18th January 1486.

Henry Tudor gets round to marrying Elizabeth of York.

Giovanni de' Gigli's epithalamium recorded:

"Hail! Ever honoured and auspicious day,
When in blest wedlock to a mighty king,
To Henry, bright Elizabeth is joined.
Fairest of Edward's offspring, she alone
Pleased this illustrious spouse..."

...and so forth.

The nuptial union of Lancaster and York was, of course, a continuing theme in Tudor propaganda: even more than a century on, Shakespeare was wise enough to write:

"We will unite the white rose and the red.
Smile Heaven upon this fair conjuction
That long hath frowned upon their enmity!-
What traitor hears me, and says not Amen?"

One cannot but wonder what Elizabeth was thinking as she awaited the visitation of her illustrious spouse on that Janary night some five hundred or so years ago.

I prefer Quality Street to Roses - and where are the Heroes? Or more likely that pragmatic was a dirty word.

I've been finding out about old Giovanni. They made him Bishop of Worcester in 1497. He only had the job for a year and then died. Another de' Gigli succeeded him - Silvestro de' Gigli -  whether the original Catholic cleric's son or his nephew I have no idea.

The good people of Worcester must have got fed up with absentee Italians being in charge of their cathedral. Yet another took over in 1522: Girolamo de Ghinucci. Wiki calls him Geronimo which I like. Girolamo - or Geronimo - got kicked out by Henry VIII in 1535.

There is a good Pizza Express in Worcester.

My bit of useless information for today.

Last time I went to Worcester (except New Road), the street I finished up in was a bit of a Shambles.

Worcester Cathedral ... isn't Prince Arthur, elder bro of Henry (later to be king Henry VIII), first husband of Catherine of Aragon ... isn't he buried there?

I thought the weather was so bad when he died in 1502 at Ludlow Castle that they had to carry the coffin down to Worcester on a humble ox-cart because the roads were so muddy as to be impassible to fancy horses (or indeed hearses). The journey apparently took so long that when eventually his body finally arrived he was noticeably starting to go off. So at Worcester it was decided that HRH Prince Arthur, Prince of Wales, heir to the kingdoms of England, France, Ireland, and all that  ... should not be carried on to London for internment at Westminster Abbey (as was originally intended), but rather be buried ASAP, there at Worcester.
.
... And of course as a consequence of that young man's sudden and untimely death (he was only 16 years old but newly married to a princess of Spain) a whole lot of complicated shit happened. Young Arthur's wife, Catherine of Aragon, who only narrowly survived the same epidemic that took Arthur, nevertheless rose to be Queen of England, ... but she also never got to be interred in Westminster Abbey: her tomb is in Peterborough cathedral.

And she was buried there on the same day (29th January 1536) that Anne Boleyn "miscarried of her saviour".

And here they are:

Arthur's tomb in Worcester cathedral:




.... and Catherine of Aragon's tomb in Peterborough Cathedral. I note the red and yellow flowers: the traditional  "blood and gold" colours of Aragon, and also the pomegranite fruits, which were one of Catherine's personal heraldic symbols (she was a Princesse de Grenada, hence the play on words: pomme-grenade, ie the fruit, ... and hence also another of her symbols, the flaming hand-thrown explosive bomb, the grenade, ... so named because it resembled the fruit).. 

"Katherine Queen of England" - I wonder when that defiant proclamation of her status was put over her tomb? Katherine was actually stripped of the title of Queen on 5th July, 1533: an official proclamation issued on that day declared that she would be henceforth known by the style of Princess Dowager of Wales. This was recognition of her unquestioned status as Prince Arthur's relict. Just before Katherine's actual demotion, all her Household officers, headed by her Chamberlain, Wiiliam Blount, Lord Mountjoy, were ordered to assemble in the Dowager Princess's Privy Chamber. They had the difficult task of informing her of what was about to happen: that in future - in two days' time, in fact - they would be required by the King to address her as the Princess Dowager. They could no longer acknowledge her as Queen.

She informed them that if they did so address her she "would never answer to any that shall so call her".

The following day, Mountjoy showed her - "out of courtesy" - his written account of the proceedings, a report in which the Queen was of course referred to throughout as "the Princess Dowager". Katherine "called for pen and ink and in such places as she found the name 'Princess Dowager', she, with her pen struck it out - as is apparent". So added the embarrassed Mountjoy in a note on the defaced missive he had carefully prepared for the King.

In places where Katherine had attempted to blot out the offensive new title, her pen had actually nearly gone through the  paper; as David Starkey notes, the evidence of Katherine's rage at her humiliation still survives in the State Papers - "crossings-out and all".

I would love to see the original of Mountjoy's report, but have no idea where it is kept. A ridiculous question for historians - but where are "State Papers for King Henry VIII" actually kept and who has access to them? I'm embarrassed to ask, but I simply do not know.

PS I think legally Katherine became "Queen" again upon the accession of her daughter, Mary, because an Act of Parliament was immediately passed declaring that the marriage of Henry and Katherine had indeed been a true marriage.

So one may presume that the inscription in MM's post, "Katherine Queen of England", is as it should be.

Nothing marks Anne Boleyn's final resting place, and Katherine's tomb is actually grander than the simple stone that marks her second husband's grave. Henry had planned a hugely ornate affair, but no one bothered to erect it.

Temperance wrote:

I would love to see the original of Mountjoy's report, but have no idea where it is kept. A ridiculous question for historians - but where are "State Papers for King Henry VIII" actually kept and who has access to them? I'm embarrassed to ask, but I simply do not know.

I am guessing but I would expect "State Papers for King Henry VIII" to be held at the National Archives building (used to be called the Public Records Office) at Kew. One can get to see most records if you are a "genuine" researcher, which can be anyone just not a casual visitor, and have a National Archives Access Card. The cards always used to be readily obtainable once you had registered on-line and that could be done there in reception, and then produced identification (say a passport) to pick up the card. You do need the card just to get into the building, but as I say they're not difficult to obtain ... I had one (they have an expiry date) and that gave me access to all the catalogues and indexes, and to original documents as well (though I was only looking at 19th century port registries and ship manifests etc. and there are probably restrictions on some stuff ... I very much doubt you can just have a flick through of Magna Carta.

Getting to actually see an original document is a bit of a palaver: you have to know exactly what you want to see because normally they will only allow you to have one document out at a time; you need to have found its exact reference code, find and claim a reading table, fill out a form, hand it in and then wait .... and wait... because it takes time for the staff to locate the item from the many miles of shelving. Then they bring it to you at your table. If you've ever used the British Library or a county records office, it's much the same system, and I think they do induction tours every day to explain the basics of how it all works and where stuff is located. I have always found the staff to be very knowledgeable and helpful, but as I say I was only looking at fairly modern ship registration documents.

But I think "State Papers for King Henry VIII" have actually been scanned and can be viewed online:

State Papers Online—Part I, The Tudors, Henry VIII to Elizabeth I, 1509–1603: State Papers Domestic

... these are apparently all images of the original documents (so you'll see all Mountjoy's bad spelling and Katherine's inky crossings out) but I think you have to pay to view by buying credits (not expensive), same as you might have done if you've ever conducted some family history research and have down-loaded images of wills, parish records, census returns etc. whether from National Archives itself, a county record office, or a commercial family history site like 'Ancestry.com'.

There's an overview of how to access all types of records here:

National Archives

Thank you so much, MM. I knew the State Papers were online, but I had no idea about getting to see the originals.

The palaver would most definitely be worth it!

Do the authorities provide the white gloves I've seen the experts wear on the tele, or do you have to take some with you? Don't want to get the historians' dress code wrong too!

Oh dear, we are going off on a bit of a tangent. We shall be reprimanded - or given the épaule très froide - for this naughty digression. Perhaps a new thread about how to be a historian?

20th January 2016.

Temp learns how to access original stuff about the Tudors.

Again, thank you. Tu es une étoile véritable, mon petit.

Temperance wrote:

Do the authorities provide the white gloves I've seen the experts wear on the tele, or do you have to take some with you? Don't want to get the historians' dress code wrong too!

I believe Debrett's states that the modern fashion for historians is to wear white gloves for artifacts only and to handle documents aux mains propres mais naturels. As you say one wouldn't want to commit un faux pas terrible. But I think your little black cocktail dress, so passé for Christmas dinner at the captain's table, should prove adequate for National Archives. Just remember no dangly jewellery, no handbags or reticules, and no biros.

True parchment and vellum is actually incredibly resiliant, and isn't there a little company that still makes traditional archive ink from a mixture of something like, ground ivy bark, turpentine, walnut oil and egg white, specifically for government records that need to be kept in perpetuity?

Mais tu as raison, nous faisons une digression.

Temperance wrote:

"Katherine Queen of England" - I wonder when that defiant proclamation of her status was put over her tomb? Katherine was actually stripped of the title of Queen on 5th July, 1533: an official proclamation issued on that day declared that she would be henceforth known by the style of Princess Dowager of Wales.

I suspect that the lettering was probably put up on the 500th anniversary of her birth in 1985. Peterborough Cathedral once boasted the tombs of 2 queens. Mary Queen of Scots was also buried there for several years before being exhumed by her son James I and removed to Westminster Abbey.

No biro? Not even an orange, furry-topped Bic?

A little black Mont Blanc fountain pen it shall be then!

Match me posh frock something lovely it will.





EDIT: Crossed posts with Vizzer.

Temperance wrote:

No biro? Not even an orange, furry-topped Bic?

A little black Mont Blanc fountain pen it shall be then!

Match me posh frock something lovely it will.

I'm afraid it's pencils only in most records offices these days, Temp.

Meles meles wrote:

Temperance wrote:

No biro? Not even an orange, furry-topped Bic?

A little black Mont Blanc fountain pen it shall be then!

Match me posh frock something lovely it will.

I'm afraid it's pencils only in most records offices these days, Temp.

See, faux pas after faux pas. That's what you get from trying to be posh - at sea or at Kew.

But we really must stop all the silly chatter - or what may be construed as silly chatter by them as know best - or we risk being exiled for life from Res His. Sent to some remote island somewhere to languish in misery for the rest of our days.

22 January 1879; the Battles of

Isandlwana                                                                                                                and Rorke's Drift
         

26th January 1965 - Petula Sally Olwen Clark's "Downtown" gets to number one in the US charts.



Not a particularly unique experience for Petula, who by then had already become a frequent chart topper in English, French, German and Italian in the many years since her radio debut at age 9 in 1942, but for this wee lad who played session guitar on the recording it was to be his first taste of the top spot anywhere ...

A seminal moment in the history of western civilisation happened on this day in 1984 ...

February 12th 1554.

In a desperate effort to ensure that England will be spared all seven Harry Potter films a remarkably prescient and eminently sensible administration decides to execute Helena Bonham Carter;



Lady Jane "Bellatrix Lestrange" Gray has gone down in history as something of an innocent dupe in the schemes of others to wrest control of the land, and she herself maintained that she had only ever accepted the throne "with reluctance". However it is also true that Northumberland's efforts to get the dying Edward VI to alter his will and name Northumberland's daughter-in-law as successor would have all been instantly in vain had Jane even once privately communicated her objection to the plan to the young monarch (who was dying but still with enough wits about him to sound out advocates for all the courses of action open to him regarding his successor), something she could easily have achieved through various means without Northumberland necessarily knowing anything about it. It was the one question in her subsequent interrogation to which she had no good reply, and therefore the one which sealed her fate.

nordmann wrote:

 However it is also true that Northumberland's efforts to get the dying Edward VI to alter his will and name Northumberland's daughter-in-law as successor would have all been instantly in vain had Jane even once privately communicated her objection to the plan to the young monarch (who was dying but still with enough wits about him to sound out advocates for all the courses of action open to him regarding his successor), something she could easily have achieved through various means without Northumberland necessarily knowing anything about it.

Wasn't it all a bit more complicated than you suggest? Revisionist historians are not looking at Jane Grey's role in all this, but at Northumberland's, who has traditionally been cast as the villain: he may not have been - entirely. Edward VI was a stubborn little so-and-so: chip off the old block, in fact. Mind you, so was Jane. Had the cousins married, Lord knows what their children would have been like.

There was also the question of legal inheritance - bastards inheriting etc. which was a tricky business - oh, and the diplomatic wheelings-and-dealings with the French. The last thing the French wanted was a half-Spanish girl on the throne of England.

I enjoyed that old film, although it was more about Trevor Nunn's idealistic view of the youth revolution in the England of the 1970s/80s than about the power struggles of the 1550s. Jane Lapotaire's (she was one of the many RSC actors Nunn had in his cast) Mary Tudor did not really work: her interpretation of the role was a sort of cross between Lady Macbeth and Snow White's nasty step-mother, but then the costume they gave her did not help (see below). But my favourite scene was between Jane and Doctor Feckenham - the Plato lesson, followed by the brief discussion of transubstantiation. Jane was utterly exasperated by Feckenham's inability to grasp New Testament figurative language. This confrontation really happened (according to Foxe). But Feckenham, in a world of cynical religious opportunists, was a real Christian and a genuinely decent man. He and Jane enjoyed further ferocious religious arguments during her imprisonment. I like to think he helped take her mind off things. They were still arguing on the scaffold, when, again according to Foxe, she told the good Doctor that she would, "pray God, in the bowels of his mercy, to send you his Holy Spirit; for he hath given you his great gift of utterance, if it pleased him also to open the eyes of your heart."

Jane seems to have been rather disturbed by the realisation that she had come dangerously close to liking - even to being rather fond of - the old Catholic priest; that she had found Feckenham sympathetic, intelligent and cultivated - no doubt rather more so than some of the rabid Protestants she had known. This is hinted at in the prayer she composed just before her execution.

But I ramble. Apologies.

EDIT: The Jane and Doctor Feckenham scene may be viewed here - starts about seven minutes into the clip:



EDIT 2:


"Mirror, mirror..."

Oh dear, the Guardian is cruelly dismissive of Nunn's film - only gives it a D+ for effort (in 2010 - twenty-five years after it was made). It wasn't that bad - bit soppy, I admit, but Helena is good - well, I think so.

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2010/aug/26/reel-history-lady-jane-grey

But this is interesting from the Guardian review - never read about this anywhere:

Guilford (sic) is monosyllabic at the wedding, sinking flagon after flagon of mead and making kissy faces at nearby wenches. Afterwards, Jane is ushered into his chamber to submit to a consummation, but finds her husband passed out on the bed. In fact, according to the recollections of the Spanish ambassador, many of those at the party (including Guilford (sic) himself) came down with a hideous bout of food poisoning after the cook "plucked one leaf for another". So, in real life, Guilford (sic) probably spent his wedding night in the privy.

How very unfortunate - poor old Guildford. But it seems he really did become quite fond of swotty little Jane in the end - spent hours carving her name on the wall of his prison in the Tower - or so we are told.

16 February 1804: the American frigate USS Philadelphia ran aground in October 1803, while engaged against Barbary Corsairs. Despite the best efforts of Captain William Bainbridge, Philadelphia was forced to surrender.

Unwilling to leave such a valuable ship in the hands of pirates, a raiding party under the command of Stephen Decatur entered Tripoli Harbour on the 16th February 1804 and destoryed the frigate:

Keeping it naval, and American ...

17th February 1864, at the height of the American Civil War, the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley becomes the first such vessel to successfully sink an enemy craft. It does so while not completely submerged, and its own torpedo's blast sinks the Hunley in the process drowning its crew of eight (only three men died on its torpedo's target), but it still goes down in history as the first such action in history. Its demise aside, the Hunley demonstrated rather forcefully the deadly possibilities in this method of conducting naval warfare, its target the USS Housatonic being many times its killers tonnage.


The Housatonic


The H.L. Hunley in an 1863 painting by Conrad Wise Chapman

As recently as 2000 the wreck of the Hunley was eventually raised after five years of to-ing and fro-ing about the wisdom of the exercise after its initial discovery, and this only led to yet more years of legal wrangling over who had both the right to salvage and to decide what to do next.

In the end the vessel ended up at the Warren Lasch Conservation Center in Charleston, South Carolina where some serious work could begin on preserving the fabric of the craft and analysing its final hours. It was this examination that revealed the damage had been caused by its own torpedo's proximity on explosion. Just last month, a few weeks after the vessel was plunged into a "caustic bath", the center could post this update on YouTube regarding how much more of the original structure was now visible.



As a touching aside, along with the vessel, the remains of all eight of its final crew (the third crew to be lost on the vessel in its short but turbulent career) were also located and retrieved. All eight mariners received a funeral with full military honours in 2004 and now are laid to rest in nearby Magnolia Cemetery.

Yes, yes, all very interesting but on this day in 1883 Mr Ashwell of Herne Hill patented something of real benefit to humanity and saved following generations from the need to sing loudly while relieving themselves.

A bit surprised that no-one mentioned the Fall of Singapore on February 15th 1942.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/16/singapore-fall-japan-british-surrender-1942#comments

This Day In History as a Res Historica thread (started by normanhurst) was officially four years old yesterday, Dirk. In 2013 Trike gave Singapore's fall a mention halfway down on the page linked to here. He was probably cautious of repeating himself every February 15th after that.

nordmann - I shouldn't have posted all that guff about Lady Jane/ Nunn's film above. My two posts have interrupted the flow of the thread. Sorry.

If it is not too much work/hassle for you, can you delete both - and this? Ta.

I thought it was an interesting aside, to be honest. Is it ok if we keep them?

I agree.

Oh, thanks, nord and Trike.

It's actually getting harder and harder to find interesting things to post here, as all the famous events have already been noted. However, it's now a good challenge to find the not-so-obvious happenings - more fun really.

I shall now try to find something really, really obscure for today.

Not really obscure, and I expect we have had it before, but it will have to do.

19th February, 1473 - Nicolaus Copernicus is born in Torun, Poland.




Happy Birthday, Nick. Have a "The Sun Has Got His Hat On!" cake.

February 22nd 1632 -  Ferdinando de Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, receives by courier the first copy of a book dedicated to him by the author.

It is a slim volume, and the fact that its title seems to have been hastily cobbled together by the printer suggests that this early edition still requires much work on its production.

In fact the clumsily assembled title indicates quite the opposite, and in no uncertain terms. Unknown to Duke Ferdie it has already been attemptedly published four times under different variations of title, each of which version has been summarily rejected by the local licencing department of the Inquisition charged with ensuring that heretical literature is nipped in the bud. The department has objected to the word "Tide" in each suggested draft title up to now, and the author has finally given up and let the printer decide a title based on the opening sentence of the first chapter.

The book itself is a fictional record of a conversation between three friends - a philosopher called Salviati, his colleague Simplicio, and a layman pal of theirs called Sagredo. Sal likes the astronomical notion promulgated almost 60 years before by a Polish astronomer, mathematician, economist, ecclesiastical lawyer, politician, astrologer and all-round polymath which - amongst other things - uses a hypothetical model of the sun at the centre of a planetary orbital system to explain certain observable traits of our own planet and its moon and their place in the universe (much of the conversation centres on tidal flow). Sim doesn't think much of this notion and argues that one only needs a good bible to hand to explain anything at all, even the tides. Sag, not wanting his pals to fall out, argues what he hopes is a middle ground. In the end the lads all agree to differ, though Sag gets the last word by saying that if he wishes to understand the true genius of god he probably needs to learn more about the mechanics of the universe as Sal suggests, more about the intentions of the creator as Sim suggests, and more about why he himself should be curious concerning either.

Ferdie reads the book and writes a very friendly letter to the author thanking him for the dedication but suggesting that maybe it's a tad on the boring side and shouldn't he beef it up a bit?

The author does not reply. He dare not, as any reply could land Duke Ferdie in trouble. Already a few days before he has been directly ordered on pain of death not to commit ink to paper again without being supervised by an appointed cleric. Soon he will be under arrest, and will remain so for the rest of his life. The book is banned completely a short time later and would remain so for 240 years.

Like all banned books, Galileo's "Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems" (all mention of tides now expunged by the printer from the title), fast becomes a best-seller.

nordmann wrote:

Like all banned books, Galileo's "Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems" (all mention of tides now expunged by the printer from the title), fast becomes a best-seller.

This simple fact seems to escape the attention of book-banners everywhere.

One of the most famous, and most controversial, photos from WWII, if not ever.

On February 23rd 1945 photographer Joe Rosenthal snapped five marines and a navy hospital corpsman raising the US flag on the summit of Mount Suribachi, Iwo Jima, during a bloody battle to capture the island from the Japanese enemy. The picture went into immediate employment as a piece of visually powerful propaganda, and almost as immediately into the realms of alleged hoaxdom as it was claimed the "snap" had in fact been staged by the photographer.

To his dying day Rosenthal, who won a Pulitzer Prize for this image, vehemently denied ever having staged the scene - the confusion having arisen, he said, when a reporter had later asked him this very question and Rosenthal, thinking he referred to a subsequent group shot of the flag-raisers (which was at the time also well known and in distribution), had answered in the affirmative. This denial has not discouraged periodic charges of falsification against Rosenthal over the years, nor has it stopped others from maintaining that the six men were wrongly identified anyway by Rosenthal, leading in subsequent years to men taking the credit after the war for other men's actions.

As time goes on these issues will probably never now be finally resolved for once and for all. Three of the men depicted were dead within days as the fierce fighting continued, and anyone else associated with the iconic image has also long departed this life. The icon however survives, and is destined, it seems, to do so for a very long time to come.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/92/First_Iwo_Jima_Flag_Raising.jpg/220px-First_Iwo_Jima_Flag_Raising.jpg


The "best guess" about that pic is that Rosenthal didn't stage it - nor was it the original "flag raising". The original flag was removed and replaced with a larger one, because Secretary of the Navy Forrestal demanded the original. Rosenthal witnessed the replacement, but the original flag raising was photographed by Staff Sergeant Lowery the two photos can easily be distinguished, the original was raised by 3 men - Platoon Sergeant Ernest Thomas, Lt. Schrier, and Sgt. Henry Hansen. This seems to be the original shot.

March 1st 1973 - an album is released which remains in the charts for no less than 15 years (plus occasional re-entries in later years.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVQ3-Xe_suY

Eighty today - Happy Birthday Wullie

Learned that too today, Ferval. Of course we, continentals, are a bit ignorant about...
But from the ever assisting Wiki came:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oor_Wullie

A bit a parallel with our Hergé's (from Tintin fame) "Quick and Flupke"?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quick_%26_Flupke

Kind regards, Paul.

13th March 4BC - Palestine.

Two Pharisee leaders and their forty fervent and dedicated students were burnt alive on the orders of Herod the Great. Their crime? They had managed to smash to pieces the golden eagle that Herod, Rome's client-king, had caused to be placed in the Temple. That evening of 13th March 4BC, there was a total eclipse of the moon. As the condemned men died in the flames, Herod was also gasping out his life in nearby Jericho. He was in excruciating pain - probably because of bowel cancer - half mad, his breath stinking, his body bloated with dropsy and rotting with gangrene. Worms, at least according to Josephus's lurid description, gnawed away at his royal genitals.

Just after the eclipse, again according to Josephus, this most infamous king gave up the ghost.

Herod's kingdom was divided among his sons: useless Herod Archelaus became ethnarch of Judea, Samaria and Idumea (until the exasperated Romans got rid of him in 6AD); Herod Antipas - "the Fox" - who figures so much in the New Testament, became tetrarch of Galilee and Peraea; while Philip, who actually, as rulers of the time went, was not too bad, became tetrarch of Gaulanitis.

Oh dear, perhaps I was too hasty to post the above. As ever, the "facts" I gave above - about the date of Herod the Great's death, that is* -  are disputed: there is an interesting discussion about the date of Herod's death here:


http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/people-cultures-in-the-bible/jesus-historical-jesus/herods-death-jesus-birth-and-a-lunar-eclipse/


One contributor comments : "Trying to date the death of Herod the Great is attended by considerable uncertainty, and I do not mean to claim I know the right answer. Mr. Tempelman does a good job of pointing out arguments in favour of a 4 B.C. date following the arguments advanced long ago by Emil Schürer. The difficulty is that we have a fair amount of information, but it is equivocal."


Here is the argument that supports the snippet I offered:


Professor John A. Cramer argues that Herod the Great most likely died shortly after the lunar eclipse of December 29, 1 B.C., rather than that of March 13, 4 B.C., which, as Cramer points out, is the eclipse traditionally associated with Josephus’s description in Jewish Antiquities 17.6.4 (Queries & Comments, “When Was Jesus Born?” BAR, July/August 2013) and which is used as a basis to reckon Jesus’ birth shortly before 4 B.C. Professor Cramer’s argument was made in the 19th century by scholars such as Édouard Caspari and Florian Riess.


There are three principal reasons why the 4 B.C. date has prevailed over 1 B.C. These reasons were articulated by Emil Schürer in A History of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ, also published in the 19th century. First, Josephus informs us that Herod died shortly before a Passover (Antiquities 17.9.3, The Jewish War 2.1.3), making a lunar eclipse in March (the time of the 4 B.C. eclipse) much more likely than one in December.


Second, Josephus writes that Herod reigned for 37 years from the time of his appointment in 40 B.C. and 34 years from his conquest of Jerusalem in 37 B.C. (Antiquities 17.8.1, War 1.33.. Using so-called inclusive counting, this, too, places Herod’s death in 4 B.C.


Third, we know that the reign over Samaria and Judea of Herod’s son and successor Archelaus began in 4 B.C., based on the fact that he was deposed by Caesar in A.U.C. (Anno Urbis Conditae [in the year the city was founded]) 759, or A.D. 6, in the tenth year of his reign (Dio Cassius, Roman History 55.27.6; Josephus, Antiquities 17.13.2). Counting backward his reign began in 4 B.C. In addition, from Herod the Great’s son and successor Herod Antipas, who ruled over Galilee until 39 B.C., who ordered the execution of John the Baptist (Mark 6:14–29) and who had a supporting role in Jesus’ trial (Luke 23:7–12), we have coins that make reference to the 43rd year of his rule, placing its beginning in 4 B.C. at the latest (see Morten Hørning Jensen, “Antipas—The Herod Jesus Knew,” BAR, September/October 2012).


Thus, Schürer concluded that “Herod died at Jericho in B.C. 4, unwept by those of his own house, and hated by all the people.”


*I learnt about the deaths of the courageous Jewish destroyers of Herod's golden eagle from Selina O'Grady's book, And Man Created God: Kings, Cults and Conquests At The Time of Jesus. She gives the definite date of March 13th 4BC for their execution.

When it comes to dates as far back as 2,000 years ago one expects a little latitude - March 13th wouldn't have meant much to the desecrators of the sacred eagle either, methinks. And anyway, crucifixion's too good for 'em, I tell you!

As this is Pi Day, and indeed World Maths Day, let's have a go at one of the oldest logistical puzzles known - the old "crossing the river challenge", versions of which have amused and vexated mankind since tea-breaks at Thebes. This one is geared for five year olds, so don't be too discouraged if you over-think the exercise!

Remember the heavy adults must go alone in the boat, the kids can go alone or in pairs. The first bit is just a warm-up, it's when the heavy lady arrives that it gets up to Thebes level.



And oh yes, as this is a history site it should be mentioned that - at least according to American date notation - today marks the 524th anniversary of "Ultimate Pi Day", when the calendar and clock combined (after all, we all know how Galileo loved his digital watch and couldn't be bothered waiting for Euler to create a symbol for Pi in 1737) would have shown the closest correlation in the history of the Julian Calendar to Pi. Namely March 14, 1592, at 6:53 AM and 58 seconds, or (3/14/1592 6:53:58) - as a prematurely American Renaissance man could not have failed to notice on the day.

nordman.


seeing that you are throwing in a brainteaser do you mind I follow your example with:

"



The names, not necessarily receptivity, of the train manager, catering manager and driver of a certain train were Smith, Jones and Robinson.



Three passengers on the train happened to have the same names and, in order to distinguish from the railway employees, will be referred hereafter as Mr Smith ,Mr Jones and Mr Robinson.



Mr Robinson lives in York, the train manager lives halfway between Leeds and York.



Mr Jones earns exactly £45.000 per year.



Smith beat the catering manager at snooker, the train manager’s next-door neighbour, one of the passengers, earns exactly three times as much as the train manager, and the passenger who lives in Durham has the same name as the train manager.



What is the name of driver?

Not quite mathematical though, is it? (you are on a "This day in History" thread celebrating Pi day, remember). Anyway I reckon "Bertram" is the answer, simply because I like Hawkings.

From WW's Julius Caesar - Act III sc ii

Caesar: The ides of March are come.
Soothsayer: Aye, Caesar, but not gone.

Some shots, when they're fired, ring out through history.

Forget Downtown Sarajevo, the Ford Theatre, the Dallas Book Depository, and all that other stuff. On this day in 1980 two short bursts of gunfire in a darkened room, televised to an unsuspecting American public, were to reduce at first the US citizenry, and then it seemed rather depressingly almost the entire world, to a state of communal gibberish, brain dead speculation, hyperbole, and terribly misguided gambling (my money was on Miss Ellie) ...

... well at least until the next season started again in the fall and it turned out it was Bing Crosby's young one what had done it.

Seventy-five years ago today, what had been Plymouth was now a heap of smoking rubble. Most of the city had been flattened by the German bombing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plymouth_Blitz

“ In this town that was wasting away in reddish trails of smoke, only a few citizens wandered: the others were still in hiding; or lay, all distress ended, under the ruins. ”

— André Savignon on dawn, 21 March 1941.



Our local news, BBC Spotlight South West, tonight showed old film footage and interviewed several men and women who remembered the terrible devastation: those who spoke tonight had been children, aged between seven and eleven, at the time. One man's account of how, as a ten-year-old, he had seen the bombs "raining down", was particularly moving.

It was followed on Spotlight by an item about a man down here who has just discovered a long-lost track recorded by the Rolling Stones. More old footage, this time of the Stones, was shown and, for the first time, I understood the irritation of my father - who had lived through the Blitz in Liverpool - at the sight of the youthful Mick Jagger prancing about. The TV in our house was always switched off when Jagger appeared (much to my dismay and fury).

Those of us of the baby-boomer generation - we who have lived, on the whole, such charmed lives - really had no idea of what our parents and grand-parents had lived through.

I certainly hadn't.

Just a couple of weeks ago I  was watching, yet again, the excellent 1974 ITV series 'World at War'. There's a bit of footage about the bombing of Plymouth, and how every night thousands of people trekked out into the surrounding countryside to escape the horror ... I'm not sure of the numbers but it was something massive, maybe 10% or 20% (I'm guessing) of the entire city's population fled into the surrounding fields/villages every evening. Needless to say, the film footage was never shown at the time as it was judged "bad for morale".

I'll try and give a more succinct reference ... perhaps even a youtube.

PS ... On the relevant "World at War' episode regarding the bombing of Plymouth, there are also some moving interviews: firstly with a (then) young mother who took shelter with her two children under the stairs, but she alone survived ... and then with her husband who, having just disembarked from his warship for some leave, arrived home the following morning, only to find his wife alive, but his house gone and his mother and both his children dead.

Meles meles wrote:

Just a couple of weeks ago I  was watching, yet again, the excellent 1974 ITV series 'World at War'. There's a bit of footage about the bombing of Plymouth, and how every night thousands of people trekked out into the surrounding countryside to escape the horror ... I'm not sure of the numbers but it was something massive, maybe 10% or 20% (I'm guessing) of the entire city's population fled into the surrounding fields/villages every evening. Needless to say, the film footage was never shown at the time as it was judged "bad for morale".

I'll try and give a more succinct reference ... perhaps even a youtube.

PS ... On the relevant "World at War' episode .... regarding the bombing of Plymouth, there's also the moving interviews with, firstly a young mother, who took shelter with her two children but she alone survived ... and then with her husband who  having just been disembarked from his ship, arrived the following morning .... to find his wife alive but his house gone ... and both his children dead, "... not a mark on 'em, but cold as ice".

Yes Meles meles, "The World at War" together with the BBC's "The Nazis: a Warning from History" the best I have seen...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nazis:_A_Warning_from_History

Kind regards, Paul.

Shocking news from Brussels this morning, Paul.

I hope you and your family are all right.