Today, in 1573, was born the architect, Inigo Jones. (Please do not confuse him with the other great Inigo, Inigo Montaya, gifted orator). Jones is one of my favorites and I made a strong bid, defeated by my wife in some of the ugliest back room dealing I have ever seen, to name my son, Inigo. Probably for the best, really. Over a fifteen year period from 1625 to 1640, Jones was responsible for the repair and remodeling of St. Paul's Cathedral (more associated with Wren which is why I give no link to it here), and the design of Covent Garden. There is a nice bio of him here, if you are so inclined. You can see what he looked like in his self-portrait.

Why else is he so cool? Look upon his wonders and weep:

* The Banqueting Hall at Whitehall Palace: "When the Banqueting House in London was completed, it bore no resemblance to anything ever built in England before". Cool, right?

* The Queen's House at Greenwich. If you go here, you can take a virtual tour of some of the rooms and grounds which are available for hire for weddings.

Jones was also known as a set designer and party giver (and there is a nice portrait of him there as well).

By the way, it was a good day for the arts all around as, in 1606, Rembrandt van Rijn was born in Leiden, Netherlands.

Such a short post and yet it took so long to put together!

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Le Bilan, roughly translated, is the bill or the balance sheet. It can also refer to a tally of casualties.

As I mentioned before, there was a horribly destructive period in France during the Revolution, it was known as the Terror. Andrew Cusack has a very good post in memory of the thousands of people executed when the Revolution came to town.

The Committee of Public Safety, an innocuous sounding group, held dictatorial power in France and was directly responsible for the deaths. It was a committee of 12, led by Robespierre. I read that as many as 17,000 deaths can be traced to their hands, many by beheading. Here is a good link on the Reign of Terror. Oddly, if you do a google search on the committee itself, you will not find very much on the terror it presided over. Feels like revisionism to me.

I have friends in France who come from la noblesse in la Vendée. The memories of the repression there run quite strong still and my friends can speak about it as if it took place yesterday. Go read about it here and you will appreciate why. It is very much a forgotten episode in the glorious French Revolution.

So, is it fair to say that the French Revolution was, at best, a mixed bag? I'm just glad that we Americans resisted the worst impulses of our revolutionary brothers.

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Today, in 1789, French Peasants who were "so poor, [they] cannot even afford [their] own language... all [they] have is this stupid accent", stormed the Bastille. I, for one, pledge to honor their bravery by watching my copy of History of the World, Part I, to relive this moment in world history, as it was faithfully recorded by the noted historian and auteur, Dr. Mel Brooks.

If, sticklers that you are, you are not persuaded by the interpretation of Monsieur Brooks, I give you the patriotic pablum put forward by the French Government.

But above all, Bastille Day, or the Fourteenth of July, is the symbol of the end of the monarchy and the beginning of the Republic. The national holiday is a time when all citizens celebrate their membership to a republican nation. It is because this national holiday is rooted in the history of the birth of the Republic that it has such great significance.

On May 5, 1789, the King convened the Estates General to hear their complaints, but the assembly of the Third Estate, representing the citizens of the town, soon broke away and formed the Constituent National Assembly.

On June 20, 1789, the deputies of the Third Estate took the oath of the Jeu de Paume "to not separate until the Constitution had been established." The Deputies' opposition was echoed by public opinion. The people of Paris rose up and decided to march on the Bastille, a state prison that symbolized the absolutism and arbitrariness of the Ancien Regime.

The storming of the Bastille, on July 14, 1789, immediately became a symbol of historical dimensions; it was proof that power no longer resided in the King or in God, but in the people, in accordance with the theories developed by the Philosophes of the 18th century.

On July 16, the King recognized the tricolor cockade: the Revolution had succeeded.

For all citizens of France, the storming of the Bastille symbolizes, liberty, democracy and the struggle against all forms of oppression.

What did the French version leave out? The heroic storming of the prison freed some 7 lightly guarded prisoners, including the Marquis de Sade. Oh yeah, nothing about the horrific terror and abuses which broke out after the Revolution had succeeded. More on that on another day, me thinks.

In an event, on a lighter note:

More in the category of making people feel good, I note that on today in 1906 was born Tom Carvel, founder of Carvel Ice Cream. Also today, in 1832, opium was exempted from federal tariff duty.

Soft serve ice cream and duty free opium, all in the same day. Is this country great or what!?!

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Today, July 13, is not only the day that my most recent parking ticket is due, it was also on this day, in:

*1568 that the Dean of St Paul's Cathedral, of blessed memory, perfects a way to bottle beer (may we have a moment of silence, please?)

-and-

*1898 that Guglielmo Marconi patents the radio.

Taken together, they made it possible for you to stay home, drink a beer, and listen on the radio as, on this day in 1934, Babe Ruth hit his 700th home run (against Detroit).

Coincidence? No way. This right here is enough to make me believe in a higher power.

On a more serious note, today in 1793 Jean Paul Marat, French revolutionary, was murdered in his bathtub by Charlotte Corday. There is a cool link to a small bio for Corday here.

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I came across this little snippet, about how the US time zones came to be created, in the NY Times this morning in an article about timekeeping in Grand Central Station and wanted to share it. I thought it was fascinating and I had never given it any thought before:

Indeed, timekeeping, as it is known today, was essentially invented out of necessity in the late 1800's by a collection of railroads, including the New York Central, a predecessor of Metro-North. Before the railroads, time was a local matter, set in each town according to the sun. Therefore, noon in Cincinnati, for example, would be slightly different from noon in Cleveland. But this was obviously a problem for railroads. Coordination of traffic on the tracks, as well as schedules for picking up passengers, depended on a standardized time system.

"A train could leave Syracuse at 12 o'clock and come into Utica, and it would still be 12 o'clock," said Pierce Haviland, a Metro-North employee who is also a railroad historian. "That wasn't working."

At first, railroad managers set up 100 different railroad time zones, but that proved too complicated. Finally, on Nov. 18, 1883, four standard time zones - Eastern, Central, Mountain and Pacific - were adopted by the railroads. At noon on that day, the time was transmitted by telegraph from the United States Naval Observatory in Washington to all the railroads in the United States and Canada. Twice a day thereafter, railroad clocks were resynchronized with the Naval Observatory's clock.

However, it was not until 1918, when Congress passed the Standard Time Act, that the railroads' time zones became the standard for everyone in the United States.

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Today in history is full of interesting things. In:

*1778 Mary Ludwig Hayes "Molly Pitcher" aids American patriots
*1820 Tomato is proven nonpoisonous
*1838 Britain's Queen Victoria crowned in Westminster Abbey
*1905 Russian sailors mutiny aboard the battleship "Potemkin"

And, I must confess I did not know this and am struck by the coincidence, if it was,

*1914 Assassination of the heir to the throne of Austria, Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophia, in Sarajevo by a Serbian Nationalist,Gavrilo Princip. This incident precipitated a war with Serbia, eventually starting WW I (note, they just found the pistol used in that assassination)

-and-

*1919 Treaty of Versailles ending WW I signed

In between the assassination and the treaty, a grand total of:

*65,038,810 people were mobolized;
*8,538,315 of whom were killed;
*21,219,452 of whom were wounded;
*7,750,919 of whom were taken prisoner or were missing; and,
*37,508,686 of whom constitute total casualties.
*57.6% of those mobilized were casualties.


source for above figures.

Is it no wonder that it was called the War to End All Wars?

* * *

Finally, and on a lighter note, we have some birthdays:

*1577 Peter Paul Rubens, Flemish Baroque painter (Circumcision)
*1712 Jean Jacques Rousseau, social contractor (Confessions)
*1902 Richard Rodgers, composer (Rodgers & Hammerstein) who I mentioned here before.
*1926 Mel Brooks comedian/actor/director (Blazing Saddles, Spaceballs)
*1946 Gilda Radner, comedienne (SNL-Baba Wawa)
*1966 John Cusack actor (Stand By Me, Sure Thing, Better Off Dead)

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On this day in Â…

* 1876, Lt. Col. George A. Custer and his 7th Cavalry were wiped out by Sioux and Cheyenne Indians in the Battle of the Little Bighorn in Montana;

* 1942, some 1,000 British Royal Air Force bombers raided Bremen, Germany, during World War II; and,

* 1950, war broke out in Korea as forces from the communist North invaded the South.

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This is just sort of a weird historical footnote that people might find interesting. The pistol used to assassinate Arch-Duke Ferdinand has been found in Austria. As you all know, this killing was the spark that started WW I.

I didn't know it was missing in the first place.

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The Constitution of the United States of America came into effect today in 1788 as the 9th State, New Hampshire, ratified it. Cool, huh?

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Interesting fact. Today, in 1815, the battle of Waterloo was fought. An interesting link can be found here, where you can see the Turner painting of the battle and, if you scroll down, a great description of the battle. Here is another description of the battle which, while the author describes it as slimmed down, is relatively comprehensive.

By the way, also today, in 1812, the U.S. declared war against Great Britain in the War of 1812.

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Today, in 1858, after being chosen as the Republican candidate for the upcoming U.S. Senate election, Abraham Lincoln gave his famous speech: "A house divided against itself cannot stand".

I reproduce here, some of what he said, because I find it moving and rousing and beautiful and because there is still something we can learn from it today. This is the conclusion of the speech:

Our cause, then, must be intrusted to, and conducted by, its own undoubted friends-those whose hands are free, whose hearts are in the work-who do care for the result. Two years ago the Republicans of the nation mustered over thirteen hundred thousand strong. We did this under the single impulse of resistance to a common danger, with every external circumstance against us. Of strange, discordant, and even hostile elements, we gathered from the four winds, and formed and fought the battle through, under the constant hot fire of a disciplined, proud, and pampered enemy. Did we brave all them to falter now?-now, when that same enemy is wavering, dissevered, and belligerent? The result is not doubtful. We shall not fail-if we stand firm, we shall not fail. Wise counsels may accelerate, or mistakes delay it, but, sooner or later, the victory is sure to come.

I am struck by the parallels to the current war on terror. We need the same national cohesion and steadfastness of purpose Lincoln called for so that, for us, victory is sure to come. I hope we can find it somewhere.

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I want to chat about Magna Carta (the Great Charter), signed today in 1215 by King John at Runnymede. Well, I did want to chat about it, but I don't think I can improve much on what the British Library has to say about it:


Magna Carta is often thought of as the corner-stone of liberty and the chief defence against arbitrary and unjust rule in England. In fact it contains few sweeping statements of principle, but is a series of concessions wrung from the unwilling King John by his rebellious barons in 1215. However, Magna Carta established for the first time a very significant constitutional principle, namely that the power of the king could be limited by a written grant.

King John's unsuccessful attempts to defend his dominions in Normandy and much of western France led to oppressive demands on his subjects. Taxes were extortionate; reprisals against defaulters were ruthless, and John's administration of justice was considered capricious. In January 1215 a group of barons demanded a charter of liberties as a safeguard against the King's arbitrary behaviour. The barons took up arms against John and captured London in May 1215.

By 10 June both parties met and held negotiations at Runnymede, a meadow by the River Thames. The concessions made by King John were outlined in a document known as the 'Articles of the Barons', to which the King's great seal was attached, and on 19 June the barons renewed their oaths of allegiance to the King. Meanwhile the royal chancery produced a formal royal grant, based on the agreements reached at Runnymede, which became known as Magna Carta (Latin for the 'Great Charter').

I would like to add this, though. Prior to the signature of this document, it was understood that the Kings ruled by divine right given from God. Upon the signature of the Magna Carta, the divine right of Kings was curtailed by Man. The significance of this development cannot be overstated and should be evident to all.

While you are at the British Library web site, assuming you've followed the link, I highly recommend taking a moment and exploring the treasures of the British Library. There are some fascinating things there.

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Usually, when you and the radio come into contact, it's by way of you turning on the radio and tuning into a particular station or even program. It's not usually because someone calls you on the phone, from the radio station, to request that you listen to that station. I just got a call from Z-100 to tell me that if I listen and hear a certain song it could be worth $1000 to me. I explained that I was at work and not really able to listen to her station and she thanked me and got off in a hurry. I mean, she'd have to be in a hurry, wouldn't she? She must have over 7 million other New Yorkers to call to beg to tune in.

How crappy does a radio station have to be if they call you and ask you to listen?

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The last military leader of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising gave an interview on Polish television. It was published and translated by Chrenkoff. This is a strong voice, to borrow a favorite expression of the far left, for freedom and justice. Mr. Edelman is a realist. Go and read it. You know you want to.

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Random interesting coincidences in world transportation history. Today in . . .

* 1506, Christopher Columbus died in poverty in Spain.

* 1927, Charles Lindbergh took off from Roosevelt Field in Long Island, N.Y., aboard the Spirit of St. Louis on his historic solo flight to France.

* 1932, Amelia Earhart took off from Newfoundland for Ireland to become the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic.

* 1939, regular transatlantic air service began as a Pan American Airways plane, the Yankee Clipper, took off from Port Washington, N.Y., bound for Europe.

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Well, today in 1954, medical student Roger Bannister broke the four-minute mile during a track meet in Oxford, England, in 3 minutes, 59.4 seconds.

Cool, huh?

Also, while we are on a today in history review, today in 1889, the Paris Exposition formally opened, featuring the just-completed Eiffel Tower. I am working on a small architecture post in its honor.

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