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

21st October 1805 - Nelson is mortally wounded while winning the Battle of Trafalgar and utters that immortal dying phrase; "Drink, drink. Fan, fan. Rub, rub." (The "Kiss me Hardy" bit had been said some hours before)

Arthur William Devis's painting of the scene can be considered reasonaly accurate. He was on board the Victory and witnessed the event.

Trouble down t'mill. A scandalous dance which originated in working class music halls (hence it's title "The Tittle-Tattle") is performed for the first time on stage at the Moulin Rouge on October 21st 1854 to a "respectable" Parisian audience. As it is simply a more active form of the Galop dance the Moulin Rouge stages it to the tune of "The Infernal Galop" from Offenbach's "Orpheus in the Underworld". Le Chahut, or Le Can-Can, enters golbal dancing tradition for ever.

nordmann wrote:

21st October 1805 - Nelson is mortally wounded while winning the Battle of Trafalgar and utters that immortal dying phrase; "Drink, drink. Fan, fan. Rub, rub." (The "Kiss me Hardy" bit had been said some hours before)

Arthur William Devis's painting of the scene can be considered reasonaly accurate. He was on board the Victory and witnessed the event.

No doubt highly romanticised nevertheless. It calls to mind a nativity scene from a Christmas card.

Romanticised, of course. However the people present, their appearance, Nelson's hastily constructed cot, its location and the depiction of failed resuscitative surgery are considered dependable. Compare Devis's painting with the others and you'll see why "reasonably accurate" fits the description.

Devis' version is certainly more historically reliable than, say, Benjamin West's version which is located on the ship's quarterdeck which in turns seems to be located in St Paul's Cathedral.

That said - there is a postcard version of Devis' depiction called 'Death of Nelson in the cockpit of Victory'. This has more lighting and also includes other casualties in the shot:

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/10/18/article-2219810-15919319000005DC-864_634x407.jpg

Cartoon-like but strangely convincing.

Yes, Devis must have wished that copyright extended to images in his day. Thre were so many variations on his theme for which he received no credit, let alone payment. His original is in the Maritime Museum in Greenwich. Bloody impressive - all the characters are life sized. You can nearly feel the timbers swaying under your feet when you stand in front of it.

23 October 1942: second battle of El Alamein, Operation Lightfoot, begins. A contingent of 21 veterans from NZ have been flown over to attend commemorations. One of them comes from here; he is about 93. He did the address at our last Anzac Day service, talking of his experiences in Egypt and Italy. I wrote a report of it and said (in part):

The main feature of Owaka’s Anzac Day service were the reminiscences of Tom McNab, who took part in the Battle of Alamein and other actions in WWII. He spoke of his experiences in World War Two, taking part in action in Egypt, Tunisia and Italy.

Travelling through Cairo the New Zealanders took off all identification but were recognised and heard people calling out, “Hello Kiwis”. Mr McNab said, “Every German spy in the town would have realised we were there by nightfall.”

At Mingar Quam on the Libyan border the New Zealand brigades, surrounded by Germans, held them off though General Freyberg was wounded. Kippenberger led a daring escape in the pitch dark with German machine guns and anti-tank missiles making for a spectacular scene, but one which led to few casualties.

Mr McNab then talked of his unit travelling to Alamein via the open desert, arriving a day later, with little water and no food. The events at El Alamein mean the German hope of breaking through to the Middle East and cutting off the Suez Canal was destroyed. “Otherwise who knows what would have happened.” Mr McNab said the next battle at Ruweisat Ridge was called one of the most outstanding infantry attacks of the war.

22 October 1895 - The Granville to Paris express train arriving late at the Gare Montparnasse station, overran the buffers, crashed across the station concourse, broke out through the station wall and dropped onto the Place de Rennes below, where the engine finally stopped propped on its nose. Only two of the 131 passengers, as well as the driver and the fireman, were injured. The only fatality was a woman on the street who was killed by falling masory. The accident was caused by a faulty brake, although the engine driver, who had been trying to make up lost time was fined 50 francs for speeding.

1797 - the first parachute descent by Andre-Jacques Garnerin from a balloon over the Parc Monceau in Paris.
What a shame Mr Baumgarten couldn't have jumped on the anniversary.

4004 BC -

In these days of instnt txtng :) LOL, liking, poking, friending and unfriending, it is worth remembering that at one time people wrote letters to each other. And boy could they write!

On this day in 1818 a young English poet by the name of John Keats wrote to his brother George and enquired about the usual things - how was his health, any sign of a bump yet, what was the price of a loaf of bread up in his parts etc. He then signed off with a brief note about how he himself was feeling;

“I feel more and more every day, as my imagination strengthens, that I do not live in this world alone but in a thousand worlds. No sooner am I alone than shapes of epic greatness are stationed around me, and serve my Spirit.”

Now that's a text message and a half!

And this event today in 1854 would give Tennyson some inspiration;

26 October 1881; the Gunfight at the OK Corral. [ well it sounds much better than the Gunfight at the vacant lot next to Fly's Photography on Fremont Street]

On this day in 1939 a small part of Britain realised it was at war. A Luftwaffe raid on northern naval bases was intercepted over Lothian by Spitfires of 602 Squadron and one Archie McKellar, a Scottish pilot from Glasgow, damaged a Heinkel 111 so badly that it crashed near the small Scottish hamlet of Humbie. "The Humbie Heinkel" was officially the first German aircraft to be downed on British soil. Two of the crew died in the incident, the rest surrendered to the local policeman, first to arrive at the crash site.



A totally Scottish/German affair, one would have thought. However the incident was not without some controversy. McKellar was indeed first to engage the Heinkel, and this was acknowledged by the RAF tally record on the day. However during the engagement McKellar had been joined by members of 603 Squadron, also scrambled on the day. According to McKellar, after he had successfully downed the Heinkel three Spitfires from 603 "escorted" it down and in the debriefing that followed all three pilots then claimed the kill for themselves. Despite McKellar's protests he was awarded only a "share" in the kill, a matter which so riled him that he was later disciplined by his superiors and ordered never to discuss the matter again, even with colleagues - an extraordinarily stringent censorship of speech even at the time. However to McKellar, and many others in Scotland, it was clear what the real agenda was - and the ensuing newsreels shown in cinemas throughout Britain proved their suspicions correct. The incident had become a British (with emphasis on English) achievement, McKellar reduced to bit player. 603, though based in Edinburgh, had a truly "empirical" membership, its pilots composed of New Zealand, Canadian and other colonial recruits, their officership an English one. In the newsreels this was stressed above everything, Scotland's contribution being mainly that of having provided a location for the event.


602 Glasgow Squadron. McKellar third from right, rear row.



Archie went on to a distinguished campaign as the Battle of Britain intensified, on one occasion being the first to achieve the necessary quota of "kills" to be declared an "ace" within one 24 hour period. But for "Ace in a Day" Archibald McKellar his luck was to run out. A mere few hours after the Battle of Britain had been officially declared ended and while serving as a newly promoted lieutenant in a Hurricane squadron in the south of England his plane was shot down in Kent. McKellar died in the crash.

That wasn't the first engagement by 602 and 603, two planes were brought down on 16th October but over the sea off Fife.

Quote :

On the 16th of October, 602 pilot George Pinkerton intercepted and inconclusively attacked an enemy Heinkel 111 in doing so he fired the first shots of the war over the skies of Great Britain. Much has been written about this historic first encounter with the Luftwaffe. Later the same day George Pinkerton (602) and Archie McKellar (602) attacked Helmut Pohle's Ju88 and brought it down off Crail. Credit for this kill was given to George Pinkerton. Pat Gifford (603) was on the other side of the Forth where he attacked another Ju88 and brought it down into Aberlady Bay."

Bits of the "Humble Heinkle" are in the 602 collection in the RHF museum in Sauchiehall St.

On October 1517, Martin Luther wrote to Albrecht, Archbishop of Mainz and Magdeburg, protesting against the sale of indulgences. He enclosed in his letter a copy of his "Disputation of Martin Luther on the Power and Effiacy of Indulgence,s" which came to be known as The 95 Theses. Hans Hillerbrand writes that Luther had no intention of confronting the church, but saw his disputation as a scholarly objection to church practice, and the tone of the writing is accordingly "seaching rather than doctrinaire." Hillerbrand writes that ther is nevertheless an undercurrent of challenge in several of the theses, particularly in Thesis 86, which asks, "Why does the pope, whose wealth today is greater than the wealth of the richest Crassus, build the basilica of St. Peter with the money of poor believers rather than with his own money?"

This copied from the beginning of the wikipedia article, 'Reformation Day'.

1st November 1914, the Battle of Coronel takes place off the coast of Chile;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Coronel

SMS Scharnhorst

And he painted matchstick men and matchstick cats and dogs, birthday of L. S Lowry 1 November 1887;

We very much enjoyed the L S Lowry exhibition that was in the Sheffield Art Gallery. Very accessible art.

November 1 1944: NZ accepted its first refugees, over 700 displaced Polish children. My understanding is this was expected to be for the duration of the war, but they took up permanent residence. This video (about 18 minutes long) was a moving account of what brought them here and the success they made of their lives in New Zealand. http://www.nzonscreen.com/title/the-story-of-seven-hundred-polish-children-1966 Interesting to see in 1966 how many of the women were high achievers. And look at their eyebrows!

And a little about one of them here, talking about resenting having to change her name which NZers couldn't pronounce and then accepting that because she had been accepted here. http://www.3news.co.nz/Polish-refugees-return-to-their-NZ-orpanage-/tabid/423/articleID/127715/Default.aspx

2 November 1960; after a six day trial at the Old Bailey, Penguin Books are found not guilty of obscenity for publishing D. H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover

2 November 1483 - Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham is executed. An event immortalised in Shakespeare's Richard III:

BUCKINGHAM
This is All-Souls' day, fellows, is it not?

SHERIFF
It is, my lord.

BUCKINGHAM
Why, then All-Souls' day is my body's doomsday.
This is the day that, in King Edward's time,
I wish't might fall on me, when I was found
False to his children or his wife's allies
This is the day wherein I wish'd to fall
By the false faith of him I trusted most;
This, this All-Souls' day to my fearful soul
Is the determined respite of my wrongs:
That high All-Seer that I dallied with
Hath turn'd my feigned prayer on my head
And given in earnest what I begg'd in jest.
Thus doth he force the swords of wicked men
To turn their own points on their masters' bosoms:
Now Margaret's curse is fallen upon my head;
'When he,' quoth she, 'shall split thy heart with sorrow,
Remember Margaret was a prophetess.'
Come, sirs, convey me to the block of shame;
Wrong hath but wrong, and blame the due of blame.

5 November 1605; The Gunpowder Plot.

http://www.gunpowder-plot.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunpowder_Plot

Guy Fawkes seems to have disappeared from NZ's celebrations. Soon we won't have any. I haven't seen anything in the papers this year, worrying about animals or damage, and haven't heard any round here. Weather hasn't been conducive to outside activities recently, and there are so many restrictions on buying them it's not much fun any more.

Here you go then Caro, here's what happened in Oban last year. Oops.

6 November 1865, after travelling from the Pacific to do so, CSS Shenadoah, surrenders to HMS Donegal in Liverpool.Shenandoah is the last Confederate combat unit to surrender and did so to British authorities to avoid charges of piracy.

7 November 1908, San Vicente, Bolivia.

Around 2am, Bolivian law enforcement officers enter a lodging house owned by Senor Casasola after hearing two distinct shots. These shots marked the end of a gun battle which had started the previous evening after Snr Casasola became suspicious of his two guests and had notified the authorities that he believed they were responsible for the hold-up of the Aramayo silver mine payroll on November 3rd.
The two bodies were lying in a position that the police believe one had shot his badly wounded companion before killing himself. Though they were identified as the perpetrators of the Aramayo robbery, their actual identities were never established and they were buried in unmarked graves in the local cemetery.


The Wild Bunch photographed in El Paso, Texas, 1900



standing, left to right, Will Carver; Harvey Logan, aka Kid Curry

seated, left to right, Henry Longabaugh, aka The Sundance Kid; Ben Kilpatrick, aka The Tall Texan; and Robert Leroy Parker, aka Butch Cassidy.


There have, however, been repeated rumours that the two men killed in Bolivia were not Butch and Sundance.

8 November 1847, birthday of Bram Stoker.

November 8th was also the birthday in 1723 of John "Foul Weather Jack" Byron, a nickname he acquired and proudly retained throughout his long naval career on the basis that bad weather seemed to follow him around. One incident of bad weather, off the coast of Patagonia, led to Byron's most famous escapade, the "Wager Mutiny". The Wager, under captain John Cheap, ran aground (Wager Island exists today on Chile maps). The shipwrecked crew were divided after mutiny into two parties, one which set off in a boat modified to schooner size to reach Rio de Janeiro, and midshipman Byron's group, left for dead with Cheap on Wager Island, which attempted to sail north and meet up with Spaniards at sea.

The five year odyssey of these men, few of whom survived, has formed the basis of many subsequent novels, most recently Patrick O'Brian's "The Unknown Shore". However truth, as the saying goes, is often starnger than fiction and the Wager Mutiny is no exception. A full synopsis of the events can be found here:
The Wager Mutiny

Byron himself was to lead as adventurous a life afterwards, circumnavigating the globe twice amongst other notable achievements (claiming The Falklands for Britain being just one of them). His son "Mad Jack" continued the family tradition at sea after his father's death (as reported in The Times below).



His grandson George, though not in pursuit of a naval career, became also rather well known too ...

9 November 1799, or rather 18 Brumaire Year VIII;

In France, the Directory is overthrown by a coup d'etat and the Consulate established.

14 November 1941, HMS Ark Royal sinks after being torpedoed the previous day by U-81




Ark Royal listing to starboard, destroyer HMS Legion in attendance.

November 14th, 1501.

Catherine of Aragon married Arthur, Prince of Wales.

No one knows what really went on in the royal bed that night, but whatever did or did not happen sure caused a lot of trouble later on.

More of Henry VIII: November 17, 1534: The Act of Supremacy is passed, declaring Henry head of the C of E.

In more recent times and relevant to events of today: 1977 Anwar Sadat formally accepts an invitation to visit Israel, which didn't go down very well with various sections. I have been wondering just what sparked Hamas's rocket fire which in turn led to the death of one of the leaders and more rocket fire and a build-up of forces in Israel. Something from the Allied Press said Hamas wanted to make its mark on a changing Middle East. (The first site dealing with this from from the Christian Science Monitor, which read reasonably, but for which I felt a certain mistrust. And it didn't quickly tell me the causes of the most recent flare-up.)

17th November 1558 - an exceptionally mild and sunny day - saw the accession of Elizabeth Tudor to the throne of England.

Legend has it that the lords of the Council came to her in the park at Hatfield. They knelt before her and saluted her as their sovereign lady. Elizabeth was speechless for a few moments, then, struggling with her emotions, she pronounced in Latin: "This is the Lord's doing: it is marvellous in our eyes."

18 November 1928, Disney release Steamboat Willie starring Mickey Mouse, today is therefore Mickey's birthday.

19 November 1941, light cruiser HMAS Sydney is sunk with the loss of all hands in a single ship action against the German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran. Kormoran sinks shortly afterwards.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_between_HMAS_Sydney_and_German_auxiliary_cruiser_Kormoran

Sydney



Kormoran

22 November 1869, the launch of the clipper Cutty Sark;



http://www.rmg.co.uk/cuttysark/history-and-collections/history/

November 24, 1639. Jeremiah Horrocks and his friend William Crabtree become the first people to watch the Transit of Venus. Horrocks was the only person to predict this, at the age of 21. He was dead less than 18 months later. Our radio yesterday had a scientist talking of this and wondering just what he might have achieved. He is honoured at Westminster Abbey but his actual burial place is not known. (Lots of things seem unknown about him - why he didn't graduate, what he died of, who he worked for.

And on NOvemebr 24 220 years later in 1859 another scientific explanation with far-reaching effects was shown when Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species was published.

On this day in history 2nd December 1804-


Napoleon Bonaparte crowns himself Emperor of France in Notre Dame Cathedral.

On this day in history 4th December 1872 – The crewless American ship Mary Celeste is found by the British brig Dei Gratia (the ship had been abandoned for nine days but was only slightly damaged). And so becomes the focus of numerous maritime tales of mystery yarns and films yet to this day still remains an enigma...

7 December 1941, the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor;

8 December 1914, the Battle of the Falkland Islands;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Falkland_Islands



HMS Invincible works up to 26 knots in pursuit of Von Spee's squadron

A propos of the bits on Truby King (mental health post) and his time at Seacliff, on 7th December 1942 one of its wards caught fire and 37 of the 39 women locked in the ward overnight died. This somehow is not one of the better known tragedies of NZ. Events in wartime seem to get lost. A train crash in 1943 killing 21 people was barely known about either.

And another tragedy on Dec 8. In 1966 the Greek ferry Heraklion sank killing 234 people.

Missed this one yesterday - 8th December, 1542.

In the depths of a Scottish winter - just after midnight - a girl was born at Linlithgow.

Her father, when told of the arrival of his daughter, is said to have predicted: "Adieu, farewell, it came with a lass; it will pass with a lass." He was to die a week later (see December 14th).

No doubt the father's words were a chronicler's invention, but David Calderwood, the historian of the Scottish Church, definitely did say of that December 8th birth: "all men lamented that the realm was left without a male to succeed."

"All men lamented" - that phrase would seem to sum up the life of Mary, Queen of Scots.

14 December 1962, Mariner 2 makes the first ever interplanetary flypast, in this case Venus;

Couldn't post this yesterday.

14th December, 1542.

James V, King of Scots, died. The new ruler of Scotland was a baby girl, Mary Stewart. She was barely a week old when she became queen.

James had himself inherited the Scottish throne as a minor: he was seventeen months old when his father, James IV, died at Flodden Field (September 9th, 1513).

The legend has it that it was grief that killed this king: the English had smashed the Scots at the Battle of Solway Moss (November 24th 1542) just three weeks or so previously. James took ill a few days after the battle and, finally, on 14th December, he turned his face to the wall and gave up the ghost.

But his grandson, James VI, became England's king in 1603.

PS Besides the tiny little girl, James left nine illegitimate children, including the Bastard of Scotland:

James Stewart, 1st Earl of Moray, son of Margaret Erskine, James's favourite mistress.
Prior of St Andrews, Advisor and rival to his half-sister, Mary, Queen of Scots and regent for his nephew, James VI

All round where I live, close to the site of the Battle of Langside, the 19th c. planners seem to have been obsessed with Mary. The street names nearly all have links; there's a Regent, Moray, Queen, Marywood, Fotheringay, Battlefield, Darnley etc and, incongruously, a Boleyn.

One local street is named 'Mariscat'. I can't find what that might mean or relate to. Any suggestions anyone?

I've no idea ferval - perhaps nordmann will know.

The word "marmalade" is supposed to be connected with Mary Stuart. When she was in France as Dauphine, Mary fell ill and would not eat. A French cook dreamed up a sweet concoction of sugar and fruit to tempt her appetite. As he prepared his orangey dish he repeated over and over: "Marie est malade; Marie est malade."

It's a nice story, but probably nonsense.

Could it be a corruption of Marischal? William Keith played a prominent role in Mary's life, first as a proponent of the suggested betrothal of the infant Mary to Edward Tudor which led to nine years of war and then as a member of her Privy Council in later life.

After the 1715 Jacobite rebellion the Earls Marischal were disgraced and the title abandoned.

The marmalade story is not true. The word predates Mary by a century or so in English and as a citrus preserve to well after her death. This from the etymology dictionary to hand:

marmalade (n.)
late 15c., from M.Fr. marmelade, from Portuguese marmelada "quince jelly, marmalade," from marmelo "quince," by dissimilation from L. melimelum "sweet apple," originally "fruit of an apple tree grafted onto quince," from Gk. melimelon, from meli "honey" (see Melissa) + melon "apple" (see malic). Extended 17c. to "preserve made from citrus fruit."

That's the best suggestion I've heard and might well be right. Several of the neighbouring streets, which are a little later than the more obviously Mary related ones, could also be connected with Scottish earldoms. Thanks.

On this day, 75 years ago, 'Snowwhite' was screened for the first time in Los Angeles.