History Oddities 2
Earhart.
Amelia Mary Earhart (1897- 1937?) was the first woman to fly
solo across the Atlantic Ocean (1932), and the first person ever to fly solo
from Hawaii to the U.S. mainland (1935).
During a flight to circumnavigate the glove, she disappeared over the
Pacific Ocean in July 1937. Her plane
wreckage was never found. Her
disappearance remains one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of the 20th
century. She set a number of aviation
records during her life. Her first
record came in 1922 when she became the first woman to fly solo above 14,000
feet. In 1932, after returning to the
United States after flying solo across the Atlantic, Congress awarded her the
Distinguished Flying Cross. She was the
first woman to receive the honor. Later
that year, she was the first woman to fly nonstop across the United
States. On July 2, 1937, Earhart and her
navigator, Fred Noonan, departed Lae, New Guinea for tiny Howland Island, their
next refueling stop. It was the last
time that both were seen alive. She may
have run out of gas and crahed in the ocean.
No evidence of her or the plane has ever been found. [source: “Amelia Earhart,” history.com,
March 9, 2022]
Edict of Milan.
For nearly 300 years, Christianity was functionally illegal in the Roma
Empire. The Edit of Milan was an
agreement to treat Christians benevolently within the Roman Empire. It was written in 313 AD. The letter was issued shortly after the end
of the persecution of Christians by the emperor Diocletian. The exact words of the edict are no longer
known. The edict was issued in the names
of the Roman Emperoros Constantine I, who ruled the western parts of the
Empire, and Licinis, who ruled the eastern parts of Europe. At the time, the two emperors were in Milan,
Italy to celebrate the wedding of Constantine’s sister with Licinius. There had already been an edict of toleration
issues by Emperor Galerius in 311 AD.
However, this was an indulgence that read “Wherefore, for this our
indulgence, they ought to pray to their God for our safety, for that of the
republic, and for their own, that the commonwealth may continue uninjured on
every side, and that they may be able to live securely in their homes.” The Edict of Milan stated that the meeting
places and other properties which had been taken from the Christians were to be
returned and that Christians be released from prisons. The Edict of Milan gave Christianity a legal
status, but did not make Christianity the state church of the Roman Empire
until 380 AD with the Edict of Thessalonica.
[source: “What
was the Edict of Milan?” gotquestins.org, Jan 2, 2020]
Einstein. Albert
Einstein (1879-1955) did most of his scientific work in the early 20th
century. In 1900, he wrote his first
scientific paper on the physics of fluids in drinking straws, called
“Conclusions from the Capillarity Phenomena.”
In 1901, he acquired Swiss citizenship.
He worked temporarily as a teacher for a private school. His first job in 1902 was a temporary
assistant examiner at a patent office in Bern, Switzerland. In 1902, he had an illegitimate
daughter. In 1903, his position at the
Swiss Patent Office became permanent, although he was passed over for
promotion. In 1904, he first son was
born. In 1905, he published four
groundbreaking papers in physics. The
papers were on the photoelectric effect, Brownian motion, special relativity,
and the equivalence of mass and energy.
In 1906, he received his doctorate degree at the University of
Zurich. His doctoral dissertation was on
the size of molecules. He was promoted
to patent clerk second-class at the Patent Office. In 1907, he started to think about the
general theory of relativity. It took 7
years to work out the mathematical details.
In 1908, he was appointed lecturer at the University of Bern. In 1909, he quit his job as a patent clerk
and was appointed associate professor at the University of Zurich. In 1910, his second son was born. In 1911, he became a full professor at the
German University in Prague. In 1912, he
began a love affair with his divorced cousin.
In 1914, as World War I broke out, Einstein became a member of a pacifist
group. In 1915, he finished his work on
the general theory of relativity. In
1919, he divorced his first wife and married his cousin. [source: Isaacson, Einstein: His Life
and Universe, 2008]
Encyclopédie.
The most influential publication of the Enlightenment was the Encyclopédie. It
was a general encyclopedia published in France between 1751 and 1772. It was edited by Denis Diderot (1713-1784)
and, until 1759, co-edited by Jean le Rond d’Alembert. It consisted of 28 volumes (and a total 35
volumes in expanded editions). It was the
first encyclopedia to include contributions from many named contributors. The original task had a list of subscribers
of over 4,000 people. Thomas Jefferson,
James Madison, and James Monroe all bought a copy. The work consisted of 71,818 articles and
2,129 illustrations. Many of the
articles caused much controversy in conservative circles. Articles skeptical about Bible miracles
angered both religious and governmental authorities. The second volume was banned in 1752. In 1758 the volumes were banned by the
Catholic Church. The French government suspended printing rights in 1759, but
the banning was rarely enforced. Some of
the contributors were jailed. Later
volumes were printed in secret because of all the highly placed
supporters. Diderot contributed with the
most articles, writing around 7,000 articles himself. When it was finished, Diderot felt that the
entire project may have been a waste. He
made little money from the effort and received very little recognition for his
work. He was later paid 50,000 francs by
Empress Catherine the Great to serve as her librarian. From 1782 to 1832, the successors published
an expanded edition of the work in 166 volumes, with 2,250 contributors. [source: Miyatsu, “A Revolutionary Encyclopedia,” Washington University
in St. Louis, Nov 14, 2017]
Erikson.
Leif Erikson (970 – 1020) was perhaps the first European to reach the
Americas. In 1960, the discovery of a
Norse settlement in Newfoundland confirmed that Columbus was not the first
European to reach the Americas. The site
dates back to 1000 AD, and has been linked to the Viking explorer Leif
Erikson. Leif was born in Iceland. Leif’s father, Erik the Red, banished from
Iceland (after a murder incident), was founder of the first European settlement
in 986 on what is now called Greenland.
Erik the Red’s great-great-grand uncle discovered Iceland. Leif sailed from Greenland to Norway where
King Olaf I converted him to Christianity.
On the way back to Greenland, he sailed off course and landed in Newfoundland,
where he explored a region called Vinland.
[source:
Groeneveld, “Leif Erikson,” Ancient
History Encyclopedia, Sep 20, 2018]
Exxon
Valdez oil spill. The Exxon Valdez oil spill had no casualties,
but it had an enormous environmental impact.
It is considered the worst oil spill in terms of damage to the
environment. The oil spill occurred in
Prince William Sound, Alaska, on March 24, 1989. The Exxon
Valdez, an oil tanker owned by the Exxon Shipping Company, spilled 11
million gallons of crude oil into the waters.
The oil slick covered 1,300 miles of coastline, killing hundreds of
thousands of seabirds, otters, seals, and whales. At the time, the oil tanker was carrying over
53 million gallons of crude oil onboard.
A few minutes after midnight, on March 24, 1989, the ship, bound for
Long Beach, struck Bligh Reef, a well-known navigation hazard in Prince William
Sound. The main cause was a broken radar
that had been left broken and disabled for more than a year before the
disaster. Some blame was given to
Captain Joseph Hazelwood, who was not at the controls when the ship hit the
reef. Blame also went to the unlicensed
third mate who failed to properly maneuver the ship. More than 11,000 Alaska residents worked to
clean up the oil spill. Exxon paid about
$2 billion in cleanup costs, and $1.8 billion for habitat restoration and personal
damages related to the spill. [source: “Exxon
Valdez Oil Spill,” history.com, March
9, 2018]
Florence. The Renaissance
began in Florence, Italy. In the 15th century, Florence was among
the largest cities in Europe, with a population of 100,000 people. About 25,000 of the people were engaged in
employment in the city’s main industry: wool production. During the Renaissance, over 60 churches
were built within Florence’s city walls.
There was a church every 300 feet.
At the time, Florence was a city-state with its own government. The Medici family, Florence’s most famous
bankers of all, made their fortune by loaning out money at an interest to the
pope and businesses across the continent.
The Medici family was in power for nearly 400 years, from 1350 to 1743
when the last of the Medici died. [source:
“Florence in the Renaissance,” History
Crunch, Aug 18, 2018]
Flu
pandemic. A
flu (influenza) pandemic is an epidemic of the flu virus that spreads worldwide
and infects are a large proportion of the world population. There have been 9 flu pandemics during the
last 300 years, with the most recent being in 1918, 1947, 1957, 1968, 1977,
1989, and 2009. The 1918 influenza
pandemic (Spanish flu) lasted from January 1918 to December 1920. The Spanish flu infected an estimated 500
million people (1/3 of the global population) and killed far more people than
all of World War I that were killed or wounded.
About 50 to 100 million people died from the Spanish flu, or about 3% of
the world’s population. During World War
I, 20 million died and 21 million were wounded.
In the USA, 675,000 Americans died of the Spanish flu. The first wave of the 1918 flu pandemic
occurred in the spring and was generally mild.
The second wave appeared in the fall of 1918. Victims died within hours or days of
developing symptoms such as chills, fevers, and fatigue Although it gained the nickname “Spanish flu,”
it is unlikely that the virus originated in Spain. The first case was a man in
Kansas. At one point, the use of aspirin
was blamed for causing the pandemic, when it might actually have helped those
infected. In New York City, it was
illegal to spit on the streets during the pandemic. Stores could not hold sales and funerals were
limited to 15 minutes. In 1919,
President Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924) contracted the disease while negotiating
the treaty of Versailles. The king of
Spain also contracted the flu. [sources: “Spanish flu: the deadliest pandemic
in history,” Live Science, March 12,
2020 and “Spanish Flu,” history.com,
May 19, 2020]
Ford. Gerald Ford
(1913-2006), who was born Leslie Lynch King, Jr., was never elected to the
office of vice president or president.
He was the first Eagle Scout to be president. In college at the University of Michigan, he
was named the football team’s most valuable player. Upon graduation, he received offers from the
Detroit Lions and the Green Bay Packers to play in the NFL. He declined and took a position as head
boxing coach and assistant football coach at Yale University. He coached future U.S. senators Robert Taft
Jr and William Proxmire. Ford died in
2006 at the age of 93. At the time, he
was the oldest U.S. president. [source: Pruitt,
“9 Things You May Not Know About Gerald Ford,” history.com, Jul 12, 2013]
Fort
Sumter. Fort Sumter is a sea fort in Charleston,
South Carolina. The First Battle of Fort
Sumter began on April 12, 1861, when South Carolina Militia artillery fired on
the Union garrison. The Confederates
actually opened fired on the fort a month earlier. The South Carolina Militia commander had to
row over and apologize for the inexperienced gunner who had accidently
discharged his cannon. On April 12,
1861, the South Carolina militia fired over 3,000 shells at the fort in 34
straight hours without injuring a single Union soldier. When the fort surrendered the next day, a
Confederate officer named Richard Pryor rowed out to negotiate the terms. As the discussion progressed, Pryor got up
and poured himself a glass of whiskey, and downed it in one gulp. Unfortunately, it wasn’t whiskey, but a glass
of medical iodine that he drank. An army
doctor was called to pump his stomach.
Pryor survived. To mark the
surrender, the Union commander ordered his gunners to fire a 100-gun
salute. The careless gunners piled
cartridges next to the cannons. As the
cannons fired in the high wind, the cartridges exploded, killing two Union
soldiers. They were the only casualties
of the siege. 87 Union men surrendered
at Fort Sumter. [source: Hanton,
“10 Obscure Historical Events That Would Make Amazing Movies,” listverse.com,
Sep 21, 2015 and “Fort Sumter,” history.com,
Dec 11, 2019]
Franklin. Benjamin
Franklin (1706-1790). Among other things, was a scientist and inventor. He made several discoveries and theories
regarding electricity. He invented the
lightning rod, bifocal glasses, and the Franklin stove (provide more heat with
less fuel). Franklin was the first to
label electrical charges as positive or negative. He was the first to discover the principle of
conservation of charge. He founded the
American Philosophical Society, the first scientific society in the
colonies. Franklin published a proposal
for an experiment to prove that lightning is electricity by flying a kite in a
storm. He may have actually carried out
this experiment himself. A Russian
professor tried out Franklin’s suggestion and was electrocuted in performing
lightning experiments during the months after Franklin’s publications. Franklin could have not touched a charged key
without being electrocuted. [source:
“Benjamin Franklin,” biography.com,
April 2, 2014]
Fredericksburg. The Battle
of Fredericksburg, also known as the Battle of Marye’s Heights, was fought from
December 11, 1862 to December 15, 1862 in and around Fredericksburg, Virginia. It was the most on-sided battles of the Civil
War. The Union casualties were more than
twice as heavy as the Confederate casualties.
The Union Army of the Potomac was commanded by General Ambrose
Burnside. He was a reluctant commander
who had turned down the post from President Lincoln twice. The other Union generals included Joseph
Hooker and Edwin Sumner. The Confederate
Army of Northern Virginia was led by General Robert E. Lee. The other Confederate commanders included
Stonewall Jackson, James Longstreet, and Jeb Stuart. The Union had over 122,000 soldiers while the
Confederates had 72,500 men. After the
battle, the Union had 12,653 casualties, including 2 generals, while the
Confederates had 5,377 casualties. The
battle had the most soldiers involved of any battle during the Civil War. After the battle, General Burnside was
relieved of his command and Major General Joseph Hooker took his place. Two cabinet members of Lincoln, Secretary of
State William Seward and Secretary of the Treasury Salmon Chase, offered to
resign after the battle, but Lincoln refused in both cases. [source: “Battle of Fredericksburg,”
history.com, Dec 11, 2019]
Freedmen’s
Bureau. In 1866,
Congress passed the Freedmen’s Bureau and Civil Rights Bills. The first bill was to assist millions of poor
whites and freed slaves in the South. It
provided food, housing, and medical aid, established schools, and offered legal
assistance. The majority of its original
employees were Civil War soldiers. The
second bill defined all persons born in the United States as national citizens
with equality before the law. President
Andrew Johnson vetoed both bills.
Congress then overrode his vetoes, making the Civil Rights Act the first
major bill in the history of the United States to become law through an
override of a presidential veto. The
House of Representatives, frustrated by Johnson’s opposition to congressional
Reconstruction, filed impeachment charges.
The action failed by one vote in the Senate. Howard University, a historically all-black
school in Washington D.C., was established in 1867 and named after Oliver Howard,
one of the founders and the head of the Freedmen’s Bureau. The new national Reconstruction laws incensed
white supremacists in the South. They
formed the Ku Klux Klan and murdered blacks and outspoken freedman in the
South, including Arkansas Congressmen James M. Hinds. [source: “Freedmen’s Bureau,” history.com, June 1, 2010]
Galileo. Galileo
Galilei (1564-1642) was an Italian astronomer, physicist, and engineer. He began studying at a monastery and wanted
to become a monk. He then enrolled at
the University of Pisa to study medicine.
He later dropped out of school and studied mathematics on his own. He didn’t invent the telescope, but he was
the first to use it to study the heavens.
Galileo was the first person to
observe Mercury with a telescope.
He had 3 children with the same woman, but never married. He put two of his daughters in a convent,
where they stayed their whole life. His
son studied medicine, became a successful musician, and resided in
Florence. He wrote a book supporting the
model that the planets revolved around the sun, which contradicted certain
Bible verses. The Catholic Church found
him guilty of heresy and he was sentenced to life in prison. His sentence was soon changed to house
arrest. After Galileo died, he was
buried in Florence. In 1737, his remains
were transferred to another burial place.
Three fingers and a tooth were removed from his corpse. His middle finger has been housed at various
museums in Italy. It wasn’t until 1835
that the Catholic Church finally stopped it probation of Galileo’s books. It wasn’t until 1992 that the Vatican
officially cleared Galileo’s name of any wrongdoing. [source: “Galileo,” biography.com, April 8, 2020]
Galveston
hurricane. The Great Galveston hurricane of 1900 was the
deadliest natural disaster in United States history in terms of lives
lost. The loss of life was attributed to
the fact that officials for the Weather Bureau in Galveston brushed off the
reports of a major hurricane and did not realize the threat. The hurricane hit Galveston on September 8-9,
1900 and left 12,000 fatalities in the U.S.
It was a category 4 hurricane that swept over the island with 145 mph
winds. It killed 1 in 6 residents. It wiped out 7,000 buildings. The storm surge was 15.7 feet. The hurricane dumped 9 inches of water on the
city in less than 24 hours. It did over
$34 million in damages, equivalent to over $105 billion in today’s
currency. It left 10,000 people
homeless. The remnants of the hurricane
died near Iceland on September 15, 1900.
[source:
Burnett, “The Tempest at Galveston,” NPR,
Nov 30, 2017]
Gascoigne. William Gascoigne (1612-1644) was an English
astronomer, mathematician, and maker of scientific instruments. He invented the telescopic micrometer and the
telescopic sight. His telescopic sight
invention came to him when a thread from a spider’s web happened to become
caught at exactly the combined optical focal points of two lenses. He realized that he could more accurately
point the telescope using the line as a guide, and went on to invent the
telescopic sight by placing crossed wires at the focal point to define the
center of the field of view. He had
devised experiments to show how an inverted image was cast onto the retina of
the eye. He was the first to calculate
the angular size of the Sun from the size of its image projected by a Galilean
telescope. He was the first to confirm
the elliptic orbit of Earth with his scientific instruments to prove Kepler’s
laws of elliptical orbits. In 1642,
civil war broke out in England.
Gascoigne received a commission in the army of King Charles I. On July 2, 1644, Gascoigne was killed by a
bullet at the Battle of Marston Moor, seven miles west of York. His body was thrown into a mass burial pit
along with 10,000 other soldiers. [source: Sellers, In Search of
William Gascoigne: Seventeenth Century Astronomer, 2012]
Gaugamela. In 331
BC, the Battle of Gaugamela (which means “The Camel’s House”), also known as
the Battle of Arbela, was the decisive battle of Alexander the Great’s invasion
of the Persian Achaemenid Empire. The
place of battle is 70 miles north of present-day Irbil, Iraq. King Darius III of Persia (age 49) was
waiting for Alexander (age 25) at Gaugamela with over 200,000 men. Alexander had 47,000 soldiers. Alexander reassured his superstitious
Macedonians that an earlier eclipse of the moon was a sign of victory. The next day, an eagle flew overhead and
towards Darius. To Alexander, this was
another omen of victory. Alexander
attacked with better military maneuvers and tactics. Alexander, spying Darius, threw a spear at
Darius, missing him by inches. Darius realized
that victory was hopeless and fled.
Alexander later claimed that about 500 of his men were killed while
40,000 Persians were killed. [source:
Filson, “Battle of Gaugamela: Alexander Versus Darius,” historynet.com, Sep 30, 2019]
Genghis Kahn. Genghis Khan (1162-1227) was the founder and
Emperor of the Mongol Empire, which became the largest contiguous empire in
history after his death. He is
considered the greatest conqueror of all time.
His original name was Temujin, meaning “blacksmith.” In 1206, he changed his name to Khan, meaning
“leader.” Kahn’s first target was
China. By 1215, he besieged, captured,
and sacked Zhongdu – modern day Beijing.
He killed thousands of Chinese soldiers and destroyed their entire
army. He is responsible for the deaths
of as many as 40 million people during his Mongol conquests. He reduced the world’s population by 11
percent. He created the first
international postal system using mounted couriers. These official riders could often travel as
far as 200 miles a day. To this day, no
one knows how he died or where he is buried.
The traditional narrative is that he died in 1227 from injuries
sustained in a fall from a horse. Other
sources have him killed by an arrow, malaria, or murdered. His body was buried in an unmarked grave in
Mongolia. The Mongol Empire continued to
grow under Khan’s successors. At its
height in 1279, it stretched from the sea of Japan to eastern Hungary. It covered 16% of the world. It was the largest empire in the world until the
British Empire. [source: Hughes, “10 Facts About Genghis Khan,” historyhit.com, Nov 23, 2018]
Greek
alphabet (Ελληνικό αλφάβητο). The Greek alphabet has been used to write the
Greek language since the ninth century BC.
It is derived for the earlier Phoenician alphabet. It was the first alphabetic script in history
to have distinct letters for vowels as well as consonants. Before Greek, all written language consisted
only of consonants. The word alphabet
comes from the first two letters of the Greek alphabet, alpha and beta. Alpha comes from the Canaanite aleph (ox) and
beta from beth (house). It is odd that
the original Greek alphabet was written and read from right to left. Then the direction of writing alternated with
each line (called boustrophedon, meaning “ox-turning”). By the 5th century, BC, Greek
writing settled into the same pattern we use today. About 12% of all English words derive from
Greek. There are about 14 million
speakers of Greek worldwide. [source:
“Greek,” omniglot.com, Oct 9, 2010]
Gulf of
Tonkin. In 1964, there were two incidents in the Gulf
of Tonkin (now called the East Vietnam Sea).
The destroyer USS Maddox fired three “warning” shots over some North
Vietnamese boats. These boats then
replied with torpedoes and machine gun fire.
The other incident was started by false radar images on the USS Turner
Joy, and not actual North Vietnamese bots.
The outcome of these two incidents was the passage of the Gulf of Tonkin
Resolution. This granted U.S. President
Lyndon Johnson the authority to attack North Vietnam without a declaration of
war. When Congress passed the Gulf of
Tonkin Resolution in August 1964, there were only two dissenting votes. It passed the House of Representatives 414-0
and got through the Senate 88-2. The
dissenting senators were Wayne Mores of Oregon and Ernest Gruening of
Alaska. Both senators were defeated in
their next election due to their votes.
41 years later, it was learned that the U.S. fired first. The initial action was never reported by the
Johnson administration, which insisted that the Vietnamese boats fired
first. [source: “Gulf
of Tonkin Resolution,” history.com,
June 7, 2019]
Halley’s
Comet. Halley’s comet nears Earth about every 75-76
years. The 9-mile long comet pass in
1910 was particularly spectacular, as the comet flew by about 13.9 million
miles from Earth. On that occasion,
Halley’s Comet was captured on camera for the first time. As the comet approached, telescope sales
skyrocketed. Hotels offered special
deals, so people could gather on top of their roofs to watch the comet
pass. Camille Flammarian, a French
astronomer, believed that comet’s 24-million-mile tail contained a poisonous
gas (cyanogens gas, detected in the tail by using spectroscopy) that would end
civilization. When The New York Times did a piece on Camille’s theory, people started
ransacking stores for gas masks. Con men
were selling anti-comet pills. Some
people sealed up their keyholes to keep the comet poison out of their
homes. Churches were packed to the brim
with worried followers. Earth’s orbit
carried it through the end of the comet’s tail for 6 hours. In 1909, Mark Twain predicted he would die
when Halley ’s Comet flew by. He was
born in 1835 as the comet passed over.
Sure enough, Mark Twain died on April 21, 1910, one day after
perihelion, when the comet emerged from the far side of the sun. Also died when the comet flew by was
England’s King Edward VIII. Halley’s
Comet last visited Earth in 1986.
Halley’s Comet is scheduled to make its next appearance in late July 2061. [source: Howell, “Halley’s Comet,” space.com, Sep 20, 2017]
Hammurabi. A
warrior, statesman, and lawgiver, Hammurabi (1810 BC – 1750 BC) was the 6th
king of the First Babylonian dynasty at the age of 18. He raised Babylon from the status of a minor
city-state to the principal Mesopotamian power. He described himself as “the
king who has made the four quarters of the earth subservient.” He built new
canals, aqueducts, and temples throughout Mesopotamia. His Code of Hammurabi containing some 282 legal
decrees, was probably more an attempt to portray himself as a supporter of
justice than a practical legal document. Its penalties are often harsh and
retributive, such as the loss of an eye for blinding a free man. He is the one who came up with “an eye for an
eye, tooth for a tooth.” His law codes
were carved into a massive monolith of black diorite, 8 feet high. The pillar was rediscovered in ruins of the
city of Susa in 1901. Hammurabi extended
his city-state’s reach even further, conquering the whole of southern
Mesopotamia between 1766 and 1761 BC. Only further west, in modern Syria, did
kings such as Zimri-Limof Mari seek to maintain independence. Late in his
reign, Hammurabi attacked even Mari and reduced Zimri-Lim to vassalage. [source: Mark, “Hammurabi,” Ancient History Encyclopedia, April 16,
2018]
Hancock. John
Hancock (1737-1793) was an American merchant and statesman. He was a wealthy American who may have also
been a smuggler. He made a fortune
smuggling in Dutch tea. The Tea Act meant
that East India Company tea would be cheaper than the stuff he smuggled
in. He became very popular in
Massachusetts, especially after the British seized his ship, Liberty, in 1768
and charged him with smuggling. Goods
like tea arrived in New England on Hancock’s ships without paying a duty. When his ship was seized by the British, it
started a riot. John Adams got Hancock
off the hook from his smuggling charges.
Hancock did not take part in the Boston Tea Party, but he approved of
the action. He riled up the crowd by
saying, “Let every man do what is right in his own eyes.” Hancock was the first to sign the Declaration
of Independence. He was president of the
Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia at the time and signed it in large
letters fitting for the president of the Congress. Only one other person was in the room when he
signed it. Hancock was the first
governor of Massachusetts. In 1789, he
was a candidate in the first U.S. presidential election, but only got 4
electoral votes against Washington’s 69 votes.
[source:
“John Hancock,” history.com, Nov 9,
2009]
Hastings.
On October 14, 1066, at the Battle of Hastings in England, King Harold
II (1022-1066) of England was defeated by the Norman forces of William the
Conqueror (1028-1087). The battle did
not take place in Hastings. It took
place 7 miles northwest of Hastings between Senlac Hill and Telham Hill. The first man recorded to be killed in the
battle was William the Conqueror’s jester, Taillefer. William had about 10,000 men and Harold had
about 7,000 men. The battle started
about 9 am. During the battle, both
sides took a break for lunch. The battle
was over by sunset. About 2,000 soldiers
were killed in William’s army. About
4,000 were killed in Harold’s army. King
Harold died on the battleground perhaps shot in the eye by an arrow. William marched on London and received the
city’s submission. On Christmas Day of
1066, William was crowned in Westminster Abbey as the first Norman king of
England. The Anglo-Saxon phase of English
history came to an end. French became
the language of the king’s court for the next 400 years. [source: “Battle
of Hastings,” history.com, June 10,
2019]
Herschel. William
Herschel (1738-1822) was a German-born British astronomer. He was a self-taught astronomer who started
out as a musician, teaching music and becoming an organist. He spent 9 years carrying out sky
surveys. His catalogue of nebulae
contained 5,000 objects. His catalog is
still used today. In 1781, he discovered
a new planet, eventually given the name Uranus.
It was originally thought to be
a comet or star. It took two years to
decide that it was a new planet.
Herschel, wanted to name it Georgium Sidus (George’s Star), after King
George III. Astronomer Johann Bode
suggested that it be name after the Greek god of the sky, Uranus. Herschel was the first to discover infrared
radiation. He was the first to discover
that the Martian polar caps vary seasonally.
He discovered 4 moons around Saturn and Uranus. He grinded and polished his own mirrors and
built the largest telescope in the world at the time, a 40-foot reflecting
telescope. [source: Redd, “William Herschel Biography,” space.com, Sep 4, 2012]
Hieroglyphs. In ancient Egypt, there were over 5,000 distinct characters in their
hieroglyphs (picture words). The use of
hieroglyphic writing arose around the 32nd century BC. The first
full sentence written in hieroglyphs comes from a seal impression in the tomb
of Seth-Peribsen, which dates to the 28th century BC. Hieroglyphs could be written in any
direction; left to right, right to left, or top to bottom. The reader would figure out which way to read
it by the direction of the symbols.
There was no punctuation and no vowels.
Those who could write hieroglyphics were called scribes. Scribes did not have to play taxes or enter
the army. Only the children of the
wealthy got the opportunity to train as scribes. Although hieroglyphics are Egyptian, the word
hieroglyphics is a Greek word meaning holy writings. It wasn’t until the 1820s that hieroglyphs
could be understood. This was due to the
1799 discovery of the Rosetta Stone. The
stone has the same piece of text written in Middle Egyptian hieroglyphs,
Demotic, and Greek. [source:
Scoville, “Egyptian Hieroglyphs,” Ancient
History Encyclopedia, July 2, 2015]
Hindenburg
disaster. On May 6, 1937, the German passenger airship,
LZ 129 Hindenburg caught fire and was destroyed during its attempt to dock at a
Naval Air Station in Lakehurst, New Jersey.
35 of the 97 people aboard died from the accident. The fatalities included 13 passengers and 22
crewmen. 10 others died a few days aft
the accident, mostly from burns. A
ground crewman was also killed. The
Hindenburg was 804 feet long and filled with hydrogen. It has a maximum speed of 84 miles per
hour. It was initially designed to be
filled with non-flammable helium, but it was filled with highly flammable
hydrogen instead. This was due to export
restrictions by the United States on helium coming from Nazi, Germany. At the time, America had a corner on the
helium market. The Hindenburg had
already made 10 scheduled round trips between Germany and the USA, carrying
over 1,000 passengers. The fire was
officially attributed to a discharge of atmospheric electricity near a hydrogen
gas leak. Others have speculated that
the disaster was cause by sabotage.
The Hindenburg disaster marked the end of the use of rigid airships in
commercial air transportation. Oddly,
the Hindenburg was built using metal from another airship that exploded and
burned in 1930. A ticket on the Hindenburg
was $450 (about $8,000 in today’s currency.
[source:
Mancini, “15 Facts About the Hindenburg,” mentalfloss.com,
Jan 3, 2020]
Hippocrates. Hippocrates
(460 BC – 370 BC) was a Greek physician.
He is referred to as the “Father of Medicine.” He was the first person to believe that
diseases were caused naturally and not by superstition and gods. He established the first school devoted to
teaching the practice of medicine. His
Hippocratic Oath binds physicians to following good ethical practices (although
scholars don’t think he wrote it). On a
timeline of ancient scholars, he lived after Thales, Anaximander, and
Pythagoras. He lived at the same time as
Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. He did
not have a thorough understanding of human anatomy because dissections of human
bodies were illegal in ancient Greece.
He thought the best part of water was lost in the process of freezing
and thawing. He assumed that drinking
melted water was bad for you. It would
take almost 2,500 years before it was established that true cause of disease is
malfunctioning cells and that most cell malfunctions were caused by invading
micro-organisms. He was a firm believer
of “patient confidentiality.” A statue
of Hippocrates stands at the place where he died, in Larissa, Greece. [source: Pedersen, “Who Was
Hippocrates?” Live Science, May 9,
2018]
Hitler,
William. Adolf Hitler’s nephew, William Patrick Hitler
(1911-1987), served in the U.S. Navy during World War II. He was born in Liverpool, England to Adolf
Hitler’s half-brother, Alois Hitler. In
1929, William traveled to Germany where his father took him to a Nazi
rally. In 1930, William met with his
uncle, Adolf, and received an autograph photo from him. Adolf Hitler later called him “Willy, my
loathsome nephew.” In 1932, William was
fired from his job in England, so he stayed in Germany. He then worked in a bank in Berlin. In 1939, William wrote an article for Look magazine called “Why I Hate My
Uncle.” Shortly after, William returned
to England. He tried to join the British
armed forces, but was rejected because of his direct relation to Adolf
Hitler. William Hitler then travelled to
the United States and was on a lecture tour sponsored by newspaperman William
Randolph Hearst. When World War II broke
out, William tried to join the US armed forces, but was denied because his
direct relation to Adolf Hitler. In
1942, William Hitler wrote to President Franklin D. Roosevelt begging to be
allowed to serve in the U.S. military.
FDR passed the request to FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. Hoover looked into William’s background and
finally cleared him for military service.
He joined the US Navy in 1944 and served 3 years as a pharmacist’s mate (now
called Hospital Corpsman), receiving the Purple Heart for a battle wound he
suffered. After being discharged from
the Navy, he changed his name to William Stuart-Houston and established a
business that analyzed blood samples for hospitals. [source: “Corpsman Hitler, US Navy?” America in WWII and Kilgannon, “Three
Quiet Brothers on Long Island, All of Them Related to Hitler, New York Times, April 24, 2006]
H. L.
Hunley. The H.
L. Hunley was a submarine of the Confederate States of America. It was the first combat submarine to sink a
warship. The submarine had been
privately constructed in Mobile, Alabama by marine engineer Horace Lawson
Hunley. It was transported by rail to
Charleston, South Carolina. Shortly
after testing began in Charleston Harbor, 5 of Hunley’s 9 crewmembers drowned when a ship officer accidently
caused the submarine to dive while the hatches were still open. The submarine was salvaged, but less than 2
months later, a second training accident caused the drowning of the 8-member
crew, including H. L. Hunley himself.
Once again, the submarine was salvaged.
In February 1864, the Hunley
made her only attack against an enemy ship, the USS Housatonic. The submarine rammed its only torpedo
containing 135 pounds of gunpowder against the enemy hull and detonated
it. The ship sank in 5 minutes, killing
5 of her crew. After the attack, the
submarine failed to return. In April
1995, the submarine was finally located in Charleston Harbor. It was buried under several feet of
silt. The submarine was raised from the
waters in 2000 and placed in a 90,000 gallon freshwater conservation tank. Researchers at Duke University conducted
experiments and found that the torpedo blast most likely created a shockwave
great enough to instantly rupture the blood vessels in the lungs and brains of
the crew in the submarine. [source:
Knapton, “Mystery deaths of HL Hunley submarine crew solved – they accidently
killed themselves,” The Telegraph,
Aug 23, 2017]
Holocaust. Among
the aspects of German National Socialist ideology was its view that Aryans
(white Caucasians) were racially superior and that other groups, most
especially the Jews, were inferior. The practical consequence of this belief
was the Holocaust – the deliberate attempt to annihilate the Jewish population
of Europe, which resulted in the murder of some six million Jews by 1945. Holocaust is a word of Greek origin meaning
“sacrifice by fire.” As German troops swept in to the USSR, the SS shot or
gassed (in mobile vans) as many Jews as they could find. In Kiev, 33,771 Jews
were marched out to the Babi Yar ravine and shot in September 1941. In January 1942, Reinhard Heydrich, head of
the Gestapo, summoned senior bureaucrats to a villa at Lake Wannsee in Berlin
to ensure their support for a “Final Solution” to the Jewish question. Jews
would be transported to camps in eastern Europe, to be worked to death or
killed on the spot by mass gassing in sealed chambers. The bodies were to be burned in huge
crematoria staffed by Jews themselves.
Trainloads of Jews arrived at the death camps. Only when the Soviet Red Army advanced
westward in 1944–45 did the camps cease work. Even then the suffering was not
over. 375,000 died in “Death Marches,”
during which they were herded, starving and freezing, deeper west into Germany.
After the war the Allies tried 22 leading Nazis at Nuremberg in 1945–46 for the
atrocities. Twelve were sentenced to death and six to long periods of
imprisonment. Of the European Jews who had suffered the Holocaust, only around
300,000 survived, and many of these would not return to their homeland,
choosing to immigrate to the new Jewish state of Israel. 6 million Jews and 5 million others died in
the Holocaust. More than 1 million of
those perished were children. Two out of
every three European Jews were killed. [source:
“Introduction to the Holocaust,” Holocaust
Encyclopedia, March 12, 2018]
Hoover
Dam. It took 3.25 million cubic yards of concrete
to build Hoover dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, and another 1.11
million cubic yards for the power plant and additional facilities. The quantity of concrete would be enough to
build 3,000 miles of road. The dam also
required about 5 million barrels of cement.
The Hoover Dam or Boulder Dam did not have an official name until
1947. President Harry Truman signed a
law authorizing the name of the dam to be the Hoover Dam. The dam creates power for 1.3 million people
in California, Arizona, and Nevada. When
completed in 1936, it was the tallest dam in the world at 726 feet from base to
top. There were 112 deaths reported as
associated with the construction of the dam.
The first death was John Tierney, a surveyor who drowned on December 20,
1922, while looking for the ideal spot for the dam. The last death was Patrick Tierney who died
exactly 13 years to the day on December 22, 1935. He fell from an intake tower. The Hoover Dam
stores enough water in Lake Mead to irrigate 2 million acres. President Franklin Roosevelt commemorated the
structure’s completion. Herbert Hoover
was not invited. [source: “Hoover
Dam,” history.com, April 14, 2010]
Hudson.
Henry Hudson (1565-1611) headed up 4 different expeditions searching for
the elusive northern passage. His first
two voyages were under the British flag, funded by the Muscovy Company. However, they now lost faith that he could
find a northern passage. Hudson then
went to the Dutch and began his third expedition with another ship called the
Half Moon. His crew nearly mutinied
because of the cold weather, so he sailed to North America. He discovered what is now known as the Hudson
River. Upon returning home, King James I
of England put him under house arrest because he sailed under a Dutch
flag. Hudson was told never to explore
for another country again. In 1610 he
began his 4th expedition funded by the Virginia Company. His ship, Discovery,
was under an English flag. He navigated
through what is now called the Hudson Strait into a large sea, now call Hudson
Bay. After several months, his crew
mutinied against Hudson. They put him,
his 16-year-old son, and a few crew members in a small boat and left them
adrift in the bay. They were never seen
again. Hudson’s discoveries laid the
groundwork for Dutch colonization of the Hudson River region, as well as
English land claims in Canada. [source: “Henry Hudson,” history.com, Sep 12, 2018]
Human Population. About 117 billion
members of the human population have ever been born on Earth. The oldest hominins appeared 7 million
BCE. The earliest species of the Homo
genus appeared 2 million BCE. Homo
sapiens appeared 190,000 BCE. By 50,000
BCE, the population was 2 million.
Around 8,000 BCE, the world population was about 5 million, with about 9
billion ever born. By 1 CE, the
population of the earth was 300 million.
By 1650, the world population was 500 million. In 1800, the population of the Earth was over
1 billion people. In 1930, the
populating reached 2 billion. In 1960,
the population was 3 billion. In 1974,
the world population was 4 billion. In
1987, the world population was 5 billion.
By the 1990s, the population was 6 billion. By 2023, the population was 8 billion. [source: Kaneda and Haub, “How Many People Have Ever Lived on
Earth?,” prb.org, Nov 15, 2022]
Hume.
David Hume (1711-1776) was a Scottish Enlightenment philosopher and
historian. David Hume was born David
Home. In 1734, he changed his name to
Hume because his surname “Home,” pronounced “Hume,” was not known in
England. Hume attended the University of
Edinburgh at the age of 12, but did not graduate. Hume got a job as librarian at the University
of Edinburgh. There, with time and
access to research material, he wrote his six-volume The History of England, which took him 15 years to write and
contained over 1 million words. Hume
developed a philosophy of “mitigated skepticism.” He argued against the existence of innate
ideas, believing that all human knowledge derives solely from experience. Hume said that many of our beliefs do not
come from reason. Instead, they come
from our instincts or feelings.
Ironically, Hume’s philosophical writings went unnoticed during his
lifetime. Charles Darwin regarded Hume’s
work as a central influence on the theory of evolution. Hume never married. In the last year of his life, he wrote his
autobiography called My Own Life. It was only 5 pages long. [source: Baggini, “Hume
the humane,” Aeon, Aug 15, 2018]
Hundred
Years’ War. The Hundred
Years’ War lasted 116 years. It was a
war to determine the rightful King of France.
Starting in 1337, the House of Plantagenet, rulers of England, fought
with the French House of Valois, over the right to rule the Kingdom of
France. The war lasted until 1453. It was one of the most notable conflicts of
the Middle Ages. In 1356, King John II
of France was taken prisoner. During
this period, 1/3 of the population of Europe died from the plague. In 1422, both King Henry V of England and
Charles VI of France died. England
recognized Henry’s nine-month-old son, Henry VI, the king of England and
France. Joan of Arc (1412-1431), a
French peasant girl, claimed mystic voices told here to free France from English
forces. She revitalized the French to
break the siege around Orleans, France.
However, Joan was captured and executed by the English. The war concluded in 1453 in favor of the
Valois dynasty after the English commander, John Talbot, was killed. This was the longest military conflict in
European history. The term “Hundred
Years’ War” was coined in the 19th century. [source: Cartright, “Hundred Years’
War,” Ancient History Encyclopedia,
March 17, 2020]
Hydrogen
bomb. In September 1949, the Soviets tested their
first atom bomb. In response, President
Truman announced that the U.S. would build an even bigger atomic weapon: the
hydrogen bomb. The first H-bomb test, in
the Eniwetok atoll in the Marshall Islands, created a 25-square-mile fireball
that vaporized an island, blew a huge hole in the ocean floor, and had the
power to destroy half of Manhattan. It
had an explosive force of 10.4 million tons of TNT. It was 1,000 times more powerful than the
Hiroshima bomb, and was capable of setting fire to an area of over 1,000 square
miles. The codename for the H-bomb test
was Ivy Mike. The experimental hydrogen
bomb weighed 82 tons and was not a deliverable weapon. Several U.S. Air Force pilots flew in the
atomic cloud to collect samples. One
pilot died as his plane ran out of fuel and he crashed his plane. There were over 2,500 people present at the
test site to witness the explosion. [source:
Reichhardt, “The First Hydrogen Bomb,” Air & Space Magazine, Nov 2, 2017]
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