September 20: 1440 Eton opened.

I suppose that was a good thing but I am sure the ghastly event of 1853 when

Elisha Graves Otis began operating the first lift/elevator

is very bad. Only yesterday the lift we were in did not go anywhere for a moment, and just when I was wondering about the best way to panic we pressed a button for a different floor and off it went. Apparently it didn't go to the floor we were pushing. Why not if it was there?

Were there very high-rise buildings before the invention of the elevator?

No there weren't, but the elevator has been round for longer than you might think. As early as the 1830s hydraulic lifts were being fitted in buildings which allowed them to go higher than the then normal limit of five stories. Otis came up with a steam powered lift in 1857 and in the first wave of reconstruction after Chicago's great fire of 1871 this was the design which promoted the world's first buildings to be termed "skyscrapers". In 1880 a German invention, the electric lift, made it over to the city and, when combined with the automatic braking system already developed for Elisha Otis's steam lifts became Otis's own patent in 1891. It was this that finally made skyscrapers really feasible and that decade saw a proliferation of such building spread throughout several cities. In 1900 15 stories were still considered fairly tall however, though only three decades later the Empire State Building in New York would contain seven times that amount of floors - with 73 of Otis's finest elevators employed to reach them all.

I believe the Eifel tower have some pretty original lifts dating from its construction in 1889?

Yes, they were specially designed to go on slanted tracks. All the lifts were completely hydraulic right up to 1986 when their drive mechanism became electric, though hydraulics are still used in the counterbalance part of their operation.

yes i used to go to paris about once a week on a regular run but i never got to go up the tower... shame that, i bet the view is fantastic.

I found the Eiffel Tower quite terrifying from a bit of a distance when we were there in 1974. I hadn't realised how very huge it was and certainly didn't want to go up it. Thankfully so, in the light of the age of its lifts.

A few years ago I was at the headquarters of the paper I write for and the woman with me was talking me up three storeys to see people. I don't know why (perhaps aware of the state of their lift) but she said, "Are you all right with lifts?" and when I said "No" we went up the stairs. Good job too, their lift is, I think, the oldest in Invercargill and a most horrid looking tiny dark thing, shuddering along. My son was in it once and said it was an experience.

Thanks for the information, Nordmann - I wrote without thinking much, should not have put 'first'. Or should have said 'his first', perhaps.

Missed this yesterday.

1982 - the first :-) and :-(

Caro wrote:

I found the Eiffel Tower quite terrifying ... I hadn't realised how very huge it was and certainly didn't want to go up it. Thankfully so, in the light of the age of its lifts.

A few years ago I was at the headquarters of the paper I write for and the woman with me was talking me up three storeys to see people. I don't know why (perhaps aware of the state of their lift) but she said, "Are you all right with lifts?" and when I said "No" we went up the stairs. Good job too, their lift is, I think, the oldest in Invercargill and a most horrid looking tiny dark thing, shuddering along. My son was in it once and said it was an experience. ...

Re elevators, in another capacity others and I are occasionally requested to look at drafts of buildings, either for renovations or for new buidlings.

Not long ago, when looking at such for a new care facility for elderly and infirm, someone asked about the size of the elevators ... deep silence ... then one among us asked, if they expected coffins and gurneys to be stood on one end when going up and down?

Architechts with red faces tried to explain that they hadn't hought that far, when planning a care facility, fer cwyin' out loud!

Town planners were red faced too, and we went away mumbling among ourselves.

Prestonpans, September 21st 1745. Scotland 1 England 0. Scorer: Stuart in the 125th minute.

Match report from the Caledonian Courier: An unexpected victory for the Tartan Army in this first of a series of knockout matches (the next one is scheduled for the Derby area, though a suitable pitch has yet to be agreed). The English captain, John Cope, said afterwards that he was quite disappointed in his defence, especially central defender Thomas Fowke (who apparently ran off the pitch at one point) and winger James Gardiner, who claimed to be too ill to do anything involving sudden movements. The Scots, led by their young skipper Charlie "Bonnie" Stuart, quite obviously couldn't believe their luck and rode it to the hilt, scoring their one goal almost at will. Veteran goalkeeper Donald "Lock Eel" Cameron, who had practically nothing to do the entire match, summed it up afterwards in a post-match interview; "Aeh k'naw tha frith 'i t'naessan raight t'fck!". Our reporter is waiting for Kenny Dalglish to be born so we can find out just the hell he meant.

Historical footnote: As predicted the Derby match never happened and the early Scottish promise, as usual, proved ill founded. A defeat in Falkirk handed initiative back to the Three Lions who, with the help of some foreign bangers, rode out the decisive winners in the series finale at Culloden. Final score England 2000 Scotland 50.

I could speculate as to what 't'fck' might mean.

On this day, September 22nd 1665, Samuel Pepys recounts a report of a submerged forest found while excavating the East India Dock:

"Up betimes and to the office, meaning to have entered my last 5 or 6 days' Journall, but was called away by my Lord Bruncker and Sir J. Minnes, and to Blackwall, there to look after the storehouses in order to the laying of goods out of the East India ships when they shall be unloaden. That being done, we into Johnson's house, and were much made of, eating and drinking. But here it is observable what he tells us, that in digging his late Docke, he did 12 foot under ground find perfect trees over-covered with earth. Nut trees, with the branches and the very nuts upon them; some of whose nuts he showed us. Their shells black with age, and their kernell, upon opening, decayed, but their shell perfectly hard as ever. And a yew tree he showed us (upon which, he says, the very ivy was taken up whole about it), which upon cutting with an adze we found to be rather harder than the living tree usually is. They say, very much, but I do not know how hard a yew tree naturally is."

Pepys' informant was not exaggerating. Much later, in 1789 when the Brunswick Dock was being excavated, also at Blackwall, the same phenomenon was recorded and excited some scientific debate regarding if what was being found was an early stage in petrification of trees, such as had then been discovered in America. Since then other examples have been found at Erith and when digging the foundations of Tower Bridge. This was a dense neolithic forest which covered the entire region and which had been preserved due to coincidental vagaries of silting patterns. By the Iron Age the land had become fen.

The Thames Discovery Programme's investigations at Erith can be explored further here:

A Very Muddy Trip to Erith

Lesnes abbey lies about 1½ miles west of Erith, as a kid I used to be taken there a heavily wooded hill commanding splendid views across the Thames valley and west towards London. At the top of the hill was a fenced in area about the size of a tennis court. If you collected the keys from the abbey café you could enter the compound and dig to ya heart’s content for fossilised shark’s teeth… I had a bag with a couple of pounds of them; I still have a large bag of them having given a lot away to schools my children attended… I’m sure there’s a report that it was made open to the public many years ago after the British museum had extracted several tons. The teeth range in size from tiny things about the size of a rose thorn to some I have about an inch and a half long.

The fossil bed in Lesnes dates from the Eocene, 54.5 million years ago. At that time Lesnes would have been at a latitude roughly equivalent to modern day Armorica and a longitude around where Bristol is now. The shallow warm sea which covered it was about to be drained through one last great tectonic push which positioned most of Northern Europe roughly where it has stayed since then. Over on the other side the island of India was at last approaching landfall in Southern Asia.

The submerged forest in Erith and elsewhere, though of much more recent vintage, was most likely part of a giant forest, composed in the main of trees and plants still typical of the climate today, which stretched unbroken through Doggerland and on into Central Europe. A tree dwelling animal could literally travel from Eastern Britain to Poland without having to come down from the branches at all.

Both scenarios are hard to truly fathom when one looks at the place today.

EDIT: Here's a nice image of the final phase of the Eocene as Europe shudders into place and Lesnes, along with much of Britain, begins to emerge from the sea. As far as we know this is Britain's first appearance above sea level geologically (since its time as a part of the giant Pangea landmass in any case).

28 September 1987, and a new crew of the Starship Enterprise baldly [pun intended] go where no-one has gone before;



What's this? our esteemed leader in the 24th century?

2 October 1920

King Alexander of Greece was taking his dog for a walk through the royal gardens in Athens when his pet was attacked by a couple of monkeys who were kept there as part of the royal menagerie. Fending off the attack with his stick the king was bitten on the leg and stomach. Infection set in and he soon fell seriously ill with sepsis. King Alexander died on 25 October.

His father Constantine, who had previously abdicated the throne, was permitted to return to Greece and became king for the second time. While Alexander, although effectively a puppet-king, had tried to pursue a policy of neutrality and consolidation during and after WW1, his father, now back on the throne strongly supported the Greek government's aggressive stance and with re-newed vigour he led Greece into actively continuing the Greco-Turkish conflict. But within two years his aggressive stance led Greece into a humiliating defeat and the loss of all the previous Greek gains on the Turkish mainland. It also directly caused about a quarter of a million military and civillian deaths.

As Winston Churchill later reflected: "it was a monkey bite that caused the death of those 250,000 people."

...... And in 1922 King Constantine was forced to abdicate ... for the second time.

So who was Prince Andrew of Greece who was Prince Phillips Father? His Mother was Princess Alice of Battenburg, hence Mountbatten I guess.

Prince Andrew of Greece was the 4th son of George I of Greece and Olga Constantinovna of Russia. And Andrew was also a grandson of Christain IX of Denmark the 'father' of much of modern European royalty. Prince Andrew was exiled from Greece in 1922 after the Greco/Turkish War and spent the remainder of his life in France and died in Monte Caro in 1944.

Phillip's genealogy http://www.royalist.info/execute/tree?person=726

Gran wrote:

So who was Prince Andrew of Greece who was Prince Phillips Father? His Mother was Princess Alice of Battenburg, hence Mountbatten I guess.

May I moan a little on a small matter of language here?

With the English pronounciation of 'Berg' and 'Burg' being similar it's perhaps thought that they mean the same - wrong!

Both words originate from German with 'Berg' meaning mountain or hill - thus the 'Mount' in Mountbatten, with 'Burg' being a castle or a fortified manor house - then the name would, perhaps, have been Battencastle.

A sigh, I have told this before, and suppose I shall repeat it again, probably while people

If it's any consolation, Per, I did look at that and wonder slightly about the spelling. Some vague residue of you telling us this not too long ago must have penetrated, but not far enough to be certain.

I'm looking at a free map of Edinburgh which tourists can collect on their way out of stations, airports etc that I picked up in my travels some years ago. Plastered in among the shopping ads it has a little piece about the city which begins;

"Castle Rock, the "berg" which put the "burgh" in Edinburgh ..."

It then has another piece about the castle which begins;

"Built on the site of the original burgh of Eidyn from which the City derived its name ..."

Covering all bases, then.

Or just an absence of editing on the part of the publisher.

It's a good thing that this confusion is apparently modern. When Alfred the Great directed that the country be dotted with "burhs" or "burghs" to counteract the Norsemen's intrusions I don't think he would have been too happy if everyone then set about building local mountains. Well, at least not unless they then built a burg on their berg.

Is it Battenburg or Battenberg cake? Mr Kipling says Battenberg, but Nigella says Battenburg. I expect Nigella is right - she usually is.

Guess whose birthday it is today!

2nd October, 1452 - Fotheringhay Castle.

It's my turn to paste a huge pic and wreck the site!

On October 3rd 1798 The Times printed Nelson's account of his victory at the Battle of The Nile. It makes for interesting reading, though I have to admit the story which jumps off the page is the one tucked into the bottom right corner announcing the good news that the prime minister doesn't have gout today!

My eyesight is not bad, but it struggled with some of this (most of this, really). But especially the officers killed and what I think must be ships destroyed.

I like the sentence that "The narrative of this glorious action is much too concise to satisfy the curious eyes of the public." Though half this editorial was about wars to come more than the battle that's just been.

And the sentence above Mr Pitt's gout is very typical of pieces I read in old NZ papers. Full of little items about Mrs Jones coming to stay for the next fortnight with her daughter, Mrs White, during which time she hopes to see the sights of the area. Or bits about people's illnesses. Lovely trivial little bits that would be considered breaking people's privacy now.

I see Google are commemorating the 127th birthday today of Niels Bohr with this rather fetching little logo:



For all his many great achievements and attributes (being a committed atheist amongst them) he is rarely remembered now for his exploits between the sticks for his club, Akademisk Boldklub Gladsaxe, or "AB" as they are now better known. Together with his much capped brother Harald they graced the Gladsaxe Stadion at the birth of the club's more illustrious years and Niels's goalkeeping exploits (including a last-minute penalty save against a Copenhagen side in a match which they needed to win to be readmitted to the fledgling Danish League) are the stuff of local legend. In one match, in which AB were comfortably outplaying a German side "Mittweida", the goalkeeper found himself redundant for most of the game and took to leaning against his post having a fag while the match continued upfield. Suddenly a speculative long ball from the German midfield loped itself in his direction, bounced four or five times and then trickled over the line, Bohr never once leaving either his post or his fag. Afterwards he explained that this was not mere complacency on his part. He had genuinely not noticed the ball because he had used the free time to work out a particularly knotty mathematical problem and had quite forgotten that he was on a football field at all. AB's loss was physics' gain. Their goalkeeper had just worked out the mathematical formula for calculating surface tension.

AB's academic roots were long upheld and even seemed to rub off on later players. Their one-time captain, Knud Lundberg, even branching into philosophy on occasion and formulating this existentialist gem; "Den rigtige måde at leve på, det er at bruge sig. Man skal ikke spare sig, man skal bruge sig"

("The right way to live life is to use it, don't spare it, use it", which can also be interpreted as "The right way to live your life is to use yourself, do not save yourself but use yourself.")

That goalkeeper story is just brilliant. To be thinking about surface tension and yet not noticing an inflated ball bouncing towards oneself. It deserves to join Archimedes' bath and Newton's apple tree etc in the pantheon of science mythology.

11 October, 1917. First battle of Passchendale. Although NZers are more familiar with Gallipoli this action has cost more NZ lives in one day than any other event. At least since 1840, the date of the Treaty of Waitangi. The figures seem a bit vague, 45 officers dead, 800 plus soldiers killed, 2700 casualties altogether.

1492 - Columbus first sighted land.

Good one ferval.

It's amazing to think that it's 20 years since the 500th anniversary. Equally amazing is the thought that last 20 years comprise 1/26 of the whole time frame since 1492.

1609 - The publishing of Three Blind Mice which is thought to have been the first printed secular song.

Back to 007!

13 October 1307 - Philippe IV of France ordered a dawn raid to arrest the Grand Master Jacques de Molay and sixty other senior members of the Templar Order on various trumped-up charges. All Philippe wanted was to get his hands on the Order's money, which he successfully did, but he also unwittingly poured fuel on the fires of many a subsequent conspiracy theory, and so helped a certain Dan Brown get very rich too!

14 October 1066. A day that would change the course of Britain's history forever, when the Norman forces of William the Conqueror defeated King Harold II of England at the Battle of Hastings.

Today also is the day that the book Winnie the Pooh by AA Milne made it's debut in 1926.

A monumental day indeed.

14th October 1858 - workmen complete an eighteen hour manual hoisting of the great bell destined for St Stephen's clock tower in the new Houses of Parliament in Westminster. It was to be another eight months before its mechanised ringing would commence tolling the hours for Londoners and later, thanks to the BBC, for much of the world. At least for a few weeks, that is, as it unfortunately cracked when attempting to announce midnight one night in June 1859 (the hammer was twice the recommended weight) and must remain mute for several months as repairs were conducted.



Even before its installation (after a grand procession from Southwark hauled by sixteen great drays and cheered by thousands lining the route) it had acquired the nickname "Big Ben". At first the Westminster authorities, in particular the rector of St Stephens the Rev James Woolidge, fought hard to ensure that the saint's name should be the one used. In the end they had to give in, and retrospectively invented an origin (still repeated today) in which Sir Benjamin Hall, Commissioner of Works at the time, plays an eponymous role. This of course is pure twaddle. The famous commons debate in which Hall got the nod is not recorded by Hansard.

The bell was in fact the second bell commissioned, the first having been cast in Stockton on Tees and shipped to Westminster, only to be discovered completely unsuitable for the job. At sixteen tons it couldn't even be lifted, let alone installed in St Stephen's Tower without considerable reinforcement of the structure. Worse, when they tested it it cracked with the first hammer blow. It was therefore sent to a London firm, the Whitechapel Bell Foundry, where it was melted down and recast and it was here that the famous nickname first seems to have entered the vernacular. It was also here that a London legend, the boxer who had famously beaten Bendigo, "Big Ben" Caunt, had acquired almost mythical status amongst the East End population.

A case of the establishment parasitically attaching itself to popular opinion in the hope of stealing credit? But then what's new ...

Here's the man himself:

Coicidentally, he also looks like a bell!

This is quite funny http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-19940824 .

Can you imagine William calling off the invasion for 'health and safety' reasons? Or Harold refusing to join battle because of the 'unacceptable levels of mud'?

Well actually ID, yes sadly I can. Mr Health an Safety has such a strangle hold on just about every aspect of life these day it wouldn’t surprise me if Harold an Willie first consulted them for a suitable site, and got weather updates for a suitable 2 day window. And the trouble is a lot of these H&S (officers) are right jobs worth that probably would be unemployable in industry.

Why do so many people elevate themselves and claim to be ‘officers’ these days.
There are only 2 types of officers… those serving in Her Majesties Services, and Police Officers. The rest are office clerks, bank clerks or secretaries. What is it that dustmen are now refuse disposal officers, window cleaners are transparent wall cleansing officers… etc. can you add to the list.

15 October 1953 - An Australian Army Centurian tank (No. 169041) was involved in a nuclear blast at Emu Field in Australia as part of Operation Totem 1. The tank was placed less than 500 yards from the epicentre and left with the engine running. Examination after detonation found it had been pushed away from the blast point by about 5 feet and that its engine had stopped working only because it had eventually run out of fuel. The antennas were missing, lights and periscopes were heavily sandblasted, the cloth mantlet cover was incinerated, and the armoured side plates had been blown off and carried up to 200 yards from the tank. Had it been manned the crew would almost certainly have been killed by the shock wave.

But remarkably once topped up with fuel the tank was simply driven away from the site. Nicknamed The Atomic Tank, it was later used in the Vietnam War. Although other tanks have been subjected to nuclear tests, 169041 is the only tank known to have withstood an atomic blast and subsequently gone on for another 23 years of service, including 15 months on operational deployment in a war zone.

It's now preserved at Robertson Barracks in Palmerston, Australia.

How on earth do you decontaminate a tank? Surely the armour plating and so forth must have been intensely radio active? Or, given they were somewhat cavalier back then, did anyone bother?

They probably didn't decontaminate it ferval, that early in the nuclear weapons testing/building they didn't know all that much of the dangers.

I've seen photos of the tests done in Australia and even people were exposed to the blast fallouts. I have tried to find some online and had no luck but there is this footage of the tests here, and you'll see everyone just standing there during the blast unprotected. (Sorry I tried to avoid the legal wrangle over the testings but all the sites with footage seem to involve it as well)

Islanddawn wrote:

Can you imagine William calling off the invasion for 'health and safety' reasons? Or Harold refusing to join battle because of the 'unacceptable levels of mud'?

But then again the whole course of history might have been different if Harold had been wearing approved safety specs!



And re decontaminating the tank: I expect a couple of national servicemen were just given scrubbing brushes and a bucket of soapy water .... plus maybe face-masks and rubber gloves, if they were lucky ... and then told to "just get on wiv it!".

16 October seems to be a day for executions.
1555: English protestant reformers Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley were burnt at the stake for heresy. (I see that Latimer Square in Christchurch is named after him. They are to put a memorial tree there to 81 students and staff who died in the earthquake there.)

1793: Marie Antoinette beheaded.

And speaking of earthquakes:

1848: a 7.8 earthquake struck Wellington, the first recorded in NZ. Three people died and quite a number of the early settlers were panicked into returning to Britain. Especially when more followed. It had always been assumed that any large earthquake in NZ would hit Wellington. Nobody ever imagined it would be ChCh.

Following on from the nuclear test yesterday, 16th October 1964, China detonates it's first nuclear bomb;



and in 1859, John Brown begins the raid against the Federal Arsenal at Harpers Ferry;

17 October 1814 - The London Beer Flood

At Henry Meux's Horse Shoe brewery in St Giles in the Fields, located at the junction of Tottenham Court Road and Oxford Street, corroded hoops on a large vat failed causing the sudden release of about 7,600 barrels of beer. The wave prompted several adjoining vats to burst as well resulting in a torrent of over 323,000 gallons (1,470,000 litres, weighing about 1,500 tonnes) of beer to gush into the streets.

The brewery was in an area of poor slum tenements, with people crowded into every available space. Whole families had to scramble to safety as the buildings partially collapsed and the basements rapidly flooded. There were many injuries and eight recorded deaths from drowning.

The brewery was taken to court over the incident but the disaster was ruled to be Act of God, and so no-one was held responsible. Nevertheless the brewery faced bankruptcy until Parliament ruled that they could reclaim the £7,250 duty already paid on the lost beer, and this allowed them to continue. The Horse Shoe brewery finally closed in 1922 and the site is now occupied by the Dominion Theatre.

The Meux brand name is now owned by Carlesburg-Tetley.

17 October 1777, General Burgoyne's Army surrenders at Saratoga, the key turning point of the American Revolution;




another to follow on Friday

Saturday 17th October 1829 - The Rocket and The Novelty take part in the first day's running of the Rainhill Trials, a competition to decide which locomotive would be used to pull carriages on the newly opened Liverpool and Manchester Railway. Originally ten locomotives had been entered but on the opening day this had already been reduced to five. First off the blocks was the London engine, Novelty, but the star of the show was Robert Stephenson's Rocket, the eventual winner of the £500 first prize and the locomotive which would gain the honour of the first to be put into regular commercial service.



The Manchester Guardian later printed a summary of the day's proceedings:

Quote :

The London engine was to start this morning. The steam was got up in 54 minutes from the time of lighting the fire. The engine went one trip by way of rehearsal, when the accidental explosion of a small copper tube caused a delay. Between the occurrence and the repair of this little mishap, Mr Stephenson's locomotive engine was run twice down the course. The steam got up, and all load was taken off from behind. Thus stripped for the race, The Rocket started off, and performed the seven miles in the incredibly short space of fourteen minutes, at the rate of 30 miles an hour. This was a highly interesting exhibition, and gave universal satisfaction.

The Novelty ran down to the grand stand, and a large assemblage of ladies and gentlemen mounted, among whom we noticed Dr Traill and his family. The doctor timed the speed of the Novelty, and it appears to have averaged 22 miles an hour, with 45 passengers, and at one period carried the same passengers at the inconceivable velocity of 32 miles an hour.

Not the slightest accident occurred to mar the scientific experiments which have been made on the rail-way. On one occasion a man fell within the rails, when Mr. Hackworth's steam-carriage was approaching with great rapidity; but, having the presence of mind to lie down, the machine passed over him without doing him any injury.

Not all "on this day" events are worth reporting just because they were momentous. Some deserve mention, I feel, simply because they open to view lives lived long ago and how some things are eternal. Here is a lovely letter from 13 year old Rebecca Lemar, daughter of the then President of the Texan Republic, Mirabeau Lemar. While he was president Rebecca had been living with relatives in Macon, Georgia, where the Lemars originally came from. Her letter, written on this day in 1840, informs her father that his brother had been recently shot and wounded in an election fracas in Macon, expresses how much she misses her dad, and finishes with an endearing plea that he not judge her letter writing skills based on this example which she has written in haste (as she had to hurry back to her studies!). Sweet.

Mirabeau himself was trained in the classics and by all accounts a very gentle, erudite and affable man, not your typical Texan frontiersman at all. His term as President ended under a cloud after the disastrous Santa Fe expedition (an attempt to persuade New Mexicans to throw their lot in with Texas). He is still fondly remembered however in the Yellow Rose state as their "father of Texan education".

Here is is his daughter's letter:



... and the transcipt:

Macon 18th Oct 1840

Dear Father

I am rather ashamed of myself for letting such a long time pass off without writing to you. I am deserving of a good scolding but as I have no body to give it to me, I will have to rely entirely on the goodness of your heart for forgiveness for my past offence. I will now tell you of the severe and dangerous wound my dear Uncle Jefferson received about two weeks ago, during the time of the Election[.] [T]he people were nearly all drunk[.] [S]ome of them took great interest in Politics and some did not[.]
Uncle was one that did not[.] [O]ne of these low class drunken men got mad with Uncle about something[,] I do not know what, and shot him. Uncle Thomas is there attending on him. [T]he ball went in his hipp [sic] and is there yet and it is very doutful [sic] whether it will ever be gotten out.
I commenced going to the celebrated College the 1st of this month, and if I am not mistaken I am improving tolerable fast. I am in the second class now but I intend to study hard and get in the Senior class [in] time enough to graduate in about two years! [T]hen I am going to Paris and other cities and continue travelling [sic] two years and then I will be perfectedly [sic] satisfied to remain with you always if you will come to the United States. Tell my sweet Cousin to write to me soon and often for she cannot immagine [sic] what pleasure it would afford her “Becky” for to read her letters. Give my best respects to my friend Mr Fouster and my love to Uncle Moreland and tell him to write to me also. I know you will think strange of my writing such a bad letter to you but I am in such a Hury [sic] to finish to get to my studies that it is impossible to write a good letter. I hope you will not judge from this what kind of letters I can write.

I am as ever fondly your
daughter RA Lamar

And of course before the day is quite out, let's catch up on all the latest from "Art, Literature and Science" as reported in the Manchester Guardian newspaper from October 18th 1871!

19th October 1781, Lord Cornwallis's Army surrenders at Yorktown, effectively ending the American War of Independence;



reportedly the British bands played "The World Turned Upside Down";

Go forth, Voyager ...

On this day in 1745 the world lost one of those rare people - an absolute genius. His epitaph, which he wrote himself (apart from the date of course) can be seen in his place of work, St Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin. It reads: "Here is laid the Body of Jonathan Swift, Doctor of Sacred Theology, Dean of this Cathedral Church, where fierce Indignation can no longer injure the Heart. Go forth, Voyager, and copy, if you can, this vigorous (to the best of his ability) Champion of Liberty. He died on the 19th Day of the Month of October, A.D. 1745, in the 78th Year of his Age."

Swift had a love/hate relationship with everything, everybody and - most of all - himself. The conflict proved a fuel for some of the most pithy and intelligent observations ever made about the human condition, as well of course as fuel for an eccentricity which developed in later years into what contemporaries misunderstood as madness. If I ever go mad, I want to go his mad!



His "Modest Proposal" is probably his best known satire after "Gulliver's Travels" and addresses what to do with Ireland's burgeoning peasant classes in the early 18th century:

Quote :

I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricasie, or a ragoust.

I do therefore humbly offer it to publick consideration, that of the hundred and twenty thousand children, already computed, twenty thousand may be reserved for breed, whereof only one fourth part to be males; which is more than we allow to sheep, black cattle, or swine, and my reason is, that these children are seldom the fruits of marriage, a circumstance not much regarded by our savages, therefore, one male will be sufficient to serve four females. That the remaining hundred thousand may, at a year old, be offered in sale to the persons of quality and fortune, through the kingdom, always advising the mother to let them suck plentifully in the last month, so as to render them plump, and fat for a good table. A child will make two dishes at an entertainment for friends, and when the family dines alone, the fore or hind quarter will make a reasonable dish, and seasoned with a little pepper or salt, will be very good boiled on the fourth day, especially in winter.

19 October 1864, the northern most action of the American Civil War takes place when escaped Confederate pows from Canada attack St Albans in Vermont;


http://www.stalbansraid.com