Sunbeams illuminating a coastal forest in Port Orford, Oregon

Chuggnutt!

Tag: History

  • The end of the Middle Ages

    The end of the Middle Ages

    Today, May 29, is the anniversary of the end of the Middle Ages. I know, I wouldn’t have thought you could pinpoint a time period like that so precisely, but this reasoning makes sense:

    On this day [in 1453] the city of Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Empire after being under siege for almost two months. So, why is this specific turning point significant? Because of the fall of Constantinople, the Byzantine (Greek) scholars migrated away from Constantinople which had been their political center. This scattering encouraged studies of Greek culture outside of the Byzantine Empire and began a revival of learning based on classical Greek sources, which began the Renaissance.

    The Wikipedia article on the Middle Ages gives some commentary as to the start and (variously considered) end dates:

    The most commonly given starting point for the Middle Ages is 476, first used by Bruni. For Europe as a whole, 1500 is often considered to be the end of the Middle Ages, but there is no universally agreed upon end date. Depending on the context, events such as Christopher Columbus’s first voyage to the Americas in 1492, the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453, or the Protestant Reformation in 1517 are sometimes used. English historians often use the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 to mark the end of the period. For Spain, dates commonly used are the death of King Ferdinand II in 1516, the death of Queen Isabella I of Castile in 1504, or the conquest of Granada in 1492.

    Happy 565th anniversary of the End of the Middle Ages!

  • The best chicken article I’ve read in awhile.

    Actually this might be the only chicken article I’ve read now that I think about it. It’s long but really good. Did you know the Egyptians “mastered the technique of artificial incubation”? I did not.

    Oh, and don’t forget, chickens are basically the descendants of dinosaurs which is awesome.

  • Top 10 books lost to time

    Just ran across this Smithsonian.com article: The Top 10 Books Lost to Time. Neat read, rife with possibilities; every link I’ve seen pulls a quote from the #4 selection, Inventio Fortunata, which does have a bit of a Piri Reis-sounding mystery to it; but the “lost” Shakespeare work of Cardenio interests me more:

    Cardenio has been called the Holy Grail of Shakespeare enthusiasts. There is evidence that Shakespeare’s company, the King’s Men, performed the play for King James I in May 1613—and that Shakespeare and John Fletcher, his collaborator for Henry VIII and Two Noble Kinsmen, wrote it. But the play itself is nowhere to be found.

    And what a shame! From the title, scholars infer that the plot had something to do with a scene in Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote involving a character named Cardenio. (A translation of Don Quixote was published in 1612 and would have been available to Shakespeare.)

    Kind of sounds like the ultimate Elizabethan-era crossover.

  • Rajneesh

    The news on KTVZ tonight about the former Rajneesh land being sold caught my ear and got me reflecting a bit on that particular period of weirdness in Central Oregon history. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a “dark day” in Oregon history like the interviewee on the news did, but it was definitely weird.

    The Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh was an Indian (from India the country, not Native American) spiritual teacher who in 1981 came to Oregon, where his followers bought The Big Muddy ranch outside of Antelope and started a commune there. Naming the commune Rajneeshpuram, they attracted all sorts of attention among the locals, mostly negative.

    Understand, this part of Oregon in the 80s was much more conservative and rural than now; the majority of the population was based in agriculture (farmers, cowboys) and operated on Good-Ol-Boy-ism. So the idea of a cult moving in and then taking over the town of Antelope was met with open hostility.

    It didn’t help that the Rajneeshees had a number of odd practices and goings-on as well. They all wore red, for instance. They owned a large number of Rolls Royces and the Bhagwan would ride around in them everywhere. They carried machine guns in open sight.

    And when I said they “took over” Antelope, I’m not kidding—they registered to vote there and got a referendum passed renaming the town to “Rajneesh.” They were able to do this because some 7000 of them lived in the commune.

    Sheela, the Bhagwan’s Number Two person, was a real piece of work. When authorities started investigating the Rajneesh commune, the crazy stuff came to light and Sheela and several leaders “were indicted and convicted of several crimes, including immigration fraud, wiretapping, first and second degree assault (poisoning) of two public officials, and the attempted murder of Rajneesh’s personal physician.”

    Sheela and the Rajneeshees also have the dubious honor of perpetrating the largest germ warfare attack in the history of the U.S., when they infected a salad bar in a restaurant in The Dalles with salmonella—sickening over 750 people.

    The Bhagwan went on the run and was caught back east in North Carolina and deported. The sheriff or whoever who was involved in the capture appeared on the news, drawling, “We caught us a Bag-wahn from Ory-gun.”

    Strange days, indeed.

  • Killer Kangaroo!

    Now, this story is just silly: Fanged killer kangaroo roamed Outback.

    Forget cute, cuddly marsupials. A team of Australian palaeontologists say they have found the fossilized remains of a fanged killer kangaroo and what they describe as a “demon duck of doom”.
    …
    The species found at the dig had “well muscled-in teeth, not for grazing. These things had slicing crests that could have crunched through bone and sliced off flesh”, Hand said.

    I have this absurd image of saber-toothed kangaroos hopping around… Hey, maybe somebody will make a horror-thriller-scifi-Jurassic-Park type movie where killer kangaroos are brought back to life and terrorizing Australia! And if you can come up with a dumb enough name, Samuel L. Jackson will star in it!

  • ’05 retrospective (historical)

    Looking back on some of the historical events of 2005. For some reason, it seemed to me to be an interesting year for centennial events also.

    2005:

    • The Huygens probe landed on Titan (Saturn’s moon).
    • One Pope died and a new Pope was selected.
    • Deep Throat’s identity was revealed.
    • Hurricane Katrina destroyed much of New Orleans, Bixoli, and the Gulf Coast. It was an unusually dense and destructive year for tropical storms.
    • Civil unrest hit France in the Paris suburbs.
    • A 7.6-magnitude earthquake stuck the Kashmir region in Northern Pakistan, killing nearly 90,000 people.
    • NASA more-or-less successfully launched a projectile into a comet for study.

    Centennial notes (1905):

    • Einstein published his Special Theory of Relativity.
    • Bend, Oregon became officially incorporated.
    • Las Vegas was founded.

    Bicentennial notes (1805):

    • Lewis and Clark arrived and wintered at the Pacific Ocean.
    • The Battle of Trafalgar: Admiral Nelson defeats a combined French and Spanish naval fleet.
    • Napoleon, meanwhile, soundly defeats the Russians and Austrians at the Battle of Austerlitz.

    Obviously I’m only touching on a very, very abbreviated list. A good one to review (and getting better each day) is Wikipedia’s 2005 page. But, I think it’s a decent touchpoint to start with, and it definitely stimulates the thinking. At any rate, those are some of the first things I thought of or stood out to me when I was looking back at 2005.

    What 2005 events are significant to you?

  • Bastille Day

    Today is Bastille Day in France, their equivalent to our Fourth of July/Independence Day. The Wikipedia article I point to there has a pretty good overview.

    On 20 June [1789] the deputies of the Third Estate took the Tennis Court Oath (named after the place where they had gathered which was a place where an ancestor of tennis, the “jeu de paume” was played), swearing not to separate until a Constitution had been established. To show their support, the people of Paris stormed the Bastille, a prison where people were jailed by arbitrary decision of the King (lettre de cachet). The Bastille was, in particular, known for holding political prisoners whose writings had displeased the royal government. Thus the Bastille was a symbol of the absolutism of the monarchy.

    There were only 7 inmates housed at the time of the siege. The storming of the Bastille was more important as a rallying point and symbolic act of rebellion than a practical act of defiance. No less important in the history of France, it was not the image typically conjured up of courageous French patriots storming the Bastille and freeing hundreds of oppressed peasants. However, it did immediately inspire preparations amongst the peasants for the very real threat of retaliation.

    An even more comprehensive history (you gotta love Wikipedia) is found at the Storming of the Bastille article.

    Back in the summer of 1989, when I was 16, I spent three weeks in France on a high school trip. We were there for the Fête Nationale (National Holiday), in… Tournon, I believe it was. Not only was it Bastille Day, but it was the bicentennial as well. Sadly, it was half my lifetime ago and I don’t remember nearly as much as I should; I remember fireworks in Tournon but the big action was in Paris (where we weren’t). I did keep a journal for the time I was there—most of it, anyway—I think I’ll dig that up and re-read it. Hell, I’ll post it here, even.

    In the meantime, happy 14 juillet.

  • 55,000 year old trees at Yachats

    This story from Bend.com last week reminded me of the Stumps posting I made a year ago.

    An Oregon State University oceanographer has discovered remnants of an ancient forest in a seaside cliff near Yachats, with exposed tree sections that have been dated at older than 55,000 years.

    Those trees, which apparently were flattened during an ancient landslide and preserved in sediment, are now being exposed – and may help shed light on the tumultuous historical natural conditions along the Oregon coast, researchers said.

    Of course, those trees at 55,000 (or greater) years old trumps the “merely” 2,000 year-old trees at Neskowin, but it’s amazing to me the kinds of things that are washing up on the Oregon Coast recently.

  • Historic photos of Pacific City

    While researching something about Pacific City, Oregon, I came across the Pacific City Oregon Visitor’s Guide which has some links to a bunch of extremely neat historical photographs. I like Pacific City quite a lot, not just because of the Pelican Pub & Brewery, but also because it’s the quintessential small Oregon coast town (like Bandon, another town I really like). And the Dory boats are cool.

    Links to Pacific City history, historic photos, more photos, and historic Dory photos.

  • Oregon’s birthday

    Hey, I almost forgot: in addition to Valentine’s Day, today is also Oregon’s birthday: it was admitted into the Union on February 14, 1859, the 33rd state. Just random facts. Move along.