Political theory and practice

1624 Paris, Politics: Louis XIII appointed Cardinal Richelieu chief minister of the Royal Council of France, making visible and official the Cardinal’s pervasive influence as l’Éminence gris. He advocated exploration and settlement in New France (Quebec), funding Samuel de Champlain’s expeditions. He was also busy with Les Trois Mousquetaires as seen below.

1769 Glasgow, Engineering: James Watt secured Patent 913 for ‘A method of lessening the consumption of steam in steam engines’ – the separate condenser which remains in common use. It increases the efficiency of steam engines.

1852 London, Language. Physician Peter Roget published the ‘Thesaurus.’ He had been an inveterate list maker since childhood, compiling word lists all along and when he retired from medicine at sixty, he devoted himself to words full time. The complete title of the first edition is ‘Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases Classified and Arranged so as to Facilitate the Expression of Ideas and Assist in Literary Composition.’ It went through twenty-twenty-eight printings in his life (he made it to 90) and more thereafter with revisions. I have used it a lot, especially in thesis writing to find le mot juste and vary word choice.

1917 St Catherines (ON), Technology: Swedish-born immigrant Gideon Sundback patented an all-purpose Y-fastener. It was one of many hooks and fasteners he devised. The term ‘zipper’ came a few years later when it was used for boots. Much later the zipper made it to clothing.

1927 Rockbank (VI), Technology: The Imperial Wireless Service between Australia and Britain began. It provided high speed telegraphy and radio pictures. At its peak Rockbank had 94 antennas and three steel masts of 75 meters height. One transmitter remained in service until 1969. The buildings were called Fiskville in honour of the engineer who built it, a Mr Fisk. It is 60 kilometres east of Melbourne and much of the site is preserved. One of the first buildings is shown below.

1611 Manila, Philippines, Education: This is the foundation date of the Pontifical and Royal University of Santo Tomas, The Catholic University of the Philippines, oldest existing university in Asia and largest Catholic university in the world with 45,000 enrolments in 2017. Never been there but when in search for Machiavelliana I had an email correspondence with Machiavelli Chocolatier – Glorietta Mall in Manila. I was trying to mail order some of the product but the effort came to naught.

1789 Pitcairn Island, History: The Mutiny on the HMS Bounty was led by a badly miscast Omahan Marlon Brando. I know because I have seen the movie. Captain Bligh was later in New South Wales and precipitated the Rum Rebellion when he tried to sober up the soldiery. No prizes for guessing who won that one. We live in an area once called the Bligh Estate, land which he left to his daughter Elizabeth, who married Maurice O’Connell, ergo O’Connell Town, an enclave within Newtown. Got it?

1925 London, Literature: Faber and Faber publishers hired St Louis-born T.S. Eliot as an editor, allowing him to quit his job as a bank clerk at Lloyd’s of London, and devote himself full time to penning ever more incomprehensible, baffling, impenetrable, and obscure poetry that has kept the talking heads busy explaining it. Eliot had to work hard at achieving what he achieved as shown in marked up text below. Small solace for us auditors and readers.

1937 New York City, Medicine: Yellow Fever vaccine announced. The fever had spread with increased world transportation in the early 20th Century. In this year Max Theiler and Hugh Smith at the Rockefeller Foundation improved a vaccine so much that it was 99% effective. That vaccine, 17D, remains in use today until the anti-vaxxeers get to it.

1967 Ïles Sainte-Hélène y Notre Dame (QC): On the hundredth anniversary of Canadian Federation, the World’s Fair Expo 67 was held. Fifty million visitors passed through 90 pavilions from 62 countries and corporations. It left behind mountain of unpaid debts from the construction and Habitat 67, one of the constructs, 354 concrete boxes which the undergraduate designer thought preferable to houses or apartments. Most are one bedroom. It could be worse, the original design called from 1000 such blockhouses. This event was the model of the 1976 Olympics which left behind even larger debts and larger white elephant. Yes, he was an undergraduate when he concocted it, and he is on the TED trail even now justifying it. Get over it!

1509 Venice (IT), Religion: Pope Julius II ex-communicated the state of Venice. The Venetian Senate kept this fact secret from its population and the word did not get out. When the geo-political situation changed, the Pope rescinded it. If one thing distinguished Venice, it is the ability to keep secrets, those masks are more than symbolic, as indicated in the books on Venice discussed elsewhere on this blog, as well as Donna Leon’s krimis.

1895 Colombo (SL), Technology: The World Transportation Commission visited Ceylon. The Commission was sponsored by the Field Museum in Chicago to gather information about foreign transportation systems, especially railroads. It included engineers, photographers, artists, and translators on a three-year tour. Below is a street shot from the Commission. We have been to the Field Museum.

1904 Canberra, Politics: The first Labor government in the world is sworn in. Thirty-seven year old Chris Watson was Prime Minister. This government lasted until August 1904. By the way, Watson was born in Valparaiso Chile. He was the stepson of Mr Watson. He is in the centre of the front row below with cabinet members. Watson is a Canberra suburb where I stayed once when in residence at ANU.

1971 Fremantle (WA), History: Relics and artefacts form the wreck of the Dutch trading ship Batavia (lost in 1629) were recovered. The Dutch government transferred all rights to its wrecks found in coastal waters to Australia, and these specimens are now in the Maritime Museum in Fremantle. We have been to this museum. The Batavia figures in Nicholas Hasluck’s intriguing novel ‘The Bellarmine Jug’ (1984).

1981 Palo Alto (CA), Technology. Xerox included a ball mouse as part of the 8010 Star Information System workstation. Eeek! The mouse entered the marketplace.

1336 Rousillion (FR), Tourism: Francesco Petrarch climbed Mont Ventoux for the pleasure of the view from atop. That such travel might be recreation was novel. Once there he contemplated nature. He then wrote about the experience; he is sometimes called the first tourist. Many Tour de France riders have climbed Mont Ventoux while contemplating human frailty.

1890 Sydney, Literature: Banjo Paterson published ‘The Man from Snowy River.’ See the sun-baked ten dollar bill below. He also authored ‘Waltzing Matilda,’ which should be the national anthem instead of the snooze that is. Paterson seldom set foot outside Sydney but extolled the life of the bush.

1929 Karachi (India), Aviation: Two RAF officers completed the first non-stop flight from Cranwell Base in Lincolnshire taking just under 51 hours, covering 4,130 miles in a Long-Range Monoplane. It is slightly longer than Charles Lindberg’s route from New York City to Paris of the same time.

1939 Canberra, Politics: Robert Menzies became Prime Minister, and when he resigned in 1966 he was Australia’s long-serving prime minister.

1994 Pretoria (ZA), Politics: A free and multi-racial vote elected Nelson Mandela president of the Republic of South Africa.

1507 Sankt Didel (Germany), History: Cartographers Martin Waldseemüller and Matthias Ringmann were the first to use the name America on their world map “Universalis Cosmographia” based on the voyages of Columbus and Vespucci. Their map also showed the Americas as separate from Asia. Sankt Didel is now and was before Saint-Dié-des-Vosges in the much contested Lorraine.

1719 London, Literature: Daniel Defoe published ‘Robinson Crusoe’ the full title of which is ‘The Life and strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner: Who lived Eight and Twenty Years, all alone in an un-inhabited Island on the coast of America, near the Mouth of the Great River of Oroonoque; Having been cast on Shore by Shipwreck, where-in all the Men perished but himself. With An Account how he was at last as strangely deliver’d by Pyrates.’ The novel has ruminations of humanity, equality, compassion, friendship, and empathy that are usually bleached out of it in the popular culture for a simple adventure. Below is a statue of Alexander Selkirk whose experiences inspired Defoe.

1896 Gawler (SA), Politics: Women voted! It was an election in the colony of South Australia. the legislation had passed in December 1894 and Queen Victoria gave Royal Assent in early 1895 in time for the next South Australian election. At the first reading of the legislation in 1894, while granting women the vote, the bill excluded women from serving in parliament. Hoping to sink the bill an outspoken opponent, one Ebenezer Ward, got that exclusion removed, and campaigned against the bill on the ridiculous but dreaded prospect of women voting other women into parliament! Too clever by half he was, because the bill passed.

1928 Nashville (TN), Society: Morris Frank with Alsatian guide dog Buddy began a publicity tour to promote the use of seeing eye dogs. Access to public facilities from parks to banks, hotels, restaurants, libraries, trains, buses, hardware stores, town halls, hospitals, and so on was until then denied to all animals. He also wanted to encourage the rearing and training of seeing eye dogs in the United States. He had imported Buddy from a speciality breeder in Switzerland who had trained Buddy for the work.

1954 Murray Hill (NJ), Technology: Daryl Chapin at Bell Labs demonstrated a solar battery made primary out of silicon, as in computer chips. He and his colleagues used the light from a flashlight to power a tiny windmill attached to the power cell. Shining the light on the cell caused the windmill to rotate as if by magic. We have a 4K set of solar panels on the roof.

1959 St Lambert (Quebec), Technology: The St Lawrence Seaway was opened. Queen Elizabeth II cut the ribbon, observed by Prime Minister John Diefenbaker and President Dwight Eisenhower. It was a massive engineering project to allow contemporary ocean-going vessels to sail into the Great Lakes. Part of human cost is rendered in Anne Michaels’s ‘The Winter Vault” (2009). Her ‘Fugitive Pieces’ (1996) is unforgettable.

1184 BC Troy, History: This is the traditional date for the Greek infiltration of Troy and its subsequent destruction. The Iliad remains a remarkable book, the more so for its theme that the poet is greater than the warrior for without the poet, the exploits of the warrior would fade. We spent half-a-day tramping around the site. It was easy to see why the city on the hill dominated the vast plains around it.

1066 Hastings, History: The first recorded sighting of Halley’s Comet in England. Both the Normans and the English took it as an omen. It was bad for Harold and good for William, as it turned out. Only when Edmond Halley established the regularity of the Comet and worked back through historical records was this sighting linked to the eponymous comet.

1800 D.C., Education: Second President John Adams approved a Congressional appropriation to purchase “such books as may be necessary for the use of congress.” The first purchases were 740 volumes and three maps. One of its three buildings is named for President Adams. From this seed grew The Library of Congress, which I have visited several times to use the reading room and the vast collection. An anecdote about one visit is to be found on this blog dated 15 March 2010. Click away for amusement.

1955 Bandung (Indonesia), Politics: The Afro-Asian Conference ended. It had brought together representatives of twenty-nine non-aligned nations to discuss world events outside the context of Cold War which otherwise dominated international relations. Colonialism, trade barrier, racism, international finance, freedom of the seas, and a numbing litany of condemnations of the USA and USSR filled the agenda. Accordingly, These neutrals were viewed by both the USSR and the USA as enemies. Both were stimulated by the oddity of the People’s Republic of China in attendance as non-aligned. How many leaders can you identify in the picture below. Answers on application.

1990 Cape Canaveral (FL), Science: The Space Shuttle Discovery launched the Hubble Space Telescope into a low Earth orbit.It is the most significant advance in astronomy since Galileo’s telescope four hundred years earlier. Below is one of Hubble’s first shots, and it is still snapping away.

1500 Monte Pascoal (Brasil), History: Pedro Álvarez Cabral landed in Brazil, the first European to do so, and claimed it for Portugal.

1597 Berkshire (England), Theatre: The first performance of William Shakespeare’s play ‘The Merry Wives of Windsor’ for Queen Elizabeth several years before it was published. It is a comic version of Othello centring Sir John Falstaff who wants a wife, preferably a merry widow with enough money to pay his debts.

1920 Ankara, Politics: The Turkish Grand National Assembly organised and dominated by Kemal Atatürk convened to create a new country, Turkey, from the top down. Its first act was to depose Sultan Mehmed VI who is shown below going into exile. A biography of the philosopher-king Atatürk is discussed elsewhere on this blog.

1953 Jackson Hole, (WY), Cinema: ‘Shane’ was released. It was directed by the versatile George Stevens who coaxed memorable performances from the whole cast played out against the monumental indifference of the Grand Teton Mountains. No one forgets the drooling Jack Palance, Jean Arthur’s heartbreak, Van Heflin’s stoic endurance, the monosyllabic Alan Ladd, or the bewildered Brandon de Wilde’s last words, ’Shane, come back!’ A top ten entry in the Western Movie Hall of Fame.

2005 San Diego, Media: The first video was posted on You Tube by co-founder Jawed Karim. It ran for 18-seconds and featured him at the San Diego Zoo. By now it has been viewed more than 14 millions times.

1509 London, Politics: Henry VIII took the throne. Reduced to a player in a bedroom farce in the popular culture by people who cannot understand anything else, Henry was a consummate strategist and he had to be.

1529 Zaragoza (ES), Politics: Spain and Portugal agreed to the Treaty of Saragossa to divide the world between them. The Pope had brokered the arrangement to keep the peace among Christian nations against the Ottoman threat. When the dividing line was drawn around a globe it bisected the continent of Australia and centuries later that line became the border to Western Australia. See Leslie Marchant, ‘The Papal Line of Demarcation’ (Perth, 2008).

1876 St Petersburg, Music: Pytor Tchaikovsky completed the ballet ‘Swan Lake.’ It never gets old. We saw it most recently in St Petersburg.

1970 Madison (WI), Ecology: The first celebration of Earth Day. An estimated 20 million Americans took part in events related to it. Many events involved picking up trash and environmental education. The leading champion was Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin, who was instrumental in the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency in the same year. It takes imagination to think of a senator today doing something this farsighted and constructive.

1983 ‘Stern’ magazine and Murdoch’s ‘Times of London’ announced the Hitler Diaries. Robert Harris’s deadpan telling of this blunder of the century is discussed elsewhere on this blog. The managers managed, all right, especially in shifting the blame away from themselves.

753 BC Rome, Mythology: This is the legendary date of the foundation of Rome by the brothers Romulus and Remus. In the first century BC the Roman Senate commissioned scholar Marcus Terentius Varro to determine the foundation date and he did.

1689 London, Politics: William III and Mary II were crowned joint sovereigns of England, Scotland, and Ireland. Bill was simultaneously the ruler of the Netherlands. He spent most of his reign(s) making war on Catholics in Belgium, France, Ireland, and Scotland.

1956 Memphis (TN), Music: Elvis Presley’s ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ hit number one. His first hit song. Been to Graceland. Daniel Klein has written a series of charming krimis featuring Elvis. Try ‘Kill Me Tender’ (2002).

1960 Brasilia, Architecture: A new city built on a greenfield became the capital of Brazil. Planning had began in 1956. The temperature rarely drops below 30 degrees Centigrade in daylight hours on the plateau. In the Wikipedia entry architect Oscar Niemeyer is barely mentioned, yet he designed most of the public buildings that are so distinctive. The political purpose was to leave behind the squalor and corruption of Rio de Janeiro, to open up the interior, and to thrust Brasil into the forefront of urban modernity. One of the few, perhaps, the only place in South America I would like to see with my own eyes. There is a rollicking, mile-a-minute film partly set in Brasilia called ‘L’homme de Rio’ (1964).

1970 Hutt River (WA), Politics: North of Perth farmer Leonard Casley declared his property of 520 square kilometres a province and seceded from Western Australia and the Commonwealth of Australia. He designated himself His Royal Highness Prince Leonard of Hutt. He was incensed by Wheat Board quotas and decided to generate publicity. The media ate it with a spoon but seldom mentioned his purpose. There is a Wikipedia entry for those who want to know more.

1611 London, Theatre: Today was the first recorded performance of William Shakespeare’s Scottish play ‘Macbeth.’ Toil and trouble, indeed. Posed below are three Republican Senators.

1828 Timbuktu, Geography: René Caillé found and mapped Timbuktu to win a prize from the Société de Géographie. There were many legends about this place and other Europeans had tried to find and failed, many of them perished. For centuries Timbuktu had been an important way station for travellers and a repository for learning. A book about it is discussed elsewhere on this blog.

1862 Paris, Science: Louis Pasteur completed the first tests of using heat to kill bacteria. This research led to the realisation that germs caused infection, disproving a common belief that in spontaneous generation of disease. (Anti-vaxxers are still there despite a century of free pubic education.) Sterilisation, vaccines, disinfection, and antibiotics all came through the door Pasteur opened.

1902 Paris, Science: Marie and Pierre Curie isolated radioactive radium chloride from pitchblende. She carried specimens around in coat pockets and suffered the consequences.

1968 Ottawa, Politics: Joseph Phillippe Pierre Yves Eliot Trudeau became leader the Liberal Party and Prime Minister when the incumbent Lester Pearson resigned. Trudeau’s finest hour might have been a few weeks later on 24 June on St John the Baptist Day in Montréal. Watch this space.