When William Wilberforce fought the slave trade in Parliament, he felt that it would be wrong to eliminate slavery itself because the salves were not ready. "It would be wrong to emancipate (the slaves). To grant freedom to them immediately, would be to insure not only their masters' ruin, but their own. They must (first) be trained and educated for freedom." Under the bill he fought for, British sea captains were fined a hundred pounds for every slave found on board, so when threatened with capture by the Royal Navy they often cut their losses by throwing the slaves into the sea. The act abolishing slavery in the British Empire (an 1833 item in yesterday's edition of Twisted History) was passed some years after his retirement and a month after his death. He is remembered in the calendar of the Anglican church on 30 July as a Renewer of Society.
Today is the feast of Saint Bartholomew, so we note the St Bartholomew's Day Massacre in France. The idea of defenestration (throwing someone through a window) as a political tool is so bizarre that I just can't help but include every defenestration that comes to my attention - this is the only one I know of in France.
Pliny the Younger recorded his impressions of a volcanic eruption on this day, the first time anyone saved a historical record. His father Pliny the Elder was one of the hundreds of residents of Pompeii who were killed that day, the hot ash that trapped the town preserving the bodies for centuries. Today also marks the completion of the "Gutenberg bible," a total of 180 copies were printed (150 on rag bond and 30 on parchment), of which about 20 have survived. It is also the day that Jane Eyre was submitted to the publisher.
And for those who aren't watching their diets, this is the anniversary of the potato chip.
79 - Following a series of earthquakes, the volcano Vesuvius near Naples, Italy erupted, sending large volumes of ash into the air followed by mud flows. Pompeii was covered in 10 feet of ash falling from the air and forgotten until excavated in 1595. Herculaneum was buried under 75 feet of ash and mud by pyroclastic flows. About a cubic mile of material was expelled over 19 hours, killing about 3,360. It was the first volcanic eruption described in detail, recorded in two letters by Pliny the Younger.
410 - The Visigoths under Alaric, admitted by agents inside the walls, stormed Rome and stayed to sack the city for three days. Tribute of several thousand pounds of gold had been paid to Alaric to keep him at bay previously, but Honorius was unable to provide more gold and Alaric lost patience.
1456 - In Mainz, Germany, volume two of the famed Gutenberg "42-line" Bible was bound, completing a two-year publishing project conceived and begun by Johann Gutenberg but completed by Johann Fust and Peter Schoeffer as Fust had repossessed Gutenberg's printing equipment. Set in two columns of 42 lines per page, it was the first book to be printed using movable type.
1572 - At the end of a meeting with the French king Charles IX, his mother and regent Catherine de Medici, Henri d'Anjou, and their councillors in which it was decided that the Huguenot leader Admiral Gaspard de Coligny must be killed, Charles is alleged to have said, "Well, then kill them all that no man be left to reproach me." Soldiers rushed the house where Coligny was staying, stabbed him, and threw him out the window. At least 4,000 Protestants were killed in Paris in the next three days in what is known as "The St Bartholomew's Day Massacre."
1847 - "Jane Eyre, an Autobiography," by Currer Bell, was dispatched to the publishing firm of Smith, Elder, & Co. Three years later Charlotte Brontė revealed herself as the author, the book has been continuously in print since.
1853 - George Crum, a chef at the elegant Moon Lake Lodge in Saratoga Springs, New York, was annoyed when a guest had rejected two orders of French-fried potatoes. In exasperation he destroyed a potato by slicing it too thin and frying it too crisp for the diner to impale with his fork, but the guest was ecstatic and Crum's prank became a fixture on the menu as Saratoga Chips.
Feast of St Bartholemew, One of the twelve apostles, also called Nathaniel by John - Bar Tholemew means "son of Tolmai." Nothing is included of his life in scriptures, some say that he preached in India but it is more widely held that he was preaching in Armenia and was skinned alive at Albanopolis (now Derbent) on the Caspian Sea. The flayed saint is included in Michaelangelo's "Last Judgment" in the Sistine Chapel holding his skin - the face on the skin is believed to be a self-portrait of Michaelangelo. Patron of butchers, tanners, and bookbinders.
1759
- William Wilberforce, English politician - Born to a wealthy merchant
at Hull, Yorkshire, England, father died in 1767, was raised in London
by Methodist aunt and uncle. Here he met John Newton, the former slave
trader who wrote the hymn Amazing Grace, but his mother was upset by that
religious environment and brought him home, then sent him to St John's
College, Cambridge where the devout William was upset by his fellows but
became friends with William Pitt. Left college to enter politics, winning
an expensive 1780 race to represent The Borough of Kingston-upon-Hull
in Parliament as a Tory - supporting his friend Pitt who had become Britain's
youngest Prime Minister. He supported popular education, overseas missions
(opening India to Christian missions), parliamentary reform, and religious
liberty. In 1784 was reelected in Hull but also returned as one of the
Knights for the hire for York and held that seat until retirement. By
religious conviction opposed slavery in Parliament, contrary to his own
party, from 1788 when he introduced a bill outlawing the slave trade with
a three and a half hour oration, introducing the bill at least 11 times
in the next 18 years. After a Whig administration came to power in 1807
the Abolition of the Slave Trade bill passed. Retired from the House of
Commons in 1825, died on 29 July 1833, buried at Westminster Abbey by
request of Parliament.
War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.
- George Orwell
Ants are so much like human beings as to be an embarrassment. They farm
fungi, raise aphids as livestock, launch armies into war, use chemical
sprays to alarm and confuse enemies, capture slaves, engage in child labor,
exchange information ceaselessly.
- Lewis Thomas
If you put a chain around the neck of a slave, the other end fastens
itself around your own.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Those who will not reason, are bigots, those who cannot, are fools, and
those who dare not, are slaves.
- George Gordon Noel Byron
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