liberty, equality, history

Hunter Scott • aspiring historian; American, French, Russian and Danish history, WWII, the Kennedys, Arthurian myth, the Golden age of Piracy, true crime, ancient civilizations, political ideologies and various other revolutions. I follow from @poeticruins

[marzipanandminutiae]

BUCKLE UP ASSHOLES TODAY WE’RE GOING TO LEARN ABOUT

embracing historical nuance and accepting that the past was fully as complicated as the present

[tracksofhistory]

“About 11,000 American soldiers fought at Brandywine. Lafayette was in the front lines of the fighting. He jumped off his horse and ran among the soldiers. He urged them to move forward and fight bravely. Suddenly another officer saw blood pouring out of Lafayette’s boot. Lafayette had been hit in the leg with a musket ball. He had been so busy fighting that he had not realized he had been wounded.

A soldier helped him get back on his horse. Lafayette and the other soldiers kept fighting. Soon, however, the British began winning the battle. The Americans had to retreat to save themselves. They moved back 12 miles. Lafayette stayed with them, trying to keep his soldiers together. He had only a few moments to stop and wrap a bandage around his leg to stop the bleeding.

The soldiers were frightened. “In the midst of this horrible confusion, and with the growing darkness of the night,” Lafayette wrote, “it was impossible to recognize anybody.” Finally they came to a bridge. Soon Washington rode up. It was only then that Lafayette agreed to let a doctor look at his wound.”

Lafayette: French Freedom Fighter by JoAnn A. Grote

[tracksofhistory]

Tolerance Training For Civil Rights Activists

Volunteers undergo training and preparation for sit-in demonstrations. Pictured is NAACP student adviser David Gunter (left) and Leroy Hill (right) blowing smoke into the face of Virginius Thornton. This was a way to practice keeping calm during the upcoming lunch counter sit-ins.

[morbidology]

Mark Hignett, owner of Oswestry Museum, obtained a number of letters from World War Two. Upon studying the letters closely, he discovered they were a collection of wartime love letters between men. The letters are special because most love letters from homosexuals at the time would have been burned because if they had of been found, they would have been used as evidence. The letters are from Gordon Bowsher, writing to Gilbert Bradley, who was fighting in the Second World War. Homosexuality was illegal in Britain until 1967 and the letters speak about keeping their relationship a secret and travelling to California after the war. 

There was around 300 letters and a chunk were missing. While it is known that couple split up, it’s not known as to why - those letters appear to be missing.  Gordon went to California on his own and became a well-known horse trainer while. A book about the two men is currently underway. Most poignantly, one letter reads: “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if all our letters could be published in the future in a more enlightened time. Then all the world could see how in love we are.”

[tracksofhistory]

Tolerance Training For Civil Rights Activists

Volunteers undergo training and preparation for sit-in demonstrations. Pictured is NAACP student adviser David Gunter (left) and Leroy Hill (right) blowing smoke into the face of Virginius Thornton. This was a way to practice keeping calm during the upcoming lunch counter sit-ins.

[tracksofhistory]

Memorial stone in Denmark, commemorating two British airmen, 1945

“The memorial stone unveiled at the end of a ceremony in a forest clearing at Maarum, north of Copenhagen. The memorial commemorates Flight Lieutenant R H Thomas and Flying Officer G J Allin who died when their Mosquito aircraft crashed at the site in September 1944. The memorial commemorated these two airmen and the work of the Royal Air Force in dropping arms and equipment to Danish resistance fighters who operated from the nearby forest. The memorial was raised by donations from local villagers and former members of the Danish resistance.” (x)

The stone reads:

FOR DENMARK’S FREEDOM WE THANK GOD ON THIS PLACE FELL TWO MESSENGERS THEY CAME FROM ENGLAND TO DENMARK’S COAST AND BROUGHT WEAPONS TO THE COUNTRY'S JOUST THEY BOUGHT US FREEDOM BY THEIR DEATH GOD BESTOW THEM PEACE IN DENMARK’S DEED

[tracksofhistory]

Fire silhouettes the Palace of Westminster.

Date unknown.

[jemmymadison316]

Dolley Madison once asked her friend Eliza Collins Lee to purchase hose for her (a lady had to be fashionable in Washington while hosting events for President Jefferson or her husband). Unfortunately, they were too small and she declared in her letter, “The hose will not fit even my darling little husband.”

Source: James Madison by Lynne Cheney

[thephantomofthelibrary]

“Lafayette’s division was an elite corps of about 2,000 light infantry, made up of carefully selected companies from the New Hampshire, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania lines. He clothed them in handsome uniforms he had bought in France, along with swords, cockades, and epaulets for officers, and distinctive patches and red and black plumes for every soldier. Steuben-style drills each day transformed them into the snappiest, most distinctive unit in the northern army, renowned for their unmatched esprit de corps. Divided into two companies, under Generals Enoch Poor and Edward Hand, the Light Division had four cannon and 100 riflemen and included among its officers Lafayette’s former aide Colonel Jean-Joseph Gimat and a young Virginia major, Henry Lee, who commanded the 300-man Light Horse Corps. They carried their own pennants that Lafayette had fabricated in France, bearing the Latin motto Ultimo Ratio - “the final reckoning.” Although the motto was new to Americans, Louis XIV had embossed all his cannons with the words Ultimo Ration Regum, “the king’s final reckoning,” to inspire fear in the enemies of France. Lafayette bought himself an appropriate horse “of a perfect whiteness and the greatest beauty” for a knight to lead and inspire his men in battle. He was breathtaking atop his horse, leading his proud, handsomely equipped division - truly, the legendary knight of old he had always imagined himself. “They were the pride of his heart,” said Dr. James Thacher, “and he was the idol of their regard.”

— Harlow Giles Unger, Lafayette, (2002< p.120-121

[bunniesandbeheadings]

[Marat] was short of stature, scarcely five feet high. He was nevertheless of a firm, thick-set figure, without being stout. His shoulders and chest were broad, the lower part of his body thin, thigh short and thick, legs bowed, and strong arms, which he employed with great vigor and grace. He had a large and bony face…the mouth medium-size and curled at one corner by a frequent contraction; the lips were thin, the forehead large, the eyes of a yellowish grey color, spirited, animated, piercing, clear, naturally soft and ever gracious with a confident look, the eyebrows thin, the complexion thick and skin withered, chin unshaven, hair brown and neglected.

He was accustomed to walk with head erect, straight and thrown back with a measured stride that kept time with the movement of his hips. His ordinary carriage was with two arms firmly crossed upon his chest. In speaking in society he always appeared much agitated, and almost invariably ended the expression of a sentiment by a movement of the foot, which he thrust rapidly forward, stamping it at the same time on the ground, and then rising on tiptoe, as though to lift his short stature to the height of his opinion. The tone of his voice was thin, sonorous, slightly horse, and of a ringing quality. A defect of the tongue rendered it difficult for him to pronounce clearly the letters c and l, to which he was accustomed to give the sound g. There was no other perceptible peculiarity except a rather heavy manner of utterance; but the beauty of his thought, the fullness of his eloquence, the simplicity of his elocution, and the point of his speeches absolutely effaced the maxillary heaviness. At the tribune, if he rose without obstacle or excitement, he stood with assurance and dignity, his right hand upon his hip, his left arm extended upon the desk in front of him, his head thrown back, turned toward his audience at three-quarters, and a little inclined towards his right shoulder.

If on the contrary he had to vanquish on the tribune the shrieking of chicanery and bad faith or the despotism of the president, he awaited the reestablishment of order in silence and resuming his speech with firmness, he adopted a bold attitude, his arms crossed diagonally upon his chest, his figure bent forward to the left. His face and his look at such times acquired an almost sardonic character, which was not bellied by the cynicism of his speech. He dressed in a careless manner; indeed, his negligence in this respect announced a complete neglect of the conventions of custom and of taste and, one might almost say, gave him an air of uncleanliness.

Fabre d'Eglantine 

[historical-revolution]

Easter Risings of 1916

what was it?

The Rebellion of 1916 or the Easter Rebellion was an armed rebellion during the easter week in Dublin. The rebellion was organised  by the Irish republicans to establish an independent Ireland while the United Kingdom was distracted by the first world war.

What caused the uprisings?

The root of the conflict can be traced back to the “acts of union 1800″ which united the Kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland. This caused Irish parliament to be abolished leaving Ireland with one representative in British Parliament. From the get go many Irish nationalists were against the union that exploited their country leading to depopulation. Irish nationalists called for an Irish parliament in Ireland itself. Several bills to the effect had been discarded by the British parliament since the 1800′s. However in 1914 one such bill passed, but Irish home rule was put on the back burner with the outbreak of WWI.

The Easter Rising 

 In the mean time, a Irish radical revolutionary  group called the IRB ( Irish Republican Brotherhood )  believed that a home parliament wouldn’t be enough and demanded complete independence from Britain and started planning would would become the Easter risings. 

The risings were intended to take place all across Ireland on the 24th of April 1916 but due to various circumstances they occurred primarily in Dublin.  The rebel leaders and their followers ( About 1600 over the course of the risings many belonging to a Nationalist organisation called the Irish Volunteers, or a small radical militia group, the Irish Citizen Army) seized the city post office and the locations of importance. Patrick Pearse (1879-1916), one of the uprising’s leaders, read a proclamation declaring Ireland an independent republic and stating that a government (comprised of IRB members) had been appointed. 

Despite their best efforts the public didn’t support their cause and the British proclaimed martial law in Ireland a week later. The rebels were taken down by government forces. 450 people were killed  and some 2000 more (mostly civilians) were injured,  A large portion of Dublin’s city centre  was destroyed in the violence. 

In May, 15 leaders of the uprising were executed by firing squad. More than 3,000 people suspected of supporting the uprising, directly or indirectly, were arrested, and some 1,800 were sent to England and imprisoned there without trial. The  executions, mass arrests and martial law (which remained in effect through Autumn of 1916), fueled public resentment toward the British and were among the reasons that the push for Irish independence was so strong later on in the 20th century and lead to the partition of Ireland 

[mylordshesacactus]

Please make a post about the story of the RMS Carpathia, because it's something that's almost beyond belief and more people should know about it.

Carpathia received Titanic’s distress signal at 12:20am, April 15th, 1912. She was 58 miles away, a distance that absolutely could not be covered in less than four hours.

(Californian’s exact position at the time is…controversial. She was close enough to have helped. By all accounts she was close enough to see Titanic’s distress rockets. It’s uncertain to this day why her crew did not respond, or how many might not have been lost if she had been there. This is not the place for what-ifs. This is about what was done.)

Carpathia’s Captain Rostron had, yes, rolled out of bed instantly when woken by his radio operator, ordered his ship to Titanic’s aid and confirmed the signal before he was fully dressed. The man had never in his life responded to an emergency call. His goal tonight was to make sure nobody who heard that fact would ever believe it.

All of Carpathia’s lifeboats were swung out ready for deployment. Oil was set up to be poured off the side of the ship in case the sea turned choppy; oil would coat and calm the water near Carpathia if that happened, making it safer for lifeboats to draw up alongside her. He ordered lights to be rigged along the side of the ship so survivors could see it better, and had nets and ladders rigged along her sides ready to be dropped when they arrived, in order to let as many survivors as possible climb aboard at once.

I don’t know if his making provisions for there still being survivors in the water was optimism or not. I think he knew they were never going to get there in time for that. I think he did it anyway because, god, you have to hope.

Carpathia had three dining rooms, which were immediately converted into triage and first aid stations. Each had a doctor assigned to it. Hot soup, coffee, and tea were prepared in bulk in each dining room, and blankets and warm clothes were collected to be ready to hand out. By this time, many of the passengers were awake–prepping a ship for disaster relief isn’t quiet–and all of them stepped up to help, many donating their own clothes and blankets.

And then he did something I tend to refer to as diverting all power from life support.

Here’s the thing about steamships: They run on steam. Shocking, I know; but that steam powers everything on the ship, and right now, Carpathia needed power. So Rostron turned off hot water and central heating, which bled valuable steam power, to everywhere but the dining rooms–which, of course, were being used to make hot drinks and receive survivors. He woke up all the engineers, all the stokers and firemen, diverted all that steam back into the engines, and asked his ship to go as fast as she possibly could. And when she’d done that, he asked her to go faster.

I need you to understand that you simply can’t push a ship very far past its top speed. Pushing that much sheer tonnage through the water becomes harder with each extra knot past the speed it was designed for. Pushing a ship past its rated speed is not only reckless–it’s difficult to maneuver–but it puts an incredible amount of strain on the engines. Ships are not designed to exceed their top speed by even one knot. They can’t do it. It can’t be done.

Carpathia’s absolute do-or-die, the-engines-can’t-take-this-forever top speed was fourteen knots. Dodging icebergs, in the dark and the cold, surrounded by mist, she sustained a speed of almost seventeen and a half.

No one would have asked this of them. It wasn’t expected. They were almost sixty miles away, with icebergs in their path. They had a responsibility to respond; they did not have a responsibility to do the impossible and do it well. No one would have faulted them for taking more time to confirm the severity of the issue. No one would have blamed them for a slow and cautious approach. No one but themselves.

They damn near broke the laws of physics, galloping north headlong into the dark in the desperate hope that if they could shave an hour, half an hour, five minutes off their arrival time, maybe for one more person those five minutes would make the difference. I say: three people had died by the time they were lifted from the lifeboats. For all we know, in another hour it might have been more. I say they made all the difference in the world.

This ship and her crew received a message from a location they could not hope to reach in under four hours. Just barely over three hours later, they arrived at Titanic’s last known coordinates. Half an hour after that, at 4am, they would finally find the first of the lifeboats. it would take until 8:30 in the morning for the last survivor to be brought onboard. Passengers from Carpathia universally gave up their berths, staterooms, and clothing to the survivors, assisting the crew at every turn and sitting with the sobbing rescuees to offer whatever comfort they could.

In total, 705 people of Titanic’s original 2208 were brought onto Carpathia alive. No other ship would find survivors.

At 12:20am April 15th, 1912, there was a miracle on the North Atlantic. And it happened because a group of humans, some of them strangers, many of them only passengers on a small and unimpressive steam liner, looked at each other and decided: I cannot live with myself if I do anything less.

I think the least we can do is remember them for it.

[george-steel-armours]

King Arthur Statue, Tintagel Castle, Cornwall, England.

[thebeautifulcosmos]

The Liberty Bell 7 prior to recovery.

[peashooter85]

Scottish percussion pistol crafted by Martin of Glasgow, mid 19th century.

from Anthony Cribb Ltd.

[your18thcenturynerd-deactivated]

Paine had first caused a stir in America in 1776 with his radical pamphlet Common Sense, in which he had championed the cause for American Independence. He had raised even more of a commotion in England with his latest pamphlet, the first part of The Right of Man, on March 16, 1791.

The French Revolution by Ian Davidson pages 71-72

[slowspinningredemption]

not to start drama in the history fandom but some of yall out there have really bad opinions and also no critical thinking skills

[slowspinningredemption]

also while I’m here: historical figures aren’t your fandom faves. they’re real people who had profound and often terrible effects on other real people. you can’t apply fandom logic to them. you can’t fill in the blanks with no evidence other than you like the idea. you can’t vilify some of them while simultaneously stanning over “”misunderstood babies”” who committed equal atrocities. and perhaps most importantly of all, you can’t treat real history as “canon” and develop AUs where your fave is exactly how you want them to be with none of the nasty bits attached. that’s not how you read history. that’s how you get a painfully obvious bias which makes your conclusions and contributions useless.

[black-brunswickers-deactivated2]

It comes down to respecting history as a subject in of itself. As tempting/fun as it is to stan certain historical figures - for whatever reason, whether it was a mass murderer like Genghis Khan or a certain author or war poet - as tempting and fun as it is to say “achilles was basically just a rowdy teenage boy” or “wilfred owen is my gay son” (and believe me, it’s fun!) just don’t get stuck there. Historical figures get remembered because they shaped society today in their own way, and they were people with rich and varied lives that cannot (and ought not) to be divorced from their original context, as ugly and inconvenient to your ideals as their real-life opinions might have been.

There is no ‘good’ or ‘bad’ in history as there is in life itself, or if there is, it’s subjective and shifts with every new generation of society. Reducing an entire historical figure to two or three facts for fun and treating them as a whole who existed in their time, suspending present moral judgment, do not go together and only one makes you a better historian.

Of course, having an educated respect for the nuances of history and running an entertaining blog are two things that don’t always go together, but I say, let the kids have their fun. Just remember the difference between an interest in history and stanning.