Political theory and practice

1845 Meudon, Science: French physicists Armand Fizeau and Léon Foucault took the first photograph of the Sun. They had made numerous attempts and failed but one did succeed in making a five inch Daguerreotype as below. These two collaborated on many projects. Oh, and yes, this latter is the man with the pendulum. (Either one gets it or one doesn’t not.)

1905 Victoria Falls (Zambia), History: The ambitious Cairo – Cape Town railway opened between Cape Town in South Africa and Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. The brainchild of Cecil Rhodes, it was never completed.

1912 Nanjing (China), Politics: Sun Yat-sen called a National Assembly of the Republic of China to supplant the Emperor Puyi. He created the Guomindang Party, a fossil of which remains important in Taiwan, and led it until his death in 1925. He had gone to elementary school in Honolulu. Below is his signature and personal stamp.

1930 Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), History: Ras Tafari Makonnen was invested as Emperor Haile Selassie, and remained that until deposed in 1974. Ryszard Kapuściński’s ‘Emperor’ (1989) gives a remarkable account of the last days of the regime. It inspired to me read three or four of his other titles.

1978 Lausanne (CH), Commerce: Velcro hit the market for first time. Its name is a portmanteau word from the French words ‘velour’ (velvet) and ‘crochet’ (hook). Electrical engineer George de Mestral conceived it while picking burs seeds (illustrated below) from his dog’s fur. It took years for him to develop the idea, conceive of a use for it, and find backers. The alternative explanation is that the Vulcans of First Contact left it behind.

1392 Canterbury (England), Literature: In Geoffrey Chaucer’s ‘The Nun’s Priest’s Tale’ there is an association between foolishness and April first. This seems to the earliest connection in English, and even this is much disputed as a copying error of some sort. There are later French references in the 1500s.

1778 New Orleans, Economy: Irish immigrant businessman Oliver Pollock created the “$” symbol. How and why is much discussed in Wikipedia. Others are also credited this innovation. It was first used on minted coins in 1797. One of our tour guides in Sevilla offered the explanation illustrated below derived from the imagery on Spanish piece of eight, also called Spanish dollars, a distant corruption of the German thaler. The Mexican peso has always used this symbol from the Spanish coin.

1786 Vienna, Music: Wolfgang Mozart, aged thirty, seated at the keyboard, conducted the debut of his opera ‘The Marriage of Figaro,’ derived from Pierre Beaumarchais’s novel which had been surpassed in France. The play’s denunciation of aristocratic privilege foreshadowed the French Revolution. The revolutionary leader Georges Danton later said that the play “killed off the nobility” and Napoleon Bonaparte called it “the Revolution already put into action.” Below is playbill for the opening performance.

1929 Barcelona, Cinema: Luis Buñel screed his 24-minute film ‘Un Chien Andalou’ made in collaboration with Salvador Dali. Remember that eyeball? I do.

1999 Iqaluit, Canada, on Frobisher Bay, Politics: the Northwest Territory was halved, creating Nunavut, a first peoples homeland with a population of 35,000 spread over 2 million square kilometres of ice and tundra.

1770 Königsberg, Philosophy: Immanuel Kant was appointed a professor logic and metaphysics. At the time this city was the seat of Prussian monarchs, but now it is in Russia, having previously been Kaliningrad in the Soviet Union where attack submarines were stationed. There is a series of krimis that involve Herr Doktor Professor Kant, starting with Michael Gregorio, ‘The Critique of Criminal Reason’ (2006). Never been there.

1836 London, Literature: The twenty-four year old Charles Dickens published the first instalment of the ‘Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club’ under the pseudonym of Boz. The illustrations by Sol Eytinge, Junior, added to the fun. We have been full of the Dickens at times.

1854 Nagoya (Japan), Trade: Commodore Matthew Perry signed a treaty permitting American trade with two ports, Shimoda and Hakodate. We spent a few days in Nagoya once upon a time.

1930 The Motion Production Code was instituted to head-off government censorship, imposing strict guidelines on the treatment of sex, crime, religion and violence in film until everyone lost interest in 1968 or so. Police officers and judges were to be shown as able and competent. Criminals, including adulterers, must come to a bad end. Sex is no more than a short kiss. Corrupt fools did not become president. That is the world of fiction. The Hayes Office enforced it with certificates. No certificate, no screening.

1949 St Johns, Politics: Newfoundland gave up independence, after refusing to join the Canadian federation in 1867, and joined after a referendum that barely passed, insuring that Joey Smallwood would be premier forever. He spent the rest of his long career attacking the rest of Canada, while demanding financial aid. The rest of Canada did not consent to this adhesion of the Goofie Newfies. Been there a couple of times. That was enough.

240 BC Peking, Science: The first recorded perihelion of Halley’s comet was in the Han Dynasty Chinese chronicle Shiji which described it moving east to west across the sun. The image below is the text of the record. It was identified by working backward from later sightings of Halley’s Comet.

1772 Geraldton (WA), History: Captain Louis-François-Marie Aleno de Saint-Aloüarn anchored his ship off Turtle Bay and sent a water party ashore. These matelots raised the tricolour and claimed the territory for France. They buried coins in a lead capsule which were dug up in 1998 as shown below.

1858 Philadelphia, Technology: Hymen Lipman patented a pencil with an eraser attached. It opened the world of cross word puzzles to cruciverbalists and contributed to the study of Algebra.

1866 Prague, Music: Bedrich Smetana’s ‘Bartered Bride’ premiered. We heard some — rather too much — of his music in Prague a few years ago.

1867 Seward (AK), History: Secretary of State William Seward purchased Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million smackers or two cents an acre. (That sum today is $115 billion.) Seward wanted to get the Russians out of North America, and outflank the British in Canada. The deal was done in secret and in revenge the journalists attacked the acquisition with battalions of hyperbole. The Senate ignored the press, how rare is that, and voted 37 – 2 to consent to the treaty of purchase. The House appropriated the money in a vote of 113 – 43. The city of Seward was named for him. Ever seen a cheque for that much?

1798 Geneva, History: The Swiss republic was founded. In fact the invading French created the Helvetic Republic (1798-1803) to impose taxes on the previously autonomous cantons, while abolishing many feudal privileges. The unintended consequence was to establish French as a language in the eastern cantons.

1867 Canada, Politics: the British parliament passed the British North American Act which created the Dominion of Canada with a federal government. It was the constitution of Canada, in amended form, until 1982 when it was superseded by the Constitution Act.

1901 Australia, Politics: The first election in the Commonwealth of Australia occurred. This was a first past the post election for the psephologists. All the complications came later to satisfy the political parties. The map below clears everything up.

1974 X’Ian (China), History: The so-called Terracotta Army of Emperor Qin Sjo Hunag were dug up by a farmer plowing a field. There were 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots with 520 horses, and 150 cavalry horses as well as officials, acrobats, musicians, and others with accoutrements and paraphernalia. We saw a comprehensive display in the Field Museum in Chicago a time ago. When they were made, the individuals were decorated and painted as the specimens below indicate. Now image thousands of them along with chariots, horses, weapons….

2004 Republic Ireland banned smoking in all public places. The first in Europe to do so. There was much resistance, though none by those who have to clean up behind smokers.

0037 Rome, History: The Senate conferred the title of Principate on emperor Caligula.

1566 Malta, History: The foundation stone for Valleta was laid at the Our Lady of Victories Church by the Order of St John under the leadership of Jean de Vallete, its grand master after a war with the Ottomans. That success encouraged European monarchs to support the Order in Malta. It was then and remained a strategic post in the Mediterranean Sean.

1778 San Francisco, History: Juan Bautista de Anza with 247 colonists arrived at the site of San Francisco. They set about building the Presidio some of which remains visible. The party included a priest who dedicated the Presidio to St Francis of Assisi. He had explored the Pacific northwest in 1772 and then established an overland road between Sonora Mexico and what is now northern California.

1842 Vienna, Music: The first concert of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra was performed. Until then public performance were offered by ad hoc assemblies of musicians with little or no rehearsal. Many were dissatisfied with the result and began to talk of a permanent orchestra for a public program. This premier was the first step in that direction, but it was more than a decade later before it became well established, according to the ‘New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians.’

1930 Ankara, History: The Turkish government changed the name of this city to Ankara from Angora and its rabbits, goats, and cats. In 1920 Constantinople and environs was occupied by the victorious Allies who planned to divvy it up among themselves. The nascent Turkish nationalists gathered in far away Angora to plan their own plans. Why the name was changed is not discussed on the fount of Wikipedia. While Ankara was a small and remote town, it was on the path of many with the result that that the archeological treasures in central Anatolia are great. We spent a day there in 2015 and were agog at the antiquities museum.

1513 Florida, History: Juan Ponce de León recorded sighting the coast of Florida.

1713 Gibraltar, History: Great Britain took control of The Rock from Spain by the Treaty of Utrecht. It had strategic significance thereafter, including both World Wars.

1905 London, Law: Fingerprint evidence was used to solve a murder investigation. Three years earlier a British court had accepted fingerprint evidence in a case of theft. This was the first time it was used in a capital crime.

1912 DC, Politics: A gift from Japan, the first of three thousand Yoshina cherry trees were planted along the north bank of the Potomac River’s Tidal Basin near the Jefferson Memorial. After Pearl Harbor some of the trees were hit by vandals (who no doubt did not enlist to go to war), inspiring others in Congress to call for their complete destruction. In response the Parks Department re-branded the trees as Oriental implying a connection with ally China against Japan. Whew! In 1965 the Japanese government gave another four thousand cherry trees. These latter trees were planted around the Washington Monument. They are sight in the spring.

1958 Moscow, Politics: Nikita Khrushchev, First Secretary of the Communist Party, became premier of the Soviet Union, consolidating his position still more. N.B. First Secretary of the Party is much more important than being premier of the state or president of the nation, unlike in most polities.

1484 Westminster, Literature: William Caxton printed a translation of Aesop’s ‘Fables.’ He was the first person to operate a printing press in England, and the first retailer of printed books, starting with this one.

1920 Princeton (NJ), Literature: Twenty-three year old Scott Fitzgerald of Minnesota published ‘This Side of Paradise.’ He was a distant relative of Francis Scott Key. Maxwell Perkins at Scribners worked with him and gambled on his success.

1953 Pittsburg (PA), Science: Jonas Salk announced on radio that he had a proven vaccine against poliomyelitis. In 1952 there were 58,000 new cases of polio recorded. Within two years the number of new cases dropped to 6,000. Now the few new cases are usually traced to imported origins. Though the anti-Vaxxers want to change that. Those who cannot remember the past will repeat it on someone else.

1996 Sydney, Library: A sculpture of Trim on a window sill of the Mitchell Library was unveiled. Trim accompanied Matthew Flinders on his circumnavigation of the content of Australia. Trim lived all his days on ships, and after falling overboard more than once, learned to swim. The exception was the two months the shipwrecked Flinders spent on an island and another six months when the French imprisoned Flinders on Mauritius as a spy. Trim came and went freely and learned to like French Creole cuisine and stayed on the island. Trim’s effigy is just behind a statue of Flinders the Macquarie Street side.

2005 Bristol, Entertainment: After an absence of sixteen years Dr Who returned to the small screen embodied by Christopher Eccleston as the ninth doctor with the Tardis and the sonic screwdriver. Eccleston agreed to one year only and offered a much more spare and focussed Doctor than many of his predecessors or successors. This Doctor also often deferred to his associates in a way previous Doctors did not do.

421 Venice, History: This is the date legendary foundation date of the city in the lagoon. It was never a republic nor was it ever serene. Several books about Venice are discussed elsewhere on this blog. We hope to visit it later this year.

1296 Florence, Architecture: Work began on the Brunelleschi dome of the Santa Maria Cathedral. It was finished in 1436. It was a marvel of the age. One observer at the time said the dome was apparently suspended by the light. We have marvelled at it with out own eyes.

1634 Baltimore (MD), History: The first settlers arrived on the south shore of Chesapeake Bay. King Charles I had charted the land to Lord Baltimore who named it for the King’s wife, Henrietta Maria. Baltimore was sovereign over the land apart from any gold or silver which went to the King. For decades it was a haven for Roman Catholics escaping persecution. To attract settlers Baltimore encouraged more religious toleration than was common at the time when murder was the alternative to conversion.

1807 London, Politics: The British parliament abolished slave trading throughout its Empire. In time it took active measures on the seas to disrupt the slave trade.

1957 Rome, Politics: The Treaty of Rome was signed by the six original members of the European Common Market. They were France, West Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg. A biography of one of its visionary architects, Jean Monnet, is discussed elsewhere on this blog.

1721 Brandenburg, Music: Johann Sebastian Bach dedicated his Concertos to Christian Ludwig, Margrave of Brandenburg-Schwedt, a patron.

1882 Berlin, Science: Robert Koch discovered and described the bacterium tubercle bacillus which causes tuberculosis (Mycobacterium tuberculosis) as shown below. The anti-Vaxxers hope to bring it back, it seems. Those who do not know the past repeat it, again and again.

1927 Buenos Aires, Sports: José Capablanca won a 33-day chess tournament. Against the top six players in the world, according to Chessmetrics, in a quadruple round-robin Capablanca was undefeated. His speciality was speed in a game noted for its slow pace. His book ‘Chess’ remains in print. He is pictured below playing an exhibition match against one hundred players. He won all but one, which one stalemated.

1947 New York City, Politics: At the urging of his son Nelson, John D. Rockefeller Jr donated an East River site to the United Nations for its headquarters. Bin addition, below a Rockefeller scion handed over a cheque for $US 8,500,000 to the United Nations to start the project. That equates to just under $100 million today.

1955 New York City, Theatre: Tennessee Williams’s play ‘Cat on a Hot Tin Roof’ opened with daring themes of homosexuality, adultery, and mendacity. It ran on Broadway for more than two years. A graduate of the University of Iowa’s Writers Workshop, Williams read and wrote all of his life. He went to Iowa to get as far away from his family as possible.