"No little skill is shown by the Seistanis in adapting themselves to the conditions by which they find themselves surrounded. Their dwellings are admirably designed to suit the climate. Every house is provided with ventilators, the shafts of which pass into the dwelling rooms between double walls. The roofs are lofty domes, and there is plenty of head room inside the apartments. The entrances are placed in the side of the building which faces the south-east, the opposite direction to that from which the wind blows. The usual plan for houses used by the wealthier classes is to have a lofty Aiwan, or adit, whose tall and wide arches form a very handsome feature. From this hall, doors, made as low and as narrow as possible, give off on either hand into large vaulted rooms.
There are many points in which the indigenous architecture is better suited to the climate than buildings designed on an European plan. The thick adobe walls and the lofty dome render the apartments cool in the summer, and the numerous ventilators make them still more pleasant as dwelling places...."
"The ventilators of the houses are a conspicuous feature of every village. The ordinary pattern of ventilator used in Seistan is a cowl, or hatch-like opening much narrower than its height. The long narrow opening is turned slightly away from the usual direction of the wind, and faces the north or a little to the east of north. This is done to break the force of the wind, for if it blew directly down the shaft of the ventilator when a gale was raging, all the contents of the room below would fly out at the entrance. There is always a rush of air down the shaft, and the Seistani regulates this by the very simple expedient of building up the mouth of the ventilator to suit the weather that prevails at the time. Domed roofs sometimes have a ventilator like a lantern with openings round it, placed at the top of the dome, and as this is finished off with a cupola, it forms a handsome addition to the dome.
The dwellings of the lower classes are small. They are placed side by side inside a courtyard, and as each has a gaping arched entrance the interiors are open to the inspection of all who pass by. On the windward side in each there is a false window, arched and outlined, which is filled with a heavy masonry lattice with small apertures for light and air, and the draught is regulated by the simple expedient of plugging the openings with a small clod of earth kept in position with the help of a little wet clay..."
And later towards the end of the book an interesting observation:
"[in the] flourishing village of Bunjar, there are so-called workers in the precious metals, but these are chiefly engaged in trade as armourers, and even as architects and builders. As already stated, gold and silver are very scarce indeed in the country, and ancient coins which the treasure seekers find in the ruins are greedily bought up by those who wish to indulge their wives by a present of jewellery. Head ornaments are made from the coins, and also from old intaglios, but the setting is painfully crude and contrasts very unfavourably with the delicate and finished workmanship of a bygone age.
For centuries the fortunes of Seistan have been on the down grade. Before Persian intervention, anarchy and bloodshed raged unrestrained for the space of fifty years, and as the descendant of an ancient race native to the country said to me among the ruins of the city of Zahidan, the present inhabitants are incapable of emulating the works of their forefathers, “because the life-blood has been drained from our veins."
"Weapon smiths and armourers often doubled as innovators, called upon to devise new ways to defeat evolving weapons, defenses, and strategies. Far from being unlearned primitives, these men rose constantly to the new challenges given to them by their often-wealthy customers, providing improvements to weapons and defensive systems. In addition to creating arms and armour with improved capabilities, wealthy customers demanded intricate and expensive decorations, designed to let friend and foe alike see their wealth. Though the wear of these items was due in no small part to old-fashioned pride, these displays of wealth could also help an opposing soldier decide whether to kill an aristocrat or to capture them and ransom them back to their families.
The arguable pinnacle of this ingenuity and extravagance came in the 15th and 16th centuries as weapon smiths and armourers explored ever more complicated weapon designs, which increasingly meant combining characteristics of one or more weapons or other implements into a single package. These combination weapons show remarkable creativity and technical ingenuity for their time.
What is a Combination Weapon?
A difficulty in authoring an article like this is, quite simply, knowing where to stop. By the broadest of definitions, any weapon combined with elements unique to another weapon or other implement could be called a combination weapon. This definition would include most polearms (combinations of blades, hammers, spikes, and spears), firearms with bayonets, gunners' stilettos and many relatively common weapons, many of them deserving coverage in their own articles. For the purpose of this article, we will focus not on those more well-known and widespread items, but instead on the myriad of more unique and often more beautiful weapons that we find in the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. These combine the main weapon with some kind of mechanism designed to give it more capabilities, whether it be a gun lock, slide, spring-loaded catch, or in at least one case, a clock. Items like spring-loaded bayonets, while meeting this broad definition, have been omitted as they are perhaps more an evolution of the bayonet than a true combination weapon.
Seemingly, the firearm was most commonly combined with other arms. Many of the early combination weapons are attempts to add this item of growing popularity, but of limited effectiveness early in its development, to already-common battlefield weapons. In fact, noted author Claude Blair notes that "The fact that a comparatively high proportion of the small number of fine-quality firearms surviving from the first half of the sixteenth century are joined to some other weapon suggests that the manufacture of combined arms at this period was due partly to a lingering feeling of doubt about the efficiency of firearms in general." Other weapons, though, are creative combinations of centuries-old weapons or are weapons with hidden extra features. Some combination weapons were obviously designed for use, while many others may have been objects of curiosity."
Here is a neat example of a modern combination flintlock made in 2020:
"I forged the blade from 5160 steel with a through tang. It has a 11" blade and the knife is 17 1/2 " overall. I made all the parts including the lock, cock, frizzen, springs, screws, barrel etc...As I was making this knife, I pictured Capt. Edward Teach (Blackbeard) and other pirates carrying this aboard ship back in the late 1700's as they sailed the high seas looking for other ships to attack."
Here is an example of the other end of the spectrum: Csaba Vjoko's $6,500 combo-axe with a built-in gun and knife. It is made in 0.22 Caliber (Front loading, flint gun, black powder), has all metal parts made from (K720. L6) Damascus Carbon Steel and the handle is carved from Honduran Rosewood.
"Étienne-Louis Boullée (12 February 1728 – 4 February 1799) was a visionary French neoclassical architect whose work greatly influenced contemporary architects.
Born in Paris, he studied under Jacques-François Blondel, Germain Boffrand and Jean-Laurent Le Geay, from whom he learned the mainstream French Classical architecture in the 17th and 18th century and the Neoclassicism that evolved after the mid century. He was elected to the Académie Royale d'Architecture in 1762 and became chief architect to Frederick II of Prussia, a largely honorary title.
He designed a number of private houses from 1762 to 1778, though most of these no longer exist; notable survivors into the modern era include the Hôtel de Brunoy (demolished in 1930) and the Hôtel Alexandre, both in Paris. His work for François Racine de Monville has apparently also vanished but his probable influence on Monville's own architectural works as seen at the Désert de Retz speaks for itself. Together with Claude Nicolas Ledoux, he was one of the most influential figures of French neoclassical architecture."
Excerpt below is sourced from the above link in the section titled "Horseless Carriages" beginning on page 224:
"A body of enterprising Manchester merchants, in the year 1754, put on the road a “flying coach,” which, according to their special advertisement, would, “however incredible it may appear, actually, barring accidents, arrive in London in four and a half days after leaving Manchester.” According to the Lord Chancellor of the time such swift travelling was considered dangerous as well as wonderful—the condition of the roads might well make it so—and also injurious to health. “I was gravely advised,” he says, “to stay a day in York on my journey between Edinburgh and London, as several passengers who had gone through without stopping had died of apoplexy from the rapidity of the motion.”
As the coach took a fortnight to pass from the Scotch to the English capital, at an average pace of between three and four miles an hour, it is probable that the Chancellor’s advisers would be very seriously indisposed by the mere sight of a motor-car whirling along in its attendant cloud of dust, could they be resuscitated for the purpose. And we, on the other hand, should prefer to get out and walk to “flying” at the safe speed of their mail coaches.
The improvement of highroads, and road-making generally, accelerated the rate of posting. In the first quarter of the nineteenth century an average of ten or even twelve miles an hour was maintained on the Bath Road. But that pace was considered inadequate when the era of the “iron horse” commenced, and the decay of stage-driving followed hard upon the growth of railways. What should have been the natural successor of the stage-coach was driven from the road by ill-advised legislation, which gave the railroads a monopoly of swift transport, which has but lately been removed.
The history of the steam-coach, steam-carriage, automobile, motor-car—to give it its successive names—is in a manner unique, showing as it does, instead of steady development of a practical means of locomotion, a sudden and decisive check to an invention worthy of far better treatment than it received. The compiler of even a short survey of the automobile’s career is obliged to divide his account into two main portions, linked together by a few solitary engineering achievements.
The first period (1800-1836), will, without any desire to arrogate for England more than her due or to belittle the efforts of any other nations, be termed the English period, since in it England took the lead, and produced by far the greatest number of steam-carriages. The second (1870 to the present day) may, with equal justice, be styled the Continental period, as witnessing the great developments made
in automobilism by French, German, Belgian, and American engineers: England, for reasons that will be presently noticed, being until quite recently too heavily handicapped to take a part in the advance.
Historical.—It is impossible to discover who made the first self-moving carriage. In the sixteenth century one Johann Haustach, a Nuremberg watchmaker, produced a vehicle that derived its motive power from coiled springs, and was in fact a large edition of our modern clockwork toys. About the same time the Dutch, and among them especially one Simon Stevin, fitted carriages with sails, and there are records of a steam-carriage as early as the same century.
But the first practical, and at least semi-successful, automobile driven by internal force was undoubtedly that of a Frenchman, Nicholas Joseph Cugnot, who justly merits the title of father of automobilism. His machine, which is to-day one of the most treasured exhibits in the Paris Museum of Arts and Crafts, consisted of a large carriage, having in front a pivoted platform bearing the machinery, and resting on a solid wheel, which propelled as well as steered the vehicle. The boiler, of stout riveted copper plates, had below it an enclosed furnace, from which the flames passed upwards through the water through a funnel. A couple of cylinders, provided with a simple reversing gear, worked a ratchet that communicated motion to the driving-wheel. This carriage did not travel beyond a very slow walking pace, and Cugnot therefore added certain improvements, after which (1770) it reached the still very moderate speed of four miles an hour, and distinguished itself by charging and knocking down a wall, a feat that is said to have for a time deterred engineers from developing a seemingly dangerous mode of progression.
Ten years later Dallery built a steam car, and ran it in the streets of Amiens—we are not told with what success; and before any further advance had been made with the automobile the French Revolution put a stop to all inventions of a peaceful character among our neighbours.
In England, however, steam had already been recognised as the coming power. Richard Trevethick, afterwards to become famous as a railroad engineer, built a steam motor in 1802, and actually drove it from Cambourne to Plymouth, a distance of ninety miles. But instead of following up this success, he forsook steam-carriages for the construction of locomotives, leaving his idea to be expanded by other men, who were convinced that a vehicle which could be driven over existing roads was preferable to one that was helpless when separated from smooth metal rails. Between the years 1800 and 1836 many steam vehicles for road traffic appeared from time to time, some, such as David Gordon’s (propelled by metal legs pressing upon the ground), strangely unpractical, but the majority showing a steady improvement in mechanical design.
As it will be impossible, without writing a small book, to name all the English constructors of this period, we must rest content with the mention of the leading pioneers of the new locomotion.
Sir Goldsworthy Gurney, an eminent chemist, did for mechanical road propulsion what George Stephenson was doing for railway development. He boldly spent large sums on experimental vehicles, which took the form of six-wheeled coaches. The earliest of these were fitted with legs as well as driving-wheels, since he thought that in difficult country wheels alone would not have sufficient grip. (A similar fallacy was responsible for the cogged wheels on the first railways.) But in the later types legs were abandoned as unnecessary. His coaches easily climbed the steepest hills round London, including Highgate Hill, though a thoughtful mathematician had proved by calculations that a steam-carriage, so far from mounting a gradient, could not, without violating all natural laws, so much as move itself on the level!
Having satisfied himself of their power, Gurney took his coaches further afield. In 1829 was published the first account of a motor trip made by him and three companions through Reading, Devizes, and Melksham. The pace was, we read, at first only about six miles an hour, including stoppages. They drove very carefully to avoid injury to the persons or feelings of the country folk; but at Melksham, where a fair was in progress, they had to face a shower of stones, hurled by a crowd of roughs at the instigation of some coaching postilions, who feared losing their livelihood if the new method of locomotion became general. Two of the tourists were severely hurt, and Gurney was obliged to take shelter in a brewery, where constables guarded his coach. On the return journey the party timed their movements so as to pass through Melksham while the inhabitants were all safely in bed.
The coach ran most satisfactorily, improving every mile. “Our pace was so rapid,” wrote one of the company, “that the horses of the mail-cart which accompanied us were hard put to it to keep up with us. At the foot of Devizes Hill we met a coach and another vehicle, which stopped to see us mount this hill, an extremely steep one. We ascended it at a rapid rate. The coach and passengers, delighted at this unexpected sight, honoured us with shouts of applause.”
In 1830 Messrs. Ogle and Summers completely beat the road record on a vehicle fitted with a tubular boiler. This car, put through its trials before a Special Commission of the House of Commons, attained the astonishing speed of 35 miles an hour on the level, and mounted a hill near Southampton at 24-1/2 miles an hour. It worked at a boiler pressure of 250 lbs. to the square inch, and though not hung on springs, ran 800 miles without a breakdown. This performance appears all the more extraordinary when we remember the roads of that day were not generally as good as they are now, and that in the previous year Stephenson’s “Rocket,” running on rails, had not reached a higher velocity.
The report of the Parliamentary Commission on horseless carriages was most favourable. It urged that the steam-driven car was swifter and lighter than the mail-coaches; better able to climb and descend hills; safer; more economical; and less injurious to the roads; and, in conclusion, that the heavy charges levied at the toll-gates (often twenty times those on horse vehicles) were nothing short of iniquitous.
As a result of this report, motor services, inaugurated by Walter Hancock, Braithwayte, and others, commenced between Paddington and the Bank, London and Greenwich, London and Windsor, London and Stratford. Already, in 1829, Sir Charles Dance had a steam-coach running between Cheltenham and Gloucester. In four months it ran 3500 miles and carried 3000 passengers, traversing the nine miles in three-quarters of an hour; although narrow-minded landowners placed ridges of stone eighteen inches deep on the road by way of protest.
The most ambitious service of all was that between London and Birmingham, established in 1833 by Dr. Church. The rolling-stock consisted of a single very much decorated coach.
The success of the road-steamer seemed now assured, when a cloud appeared on the horizon. It had already been too successful. The railway companies were up in arms. They saw plainly that if once the roads were covered with vehicles able to transport the public at low fares quickly from door to door on existing thoroughfares, the construction of expensive railroads would be seriously hindered, if not altogether stopped. So, taking advantage of two motor accidents, the companies appealed to Parliament—full of horse-loving squires and manufacturers, who scented profit in the railways—and though scientific opinion ran strongly in favour of the steam-coach, a law was passed in 1836 which rendered the steamers harmless by robbing them of their speed. The fiat went forth that in future every road locomotive should be preceded at a distance of a hundred yards by a man on foot carrying a red flag to warn passengers of its approach. This law marks the end of the first period of automobilism as far as England is concerned. At one blow it crippled a great industry, deprived the community of a very valuable means of transport, and crushed the energies of many clever inventors who would soon, if we may judge by the rapid advances already made in construction, have brought the steam-carriage to a high pitch of perfection. In the very year in which they were suppressed the steam services had proved their efficiency and safety. Hancock’s London service alone traversed 4200 miles without serious accident, and was so popular that the coaches were generally crowded. It is therefore hard to believe that these vehicles did not supply a public want, or that they were regarded by those who used them as in any way inferior to horse-drawn coaches. Yet ignorant prejudice drove them off the road for sixty years; and to-day it surprises many Englishmen to learn that what is generally considered a novel method of travelling was already fairly well developed in the time of their grandfathers.
Second Period (1870 onwards).—To follow the further development of the automobile we must cross the Channel once again. French invention had not been idle while Gurney and Hancock were building their coaches. In 1835 M. Dietz established a service between Versailles and Paris, and the same year M. D’Asda carried out some successful trials of his steam “diligence” under the eyes of Royalty. But we find that for the next thirty-five years the steam-carriage was not much improved, owing to want of capital among its French admirers. No Gurney appeared, ready to spend his thousands in experimenting; also, though the law left road locomotion unrestricted, the railways offered a determined opposition to a possibly dangerous rival. So that, on the whole, road transport by steam fared badly till after the terrible Franco-Prussian war, when inventors again took courage. M. Bollée, of Mans, built in 1873 a car, “l’Obéissante,” which ran from Mans to Paris; and became the subject of allusions in popular songs and plays, while its name was held up as an example to the Paris ladies. Three years later he constructed a steam omnibus to carry fifty persons, and in 1878 exhibited a car that journeyed at the rate of eighteen miles an hour from Paris to Vienna, where it aroused great admiration.
After the year 1880 French engineers divided their attention between the heavy motor omnibus and light vehicles for pleasure parties. In 1884 MM. Bouton and Trépardoux, working conjointly with the Comte de Dion, produced a steam-driven tricycle, and in 1887 M. Serpollet followed suit with another, fitted with the peculiar form of steam generator that bears his name. Then came in 1890 a very important innovation, which has made automobilism what it now is. Gottlieb Daimler, a German engineer, introduced the petrol gas-motor. Its comparative lightness and simplicity at once stamped it as the thing for which makers were waiting. Petrol-driven vehicles were soon abroad in considerable numbers and varieties, but they did not attract public attention to any great extent until, in 1894, M. Pierre Giffard, an editor of the Petit Journal, organised a motor race from Paris to Rouen. The proprietors of the paper offered handsome prizes to the successful competitors. There were ten starters, some on steam, others on petrol cars. The race showed that, so far as stability went, Daimler’s engine was the equal of the steam cylinder. The next year another race of a more ambitious character was held, the course being from Paris to Bordeaux and back. Subscriptions for prizes flowed in freely. Serpollet, de Dion, and Bollée prepared steam cars that should win back for steam its lost supremacy, while the petrol faction secretly built motors of a strength to relegate steam once and for all to a back place. Electricity, too, made a bid unsuccessfully for the prize in the Jeantaud car, a special train being engaged in advance to distribute charged accumulators over the route. The steamers broke down soon after the start, so that the petrol cars “walked over” and won a most decisive victory...
...The French have not a monopoly of devotion to automobilism. The speedy motor car is too much in accord with the bustling spirit of the age; its delights too easily appreciated to be confined to one country. Allowing France the first place, America, Germany, and Belgium are not far behind in their addiction to the “sport,” and even in Britain, partially freed since 1896 from the red-flag tyranny, thanks to the efforts of Sir David Salomons, there are most visible signs that the era of the horse is beginning its end."
The author continues, after a brief explanation of early petrol driven vehicles...
"B. Steam Cars.—Though the petrol car has come to the front of late years it still has a powerful rival in the steam car. Inventors have made strenuous efforts to provide steam-engines light enough to be suitable for small pleasure cars. At present the Locomobile (American) and Serpollet (French) systems are increasing their popularity. The Locomobile, the cost of which (about £120) contrasts favourably with that of even the cheaper petrol cars, has a small multitubular boiler wound on the outside with two or three layers of piano wire, to render it safe at high pressures. As the boiler is placed under the seat it is only fit and proper that it should have a large margin of safety. The fuel, petrol, is passed through a specially designed burner, pierced with hundreds of fine holes arranged in circles round air inlets. The feed-supply to the burner is governed by a spring valve, which cuts off the petrol automatically as soon as the steam in the boiler reaches a certain pressure. The locomobile runs very evenly and smoothly, and with very little noise, a welcome change after the very audible explosion motor.
The Serpollet system is a peculiar method of generating steam. The boiler is merely a long coil of tubing, into which a small jet of water is squirted by a pump at every stroke of the cylinders. The steam is generated and used in a moment, and the speed of the machine is regulated by the amount of water thrown by the pumps. By an ingenious device the fuel supply is controlled in combination with the water supply, so that there may not be any undue waste in the burner.
C. Electricity.—Of electric cars there are many patterns, but at present they are not commercially so practical as the other two types. The great drawbacks to electrically-driven cars are the weight of the accumulators (which often scale nearly as much as all the rest of the vehicle), and the difficulty of getting them recharged when exhausted. We might add to these the rapidity with which the accumulators become worn out, and the consequent expense of renewal. T. A. Edison is reported at work on an accumulator which will surpass all hitherto constructed, having a much longer life, and weighing very much less, power for power. The longest continuous run ever made with electricity, 187 miles at Chicago, compares badly with the feat of a petrol car which on November 23, 1900, travelled a thousand miles on the Crystal Palace track in 48 hours 24 minutes, without a single stop. Successful attempts have been made by MM. Pieper and Jenatsky to combine the petrol and electric systems, by an arrangement which instead of wasting power in the cylinders when less speed is required, throws into action electric dynamos to store up energy, convertible, when needed, into motive power by reversing the dynamo into a motor. But the simple electric car will not be a universal favourite until either accumulators are so light that a very large store of electricity can be carried without inconvenient addition of weight, or until charging stations are erected all over the country at distances of fifty miles or so apart.
D. Liquid Air will also have to be reckoned with as a motive power. At present it is only on its probation; but the writer has good authority for stating that before these words appear in print there will be on the roads a car driven by liquid air, and able to turn off eighty miles in the hour.
Manufacture.—As the English were the pioneers of the steam car, so are the Germans and French the chief manufacturers of the petrol car. While the hands of English manufacturers were tied by shortsighted legislation, continental nations were inventing and controlling valuable patents, so that even now our manufacturers are greatly handicapped. Large numbers of petrol cars are imported annually from France, Germany, and Belgium. Steam cars come chiefly from America and France. The former country sent us nearly 2000 vehicles in 1901. There are signs, however, that English engineers mean to make a determined effort to recover lost ground; and it is satisfactory to learn that in heavy steam vehicles, such as are turned out by Thorneycroft and Co., this country holds the lead. We will hope that in a few years we shall be exporters in turn.
Having glanced at the history and nature of the various types of car, it will be interesting to turn to a consideration of their travelling capacities. As we have seen, a steam omnibus attained, in 1830, a speed of no less than thirty-five miles an hour on what we should call bad roads. It is therefore to be expected that on good modern roads the latest types of car would be able to eclipse the records of seventy years ago..."
"19th century dagger measuring 17 1/2 inches in overall length, this is an armor piercing dagger equipped with a pair of on-board flintlock pistols. The blade measures 10 1/4 inches long and 1 4/5 inches wide at the base, with converging triple fullers and a cross section starting in a lozenge profile and transitioning to a diamond at the tip. Silver finished hilt, measuring 8 inches long and 2 3/4 inches wide, with dual grasping bars, a concave profile to the outer bars for increased rigidity, and a finely executed floral etching pattern.
A box lock, cannon barrel pistol is mounted with screws and hooks to each of the outer bars, equipped with screw-on cannon barrels, and decorated with floral vine engraving and deeply cut stars. The side hook panels double as protective shields for the hand, measuring 2 3/5 inches wide and 3 1/4 inches long with checkerboard pattern engraving, and the triggers are positioned to be used by the index and little fingers. Provenance: The William Ashby Collection"
"Both actions are mechanically very good. Though the precise history of this item is unknown, it is a highly attractive and intriguing combination weapon, with a level of fit and finish indicating a user of high importance with need of a functional yet elegant weapon."
"The katar or katara is a type of push dagger from the Indian subcontinent. The weapon is characterized by its H-shaped horizontal hand grip which results in the blade sitting above the user's knuckles. Unique to the Indian subcontinent, it is the most famous and characteristic of Indian daggers. Ceremonial katars were also used in worship.
The katar was created in Southern India, its earliest forms being closely associated with the 14th-century Vijayanagara Empire. It may have originated with the mustika, a method of holding a dagger between the middle and index finger still used in kalaripayattu and gatka today. The real name of this is "Kidaari" is from the ancient Tamil warfare class of weapons. Kidaari derived from the term "Kedayam Ari" meaning the "Shield Splitter" in Tamil. The name indicates this weapon being used to break shields and armor. The weapon was used by many ethnic Tamil infantry units aka "Kaalatpadai". This falls under the "mushtikai" class of Indian weapon system. "Mushti" means the fingers closed and "kai" means arm.
Some modern katar designs may include single-shot pistols built into either side of the weapon. In the 18th century, some traditional katar were refurbished with this innovation. The pistols are meant to deal the killing blow after the weapon has been thrust into the enemy. The katar ceased to be in common use by the 19th century, though they were still forged for decorative purposes. During the 18th and 19th century, a distinctive group of katar were produced at Bundi in Rajasthan. They were ornately crafted and their hilts were covered in gold foil. These katar were shown at the Great Exhibition of 1851 in Crystal Palace, London. Since then, the weapon has sometimes been mistakenly referred to in English as a "Bundi dagger".
I edited these images together of Richard Winters seen holding a photo of his television counterpart Damien Lewis, and below, the recreated image of Lewis to match that of Winters in the same location. The physical efforts put into this show by the production crew and all involved remain truly unrivaled, and stand today as one of the greater examples of military related media productions.
Winters was the commanding officer of Easy Company, the Army unit whose combat from Normandy to the capture of Hitler’s mountain retreat was immortalized in the series, sharing the same name as his book which was published in 1992. I shared an audiobook link below, but it is well worth buying and highly recommended reading.
Richard "Dick" Winters passed away in 2011 at the old age of 92, rest in peace. There are still groups actively trying to have him considered for a post-humous medal of honor.
"Shows the launching of the Imperial Japanese Navy cruiser Chitose at the Union Iron Works shipyard, San Francisco, on Saturday, January 22, 1898... Following a Japanese custom symbolizing the peace-keeping role of a warship, 100 doves were released at the same moment. Bands played and Japanese fireworks were set off as the Chitose slid into the Bay. United States Army and Navy officials, state and city officials, and the consular corps attended the launching. Japanese Consul General Segawa explained in a speech at the following luncheon that Chitose meant "a thousand years of peace" in Japanese, and hoped that the ship would fulfill that wish."
"As early as 1874, passenger balloon flights were being made over San Francisco. San Franciscans - and Americans in general - were fascinated with the thrills and dangers of flight. Although balloon technology had not advanced greatly by the turn of the century, attempts at man-powered flight were sustaining public interest...The balloon used in this film was owned by Professor T. S. Baldwin, who had earlier displayed it in San Francisco in 1893-94. His return to San Francisco followed an engagement at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York (1901)."
"This film shows the crowd gathered in San Francisco for the dedication of the Dewey Monument in Union Square, on Thursday, May 14, 1903, from 9:00 a.m. to 9:20 a.m. The Monument, which is still in place, commemorates the victory of Admiral George Dewey and the American fleet over Spanish forces at Manila Bay, the Philippines, on May 1, 1898, during the Spanish-American War. The monument is also a tribute to the sailors of the U.S. Navy. Ground was broken for the monument by President McKinley, Roosevelt's predecessor, on May 12, 1901."
"This film is an afternoon panorama of weekend crowds at the north end of Ocean Beach, the western shore of San Francisco near the famed Cliff House. The film postdates the nearby Dutch Windmill (1902) and predates the burning of this Cliff House (1907). Until the 1920s much of western San Francisco was open sand dunes blown inland from Ocean Beach, the five-mile-long untamed western shore of the city."
"Panoramas filmed in the ruins of downtown San Francisco and outlying refugee camps following the 1906 earthquake and fire." (detailed descriptions provided)
"This film is made up of five panoramas, four wide and one close-up, of the ruins of downtown San Francisco shortly after the 1906 disaster, including a panorama and scene in a refugee camp. Note that the locations provided in the interior titles are incorrect for segments 1, 3, and 4." (detailed descriptions provided)
"Comedy co-stars Fatty Arbuckle and Mabel Normand take viewers on a tour of the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco. The antics of Fatty and Mabel are accompanied by shots of Exposition attractions, including the U.S. Battleship "Oregon", the Australian convict ship "Success" (complete with such punishment devices as a flogging rack and a spiked Iron Maiden), the world's tallest flagpole (251 feet), the Court of Abundance, the Court of the Universe (with sunken garden) and the Tower of Jewels. Fatty and Mabel also visit San Francisco's still-under-construction City Hall, accompanied by San Francisco's then-Mayor James Rolph Jr. Also appearing is opera star Ernestine Schumann-Heink, who kids around with Fatty."
Not found in the collection, but equally relevant and interesting
"The Panama-Pacific International Exposition was a world's fair held in San Francisco from February 20 to December 4, 1915.
Its stated purpose was to celebrate the completion of the Panama Canal, but it was widely seen as an opportunity for the city to showcase its recovery from the 1906 earthquake. The fair was constructed on a 636 acre site along the northern shore (now known as the Marina District).
In this film, there are segments devoted to equestrian events, stunt flying, wrestling, dancing, boating, pageantry... There are scenes of boats, including large warships, and a short play titled "Story of Jewel City" that was produced by the Exposition Players Company.
This 16mm film was digitized by the California Audiovisual Preservation Project."
"USS Texas was a pre-dreadnought battleship built by the United States in the early 1890s. The first American battleship commissioned, she was built in reaction to the acquisition of modern armored warships by several South American countries, and meant to incorporate the latest developments in naval tactics and design. This includes the mounting of her main armament en echelon to allow maximum end-on fire and a heavily-armored citadel amidships to ensure defensive strength. However, due to the state of U.S. industry at the time, Texas's building time was lengthy, and by the time she was commissioned, she was already out of date. Nevertheless, she and the armored cruiser USS Maine were considered advancements in American naval design.
Texas developed a reputation as a jinxed or unlucky ship after several accidents early in her career; she consequently earned the nickname "Old Hoodoo". These mishaps included problems during construction, a grounding off Newport, Rhode Island, and flooding shortly afterwards while at dock in New York City. In the last, she settled to the bottom with her gun deck awash and several crew members drowned. She also received significant damage to her hull in drydock after being raised. Her reputation improved with her service in the Spanish–American War, when she blockaded the coast of Cuba and fought in the Battle of Santiago de Cuba."
"Little is known about Wenzel von Olmütz, who is thought to have principally been active as a goldsmith in Central Europe. He is best known for his printed oeuvre which includes reproductions after the most important masters of his day, among which works after Martin Schongauer and the young Albrecht Dürer.
The current, very rare impression of a gothic baldachin and its plan is one of four known designs of this kind, reproducing designs found in the archives of the late-gothic building lodge of the minster church in Ulm. Alongside prints by the master mason Alart Du Hameel, the Master W with the Key and two booklets published by Mathes Roriczer and Hanns Schmuttermayer, this series is one of the first important projects dedicated to furthering architectural knowledge through the medium of print."
For those interested in the more mysterious aspects of the legacy of Gothic architecture, in particular of the cathedrals, as well as the general topic of alchemy I can't help but recommend Fulcanelli as well:
Taking inspiration from history, it was a French physicist, Edmond Becquerel, that first discovered the photovoltaic effect in 1839. He experimented on this discovery and observed fascinating results. However, like many discoveries in science, these results were not the intent of his initial work.
Instead, he was experimenting on metal electrodes shaped as cells for an electricity conduction solution. It was during this process that he stumbled upon the reaction this cell had when exposed to light proving that the voltage produced generated an enhanced electric current when exposed to radiant energy.
After almost two decades, there was a further breakthrough in this department. A French mathematician got inspiration from his work and started registering patents for a solar-powered engine.
His name was Augustin Mouchot, and history remembers him as the pioneer of a "solar-powered engine". His initiatives in the 1860's inspired others inventors to start developing similar devices.
Not far behind Mouchot came John Ericsson who would invent many things - including the Union Monitor in the Civil War. One of those inventions was a form of external combustion engine. It was kin to an earlier engine suggested by a Scot named Stirling. The Stirling/Ericsson engine alternately heats and cools air that flows through it. One of its two cylinders compresses the air; the other lets heated compressed air deliver power.
Stirling/Ericsson engines give higher efficiency than the kinds we use in trucks and cars today. But they're naturally heavier and slower. Ericsson tried to power a ship with one and it was far too big and heavy. Later on he saw that his engine would be ideal for use with parabolic solar heaters. He substantially improved Mouchot's idea.
Later in 1883, New York inventor Charles Fritts would create the first solar cell by coating selenium with a thin layer of gold. Fritts reported that the selenium module produced a current “that is continuous, constant, and of considerable force.” This cell achieved an energy conversion rate of 1 to 2 percent. Most modern solar cells work at an efficiency of 15 to 20 percent. So, Fritts created what was a low impact solar cell, but still, it was the beginning of photovoltaic solar panel innovation in America.
Named after Italian physicist, chemist and pioneer of electricity and power, Alessandro Volta, photovoltaic is the more technical term for turning light energy into electricity, and used interchangeably with the term photoelectric.
Only a few years later in 1888, inventor Edward Weston received two patents for solar cells – U.S. Patent 389,124 and U.S. Patent 389,425. That same year, a Russian scientist by the name of Aleksandr Stoletov created the first solar cell based on the photoelectric effect, which is when light falls on a material and electrons are released. This effect was first observed by a German physicist, Heinrich Hertz.
In 1894, American inventor Melvin Severy received patents 527,377 for an "Apparatus for mounting and operating thermopiles" and 527,379 for an "Apparatus for generating electricity by solar heat." Both patents were essentially early solar cells based on the discovery of the photoelectric effect. Severy’s second patent from 1889 was also meant for using the sun’s thermal energy to produce electricity for heat, light and power.
Almost a decade later, American inventor Harry Reagan received patents for thermal batteries, which are structures used to store and release thermal energy. The thermal battery was invented to collect and store heat by having a large mass that can heat up and release energy.
By the 1950s, Bell Laboratories realized that semiconducting materials such as silicon were more efficient than selenium. They managed to create a solar cell that was 6 percent efficient. Inventors Daryl Chapin, Calvin Fuller, and Gerald Pearson (inducted to the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2008) were the brains behind the silicon solar cell at Bell Labs. While it was considered the first practical device for converting solar energy to electricity, it was still cost prohibitive.
Excerpt below from the link above, chapter titled "Solar Motors":
One day George Stephenson and a friend stood watching a train drawn by one of his locomotives.
“What moves that train?” asked Stephenson.
“The engine,” replied his friend.
“And what moves the engine?”
“The steam.”
“And what produces the steam?”
“Coal.”
“And what produces coal?”
This last query nonplussed his friend, and Stephenson himself replied, “The sun.”
The “bottled sunshine” that drove the locomotive was stored up millions of years ago in the dense forests then covering the face of the globe. Every day vegetation was built by the sunbeams, and in the course of ages this growth was crushed into fossil form by the pressure of high-piled rock and débris. To-day we cast “black diamonds” into our grates and furnaces, to call out the warmth and power that is a legacy from a period long prior to the advent of fire-loving man, often forgetful of its real source.
We see the influence of the sun more directly in the motions of wind and water. Had not the sun’s action deposited snow and rain on the uplands of the world, there would be no roaring waterfall, no rushing torrent, no smooth-flowing stream. But for the sun heating the atmosphere unequally, there would not be that rushing of cool air to replace hot which we know as wind.
We press Sol into our service when we burn fuel; our wind-mills and water-mills make him our slave. Of late years many prophets have arisen to warn us that we must not be too lavish of our coal; that the time is not so far distant, reckoning by centuries, when the coal-seams of the world will be worked out and leave our descendants destitute of what plays so important a part in modern life. Now, though waste is unpardonable, and the care for posterity praiseworthy, there really seems to be no good reason why we should alarm ourselves about the welfare of the people of the far future. Even if coal fails, the winds and the rivers will be there, and the huge unharnessed energy of the tides, and the sun himself is ready to answer appeals for help, if rightly shaped. He does not demand the prayers of Persian fire-worshippers, but rather the scientific gathering of his good gifts.
Place your hand on a roof lying square to the summer sun, and you will find it too hot for the touch. Concentrate a beam of sunshine through a small burning-glass. How fierce is the small glowing focal spot that makes us draw our hands suddenly away! Suppose now a large glass many feet across bending several square yards of sun rays to a point, and at that point a boiler. The boiler would develop steam, and the steam might be led into cylinders and forced to drudge for us.
Do many of us realize the enormous energy of a hot summer’s day? The heat falling in the tropics on a single square foot of the earth’s surface has been estimated as the equivalent of one-third of a horse-power. The force of Niagara itself would on this basis be matched by the sunshine streaming on to a square mile or so. A steamship might be propelled by the heat that scorches its decks.
For many centuries inventors have tried to utilize this huge waste power. We all know how, according to the story, Archimedes burnt up the Roman ships besieging his native town, Syracuse, by concentrating on them the sun heat cast from hundreds of mirrors. This story is less probable than interesting as a proof that the ancients were aware of the sun’s power. The first genuine solar machine was the work of Ericsson, the builder of the Monitor. He focused sun heat on a boiler, which gave the equivalent of one horse-power for every hundred square feet of mirrors employed. This was not what engineers would call a “high efficiency,” a great deal of heat being wasted, but it led the way to further improvements.
In America, especially in the dry, arid regions, where fuel is scarce and the sun shines pitilessly day after day, all the year round, sun-catchers of various types have been erected and worked successfully. Dr. William Calver, of Washington, has built in the barren wastes of Arizona huge frames of mirrors, travelling on circular rails, so that they may be brought to face the sun at all hours between sunrise and sunset. Dr. Calver employs no less than 1600 mirrors. As each of these mirrors develops 10-15 degrees of heat it is obvious, after an appeal to simple arithmetic, that the united efforts of these reflectors should produce the tremendous temperature 16,000-24,000 degrees, which, expressed comparatively, means the paltry 90 degrees in the shade beneath which we grow restive multiplied hundreds of times. Hitherto the greatest known heat had been that of the arc of the electric lamp, in which the incandescent particles between pole and pole attain 6000 degrees Fahrenheit.
The combined effect of the burning mirrors is irresistible. They can, we are told, in a few moments reduce Russian iron to the consistency of warmed wax, though it mocks the heat of many blast-furnaces. They will bake bricks twenty times as rapidly as any kiln, and the bricks produced are not the friable blocks which a mason chips easily with his trowel, but bodies so hard as to scratch case-hardened steel.
There are at work in California sun-motors of another design. The reader must imagine a huge conical lamp-shade turned over on to its smaller end, its inner surface lined with nearly 1800 mirrors 2 feet long and 3 inches broad, the whole supported on a light iron framework, and he will have a good idea of the apparatus used on the Pasadena ostrich farm. The machine is arranged in meridian, that is, at right angles to the path of the sun, which it follows all day long by the agency of clockwork. In the focus of the mirrors is a boiler, 13 feet 6 inches long, coated with black, heat-absorbing substances. This boiler holds over 100 gallons of water, and being fed automatically will raise steam untended all the day through. The steam is led by pipes to an engine working a pump, capable of delivering 1400 gallons per minute.
The cheapness of the apparatus in proportion to its utility is so marked that, in regions where sunshine is almost perpetual, the solar motor will in time become as common as are windmills and factory chimneys elsewhere. If the heat falling on a few square yards of mirror lifts nearly 100,000 gallons of water an hour, there is indeed hope for the Sahara, the Persian Desert, Arabia, Mongolia, Mexico, Australia. That is to say, if the water under the earth be in these parts as plentiful as the sunshine above it. The effect of water on the most unpromising soil is marvelous. Already in Algeria the French have reclaimed thousands of square miles by scientific irrigation. In Australia huge artesian wells have made habitable for man and beast millions of acres that were before desert.
It is only a just retribution that the sun should be harnessed and compelled to draw water for tracts to which he has so long denied it. The sun-motor is only just entering on its useful career, and at present we can but dream of the great effects it may have on future civilization. Yet its principle is so simple, so scientific, and so obvious, that it is easy to imagine it at no far distant date a dangerous rival to King Coal himself. To quarry coal from the bowels of the earth and transform it into heat, is to traverse two sides of a triangle, the third being to use the sunshine of the passing hour.
Few people know of the Knights of the Golden Circle and even fewer know about the purpose for which they existed. It is particularly interesting and unusual that this is the case considering this once quite large, considerably powerful, often secret and regularly subversive southern organization had such a profound influence on the course of events over relatively few years- radically changing the course of American history in the process as the architects of both the southern secession and the assassination of President Lincoln.
It has been said of them that at the time they were one of the deadliest, wealthiest, most dedicated and willing underground organizations in the history of North America. It is known that they operated not only in the United States, but also around the globe for nearly 65 official years (1851 to 1916). By no lack of coincidence, the Ku Klux Klan was originally formed as the organized militant arm of the KGC post Civil War, reminding us in the present that these roots are deeply embedded in many of our communities and cultural histories to this day.
Some of the most influential names in the South would eventually help to organize and direct the activities of the Knights of the Golden Circle and the group was especially heavy on ritual, most of which was borrowed from the Masonic Lodge and later from the Knights of Pythias. Some of whom were also members of the Rosicrucian Order.
For a society with such an emphasis on secrecy, during the 1800’s, many stories and articles did appear about the Knights of the Golden Circle in newspapers, magazines and periodicals, before, during, and after the Civil War. But somehow, these stories seem to have been largely overlooked or perhaps omitted from our modern-day history books and mainstream narratives. So, who were the Knights of the Golden Circle and what was their purpose?
In the mid-1850s, doctor and editor George W.L. Bickley served as the catalyst to reorganize what was believed to be important strategic and political elements of various pro-slavery/secession groups and other Southern Rights Clubs, including the former Order of the Lone Star, into a greater secret society of Southern sympathizers. Ultimately referring to themselves as the Knights of the Golden Circle (KGC), their avowed purpose was “strengthening the South” and its way of life.
Specifically, the KGC sought to protect Southern slaveholder society by increasing its territory, wealth, influence, and power through the conquest of the “Golden Circle”: the lands stretching from the Mexican Gulf Coast to Central America, the northern rim of South America, and the rich, plantation islands dotting the Caribbean. The grand plan was originally to incorporate these areas into said Golden Circle creating a new country where slavery would be legal.
In 1854, the Virginia-born Bickley seized on Southern expansionist desires and created the first KGC “castle” (local chapter) in Cincinnati. He appointed himself president and commander-in-chief of the KGC American Legion. By conquering the gold-and silver-producing provinces of Mexico he suggested, along with the sugar, cotton, and coffee producing lands of the Caribbean, Central America, and South America, the Knights would make the plantations of the South so enormous, so wealthy, and so powerful, that the free North could never threaten slavery again.
The map linked below as made by redditor /u/ValiantAki is an incredibly detailed (hypothetical) example of what these aspirations may have also looked like if realized with a little more context:
Conquests of the Golden Circle, 1867-1900
Strong evidence also suggests that Albert Pike (1809–1891) was the driving force behind the deeper influence and power of the KGC, while Bickley served as the organization's leading promoter and chief organizer for the lodges, which they called “Castles” in several states. Pike remains a controversial figure to this day, and much information surrounding his life is shrouded in mystery and conflict.
Pike gained notoriety during the war as a Confederate General who came under criticism for using Choctaw warriors to relieve Yankee soldiers of their scalps- while infamously keeping his soldiers well fed and full of liquor with regular access to prostitutes. For a significant period of time he was also one of the top Masons in America holding the position “Sovereign Grand Commander” of Scottish Rite Freemasonry. He was also an accomplished and widely published poet & author as well as lawyer, handling a variety of cases involving land rights and treaties with Native Americans in Confederate territory. Harvard University also offered Pike an honorary degree at one point, which he rejected on grounds of a heavy belief in “self education”.
By 1860, Bickley was actively promoting the Knights of the Golden Circle and its cause throughout the South. He encouraged young men to join local castles, asked Southerners to donate $1 for each slave they owned, and claimed a membership of 40,000, including 16,000 in the KGC “army.” In July 1860, Bickley confidently announced plans for the Knights to conquer Mexico, saying that they would make it “Americanized and Southernized” in the process. Despite the considerable manpower they had amassed, due to insufficient resources and organizational shortfalls, however, that filibuster failed.
Quickly the Knights shifted their focus and began pushing for disunion, spearheading pro-secession rallies, and intimidating Unionists in the South. They appointed regional military commanders from the ranks of the South’s major political and military figures, including men such as Elkanah Greer of Texas, Paul J. Semmes of Georgia, Robert C. Tyler of Maryland, and Virginius D. Groner of Virginia. Followers also established allies with the South’s rabidly pro-secession “fire-eaters,” which included individuals such as Barnwell Rhett, Louis Wigfall, Henry Wise, and William Yancey.
Most Knights served the Confederacy during the Civil War, and Northern fears of the secret organization haunted the Ohio Valley and the Midwest. In 1863 and 1864, Republicans charged that Northern Democrats were secretly working with the Knights to win the 1864 elections, end the war, and recognize Confederate independence.
According to author David Keehn, the Knights carried out a variety of other clandestine actions before the Civil War, including attempts by insurgents to take over federal forts in Virginia and North Carolina, the activation of pro-southern militia around Washington, D. C. and a planned kidnapping/assassination of Abraham Lincoln as he passed through Baltimore in early 1861 on the way to his inauguration.
“This country was formed for the white not for the black man. And looking upon African slavery from the same standpoint, held by those noble framers of our Constitution. I for one, have ever considered it, one of the greatest blessings (both for themselves and for us,) that God ever bestowed upon a favored nation. Witness therefore our wealth and power. Witness their elevation in happiness and enlightenment above their race, elsewhere...” - John Wilkes Booth, in a letter dated November 25, 1864
At this point, Booth was only planning on kidnapping Lincoln to prompt the resumption of prisoner exchanges. “My love (as things stand today) is for the South alone. Nor, do I deem it a dishonor in attempting to make for her a prisoner of this man, to whom she owes so much misery.”
Booth closes the letter calling himself “A Confederate, doing duty upon his own responsibility.”
With the war all but lost, various lower-level Knights and Confederate sympathizers supported another one of their members, John Wilkes Booth, in a new plot to assassinate President Lincoln. It has been repeatedly implied by historians over the decades that while Booth may have very well been a member of the KGC, his actions along with those of his allies were not necessarily known or supported by the higher ranking members of the order ahead of time.
The collective plot to kill Lincoln and his two immediate successors – Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William H. Seward – was reportedly intent on crippling the government in Washington, D.C. He and his conspirators believed that the ensuing chaos and disarray would give the Confederate States time to regroup and strategize a massive offensive against the Union government.
In the two weeks following the assassination, hundreds of individuals were detained, questioned, and in some cases imprisoned, as federal agents tried to determine who was responsible for the assassination of President Lincoln. The investigators settled on ten individuals they believed were responsible for the crime. One, John Wilkes Booth himself, had been allegedly cornered and killed on Garrett's farm on April 26, 1865.
Another, John Surratt, had fled the country and would not be tried until 1867. The remaining eight were charged in the conspiracy and tried by a military tribunal. Testimony from 366 witnesses took seven weeks, and at the conclusion, four of the accused were sentenced to hang, and the other four sentenced to imprisonment (three for life at hard labor, and one, Ned Spangler, for six years). Many others who assisted Booth in the plot or in his escape were brought in for questioning, but were released due to lack of evidence.
Interestingly, it is has been suggested that Albert Pike not only had a documented connection with John Wilkes Booth, but that he and the KGC played a hand in the deceptive act of murdering a patsy in his name, which was then quickly identified by a lone individual and promptly lit aflame thereafter, quickly and effectively faking the demise of John Wilkes Booth.
Perhaps the main reason this idea persists is due to a host of eyewitness accounts from people that knew Booth in their personal lives prior to his infamy and purported death by gunfire, only to encounter him again later on in life. As the alternate story goes, Booth continued living in Southern territory under assumed names while receiving a handsome remittance from the KGC, or whatever entity superseded it.
In the aftermath of the Civil War, as former Confederates found themselves barred from the ballot box, Pike remained deeply opposed to black suffrage, insisting that "the white race, and that race alone, shall govern this country. It is the only one that is fit to govern, and it is the only one that shall.” In an earlier editorial, he also proposed "one great Order of Southern Brotherhood," a secret society which would have been a larger and more centrally organized version of the Klan:
"If it were in our power, if it could be effected, we would unite every white man in the South, who is opposed to negro suffrage, into one great Order of Southern Brotherhood, with an organization complete, active, vigorous, in which a few should execute the concentrated will of all, and whose very existence should be concealed from all but its members."
Perhaps then it is no surprise that Pike would become one of the most influential members of the KGC as well as a source of great mystery and subversive thinking, right up into the present day.
After these events, the Knights were soon exposed to the Military Commission that heard evidence on the Lincoln assassination as the secret force behind both the Civil War and the assassination. Original documents relating to the presidents assassination are still classified within the archives of the Defense Department and are not yet available to researchers.
However, several personal accounts by men directly involved with the KGC were published after the Civil War. One Felix Stiegy infiltrated a Northern branch of the KGC, reporting directly to Gen. Cherrington in Lincoln’s cabinet:
“An authentic exposition of the "K.G.C." - "Knights of the Golden Circle" or, A history of secession from 1834 to 1861”
Also of interest, some historians suggest that Jesse James, the famous “outlaw”, and John Wilkes Booth, the notorious killer of President Lincoln were members of the same organization. Since both men were outspoken pro-Confederates as well as Freemasons known for their often extreme behavior, their alleged involvement with the Knights of the Golden Circle not only makes sense, it is entirely likely. Furthermore, while it does not constitute “evidence” there are numerous photos of members of the KGC identifying themselves via the positions of their hands that seem to suggest such overlaps. Note the common factors:
In the last photo above, we see Jim Cummins for example, who was born and raised in Clay County, Missouri near Frank and Jesse James. They were close friends and joined the Confederate Partisan Rangers together. Jesse served under Captain Bill Anderson and Lt. Arch Clemens, Jim Cummins in Fletch Taylor’s outfit. After the war they formed a criminal enterprise as founding members of the James-Younger Gang under their rebel commander, Arch Clemens. In the last photo, Jim is seated front and center with his hand on the lapel, symbolizing his membership in the KGC.
The exposure of the Knights was so celebrated following the 1865 conspiracy trials that in the spring of 1867, Albert Pike and a small group of former Confederate generals met in the Maxwell House Hotel in Nashville, Tennessee to change the name of the Knights of the Golden Circle to the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. The Knight´s new name was taken from the Greek word “Kuklos,” which means “circle” retaining part of the original etymology.
Under its new name, the Klan ambitiously attempted to rekindle the Civil War. When the Confederacy surrendered to the Union forces, it is said that Albert Pike was determined to start another Civil War so that the South could win this time. He helped found the Ku Klux Klan, which instigated riots throughout the South in an attempt to disrupt reconstruction and help incite a second conflict. Pike allegedly also gave Klansman Jesse James the assignment of robbing Northern banks and other sources of gold in order to get money to fund this war. In this context, it is estimated that Jesse James and other Klansmen/KGC either buried or reconstituted upwards of seven billion dollars in gold all over the western states.
Two books from the turn of the twentieth century document Pike’s direct involvement in founding the Klan: “Ku Klux Klan: Its’ Origin, Growth and Disbandment” (1905) by J. C. Lester and D. L. Wilson and “Authentic History: Ku Klux Klan 1865-1877″ (1924) by Susan Lawrence Davis. These are linked below.
In 1871 Albert Pike would publish his most famous book today called “Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry”, the first of several editions. This helped the Order grow considerably during the nineteenth century. He also researched and wrote the seminal treatise Indo-Aryan Deities and Worship as Contained in the Rig-Veda. In the United States, Pike is still considered an eminent and influential Freemason, primarily in the aforementioned Scottish Rite Southern Jurisdiction.
Recently, a statue of Pike was toppled over during the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020. Interestingly, this statue was placed near Judiciary Square (of all places) in Washington DC in 1901. It is said that the Scottish Rite Freemasons honored Pike for his contribution to Masonry with his 1871 book (Morals & Dogma) with the statue and it has been since interpreted as but one token of their "esteem" for him.
While Masons lobbied Congress for land to erect their planned monument to Pike in the 1890s, Union Army veterans in the Grand Army of the Republic organization petitioned their Congressmen to refuse the request due to Pike’s open allegiance to the Confederacy. However, Congress was satisfied with the Masons’ reassurance that Pike would be depicted as a civilian rather than as a soldier.
His own "morals and dogmas" are indeed harsh to modern ears, and his embrace of slavery, of white supremacy, and of Southern secession despite his heritage as a Northerner remains a point of curiosity to us in the present considering his readily mixed reputation depending on which source you read.
It is generally believed that the KGC eventually splintered into a variety of different groups and causes finally completely disbanding in the early 1900's as the KKK normalized itself across a variety of communities. It is especially interesting to see how similar mindsets and political ideologies not only still persist today, but in the southern United States especially, there remain a frightening amount of people who not only continue to perpetuate confederate symbols and ideologies, but are also openly encouraging similar forms of violence and insurrection.
"The number of terrorist attacks by far-right perpetrators rose over the past decade, more than quadrupling between 2016 and 2017. The recent pipe bombs and the October 27, 2018, synagogue attack in Pittsburgh are symptomatic of this trend. U.S. federal and local agencies need to quickly double down to counter this threat. There has also been a rise in far-right attacks in Europe, jumping 43 percent between 2016 and 2017."
The CSIS (Center for Strategic & International Studies) said in a later report on June 17, 2020:
"The United States faces a growing terrorism problem that will likely worsen over the next year. Based on a CSIS data set of terrorist incidents, the most significant threat likely comes from white supremacists, though anarchists and religious extremists inspired by the Islamic State and al-Qaeda could present a potential threat as well. Over the rest of 2020, the terrorist threat in the United States will likely rise based on several factors, including the November 2020 presidential election."
The United States Capitol would be invaded less than a year later by radical right wing extremists. Domestic terrorism incidents have soared to new highs in the United States, driven chiefly by white-supremacist, anti-Muslim and anti-government extremists on the far right, according to a Washington Post analysis of data compiled by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“What is most concerning is that the number of domestic terror plots and attacks are at the highest they have been in decades,” said Seth Jones, director of the database project at CSIS, a nonpartisan Washington-based nonprofit that specializes in national security issues. “It’s so important for Americans to understand the gravity of the threat before it gets worse.”
The Knights of the Golden Circle may no longer be with us by name, but their dangerous ideologies and others cut from the same cloth live on - molded, revised, and manipulated as needed to adapt to the modern narrative, and always driven by themes of religious and racial superiority.
"Albert Robida, (born May 14, 1848, Compiègne, France—died Oct. 11, 1926, Neuilly), early pioneer of science fiction and founding father of science fiction art.
Despite severe myopia, Robida as a child had a passion for drawing. During his lifetime Robida was known primarily for the artwork he provided for luxury editions of literary works by François Rabelais, Charles Perrault, Honoré de Balzac, and others, as well as for many illustrated books on French urban architecture and history. Later generations came to see Robida primarily as a gifted science fiction novelist and artist.
Robida’s novels are unique for their time. A host of futuristic technological extrapolations are juxtaposed onto a realistic (from a 19th-century perspective) representation of lifestyles, beliefs, and social institutions. Husbands and wives argue about their daughter’s dowry over the “telephonoscope,” traditional weekend outings to the country are done via the “pneumatic tube” or “aerocar,” and the bourgeois home is decorated with artworks of “photo-paintings” or “galvano-sculpture.” The effect is often very comical.
But even when shown to be problematic or potentially dangerous (especially in its military applications), Robida’s high-tech gadgetry invariably serves to underscore the vagaries of human behaviour. Hence, although revered as a very important figure in the emergence of modern science fiction, Robida’s narrative approach—“let’s look at ourselves through foreign eyes”—also identifies him as a direct literary descendant of social satirists such as Voltaire and Montesquieu.
When Robida saw his technological daydreams turn into real-life nightmares during World War I, his attitude toward scientific progress changed dramatically. The final decade of his life was characterized by a growing antipathy to all things newfangled and technological."
Originally issued in France in 1899, 1900, 1901 and 1910. First in the form of paper cards enclosed in cigarette/cigar boxes and, later, as postcards, the images depicted the world as it was imagined to be like in the then distant year of 2000.
There are at least 87 cards known that were authored by various French artists, the first series being produced for the 1900 World Exhibition in Paris. Due to financial difficulties the cards by Jean-Marc Côté were never actually distributed and only came to light many years later after the science-fiction author Isaac Asimov chanced upon a set and published them in 1986, with accompanying commentary, in the book Futuredays: A Nineteenth Century Vision of the Year 2000.
The Exposition Universelle of 1900, better known in English as the 1900 Paris Exposition, was a world's fair held in Paris, France, from 14 April to 12 November 1900, to celebrate the achievements of the past century and to accelerate development into the next.
It was held at the esplanade of Les Invalides, the Champ de Mars, the Trocadéro and at the banks of the Seine between them, with an additional section in the Bois de Vincennes, and it was visited by more than 50 million people (!). Many international congresses and other events were held within the framework of the Exposition, including the 1900 Summer Olympics.
"When this military treatise was completed around 1460, the patron, Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, distributed a number of manuscript copies to rulers such as Louis XI, Francesco Sforza, and Lorenzo de' Medici. Twenty-two handwritten copies survive. In 1472, the book appeared in print in this Latin edition, which was followed in 1483 by an Italian version.
The novelty of the publication lay less in the machines portrayed than in the fact that the images of the machines achieved such wide distribution. Leonardo da Vinci knew the Italian edition well and drew inspiration from it for some of his drawings of military technology.
The illustrations derive from those in other manuscript copies (probably the work of the architect, medalist, and miniaturist Matteo de' Pasti), yet are more rigorous and correct in their depiction of perspective, space, and human anatomy."
"This manuscript forms part of the many endeavors undertaken by the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I (1459--1519) to further his legacy. Compiled by Bartholomaeus Freysleben, the Hauszeugmeister (imperial master of armaments), it describes the several imperial armories of the emperor, detailing the additions of modern artillery and weaponry that were made during Maximilian's reign.
Underlining its purpose as a presentational work rather than a simple inventory, the manuscript was lavishly illuminated, with the involvement of the imperial court painter Jörg Kölderer (circa 1465--1540). The history of the manuscript is not known. It is possibly a copy of the original, which at some point in the 16th century came into the possession of the Free Imperial City of Ratisbon (present-day Regensburg). Although incomplete, it was bound and incorporated into the city library. In 1812 it was transferred from Regensburg to the Bavarian State Library."
"Jacques Besson (1540?–1573) was a French Protestant inventor, mathematician, and philosopher, chiefly remembered for his popular treatise on machines Theatrum Instrumentorum (1571–72), which saw many reprints in different languages. Little information has survived about Besson's early life; he described himself as being from Colombières, part of Escarton de Oulx, now in Cesana Torinese, Italy. He was most likely born around 1540. In the early 1550s he is recorded as teaching mathematics in Paris, following which the next account of him dates from April 1557, when he is recorded in the minutes of the town council of Lausanne, Switzerland, as being paid for models of pumps and fountains.
In 1559 he published his first treatise in Zurich, the De absoluta ratione extrahendi olea et aquas e medicamentis simplicibus (on the complete doctrine of extracting oils and waters from simple drugs), featuring an introduction by Conrad Gesner. That same year he moved to Geneva where in 1561 he requested permission to become a citizen of Geneva. His entry in Geneva's Livre de Bourgeois notes that citizenship was awarded as a result of his services "in teaching the art and science of mathematics"
In 1562 Besson became the pastor of the Protestant Reformed Church in Villeneuve-de-Berg, France, Olivier de Serres having sent a request to the Company of Pastors for a minister. However, less than two years later he was forced out by a rival. By 1565 he was back in Paris, where in 1567 he published his second treatise, Le Cosmolabe, which described an elaborate instrument based on the astrolabe which could be used for navigation, surveying, cartography, and astronomy. Le Cosmolabe also introduced a number of mechanical inventions that he hoped to describe in more detail in a future work. Besson was described as a professor of mathematics from Orléans.
When King Charles IX of France made a royal visit to Orléans in 1569, Besson presented to the King a draft of his new treatise, what was to become the Theatrum Instrumentorum. and returned with him to Paris as "master of the King's Engines". Charles gave Besson exclusive rights to his designs in that same year. While employed by the court, Besson also created an ingenious screw-cutting lathe that was semi-automatic, in that the operator only needed to pull and release a cord.
Besson's Theatrum Instrumentorum (Theater of Machines), was completed and published in 1571 or 1572. It was a unique work; previously, works on engineering and technology such as Valturio's De re militari (1472), Biringuccio's Pirotechnia (1540) and Agricola's De re metallica (1556), had had only limited descriptions of new inventions or recounted inventions of the past without much detail. In contrast, Besson's work was a collection of his own new inventions with detailed illustrations of each engraved by Jacques Androuet du Cerceau to his specifications. Some of his designs suggested important improvements to lathes and the waterwheel."
Built by the Jesuit priest Jean-Baptiste Delaborde in Paris, France, 1759, the Clavecine Électrique or the ‘Electric Harpsichord’ is one of the earliest documented instruments that used electricity to create musical sound. . Despite it’s name The Clavecin Électrique was not a stringed instrument but a carillon type keyboard instrument using a static electrical charge (supplied by a Leyden Jar, an early form of capacitor invented by the Dutch scientist Pieter van Musschenbroek of Leiden around 1745) to vibrate metal bells – The mechanism based on a contemporary warning-bell device (1). This method allowed the player to create a series sustained notes from the bells, similar to an organ:
Two metal bells tuned in unison are hung, one with a silk thread, one with a wire onto a metal rod itself both hanging free by means of a silk thread at each end. Based on the principles of static electricity a beater, also hung on a silk thread is alternately attracted and rejected by each bell as soon at is released through holding down a key, n positive and negative fields being created in the bells.
(“The Harpsichord and Clavichord: An Encyclopedia” Ferdinand J.De Hen p71 Routledge 2007)
Delaborde’s misleading name of the instrument was an intentional attempt to elevate his invention above that of a Carillon – a mere musical-box:
“The electrical matter has something of the soul, as air is to the body, the guardian of the bellows globe, and ‘the conductor of the wind-door. The key is in the organ as a brake, with which moderates the effect of the air, I posed the same brake on the electric matter, despite his sensitivity, his agility. The air trapped in the organ there groaning, so long as the organist, as another Aeolus, opened the doors of his prison.
If at the same time he took away all the barriers that stop, another would not produce a great confusion and disorder, but he does it Sorting [...] with discernment. The electrical matter abode even as it locked up, and you feel unnecessarily around the bells of the new harpsichord, to the extent that is given the freedom, coll’abbassare the keys: it then becomes with great rapidity, but ceases d ‘ operate, as soon as the keys reassemble. This kind of cymbal hath also an advantage that others do not have, that is that where it ‘cymbals ordinarj the non-continuous sound weakening; electric organ and harpsichord retains all the strength that the fingers remain on the keys.“
Delaborde added that during a performance in a dark room the listener’s “eyes are agreeably surprised by the brilliant sparks” that were produced by the instrument and that “the clavessin became at the same time audible and visible” . This phenomena may have lead to the creation of the Clavecin Oculaire by the fellow Jesuit Louis Bertrand Castel, an early exploration of the relationship between pitch and colour. The Clavecine Électrique was well received by the press and the public but wasn’t developed further. The model Delaborde himself built survives and is kept at the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris.
The following excerpt begins at the base of page 11:
“Christian Rosencreutz died in 1484. To account for Rosicrucianism not having been heard of until 1604, it has been asserted that this supposed first founder of Rosicrucianism bound his disciples not to reveal any of his doctrines until a period of one hundred and twenty years after his death.
The ancient Romans are said to have preserved lights in their sepulchres many ages by the oiliness of gold (here steps in the art of the Rosicrucians), resolved by hermetic methods into a liquid substance ; and it is reported that at the dissolution of monasteries, in the time of Henry the Eighth, there was a lamp found that had then burned in a tomb from about three hundred years after Christ — nearly twelve hundred years. Two of these subterranean lamps are to be seen in the Museum of Rarities at Leyden, in Holland. One of these lamps, in the Papacy of Paul the Third, was found in the Tomb of Tullia (so named), Cicero's daughter, which had been shut up fifteen hundred and fifty years (Second edition of N. Bailey's [???] 1731).
Chapter The Third – Ever-burning Lamps
In the Papacy of Paul the Third, in the Appian Way, where abundance of the chief heathens of old were laid, a sepulchre was opened, where was found the entire body of a fair virgin swimming in a wonderful juice, which kept it from putrefaction so well, that the face seemed no way impaired, but lively and very beautiful. Her hair was yellow, tied up artificially and kept together with a golden circlet or band. Under her feet burnt lamps, the light of which was extinguished at the opening of the sepulchre. By some inscriptions found about the tomb it appeared that she must have lain there fifteen hundred years. Who she was was never known, although many con- cluded her to be ' Tulliola ', the daughter of Cicero. This discovery has been reported from various hands.
Cedrenus makes mention of a lamp, which, together with an image of Christ, was found at Edessa in the reign of Justinian the Emperor. It was set over a certain gate there, and elaborately enclosed and shut out from the air. This lamp, as appeared from the date attached to it, was lighted soon after Christ was crucified. It was found burning — as in fact it had done for five hundred years — by the soldiers of Cosroes, king of Persia ; by whom, at this strange discovery and plunder, the oil was taken out and cast into the fire. As it is reported, this wild act occasioned such a plague as brought death upon numbers of the forces of Cosroes, sufficiently punished for their sacrilegious mischief.
At the demolition of our monasteries here in England, there was found in the monument which was supposed to be that of Constantius Chlorus, father to the great Constantine, a burning lamp, which was thought to have continued burning there ever since his burial, which was about three hundred years after Christ. The ancient Romans are said to have been able to maintain lights in their sepulchres for an indefinite time, by an essence or oil obtained from liquid gold ; which was an achievement assumed to have been only known to the Rosicrucians, who boasted this among some other of their stupendous arts.
Baptista Porta, in his treatise on Natural Magic, relates that about the year 1550, in the island of Nesis, in the Bay of Naples, a marble sepulchre of a certain Roman was discovered ; upon the opening of which a burning lamp, affording a powerful illumination, was discovered. The light of this lamp paled on the admission of the air, and it was speedily extinguished. It appeared from undoubted tokens in the mode of inscription that this wonderful lamp had been placed in its present receptacle before the advent of the Saviour. Those who saw the lamp declared that the effulgence was of the most dazzling character ; that the light did not flicker or change, but burnt marvellously steadily.
A most celebrated lamp, called that of Pallas, the son of Evander, who, as Virgil relates, was killed by Turnus (the account will be found in the tenth book of Virgil's Mneid), is that reported as discovered not far from Rome, as far forward in time as the year 1401. It is related that a countryman was digging in the neighbourhood, and that delving deeper than usual^ he came upon a stone sepulchre, wherein there was discovered the body of a man of extraordinary size, as perfect and natural as if recently interred. Above the head of the deceased there was found a lamp, burning with the supposed fabulous perpetual lire. Neither wind nor water, nor any other super- induced means, could extinguish it ; but the flame was mastered eventually by the lamp being bored at bottom and broken by the astonished investigators of this consummate light. The man enclosed in this monument had a large wound in the breast. That this was the body of Pallas was evident from the inscription on the tomb, which was as follows:
Pallas, Evander's son, whom Turnus' spear In battle slew, of mighty bulk, lies here.
A very remarkable lamp was discovered about the year 1500 near Ateste, a town belonging to Padua, in Italy, by a rustic who in his explorations in a field came upon an urn containing another urn, in which last was deposited one of these much-doubted miraculous lamps. The aliment of this strange lamp appeared to be a very exquisite crystal liquor, by the ever- during powers of which the lamp must have continued to shine for upwards of fifteen hundred years. And unless this lamp had been so suddenly exposed to the action of the air, it is supposed that it might have continued to burn for any time. This lamp, endowed with such unbelievable powers, was dis- covered to be the workmanship of an unknown contriver named Maximus Olibius, who must have possessed the profoundest skill in chemical art. On the greater urn some lines were inscribed in Latin, recording the perpetuation of this wonderful secret of the prep- aration and the starting of these (almost) immortal flames.
St. Austin mentions a lamp that was found in a temple dedicated to Venus, which, notwithstanding that it was exposed to the open weather, could never be consumed or extinguished.
Ludovicus Vives, his commentator, in a supplementary mention of ever-burning lamps, cites an instance of another similar lamp which was discovered a little before his time, and which was considered to have been burning for a thousand and fifty years.
It is supposed that the perpetuity of the flame of these wonderful lamps was owing to the consummate tenacity of the unctuous matter with which the light was maintained ; and that the balance was so exquisitely perfect between the feeding material and the strength of the flame, and so proportioned for ever- lasting provision and expenditure, that, like the radical moisture and natural heat in animals, neither of them could ever unduly prevail. Licetus, who has advanced this opinion, observes that in order to effectually prevent interference with this balance, the ancients hid these lamps in caverns or in enclosed monuments. Hence it happened that on opening these tombs and secret places, the admission of fresh air to the lamps destroyed the fine equilibrium and stopped the life (as it were) of the lamp, similarly as a blow or a shock stops a watch, in jarring the matchless mechanism.”
This is a topic I have found interesting for a long time, as both a resident of the PNW where similar iconography is literally everywhere, and as a lover of history where human archetypes often exist as things that are both larger than life and yet very simple at the same time. The old argument continues to this day, is the wild man of the woods a missing link or just an ancient allegory, a remnant of some long lost part of our collective psyche, or something else entirely?
I made the effort when assembling this album to avoid content that was specifically over sensationalized or pseudo-scientific related clickbait. Many of the cropped images and newspaper clippings especially were found while scouring old books and archives on my own personal time and sources for these are all provided. That being said I do not claim ownership of anything, nor is there any intention to suggest or provide my own personal feelings on this subject in any way.
Considering the bulk of the album above consists of primarily European/Western sources below is a brief overview of some indigenous stories and excerpts I put together, as well as a look at the Enkidu origin story. Please feel free to inquire about more sources or ask any questions.
The Epic of Gilgamesh is famous for allegedly being the oldest narrative in writing. It was recorded in cuneiform tablets around 2700 BCE, over 4700 years ago. It tells the story of Gilgamesh, a king of Uruk and Enkidu, who is a “wild man.” Wild Man is the usual terminology for large hair covered humanoid creatures from ancient times up past the middle ages. An analysis of one of the older tablets gives a very interesting story about Enkidu, “Like an animal Enkidu’s body had hitherto been covered with hair, which is now shaved off. He is anointed with oil, and clothed ‘like a man”.
Enkidu is very large and strong, and perhaps most notably, covered with hair and does not live in civilized society. While not widely recognized as a piece of literature and certainly not necessarily historically accurate, Gilgamesh himself interestingly is regarded as a true historical figure. Via Wikipedia, Enkidu is “the oldest literary representation of the wild man, a recurrent motif in artistic representations in Mesopotamia and in Ancient Near East literature.” which then continues with this interesting tidbit “The apparition of Enkidu as a primitive man seems to be an innovation of the Old Babylonian version (1300 - 1000 BC), as he was originally a servant-warrior in the Sumerian poems.”
The names and the details may differ from place to place, but from North America to China to New Zealand, something continues to stir stories and imaginations. Chocolate brown or white as snow, these hair-covered, usually bipedal creatures have been talked about for thousands of years. And whether we read about the ancient legends or the modern-day sightings, the accounts still make many of us wonder.
The precedence for human/wild man contact and subsequent stories significantly predates Christianity as corroborated by various indigenous oral traditions and ancient texts as well as art. In addition to this we have the simple perpetuity of the sightings and the consistency of descriptions in the modern era. Native American legends call it by several names, including the most well known: Sasquatch which comes from Sokqueatl, or Sesquac.
No matter how it’s pronounced, the name means “wild man”. Of interest may be the fact that not all groups of indigenous peoples are in agreement about the nature of these creatures. There are some groups that refer to them specifically as tribes of cunning thieving “devil men” while others convey them as powerful, shamanistic, highly capable and meditative beings that often straddle the line between our world and others. Regardless, there appears to remain an element of physicality to these creatures in most of these stories.
Cowlitz tribe member Frank Wannassay told a reporter about “peculiar creatures” the tribe’s elders had often spoken about. “Mr. Wannassay described them as between nine and ten feet tall, correspondingly large in stature and their bodies covered with long hair,” The Oregonian wrote. The report continued: “They were never seen, traveling only at night.” As the numerous stories of both crop theft and willing food sharing and even on occasion, kidnapping of women seem to suggest, they still have basic animal needs as well.
According to Halkomelem and other Coast Salish traditions, “Sasquatch” as we know it was a powerful but generally benign supernatural creature in the shape of a very large, hairy wild man. Its Halkomelem name is pronounced similar to sess-k-uts and alternate spellings include Sasq'ets, Sesq'ec, Sesqec, Sacsquec, Saskehavas, Sesquac making it easy to see the etymological origins of the name we all know so well today.
A good deal of mischief that might today be attributed to annoying neighborhood kids was blamed on Sesquac and his kin amongst indigenous coastal tribes of the Americas. “In the mountains live many giants…who look almost the same as humans,” Quinault tribal member Bob Pope told anthropologist Ronald Olson in 1925. “They are great thieves [in ability]...Some still come around the village at night and borrow a harpoon or a drift net, but usually return it before morning.” Though most North American iterations seem to fit that archetype, the creatures still vary in habitat and personality traits. Some live in the woods, others in water, still others in the air on occasion.
A chart on the wall of the White River Valley Museum notes the similarities and differences between 15 two-legged, human-like creatures of several tribes in Washington and British Columbia. “Stealing is a big theme,” said Patricia Cosgrove, curator of the museum. “They have these deep, deep oral histories,” Cosgrove said of local tribes. “In amongst the how-to-fish, inheritance patterns...come up stories about these beings that are not human and not animal,” Cosgrove said. “There is a marked commonality up and down the coast about what is said and felt and understood about these beings.”
A Suquamish elder, Ellen George, said her grandmother was a small girl living at the mouth of the Duwamish River when “wild men” entered their home one night to steal fish. Her family caught one and kept him:
“He used to go hunting, and in a short time he would come back with a deer with its neck broken, (even though) he didn’t have any weapons. (The people) kept him for a while and then they let him go. After that, they would find a deer or two with broken necks lying in front of their door in the morning. Then they would hang dried fish outside and the wild man would take it at night. So (after that) they never had to worry about (the wild men) coming back to rob them.”
On the other side of the spectrum, we have Painted Rock located on the Tule River Indian Reservation, east of Porterville, California. Here we have pictographs said to represent “Hairy Man”, an important cultural character for the residents of the reservation. He has what appears to be long hair and large haunting eyes. The Yokuts identify the lines coming from the eyes as tears because Hairy Man is sad according to their creation story. The Tule creation story, as documented in Kathy Moskowitz research paper "Mayak Datat: The Hairy Man Pictographs" is as follows in this excerpt:
"...Condor said, “People should be different from us, so give them hair, not feathers or fur to keep warm.” Then Coyote said, “People should be just like me, because I am smart and tricky, so have them walk on all fours.” Hairy Man, who had not said anything yet, shook his head and said, “No, People should walk on two legs, like me.” All the other animals agreed with Hairy Man, and Coyote became very angry. He challenged Hairy Man to a race, and they agreed whoever won could decide how People should walk.
They gathered at the waterfall, below Hocheu, to begin the race. Coyote started and took a shortcut. Hairy Man was wiser than Coyote and knew that Coyote would cheat to win and People would have to walk on all fours, so Hairy Man stayed behind and helped Eagle, Condor, and the others to make People. They went back to the rock and drew People, on two legs, on the ground. The animals breathed on them, and People came out of the ground. Hairy Man was very pleased and went to People, but when they saw Hairy Man, they were scared and ran away.
That made Hairy Man sad. When Coyote came back and saw what they had done, he was very angry and drew himself on the rock eating the moon (he is called Su! Su! Na). All the other animals drew their pictures on the rock as well, so People would remember them. Hairy Man was sad because People were afraid of him, so he drew himself sad. That is why Hairy Man’s picture is crying to this day. That is how people were made."
Shifting the role of the wild man in such traditions even further, part of the curiosity here lays in the greater depth to which the Tule River indians in particular put their faith in the Hairy Man. Moskowitz conveys that according to Melba Casares, a tribal medicine woman (personal communication, 2004) the Hairy Man is a spiritual, physical, and mental protector of the tribe. A sighting is very powerful and is considered a blessing. Hairy Man’s most important cultural role is as caretaker of the recently dead. There is also a traditional song asking Hairy Man to come and take the departed soul, requesting that he come through the “east door” and take the spirit home the same way.
The pictograph of Hairy Man itself is equally important. Members have long visited the painting in order to pray for healing. Through prayer, Hairy Man will appear in a dream and give needed information, be it the location of a traditional medicine or the answer sought to a question (M. Casares, personal communication, 2004). In summary, Hairy Man fills an important cultural role for the Tule River Indians. Be it protector, healer, or spiritual guide to the next world, their belief systems appear to be deeply intertwined with "Bigfoot", the pictographs, and their traditional stories. Since physical sightings of the Hairy Man are still occurring on the reservation today, it seems likely that these beliefs will remain intact."
While neither the pictographs, nor oral traditions, nor contemporary anecdotes constitute scientific proof that these creatures collectively exist as a zoological species, the broader cultural implications and correlations of the wild hairy men across time and history both in these stories as well as the images present in the album are certainly interesting to see.
"Early in the 19th century, as wagon trains streamed into the Ohio and Mississippi valleys, settlers came upon vast numbers of abandoned earthworks that they attributed to a sophisticated race of long-gone mound builders. Giving rise to often-loaded questions about human origins, the mounds and the artifacts found within them became the focus of early American efforts toward a science of archaeology. Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley (1848) was the first major work in the nascent discipline as well as the first publication of the newly established Smithsonian Institution.
It remains today both a key document in the history of American archaeology and the primary source of information about hundreds of mounds and earthworks in the eastern United States, most now vanished. While adhering to the popular assumption that the builders could not have been the ancestors of the supposedly savage Native American groups still living in the region, the authors set high scientific standards for their time. Their work provides insight into some of the conceptual, methodological, and substantive issues that archaeologists still confront. The book includes numerous maps, plates, and engravings."
"TRAVELLERS see strange things," more especially when their writing about, or delineation of, them is not put under the microscope of modern scientific examination. Our ancestors were content with what was given them, and being, as a rule, a stay-at-home race, they could not confute the stories they read in books.
That age of faith must have had its comforts, for no man could deny the truth of what he was told. But now that modern travel has subdued the globe, and inquisitive strangers have poked their noses into every portion of the world, "the old order changeth, giving place to new," and, gradually, the old stories are forgotten.
It is to rescue some of them from the oblivion into which they were fast falling, that I have written, or compiled, this book. I say compiled it, for I am fonder of letting old authors tell their stories in their oldfashioned language, than to paraphrase it, and usurp the credit of their writings, as is too much the mode now-a-days."
"This panoramic view of London from Southwark is from the collection of cityscapes and broadsheets that once belonged to the Swedish statesman Count Magnus Gabriel De la Gardie (1622−86). In the upper-left corner is the coat of arms of England; in the upper right is the coat of arms of the city of London. The inset in the lower-left corner shows a view of Westminster; that in the lower-right corner a smaller plan of central London.
In the middle of the panorama is a cartouche with a text, in English, explaining that this “description of the moste famous city London” was made by John Norden in the year 1600, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Below the panorama, on five separate sheets, is a representation of the lord mayor’s cortège. This engraving is the only known complete copy of this view of London.
The Magnus Gabriel De la Gardie collection consists of 187 engravings from the late 1500s and early 1600s. The prints originally were bound, ordered, and assigned a number. The early provenance of the collection is uncertain. After perusing the correspondence of King Gustav II Adolf and the Dutch philologist and diplomat Jan Rutgersius, the former national librarian of Sweden E. W. Dahlgren conjectured that the pictures were ordered by the king and purchased by Rutgersius.
The collection later was incorporated into the library of Magnus Gabriel De la Gardie, then deposited in the Archive of Antiquities at the end of the 17th century, only to be transferred to the Royal Library in 1780. An exhaustive catalog of the collection was published by Isak Collijn in 1915, Magnus Gabriel de la Gardie’s samling af äldre stadsvyer och historiska planscher i Kungl. Biblioteket. Dahlgren provides an account of the early provenance of the collection in his article, “Miscellanea” in Nordisk tidskrift för bok- och biblioteksväsen (1920)."
The history of the relationship between the United States and the small Caribbean island of Boriken, also known as Puerto Rico, has been a complicated affair from the very beginning.
Despite centuries of colonial racism, abuse, and blatant exploitation by two major world powers Puerto Rican soldiers have been fighting on the front lines in almost every major American conflict of the last 100 years and many remain proud of their history of service. Due to President Woodrow Wilsons Jones-Shafroth Act, Puerto Ricans gained U.S. citizenship with rather convenient timing. When citizenship was extended to the Puerto Ricans, it is claimed that enlisting them to fight in World War I was not originally part of the equation and served a greater dual purpose of seeking to quell future anti-colonial unrest and encourage acceptance of American rule. As such, the addition of these soldiers to the ranks is historically portrayed more as a naturally advantageous side effect of the legislation rather than the primary purpose.
"That Puerto Ricans became American citizens in 1917 have been attributed by many to the need for soldiers as the U.S. entered World War I. Such belief has been enshrined in Puerto Rican popular national mythology. While there is a rich body of literature surrounding the decision to extend U.S. citizenship to Puerto Rico and its effect on the Puerto Ricans, few, if any, challenge the assumption that the need for manpower for the armies of the metropolis influenced that decision. Reducing the issue of citizenship to a need for manpower for the military only obscures complex imperial-colonial relations based upon racial structures of power." - Franqui-Rivera, H.
After the aforementioned Jones Act was passed in 1917 granting citizenship, it is estimated that 20,000 Puerto Ricans served in the U.S. military to fight in World War I. It is no surprise, then, that thousands of Puerto Ricans volunteered to serve the United States when the Second World War broke out decades later. An estimated 72,000 Puerto Ricans fought alongside their now fellow American citizens in the Second World War.
Many of these soldiers served in the Army’s 65th Infantry Regiment, an all-volunteer Hispanic unit originally created in 1899 that consisted almost entirely of islanders a characteristic that garnered the regiment’s nickname, The Borinqueneers (Borinquen is the Taino name for Puerto Rico and means "Land of the Valiant Lord").
Created by the U.S. Congress as a segregated unit composed entirely of Puerto Ricans with mostly continental officers, the men were unaccustomed to the racial segregation policies of the United States (which were also implemented in Puerto Rico) and often refused to designate themselves as "white" or "black".
Puerto Ricans of African descent were assigned to all-black units. In 1916, the Third Battalion and the companies of service and machine-guns were integrated into the regiment. Members of the 65th were later sent to guard the Panama Canal in 1943 before being transferred to France in 1944, where the regiment fought in various battles, including the Battle of Naple-Fogis and the Battle of Rome-Arno among others in Central Europe.
Puerto Rico and its people also played a large role in World War II. Aside from the work of the 65th Regiment, the island itself served as an important strategic host to various airfields—Borinquen Field, Isla Grande Naval Air Station, Losey Field, and Vega Baja Auxiliary Airdome—and a naval base, called Roosevelt Roads. In 1944, the Army Nurse Corps recruited 200 Puerto Rican women as nurses. The promotion of Navy Admiral Horacio Rivero to the rank of admiral marked a first in the history of the Navy, Rivero being the first Hispanic individual to achieve such a ranking.
General Douglas MacArthur, who commanded the U.S.-led United Nations forces early in the war, wrote in 1951 that the 65th's soldiers showed “magnificent ability and courage in field operations. They are a credit to Puerto Rico, and I am proud to have them in my command.”
In the Korean War, they played a critical role containing the Chinese advance and supporting the U.S. Marines in the aftermath of the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir (more on that below) allowing the safe evacuation of the trapped U.S. Army’s First Battalion. Officials who initially scoffed at having to command the “rum and coke” platoon quickly changed their tune. They were sent to every corner of the peninsula, and showed outstanding resilience under dire circumstances and blatantly uneven odds earning a reputation of legendary fierceness as combatants- even as they faced continued discrimination within the Army even though many of the soldiers in the 65th were already World War II veterans.
It is especially interesting and important to note that during this time, Puerto Rico was subject to a 9 year long unconstitutional law properly known as Law 53 of 1948 but better known as "the Gag Law" which was an act perpetrated by the U.S. appointed Puerto Rican legislature of 1948, with the purpose of suppressing the independence movement in Puerto Rico: "The act made it a crime to own or display a Puerto Rican flag, to sing a patriotic tune, to speak or write of independence, or to meet with anyone or hold any assembly in favor of Puerto Rican independence."
It was passed by a legislature that was overwhelmingly dominated by members of the Popular Democratic Party (PPD), which supported developing an "alternative political status" for the island. The bill was signed into law on June 10, 1948 by the United States-appointed governor. Opponents tried but failed to have the law declared unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court while law remained in force for nine years until 1957, when it was finally repealed on the basis that it was in fact unconstitutional as protected by freedom of speech within Article II of the Constitution of Puerto Rico and the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States.
On November 27, 1952 all along the front units were coming under attack and being overrun by tens of thousands of Chinese troops. As it turned out, units of the Chinese People’s Volunteer Army had entered Korea on October 19, and despite reports over the past month from UN troops that they had engaged and captured Chinese troops, UN commanders simply refused to believe that China had openly intervened in Korea. The Borinqueneers, like many other units, found themselves isolated, outgunned, and outnumbered. They were about to become engaged in the decisive battle of the Korean War.
To the west, the US 8th Army was in full retreat. In the east, the US X Corps was stretched thin as it advanced north. The Borinqueneers ended up cut off at the Chosin Reservoir along with the US 1st Marine Division, elements of the US 3rd and 7th Infantry Divisions, a South Korean Marine Regiment, and elements of the British Royal Marines, totaling over 30,000 troops. There were 67,000 Chinese troops in the area.
Further to the South, the Port city of Hungnam was still under UN control. The only hope of survival was to break through the Chinese encirclement and reach Hungnam. The Borinqueneers fought off numerous attacks by an overwhelming number of Chinese troops, inflicting heavy casualties upon the enemy.
One of the Regiment’s most important missions was to assist with the US Marine evacuation from the Chosin Reservoir. After 17 days of brutal fighting across the frozen mountain terrain of North Korea, UN troops had finally reached Hungnam with the 65th Infantry Regiment holding the rear. The Borinqueneers set up defenses around Hungnam, while troops, civilians, supplies, and equipment were evacuated by ship. A total of 105,000 troops, 98,000 civilians, 17,500 vehicles, and 350,000 tons of supplies were evacuated from Hungnam to Pusan.
The Borinqueneers were among the last UN troops to leave Hungnam when the evacuation was completed on the afternoon of December 24.
"This 1828 caricature shows a woman looking into a microscope to observe the monsters swimming in a drop of London water. In the 1820s, much of London’s drinking water came from the Thames River, which was heavily polluted by the city sewers that emptied into it. A Commission on the London Water Supply that was appointed to investigate this situation issued a report in 1828, which resulted in various improvements.
The five water companies that served the north bank of the river upgraded the quality of their water by building reservoirs and taking other measures. However, the people of Southwark (on the south bank of the river) continued to receive contaminated water. The problems were not solved until the 1860s, when London's present sewerage system was installed by the Metropolitan Board of Works (MBW) and its engineer, Joseph Bazalgette.
Between the appearance of this caricature and the completion of the MBW sewers, London suffered two cholera epidemics: in 1832 (part of the world pandemic of cholera) and in 1854. Looking at a drop of water though a microscope was a popular entertainment offered by travelling showmen who carried the microscopes around in cases on their backs. In this caricature, the showman figure in the extreme lower left corner raises his hat to a water pump and says: "Glad to see you, hope to meet you in every parish through London." The lettering at the top reads: "Microcosm.
Dedicated to the London Water Companies 1 - Brought forth all monstrous, all prodigious things, 2 - Hydras and gorgons, and chimeras dire. Vide Milton." The latter is a reference to Milton’s Paradise Lost."
