Lepanto: October 7, 1571

449 years ago tomorrow, the fleet of the Holy League, mostly warships from Venice and the Spanish Empire, met and crushed a large Ottoman fleet off the Western coast of Greece in the Battle of Lepanto. This victory decisively checked the expansion of the Ottoman Empire and, maybe, saved the Christian West and the achievements of the Renaissance.

Americans know of this battle, if at all, mostly from G.K. Chesterton's marvelous poem Lepanto, which was a staple in English Lit textbooks for many decades. It's a great piece of work, full of dazzling and memorable lines, from beginning:

               White founts falling in the courts of the sun,
               And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run;

to end:

               Thronging of the thousands up that labour under sea
               White for bliss and blind for sun and stunned for liberty.

Among the soldiers who fought at Lepanto was one Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, who suffered three wounds. The envoi of Chesterton's poem reads:

               Cervantes on his galley sets the sword back in the sheath
               (Don John of Austria rides homeward with a wreath.)
               And he sees across a weary land a straggling road in Spain,
               Up which a lean and foolish knight forever rides in vain,
               And he smiles, but not as Sultans smile, and settles back the blade....
               (But Don John of Austria rides home from the Crusade.)

These days, the mere idea of teaching Chesterton's Lepanto to schoolchildren would have entire School Boards cowering under their desks. Just the word "Crusade" would make their teeth chatter.

brief history lesson

This appeared as Cory Booker was speaking at DNC convention. Angela's decorum has degraded nearly to the level of my own, I sensed a kindred spirit unimpressed by position.

Why Did America Fight the Korean War?

Link to video

"The Ides of March: The assassination of Julius Caesar and how it changed the world"

"Caesar's death paved the way for the Roman empire after a bloody cycle of civil wars, and secured him the hallowed immortality he always craved"

Spurinna was a haruspex. His calling was vital, if a little unusual, requiring him to see the future in the warm entrails of sacrificial animals.

At the great festival of Lupercalia on the 15th of February 44 B.C., he was a worried man. While priests were running around the Palatine Hill hitting women with thongs to make them fertile, Spurinna was chewing over a terrible omen.

The bull that Julius Caesar, Dictator of Rome, had sacrificed earlier that day had no heart. Spurinna knew it was a terrible sign: a sure portent of death.

The following day, the haruspex oversaw another sacrifice in the hope it would give cause for optimism, but it was just as bad: the animal had a malformed liver. There was nothing for it but to tell Caesar.

In grave tones, Spurinna warned the dictator that his life would be in danger for a period of 30 days, which would expire on the 15th of March. Caesar dismissed the concerns. Although in his scramble for political power he had been made the chief priest of Rome (Pontifex Maximus), he was a campaign soldier by trade, and not bothered by the divinatory handwringing of seers like Spurinna.

As the 30 days passed, nothing whatsoever happened. Yet when the 15th of March dawned, Caesar’s wife awoke distressed after dreaming she held his bloodied body. Fearing for his life, she begged him not to leave the house. His dreams, too, had also been unsettling. He had been flying through the air, and shaken hands with Jupiter. But he pushed any concerns aside. The day was an important annual celebration in Rome’s religious calendar, and he had called a special meeting of the Senate.

His first appointment of the day was a quick sacrifice at a friend’s house. Spurinna the seer was also there. Caesar joked that his prophecies must be off as nothing had happened. Spurinna muttered that the day was not yet over.

The sacrifices proceeded, but the animals’ innards were blemished and the day was plainly inauspicious. Caesar knew when to call it a day, and agreed to postpone the meeting of the Senate and to go home.

Later that morning, his fellow military politician and protégé Decimus called round, urging him to come to the Senate in case his absence was seen as mocking or insulting. Persuaded by his friend, soldier to soldier, Caesar agreed to go in person to announce the meeting would be postponed.

Shortly after, a slave arrived at Caesar’s house to warn him of the plot against his life. But he was too late: Caesar had left. A short while later, a man named Artemidorus of Cnidus pushed through the jostling crowds and handed Caesar a roll setting out details of the plot. But the crowds were so thick he had no chance to read it.

The main Senate House was being rebuilt on Caesar’s orders, so the meeting was instead at the Curia behind the porticoed gardens attached to the great Theatre of Pompey. Another round of animal sacrifices before the start of the session was unfavourable, and Caesar waited outside, troubled. Again Decimus spoke with him. Unaware of his friend’s treachery, Caesar allowed himself to be led towards the chamber by the hand. Decked out in his triumphant general’s reddish-purple toga embroidered in gold, Julius Caesar, Dictator of Rome, entered the Senate’s meeting room, and ascended his golden throne. (read more)

"Rarely Seen “Enchanted” Moments of US History"

h/t AllenS

A horse-drawn fire engine of Engine No. 39 leaving Fire Headquarters
at 157 East 67th Street for the last time after being replaced with
a motorized fire engine, New York City, February 19, 1912.

A life guard and a doctor attempt to save a swimmers life on Coney Island Beach, 1940.
The woman in the center chose the worst moment for a smile.

Alice Huyler Ramsey (November 11, 1886 – September 10, 1983),
the first woman to drive across the United States from coast to coast, 1909.
Only 152 miles out of the total 3600-mile trip were made on paved road.

"Scurvy: Horrific as It Was Deadly for Sailors"

Via Instapundit...

A ship's chaplain in the 1740s wrote of sailors' gums that would grow out of control until they protruded from the mouth and rotted away, leaving a horrific case of bad breath, the BBC reports. So it turns out that not only was scurvy once incredibly dangerous, it was also super gross. Real Clear Science reports that approximately 2 million sailors died from scurvy, which is caused by a lack of vitamin C, between 1500 and 1800. During his voyage across the Pacific, Magellan lost 80% of his crew to the disease called "the plague of the sea," according to the BBC. One historian says scurvy killed more sailors than battle, storms, shipwrecks, and other diseases combined. And, it wasn't a pleasant way to go, either.

Scurvy starts with lethargy before causing achy joints, swollen limbs, and loose teeth, according to Real Clear Science. From there, sufferers get swollen gums, bad breath, and bruising. The skin turns yellow, then black, just before sufferers die from internal hemorrhaging. The tragic part is scurvy is ridiculously easy to cure. Real Clear Science reports someone on the brink of death from the disease could be saved by eating one-fifth of an orange every day for a week. Alas, doctors of the time didn't know what vitamins were, and ships weren't exactly built to store fresh fruit. The disease is mostly gone now, but a post at Phys.org notes that NASA scientists are using the lessons learned to ensure astronauts get the vitamins they need to stay healthy in space. (Is it possible kids are getting too many vitamins?)

Top voted comment...

My late father, a WWII vet, told me they got no fruits and vegetables for several months after landing at Casablanca and moving inland into North Africa. Scurvy took hold. The Army finally secured cabbage from a source in central Africa. It did the trick, but they ate so much cabbage he never again would eat it the rest of his life.

Illuminated tires developed by Goodyear, 1961

Illuminated tires developed by Goodyear, 1961 pic.twitter.com/PslAFECFyb

— History Pics (@ThatsHistory) July 19, 2015

Jenneration X

The Portola Expedition (1769-1770) was the first exploration of Southern California by Europeans. The Spanish explorers traveled by foot and hoof northwards from San Diego  along the coast and discovered San Francisco Bay and many points in between. Many Southern California place names were given during this historic expedition. 

Along the way, the explorers encountered scores of friendly Indian encampments (villages really). Here are explorer Miguel Costansó's first impressions of those native Americans in their natural state:

Both the men and the women are of good figure and appearance, and are fond of painting and staining their faces and bodies. They use large tufts of feathers, and hairpins that they put through their hair with various ornaments and coral beads of different colors.

The men go entirely naked, but when it is cold they wear long capes of tanned otter skins, and cloaks made of the same skins cut into long strips, and turned in such a manner that all of the fur is on the outside. They then weave these strips together, making a fabric, and give it the form mentioned above.

The women are dressed with more modesty, wearing around the waist tanned deerskins, which cover them in front and back more than halfway down the leg, and a little cape of otter skin over the body. Some of them have attractive features.

Polygamy is not permitted among these people; the chiefs alone possess the right to take two wives. In all of their towns there was noticed a class of men who lived like women, associated with them, wore the same dress, adorned themselves with beads, earrings, necklaces, and other feminine ornaments, and enjoyed great consideration among their companions. The want of an interpreter prevented us from ascertaining what kind of men they were, or to what office they were designed; all suspected however, a sexual defect or some abuse among those Indians. Link

If current trends continue, we'll see a reversion to more or less the same state.

Time capsule

A 220 year-old time capsule was opened by Massachusetts officials on Tuesday. The capsule contained coins, documents and newspapers and various artifacts left by Revolutionary War figures like Samuel Adams and Paul Revere.

"The history of Massachusetts is the history of America" Said William Galvin, Secretary of the Commonwealth before opening the box.

So is the history of Pennsylvania. So is New York. So is Virginia, you presumptuous twit. So is Maryland, North and South Carolina, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and the Providence Plantations. So is Georgia and so is Delaware. So is New Jersey and so is Connecticut.

So is Florida, for that matter and so is certainly Louisiana. In fact, New Orleans is older than the United States.

But your egoistic presumptions aside, what do you have there? I'm curious.

There is a 1652 Pine tree shilling struck by the colonists in defiance of England. There is a bronze medal of George Washington and a silver plate made by Paul Revere. There are colonial records and newspapers.

They will be on display for awhile then set back beneath the statehouse cornerstone along with a few fresh items of today. Make that ftatehoufe cornerftone.

"This is the most exciting project I've ever worked on...this is what we as conservators live for." -Pam Hatchfield

You don't get out much, do you Pam?

NBC News with photos! Kidding aside, It is interesting. American history always is interesting. I recommend it.

Exciting as all that is for Pam, have you ever watched Antique Roadshow recorded in England? People line up for miles, it seems, and come in holding tea cups older than our country.

But speaking of old junk, there were some really cool discoveries in 2014. News Discovery lists ten of them. Not only has a previously unknown pharaoh been discovered but also a previously unknown wife of another. Notice when they come up the word "nefer" again. Once you see it, you see it everywhere. Remember it means "beautiful" sometimes "perfect" sometimes "true" and sometimes "goodness" because those concepts are inseparable philosophically: truth is beautiful and good, goodness is true and beautiful, beauty is good and true. The symbol looks like a lute, or a banjo but it is actually the esophagus and stomach of a sheep. The sign is found in Gardiner's list of hieroglyphic signs "F: Parts of Mammals, F35, a very useful sign.

The sign will be seen in their names. The pharaoh has five names, it's bound to be in one of them.

1) A tile mosaic from a tomb at Amphipolis, Alexander the Great-era.

2) Secret monuments at Stonehenge. The site isn't just the stone circle. There are some seventeen temples discovered, previously unknown Neolithic shrines.

3) An 18th Century shipwreck discovered at the site of the Twin Towers destruction in NYC. 

4) King Richard III's skeleton revealing he suffered adolescent idiopathic scoliosis. Now, you would think that would be evident in his suit of armor. They save all that stuff, you know. 

5) Skeletal remains of a teenager in a Yucatan underwater cave, not a cenote, along with the remains of saber-toothed cats, pumas, sloths and bears.

6) Damage to five of Syria's six UNESCO World Heritage sites due to war. (Not actual new discoveries, rather discoveries of new destruction.)

7) An ancient papyrus with Greek writing that says Jesus was married. Most likely faked.  I don't know why they are listing this, but it is pretty cool nonetheless, just to see what fakers get up to.

8) Cheese on an old Chinese mummy. On a string around her neck, probably intended as snack in the afterlife. You never can be too careful. She was beautiful in life. 

9) King Tut's erection. Okay, that is just being salacious. Embalmers wanted to make it look like Tut had a hard on for the return to old polytheism, like Osiris, after the disruption of monotheism caused by his Tut's dad.

10) Scratches in rocks and on shells in the shame of "M's" that can only be done by man, now revealed to have been done by pre-man Homo-erectus. There's that erection again.

But what happened to the pharaoh? 

Oh, that was on another site. Sorry.

History Channel

Unknown pharaoh's remains identified as King Woseribre Senebkay. He ruled an area between the powerful Northern and Southern kingdoms at a time of upheaval, an intermediary period of disruption. That is, disruption by foreign rulers. There may be as many as twenty other unknown pharaohs. Multiple pharaohs ruling concurrently at different areas of the Nile. To show you how disruptive the period was. Archaeologists were excavating a larger tomb of Sobekhotep when they discovered Senebkay. 

Hotep means "Peace" or "Satisfaction" It is a very common sign used often in names. The sign depicts an offering mat with bread offering standing upright on it. 

The half circle means "t" 

The square means "p"

Imagine carving in all that redundancy. The sign already means "hotep" So the carver is chiseling away, probably not even knowing what the scribe has him chiseling. And the scribe insisted on the redundancy purely for reasons of aesthetics. Instead of being all smushed. In other cases they'll leave out those letters where it suits them, say, inside a cartouche. He wanted the word to fit in a square to be visually appealing. That's all. And now a worker has to carve it all out just to satisfy the scribes. What a bummer.

Sobek means crocodile. I made a pop-up card depicting sobek as an actual crocodile.

Either one will do, anthropomorphized or not. Both mean S-b-k, Sobek.

But that is the larger tomb being excavated. The newly discovered tomb is Woseribre Senebkay. 

Back to Senebkay.

We mustn't let these oddly long words scare us. They always do breakdown to simpler known forms, and their forms are highly formulaic. 

The name is incomplete. And there is confusion with another ruler at the same time. Egyptologists are still sorting competing ideas.

The royal name:

The first as found, the second a reversed drawing.

Duck with sun means "son of re" name. The name given to the person at birth. The bits inside the cartouche are letters, and word-signs and grammar.

The hook shape is a folded piece of textile, it means the letter "S"

Zig-zag water means "n"

The lower leg with foot means "b"

The two connected upright forearms with hands means "ka" a portion of the human soul with its own unique properties. Unlike our concept of human soul.

The two feathers are sedge fronds, individually they mean "eh" in pairs  they mean "plural" of the preceding sign, so, two kas.

The kas of Seneb. Seneb means "health." It is a word used formulaically quite often, rather Spock-like: Ankh, Wedja, Seneb, meaning "life, prosperity (to be whole, or endurance) and health. You see it all the time all over the place. 

Hold up your hand with your fingers separated down the center like Spock and say, "Life, prosperity, health." The Egyptians wrote that all the time. 

Woseribre, 

Woser (sometimes Weser) is the k-9 head on a stick, it means "power"

"ib" means "heart"

"re" means "sun god" 

So then, Power, heart of Re

See? Formulaic as can be. 

The item on history.com has more information on what the archaeologists found at Woseribre Senebkay's tomb. But nobody is going to tell you all this. 

So that was an exciting discovery. Also a previously unknown wife of a known pharaoh. 

Come on, doesn't this beat the pants off a 1652 shilling? 

Tomb of Queen Khentakawess III discovered in Abusir.

Huffington Post. Bless their hearts, they have the best reporting on this. They do. Credit where it is due. Thank you, Ed Mazza.

Long forgotten, newly rediscovered by Czech archaeologists, her tomb is 4,500 years old, placing her at the time the pyramids were built. It is a small tomb crudely decorated. Inscriptions identify her as wife of a king and mother of a king. Her husband was Neferefre. 

At last, "Nefer" I told you it'd show up. 

Nefer = perfecton

"f" means "of"

"re" means "sun god"  So then, "Perfection of Re," or "Truth of Re," or "Goodness of Re," what have you.

Nice. 

But this is just Archaeology. There are excellent discoveries in Astronomy Paleontology, new dinosaur bones discovered, biology, new animal life forms discovered, also numerous incredible science breakthroughs and discoveries. 2014 was an all around excellent year for sciences. 

The Mountain Man Toast

The Fort Cookbook pg. 282

In 1990 the meeting hall of the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, Austria, rang with a toast. More than one hundred Atomic Energy Conference delegates from fifty nations raised their glasses high and repeated lustily after me the "Mountain Man Toast." I had been invited to Vienna as a media consultant by the IAEA for a converence on exploring ways to make atomic plants more user-friendly. At the final session I was asked to lead the toast. The Mouintain Man Toast evokes the Old West, with 1830's fur trade-period jargon.
The toast requires motions as well as words and is the sort of ritual that warms the soul and brings smiles to the faces of hearty eaters and drinkers everywhere.

Before that.

It is a standing offer at The Fort that anyone who gives the Mountain Man Toast from memory has his drink on the house. 

 Well then. Let's hear it, learn it, and get ourselves a free drink.

"Here's to the childs what's come afore  (Glass in right hand, held at shoulder) 

And here's to the pilgrims, what's come arter.  (Glass in right hand, arm extended) 

May yer trails be free of griz,  (Left hand over glass, making clawing motion with fingers) 

Yer packs, filled with plews,  (Left and right arms extended out making a circle) 

And fat buffler in yer pot!  (Glass extended, left hand rubs/ points at your belly) 

WAUGH!"  ( (Extend hand with glass)

In case you couldn't figure it out on your own. 

Childs = What mountain men called one another.
Pilgrim = Lightly derisive term for "sod-busting" covered wagon emigrants coming west
Arter = After
Griz = Grizzley bear
Plews = Large beaver pelts French plus, a plus sign for large size pelt
Buffler in yer pot = Buffalo in your belly
Waugh = Sioux exclamation meaning "right on!"

There you go. Locked in. Free drink for now on.

The Curse of Oak Island

Has anyone else watched this series on the History Channel? I happened upon it last night and was pretty fascinated. I have enjoyed reading about the Knights Templar and the Rosicrucians since reading Foucault's Pendulum. The Lagina brothers are from Michigan. There definitely is an intriguing mystery there. I hope they find treasure, but the legend says that one more must die for the secrets to be revealed. *gulp*

Could John F. Kennedy Be Elected President in 2016?

Today marks precisely 50 years since the presidency passed, traumatically, from the hands of a man who spoke of the United States as a nation of enterprise and achievement, into the hands of one who immediately set about expanding dependency on government —a path from which no Democrat who has served in the White House since has deviated.

Pretend for a few minutes that JFK had never been elected; that he is now a young Senator from Massachusetts.  Pretend that Lyndon Baines Johnson was elected the thirty-fifth President of the United States in 1960.

Young Senator Kennedy is handsome.  He is engaging, smart and brilliantly articulate.  He has a broad smile, quick wit. His wife is beautiful and captivating.  He has friends in Hollywood and Las Vegas.  He served as a Naval officer during war, was injured, and a book has been written about his heroism.

Senator Kennedy has been making the rounds of Sunday morning talk shows.  He has been making speeches in front of all the right groups.  He has a loosely organized group of advisors and fund raisers who are encouraging him to run for President in the 2016 election.

What we know about him:

Kennedy favors a strong military defense.

Kennedy supports reductions in the Federal income tax rates to help the economy grow and can eloquently explain why that is good for everyone, including the rich.

Kennedy is a devout Catholic and probably pro-life.

Kennedy has bold dreams for America and Americans.  

Kennedy wants America's allies around the world to know that they can depend on America to defend them against  hostile nations.

Kennedy hates communism and the threat of communist countries' expansionism.

 Kennedy believes that Americans should become more reliant on themselves and each other, and less reliant on the Federal government. 

 Kennedy supports federal employees' right to unionize, but not to bargain collectively or to strike.

Pretend that Camelot never happened.  Forget the half-century of Kennedy myth-making.  Could Senator John F. Kennedy win the Democratic Party's nomination next year?  And could he win the presidential election in the America of 2016?

Or would his beliefs render him an outsider?

EDIT:

I'm asking you to transport the JFK of 1960 to the present day, with his beliefs intact, and imagine him making a run for the presidency in 2016.  Could the Kennedy of the 1950s and 1960s be a contender in the presidential primary and general election of 2015-2016?  Or would the beliefs he held then not fit with today's Democratic Party?
______________________________________________________________________________

John F. Kennedy's 1960 inaugural speech.

 

 

 

Surf the Internets History, or Go Back in Time

"The history of the internet began long before the first web browser was made in 1990. But as such a new development, an entire account of how today's web was created still isn't much to go through, and on Web Directions' "Web History, a timeline," the full story is catalogued and laid out in major milestones for you to follow along — even if you don't already know what CSS or the ACID test are. The milestones can get technical, but they're always explained and never so dense as to be unintelligible. For the most part though, you'll be scrolling past milestones you may well remember, and picking up trivia, like the first the term "surfing" was ever used in conjunction with the web, which happened in 1991."

Example here. (I cant embed the catalog, I would if I could. Remember to click > when you get to the page)

1941 ideas

The Garden of Forking Paths
First published in 1941, Jorge Luis Borges short story 'The Garden of Forking Paths' is considered to prefigure ideas of hypertext.

As Johnny used to say - "I did not know that".

The Verge