Renegade German war hero who saved French port dies

(Reuters) A renegade former member of Germany's World War Two navy, who thwarted plans to wreck the French port of Bordeaux by retreating Nazi forces, has died at the age of 91, officials said.
Heinz Stahlschmidt was serving as a petty officer in the Kriegsmarine when he was ordered to help prepare the destruction of the southwestern city's port facilities as the Germans pulled out ahead of advancing allied troops. Continued

William Brydon

(Wikipedia) William Brydon CB (10 October 1811 – 20 March 1873) was an assistant surgeon in the British East India Company Army during the First Anglo-Afghan War and is famous for being the only European of an army of 4,500 men to reach safety in Jalalabad after the long retreat from Kabul. Continued

Image: 'Remnants of an Army' by Elizabeth Butler portraying William Brydon arriving at the gates of Jalalabad as the only survivor of a 16,500 strong evacuation from Kabul in January 1842.

Getting beyond romanticism about the Civil War

(Slate) ... For Americans who do not compare their big, homegrown war enough with those on other continents, this can be instructive. After showing Ken Burns' film series on the Civil War to a class of German undergraduates, I was once confronted by a student who wanted to know "why are there so many moon rises and sun sets in this film, and why do you Americans always think that everything that happens to you is the biggest thing in history? Do Americans understand the scale of bloodshed and social destruction of the Thirty Years' War?" To which I could only reply, "No, most have never heard of it." Continued

Photo: Les Grandes Misères de la guerre by Jacques Callot

Fort Towson

(Wikipedia) Fort Towson was a frontier outpost for Frontier Army Quartermasters along the Permanent Indian Frontier located about two miles (3 km) northeast of the present community of Fort Towson, Oklahoma.
It was established in May 1824, under Col. Matthew Arbuckle, on the southern edge of Indian Territory to guard the Spanish border. It was named for Nathaniel Towson, Paymaster General of the Army.
... The last remaining Confederate Army troops, commanded by General Stand Watie, surrendered to Union forces at Fort Towson on June 23, 1865, following the Battle of Doaksville. Continued

Historians Reassess Battle of Agincourt

(NYTimes) The heavy clay-laced mud behind the cattle pen on Antoine Renault’s farm looks as treacherous as it must have been nearly 600 years ago, when King Henry V rode from a spot near here to lead a sodden and exhausted English Army against a French force that was said to outnumber his by as much as five to one.
No one can ever take away the shocking victory by Henry and his “band of brothers,” as Shakespeare would famously call them, on St. Crispin’s Day, Oct. 25, 1415. They devastated a force of heavily armored French nobles who had gotten bogged down in the region’s sucking mud, riddled by thousands of arrows from English longbowmen and outmaneuvered by common soldiers with much lighter gear. It would become known as the Battle of Agincourt. Continued

Photo: "Battle of Agincourt" (Wikipedia).

The Last Best Ghost Town: Bodie, California

(mental floss) By 1879 Bodie boasted a population of 10,000 and was second to none for wickedness, badmen and “the worst climate out of doors.” One little girl, whose family was taking her to the remote and infamous town, wrote in her diary: “Goodbye God, I’m going to Bodie.” Continued

Photos: Library of Congress

A Trip to the Moon

(Wikipedia) A Trip to the Moon (French: Le Voyage dans la lune) is a 1902 French black and white silent science fiction film. It is based loosely on two popular novels of the time: From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne and The First Men in the Moon by H. G. Wells.
The film was written and directed by Georges Méliès, assisted by his brother Gaston. The film runs 14 minutes if projected at 16 frames per second, which was the standard frame rate at the time the film was produced. It was extremely popular at the time of its release and is the best-known of the hundreds of fantasy films made by Méliès. A Trip to the Moon is the first science fiction film, and utilizes innovative animation and special effects, including the well-known image of the spaceship landing in the moon's eye. Continued

Fountains of dismay greet ‘Gandhi pen’

(Financial Times) The Swiss penmaker Montblanc, in a jarring attempt to raise its profile in India, has unveiled a gold-and-silver fountain pen to commemorate Mahatma Gandhi, the independence leader whose austere asceticism was at the heart of his liberation campaign.
The limited-edition Ma­hatma Gandhi pen, priced at Rs1.1m ($23,000, €15,800, £14,400), has an 18-carat solid gold, rhodium-plated nib, engraved with Gandhi’s image, and “a saffron-coloured mandarin garnet” on the clip.
... “If he had seen this, he would have thrown it away,” Mr Modi said. Continued

Photo: WPA/Library of Congress

Thomas Chambers: Setting Full Sail Toward the 20th Century

(NYTimes) His images are like chorus lines singing and dancing their hearts out, ever so slightly off-key and out of step. Every part contributes vocally and vigorously to the whole. The trilling patterns of ocean waves, rounded trees or riverside hedgerows; the sharp-edged mountains and shorelines, overemphatic clouds, glossy rivers and almost lurid sunsets — they all lock arms, and do a little more than their bit. The slight awkwardness amplifies. You see them perform and you see their performance, gaining a greater understanding of the visual appetite by having it thoroughly satisfied. Continued

Photo: libbyrosof

Replica of Wright brothers' plane crashes in Ohio

(Pilotonline) A replica of the Wright brothers' plane crashed Thursday for the second time in two years, seriously injuring the pilot and heavily damaging the aircraft.
Julia Frasure of the National Park Service said Mark Dusenberry was piloting his replica of the 1905 Wright Brothers Flyer III when it crashed at Huffman Prairie on Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton. Continued

Photo: Library of Congress

Le cochon danseur - el cerdo bailarín - dancing pig

"Les prouesses d'un cochon danseur habillé en petite fille. Corto francés de 1907, producido por Pathé, donde se aprecian las habilidades dancísticas de un cerdo... (?)"

Via boingboing

Cumberland Gap, the Notch America Squeezed Through

(NYTimes) - I CLIMBED slowly behind my husband, up the steady grade, my hiking boots crunching gravel, small twigs and dried leaves. The oak leaves had created a carpet of deep copper red in the woods on either side of the path, and overhead lacy branches of hemlock were silhouetted against the sky.
I was not carrying an infant in my arms, nor was I pregnant — unlike some of the thousands of women who followed their husbands through this gap in the Cumberland Mountains two centuries earlier. Occasionally those walkers did not have shoes or even softened animal skins to cover their feet, let alone hiking boots. Tough people these were, and comparisons to our own much different circumstances came naturally as we hiked this trail in Cumberland Gap National Historical Park. Continued

Photos: Wikipedia, Library of Congress, Wikipedia.

1881 census reveals the stories of Jack the Ripper’s victims

(findmypast.com) - The gruesome ‘Jack the Ripper’ slayings of 1888 sparked a pandemic of panic and fear, unlike any London had seen before. The identity of the killer still perplexes and fascinates history buffs today. But despite a wealth of conspiracy theories and numerous investigative books, it seems we’re still no closer to discovering who was responsible.
To mark the 121-year anniversary of the murders, and to separate the myths from the facts, findmypast.com has turned to the newly-completed 1881 census, which offers a snapshot of the victims’ lives just seven years before they met their tragic end. Continued

Photo: Wikipedia

NASA rocket scheduled to create noctilucent clouds tonight

(NASA) - A rocket experiment that may shed light on the highest clouds in the Earth’s atmosphere will be conducted Sept. 15 from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.
The Charged Aerosol Release Experiment (CARE) will be conducted by the Naval Research Laboratory and the Department of Defense Space Test Program using a NASA four-stage Black Brant XII suborbital sounding rocket. Using ground based instruments and the STP/NRL STPSat-1 spacecraft, scientists will study an artificial noctilucent cloud formed by the exhaust particles of the rocket’s fourth stage at about 173 miles altitude.
The launch is scheduled between 7:30 and 7:57 p.m. EDT. The backup launch days are Sept. 16 through 20. The rocket flight and the resulting cloud may be seen throughout the mid-Atlantic region. The artificial noctilucent cloud also may be visible the following morning just before sunrise. Continued

Photos: NASA

300-year-old shackles may hold ghoulish tale

(Reuters) - An iron ball and chain found on the banks of London's River Thames is causing a stir among archaeologists who say the 300-year-old artifact used to restrain convicts on ships may have a gruesome story to tell.
The leg irons, believed to date from the 17th or 18th century, were pulled from the mud with the lock fastened, suggesting a convict could have drowned while trying to escape.
The prospect conjures up a tantalizing tale reminiscent of the work of 19th-century Victorian author Charles Dickens, said Museum of London archaeologist Kate Sumnall, who examined the find. Continued

Photo: Magwitch and Pip, from the 1946 production of "Great Expectations." (Highly recommended!)

Steinbeck Country: Weedpatch Migrant Camp

(Newsweek) - Doris Weddell, Weedpatch camp historian, talks about what remains of the migrant camp made famous in "The Grapes of Wrath."

Rebel Rebel

(NYTBR) - The Civil War was not a simple collision of opposites. There was internal dissent on each side: Northerners who wanted to placate the South, Southerners loyal to the Union, and thousands of deserters from both armies.
In “The State of Jones,” Sally Jenkins, a Washington Post reporter, and John Stauffer, a Harvard historian, recreate the life and times of the bold Southern dissenter Newton Knight. Continued

Photo: Poster from the movie "Tap Roots ... a 1948 period film set during the American Civil War. It is very loosely based on the true life story of Newton Knight, a farm owner who attempted to secede Jones County from Mississippi." (Wikipedia)

What Really Killed Mozart?

(NYTimes) - Scandalous rumors about popular musicians were just as lurid in the 18th century as they are today, but they moved at a more deliberate pace. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died on Dec. 5, 1791, and it took a whole week for a Berlin newspaper to announce that he had been poisoned. The actual cause of death, a new study suggests, may have been more pedestrian: a strep infection. Continued

Photo: Wikipedia

On the 40th Anniversary of Woodstock

(Paul Krassner) - ... Hippies became freaks. Negroes became blacks. Girls became women. Richard Alpert became Baba Ram Dass. Hugh Romney became Wavy Gravy, and his wife became Jahanarah. Yippie organizer Keith Lampe became Ponderosa Pine, and his girlfriend became Olive Tree. My sister Marge became Thais. San Francisco Oracle editor Allen Cohen became Siddartha and moved to a commune where everybody called him Sid. They thought his name was Sid Arthur.
But the seeds that were planted then continue to blossom now. And the spirit of Woodstock continues to be celebrated at such events as the Rainbow Gathering, Burning Man, Earthdance, the Oregon County Fair, the Starwood Neo-Pagan Festival, Pete Seeger's Clearwater Festival, the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival, and yes, the electronic magic montage of musicians and singers around the globe performing "Stand By Me" on YouTube. Continued

Photo: Library of Congress

Where is the Arctic Sea?

The Arctic Sea is missing. Nobody has seen or heard from it since the end of July. MV Arctic Sea, a cargo ship, set out from Finland, carrying a load of timber bound for Algeria, when it was boarded by men dressed as police officers, off the coast of Sweden. The men, who most likely were not police officers, tied up the crew, searched the ship, stole some equipment, and left. At least, that's how it was reported. Continued

Photo: Cargo ship in Port of Baltimore