09 June 2017
Interesting tidbits:
1311 – Duccio's Maestà Altarpiece, a seminal artwork of the early Italian Renaissance, is unveiled and installed in the Siena Cathedral in Siena, Italy.
1628 - The first deportation from what is now the US, Thomas Morton from MA. Morton was an early American colonist, a lawyer, writer, and social reformer, famed for founding the colony of Merrymount and his work studying Native American culture. Before going to New England, Morton was the legal champion of displaced Westcountrymen 'whose economic straits filled new tent cities, prisons and gallows, and pushed Devon men to the Bristol sea-trades.' He eventually settled into the service of Ferdinando Gorges, the governor of the English port of Plymouth, and a major colonial entrepreneur. Morton initially served him in a legal capacity in England, but following his failed marriage plans, due to the influence of a Puritan stepson, in 1618 he decided to become one of Gorges' 'landsmen' who oversaw his interests in the colonies. Neither experience would enamour him of the Puritans. Morton went to New England in 1624 as a senior partner in a Crown-sponsored trading venture, on board the ship the Unity with his associate Captain Wollaston and 30 indentured young men. They settled and began trading for furs on a spit of land given to them by the native Algonquian tribes, whose culture Morton is said to have admired as far more 'civilized and humanitarian' than that of his 'intolerant European neighbours'. The trading post set up by the two men soon expanded into an agrarian colony. After Wollaston left the venture, Morton and the rest organised themselves into a free community they named Merrymount. Morton's religious beliefs were strongly condemned by the Puritans of the nearby Plymouth Colony as little more than a thinly disguised heathenism, and they suspected him of 'going native'; scandalous rumours spread of the debauchery at Merrymount, which they claimed included immoral sexual liaisons with native women during what amounted to drunken orgies. In retrospect it appears the immoral liaisons amounted to the male colonists taking native wives, which were declared immoral because of the Puritan's extreme racism. The Puritan ire was no doubt fueled by the fact that Merrymount was the fastest-growing colony in New England and rapidly becoming the most prosperous, both as an agricultural producer and in the fur trade in which the Plymouth Colony was trying to build a monopoly. Eventually the Plymouth Militia arrested Morton for 'supplying guns to the Indians'. He was tried and exiled back to England. Barely surviving his harsh treatment during his journey into exile, he began a lawsuit against the Massachusetts Bay Company that ended in the Company's charter being revoked. Plymouth became a place of woe, and many left Massachusetts for the relative safety of Connecticut. Morton’s victory, however, was cut short by the beginning of the English Civil War, and in 1642 he returned as Gorges' agent in Maine. Isolated from his English supporters during the English Civil War, he ended his days amidst the West Country planters of Maine, under the protection of Gorges' supporters. He died at the age of 71 in 1647.
1650 – The Harvard Corporation, the more powerful of the two administrative boards of Harvard, is established. It is the first legal corporation in the Americas.
1742 - Battle of Bloody Marsh - Spanish assault on Simons Island, Georgia. From the first English colonial attempt on Roanoke Island the Spanish contested the English presence on what they considered Spanish Territory.
1822 - Charles Graham patented his version of false teeth.
1860 - The first US "dime novel" was published: "Malaseka, The Indian Wife of the White Hunter," by Mrs Ann Stevens.
1869 - Charles Elmer Hires sells his first root beer in Philadelphia.
1902 - The first Automat restaurant opened (818 Chestnut St, Phila).
1924 – In the second attempt to climb Mount Everest, George Mallory and Andrew "Sandy" Irvine disappear, possibly having first made it to the top.
1928 – Charles Kingsford Smith completes the first trans-Pacific flight in a Fokker Trimotor monoplane, the Southern Cross.
1931 - The first rocket-powered aircraft design was patented by Robert Goddard.
1934 – Donald Duck makes his debut in The Wise Little Hen.
1973 – In horseracing, Secretariat wins the Triple Crown.
Today's birthday crew:
1781 – George Stephenson, English civil engineer and mechanical engineer who built the first public inter-city railway line in the world to use steam locomotives, the Liverpool and Manchester Railway which opened in 1830. Renowned as the "Father of Railways", the Victorians considered him a great example of diligent application and thirst for improvement, with self-help advocate Samuel Smiles particularly praising his achievements. His rail gauge of 4 feet 81/2 inches (1,435 mm), sometimes called "Stephenson gauge", is the world's standard gauge.
1812 – Johann Gottfried Galle, German astronomer (the first person to view the planet Neptune and know what he was looking at).
1915 – Les Paul, American guitarist, songwriter, and inventor.
1925 – Keith Laumer, American science fiction author. Prior to becoming a full-time writer, he was an officer in the United States Air Force and a U.S. diplomat. Laumer is known for the Bolo and Reteif stories. Stories from the former chronicle the evolution of super tanks that eventually become self-aware through the constant improvement resulting from centuries of intermittent warfare against various alien races. The latter deals with the adventures of a cynical spacefaring diplomat who constantly has to overcome the red-tape-infused failures of people with names like Ambassador Grossblunder. The Retief stories were greatly influenced by Laumer's earlier career in the United States Foreign Service. (They are a personal favorite of the editor.) Laumer's more serious adventures included the subjects of time travel and alternate-world adventures such as found in his The Other Side Of Time, A Trace Of Memory, and Dinosaur Beach. His novels and stories tend to follow one of three patterns: fast-paced, straight adventures in time and space, with an emphasis on lone-wolf, latent superhuman protagonists, self-sacrifice, and transcendence; broad, sometimes over-the-top, comedies; and experimental work verging on New Wave science fiction
1943 – Joe Haldeman, American science fiction author best known for his 1974 novel The Forever War. That novel, and other of his works including The Hemingway Hoax (1991) and Forever Peace (1997), have won major science fiction awards including the Hugo Award and Nebula Award. For his career writing science fiction and/or fantasy he is a SFWA Grand Master and since 2012 a member of the Science Fiction Hall of Fame.
1954 – Gregory Maguire, American novelist. He is the author of the novels Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, and many other novels for adults and children. Many of Maguire's adult novels are revisionist retellings of classic children's stories. For example, in Wicked he transformed the Wicked Witch of the West from L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and its 1939 film adaption into the misunderstood protagonist Elphaba.
1954 – George Pérez, American writer and illustrator of comic books, known for his work on various titles, including Avengers, Teen Titans, and Wonder Woman.
1963 – Johnny Depp, American actor, screenwriter, producer, director, and musician (Captain Jack Sparrow)
1981 – Natalie Portman, Israeli-American actress known for her role as Padmé Amidala in the Star Wars prequel trilogy, and for her portrayal as Jane Foster, the love interest of Marvel superhero Thor in the film adaptation Thor.
1988 – Mae Whitman, American actress known for her voice work as Katara in the animated television series Avatar: The Last Airbender, April O'Neil in the 2012 iteration of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Her first major studio role as the President's daughter in Independence Day.
Happy birthday guys!