Thursday in History: ISS

"It's going in A collection of satellites skewered with pins and mounted in display boxes. Not necessarily MY collection."
(xkcd by Randall Munroe)

On this day in history in 1998, the first module of the International Space Station was launched. Today, the American-owned, Russian-built module Zarya is used for storage.

Looks like there's plenty of room.
(via wikipedia)

Thursday in History: Condemned

This day in history is "get rid of your political enemies" day in England. In 1002, Ethelred II ordered the ousting (or death, he wasn't picky, really) of any Danish people in the country, and in 1553, Queen Mary I ordered the death of Thomas Cranmer and her distant cousin Lady Jane Grey. Both of these monarchs were solidifying their power and ridding the country of those who they were sure would take it from them if given the chance. It didn’t really work out for either of them.

The decades leading up to the early eleventh century saw the people of England threatened by invaders from the north. It was long before standing armies came into vogue, and so raids by opportunistic Danish clans were hard to defend against. Ethelred’s name means “noble counsel,” but when he ordered the St Brice’s Day massacre of Danish settlers, this brought on attacks from the King of Denmark himself, who chased Ethelred away took his crown.

Henry VIII went through many difficulties to make sure he had a male heir. A daughter with his first wife wasn't going to cut it, and the only way out of that marriage was to break with the church. Henry wasn't planning on starting a religious renaissance, but many of his subjects embraced his new church, to the point of being willing to die for their beliefs. Really, the only thing he wanted was to be in charge of the church so that he could say who he had divorced and who he was married to. Unfortunately, though he died with the hope that his son Edward would be a strong and healthy ruler, the prince died a mere six years after his father, and Henry's daughter took the throne.

It's not hard to imagine Mary's feelings. Her father was so disappointed that she wasn't a boy that he went so far as to defy the pope and had the audacity to declare himself the mouthpiece for God on earth. That sort of thing has got to make a girl feel like she has something to prove.

Especially when her cousin Frances does her best to make sure that she never takes the throne. Poor Jane Grey, who did not inherit much of her grandmother’s Tudor spirit, was only obeying her mother when they crowned her queen after Edward’s death, but it’s hard to explain that to an armed mob who comes to assert that it’s the daughter of the king that should rule, not the granddaughter of the king’s sister.

The first thing Mary did once she had the throne was to make sure that her subjects knew that her father's nonsense was over, and everyone was going to be Catholic again. But there were quite a few people that were loving the new ways, among them the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, who had helped her father divorce her mother.

Ethelred’s Danish problem wasn’t solved when he ordered that they all be killed; it led to his exile. Mary’s Protestant problem wasn’t solved when she ordered that they be executed; she died without heirs and her Protestant sister took the throne. So I guess the lesson here is: you probably shouldn’t condemn of lots of people to death if you want to keep your crown. Or, at the very least, it’s bad luck to do it on November 13th.

Thursday in History: Late

It would be pretty difficult to serve your country’s navy: to be away from home for months at a time, to be in dangerous situations while capturing merchant ships to support your country in a time of war, and to miss out on important things like family birthdays or current events. It would be even worse to return home and find out that the country you had been sweating and bleeding for didn’t exist anymore.

On this day in history in 1865, the CSS Shenandoah returned after a long cruise. They had been very successful in their mission to disrupt various economically important vessels of their enemies, but the mission had lasted longer than anticipated: the ship had actually circumnavigated the globe.

Unfortunately, instead of being praised as heroes and given a parade, the crew of the Shenandoah was forced to surrender. The war had ended seven months earlier and the Confederate States of America was no more.

The only Confederate flag to circumnavigate the globe,
lowered in surrender by the crew of the CSS Shenandoah
on this day in history in 1865.
(via wikipedia)

Fortunately, they had caught wind of the news and so headed to a safer port, even though it was across the Atlantic in Liverpool. They were (rightly) apprehensive about being hung for piracy in the United States, even though they hadn’t attacked any actual US vessels while they were out circumnavigating Earth and taking merchant ships.

Many of the officers and crew eventually trickled back to the New World, starting new careers or heading to college. Others joined the crews of ships heading elsewhere. So even though the CSS Shenandoah was too late to be celebrated, it was one of the Confederacy’s most successful ships.

Silly Holiday: Mischief Night

I never really understood May Day as a kid. You run up and knock on other people's doors, then run away? And... candy? I didn't get it, but hey, free candy.

But apparently these May Day "tricks" didn't make much sense in post-industrialized England, since the lovely scenes of spring could not be seen in the city, so in 1790, some well-meaning idiot at Oxford encouraged (encouraged!) his students to engage in mischief and trickery near Guy Fawkes Day instead.

The results of Mischief Night.
(via the Halloween wiki)

And so began the illustrious tradition of Mischief Night.

I guess it gives more weight to the phrase “trick or treat,” as in, “give us a treat or we’ll TP your yard and egg your shed and pelt your dog with rotten cabbages like we did yesterday.” I mean, vandals can’t possibly expect to get everything done in one night.

So nice job, headmaster at St John’s College. You’re the reason that forty thousand people have to patrol the streets of Detroit around this time of year to prevent vandalism. I hope you’re proud of yourself.

Thursday in History: Coequal

On this day in history in 1850, the very first National Women’s Rights Convention was held. Among other things, it aimed to change public opinion about the status of women and move society toward “Woman’s co-equal sovereignty with Man.” Susan B. Anthony, one of the most famous advocates for women’s rights, was not in attendance, but was converted to the cause when she read a speech given by Lucy Stone at the convention:

“We want to be something more than the appendages of Society; we want that Woman should be the coequal and help-meet of Man in all the interest and perils and enjoyments of human life. We want that she should attain the development of her nature and womanhood; we want that when she dies, it may not be written on her gravestone that she was the “relict” of somebody.”

On this day in history in 1915, around 30,000 women marched down Fifth Avenue in New York City for the right to vote.

And on this day in history in 2014, the internet is in a screaming match about women. This isn’t terribly surprising, as the internet is usually in a screaming match about something, anything. This screaming match started when a bitter ex-boyfriend posted a rant about a female game developer he had been dating. Anonymous jerks online rallied to his side without checking any facts, and this woman (and her family) were deluged with threats and obscenities. Many humans who actually stopped to listen hoped that the movement would tire itself out and go find something else to do.

But it didn’t; instead it took a new turn. Sure, the game developer’s father isn’t getting as many offensive phone calls as he was, but that doesn’t mean that those behind the movement are finished. Now that they’ve got attention, they’re lashing out at anyone who speaks out against them. Well, any woman who speaks out against them.

Anonymous online jerks are resourceful. They can find many things. Women online aren’t even allowed to look like they’re mentioning this movement, because they are afraid that they will be next. “...Seeing another gamer on the street used to be an auto-smile opportunity, or an entry into a conversation starting with, “Hey, dude! I love that game too!” Me and that stranger automatically had something in common,” Felicia Day wrote on her tumblr earlier this week. “For the first time maybe in my life... I walked towards that pair of gamers and I didn’t smile. I didn’t say hello. In fact, I crossed the street so I wouldn’t walk by them. Because after all the years of gamer love and inclusiveness, something had changed in me. A small voice of doubt in my brain now suspected that those guys and I might not be comrades after all. That they might not greet me with reflected friendliness, but contempt.” Within minutes of putting up her post about how this movement has changed the way she feels about the community that she loves, Felicia Day’s home address and personal email address were posted online by an anonymous jerk.

I guess we could ask why these anonymous online jerks are acting this way. Is it because they think that feminism is a bad thing? Is it because they want to show that they have power over women? Or are they just doing it because they’re anonymous and because they can?

I’m not sure what should or can be done to slow down or stop this internet screaming match. Maybe we need to have another National Women’s Rights Convention. Maybe we need to march en masse down Fifth Avenue. Maybe enough of us need to stand up and shout that stalking someone or threatening to rape them falls under criminal harassment, not the right to free speech.

I suppose that it could be argued that the currently women are enjoying the “coequal... perils... of human life,” but what Lucy Stone spoke out for at that first NWRC was not just for women to have to put up with the same kind of crap that men do. It was for “all the interest and perils and enjoyments of human life.” She was speaking out for coequal status, coequal benefits, and coequal respect.

In 1850.

I think the one thing we can expect is that this issue isn’t going to quietly go away anytime soon.

Thursday in History: The Library of Alexandria

It’s always too soon to joke about the destruction of the Library of Alexandria. One of the Wonders of the Ancient World, this place was amazing. It was built by Ptolemy I, the guy who took over ruling the Egyptian piece of Alexander the Great’s empire. The Library was full of innumerable scrolls which scholars from all over the place used to study when they came to research and learn at the Musaeum of Alexandria.

The Library may never have gained much fame had it not been destroyed, and all its works lost. There are differing accounts as to when the destruction happened: one romantic account has Marc Antony and Cleopatra perishing in one another’s arms as the Library burned around them; another says that Emperor Aurelian was putting down a revolt and accidentally damaged the area of the city where the library was located; and one blames the loss of the Library’s contents on Pope Theophilus. However it happened, all of those scrolls, all of that knowledge, that potential to learn, was lost. Wikipedia put it quite nicely: “though it is unknown how many scrolls were housed at any given time, their combined value was incalculable.”

That word: incalculable, is pretty descriptive. Whenever I think about the Library of Alexandria, I daydream about the kinds of things that were there, and what we might know today if it had not all been destroyed. It makes me sad. So yes, even though it’s kind of funny to say, I really do think that it’s always too soon to joke about the destruction of the Library of Alexandria.

The original Library didn't have a website. The new one does: bibalex.org

On this day in history in 2002, the gorgeously amazing piece of architecture which is blessed to be the modern installment of this ancient wonder of the world was officially inaugurated. It sits right on the Mediterranean, and has many interesting features: the largest reading room in the world, the Espresso Book Machine (which prints books for you right when you want them), and various specialized libraries and museum exhibits.

750,000 square feet of reading space on eleven levels. I wonder how far a "Shhh!" carries.

It may not be the wealth of information that its ancient counterpart once was, but maybe someday it will be. In the meantime, it is a breathtaking piece of architecture that symbolizes the hope that the world could build a library like the one in ancient Alexandria.

Thursday in History: Tudor Nuptials

Sisters are almost as good for political marriages as daughters are. But they’re harder to manage if they’re Tudors. Henry VIII had two sisters: Mary and Margaret. Margaret had already been married off to the King of Scotland by the time Henry was in charge, but since Mary was several years younger, it was up to Henry to marry her off.

Mary was fourteen when Henry took the throne, a very impressionable age to be in the early court of Henry VIII. She absorbed all the romantic gallantry of the time, delighting in the fond gestures which Henry paid to Catherine of Aragon. Because this formed a foundation in her young mind, Mary was determined to marry for love herself. When she was eighteen, however, Henry enthusiastically told her that she was going to marry the fifty-three year old King of France.

But Mary was a Tudor. She wasn’t pleased, but she didn’t cry, or throw a fit, or even say no. She knew a political marriage was her duty. So she made a pact with her brother that he could choose her first husband, but that she would choose her second. Henry fondly patted her on the head with a “sure, kid, whatever you want,” and sent her off to France.

On this day in history in 1514, Mary Tudor was married to Louis XII. And not even three months later, she was a widow. Louis hadn’t been assassinated, nor had he been ill. He just had a very young, beautiful wife who threw lots of excessive parties. All the time. (One of my favorite professors used to say that Mary “danced him into the grave.”)

Henry was saddened by the loss of his brother in law, and was already planning his sister’s next politically advantageous match when she arrived home already married. Why wed some stodgy monarch when you’d rather marry your brother’s hot best friend? Henry eventually forgave them both, after all, it was his best friend, and Mary was his favorite sister. And it was really his fault for forgetting that he was dealing with a Tudor.

Thursday in History: Influential

When your life has a huge impact on the world, your birthday becomes an international holiday. Today is the International Day of Non-Violence, to celebrate Mahatma Gandhi’s birth in 1869.

Or… maybe Groucho Marx’s in 1890. Could be either one, really. It’s a bit hard to tell them apart.

"Will you marry me? Did he leave you any money?
 Answer the second question first.
Can't you see what I'm trying to tell you? I love you."
(via wikipedia)

"Be the change that you wish to see
in the world."
(via wikipedia)

Thursday in History: Revolution and Independence

I had a really great professor for African History in college. He was passionate about his subject, and taught the facts with the addition of humor, making his subject both interesting and amusing. Actually, he was the professor who inspired me to become a history major.

His favorite rant was about the decolonization of Africa. Africa had been “colonized” by Europeans differently than other areas. North Africa, of course, had been in the hands of various different European powers for as long as anyone could remember. The rest of Africa had been carved up by some politicians at a peace conference (it’s why lots of African countries have such straight border lines, as opposed to the meandering river borders Europe has). It was divided near the end of the time when having colonies was all the rage, and those politicians realized that there was an entire continent that they’d overlooked that could be owned.

Since it had been colonized rather “late in the game,” many places in Africa were rather tardy to be decolonized, as well. Many had to fight for their independence, even though having colonies in the 1960s was viewed similarly to the way smoking is today: other people/countries would look at you distastefully and say, “You really… shouldn’t have a colony, you know… it’s really bad for you.”

Mozambique began their fight for independence on this day in history in 1964. Today, they celebrate Revolution Day. And judging by my professor’s rants, I’m surprised today isn’t a holiday in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to celebrate the death of their former monarch, King Leopold III of Belgium, who died on this day in history in 1983.

The people of the Congo fought for their independence as well, but Belgium was reluctant. Finally, they agreed that independence was the best idea for everyone involved, and decided to have a party. The leaders of the new free state were invited to give speeches, but only after the Belgian crown had their say, of course. Leopold was represented by his son, as he had been forced to abdicate by the Nazis during World War II. King Baudouin made a beautiful speech, praising the “civilizing mission” that his grandfather, Leopold II, had brought to the country. The new leaders of the new former colony, however, disagreed with the content of the speech, and instead of speaking as he had planned, Patrice Lumumba took the stage and delivered a scathing denouncement of Belgian “civilizing” that shocked (and pleased) attendees and nearly caused an international incident.

Happy Revolution Day, Mozambique. And my condolences, Belgian royal family (though the people of the DRC probably don’t feel the same way).

Thursday in History: Stealthy Photos from 7.25 Million Miles Away

On this day in history in 1977, NASA space probe Voyager 1 snapped the first photograph of the earth and the moon together.

Prior to this photo, there had been pictures taken of the earth from space and pictures taken of the moon from space. People wondered if they were maybe the same planet, since no one ever saw them together, until about 1966 when the moon was taking a selfie and the earth swooped in for the photobomb.

August 1966 "selfie" of the moon (actually taken from lunar orbit)
(via phys.org)

Nobody ever got them to sit still for the same photograph until Voyager 1 was on its way to chill with Jupiter and happened to look back and see the earth and the moon sitting close together enough to photograph.

Voyager 1's September 18, 1977 photo of the earth & moon together
(via Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum)

We can assume that after it was taken, the planetary bodies darted away from each other, covering their faces, like junior highers who weren’t ready for their visages to be recorded on film.

Thursday in History: Coincidence and Conspiracy

With the recent Sherlock craze sweeping the world, a while back Amazon offered a free kindle version of all of Arthur Conan Doyle’s works on Holmes. I’m sure I was one of many who snapped up the opportunity, but I’m not sure how many actually got through them all. I’m not saying that they’re not well written or interesting, it’s just that there are certain times when ACD kind of just… starts telling a different story. Right in the middle of the one you were interested in. He would usually bring it back around and link it to the story he’d already been telling, but occasionally it was like “um… why should I care about this?”

For instance, in A Study in Scarlet (that’s A Study in Pink for you BBC Cumberbatch/Freeman lovers), Holmes cunningly catches the bad guy, and promises to explain everything, after which the story suddenly becomes a novella about how a group of Mormons rescues a pair of travelers who had no hope for their own survival. And the reader is like, “uh… what does this have to do with anything?!” Eventually it has everything to do with it, but leaves you going, “dude, I think that may have been too much back story.”

In Valley of Fear, Holmes focuses on draining the moat (yes, a moat) around the home of a brutally murdered man, only to have the man himself come forward to confess that the corpse was that of the attempted murderer, and that he had reacted in self defense, which included dressing his attacker in his own clothes to deter any further attempts. When the question of why the murder was attempted in the first place is asked, the reader is then treated to a novel-length interruption about a young man who moves into a new area and joins a guild that he had been a member of in another town. (ACD, who was a Freemason himself, changed the name of the guild to “Freemen,” presumably so he wouldn’t be sued or maybe killed by fellow guild members.) Another character tries to warn him, “dude, those guys are bad news in these here parts,” but he doesn’t listen. In fact, he doesn’t seem to mind. He joins in their bullying of various people in the surrounding area, eventually becoming one of the highest ranking members. When the guildmaster begins to hear rumors about investigation, the young man swears he’ll get to the bottom of it. After gathering all the guild’s heavy hitters in his apartment to spring a trap on the investigator and police, he springs another: he was a mole, and it was his job to make sure that he had enough evidence to send all the men he had gathered to jail. As a result, the other members of the guild (and the men who were eventually released from jail) had been chasing him ever since (which was presumably why he’d ended up buying a house with a moat).

On this day in history in 1826 a Freemason by the name of William Morgan was arrested for “debt.” He had actually trained as a stone worker and had joined the Masons in Rochester, New York.

See, guilds in ancient times were unions. You could refuse to pay one bricklayer his decent wage, but when a screaming mob of them demanded fair compensation, there wasn't much you could do but give it to them.

Another role that guilds filled was an after-work club: just dudes, sitting around when their work was finished, griping about it. Like a gathering of Starbucks baristas complaining about picky customers.

Morgan had moved his family to Batavia, New York and attempted to join the local Freemasons, and went off the handle a little when they denied him. “I’m totally going to write a book about all the Freemason secrets,” he boasted, “and I’ve already got a publisher and everything and we’re gonna make tons of money and high five each other, and then you’ll be sorry you didn’t let me in!”

The Freemasons in Batavia must have had some pretty dark secrets, because things got a little nuts. Somebody put up an anti-Morgan advertisement. There were reports that certain individuals attempted to burn down his publisher’s office. And then, Morgan was arrested. His publisher went to bail him out, and after that… Morgan disappeared. Morgan's widow married again and moved west with her new husband, where they joined the Church of the Latter Day Saints.

There are many theories about Morgan’s disappearance. Was he killed? (The body that washed up on the shore of Lake Ontario a year later was buried under his name, but the distraught widow of another man claimed that the clothes belonged to her husband.) Did he flee the country? (The Cayman Islands were nice in those days, as long as they weren’t hanging you for piracy.) Did the Freemasons drop $500 just so that Morgan would get himself out of the picture?

If they did, they wasted their cash; Morgan's publisher made tons after the book Morgan wrote became a bestseller. It was even one of the factors that sparked the creation of the Anti-Mason Party, who ran a presidential candidate against Andrew Jackson in 1832.

What really happened to William Morgan? Was his story fabricated as a tool for the anti-Masonic movement? Did he live out his life in foreign parts under a false name? Or was he killed by some angry Masons who hoped to silence him? Perhaps the whole thing was merely a conspiracy.

Nearly a century later, Arthur Conan Doyle wrote about similar circumstances. And today, there’s a television show based on his works, starring an actor whose last name is Freeman.

Coincidence? Or… conspiracy?

Thursday in History: A Historically Significant List

Wikipedia is funny. It’s got tons of information on tons of different things, so it’s usually a good place to go to find some information. Every Thursday I search the day and look at some of the things that happened on that day in history. I pick something interesting, or look for patterns of several related interesting things. On a slow day, I have to scroll down to the holidays, and on an even slower day, I scroll through the births and deaths to look for a well known name, hoping to write about an interesting person’s life (or death).

On this day in history in 2014, I searched “September 4” on wikipedia, and found a wealth of interesting things. A couple of deposings (a Roman Emperor―the end of the Western Roman Empire, Napoleon III―the end of the Second Empire of Napoleon), treaties signed, the beginning of the electrical age, disastrous plane crashes, important wartime occurrences, and the birthdays of several different important things, such as Google, Kodak, and the city of Los Angeles.

Also, in 1995, WCW Monday Nitro made its debut on TNT.

If it’s important to somebody, it’s probably on wikipedia. And just because it’s important to some people, doesn’t mean it’s going to be important to everyone. Every day is historically significant in its own way to different people. To some, today will be remembered as the day that Arkansas’ governor summoned the National Guard to stop nine students from enrolling in high school. And others will be celebrating the television debut of “professional” “wrestling.” Although I may be able to easily see which of those two events is more historically significant, I don’t have any information on how many lives may have been changed for the better by Monday Nitro.

Wikipedia is funny. It’s full of information about things that are important (historically or otherwise) and it’s a great place to start researching pretty much anything. Though when you do, you should remember that while it may have the accurate information you need on the 2010 New Zealand earthquake, it’s also got plenty of other stuff. And it will put all of that stuff on a list with other things that continue to have an impact on the world’s population, even if they happened centuries ago.

So let’s all remember September 4th, the day when empires fell, monarchs rose, and brave soldiers fought and for the future of their countries and the world. Oh, and when Ted Turner brought a new show featuring shouting and big muscles to TNT to rival the one on USA Network. That should go without saying.

Thursday in History: Irresistible Smile

It would be difficult to live and work in a country that was not your own. It would be even harder to look at a masterpiece of art from your home every day, and wonder why it was not gracing a museum there, where your fellow countrymen could gaze upon its greatness. You might start to think that it wouldn’t be difficult to smuggle the thing out under your coat after hours and take it home, to the city where it was painted. It would probably never enter your thoughts that doing so would cause a field day for counterfeiters, and you certainly wouldn’t expect that your act of patriotism might make that particular painting one of the most famous paintings in the world.

On this day in history in 1911, Vincenzo Peruggia could not overcome his longing for the smile painted by Da Vinci to be in Italy once more, and slipped out the back door of the Louvre with the Mona Lisa.

Painters who had made copies immediately sold out. Poets who had made inflammatory comments about the museum were hauled in for questioning. Even Pablo Picasso was a suspect for a few days. The Louvre was closed for a week while investigators stared, baffled, at the four iron pegs in the empty spot on the wall where the painting should have been.

Missing Mona Lisa (via wikipedia)

But even a patriot who longs to return a stolen treasure to its homeland is bound to get impatient after a while. It took Peruggia two years to get squirrelly and be a bit too indiscreet while negotiating with a Gallery in Florence for the painting.

The Louvre didn't get the Mona Lisa back until after it had taken a tour of Italy in 1913. After that, they kept it under closer watch. Additional precautions were taken after several attempts by vandals to destroy the painting.

Fame isn't everything. And though some may say that the only reason the painting is so adored is because it was stolen, there is always something to be said for an irresistible smile.

Thursday in History: Terrified of the Future

It’s impossible for an inventor to know how future generations will use an invention: how it will be improved, if it will be overshadowed by something new, or whether it will be completely ignored. All one can do is hope that their invention improves the state of the world and makes life better or more convenient for those who come after.

On this day in history in 1888, one of the first audio recordings in the world was played at a press conference in London on Thomas Edison’s phonograph. Listeners were treated to a piece by one of the foremost English composers of the day: “The Lost Chord” by Arthur Sullivan.

At one of the parties held shortly after the debut, Sullivan himself was treated to a demonstration. He thought the invention and the accomplishment Edison had achieved was wonderful, but had he had some reservations. “I can only say that I am… terrified at the thought that so much hideous and bad music may be put on record forever…”

If Sullivan and Edison could listen to some Top 40 Hits today, I wonder what they would say.

Thursday in History: Arrival

I always used to enjoy listening to my anthropology professors discuss the different ways that ancient peoples made their way to live in what is now North and South America. Of course we have evidence of Viking settlements arriving from the east, but most of my professors enjoyed talking about incursions from the west.

The two most popular theories were that ancient people traveled across the land bridge which is now the Bering Strait, or that they sailed across the Pacific Ocean, settling any islands they found on the way.

On this day in history in 1987, American long distance swimmer Lynne Cox improved relations between the Soviet Union and the USA by swimming the Bering Strait from Little Diomede (belonging to the US) to Big Diomede (territory of the Soviet Union). Her accomplishment wasn’t meant to be anthropological, but the reason it’s linked in my mind is because of what happened on this day in history in 1947.

Thor Heyerdahl, a Norwegian ethnographer (a way of studying cultures that looks at things from the prospective of those who lived in it) had arranged an expedition to travel from Peru to Polynesia. The Kon-Tiki was built out of materials native to the area that Heyerdahl believed could have been used by pre-Colombian peoples. In 101 days, he and his crew of 5 sailed across the Pacific to prove that the raft could have made the trip. It did, but its landing was far from safe. On this day in history in 1947, the Kon-Tiki was crushed by a reef off the Tuamotus islands in Polynesia.

It makes me wonder if any of my anthro professors are aware of the events of August 7th: Heyerdahl proved that it was probably possible to sail across the Pacific (though perhaps not safely), and Cox proved that it was still possible to get across the Bering Strait (though you have to swim).

Thursday in History: Beer

“Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.”

-Benjamin Franklin (though he was actually talking about wine and... you know what? Never mind.)

You can find all sorts of charts and graphs with details on various economic information through an amazing project at MIT. This image was found on wikipedia, used there (and here) with permission.

Beer is a big deal. It pretty much always has been.

Leeuwarden, Friesland, a city in the Netherlands that has today roughly the same population as Chattanooga, Tennessee. It became a township 1435, and fifty or so years later, it couldn’t have been very big, but just because your town is small doesn’t mean that you’re safe from major events.

Some well-meaning civic officials had decided in 1487 that a great way to stimulate the local economy would be to make sure that local beer makers were the only ones making money there. So basically, the only beer that could be consumed in Leeuwarden was the beer that had been made in of Leeuwarden. Pubgoers could not even have their favorite beer from the city next door.

But that didn’t mean that innkeepers didn’t still have any. One evening, customers ganged up on an innocent barkeep and got him to admit that there was still some Koyt from Haarlem in his back room. They wouldn’t rest until he sold it to them, so what was the poor man to do? Not sell it?

When patriotic policemen just doing their job showed up to enforce the “nothing but Leeuwarden” law, the patrons were understandably upset. And what happens when alcohol consumption and high tempers collide? The ensuing fight may have ended when the beer-drinking instigators escaped to a nearby house, but the conflict was far from over.

On this day in history in 1487, eight thousand people marched into Leeuwarden demanding that the ban be lifted and that they be allowed to once more buy and enjoy their favorite beers, whether they were from a city south of Amsterdam or from a faraway land. The well-meaning civic officials chose to ignore this demonstration, and the demonstrators chose to react to their lack of reaction by sacking the city.

The ban was lifted eventually, but not immediately, to show the protestors that the officials were doing it “because we want to, not because you told us to.” But the happy beer drinkers were just glad to have their favorite beer back.

Beer is a big deal. If there’s one lesson we can learn from this historical event, it’s definitely that you should make sure that your local beer is good before you ban everyone else’s.