical tract that I can't remember to back it up) or he blamed Cathy for being a woman and having dirty, dirty womanly parts.

Henry VIII

As noted, Henry was desperate to have a son. England didn't have a tradition of having female rulers (the last female monarch, Empress Matilda, ruled for less than a year almost 400 years previously).
The problem with not having a male heir lay in the fact that the Tudor line rested on very preciarious foundations. Henry VII came to power at the end of the Wars of the Roses when the Lancastrian team beat the Yorkists in double overtime. Henry VII wisely united both sides with a political marriage, but there were still several pretenders to the throne out there and he never could quite shake the notion that he had come to power by breaking the Great Chain of Being and overthrowing Richard III.
At this point, Henry VIII is absolutely paranoid to 1) Not have Wars of the Roses II (with him possibly on the losing side) and 2) Solidify his reign by having a strapping young lad to carry on his line. Either directly or indirectly, he places the blame squarely on his marriage to Cathy. About this time he makes the acquaintance of a toothsome wench named Anne Boleyn who is everything that Cathy isn't. Anne is fun and vivacious, young and pretty. Cathy is prim and pious and "never on Sunday" if you take my meaning. It's The Patty Duke Show in Tudor England. The big similarity between them is that Anne wasn't about to put out for the king unless there was a ring on her finger. If she had wanted a dalliance, she could have gotten all she wanted from any number of muscley, non-syphilitic stable boys and farm hands.

Anne Boleyn - not easy

Henry decides to ditch Cathy in favor of Anne, but it's not a simple as filing papers down at the courthouse. England, at the time, was a staunch Catholic country. Henry himself had been named "Defender of the Faith" by the pope for writing (or having ghost-written) some book about how awesome the Church was. While divorce is forbidden in the Church, pass some coin to the right people and you can get an annulment which is just as good. The problem lay in the fact that Pope Clement VII was being held virtual prisoner by Emperor Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire, who was Cathy's nephew and he wasn't about to let Henry treat his aunt like some common scullery maid.
Henry gets it into his head (with help from Anne) to break off from the Roman Catholic Church and start the Church of England with himself as the head. As head, he can divorce who he wants and set whatever rules he wants. He sends Cathy off to the Continent (not cutting off wives heads just yet) and marries Anne. When Cathy finally dies, Anne wears yellow in celebration. Little did she know she would be joining her in the hereafter less than six months later and not from natural causes.
Henry did manage to have one son, Edward, from his third wife, Jane Seymour, but he was a sickly lad (there's that syph from Daddy again). While he did ascend the throne on Henry's death, he only ruled for six years before dying at the age of 16. Then came "Bloody" Mary, Cathy's daughter and Elizabeth I, Anne's daughter.