History
Throwback Thursday: Rome Sacked 455
Collection: Tretyakov Gallery
Image Credit: Wikipedia
One thousand, five hundred and sixty-seven years ago, today…
The Sack of 455 was the third of four ancient sacks of Rome. [It] was conducted by the Vandals, who were then at war with the usurping Western Roman Emperor Petronius Maximus.
In the 440s, the Vandal king Genseric and the Roman Emperor Valentinian III had betrothed their children, Huneric and Eudocia, to strengthen their alliance, reached in 442 with a peace treaty (the marriage was delayed as Eudocia was too young). In 455 Valentinian was killed and Petronius Maximus rose to the throne. Petronius married Valentinian’s widow, Licinia Eudoxia and had his son Palladius marry Eudocia. [In] this way, Petronius was to strengthen his bond with the Theodosian Dynasty. Unhappy, however, with her husband’s murder and the usurpation of Maximus, Eudoxia turned to aid from the Vandals to remove Maximus from his undeserved throne. The overture was favorably met because Maximus’ revolution was damaging to Genseric’s ambitions. The king of the Vandals claimed that the broken betrothal between Huneric and Eudocia invalidated his peace treaty with Valentinian and set sail to attack Rome, landing at Ostia at the mouth of the Tiber.
Wiki Summary
On this day in 455, the Vandals sacked Rome. It wasn’t too awful, as sackings go, because the Vandal king Genseric agreed to refrain from slaughtering all the inhabitants and burning down the entire city if the Romans didn’t put up any military resistance…which, they didn’t. They just threw the gates right open. So, for the next two weeks, the Vandals merely drank all the wine, stole all the treasure, enslaved an unlucky few thousand locals and generally vandalized the place. A few hundred of the impromptu wine-tastings, as it were, got out of hand and some buildings, or some people, ended up on fire but, hey…relatively speaking, the Romans got off pretty easy.
Modern Drunkard Magazine
Today’s Reason To Drink
Frank Kelly Rich
Music Monday: St. Matthew Passion 1727
1736
Title page of St. Matthew Passion
Image Credit: Wikipedia/Wikimedia
The St. Matthew Passion (Matthäus-Passion in German ~ BWV 244) is a Passion, a sacred oratorio written by Johann Sebastian Bach in 1727 for solo voices, double choir and double orchestra, with libretto by Picander. It sets the 26th and 27th chapters of the Gospel of Matthew, in the Luther Bible, to music, with interspersed chorales and arias. It is widely regarded as one of the greatest masterpieces of Baroque sacred music.
The St. Matthew Passion is the second of two Passion settings by Bach that have survived in their entirety, the first being the St. John Passion, first performed in 1724. Little is known with certainty about the creation process of the St. Matthew Passion. The available information derives from extant early manuscripts, contemporary publications of the libretto, and circumstantial data, for instance in documents archived by the Town Council of Leipzig.
The St. Matthew Passion was probably first performed on April 11, 1727 (Good Friday), two hundred, ninety-five years, ago, today, in the St. Thomas Church in Leipzig.
Wikipedia Summaries
In the early 1820s, the director of the Berlin Singakademie, Carl Zelter, got hold of a copy of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion and rehearsed some of the choral movements in private. By great good fortune, two of his singers were Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn. In April 1829, despite strong opposition from some quarters, the twenty-year-old Mendelssohn, with the help of Zelter and his friend the actor Eduard Devrient, mounted the work’s first modern performance, albeit in an abbreviated form, given to mark what was then thought to be the centenary of its first performance. This Easter-time Berlin presentation was a stunning success and was followed by others. These led directly to a complete reassessment and revival of interest in all of Bach’s music for, baffling as it seems nowadays, Johann Sebastian Bach had fallen into near obscurity since his death nearly 80 years earlier.
Bach’s St. Matthew Passion: A Guide To The Sacred Masterpiece
UDiscoverMusic
Jeremy Nicholas
April 8, 2020
Beautiful music with beautiful voices. One tenor sounds just like a woman. ~Vic
Additional:
A Guide To Bach’s St. Matthew Passion (Classical Music/BBC Music Magazine/05-26-2021)
Music History Monday: St. Matthew Passion (Robert Greenberg Music/04-11-2022)
Matthäus-Passion BWV 244 (Bach Cantatas Website/2000-2022)
Netherlands Bach Society
04-02-2019
Two Hours, 44 Minutes & 31 Seconds
Throwback Thursday: King James & The Virgin Queen 1603
1605
Collection: Museo del Prado
Photographer Source: Galaria Online
Four hundred, nineteen years ago, today, James Charles Stuart was crowned James I, King of England and Ireland, after the death of Elizabeth I. Though England and Scotland were sovereign, individual states, he ruled them in personal union.
He was the son of Mary, Queen of Scots and the great-great grandson of Henry VII. He was thirteen months old when his mother abdicated and he succeeded to the Scottish throne, though he had regents governing due to his minority status. He took full control of the government in 1583 and succeeded Elizabeth I, whom was childless, the last monarch from the House of Tudor, in 1603.
He ruled over all three kingdoms for 22 years during the Jacobean Era until his death in 1625 (also in March, on the 27th). During his reign, the Plantation of Ulster and the Colonisation of the Americas began.
He was the longest reigning Scottish monarch, ruling nearly 58 years, surpassed only by crazy King George III (59 years), Queen Victoria (nearly 64 years) and current Queen Elizabeth II at 70 years. He was on the throne during the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 (see my post on Guy Fawkes) and, during the Elizabethan literature Golden Age, with writers such as William Shakespeare and Sir Francis Bacon. He sponsored the English translation of the Bible, the most widely read version and was a poet, himself. He preferred peace to war, steering clear of the Thirty Years’ War that involved most of Europe. There are indications that he was bi-sexual.
He died young at the age of 58 and was succeeded by his second son, King Charles I, a poor ruler that was executed in 1649.
Who Was King James VI & I
King James I
Foto Friday: Wings Over Wayne 2.0
More photos. Previous post here. ~Vic
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I climbed into this one.
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Snapshots Sunday: Wings Over Wayne 2017
Some shots from the Wings Over Wayne Airshow that I attended with my buddy Ray in May 2017 at the Seymour Johnson Air Force Base. I’d like to return but, convid has pushed it back to 2023. *eyes rolling* ~Vic
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Firing up the engines.
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Flashback Friday: Jeannette Rankin 1917
Author: Adam Cuerden
February 27, 1917
Photo Credit: Wikipedia
“I may be the first woman member of Congress but, I won’t be the last.”
Jeannette Rankin was an American politician and women’s rights advocate and, the first woman to hold federal office in the United States. She was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives as a Republican from Montana in 1916 and, again, in 1940. As of 2022, Rankin is still the only woman ever elected to Congress from Montana.
Each of Rankin’s Congressional terms coincided with initiation of U.S. military intervention in the two World Wars. A lifelong pacifist, she was one of 50 House members who opposed the declaration of war on Germany in 1917. In 1941, she was the only member of Congress to vote against the declaration of war on Japan following the attack on Pearl Harbor.
A suffragist during the Progressive Era, Rankin organized and lobbied for legislation enfranchising women in several states including Montana, New York and North Dakota. While in Congress, she introduced legislation that eventually became the 19th Constitutional Amendment, granting unrestricted voting rights to women nationwide. She championed a multitude of diverse women’s rights and civil rights causes throughout a career that spanned more than six decades.
Wikipedia Summary
“I want to be remembered as the only woman who ever voted to give women the right to vote.”
Rankin was born on June 11, 1880, to John and Olive Rankin at Grant Creek Ranch near Missoula, in what was then the Montana Territory. She was the first of seven children […] in a prosperous family. Her father […] was a rancher and builder who had come to Montana from Canada. Her mother […] had moved from New Hampshire to teach before marrying John Rankin and becoming a housewife. Jeannette attended Montana State University in Missoula (now the University of Montana) and graduated in 1902 with a degree in biology. [Her] career in politics began as a student volunteer with a local women’s suffrage campaign in Washington State, preparing for a referendum on voting rights. [In] February 1911, she became the first woman to address the Montana legislature when she testified in support of women’s suffrage.
Jeannette Rankin
History, Art & Archives
United States House of Representatives
Rankin held office in her first term from March 4, 1917, one-hundred and five years, ago, today, to March 3, 1919. Her second term was from January 3, 1941 to January 3, 1943. Powerful enemies made sure she could not get re-elected. Twenty-four years later, she reclaimed her seat. She never married and passed away May 18, 1973 at the age of 92. ~Vic
Additional Reading:
Jeannette Rankin (Biography/February 27, 2018)
Montana’s Women Candidates Are Out To Set Another Record (Billings Gazette/Web Archive/October 25, 2016)
Seven Things About Jeannette Rankin (History Channel/Jesse Greenspan/September 1, 2018)
Wayback Wednesday: Great Fire Of Meireki 1657
One of the greatest disasters in Japanese history began in the Japanese capital city of Edo (original name of Tokyo) on March 2, 1657, 365 years ago, today. Legend has it that the fire was accidentally started by a priest who was supposedly trying to cremate a cursed kimono. The kimono had been owned in succession by three teenage girls who all died before ever being able to wear it. When the garment was being burned, a large gust of wind fanned the flames causing the wooden temple to ignite.
The fire spread quickly through the city, due to hurricane force winds, which were blowing from the northwest. Edo, like most Japanese cities, […] the buildings were especially dry due to a drought the previous year. [The] roads and other open spaces between buildings were small and narrow, allowing the fire to spread and grow particularly quickly.
The Great Fire of Meireki
Naked History
February 21, 2016
[The] city of Tokyo, Japan, then known as Edo, suffered a catastrophic fire that lasted three days, and killed 100,000 Japanese people, a death toll greater than either of the atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
The carnage caused by the Great Fire of Meireki (or sometimes known as the Furisode Fire) combined to destroy about 60% to 70% of the buildings in Edo.
[The] wind spread the flames across a city that was built almost entirely of wood and paper buildings [and], firefighters [were] unable to keep up with the rapid spread of flames caused by the wind. The fire brigade established in Edo was a novel idea but, the force was nowhere near large enough to deal with a conflagration of this magnitude.
Reconstruction of the city lasted the next 2 years.
Great Fire Kills More Japanese Than Atom Bomb
History & Headlines
March 2, 2017
Additional Reading:
Japanese Tales: The Fire of the Furisode (Elle Of A Kind Blog/01-07-2022)
Furisode Fire
The Great Fire Of Meireki/Destruction of Tokyo
Tale Tuesday: Canadians
Yes, a new heading. Phil suggested that I try to write more so…
I lived in Virginia Beach for a year (July 2001 – July 2002) with my, then, Marine Corps husband. I don’t remember the exact date but, one evening, we happened to be wandering the streets of Norfolk, near Norfolk Harbor. We saw a neon sign in a window of a bar: O’Malley’s. The place was full of what appeared to be sailors but, they weren’t Americans. They were busy drinking and singing Irish drinking songs. The Marine and I did manage to find a couple of empty bar stools, way at the end of the bar, deep into the establishment. The Marine took the very last stool to my left and I tried to position myself into the remaining empty stool. It was a tight squeeze and I began to think to myself… “How in the hell am I going to get my big ass thru that narrow space to get onto that stool?” For the split-second pondering it took, the full-bearded gentleman to my right, turned to me and said “Do you not want to sit next to me for some reason? I know I look rough but…” I immediately jumped in to reassure him that, that was not the case and shared my “OMG, I won’t fit…” fears, out loud, right there in front of God and everybody. He threw his head back and roared. “Have a seat, my dear…and, have drink.” He turned out to be the COTB (Chief of the Boat) of the Canadian Frigate HMCS St. John’s, that was in Norfolk for degaussing. It was a fun evening and that COTB invited us to tour the ship the next day.
We arrived around 4:00pm and I noticed that a Canadian Frigate really stands out next to American Navy vessels. It’s an odd green color, next to the blue of the American ships and I was told that it doesn’t have any right angles on it. We boarded the ship and asked for the Chief. They retrieved him and he rolled out looking like he’d been on a three day drunk. He was clearly hung over. He called for a much younger seaman to give us the tour of the ship and joined us later.
One neat thing aboard a Canadian vessel is…the bar. They had a beautiful, stained wooden bar and, a full stock of beer and wine. They also had a few women on board, which I found odd, even though women were allowed on board American war ships, beginning in 1994. It was still a rare sight back then.
We were invited to stay for dinner. It was a simple meal for sailing men but, I’m pretty sure that, not many people can say that they dined with the entire crew of a Canadian Frigate…and not been a crew member. It was really cool. I wish I could remember the name of that COTB. He offered me a St. John’s sweatshirt and I declined because I didn’t have any money. I intended to return to the ship with money but, we never made it back. That would have been a cool souvenir.
HMCS St. John’s (Facebook)
HMCS St. John’s (FFH-340) (Military History Fandom)
HMCS St. John’s (Wikipedia)
Foto Friday: Land of Oz 3.0
More shots from the Land of Oz in the 70s. ~Vic
Previous posts are here and here. Images are from Emerald Mountain Realty.
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The dress was stolen in the 1980s.
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I rode it, once, with my parents in a blinding rain storm.
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Additional Reading:
Land of Oz (Romantic Asheville)
Land of Oz (My Home/UNC-TV)
Land of Oz Theme Park (Wikipedia)
Music Monday: Sonata In G Minor 1721
(Johann) Christoph Graupner: born January 13, 1683, in Kirchberg, Saxony and died May 10, 1760 in Darmstadt, Hesse-Darmstadt. In 1706, because of a threat of Swedish invasion, he sought refuge at Hamburg, where he was harpsichordist at the opera under R. Keiser. The most significant genres in which Graupner worked were the chorale cantata, the trio sonata and the concerto. He composed about 1,300 cantatas. His trio sonatas and concerti represent a German assimilation of these Italian forms. Characteristically, the trio sonatas are written in fugal style. Graupner also wrote several operas, many overtures and symphonies and, harpsichord partitas and sonatas.
Christoph Graupner was one of the principal German composers of the period of J.S. Bach and Georg Philipp Telemann. He was highly thought of in his day, much like George Frederic Handel or Telemann, with whom he maintained a lifetime friendship. Composers Johann David Heinichen and Johann Friedrich Fasch were also close friends of his. His first teachers were Mylius and the organist Nikolaus Küster (PDF), whom Graupner followed to Reichenbach in 1694. He entered the Leipzig Thomasschule in 1696, where J.D. Heinichen was a fellow student[…]. [H]e studied under Johann Schelle and Johann Kuhnau and befriended Telemann and his future colleague Gottfried Grünewald […]. Leaving Leipzig in 1706, […] Graupner went to Hamburg […]. [He] composed, there, his first five operas that received great public acclaim […]. In 1709, he became Vice-Kapellmeister at the court of Ernst Ludwig, Landgrave of Hessen-Darmstadt […]. He wrote many operas up to 1719, when he turned to sacred and instrumental composition. [His] remaining years of […] life were spent at the court at Darmstadt. [He] was a prolific and tireless composer. Though blind later in life, he produced immense amounts of music […].
Christoph Graupner is one of the most fascinating, yet, at the same time, underestimated composers of German baroque music: the era of Bach, Händel, Telemann and many other nearly forgotten composers.
Graupner Digital Online
Florian Heyerick
Additional:
Christoph Graupner (Music Web International/Len Mullenger)
Christoph Graupner Society Website
Complete Score Sheet Music (IMSLP/GWV 724)
Throwback Thursday: Susan B. Anthony’s Arrest 1872
Champion of temperance, abolition, the rights of labor and equal pay for equal work, Susan Brownell Anthony became one of the most visible leaders of the women’s suffrage movement. Along with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, she traveled around the country delivering speeches in favor of women’s suffrage.
[She] was born on February 15, 1820 in Adams, Massachusetts. Her father, Daniel, was a farmer and, later, a cotton mill owner and manager, […] raised as a Quaker. Her mother, Lucy, came from a family that fought in the American Revolution and served in the Massachusetts state government. From an early age, Anthony was inspired by the Quaker belief that everyone was equal under God. That idea guided her throughout her life.
National Women’s History Museum
Susan B. Anthony
Nancy Hayward
2018
On November 1, 1872, Susan B. Anthony and [three] other women attempted to register to vote in the U.S. presidential election. When registrars hesitated, Anthony overwhelmed them with legal arguments and the men relented. On Election Day, November 5, Anthony voted for Ulysses S. Grant. She was one of fifteen women from her Rochester ward to cast a ballot. Attempting to vote was actually a common tactic among suffrage activists. Anthony’s action commanded outsized attention because she and her colleagues actually voted.
Anthony was arrested on November 18, 1872, for violating the federal Enforcement Act of 1870 […].
Freethought Trail
The Arrest of Susan B. Anthony
Robert Green Ingersoll Memorial Committee
Nine days after the election, U.S. Commissioner William C. Storrs, an officer of the federal courts, issued warrants for the arrest of Anthony and the fourteen other women who voted in Rochester. Three days later […] a deputy federal marshal called on Anthony. He asked her to accompany him downtown to see the commissioner.
Anthony’s trial began in Canandaigua, New York, on June 17, 1873. Before pronouncing the sentence for her crime, Justice [Ward] Hunt asked Anthony if she had anything to say. She did. In the most famous speech in the history of the agitation for [women’s] suffrage, she condemned [the] proceeding that had “trampled under foot every vital principle of our government.” She had not received justice under “forms of law all made by men…” “…failing, even, to get a trial by a jury not of my peers.” Sentenced to pay a fine of $100 and the costs of the prosecution, she swore to “never pay a dollar of your unjust penalty.” Justice Hunt said Anthony would not be held in custody awaiting payment of her fine.
The Trial of Susan B. Anthony
Federal Judicial Center
Web Archive
May 31, 2010
A month after the trial, a deputy federal marshal was dispatched to collect Anthony’s fine. He reported that a careful search had failed to find any property that could be seized to pay the fine. The court took no further action.
Flashback Friday: Ellis Island 1954
when they first entered the building on Ellis Island.
Photograph by Paul Thompson
Credit: National Geographic
Sixty-five years ago, [today] on November 12, 1954, a Norwegian merchant seaman named Arne Peterssen became the last immigrant to pass through Ellis Island. Later that month, the ferry Ellis Island made its final stop at the island in New York Harbor and the immigration facility closed for good, ending its run as a gateway to the United States for generations of immigrants.
These days Ellis Island is a national symbol remembered in sepia tones but, while it was in active service, the station reflected the country’s complicated relationship with immigration, one that evolved from casual openness to rigid restriction. “It was not a great welcoming place for immigrants but, it was not a place of horrors either,” says Vincent Cannato, author of American Passage: The History of Ellis Island.
Until the end of the 19th century, individual states handled immigration with rules varying by jurisdiction. [T]hen, immigration soared. In light of the influx, the federal government decided in 1891 that it had to take charge.
New York was immigration’s epicenter. Some 75 percent of the country’s steamship traffic came through New York Harbor and so did 75 percent of the nation’s immigrants, according to Cannato. New York state ran an immigration facility called Castle Gardens at the tip of Manhattan but, the new federal Office of Immigration wanted an intake and inspection station in a more controlled location. It selected Ellis Island, a three-acre spot of land in the harbor between New York and New Jersey […].
The immigrants who eventually passed through Ellis Island started their journey by buying passage on a steamship, usually sailing from Europe. Between 1892 and 1924, 12 million people successfully traversed this highly efficient conveyor-belt immigration system. Most immigrants were processed through Ellis Island in a few hours and only 2 percent that arrived on the island were prevented from entering the United States.
[T]his era of mass immigration came to an end with the passage in 1921 and 1924 of new laws that severely limited immigration by establishing quotas for individual countries and requiring immigrants to obtain visas from American consulates. Since most official immigration screening now happened at U.S. consulates abroad, Ellis Island became increasingly irrelevant. The facility, which had once teemed with thousands of hopeful immigrants, transformed into “a major center for deportation and for holding enemy alien spies,” says [Barry] Moreno. “It was like night and day.” President Eisenhower quietly closed Ellis Island in 1954.
How Ellis Island Shepherded Millions of Immigrants Into America
Rachel Hartigan
National Geographic
November 13, 2019
Wayback Wednesday: World Series 1903
The 1903 World Series was the first modern World Series to be played in Major League Baseball. It matched the American League champion Boston [Americans] against the National League champion [Pittsburg Pirates] (spelled without an “H” from 1891 to 1911) in a best-of-nine series, with Boston prevailing five games to three, winning the last four. The first three games were played in Boston, the next four in Allegheny (home of the Pirates), and the eighth (last) game in Boston.
Pittsburgh pitcher Sam Leever injured his shoulder while trap-shooting, so his teammate Deacon Phillippe pitched five complete games. Phillippe won three of his games but, it was not enough to overcome the club from the new American League. Boston pitchers Bill Dinneen and Cy Young led Boston to victory. In Game #1, Phillippe struck out ten Boston batters. The next day, Dinneen bettered that mark, striking out 11 Pittsburgh batters in Game #2.
Honus Wagner [was] bothered by injuries […] and committed six errors. The shortstop was deeply distraught by his performance. The following spring, Wagner […] refused to send his portrait to a “Hall of Fame” for batting champion:
“I was too bum last year. I was a joke in that Boston-Pittsburgh Series. What does it profit a man to hammer along and make a few hits, when they are not needed, only to fall down when it comes to a pinch? I would be ashamed to have my picture up now.”
Due to overflow crowds at the Exposition Park games in Allegheny City, if a batted ball rolled under a rope in the outfield that held spectators back, a “ground-rule triple” would be scored. [Seventeen] ground-rule triples were hit in the four games played at the stadium.
In the series, Boston came back from a three-games-to-one deficit, winning the final four games (on October 13) to capture the title…(118 years ago). Such a large comeback would not happen again until the Pirates came back to defeat the Washington Senators in the 1925 World Series […]. […] Much was made of the influence of Boston’s Royal Rooters, who traveled to Exposition Park and sang their theme song Tessie to distract the opposing players […]. Boston wound up winning three out of four games in Allegheny City.
Pirates owner Barney Dreyfuss added his share of the gate receipts to the players’ share, so the losing team’s players actually finished with a larger individual share than the winning team’s.
The Series brought the new American League prestige and proved its best could beat the best of the National League, thus strengthening the demand for future World Series competitions.
Wikipedia Summary
Additional:
Baffling Baseball Trivia (Dom Forker/Wayne Stewart/Michael J. Pellowski/2004/Sterling Publishing Company/Web Archive)
Baseball Almanac (World Series History/The Official Baseball History Site)
Honus Wagner: A Biography (Dennis DeValeria/Jeanne Burke DeValeria/1996/1998/GoodReads)
Retro Sheet (Pre-1984 Baseball Analysis)
The First World Series and the Baseball Fanatics of 1903 (Roger L. Abrams/2003/Northeastern University Press/Web Archive)
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