jgo
jgo's JournalOn This Day: Michigan fort captured amid brutal warfare between British and Native Americans - June 2, 1763
(edited from Wikipedia)
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Pontiac's War
[Fort captured using lacrosse as a distraction]
Fort Michilimackinac was an 18th-century French, and later British, fort and trading post at the Straits of Mackinac; it was built on the northern tip of the lower peninsula of the present-day state of Michigan in the United States.
Built around 1715, ... the French relinquished the fort, along with their territory in Canada, to the British in 1761 following their defeat in the French and Indian War.
The Ojibwe in the region soon became dissatisfied with British policies, particularly their cancellation of the annual policy of distributing gifts to the Indians. On June 2, 1763, as part of the larger conflict known as Pontiac's War, a group of Ojibwe staged a game of baaga'adowe (a forerunner of modern lacrosse) outside the fort as a ruse to gain entrance. After entering the fort, they killed most of the British inhabitants. They held the fort for a year before the British regained control, promising to offer more and better gifts to the native inhabitants of the area.
[Overview]
Pontiac's War was launched in 1763 by a loose confederation of Native Americans who were dissatisfied with British rule in the Great Lakes region following the French and Indian War (1754–1763). Warriors from numerous nations joined in an effort to drive British soldiers and settlers out of the region. The war is named after Odawa leader Pontiac, the most prominent of many indigenous leaders in the conflict.
The war began in May 1763 when Native Americans, alarmed by policies imposed by British General Jeffrey Amherst, attacked a number of British forts and settlements. Nine forts were destroyed, and hundreds of colonists were killed or captured, with many more fleeing the region. Hostilities came to an end after British Army expeditions in 1764 led to peace negotiations over the next two years. The Natives were unable to drive away the British, but the uprising prompted the British government to modify the policies that had provoked the conflict.
Warfare on the North American frontier was brutal; the killing of prisoners, the targeting of civilians, and other atrocities were widespread.
[Germ warfare]
In an incident that became well-known and frequently debated, British officers at Fort Pitt attempted to infect besieging Indians with blankets that had been exposed to smallpox.
[Racial violence]
The ruthlessness of the conflict was a reflection of a growing racial divide between indigenous peoples and British colonists. The British government sought to prevent further racial violence by issuing the Royal Proclamation of 1763, which created a boundary between colonists and Natives.
Tribes involved
Indigenous people involved in Pontiac's War lived in a vaguely defined region of New France known as the pays d'en haut ("the upper country " ), which was claimed by France until the Paris peace treaty of 1763. Natives of the pays d'en haut were from many different tribal nations. These tribes were linguistic or ethnic groupings of anarchic communities rather than centralized political powers; no individual chief spoke for an entire tribe, and no nations acted in unison. For example, Ottawas did not go to war as a tribe: Some Ottawa leaders chose to do so, while other Ottawa leaders denounced the war and stayed clear of the conflict.
The tribes of the pays d'en haut consisted of three basic groups. The first group was composed of tribes of the Great Lakes region: Ottawas, Ojibwes, and Potawatomis, who spoke Algonquian languages, and Hurons, who spoke an Iroquoian language. They had long been allied with French habitants with whom they lived, traded, and intermarried.
Great Lakes Indians were alarmed to learn they were under British sovereignty after the French loss of North America. When a British garrison took possession of Fort Detroit from the French in 1760, local Indians cautioned them that "this country was given by God to the Indians." When the first Englishman reached Fort Michilimackinac, Ojibwe chief Minavavana told him "Englishman, although you have conquered the French, you have not yet conquered us!"
The second group was made up of tribes from eastern Illinois Country, which included Miamis, Weas, Kickapoos, Mascoutens, and Piankashaws. Like the Great Lakes tribes, these people had a long history of close relations with the French. Throughout the war, the British were unable to project military power into the Illinois Country, which was on the remote western edge of the conflict. The Illinois tribes were the last to come to terms with the British.
The third group consisted of tribes of the Ohio Country: Delawares (Lenape), Shawnees, Wyandots, and Mingos. These people had migrated to the Ohio valley earlier in the century to escape British, French, and Iroquois domination. Unlike the Great Lakes and Illinois Country tribes, Ohio tribes had no great attachment to the French regime, though they had fought as French allies in the previous war in an effort to drive away the British. They made a separate peace with the British with the understanding that the British Army would withdraw. But after the departure of the French, the British strengthened their forts rather than abandoning them, and so the Ohioans went to war in 1763 in another attempt to drive out the British.
Outside the pays d'en haut, the influential Iroquois did not, as a group, participate in Pontiac's War because of their alliance with the British, known as the Covenant Chain. However, the westernmost Iroquois nation, the Seneca tribe, had become disaffected with the alliance. As early as 1761, Senecas began to send out war messages to the Great Lakes and Ohio Country tribes, urging them to unite in an attempt to drive out the British. When the war finally came in 1763, many Senecas were quick to take action.
Amherst's policies
General Jeffrey Amherst, the British commander-in-chief in North America, was in charge of administering policy towards American Indians, which involved military matters and regulation of the fur trade. Amherst believed that, with France out of the picture, the Indians would have to accept British rule. He also believed the Indians were incapable of offering any serious resistance to the British Army. Therefore, of the 8,000 troops under his command in North America, only about 500 were stationed in the region where the war erupted. Amherst and officers such as Major Henry Gladwin, commander at Fort Detroit, made little effort to conceal their contempt for Indians; those involved in the uprising frequently complained that the British treated them no better than slaves or dogs.
Additional Indian resentment came from Amherst's decision in February 1761 to cut back on gifts given to the Indians. Gift giving had been an integral part of the relationship between the French and the tribes of the pays d'en haut. Following an Indian custom that carried important symbolic meaning, the French gave presents (such as guns, knives, tobacco, and clothing) to village chiefs, who distributed them to their people. The chiefs gained stature this way, enabling them to maintain the alliance with the French.
The Indians regarded this as "a necessary part of diplomacy which involved accepting gifts in return for others sharing their lands." Amherst considered this to be bribery that was no longer necessary, especially as he was under pressure to cut expenses after the war. Many Indians regarded this change in policy as an insult and an indication the British looked upon them as conquered people rather than as allies.
Many Indians believed the British were disarming them as a prelude to war. Sir William Johnson, the Superintendent of the Indian Department, warned Amherst of the danger of cutting back on presents and gunpowder, to no avail.
Land and religion
Land was also an issue in the coming of Pontiac's War. While the French colonists had always been relatively few, there seemed to be no end of settlers in the British colonies.
Also contributing to the outbreak of war was a religious awakening which swept through Indian settlements in the early 1760s. The movement was fed by discontent with the British as well as food shortages and epidemic disease. The most influential individual in this phenomenon was Neolin, known as the "Delaware Prophet," who called upon Indians to shun the trade goods, alcohol, and weapons of the colonists. Melding Christian doctrines with traditional Indian beliefs, Neolin said the Master of Life was displeased with Indians for taking up the bad habits of white men, and that the British posed a threat to their very existence. "If you suffer the English among you," said Neolin, "you are dead men. Sickness, smallpox, and their poison [alcohol] will destroy you entirely." It was a powerful message for a people whose world was being changed by forces that seemed beyond their control.
1764–1766
Indian raids on frontier settlements escalated in the spring and summer of 1764. The hardest hit colony was Virginia, where more than 100 settlers were killed. On May 26 in Maryland, 15 colonists working in a field near Fort Cumberland were killed. On June 14, about 13 settlers near Fort Loudoun in Pennsylvania were killed and their homes burned. The most notorious raid occurred on July 26, when four Delaware warriors killed and scalped a school teacher and ten children in what is now Franklin County, Pennsylvania. Incidents such as these prompted the Pennsylvania Assembly, with the approval of Governor Penn, to reintroduce the scalp bounties offered during the French and Indian War, which paid money for every enemy Indian killed above the age of ten, including women.
General Amherst, held responsible for the uprising by the Board of Trade, was recalled to London in August 1763 and replaced by Major General Thomas Gage. In 1764, Gage sent two expeditions into the west to crush the rebellion, rescue British prisoners, and arrest the Indians responsible for the war. According to historian Fred Anderson, Gage's campaign, which had been designed by Amherst, prolonged the war for more than a year because it focused on punishing the Indians rather than ending the war. Gage's one significant departure from Amherst's plan was to allow William Johnson to conduct a peace treaty at Niagara, giving Indians an opportunity to "bury the hatchet."
Aftermath
Because many children taken as captives had been adopted into Native families, their forced return often resulted in emotional scenes.
The total loss of life resulting from Pontiac's War is unknown. About 400 British soldiers were killed in action and perhaps 50 were captured and tortured to death. George Croghan estimated that 2,000 settlers had been killed or captured, a figure sometimes repeated as 2,000 settlers killed. The violence compelled approximately 4,000 settlers from Pennsylvania and Virginia to flee their homes. American Indian losses went mostly unrecorded, but it has been estimated at least 200 warriors were killed in battle, with additional deaths if germ warfare initiated at Fort Pitt was successful.
Pontiac's War has traditionally been portrayed as a defeat for the Indians, but scholars now usually view it as a military stalemate: while the Indians had failed to drive away the British, the British were unable to conquer the Indians. Negotiation and accommodation, rather than success on the battlefield, ultimately brought an end to the war. The Indians had won a victory of sorts by compelling the British government to abandon Amherst's policies and create a relationship with the Indians modeled on the Franco-Indian alliance.
["Genocidal fanaticism"]
Relations between British colonists and American Indians, which had been severely strained during the French and Indian War, reached a new low during Pontiac's War. According to Dixon (2005), "Pontiac's War was unprecedented for its awful violence, as both sides seemed intoxicated with genocidal fanaticism."
Richter (2001) characterizes the Indian attempt to drive out the British, and the effort of the Paxton Boys to eliminate Indians from their midst, as parallel examples of ethnic cleansing. People on both sides of the conflict had come to the conclusion that colonists and natives were inherently different and could not live with each other. According to Richter, the war saw the emergence of "the novel idea that all Native people were 'Indians,' that all Euro-Americans were 'Whites,' and that all on one side must unite to destroy the other."
[Literal boundary line drawn - segregation not interaction]
The British government also came to the conclusion that colonists and Indians must be kept apart. On October 7, 1763, the Crown issued the Royal Proclamation of 1763, an effort to reorganize British North America after the Treaty of Paris. The Proclamation, already in the works when Pontiac's War erupted, was hurriedly issued after news of the uprising reached London. Officials drew a boundary line between the British colonies and American Indian lands west of the Appalachian Mountains, creating a vast "Indian Reserve" that stretched from the Appalachians to the Mississippi River and from Florida to Quebec. By forbidding colonists from trespassing on Indian lands, the British government hoped to avoid more conflicts like Pontiac's War. "The Royal Proclamation," writes Calloway (2006), "reflected the notion that segregation not interaction should characterize Indian-white relations."
[Leads to further war]
The effects of Pontiac's War were long-lasting. Because the Proclamation officially recognized that indigenous people had certain rights to the lands they occupied, it has been called a Native American "Bill of Rights," and still informs the relationship between the Canadian government and First Nations. For British colonists and land speculators, however, the Proclamation seemed to deny them the fruits of victory—western lands—that had been won in the war with France. This created resentment, undermining colonial attachment to the Empire and contributing to the coming of the American Revolution. According to Calloway, "Pontiac's Revolt was not the last American war for independence—American colonists launched a rather more successful effort a dozen years later, prompted in part by the measures the British government took to try to prevent another war like Pontiac's."
[Pan-tribal resistance]
For American Indians, Pontiac's War demonstrated the possibilities of pan-tribal cooperation in resisting Anglo-American colonial expansion. Although the conflict divided tribes and villages, the war also saw the first extensive multi-tribal resistance to European colonization in North America, and the first war between Europeans and American Indians that did not end in complete defeat for the Indians. The Proclamation of 1763 ultimately did not prevent British colonists and land speculators from expanding westward, and so Indians found it necessary to form new resistance movements. Beginning with conferences hosted by Shawnees in 1767, in the following decades leaders such as Joseph Brant, Alexander McGillivray, Blue Jacket, and Tecumseh would attempt to forge confederacies that would revive the resistance efforts of Pontiac's War.
"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontiac%27s_War
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Michilimackinac
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On This Day: GM declares bankruptcy- biggest manufacturing collapse in US history - June 1, 2009
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016378579
On This Day: Role of uber-wealthy fishing club in Johnstown flood disaster explained in 2016 - May 31, 1889
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016378511
On This Day: 620 men land in Tampa looking for gold; bring disease, swine, massacres - May 30, 1539
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016378470
On This Day: Watershed in history- End of Roman Empire after nearly 1500 years - May 29, 1453
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016378422
On This Day: Controversy aroused after 21 year restoration of da Vinci's The Last Supper - May 28, 1999
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016378364
On This Day: GM declares bankruptcy- biggest manufacturing collapse in US history - June 1, 2009
(edited from article)
"
General Motors declares bankruptcy – the biggest manufacturing collapse in US history
June 1, 2009
At the White House, flanked by his economic advisers and cabinet secretaries, Obama reiterated that the government was a "reluctant" shareholder in General Motors, but said the alternative – extending more loans – would burden the new company with debt and would hinder its re-emergence as a viable company.
In return for its support, the Obama administration is likely to get a 60% ownership stake in the company. Canada's government, which is contributing billions of dollars in further help, will get 12.5% with unions and bondholders holding the rest.
Until it was overtaken by Toyota last year, GM was the largest carmaker in the world. But the company has been hobbled by a collapse in demand for new vehicles from the US market, where industry-wide sales of cars have dropped from 17m a year to fewer than 10m.
GM's US manufacturing workforce is to shrink from 113,000 three years ago to just 38,000 by 2011. Scores of factories across the US are shutting for an extended summer break and GM is slashing its network of dealership showrooms by 40%.
"
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2009/jun/01/general-motors-bankruptcy-chapter-11
(edited from article)
"
The Auto Bailout 10 Years Later: Was It the Right Call?
Sep. 2018
In the end, the officials decided the nation could not afford another big economic hit, and that if measures were imposed to change leadership, business models and labor costs, then the costs would be worth it. Still, Goolsbee and Krueger noted that most of the bailout decision-makers “did not know if it would work.” They wrote that “… we are both thrilled and relieved with the result: The automakers got back on their feet, which helped the recovery of the U.S. economy. Indeed, the auto industry’s outsized contribution to the economic recovery has been one of the unexpected consequences of the government intervention.”
For Wharton management professor John Paul MacDuffie, the idea of letting GM and Chrysler wither on the vine made no sense. “It could have been a domino-effect collapse of the domestic auto industry.” He adds that the bailout decision made sense partly to avoid a much deeper crisis, but also to make GM and Chrysler more competitive in the future. It was true that U.S. auto companies were “badly managed for a long time. GM lost market share for 30 years. There were these energy crises and there were no fuel-efficient vehicles being made by the Big Three, over and over again.”
MacDuffie also points out that a lot of political anger was in fact directed at first at the financial institutions “that did contribute a lot” to the financial crisis and “took little penalty.” The backlash bled over to autos, where it focused more on “the parts of the country that were left behind in boom times.” Imagine, he suggests, how bad the negative fallout would have been in some regions “if those who said, ‘let GM and Chrysler go bankrupt’ had gotten their way.” There would have been a deep sense of abandonment while “the coastal elites, the big banks” were getting bailed out more quickly.
If government aid is accompanied by “punitive effects on existing shareholders and executives, I am a bit less concerned about moral hazard. Going forward, however, I would make sure that creditors of too-big-to-fail firms take a larger hit. It would send a signal that counter-parties need to monitor risk as well and remove the credit-rate advantage of too-big-to-fail firms,” Smetters adds.
"
https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/podcast/knowledge-at-wharton-podcast/auto-bailout-ten-years-later-right-call/
(edited from Wikipedia)
"
General Motors Chapter 11 reorganization
The 2009 General Motors Chapter 11 sale of the assets of automobile manufacturer General Motors and some of its subsidiaries was implemented through Chapter 11, Title 11, United States Code in the United States bankruptcy court for the Southern District of New York. The United States government-endorsed sale enabled the NGMCO Inc. ("New GM " ) to purchase the continuing operational assets of the old GM. Normal operations, including employee compensation, warranties, and other customer services were uninterrupted during the bankruptcy proceedings. Operations outside of the United States were not included in the court filing.
The company received $33 billion in debtor-in-possession financing to complete the process. GM filed for Chapter 11 reorganization in the Manhattan New York federal bankruptcy court on June 1, 2009, at approximately 8:00 am EDT. June 1, 2009, was the deadline to supply an acceptable viability plan to the U.S. Treasury. The filing reported US$82.29 billion in assets and US$172.81 billion in debt.
After the Chapter 11 filing, effective Monday, June 8, 2009, GM was removed from the Dow Jones Industrial Average and replaced by Cisco Systems.
On July 10, 2009, a new entity completed the purchase of continuing operations, assets and trademarks of GM as a part of the 'pre-packaged' Chapter 11 reorganization. As ranked by total assets, GM's bankruptcy marks one of the largest corporate Chapter 11 bankruptcies in U.S. history. The Chapter 11 filing was the fourth-largest in U.S. history, following Lehman Brothers, Washington Mutual and WorldCom. A new entity with the backing of the United States Treasury was formed to acquire profitable assets, under section 363 of the Bankruptcy Code, with the new company planning to issue an initial public offering (IPO) of stock in 2010. The remaining pre-petition creditors claims are paid from the former corporation's assets.
"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_Chapter_11_reorganization
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On This Day: Role of uber-wealthy fishing club in Johnstown flood disaster explained in 2016 - May 31, 1889
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016378511
On This Day: 620 men land in Tampa looking for gold; bring disease, swine, massacres - May 30, 1539
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016378470
On This Day: Watershed in history- End of Roman Empire after nearly 1500 years - May 29, 1453
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016378422
On This Day: Controversy aroused after 21 year restoration of da Vinci's The Last Supper - May 28, 1999
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016378364
On This Day: U.S. president meets Hibakusha - survivors of the bomb - in Hiroshima - May 27, 2016
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016378325
On This Day: Role of uber-wealthy fishing club in Johnstown flood disaster explained in 2016 - May 31, 1889
(edited from Wikipedia)
"
Johnstown Flood
The Johnstown Flood, sometimes referred to locally as Great Flood of 1889, occurred on Friday, May 31, 1889, after the catastrophic failure of the South Fork Dam, located on the south fork of the Little Conemaugh River, 14 miles upstream of the town of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, United States. The dam ruptured after several days of extremely heavy rainfall, releasing 14.55 million cubic meters of water. With a volumetric flow rate that temporarily equaled the average flow rate of the Mississippi River, the flood killed 2,208 people and accounted for US$17,000,000 (equivalent to about $580,000,000 in 2023) in damage.
The American Red Cross, led by Clara Barton and with fifty volunteers, undertook a major disaster relief effort. Support for victims came from all over the U.S. and eighteen foreign countries. After the flood, survivors suffered a series of legal defeats in their attempts to recover damages from the dam's owners. This led to American law changing from a fault-based regime to one of strict liability.
[Private interests buy dam and lake]
High above the city, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania built the South Fork Dam between 1838 and 1853 as part of a cross-state canal system, the Main Line of Public Works. Johnstown was the eastern terminus of the Western Division Canal, supplied with water by Lake Conemaugh, the reservoir behind the dam. As railroads superseded canal barge transport, the Commonwealth abandoned the canal and sold it to the Pennsylvania Railroad. The dam and lake were part of the purchase, and the railroad sold them to private interests.
[Dam lowered, relief pipes and valves not replaced]
Henry Clay Frick led a group of Pittsburgh speculators, including Benjamin Ruff, to purchase the abandoned reservoir, modify it, and convert it into a private resort lake for their wealthy associates. Many were connected through business and social links to Carnegie Steel. Development included lowering the dam to make its top wide enough to hold a road and putting a fish screen in the spillway. Workers lowered the dam, which had been 72 feet high, by 3 feet. These alterations are thought to have increased the vulnerability of the dam. Moreover, a system of relief pipes and valves, a feature of the original dam which had previously been sold off for scrap, was not replaced, so the club had no way of lowering the water level in the lake in case of an emergency.
[Fishing and hunting club for industrialists]
The Pittsburgh speculators built cottages and a clubhouse to create the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, an exclusive and private mountain retreat. Membership grew to include more than fifty wealthy steel, coal, and railroad industrialists. Lake Conemaugh at the club's site was 450 feet in elevation above Johnstown. The lake was about 2 miles long, about 1 mile wide, and 60 feet deep near the dam. The dam was 72 feet high and 931 feet long.
Events of the flood
On May 28, 1889, a low-pressure area formed over Nebraska and Kansas. By the time this weather pattern reached western Pennsylvania two days later, it had developed into what would be termed the heaviest rainfall event that had ever been recorded in that part of the U.S. The United States Army Signal Corps estimated that 6 to 10 inches of rain fell in 24 hours over the region.
Between 2:50 and 2:55 pm [on May 31] the South Fork Dam breached. Lidar analysis of the Lake Conemaugh basin reveals that it contained 3.843 billion gallons of water at the moment the dam collapsed.
Fifty-seven minutes after the dam collapsed, the flood reached Johnstown. Residents were caught by surprise as the wall of water and debris bore down, traveling at speeds of 40 miles per hour and reaching a height of 60 feet in places.
The total death toll from the flood was calculated originally as 2,209 people, making the disaster the largest loss of civilian life in the U.S. at the time.
Investigation and Report
On June 5, 1889, five days after the flood, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) appointed a committee of four prominent engineers to investigate the cause of the disaster. The committee was led by the esteemed James B. Francis, a hydraulic engineer best known for his work related to canals, flood control, turbine design, dam construction, and hydraulic calculations. Francis was a founding member of the ASCE and served as its president from November 1880 to January 1882. The committee visited the site of the South Fork Dam, reviewed the original engineering design of the dam and modifications made during repairs, interviewed eyewitnesses, commissioned a topographic survey of the dam remnants, and performed hydrologic calculations.
In its final report, the ASCE committee concluded the dam would have failed even if it had been maintained within the original design specifications, i.e., with a higher embankment crest and with five large discharge pipes at the dam's base.
This claim has since been challenged.
[Fatal lowering of dam]
A hydraulic analysis published in 2016 confirmed that the changes made to the dam by the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club severely reduced its ability to withstand major storms. Lowering the dam by as much as 3 feet and failing to replace the discharge pipes at its base cut the dam's safe discharge capacity in half. This fatal lowering of the dam greatly reduced the capacity of the main spillway and virtually eliminated the action of an emergency spillway on the western abutment.
Walter Frank first documented the presence of that emergency spillway in a 1988 ASCE publication. Its existence is supported by topographic data from 1889 which shows the western abutment to be about one foot lower than the crest of the dam remnants, even after the dam had previously been lowered as much as three feet by the South Fork Club. Adding the width of the emergency spillway to that of the main spillway yielded the total width of spillway capacity that had been specified in the 1847 design of William Morris, a state engineer.
Legal
In the years following the disaster, some survivors blamed the members of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club for their modifications to the dam. They were accused of failing to maintain the dam properly, so that it was unable to contain the additional water of the unusually heavy rainfall. The club was successfully defended in court by the firm of Knox and Reed (later Reed Smith LLP), whose partners Philander Knox and James Hay Reed were both club members. Knox and Reed successfully argued that the dam's failure was a natural disaster which was an Act of God, and no legal compensation was paid to the survivors of the flood. The club was never held legally responsible for the disaster. The perceived injustice aided the acceptance, in later cases, of "strict, joint, and several liability," so that even a "non-negligent defendant could be held liable for damage caused by the unnatural use of land."
Individual members of the South Fork Club, millionaires in their day, contributed to the recovery in Johnstown. Along with about half of the club members, co-founder Henry Clay Frick donated thousands of dollars to the relief effort. After the flood, Andrew Carnegie built the town a new library.
Popular feeling ran high, as is reflected in Isaac G. Reed's poem:
Many thousand human lives-
Butchered husbands, slaughtered wives
Mangled daughters, bleeding sons,
Hosts of martyred little ones,
(Worse than Herod's awful crime)
Sent to heaven before their time;
Lovers burnt and sweethearts drowned,
Darlings lost but never found!
All the horrors that hell could wish,
Such was the price that was paid for— fish!
Effect on the development of American law
Survivors of the flood were unable to recover damages in court because of the South Fork Club's ample resources. First, the wealthy club owners had designed the club's financial structure to keep their personal assets separated from it and, secondly, it was difficult for any suit to prove that any particular owner had behaved negligently. Though the former reason was probably more central to the failure of survivors' suits against the club, the latter received coverage and extensive criticism in the national press.
As a result of this criticism, in the 1890s, state courts around the country adopted Rylands v. Fletcher, a British common law precedent which had formerly been largely ignored in the United States. State courts' adoption of Rylands, which held that a non-negligent defendant could be held liable for damage caused by the unnatural use of land, foreshadowed the legal system's 20th-century acceptance of strict liability.
"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnstown_Flood
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On This Day: 620 men land in Tampa looking for gold; bring disease, swine, massacres - May 30, 1539
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016378470
On This Day: Watershed in history- End of Roman Empire after nearly 1500 years - May 29, 1453
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016378422
On This Day: Controversy aroused after 21 year restoration of da Vinci's The Last Supper - May 28, 1999
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016378364
On This Day: U.S. president meets Hibakusha - survivors of the bomb - in Hiroshima - May 27, 2016
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016378325
On This Day: Nixon signs ABM treaty; later Bush withdraws amid criticism of a dangerous move - May 26, 1972
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016378281
On This Day: 620 men land in Tampa looking for gold; bring disease, swine, massacres - May 30, 1539
(edited from Wikipedia)
"
de Soto
Hernando de Soto (1497–1542) was a Spanish conquistador best known for leading the first European expedition deep into the territory of the modern-day United States (through Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and most likely Arkansas). He is the first European documented as having crossed the Mississippi River.
De Soto's North American expedition was a vast undertaking. It ranged throughout what is now the southeastern United States, searching both for gold, which had been reported by various Native American tribes and earlier coastal explorers, and for a passage to China or the Pacific coast. De Soto died in 1542 on the banks of the Mississippi River; sources disagree on the exact location, whether it was what is now Lake Village, Arkansas, or Ferriday, Louisiana.
"Right to conquer Florida"
De Soto returned to Spain in 1536, with wealth gathered from plunder in the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire. He was admitted into the prestigious Order of Santiago and "granted the right to conquer Florida". His share was awarded to him by the King of Spain, and he received 724 marks of gold, and 17,740 pesos.
De Soto petitioned King Charles to lead the government of Guatemala, with "permission to create discovery in the South Sea." He was granted the governorship of Cuba instead. De Soto was expected to colonize the North American continent for Spain within 4 years, for which his family would be given a sizable piece of land.
[Four year plan]
Fascinated by the stories of Cabeza de Vaca, who had survived years in North America after becoming a castaway and had just returned to Spain, de Soto selected 620 Spanish and Portuguese volunteers, including some of mixed-race African descent known as Atlantic Creoles, to accompany him to govern Cuba and colonize North America. Averaging 24 years of age, the men embarked from Havana on seven of the King's ships and two caravels of de Soto's. With tons of heavy armor and equipment, they also carried more than 500 head of livestock, including 237 horses and 200 pigs, for their planned four-year continental expedition.
[de Soto's trail]
Historians have worked to trace the route of de Soto's expedition in North America, a controversial process over the years. Local politicians vied to have their localities associated with the expedition. The most widely used version of "De Soto's Trail" comes from a study commissioned by the United States Congress.
Historians have more recently considered archaeological reconstructions and the oral history of the various Native American peoples who recount the expedition. More than 450 years have passed between the events and current history tellers, but some oral histories have been found to be accurate about historic events that have been otherwise documented.
The chronicles describe de Soto's trail in relation to Havana, from which they sailed; the Gulf of Mexico, which they skirted while traveling inland then turned back to later; the Atlantic Ocean, which they approached during their second year; high mountains, which they traversed immediately thereafter; and dozens of other geographic features along their way, such as large rivers and swamps, at recorded intervals. Given that the natural geography has not changed much since de Soto's time, scholars have analyzed those journals with modern topographic intelligence, to develop a more precise account of the De Soto Trail.
[Landing in Florida]
In May 1539, de Soto landed nine ships with over 620 men and 220 horses in an area generally identified as south Tampa Bay. The ships carried priests, craftsmen, engineers, farmers, and merchants; some with their families, some from Cuba, most from Europe and Africa. Few of the men had traveled before outside of Spain, or even away from their home villages.
Near de Soto's port, the party found Juan Ortiz, a Spaniard living with the Mocoso people. Ortiz had been captured by the Uzita while searching for the lost Narváez expedition; he later escaped to Mocoso. Ortiz had learned the Timucua language and served as an interpreter to de Soto as he traversed the Timucuan-speaking areas on his way to Apalachee.
[Guides, slave labor, sex slaves]
Ortiz developed a method for guiding the expedition and communicating with the various tribes, who spoke many dialects and languages. He recruited guides from each tribe along the route. A chain of communication was established whereby a guide who had lived in close proximity to another tribal area was able to pass his information and language on to a guide from a neighboring area. Because Ortiz refused to dress as a hidalgo Spaniard, other officers questioned his motives. De Soto remained loyal to Ortiz, allowing him the freedom to dress and live among his native friends. Another important guide was the seventeen-year-old boy Perico, or Pedro, from what is now Georgia. He spoke several of the local tribes' languages and could communicate with Ortiz. Perico was taken as a guide in 1540. The Spanish had also captured other Indians, whom they used as slave labor. Perico was treated better due to his value to the Spaniards.
The expedition traveled north, exploring Florida's West Coast, and encountering native ambushes and conflicts along the way. Hernando de Soto army seized the food stored in the villages, captured women to be used as slaves for the soldiers' sexual gratification, and forced men and boys to serve as guides and bearers.
[Battles, executions begin]
The army fought two battles with Timucua groups, resulting in heavy Timucua casualties. After defeating the resisting Timucuan warriors, Hernando de Soto had 200 executed, in what was to be called the Napituca Massacre, the first large-scale massacre by Europeans in the current United States.
De Soto's first winter encampment was at Anhaica, the capital of the Apalachee people. It is one of the few places on the route where archaeologists have found physical traces of the expedition.
1540: The Southeast - [gold fever]
From their winter location in the western panhandle of Florida, having heard of gold being mined "toward the sun's rising", the expedition turned northeast through what is now the modern state of Georgia.
The expedition continued to present-day South Carolina. There the expedition recorded being received by a female chief (Cofitachequi), who gave her tribe's pearls, food and other goods to the Spanish soldiers. The expedition found no gold, however, other than pieces from an earlier coastal expedition.
De Soto headed north into the Appalachian Mountains of present-day western North Carolina, where he spent a month resting the horses while his men searched for gold. De Soto next entered eastern Tennessee. At this point, De Soto either continued along the Tennessee River to enter Alabama from the north, or turned south and entered northern Georgia.
[One of bloodiest battles in North American history]
De Soto's expedition spent another month in the Coosa chiefdom a vassal to Tuskaloosa, who was the paramount chief, believed to have been connected to the large and complex Mississippian culture, which extended throughout the Mississippi Valley and its tributaries. De Soto demanded women and servants, and when Tuskaloosa refused, the European explorers took him hostage, [but later gave in to some demands].
[Later], the Mobilian tribe, under chief Tuskaloosa, ambushed de Soto's army. The Spaniards fought their way out, and retaliated by burning the town to the ground. During the nine-hour encounter, about 200 Spaniards died, and 150 more were badly wounded, according to the chronicler Elvas. Twenty more died during the next few weeks. They killed an estimated 2,000–6,000 Native Americans at Mabila, making the battle one of the bloodiest in recorded North American history.
[Moved inland]
The Spaniards had lost most of their possessions and nearly one-quarter of their horses. The Spaniards were wounded and sickened, surrounded by enemies and without equipment in an unknown territory. Fearing that word of this would reach Spain if his men reached the ships at Mobile Bay, de Soto led them away from the Gulf Coast. He moved into inland Mississippi, most likely near present-day Tupelo, where they spent the winter.
1541: Westward
On 8 May 1541, de Soto's troops reached the Mississippi River. De Soto had little interest in the river, which in his view was an obstacle to his mission. De Soto and his men spent a month building flatboats, and crossed the river at night to avoid the Native Americans who were patrolling the river. De Soto had hostile relations with the native people in this area.
Death
De Soto died of a fever on 21 May 1542, in the native village of Guachoya.
[Return of the expedition towards Mexico City, wearing animal skins]
De Soto's expedition had explored La Florida for three years without finding the expected treasures or a hospitable site for colonization. They had lost nearly half their men, and most of the horses. By this time, the soldiers were wearing animal skins for clothing. Many were injured and in poor health.
On reaching the mouth of the Mississippi, they stayed close to the Gulf shore heading south and west. After about 50 days, they made it to the Pánuco River and the Spanish frontier town of Pánuco. There they rested for about a month. During this time many of the Spaniards, having safely returned and reflecting on their accomplishments, decided they had left La Florida too soon. There were some fights within the company, leading to some deaths. But, after they reached Mexico City and the Viceroy Don Antonio de Mendoza offered to lead another expedition to La Florida, few of the survivors volunteered.
[Most of the surviving men stayed]
Of the recorded 700 participants at the start, between 300 and 350 survived (311 is a commonly accepted figure). Most of the men stayed in the New World, settling in Mexico, Peru, Cuba, and other Spanish colonies.
Effects of expedition in North America
The Spanish believed that de Soto's excursion to Florida was a failure. They acquired neither gold nor prosperity and founded no colonies. But the expedition had several major consequences.
[Razorbacks]
It contributed to the process of the Columbian Exchange. For instance, some of the swine brought by de Soto escaped and became the ancestors of feral razorback pigs in the southeastern United States.
[Hostilities]
De Soto was instrumental in contributing to the development of a hostile relationship between many Native American tribes and Europeans. When his expedition encountered hostile natives in the new lands, more often than not it was his men who instigated the clashes.
Disease
More devastating than the battles were the diseases which may have been carried by the members of the expedition. Because the indigenous people lacked the immunity which the Europeans had acquired through generations of exposure to these Eurasian diseases, the Native Americans may have suffered epidemics of illness after exposure to such diseases as measles, smallpox, and chicken pox. Several areas traversed by the expedition became depopulated, potentially by disease caused by contact with the Europeans. Seeing the high fatalities and devastation caused, many natives would have fled the populated areas for the surrounding hills and swamps. In some areas, the social structure would have changed because of high population losses due to epidemics. However, recent scholars have begun to question whether the expedition brought novel disease at all. The arrival of many diseases, aside from malaria, is disputed and they may not have entered the region until much later. The first documented smallpox epidemic in the southeast arrived in 1696, and Mississippian social structures persisted in some parts of the region until the 18th century.
[Native American societies]
The records of the expedition contributed greatly to European knowledge about the geography, biology, and ethnology of the New World. The de Soto expedition's descriptions of North American natives are the earliest-known source of information about the societies in the Southeast. They are the only European description of the culture and habits of North American native tribes before these peoples encountered other Europeans. De Soto's men were both the first and nearly the last Europeans to witness the villages and civilization of the Mississippian culture.
De Soto's expedition led the Spanish crown to reconsider Spain's attitude toward the colonies north of Mexico. He claimed large parts of North America for Spain. The Spanish concentrated their missions in the state of Florida and along the Pacific coast.
"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hernando_de_Soto
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On This Day: Watershed in history- End of Roman Empire after nearly 1500 years - May 29, 1453
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016378422
On This Day: Controversy aroused after 21 year restoration of da Vinci's The Last Supper - May 28, 1999
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016378364
On This Day: U.S. president meets Hibakusha - survivors of the bomb - in Hiroshima - May 27, 2016
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016378325
On This Day: Nixon signs ABM treaty; later Bush withdraws amid criticism of a dangerous move - May 26, 1972
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016378281
On This Day: Maryland and Pennsylvania agree to exchange prisoners - May 25, 1738
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016378239
On This Day: Watershed in history- End of Roman Empire after nearly 1500 years - May 29, 1453
(edited from Wikipedia)
"
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican state of ancient Rome. It included territories in Europe, North Africa, and Western Asia and was ruled by emperors. The fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 AD conventionally marks the end of classical antiquity and the beginning of the Middle Ages.
The Eastern Roman Empire survived for another millennium with Constantinople as its sole capital, until the city's fall in 1453.
Due to the Empire's extent and endurance, its institutions and culture had a lasting influence on the development of language, religion, art, architecture, literature, philosophy, law, and forms of government across its territories.
Fall of Constantinople
The fall of Constantinople, also known as the conquest of Constantinople, was the capture of the capital of the Byzantine Empire by the Ottoman Empire. The city was captured on 29 May 1453 as part of the culmination of a 53-day siege which had begun on 6 April.
The attacking Ottoman Army, which significantly outnumbered Constantinople's defenders, was commanded by the 21-year-old Sultan Mehmed II (later nicknamed "the Conqueror " ), while the Byzantine army was led by Emperor Constantine XI Palaiologos. After conquering the city, Mehmed II made Constantinople the new Ottoman capital, replacing Adrianople.
[End of Medieval period]
The conquest of Constantinople and the fall of the Byzantine Empire was a watershed of the Late Middle Ages, marking the effective end of the Roman Empire, a state which began in roughly 27 BC and had lasted nearly 1500 years. For many modern historians, the fall of Constantinople marks the end of the medieval period and the beginning of the early modern period.
[Turning point in military history]
The city's fall also stood as a turning point in military history. Since ancient times, cities and castles had depended upon ramparts and walls to repel invaders. The Walls of Constantinople, especially the Theodosian Walls, were some of the most advanced defensive systems in the world at the time. For 800 years, the Theodosian Walls, regarded by historians as the strongest and most fortified walls in the ancient and medieval era, protected Constantinople from attack.
However, these fortifications were overcome with the use of gunpowder, specifically from Ottoman cannons and bombards, heralding a change in siege warfare. The Ottoman cannons repeatedly fired massive cannonballs weighing 1,100 lb over 0.93 mi which created gaps in the Theodosian Walls for the Ottoman siege.
The Byzantine Empire
Constantinople had been an imperial capital since its consecration in 330 under Roman emperor Constantine the Great. In the following eleven centuries, the city had been besieged many times but was captured only once before: the Sack of Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade in 1204. The crusaders established an unstable Latin state in and around Constantinople while the remainder of the Byzantine Empire splintered into a number of successor states, notably Nicaea, Epirus and Trebizond. They fought as allies against the Latin establishments, but also fought among themselves for the Byzantine throne.
The Nicaeans eventually reconquered Constantinople from the Latins in 1261, reestablishing the Byzantine Empire under the Palaiologos dynasty. Thereafter, there was little peace for the much-weakened empire as it fended off successive attacks by the Latins, Serbs, Bulgarians and Ottoman Turks.
Between 1346 and 1349, the Black Death killed almost half of the inhabitants of Constantinople. The city was further depopulated by the general economic and territorial decline of the empire, and by 1453, it consisted of a series of walled villages separated by vast fields encircled by the fifth-century Theodosian Walls.
By 1450, the empire was exhausted and had shrunk to a few square kilometers outside the city of Constantinople itself, the Princes' Islands in the Sea of Marmara and the Peloponnese with its cultural center at Mystras. The Empire of Trebizond, an independent successor state that formed in the aftermath of the Fourth Crusade, was also present at the time on the coast of the Black Sea.
End of the Byzantine Empire
The end of the Byzantine Empire did not seem inevitable to contemporaries. As late as 1444, a mere nine years before the Fall of Constantinople, there were high hopes that the Turks would be driven out of Europe. The Byzantines that pinned their dreams of restoration on the West had hoped that they could reap the benefits of another "First Crusade" that would cut a swathe through Asia Minor and allow Byzantine troops to re-occupy the empire's ancient heartlands. However, by the late 14th century, the Byzantine Empire did not possess sufficient resources for the task, and in any case such Western undertakings would have required Byzantium to submit to Rome. If the price for political freedom was religious freedom, certain emperors such as Michael VIII were willing to pay it. In the long run though, the Byzantines were not prepared to surrender their ancient customs and beliefs willingly.
The proximate cause of the problem lay in Byzantium's numerous enemies, who combined during the course of the 14th century to overwhelm what remained of the empire's core territories. With each passing decade, the Byzantine Empire became weaker and lost more land. There were fewer resources available to deal with the Empire's opponents. Her power base was consequently ruined. While the empire had experienced difficulties before (in the 8th century much of Byzantium's lands were occupied by Avars and Arabs), by the later 14th century the empire no longer possessed any significant territories (such as Asia Minor) to form the basis of a recovery. As a result, many attempts at driving back the Ottomans and Bulgarians failed, while the lack of territory, revenue and manpower meant that Byzantium's armies became increasingly obsolete and outnumbered.
However, the most serious problems arose from the internal political and military organisation of the empire. The empire's political system, based as it was around an autocratic and semi-divine emperor who exercised absolute power, had become obsolete, while the civil wars the system produced severely weakened the empire from within, leaving it disastrously exposed to outside attack. Furthermore, the empire's military system had become increasingly disorganised and chaotic, following the demise of the theme system in the 11th–13th centuries. The result was persistent failure and defeat on every frontier.
Byzantium could only lose and decline for so long before it destroyed her; by the late 14th century, the situation had become so severe that Byzantium surrendered her political independence. By the mid 15th century, restoring both the religious and the political freedom of Byzantium was ultimately an impossible cause.
[Shock]
The fall of Constantinople shocked many Europeans, who viewed it as a catastrophic event for their civilization. Many feared other European Christian kingdoms would suffer the same fate as Constantinople. Two possible responses emerged amongst the humanists and churchmen of that era: Crusade or dialogue. Pope Pius II strongly advocated for another Crusade, while the German Nicholas of Cusa supported engaging in a dialogue with the Ottomans.
[Blow to Christendom]
The loss of the city was a crippling blow to Christendom, and it exposed the Christian West to a vigorous and aggressive foe in the East. The Christian reconquest of Constantinople remained a goal in Western Europe for many years after its fall to the Ottoman Empire.
[Jubilation]
The news spread rapidly across the Islamic world. In Egypt "good tidings were proclaimed, and Cairo decorated" to celebrate "this greatest of conquests." The Sharif of Mecca wrote to Mehmed, calling the Sultan "the one who has aided Islam and the Muslims, the Sultan of all kings and sultans,". The fact that Constantinople, which was long "known for being indomitable in the eyes of all," as the Sharif of Mecca said, had fallen and that the Prophet Muhammad's prophecy came true shocked the Islamic world and filled it with a great jubilation and rapture.
[Great transfer of knowledge into the Renaissance]
The migration waves of Byzantine scholars and émigrés in the period following the sacking of Constantinople and the fall of Constantinople in 1453 is considered by many scholars key to the revival of Greek and Roman studies that led to the development of the Renaissance humanism and science. These émigrés were grammarians, humanists, poets, writers, printers, lecturers, musicians, astronomers, architects, academics, artists, scribes, philosophers, scientists, politicians and theologians. They brought to Western Europe the far greater preserved and accumulated knowledge of Byzantine civilization. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica: "Many modern scholars also agree that the exodus of Greeks to Italy as a result of this event marked the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Renaissance".
"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Empire
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_Constantinople
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_Empire_under_the_Palaiologos_dynasty
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On This Day: Controversy aroused after 21 year restoration of da Vinci's The Last Supper - May 28, 1999
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016378364
On This Day: U.S. president meets Hibakusha - survivors of the bomb - in Hiroshima - May 27, 2016
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016378325
On This Day: Nixon signs ABM treaty; later Bush withdraws amid criticism of a dangerous move - May 26, 1972
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016378281
On This Day: Maryland and Pennsylvania agree to exchange prisoners - May 25, 1738
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016378239
On This Day: Judgement of Paris catapults California wine industry, changes wine forever - May 24, 1976
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016378189
On This Day: Controversy aroused after 21 year restoration of da Vinci's The Last Supper - May 28, 1999
(edited from article)
"
The Last Supper or a dog's dinner?
After the latest 21-year restoration of Leonardo's masterpiece some critics can see little of the original
May 1999
Italy's culture minister yesterday defended the country's 21-year restoration of Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper and insisted that the masterpiece, which goes back on show to the public on Friday, has been returned to something like its original splendour.
Giovanna Melandri described the controversial facelift to Leonardo's depiction of Christ surrounded by his apostles as perhaps the greatest work of restoration this century.
But critics have claimed that the restoration has given the world a "virtual Leonardo" - the work of Ms Brambilla rather than the Renaissance master.
Today's critics are equally scathing. "To claim this is the original is pure nonsense," said professor James Beck of Columbia University's art history department in New York. "It's taking art lovers for a ride. What you have is a modern repainting of a work that was poorly conserved. It doesn't even have an echo of the past. At least the older over-paintings were guided by Leonardo's work."
"
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/1999/may/25/artsfeatures3
(edited from Wikipedia)
"
The Last Supper
The Last Supper is a mural painting by the Italian High Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci, dated to c.?1495–1498, housed in the refectory of the Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, Italy. The painting represents the scene of the Last Supper of Jesus with the Twelve Apostles, as it is told in the Gospel of John – specifically the moment after Jesus announces that one of his apostles will betray him. Its handling of space, mastery of perspective, treatment of motion and complex display of human emotion has made it one of the Western world's most recognizable paintings and among Leonardo's most celebrated works. Some commentators consider it pivotal in inaugurating the transition into what is now termed the High Renaissance.
The work was commissioned as part of a plan of renovations to the church and its convent buildings by Leonardo's patron Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan. In order to permit his inconsistent painting schedule and frequent revisions, it is painted with materials that allowed for regular alterations: tempera on gesso, pitch, and mastic. Due to the methods used, a variety of environmental factors, and intentional damage, little of the original painting remains today despite numerous restoration attempts, the last being completed in 1999. The Last Supper is Leonardo's largest work, aside from the Sala delle Asse.
Commission and creation
The Last Supper measures 460 cm × 880 cm (180 in × 350 in) and covers an end wall of the dining hall at the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, Italy. The theme was a traditional one for refectories, although the room was not a refectory at the time that Leonardo painted it. The main church building was still under construction while Leonardo was composing the painting. Leonardo's patron, Ludovico Sforza, planned that the church should be remodeled as a family mausoleum. To this end, changes were made, perhaps to plans by Donato Bramante. These plans were not fully carried out, and a smaller mortuary chapel was constructed, adjacent to the cloister. The painting was commissioned by Sforza to decorate the wall of the mausoleum. The lunettes above the main painting, formed by the triple arched ceiling of the refectory, are painted with Sforza coats-of-arms. The opposite wall of the refectory is covered by the Crucifixion fresco by Giovanni Donato da Montorfano, to which Leonardo added figures of the Sforza family in tempera; these figures have deteriorated in much the same way as has The Last Supper.
Medium
Leonardo, as a painter, favoured oil painting, a medium which allows the artist to work slowly and make changes with ease. Fresco painting does not facilitate either of these objectives. Leonardo also sought a greater luminosity and intensity of light and shade (chiaroscuro) than could be achieved with fresco,[11] in which the water-soluble colours are painted onto wet plaster, laid freshly each day in sections. Rather than using the proven method of painting on walls, Leonardo painted The Last Supper in tempera, the medium generally used for panel painting. The painting is on a stone wall sealed with a double layer of gesso, pitch, and mastic. Then he added an undercoat of white lead to enhance the brightness of the tempera that was applied on top. This was a method that had been described previously by Cennino Cennini in the 14th century. However, Cennini described the technique as being more risky than fresco painting, and recommended the use of painting in a more superficial medium for the final touches only.
Damage and restorations
Because Sforza had ordered the church to be rebuilt hastily, the masons filled the walls with moisture-retaining rubble. The painting was done on a thin exterior wall, so the effects of humidity were felt keenly, and the paint failed to properly adhere to it. Because of the method used, soon after the painting was completed on 9 February 1498 it began to deteriorate.
Major restoration
The painting's appearance by the late 1970s had badly deteriorated. From 1978 to 1999, Pinin Brambilla Barcilon guided a major restoration project to stabilize the painting and reverse the damage caused by dirt and pollution. The eighteenth- and nineteenth-century restoration attempts were also reversed. Since it had proved impractical to move the painting to a more controlled environment, the refectory was instead converted to a sealed, climate-controlled environment, which meant bricking up the windows. Then, detailed study was undertaken to determine the painting's original form, using scientific tests (especially infrared reflectoscopy and microscopic core-samples), and original cartoons preserved in the Royal Library at Windsor Castle. Some areas were deemed unrestorable. These were re-painted using watercolor in subdued colors intended to indicate they were not original work, while not being too distracting.
This restoration took 21 years and, on 28 May 1999, the painting was returned to display. Intending visitors were required to book ahead and could only stay for 15 minutes. When it was unveiled, considerable controversy was aroused by the dramatic changes in colors, tones, and even some facial shapes. James Beck, professor of art history at Columbia University and founder of ArtWatch International, had been a particularly strong critic. Michael Daley, director of ArtWatch UK, has also complained about the restored version of the painting. He has been critical of Christ's right arm in the image which has been altered from a draped sleeve to what Daley calls "muff-like drapery".
"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Supper_(Leonardo)
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On This Day: U.S. president meets Hibakusha - survivors of the bomb - in Hiroshima - May 27, 2016
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016378325
On This Day: Nixon signs ABM treaty; later Bush withdraws amid criticism of a dangerous move - May 26, 1972
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016378281
On This Day: Maryland and Pennsylvania agree to exchange prisoners - May 25, 1738
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016378239
On This Day: Judgement of Paris catapults California wine industry, changes wine forever - May 24, 1976
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016378189
On This Day: Hero anti-mafia judge, wife, police officers, assassinated in massive blast - May 23, 1992
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016378138
On This Day: U.S. president meets Hibakusha - survivors of the bomb - in Hiroshima - May 27, 2016
(edited from article)
"
President Obama Embraces Hiroshima Survivor During Historic Visit
May 27, 2016
President Barack Obama, the first sitting U.S. president to visit Hiroshima, Japan, met several survivors of the 1945 atomic bombing during his trip to the nation.
The president laid a wreath at the cenotaph in Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park and said he visited the historic site to mourn those killed in the bombing. After his remarks he visited with survivors in the audience. He embraced a man named Shigeaki Mori, who created a memorial for American WWII POWs killed at Hiroshima.
Obama said the world must change its mindset about war and focus on diplomacy, signing the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum's guest book with the comment: "We have known the agony of war. Let us now find the courage, together, to spread peace, and pursue a world without nuclear weapons."
"
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/president-obama-embraces-hiroshima-survivor-historic-visit/story?id=39427290
(edited from Wikipedia)
"
Hibakusha
Hibakusha (lit. "survivor of the bomb" or "person affected by exposure [to radioactivity] " ) is a word of Japanese origin generally designating the people affected by the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II.
The word hibakusha is Japanese, originally written in kanji. While the term Hibakusha 被爆者 (hi 被 "affected" + baku 爆 "bomb" + sha 者 "person " ) has been used before in Japanese to designate any victim of bombs, its worldwide democratization led to a definition concerning the survivors of the atomic bombs dropped in Japan by the United States Army Air Forces on the 6 and 9 August 1945.
[People recognized by Japanese law]
The juridic status of hibakusha is allocated to certain people, mainly by the Japanese government.
The Atomic Bomb Survivors Relief Law defines hibakusha as people who fall into one or more of the following categories: within a few kilometers of the hypocenters of the bombs; within 2 km of the hypocenters within two weeks of the bombings; exposed to radiation from fallout; or not yet born but carried by pregnant women in any of these categories.
The Japanese government has recognized about 650,000 people as hibakusha. As of March 31, 2023, 113,649 were still alive, mostly in Japan, and in 2024 are expected to surpass the number of surviving US World War veterans.
The memorials in Hiroshima and Nagasaki contain lists of the names of the hibakusha who are known to have died since the bombings. Updated annually on the anniversaries of the bombings, as of August 2023, the memorials record the names of 535,000 hibakusha; 339,227 in Hiroshima and 195,607 in Nagasaki.
[Government support and medical allowance]
The government of Japan recognizes about 1% of these as having illnesses caused by radiation. Hibakusha are entitled to government support. They receive a certain amount of allowance per month, and the ones certified as suffering from bomb-related diseases receive a special medical allowance.
In 1957, the Japanese Parliament passed a law providing free medical care for hibakusha. During the 1970s, non-Japanese hibakusha who suffered from those atomic attacks began to demand the right to free medical care and the right to stay in Japan for that purpose. In 1978, the Japanese Supreme Court ruled that such persons were entitled to free medical care while staying in Japan.
Japanese-American survivors
It was a common practice before the war for American Issei, or first-generation immigrants, to send their children on extended trips to Japan to study or visit relatives. More Japanese immigrated to the U.S. from Hiroshima than any other prefecture, and Nagasaki also sent many immigrants to Hawai'i and the mainland. There was, therefore, a sizable population of American-born Nisei and Kibei living in their parents' hometowns of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the time of the atomic bombings. The actual number of Japanese Americans affected by the bombings is unknown – although estimates put approximately 11,000 in Hiroshima city alone – but some 3,000 of them are known to have survived and returned to the U.S. after the war.
A second group of hibakusha counted among Japanese American survivors are those who came to the U.S. in a later wave of Japanese immigration during the 1950s and 1960s. Most in this group were born in Japan and migrated to the U.S. in search of educational and work opportunities that were scarce in post-war Japan. Many were "war brides", or Japanese women who had married American men related to the U.S. military's occupation of Japan.
As of 2014, there are about 1,000 recorded Japanese American hibakusha living in the United States. They receive monetary support from the Japanese government and biannual medical checkups with Hiroshima and Nagasaki doctors familiar with the particular concerns of atomic bomb survivors. The U.S. government provides no support to Japanese American hibakusha.
Double survivors
People who suffered the effects of both bombings are known as nijū hibakusha in Japan. These people were in Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and within two days managed to reach Nagasaki.
A documentary called Twice Bombed, Twice Survived: The Doubly Atomic Bombed of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was produced in 2006. The producers found 165 people who were victims of both bombings, and the production was screened at the United Nations.
On March 24, 2009, the Japanese government officially recognized Tsutomu Yamaguchi (1916–2010) as a double hibakusha. Tsutomu Yamaguchi was confirmed to be 3 kilometers from ground zero in Hiroshima on a business trip when the bomb was detonated. He was seriously burnt on his left side and spent the night in Hiroshima. He got back to his home city of Nagasaki on August 8, a day before the bomb in Nagasaki was dropped, and he was exposed to residual radiation while searching for his relatives. He was the first officially recognized survivor of both bombings.[26] Tsutomu Yamaguchi died at the age of 93 on January 4, 2010, of stomach cancer.
Discrimination
Hibakusha and their children were (and still are) victims of severe discrimination when it comes to prospects of marriage or work due to public ignorance about the consequences of radiation sickness, with much of the public believing it to be hereditary or even contagious. This is despite the fact that no statistically demonstrable increase of birth defects/congenital malformations was found among the later conceived children born to survivors of the nuclear weapons used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or found in the later conceived children of cancer survivors who had previously received radiotherapy.
The surviving women of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, who could conceive, and were exposed to substantial amounts of radiation, went on and had children with no higher incidence of abnormalities/birth defects than the rate which is observed in the Japanese average.
Studs Terkel's book The Good War includes a conversation with two hibakusha. The postscript observes:
There is considerable discrimination in Japan against the hibakusha. It is frequently extended toward their children as well: socially as well as economically. "Not only hibakusha but their children, are refused employment," says Mr. Kito. "There are many among them who do not want it known that they are hibakusha."
— Studs Terkel (1984), The Good War.[36]
[In utero exposure]
In the rare cases of survival for individuals who were in utero at the time of the bombing and yet who still were close enough to be exposed to less than or equal to 0.57 Gy, no difference in their cognitive abilities was found, suggesting a threshold dose for pregnancies below which there is no danger.
In 50 or so children who survived the gestational process and were exposed to more than this dose, putting them within about 1000 meters from the hypocenter, microcephaly was observed; this is the only elevated birth defect issue observed in the Hibakusha, occurring in approximately 50 in-utero individuals who were situated less than 1000 meters from the bombings.
Microcephaly
Microcephaly is a medical condition involving a smaller-than-normal head. Microcephaly may be present at birth or it may develop in the first few years of life. Brain development is often affected; people with this disorder often have an intellectual disability, poor motor function, poor speech, abnormal facial features, seizures and dwarfism.
[Cancer]
An epidemiology study by the [Radiation Effects Research Foundation] estimates that from 1950 to 2000, 46% of leukemia deaths and 11% of solid cancers, of unspecified lethality, could be due to radiation from the bombs, with the statistical excess being estimated at 200 leukemia deaths and 1,700 solid cancers of undeclared lethality.
"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hibakusha
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microcephaly
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On This Day: Nixon signs ABM treaty; later Bush withdraws amid criticism of a dangerous move - May 26, 1972
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016378281
On This Day: Maryland and Pennsylvania agree to exchange prisoners - May 25, 1738
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016378239
On This Day: Judgement of Paris catapults California wine industry, changes wine forever - May 24, 1976
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016378189
On This Day: Hero anti-mafia judge, wife, police officers, assassinated in massive blast - May 23, 1992
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016378138
On This Day: Amnesty for Confederates contributes to "virtual apartheid" for Black Americans - May 22, 1872
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016378033
On This Day: Nixon signs ABM treaty; later Bush withdraws amid criticism of a dangerous move - May 26, 1972
(edited from article)
"
Did abandoning the ABM Treaty make America safer?
June, 2019
This month marks the seventeenth anniversary of the United States withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, a landmark agreement from the Cold War that limited American and Soviet (and subsequently, Russian) ground-based, anti-ballistic missile defense systems. Originally signed May 26, 1972, between American President Richard Nixon and Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev, the treaty was designed to limit both sides’ missile defense capabilities and prevent the establishment of a large-scale (regional or nationwide) system that could minimize the impact of a nuclear strike and unsettle strategic stability. In hindsight, the treaty’s abandonment 17 years ago can be viewed as an opening salvo in the unraveling of the arms control system and American-Russian relations we see continuing to this day.
The intent to withdraw from the ABM treaty was formally announced by the George W. Bush administration in December 2001, shortly after the September 11 attacks and during a period in which policymakers were grappling with the new threats posed by terrorist organizations and “rogue states” rather than the decades-old threat of a great-power war. A nuclear weapon detonation in an American city by al Qaeda or a small number of missiles launched by a country like North Korea were viewed as more pressing threats to the American public than war with Russia, and the Bush administration argued that maintaining the ABM Treaty only restrained the United States from pursuing a missile defense system that could theoretically defend against one of those threats (rogue state actors.)
The Government Accountability Office estimates that since U.S withdrawal from the treaty in 2002, the Missile Defense Agency has been allocated about $142 billion for various ballistic missile defense systems, with $67 billion going toward the [Ground-based Midcourse Defense system] GMD program. Advocates for missile defense have continued to point to “rogue states” as the justification for continued investments in GMD, even though its performance in testing scenarios has been inconsistent at best.
Since the withdrawal from the ABM Treaty 17 years ago, relations between Russia and the United States have deteriorated significantly, and despite the rosy predictions by President Bush and his administration at the time, the world is likely in a more dangerous situation today as countries race toward nuclear modernization and the development of new weapons technologies specifically designed to circumvent missile defense systems. Some fear the announced abandonment of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty, along with new Russian nuclear capabilities, could call into question the future of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty and mark a near-complete unraveling of the decades-old arms control regime. Should the United States and Russia seek closer relations on nuclear weapons issues in the future, leaders from both countries will need to reassess the efficacy of missile defense systems and whether they contribute to the mutual goal of increasing international strategic stability.
"
https://armscontrolcenter.org/did-abandoning-the-abm-treaty-make-america-safer/
(edited from Wikipedia)
"
Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty
The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, also known as the ABM Treaty or ABMT, was an arms control treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union on the limitation of the anti-ballistic missile (ABM) systems used in defending areas against ballistic missile-delivered nuclear weapons. It was intended to reduce pressures to build more nuclear weapons to maintain deterrence. Under the terms of the treaty, each party was limited to two ABM complexes, each of which was to be limited to 100 anti-ballistic missiles.
Signed in 1972, it was in force for the next 30 years. In 1997, five years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, four former Soviet republics agreed with the United States to succeed the USSR's role in the treaty. Citing risks of nuclear blackmail, the United States withdrew from the treaty in June 2002, leading to its termination.
ABM Treaty
The United States first proposed an anti-ballistic missile treaty at the 1967 Glassboro Summit Conference during discussions between U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union Alexei Kosygin. McNamara argued both that ballistic missile defense could provoke an arms race, and that it might provoke a first-strike against the nation fielding the defense. Kosygin rejected this reasoning. They were trying to minimize the number of nuclear missiles in the world. Following the proposal of the Sentinel and Safeguard decisions on American ABM systems, the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks began in November 1969 (SALT I). By 1972 an agreement had been reached to limit strategic defensive systems. Each country was allowed two sites at which it could base a defensive system, one for the capital and one for ICBM silos.
The treaty was signed during the 1972 Moscow Summit on 26 May by the President of the United States, Richard Nixon and the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Leonid Brezhnev; and ratified by the U.S. Senate on 3 August 1972.
The 1974 Protocol reduced the number of sites to one per party, largely because neither country had developed a second site. The sites were Moscow for the USSR and the North Dakota Safeguard Complex for the US, which was already under construction.
After the dissolution of the USSR; United States and Russia
Although the Soviet Union ceased to exist in December 1991, in the view of the U.S. Department of State, the treaty continued in force. Russia was confirmed as the USSR's successor state in January 1992. An additional memorandum of understanding was prepared in 1997, establishing Belarus, Kazakhstan, the Russian Federation, and Ukraine as successor states to the Soviet Union, for the purposes of the treaty.
In the United States, there was a debate on whether after the dissolution of the USSR, the ABM Treaty was still in effect. A month after the USSR's dissolution, President George H. W. Bush affirmed the ABM Treaty and regarded Russia as USSR's successor. Russia also accepted the ABM Treaty. Later on, President Clinton would affirm the validity of the treaty, as would President George W. Bush (before he terminated it). However, some Americans (mostly conservative Republicans) argued that the treaty was not in effect because the USSR had no successor state.
United States withdrawal
On 13 December 2001, George W. Bush gave Russia notice of the United States' withdrawal from the treaty, in accordance with the clause that required six months' notice before terminating the pact—the first time in recent history that the United States has withdrawn from a major international arms treaty. This led to the eventual creation of the American Missile Defense Agency.
[A "fatal blow"]
Supporters of the withdrawal argued that it was a necessity in order to test and build a limited National Missile Defense to protect the United States from nuclear blackmail by a rogue state. But, the withdrawal had many foreign and domestic critics, who said the construction of a missile defense system would lead to fears of a U.S. nuclear first strike, as the missile defense could blunt the retaliatory strike that would otherwise deter such a preemptive attack. John Rhinelander, a negotiator of the ABM treaty, predicted that the withdrawal would be a "fatal blow" to the Non-Proliferation Treaty and would lead to a "world without effective legal constraints on nuclear proliferation". Former U.S. Secretary of Defense William Perry also criticized the U.S. withdrawal as a very bad decision.
[Putin responds by ordering nuclear build-up]
Newly elected Russian president Vladimir Putin responded to the withdrawal by ordering a build-up of Russia's nuclear capabilities, designed to counterbalance U.S. capabilities, although he noted there was no immediate danger stemming from the US withdrawal.
Russia and the United States signed the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty in Moscow on 24 May 2002. This treaty mandates cuts in deployed strategic nuclear warheads, but without actually mandating cuts to total stockpiled warheads, and without any mechanism for enforcement.
On June 13, 2002, the US withdrew from ABM (having given notice 6 months earlier). The next day, Russia responded by declaring it would no longer abide by the START II treaty, which had not entered into force.
In interviews with Oliver Stone in 2017, Russian president Vladimir Putin said that in trying to persuade Russia to accept US withdrawal from the treaty, both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush had tried, without evidence, to convince him of an emerging nuclear threat from Iran.
On 1 March 2018, Russian president Vladimir Putin, in an address to the Federal Assembly, announced the development of a series of technologically new "super weapons" in response to U.S. withdrawal from the ABM Treaty. His statements were referred to by an anonymous US official under the Trump administration as largely boastful untruths. He said that the U.S. decision triggered him to order an increase in Russia's nuclear capabilities, designed to counterbalance U.S. ones.
In 2021, Putin cited U.S. withdrawal among his grievances against the West: "We tried to partner with the West for many years, but the partnership was not accepted, it didn't work," often citing it as one of America's great post-Cold War sins.
"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Ballistic_Missile_Treaty
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On This Day: Maryland and Pennsylvania agree to exchange prisoners - May 25, 1738
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016378239
On This Day: Judgement of Paris catapults California wine industry, changes wine forever - May 24, 1976
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016378189
On This Day: Hero anti-mafia judge, wife, police officers, assassinated in massive blast - May 23, 1992
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016378138
On This Day: Amnesty for Confederates contributes to "virtual apartheid" for Black Americans - May 22, 1872
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016378033
On This Day: Ringling Circus closes amid cost/cruelty issues; relaunches in 2023 without animals - May 21, 2017
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016377977
On This Day: Maryland and Pennsylvania agree to exchange prisoners - May 25, 1738
(edited from Wikipedia)
"
Cresap's War
Cresap's War (also known as the Conojocular War, from the Conejohela Valley where it was mainly located along the south bank) was a border conflict between Pennsylvania and Maryland, fought in the 1730s. Hostilities erupted in 1730 with a series of violent incidents prompted by disputes over property rights and law enforcement, and escalated through the first half of the decade, culminating in the deployment of military forces by Maryland in 1736 and by Pennsylvania in 1737.
The armed phase of the conflict ended in May 1738 with the intervention of King George II, who compelled the negotiation of a cease-fire. A final settlement was not achieved until 1767 when the Mason–Dixon line was recognized as the permanent boundary between the two colonies.
Boundary dispute
[Due to an ongoing boundary dispute], Maryland pressed its claim most seriously in the sparsely inhabited lands west of the Susquehanna River. By the late 1710s, rumors had begun to reach the Pennsylvania Assembly that Maryland was planning to establish settlements in the disputed area near the river. In response, Pennsylvania attempted to bolster its claim to the territory by organizing a proprietorial manor along the Codorus Creek, just west of the river, in 1722.
This action prompted a crisis in relations between the two colonies, leading to a royal proclamation in 1724 which prohibited both colonies from establishing new settlements in the area until a boundary had been surveyed. However, the two sides failed to reach agreement on the location of the boundary, and unauthorized settlement recommenced within a short time.
Triggering violence
[After 1726, English-born Quaker leader John] Wright ended up building two medium-to-large dugout canoes kept and tied off on either bank, creating the seeds of an ad hoc passenger ferry business for those desiring to cross. A few settlers moved across, settling mainly a few miles to the north along Codorus Creek and Kreutz Creek, but traffic grew sufficient to officially apply for a ferry license in 1730.
Settlement across picked up significantly that year, probably with the promise of regular ferry service across the Susquehanna, greatly easing transportation difficulties, but the inflow alarmed Lord Baltimore about his ability to assert control and collect incomes from the disputed area. By midsummer of 1730, a number of Pennsylvania Dutch settler families had crossed the river and taken up residence. Determined to counter this development, a Marylander, Thomas Cresap, opened a second ferry service at Blue Rock, about four miles (6 km) south of Wright's Ferry near current day Washington Boro, Pennsylvania.
Owing to the royal proclamation of 1724, the Pennsylvania settlers did not have clear title to the lands that they occupied. Apparently in defiance of the proclamation, Maryland granted Cresap title to 500 acres along the west bank of the river, much of which was already inhabited. Cresap began to act as a land agent, persuading many Pennsylvania Dutch to purchase their farms from him, thus obtaining title under Maryland law, and began collecting quit-rents (an early form of property tax) for Maryland. In response, Pennsylvania authorities at Wright's Ferry began to issue "tickets" to new settlers which, while not granting immediate title, promised to award title as soon as the area was officially opened to settlement.
Outbreak of hostilities
Sometime in late October, 1730, Cresap was attacked on his ferry boat by two Pennsylvanians.
Cresap was dissatisfied by the response of the Pennsylvania magistrate to whom he reported the attack. From this point onward, Cresap would maintain that as a resident of Maryland, he was not bound by Pennsylvania law and was not obliged to cooperate with Pennsylvania's law enforcement officers.
Failed agreement leads to war
In 1732 the proprietary governor of Maryland, Charles Calvert, 5th Baron Baltimore, signed a provisional agreement with William Penn's sons, which drew a line somewhere in between and renounced the Calvert claim to Delaware. But later, Lord Baltimore claimed that the document he had signed did not contain the terms he had agreed to, and refused to put the agreement into effect. Beginning in the mid-1730s, violence erupted between settlers claiming various loyalties to Maryland and Pennsylvania. The border conflict would be known as Cresap's War.
The issue remained unresolved until 1760, when the Crown intervened, ordering Frederick Calvert, 6th Baron Baltimore to accept the 1732 agreement. Maryland's border with Delaware was to be based on the Transpeninsular Line and the Twelve-Mile Circle around New Castle. The Pennsylvania-Maryland border was defined as the line of latitude 15 miles south of the southernmost house in Philadelphia.
Arrival of Maryland militia
Three hundred Maryland militia went to the plantation of John Hendricks (a short distance from Wrightsville) on Sep 5 1736. The militia were under the command of Col. Nathaniel Rigby and accompanied by the Sheriff of Baltimore. On the next day, the militia broke into two groups, one returned to Maryland and the second went west with the Sheriff of Baltimore. The second group was accused by Pennsylvanians of taking linen and pewter from Dutchmen on the pretense of dues owed to the state of Maryland.
Arrival of Pennsylvania militia
Cresap first obtained a patent from Maryland for a ferry at Peach Bottom, near the Patterson farm, then shot several of Patterson's horses. One of the Marylanders, Lowe, was arrested and jailed, but the other Marylanders broke into the jail and freed him.
By 1734, Cresap was again evicting settlers from their Lancaster and York county homes, rewarding his gang members with the properties.
The sheriff of Lancaster County brought a posse to arrest Cresap, but when deputy Knowles Daunt was at the door, Cresap fired through it, wounding Daunt. The sheriff asked Mrs. Cresap for a candle, so that they could see to tend to Daunt's wounds, but Mrs. Cresap refused, "crying out that not only was she glad he had been hit, she would have preferred the wound had been to his heart." When Daunt died, Pennsylvania Governor Gordon demanded that Maryland arrest Cresap for murder. Governor Ogle of Maryland responded by naming Cresap a captain in the Maryland militia.
Cresap continued his raids, destroying barns and livestock, until Sheriff Samuel Smith raised a posse of 24 armed "non-Quakers" to arrest him on November 25, 1736. Unable to get him to surrender, they set his cabin on fire, and when he made a run for the river, they were upon him before he could launch a boat. He shoved one of his captors overboard, and cried, "Cresap's getting away", and the other deputies pummeled their peer with oars until the ruse was discovered. Removed to Lancaster, a blacksmith was fetched to put him in steel manacles, but Cresap knocked the blacksmith down in one blow. Once constrained in steel, he was hauled off to Philadelphia, and paraded through the streets before being imprisoned. His spirit unbroken, he announced, "Damn it, this is one of the prettiest towns in Maryland!"
Resolution
Following Cresap's arrest, Maryland sent a petition to King George II requesting that he intervene to restore order pending the outcome of the Chancery suit. On August 18, 1737, the king issued a proclamation instructing the governments of both colonies to cease hostilities. Sporadic violence continued, prompting both sides to petition the king for further intervention.
[Exchange of prisoners]
In response, the royal Committee for Plantation Affairs organized direct negotiations between the two colonies, which resulted in the signing of a peace agreement in London on May 25, 1738. This agreement provided for an exchange of prisoners and the drawing of a provisional boundary fifteen miles south of the city of Philadelphia. Each side agreed to respect the other's authority to conduct law enforcement and grant title to land on its own side of this boundary, pending the final action of the Chancery Court.
Because Blue Rock Ferry lay well to the north of the provisional boundary, Cresap did not return to the area following his release in the prisoner exchange. In 1750, the Chancery Court upheld the validity of the 1732 agreement, which became the basis on which Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon surveyed the permanent boundary (the Mason–Dixon line) between Pennsylvania and Maryland in 1767. Today the conflict area is part of York County, Pennsylvania.
Cresap's son Michael played a prominent role in Lord Dunmore's War (1774). For this reason some historians also refer to the 1774 conflict as "Cresap's War."
"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cresap%27s_War
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On This Day: Judgement of Paris catapults California wine industry, changes wine forever - May 24, 1976
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016378189
On This Day: Hero anti-mafia judge, wife, police officers, assassinated in massive blast - May 23, 1992
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016378138
On This Day: Amnesty for Confederates contributes to "virtual apartheid" for Black Americans - May 22, 1872
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016378033
On This Day: Ringling Circus closes amid cost/cruelty issues; relaunches in 2023 without animals - May 21, 2017
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016377977
On This Day: Lincoln signs Homestead Act, opening 84 million acres of public land to settlers - May 20, 1862
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016377890
On This Day: Judgement of Paris catapults California wine industry, changes wine forever - May 24, 1976
(edited from article)
"
Judgment of Paris: The tasting that changed wine forever
CNN
In a Parisian hotel 45 years ago, some of France’s biggest wine experts came together for a blind tasting.
The finest French wines were up against upstarts from California. At the time, this didn’t even seem like a fair contest – France made the world’s best wines and Napa Valley was not yet on the map – so the result was believed to be obvious.
Instead, the greatest underdog tale in wine history was about to unfold. Californian wines scored big with the judges and won in both the red and white categories, beating legendary chateaux and domaines from Bordeaux and Burgundy.
“It was a complete game changer,” says Mark Andrew, a wine expert and co-founder of wine magazine Noble Rot, “and it catapulted California wine to the top of the fine wine conversation.” Wine had gotten its watershed moment.
"
https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/judgment-of-paris-wine-tasting-cmd/index.html
(edited from Wikipedia)
"
Judgement of Paris
The Paris Wine Tasting of 1976, also known as the Judgment of Paris, was a wine competition organized in Paris on 24 May 1976 by Steven Spurrier, a British wine merchant, and his colleague, Patricia Gallagher, in which French oenophiles participated in two blind tasting comparisons: one of top-quality Chardonnays and another of red wines (Bordeaux wines from France and Cabernet Sauvignon wines from California). A Napa County wine rated best in each category, which caused surprise as France was generally regarded as being the foremost producer of the world's best wines. By the early 1970s, the quality of some California wines was outstanding but few took notice as the market favored French brands. Spurrier sold predominately French wine and believed the California wines would not win.
The event's informal name "Judgment of Paris" is an allusion to the ancient Greek myth.
When the results were announced French judge Odette Kahn demanded her ballot back and later criticized the Paris tasting.
Method - [only French judges count]
Blind tasting was performed and the judges were asked to grade each wine out of 20 points. No specific grading framework was given, leaving the judges free to grade according to their own criteria.
Rankings of the wines preferred by individual judges were based on the grades they individually attributed.
An overall ranking of the wines preferred by the jury was also established in averaging the sum of each judge's individual grades (arithmetic mean). However, grades of Patricia Gallagher and Steven Spurrier were not taken into account, thus counting only grades of French judges.
30th anniversary - [California wins again]
A 30th anniversary re-tasting on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean was organized by Steven Spurrier in 2006. As The Times reported "Despite the French tasters, many of whom had taken part in the original tasting, 'expecting the downfall' of the American vineyards, they had to admit that the harmony of the Californian cabernets had beaten them again. Judges on both continents gave top honors to a 1971 Ridge Monte Bello cabernet. Four Californian reds occupied the next placings before the highest-ranked Bordeaux, a 1970 Château Mouton-Rothschild, came in at sixth."
The Tasting that Changed the Wine World: 'The Judgment of Paris' 30th Anniversary was conducted on 24 May 2006.
The pearl anniversary was held simultaneously at the museum Copia in Napa, California, and in London at Berry Bros. & Rudd, Britain's oldest wine merchant.
The panel of nine wine experts at Copia consisted of Dan Berger, Anthony Dias Blue, Stephen Brook, Wilfred Jaeger, Peter Marks MW, Paul Roberts MS, Andrea Immer Robinson MS, Jean-Michel Valette MW and Christian Vanneque, one of the original judges from the 1976 tasting.
The panel of nine experts at Berry Bros. & Rudd consisted of Michel Bettane, Michael Broadbent MW, Michel Dovaz, Hugh Johnson, Matthew Jukes, Jane MacQuitty, Jasper Morris MW, Jancis Robinson OBE MW and Brian St. Pierre.
The results showed that additional panels of experts again preferred the California wines over their French competitors.
Implications in the wine industry
Although Spurrier had invited many reporters to the original 1976 tasting, the only reporter to attend was George M. Taber from Time, who promptly revealed the results to the world. The horrified and enraged leaders of the French wine industry then banned Spurrier from the nation's prestigious wine-tasting tour for a year, apparently as punishment for the damage his tasting had done to its former image of superiority. The tasting was not covered by the French press, who almost ignored the story. After nearly three months, Le Figaro published an article titled "Did the War of the Cru Take Place?" describing the results as "laughable" and said they "cannot be taken seriously." Six months after the tasting, Le Monde, France's most prestigious magazine, reported the tasting where writer Lionel Raux wrote a similarly toned article titled, "Let's Not Exaggerate!"
The New York Times reported that several earlier tastings had occurred in the U.S., with American chardonnays judged ahead of their French rivals. One such tasting occurred in New York just six months before the Paris tasting, but "champions of the French wines argued that the tasters were Americans with possible bias toward American wines. What is more, they said, there was always the possibility that the Burgundies had been mistreated during the long trip from the (French) wineries." The Paris Wine Tasting of 1976 had a revolutionary impact on expanding the production and prestige of wine in the New World. It also "gave the French a valuable incentive to review traditions that were sometimes more accumulations of habit and expediency, and to reexamine convictions that were little more than myths taken on trust."
"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judgment_of_Paris_(wine)
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On This Day: Hero anti-mafia judge, wife, police officers, assassinated in massive blast - May 23, 1992
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016378138
On This Day: Amnesty for Confederates contributes to "virtual apartheid" for Black Americans - May 22, 1872
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016378033
On This Day: Ringling Circus closes amid cost/cruelty issues; relaunches in 2023 without animals - May 21, 2017
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016377977
On This Day: Lincoln signs Homestead Act, opening 84 million acres of public land to settlers - May 20, 1862
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016377890
On This Day: Leninist youth organization begins; 2022 version sanctioned for Ukrainian abductions - May 19, 1922
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016377816
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