Voyager Mission: Fond Memories

There's been a bit of discussion of the Voyager mission of late, since these space probes are still operational, almost thirty years after launch.  My first full-time job, when I ran out of money and had to drop out of college, was writing Voyager telemetry software at Jet Propulsion Labs in Pasadena.  I even received this cool certificate in the mail, some years later: a "Group Achievement Award," which simply means that I was part of a big group that did our jobs really well. 



I wish I could say that I did my job really well, but I was a not terribly mature 18 year old, and in retrospect, some of the telemetry filtering software I wrote in Univac 1530 assembly language wasn't very good.  Of course, if you knew much about Univac 1530 assembly language, you would wonder if anyone could write it well.

It was a fascinating experience.  I was an amateur astronomer, so working on a space mission was so cool.  I was just a kid (I turned 19 while I was working there), and in retrospect, as neat as the job was, it was about as miserable a time as I think I have ever experienced.  Friday nights, I would buy a pizza at Straw Hat in La Crescenta, drive up to an overlook on the Angeles Crest Higway, and have myself a good cry.

Bellesiles Again

Disgraced Professor Michael Bellesiles wrote an article for The Chronicle of Higher Education that is everything that the hard left that dominates the profession wants: long on pathos; long on implicit criticism of the United States.  But guess what?  Bellesiles' credibility has been somewhat tarnished, and a lot of people are looking carefully at his claims--and they are expressing great criticism.  Like Dutton Peabody, at Big Journalism:

A friend who used to be in the Army is also a mite suspicious about the account of Javier’s service. The Hartford Courant keeps careful track of Connecticut casualties: three Connecticut men died from battle during the autumn semester when Bellesiles was teaching the course: one was a sergeant, which Javier, a recent enlistee, was not; one was a captain, which Javier was even less. The third was not Army, but a Marine, and, like the other two men, died (from an IED, not a sniper round like Javier) in Afghanistan, not Iraq. He did, though, have an infant son back in Connecticut named Javier.

Just for the sake of argument, and positing that “this past semester” is the recently ended spring semester, there has been only one fatality so far this year, reported on April 4th as recently killed. Lance Corporal Tyler Griffin was a Marine, not Army. And killed by an IED, not a shot to the head. And in Afghanistan, not Iraq. Nor was he an immigrant, as Javier is described. (“We discussed [his] reasons for enlisting, which mostly focused on a sense of gratitude to a country that had given their family refuge.”) And there is no sign of a brother in the Courant obituary.

Professor Lindgren over at Volokh Conspiracy, whose questions about Bellesiles' research made it acceptable for historians to look at my evidence of Bellesiles' fraud, also points to some problems:

In my review of several sites, but chiefly ICasualties, I find no Connecticut military killed in Iraq in 2009 or 2010 (and only one in 2008, a Marine who died from a non-hostile cause). If one expands the search to all US military deaths in Iraq from all US states and territories from the beginning of the Fall 2009 semester through the end of classes in the May 2010 semester, I could find no deaths from any state that fit Bellesiles’s account (Iraq War, recent Army enlistee, hostile fire from a rifle or similar weapon, lingering death). Nor did my quick review of all US military deaths in Afghanistan (if one changed the theater from Iraq to Afghanistan) during the last two CCSU semesters turn up any likely prospects (though I would need a closer review to be certain).

Thus it appears that Bellesiles’s account is false in at least some trivial respect–probably in the term he taught the course and in the circumstances of “Javier’s” service or death.

Further, without personal knowledge of Army procedures, I found it strange that a critically injured US soldier would not be brought to Germany for treatment over a period of several weeks. Further, while not suspicious in itself, at this stage of the Iraqi War almost all US deaths occur on the same day as the attack or on the following day. Indeed, this detail alone can be used to exclude most deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan in the last year.

If I had to guess, I would suspect that the story Bellesiles told in the Chronicle is mostly true; after all, it would be too easy for the Chronicle or Bellesiles’s department chair to check the facts with “Ernesto” and with Joe, Bellesiles’s teaching assistant. Yet some things reported by Bellesiles in the Chronicle appear to be false: the term he says he taught Military History is inconsistent with CCSU’s website, and the facts of “Javier’s” Army service and death in Iraq do not match any deaths reported by the Department of Defense for soldiers from any US state or territory.

I confess that I am quite mystified. If Bellesiles has "improved" the story to tug the heartstrings, it might explain the discrepancies.  But you would think after effectively losing a tenured position for academic fraud--and knowing that a lot of people are going to be checking his subsequent claims because of it--that he would not do anything even slightly questionable.

I don't know for sure that Bellesiles's heart-rending tale is false.  There are just lots of little problems that are beginning to show up that don't make sense, unless either Bellesiles was told a pack of lies by "Javier," or Bellesiles decided to improve the story for that highly gullible audience of leftist faculty that dominate the top tier universities in this country.

One of the reasons that a lot of people who commit murder get caught is that they tell others that they did it.  It may be expressed as boasting--but considering the consequences, it is more plausible that what drives these admissions is guilt.  That's probably why some serial killers who are smart enough to not make mistakes, start to make really obvious ones that get them caught.  I sometimes wonder if Bellesiles may be suffering from some similar self-sabotaging motivation: what can I do to destroy myself?

When You Are In A Hole, Stop Digging

When You Are In A Hole, Stop Digging

Michael Bellesiles has a new book out.  In light of his public humiliation for being exposed as a fraud, the last thing you would think to do is remind everyone of it:

1877 is also notable as the comeback book for a celebrated U.S. historian. Michael Bellesiles is perhaps most famous as the target of an infamous “swiftboating” campaign by the National Rifle Association, following the publication of his Bancroft Prize-winning book Arming America (Knopf, 2000) — “the best kind of non-fiction,” according to the Chicago Tribune — which made daring claims about gun ownership in early America. In what became the history profession’s most talked-about and notorious case of the past generation, Arming America was eventually discredited after an unprecedented and controversial review called into question its sources, charges which Bellesiles and his many prominent supporters have always rejected.”

I'm just amazed. Maybe 1877 is a fine book. But the extent of his exposure from scholars across the spectrum was so overwhelming that the smartest thing he could do is not remind anyone of Arming America. It's rather like deciding to go straight--but include a copy of the Wanted poster for bank robbery with your resume.  The History News Network coverage includes this:

Randolph Roth, who teaches at The Ohio State University, had this to say:

I hope and expect that Michael Bellesiles' new book will be judged on its merits.  I am disappointed, however, in the promotional campaign for the book.  Mr. Bellesiles may indeed have been the target of the NRA's ire, but he was not "swift-boated" by anyone.  Many people found Arming America deeply flawed—among them scholars of unquestioned skill and integrity such as James Lindgren, Gloria Main, Laurel Ulrich, and Clayton Cramer.  Some of them are conservatives, some liberals, some contrarians, but they all followed the evidence where it led, regardless of their personal views about guns or gun control.  The evidence, quantitative and qualitative, undid Arming America.

Slavery Reparations

Slavery Reparations

PajamasMedia published a piece by me today about slavery reparations.  Let me emphasize that the subtitle that implies Professor Gates has just become honest about this was not written by me, and I have no basis for believing that he has suddenly become honest about this subject.

The Scientific Revolution

The Scientific Revolution

After a number of weeks of covering witchcraft trials, people being burned at stake for heresy, religious intolerance, unique forms of torture invented during the Thirty Years War--it is so nice to spend a week teaching the Scientific Revolution on the 17th and 18th centuries.  The only torture or unpleasant death is the threat implicit in Galileo's trial by the Inquisition.

How Often Have You Wanted To Say This?

How Often Have You Wanted To Say This?

I think all of us, at one time or another.  From the London Quarterly Review (1835):

Newton was now president of the Royal Society, and Halley obtained that professorship, which in 1698 had been refused to him by Bishop Stillingfleet, in consequence of his being an infidel, which he was at no pains to conceal. This, as appears on the authority of Dr. Maskelyne, was well known to Sir Isaac Newton, who, however, we are told, ' never permitted immorality and impiety to pass unreproved ;' and when Halley ventured to throw out any thing disrespectful to religion, invariably checked him, saying, ' I have studied these things—you have not.'

 Apparently astrologers (yes, there are gobs of them who insist that we should taken them seriously) have taken to quoting this out of context as a proof by authority that you should listen to them.

Reasons Not To Get Too High & Mighty About European Witchcraft Trials

Reasons Not To Get Too High & Mighty About European Witchcraft Trials

I am preparing next week's lectures for my Western Civ class, and one of the topics is the burst of witchcraft trials in the later Middle Ages and Renaissance.  There are differing theories for why more than 100,000 witches were tried over several centuries, but before feeling too superior to those "ignorant" people, consider some of these recent news stories, such as this April 2, 2010 Voice of America report:

Beheading of Man in Saudi Arabia for Witchcraft Averted

 A Lebanese man condemned to death for witchcraft by a Saudi court will not be beheaded Friday as had been expected, his lawyer said.

Ali Hussain Sibat, the father of five, was to be executed after noon prayers Friday, but a frenzy of media coverage, appeals by international human rights groups and intervention by several Lebanese government officials, may have saved his life, at least temporarily.

His lawyer, May al-Khansa, said she was still unsure whether the beheading had been waived or postponed.

 And this item from the April 24, 2010 Times of Swaziland:

Witchcraft suspicions lands 21 residents in Court

BHUNYA- A resident from kaLuhleko community who alleges that he was accused of having caused the death of a boy from another family has taken 21 residents of the area to court.

Sonboy Mabuza alleges that the accused persons accused him of having played a part in the death of one Sibonelo Fakudze in 2005. 

He alleges that the accused persons, most of whom are relatives of the deceased, have been threatening him whenever they saw him. He had made an application to the court for a peace binding agreement between himself and the residents especially the Fakudze family. 

And from the April 18, 2010 Daily Nation (a Kenyan newspaper) is a column that opens with a picture with this caption:

Lynching of people suspected to be witches is common in some parts of the country. In Kisii, officers from Nyamira Police Station arrived too late to save a woman who was killed at Kiabiraa Village of Nyamira North District in March.

And there are many other examples.  At least the authorities are unlikely to respond to this accusation with criminal charges.  From April 14, 2010 KHBS-TV:

SPRINGDALE, Ark. -- A Springdale man has been arrested in connection with a reported rape.

Police said Hector Pineda raped and beat the woman regularly for four years.Officers said Pineda denied the abuse, and claimed to be a victim of witchcraft he said was done by the accuser.

By the way, I did find a marvelous account by Benjamin Franklin of a full-scale "weighing the witch" and "swimming the witch" trial from 1730 New Jersey:

"saturday last, at Mount-Holly, about 8 Miles from this Place 2 near 300 People were gathered together to see an Experiment or two tried on some Persons accused of Witchcraft. It seems the Accused had been charged with making their Neighbours' Sheep dance in an uncommon Manner, and with causing Hogs to speak and sing Psalms, etc., to the great Terror and Amazement of the king's good and peaceable Subjects in this Province; and the Accusers, being very positive that if the Accused were weighed in Scales against a Bible, the Bible would prove too heavy for them; or that, if they were bound and put into the River they would swim; the said Accused, desirous to make Innocence appear, voluntarily offered to undergo the said Trials if 2 of the most violent of their Accusers would be tried with them. Accordingly the Time and Place was agreed on and advertised about the Country; The Accusers were 1Man and 1Woman: and the Accused the same. The Parties being met and the People got together, a grand Consultation was held, before they proceeded to Trial; in which it was agreed to use the Scales first; and a Committee of Men were appointed to search the Men, and a Committee of Women to search the Women, to see if they had any Thing of Weight about them, particularly Pins. After the Scrutiny was over a huge great Bible belonging to the Justice of the Place was provided, and a Lane through the Populace was made from the Justice's House to the Scales, which were fixed on a Gallows erected for that Purpose opposite to the House, that the Justice's Wife and the rest of the Ladies might see the Trial without coming amongst the Mob, and after the Manner of Moorfields a large Ring was also made. Then came out of the House a grave, tall Man carrying the Holy Writ before the supposed Wizard etc, (as solemnly as the Sword-bearer of London before the Lord Mayor) the Wizard was first put in the Scale, and over him was read a Chapter out of the Books of Moses, and then the Bible was put in the other Scale, (which, being kept down before) was immediately let go; but, to the great Surprize of the Spectators, Flesh and Bones came down plump, and outweighed that great good Book by abundance. After the same Manner the others were served, and their Lumps of Mortality severally were too heavy for Moses and all the Prophets and Apostles. This being over, the Accusers and the rest of the Mob, not satisfied with this Experiment, would have the Trial by Water.

The description of the hogs singing the Psalms makes me think that Robert Heinlein had it wrong when he said, "Never try to teach a pig to sing.  It doesn't work, and it annoys the pig."

History of Gun Shows

History of Gun Shows

Is there anyone who is aware of what we now call a "gun show" (a place for the exhibiting, buying, and selling of guns on an occasional basis) before 1968 in the United States? The earliest reference that I can find is a 1960 gun show in Toronto, Canada.

Why I Don't Blog Much Anymore

Why I Don't Blog Much Anymore

Weekends and evenings are full of preparation for my Western Civilization class. In case you wonder how much time goes into preparing a community college class (the first time): I spend typically 10-14 hours preparing a PowerPoint presentation and notes for three hours of lecture, and about an hour preparing the weekly quiz. I spend another hour grading and entering quiz grades.

For preparation, I pick what I consider the most important themes from the week's assigned chapter as the heart of the lectures. Of course, since the assigned reading is typically 20-35 pages, I have to focus on the most important themes--and hope that the questions that I pick for the quiz prod students into doing the assigned reading with some care.

To prepare my notes, I start with what I learned in undergrad and graduate history classes, as well as my reading outside of school. But as I prepare my presentation, I also verify that:

1. My memory hasn't betrayed me.

2. History hasn't changed!

In some cases, there are gaps in my knowledge that I need to fill in--and by verifying important facts against not only the textbook, but a variety of other sources, I often discover gaps in my knowledge that I didn't even know were there! The old saying, "The best way to learn something is to teach it" has a certain truth to it.

I also sometimes find that recent research has either changed the emphasis of particular points since I was an undergraduate, or has discovered new data that significantly changes our understanding. For example, the massacre of the survivors of Jerusalem during the First Crusade has benefited from research done in Islamic sources in the period after World War II. The research isn't as painstaking as when I'm researching a journal article--but I do try to find at least two sources for any significant fact that I use in a lecture.

I am now up to the Reformation--a rather grim time, all the way around--but since the class ends with the end of the Thirty Years War in 1648, I will be done soon.

The 1849 California Constitutional Convention & The Right To Keep and Bear Arms

The 1849 California Constitutional Convention & The Right To Keep and Bear Arms

Back when I was writing Black Demographic Data, 1790-1860, I spent a lot of time trying to find the 1849 California Constitutional Convention debates. (If that seems a leap--the same guy that got Oregon the add a "no free blacks" provision to the 1857 Oregon Constitution tried, and failed, to get one added to the 1850 California Constitution.) I never could find it--no matter how many dusty library shelves I tried. But now I see by reading the comments over at Arms and the Law that the debates are available online--and there was actually discussion of whether to add a right to keep and bear arms provision. From John Ross Browne, ed., Report of the Debates in the Convention of California on the Formation of the State Constitution... 47:

Mr. Ord offered the following :

Sec. 16. Every person has a right to bear arms for the defence of himself and the State.

Mr. McCarver moved to amend by saying, " provided they are not concealed arms." He did not think, however, that this was a proper subject for the Constitution. No attempt should be made to prevent the Legislature from regulating matters of this kind.

Mr. Sherwood was of the same opinion. To make a positive declaration that a man has not this right would be null and void, inasmuch as it would be in opposition to the Constitution of the United States, which provides that " a well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right oí the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."

Mr. Botts was surprised that the gentleman from New York (Mr. Sherwood) should object to any provision here, because it was contained in the Constitution of the United States. After taking half-a-dozen provisions from that Constitution, word for word, such an objection came with rather a bad grace. He (Mr. Bolts) would himself prefer having this provision under the legislative head. A bill of rights is a general declaration ; the Constitution is a specific declaration. It is an admitted rule of construction that the bill of rights, or preamble, is of inferior force, and succombs to the Constitution. If there be in the Constitution a clause which conflicts with the bill of rights, the latter falls to the ground. He (Mr. Bolts) desired to see all great principles involving the rights of citizens brought into direct operation in the body of the Constitution. He saw no necessity for mere declarations which could have no force or effect. For this reason he had voted against the subject of monopolies ; and for the same reason he would vote against this.

Mr. Sherwood was not aware of having voted in the bill of rights for any provision which was directly secured to the people of California by the Constitution of the United States. But ¡f he had done so, it was with the good example before him of the gentleman from Monterey, who had voted for a provision in regard to the law of attainder. That provision he would find in the Constitution under the limitation of the powers of Congress. It was introduced here to limit the powers of the Legislature. But Mr. Ord's proposition directly touches the rights of every citizen.

The question was then taken, and both the amendment, and amendment to the amendment, were rejected.

I had always thought that the reason California's Constitution had no right to keep and bear arms was because so many of the early settlers were Iowans--and Iowa's state constitution did not have (and still does not have) a right to keep and bear arms. But apparently it wasn't just an oversight.

It is rather interesting that some delegates argued that it was inappropriate, apparently because it was too broad (and needed to leave authority to the legislature to regulated concealed carry), and others thought that it was superfluous. But it would also appear that some delegates thought it was wrongly placed in a Bill of Rights, and perhaps some felt that the state legislature needed authority to regulate the bearing of arms.

This isn't going to be very useful for those arguing for a right to keep and bear arms under the California Constitution--especially because debates on the 1879 Constitution did not even get around to rejecting such a proposal--but still quite interesting, nonetheless. I suspect that the McDonald decision, when it comes down, is going to make the whole question about a right under the California Constitution moot.

"She Turned Me Into A Newt!"

"She Turned Me Into A Newt!"

While reading the Code of Hammurabi in preparation for Western Civ lectures this week, I was reminded of this gem from Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975). (Can anything top John Cleese's timing with the lines about his recovery?)

And why was I reminded of this? Because the notion that criminal justice relies upon the power of water to distinguish guilt from innocence is a lot older than I would have guessed:

If any one bring an accusation against a man, and the accused go to the river and leap into the river, if he sink in the river his accuser shall take possession of his house. But if the river prove that the accused is not guilty, and he escape unhurt, then he who had brought the accusation shall be put to death, while he who leaped into the river shall take possession of the house that had belonged to his accuser.

Okay, the polarity is reversed: Europeans believed that witches would not sink in water, while under the Code of Hammurabi, if the accused sinks, he's guilty. Still, it's interesting to see how far back some traditions go.

Aristocrats, Then & Now (Part 2)

Aristocrats, Then & Now (Part 2)

Others have pointed out that Henry VIII's prohibition of poor people having handguns was not so much driven by hostility towards these new weapons, but a desire to get the militia practicing with the more practical weapon: the longbow:

In the sixteenth century we meet with heavy complaints respecting the disuse of the long bow. In the reign of Henry VIII. three several acts were made for promoting the practice of shooting with the long bow; one prohibiting the use of the cross-bows and hand-guns; another was occasioned by a complaint from the bowyers, fletchers or arrow makers, stringers, and arrow-head makers, stating that many unlawful games were practised in the open fields, to the detriment of the public morals and the great decay of archery. These games were, therefore, strictly prohibited by parliament, and a third act followed, which obliged every man, being the king's subject, to exercise himself in shooting with the long bow, and also to keep a bow with arrows continually in his house. Fathers and guardians were also commanded to teach the male children the use of the long how, and to have at all times bows provided for them as soon as they arrived at the age of seven years. Masters were ordered to find bows for their apprentices, and to compel them to learn to shoot with them upon holidays, and at every other convenient time. [Remains, Historical and Literary, Connected With The Palatine Counties of Lancaster and Chester 41[part 2]:459 (1856)]

Oh yes: the law subsidized the longbow, so that everyone could afford it.

I've just finished reading Barbara Tuchman's A Distant Mirror, which I highly recommend, but I thought that I would share another nugget of how aristocrats never seem to change. As you are doubtless aware, one of the big differences between England and France during the Hundred Years War was that the English relied much more heavily on the longbow and peasant infantrymen to shoot them. Tuchman makes rather a point of how the French were still so wrapped up in their fantasy of chivalry that they were unprepared to see the utility of their peasants in warfare, except as servants, suppliers of food, men to humiliate, and women to rape (and vice versa for a few nobles).

The Battle of Crecy (1346) and even more so, the Agincourt (1415), demonstrated the foolishness of this approach. Those peasant English archers were quite effective because if you were practiced with it, you could unleash an incredible storm of arrows with an effective range of hundreds of yards from the longbow. But to be practiced, you needed to let your archers have those longbows available to them. By comparison, the French, when they deigned to make any use of peasant infantrymen, were issuing them crossbows. In theory, the crossbow is a formidable weapon because it is so powerful. But the range wasn't so impressive, and the French nobility weren't generally thrilled about confronting uppity peasants if they were armed. Consequently, in much of this period, crossbows were issued by the government to peasants for war--but they weren't generally left in "unreliable" hands.

The series of disasters during the Hundred Years War (of which Crecy was one of many) finally seemed to have taught the French aristocrats a lesson that the English aristocrats knew. (And those English aristocrats weren't any nicer; they just needed the peasants to help them beat impudent French knights on the battlefield.) Tuchman describes how in the last quarter of the 14th century:

In a renewed effort to train archers, an ordinance was issued prohibiting games. Tennis, which the common people were adopting in imitation of the nobles, and soules, a form of field hockey popular with the bourgeois and seldom played without broken bones, as well as dice and cards, were banned in the hopes of encouraging practice in archery and the crossbow. The was the same effort Charles V had made in 1368 and it shows that the rulers were acutely conscious of the failure of French archery.

Skills were not lacking; the trouble was that French tactics did not allow archery an essential place. Combined action of archers and knights was not adopted; crossbow companies were hired and barely used. The reason was clearly a mixture of contempt for the commoner and fear for chivalry's primacy in battle. By 1393 the added fear of insurrection caused the new ordinance to have a short life. After a period during which practice with the bow and crossbow became very popular, the nobles insisted that the ban on games be revoked, fearing that the common people would gain too effective a weapon against the noble estate. [p. 519]

It is worth noting that the Jacquerie Rebellion of 1358 was put down with considerable brutality--perhaps simplified by both the limited weaponry of the French peasants, as well as their lack of experience fighting. Perhaps there's a message for our aristocrats today: at least part of what drove that uprising was exorbitant taxes that the nobles imposed on the peasants, but didn't bother to impose on themselves. (Like Leona Helmsley, "only little people pay taxes.")

Aristocrats, Then & Now

Aristocrats, Then & Now

As I have been reading through Tuchman's A Distant Mirror, I keep comparing the character, fundamental decency, and respect for the common man that aristocrats had then with our political class--and they have much in common. They were constantly raising taxes, supposedly for the public good, but mostly for their own good. They spent a lot of time hyping the chivalric code--which was four-fifths fantasy--but utterly failing to live up to it. And they held the masses in utter contempt.

But there are times when one of these scum really outdid the rest of his class. From Tuchman, p. 356, describing one of the interminable campaigns of the Hundred Years War and the English aristocracy's newest set of plans:

Ever since Charles's repudiation of the Treaty of Bretigny and the reverses that followed, they had hated the French for falsely and wrongfully, as they saw it, dispossessing them of their property. Defense of their own countrymen might be lackadaisical, but in combat overseas, where plunder offered, there was no lack of will to fight, only lack of money. Other means being exhausted, funds for an expedition to Brittany were raised in 1379 by a graduated poll (or head) tax, a new device designed to cover clergy and peasants at lower income levels than before. Calculated, with the usual vagueness about population figures, to bring in £50,000, it produced only £20,000, all of it invested in a fleet commanded by Sir John Arundel.

Delayed until winter by lack of wind and then by threat of a French raid, Arundel took part of his force to Southampton to guard against an enemy landing and, why there, to conduct himself indistinguishably from the enemy. Beside robbing the countryside, he quartered his men-at-arms and archers in a convent, allowing them to violate at will the nuns and a number of poor widows who lived there, and to carry them off to the ships when ready to sail. Arundel was the man who had demanded money in hand before he would defend the south-coast towns against earlier French raids. If Walsingham may be believed, he used it for ostentation as extreme as his brutality. He is said to have embarked with a wardrobe of 52 suits embroidered in gold, and horses and equipment to the value of £7,000.

Sailing in December, his convoy was caught by a violent storm during which he ordered the kidnapped women thrown overboard to lighten the ships, maltreated the crew, and having struck down the pilot, was fittingly wrecked on the rocks of the Irish coast.... Arundel's body, rolling in the waves, was washed up three days later. Driven back by the storm, the remainder of the fleet never made the crossing and the tax money was accordingly wasted.

Rich; spoiled; sexually immoral; prone to horrendous expenditures on militarily useless activities (the 1000 missile Minuteman fleet); sexual partners drowning when inconvenient. Are we sure he actually drowned? Or did he start the Kennedy clan?

The Gore Effect Again & The Invention of Chimneys

The Gore Effect Again & The Invention of Chimneys

From the December 22, 2009 Guardian:

More than 100 people have been killed in the cold snap across Europe, with temperatures plummeting and snowfall causing chaos from Moscow to Milan.
In Poland, where temperatures have dropped to as low as -20C in some areas, police appealed for tip-offs about people spotted lying around outside. At least 42 people, most of them homeless, died over the weekend.
In Ukraine 27 people have frozen to death since the thermometer dropped last week. Authorities in Romania said 11 people had succumbed to the chill, and in the Czech Republic the toll was 12. In Germany, where temperatures have fallen to -33C in certain parts, at least seven people are known to have lost their lives in the freezing weather.
...
Roads were not exempt from the chaos. After a weekend that brought the heaviest snowfall in about 100 years, Moscow was gridlocked, with tailbacks snailing around the Russian capital.
In Italy, where winters are usually mild, motorways in the north-east were closed and the Ministry of Defence dispatched helicopters in Sicily to bring medical aid to those in need.

I'm reading Barbara Tuchman's A Distant Mirror at the moment, and she mentions that the chimney was invented in the 11th century, and ascribes it to the cooling that presaged the Little Ice Age. I found that claim quite astonishing, so I did a little digging. She's overstated it, but not by much.

Sir William Smith's View of the State of Europe During the Middle Ages (1888) discusses that there is no evidence of chimneys in England "prior to the twelfth century." John E. Crowley's The Invention of Comfort (2003) reports that while chimneys were used in industrial applications in Roman times, they were not used for household heating. A hole in the roof was sufficiently efficient for that purpose. Various motivations are ascribed to this--but the obvious one is that it suddenly got very cold on a consistent basis in the twelfth century. This account from 1877 asserts:

The chimney for carrying off the smoke of a house is of modern invention. It was not introduced into England before the twelfth, and into Italy in the thirteenth century. Even in the seventeenth century throughout England the houses of the well-to-do yeomen were without chimneys.

Considering the role that Italian fashion played in the Renaissance--and generally the movement of culture and refinement northward--I'm inclined to think that Tuchman has it right: chimneys were a response to increased cold, making the traditional hole in the ceiling approach inadequate.

Earliest Description of a Strike-Slip Fault?

Earliest Description of a Strike-Slip Fault?

For those who don't live on a strike-slip fault (like the San Andreas):

Strike-slip faults involve motion which is parallel to the strike of the fault--frequently described as a "side-by-side" motion. Strike-slip faults are further described as "right-lateral" (dextral) or "left-lateral" (sinistral) depending if the block opposite the viewer moved to the right or left respectively.

I was quite to surprised when our pastor's sermon recently included Zechariah 14:3-4:

³ Then the LORD will go out and fight against those nations, as he fights in the day of battle. ⁴ On that day his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem, and the Mount of Olives will be split in two from east to west, forming a great valley, with half of the mountain moving north and half moving south.

Zechariah is generally dated to the period circa 520 BC. I am not aware of any classical references to strike-slip faults that are this clear, this early.

An Important Idea For Understanding History

An Important Idea For Understanding History

From Barbara W. Tuchman, A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century (New York: Ballatine Books, 1978), 219-220:

What is rare is a woman's account of herself. The anguished Heloise in the 12th century and the feminist Christine de Pisan in the later 14th speak out, and both are bitter, although that does not necessarily establish a rule. In individuals as in nations, contentment is silent, which tends to unbalance the historical record.

Frost Fairs

Frost Fairs

I was looking for information on "Frost Fairs," an interesting artifact, it has been claimed, of "the Little Ice Age." Frost Fairs were held when the Thames froze over so solidly that not only could you walk across the river at London--but carriages stopped using bridges, and an entire small city was built out there. Livestock were slaughtered and roasted on the ice, and print shops would set up to print novelty goods: "printed on the Thames." These Frost Fairs sometimes lasted for months.

Among the interesting items that I found while searching was this issue of the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society (1901), in which Albert E. Watson's "A Review of Past Severe Winters in England, with Deductions Therefrom" appeared:

About 9 years ago, in a letter to The Times, I pointed out, as an interesting and remarkable fact, that during the last 40 years the winter from 0 to 1 in each decade has been distinguished by its great severity. Curious to see how far this would hold good, I searched past records and published the results in a local newspaper, and then let the matter drop; but recently, since another decade has rolled away, and we are again face to face with another 0 to 1 winter, I have examined the subject more thoroughly, and the results obtained are so peculiar and significant that they seem worthy of more than a local circulation. I will first, therefore, examine the severe winters of the last 300 years, make notes upon each in proof of its severity, and afterwards consider the results of these investigations, and the conclusions to which they point.

Quite interesting. While one of the commenters on the paper pointed out the lack of hard data upon which Watson was characterizing "severe winters," he pointed out that there was data for the last 60 years that fit with Watson's observations:

Nevertheless, from a scientific point of view, it was to be regretted that, at all events for the winters of the past century, some clear definition had not been given as to what the author meant by a "severe winter." There were so many different ways of gauging severe winters that it became necessary, whatever test be adopted, that the same test be applied to each winter in the series. Mr. Watson's deductions were in the main supported by the Greenwich records for the last 60 years.

So, what would cause harsher weather every ten years or so? The obvious answer is: sunspot cycles are on roughly an eleven year cycle--and that interval varies. This page indicates:

Between 1700 and today, the sunspot cycle (from one solar min to the next solar min) has varied in length from as short as nine years to as long as fourteen years.

Intriguing, isn't it?

Some of those arguing that the current warming is largely driven by solar changes mention the Frost Fairs--which are no longer within the memory of any living Briton. But that 1901 article also makes the claim that at least part of what changed was:

that the state of the Thames was very different before the removal of old London Bridge about 1825 to what it was now; old London Bridge, acting as a half tidal dam, greatly diminishing the range of the tide, and probably accounting for the fact of the water freezing more often than it did now.

There does seem to be clear evidence, however, that the weather was colder, and more importantly, it stayed cold for months on end--in a way that is no longer the case. Other articles list events where the Thames froze over--but largely before the Medieval Warm Period, and again starting in the eleventh century, as the Little Ice Age starts to arrive:

To turn to the earliest periods of English history, we find the Thames frozen over in A.d. 134 for two months, in 153 for three months, in 250 for nine weeks, in 290 for six weeks, and so on at intervals of various distances of time.

In the"Harleian Miscellany," vol. iii., page 167, it is recorded that " in the tenth year of the reign of William the Conqueror, the cold of winter was exceeding memorable, both for sharpness and for continuance ; for the earth remained hard from the beginning of November until the midst of April then ensuing." I am unable to discover whether, just as the great heat of the jubilee year was preceded by a cold and very late spring, so this extraordinary winter (which is, perhaps, at the bottom of the expression so often used by old-fashioned people, of seasonable weather) was followed by a very hot summer.

In those days, money and science could not, as they do to-day, make our houses independent of cold ; for ten years afterwards, as Walford, in his " Insurance Cyclopaedia," tells us, the weather was so inclement that in the unusual efforts made to warm the houses, nearly all the chief cities of the kingdom were destroyed by fire, including a great part of London and St. Paul's. Nor at that period of English history were we independent of our own food supply. London was not then, as it is now, the market of the world, for in 1121-22 a severe frost killed the grain crops and a famine followed.

In 1281-82 a very severe winter was followed by an equally dry summer, for in Stow, edited by Howes, 1631, we find tne following statement: —

From Christmas to the Purification of our Lady there was such a frost and snow as no man living could remember the like: when through five arches of London Bridge and all Rochester Bridge were borne downe and carried away by the streame; and the like hapned to many other bridges in England; and not long after, men passed over the Thames between Westminster and Lambeth dryshod.

I found gobs of other interesting sources, many of them quite old, about Frost Fairs--and I also ran into one very odd science fiction story here set in a future Ice Age where mankind's technology has dropped back to a medieval level. It's really not suited to children, because we learn that in such a future, a girl's best defense against rape involves handguns. The author is, shockingly enough, a British Ph.D. in Astronomy who works for the European Space Agency.

Just Had A Good Laugh

Just Had A Good Laugh

I'm preparing for my Western Civilization classes next semester. I'm thinking of using the CCR5Δ32/Black Death/HIV immunity hypothesis as an example of ancient history is more relevant than you might think. (While there is some serious controversy about whether the increase in the CCR5Δ32 mutation was caused by the Black Death, or some earlier horrible disease that burned through Europe, it is at least still a valid hypothesis, not yet disproved.)

So I'm reading an article from the Croatian Medical Journal: "Historic, Demographic, and
Genetic Evidence for Increased Population Frequencies of CCR5Δ32 Mutation in Croatian Island Isolates after Lethal 15th Century Epidemics." The English isn't perfect--there are a few typos here and there ("heard" where they meant "herd," for example)--but I did get a very good laugh on this, where they discuss these islands on the Dalmatian coast:

We included 10 villages from these 5 islands into the study. The selected villages were included in the research program (“10 001 Dalmatians”) on genetic regulation of biological quantitative traits distribution in isolated human populations (19,20,33-35).

Putting Together a Chronology of the Abolition of the International Slave Trade

Putting Together a Chronology of the Abolition of the International Slave Trade

I am doing this for my wife, who rather likes the film Amazing Grace, which is about William Wilberforce's efforts to abolish slavery within the British Empire. I knew that the movie played a little fast and loose with the sequence of events, but the more I dig into the documents, the more interesting this gets. I'm looking at a treaty that Britain signed with Spain in 1817 by which Spain agreed to abolish the African slave trade north of the equator immediately, and south of the equator in 1820. What was Spain's incentive? Britain gave them £400,000 as compensation both for previous losses of slave ships to the British government, and future losses.

Remember that Britain really didn't have any financial interest in ending the slave trade. The British government had abolished the international slave trade for its citizens by an Order in Council of August 15, 1805, and additional restrictions in 1806 and 1807. To give £400,000 as a bribe to the Spanish government to end the Spanish involvement in the international slave trade is a pretty astonishing act of humanitarianism.

The First Thanksgiving

The First Thanksgiving

Over the last couple of decades, I have heard all sorts of claims made about the first Thanksgiving--including the claim that it was a celebration of a massacre of the Indians.

First of all, they didn't call it Thanksgiving. It was a traditional English harvest feast--especially important since so few had survived that first very hard winter of starvation and disease. Some of my ancestors survived that winter, and were part of that feast.

It was not a celebration of victory over the Indians. There is a detailed account in Winslow's December 11, 1621 letter to a friend in England, describing what happened, and the circumstances:

Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might, after a special manner, rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labors. They four in one day killed as much fowl as, with a little help beside, served the company almost a week. At which time, amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest king, Massasoyt, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted ; and they went out and killed five deer, which they brought to the plantation, and bestowed on our governor, and upon the captain and others. And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God we are so far from want, that we often wish you partakers of our plenty.

We have found the Indians very faithful in their covenant of peace with us, very loving, and ready to pleasure us. We often go to them, and they come to us. Some of us have been fifty miles by land in the country with them, the occasions and relations whereof you shall understand by our general and more full declaration of such things as are worth the noting. Yea, it hath pleased God so to possess the Indians with a fear of us and love unto us, that not only the greatest king amongst them, called Massasoyt, but also all the princes and peoples round about us, have either made suit unto us, or been glad of any occasion to make peace with us; so that seven of them at once have sent their messengers to us to that end.