Thursday

     Musings and History

Quote of the day:

“Experience is the name we give to our mistakes.”

                                  Oscar Wilde

Trivia question of the day:

What was Cleopatra's nationality (not Egyptian)?” Answer at the end of the blog.

Every day we see where groups of politicians oppose or try to slow down any and all legislation not because it is good or bad for the nation as a whole but because of who was or was not the author. How can these jackasses be considered “Patriots”? They can't, they are vultures and hyenas attempting to gain for themselves at our expense...and I think Trey Gowdy saw this and is dropping out...Swamp indeed.

                        This Date in History   April 30

1945 On this date one of the most depraved beasts to ever walk the earth committed suicide. Adolph Hitler spent the last few days of his life in his underground bunker 30 feet under the German Chancellery in Berlin. He could easily hear the thunderous approach of the Russian army coming from the east and southeast. He had already instructed his staff to gather up 40 liters of gasoline to incinerate his corpse when the time came. Earlier this bastard had came out of his bunker and met with his “last line of defense” and that being untrained boys at the age of 15 and younger and old men over the age of 70. Even trained German paratroopers would be no match for the relentless Russians but this son-of-a-bitch wanted children and old men to sacrifice their lives for him with him knowing that all was lost. All the other important members of his private staff had already committed suicide by biting into a cyanide capsule. Early in the day Hitler had married his mistress Eva Braun and it was she and Hitler that were left in his private bunker when he died much to the free world’s relief. Eva had taken cyanide and Hitler had taken cyanide also but before the poison had time to work, he put a 9mm bullet in his brain also. Oh, I almost forgot. In order to test the cyanide poison, he gave a dose of it to his German shepherd named Blondi. She died also. There was no end to the depth of Hitler’s evilness. As instructed, his staff dug a small trench in the garden of the Chancellery, put Hitler’s corpse and 40 liters of gasoline into it and lit it off. Finally, the world was rid of Adolph Hitler. But there will be another; history has proven it time and again.

1803 On this date the Louisiana Purchase was officially offered to the United States which doubled its land area. President Thomas Jefferson had gotten wind that Spain was secretly going to cede its lands in America to France. Jefferson sent Robert Livingston and others to France to see if they could broker a deal to gain the port of New Orleans, as the United States had no dependable port in that area. Livingston met with the Prime Minister of France who was acting in behalf of Napoleon Bonaparte. Napoleon knew that he could not fight a war on two fronts against the British, in Europe and North America, and Napoleon needed money to finance the war in Europe. So when Livingston had the meeting with the Prime Minister and asked him what he wanted for New Orleans, the Prime Minister asked “What will you give me for all of it?” meaning all of the French possessions in North America, Livingston and the others were so astounded that they asked for a couple of days to come up with a figure. They really wanted time to go change their pants. The figure that Livingston came up with was $15 million. $11.5 million for the land (3 cents and acre) and $3.5 million for unpaid debts the United States owed to France. Ya’ll have to keep in mind that there was no instant communications available and Livingston had to make this unexpected decision on his own. He did good, ya’ll. The actual deal was signed on May 2 but the date on the document was May 30. What enormously talented men and women we had on our side at this point in time.

1776 One of the most fire blooded Patriots in American history, Samuel Adams, wrote a letter to his pastor, saying that he wished there was another battle suggesting that that would make the “Declaration of Independence” more readily accepted. Our greatest General George Washington had already run the redcoats out of Boston with the brilliant Battle of Dorchester Heights and the British had already headed to Nova Scotia with their tails between their legs. Fifteen days after Samuel Adam’s letter the British were not beaten by bloodshed but by words alone.  Thomas Paine issued “Common Sense” a pamphlet that was a sequence of words that were some of the most inspiring ever written. It was these few words that inspired out forefathers decided to stay at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania rather that hold the US government to the contract that would expire on December 31, 1777 and our most experienced soldiers would go home. Instead they went to Trenton, New Jersey and kicked the shit out the Hessians (mercenaries) there. The war was by no means over and our independence was not assured, but there was light at the end of the tunnel.

1864 Earlier Union General Nathaniel Banks had tried to go from New Orleans to the intersection of the Mississippi and the Red River and then follow the Red River on into Texas. To pin the Confederates onto the river, and follow Banks on into Texas via the east bank of the Red River, US General Frederick Steele and an army of 2,500 left Little Rock headed to the river. Then Nathaniel Banks had his ass handed to him by CSA General Richard Taylor at the Battle of Mansfield, Louisiana and Banks headed back to New Orleans leaving Steele stranded and short on supplies. Not only that, after CSA General Kirby Smith found out about Steele’s condition he closed in for the kill. Smith attacked Steele near Jenkins Ferry, Arkansas finding Steele’s troops in mid stream trying to cross the rain swollen Saline River. General Smith was not able to finish the job because of muddy roads and river crossings but he was able to capture over 400 of Steele’s supply wagons before Steele reached the safety of Little Rock.

Born today:

1771 US theologian Hosea Ballou. He said “Real happiness is cheap enough, but how dearly we pay for its counterfeit.” True words, ya’ll.

1834 English naturalist Sir John Lubbock. He said “Reading, writing, arithmetic and grammar do not make an education any more than a knife, fork and spoon make a dinner.”

1933 US songwriter/singer Willie Nelson. When asked why he smokes marijuana he said “It keeps me from killing people.” Willie is a hoot.

Died today:

1879 US writer Sarah Hale. She said “I have no riches except my thoughts, yet this is enough wealth for me.” Me too.

1983 US blues legend Muddy Waters. When speaking of Mick Jagger he said “He took my music but gave me fame.”

Answer to the trivia question:

Cleopatra and 7 of the previous rulers of Egypt were Greek. They were ancestors of Ptolemy, a Greek general under Alexander the Great who he left ruling Egypt while he continued his campaign into Persia and on eastward.

       Thanks for listening   I can hardly wait until tomorrow

Wednesday

  Musings and History

Quote of the day:

When asked what surprised him the most about humanity he answered “Man...because he sacrifices his health for money. Then he sacrifices his money to regain his health. Then he is so anxious about his future that he does not enjoy the present: The end result is that he lives in neither the present nor the future; he lives like he is never going to die then he dies never knowing he has really lived.”

                                                       Dalai Lama

I saw a story about the Winder family in Selmer, Tennessee. The man of the house was a Church of Christ minister. His wife looked just like you might suspect coming from a tiny town in south Central Tennessee and an ever smaller church. The man and the wife had issue of three daughters. He was a tall, good-looking athletic type, the wife was a very quiet mousy type. One night she got out of bed, retrieved a pump shotgun and fired one round into the back of her husband who was asleep. The blast did not kill the man right away and he wallowed around on the floor until he bled out. The wife gathered up her girls into the family van and disappeared. The next afternoon the church was holding a bible study and neither the preacher nor his wife showed up. After the service a couple of the elders went over to the Reverend's house. The doors were locked but a key was found in a tackle box in the garage. They got into the house and found the minister dead as fried chicken and the wife and kids were gone. The local sheriff put out a nationwide BOLO (be on the lookout) for the wife, kids and the van. Everybody thought it had been a kidnapping, but about 600 miles away near Orange Beach, Alabama (been there), a van matching the BOLO made an illegal U turn on Ocean Boulevard and was stopped. It was indeed the minister's wife and kids. She went on trial for murder. With her and the older daughter's testimony it appeared that the good minister was a wife beater in addition to having a few kinks. The wife still had a few bruises on her arms and chest and produced a couple of wigs and platform shoes that had been bought by her husband for her to wear. When asked if her husband had required her to do sex acts she was not comfortable with...she nodded her head....when asked what she just said “on top”....it took me a while to grasp that as being “kinky” but being a wife-beater is not allowed under any circumstance, wigs and shoes not withstanding. The end result was she was convicted of manslaughter and given 210 days minus time served. There was no doubt that her testimony was from the heart. Her parents were given custody of the kids while she was in the joint. Six months after she was released she had her kids with her once again. We never know what goes on behind closed doors...do we?

Trivia question of the day:

What is the capitol of Lithuania?  Answer at the end of the blog.

                                    This Date in History   April 29

1945   On this date the 45th division of the United States 7^th Army (US General Alexander ‘Sandy’ Patch commanding) on its march across Europe to free the different nations from the hell of the Nazis, come upon an enclosed camp in Poland. General Patch was as an efficient commander as General George Patton, the commander of the 3^rd Army, but was not as an egomaniac. The soldiers could detect the plant from afar because of the smothering stench that emanated downwind. It was Auschwitz, y'all. It was facility that had no other purpose that to kill Jews and Gypsies as fast and efficiently as possible. It is estimated that 3 million Jews that were literally exterminated as vermin by these Nazi beasts. When the Nazi camp commander and his staff determined that the Americans were within a day or two of liberating the camp, they went on a murder rampage hoping to eliminate all the prisoners that they could before running out of ammo and then scorched as many of the buildings with flamethrowers as they could and then they left hoping to blend in with the general population. The Americans were stunned at what they saw. There were heap and piles of emaciated copses including a nearby train with cattle cars full to capacity with the same. The Americans had no choice but to bury the corpses along with tons of quick lime to eliminate the chance of a cholera epidemic. It was the Russians that came upon the camp at Buchenwald, the worst of them all. Buchenwald had ovens, y'all, ovens. I will leave it to you to figure out what the ovens were for but when the Russians arrived the ovens were out of coal and had stopped working. The Russians had nothing on their minds but revenge for the Germans killing 26 million of their brethren, now upon seeing this every Russian soldier was a razor. They left there and headed to Germany and were not to be denied their revenge. It turned out to be a 570 mile long bloodbath. It was nothing short of a massacre of the Germans by the Russians be it, man, woman, children, dogs, cats, cattle or any other air breather...all were slaughtered. In the meantime the allies had sealed off the western side of Germany and would not accept a surrender. They just saw to it that the Russians got their belly full of German blood. The Russians did not cut any slack y'all, they indeed got a belly full.

Born today:

1897 English conductor Sir Thomas Beecham. When speaking to a female cellist in his orchestra he said “Madam, you have between your legs an instrument that is capable of giving pleasure to thousands, all you have to do is scratch it.” No Comment.

Answer to the trivia question:

The capitol of Lithuania is Vilnius.

        Thanks for listening    I can hardly wait until tomorrow

Tuesday

   Musings and History

Quote of the day:

“I feel like a child walking on the seashore picking up prettier shell or a smoother pebble whilst the whole ocean of truth lay undiscovered before me.”

It was Sir Isaac Newton that uttered these words after being told how smart he was.

From last year:

This past Sunday I went to my favorite watering hole here on Pensacola Beach. This place has three bars and a gigantic music venue. They had two bands scheduled. One from 2 to 5 and another from 6 to 9. It was an interesting mix of people. I met a USN helicopter instructor pilot, a Delta airline pilot, several laid off offshore oil platform workers, a number of professional women in a variety of careers, a retired USMC three star general, two New Orleans Saints offensive linemen not to mention wall-to-wall party girls. By the way, you don't really know how big those NFL linemen are until you get next to them.

Things to ponder:

The generally accepted method of populating North America was people crossing over from present day Siberia to Alaska then turning south. They were able to walk over because much of the Earth's oceans were at least 300 lower that they are now making a land bridge available. The oceans were lower because of an Ice Age that had frozen much of the worlds oceans into the polar ice caps. Where is all that ice now? It has melted!! The cause...the dreaded global warming. When did this happen...about 13,000 years ago.

There are canyons in Yosemite that are box shaped rather than vee shaped like you would find with a river and these box canyons have no rivers. What caused these box canyons? It was glaciers, y'all. There is positive proof that there was a glacier where New York City is today. What happened to the glaciers? They melted!! Yet another dreaded global warming!

Geologist tell us that there have been at least five ice ages that they know of. All of this should tell us that ice ages and global warming are cyclic in spite of what Al Gore says. It is true that burning fossil fuels and being poor stewards of the Earth contributes to global warming...but history tells us it is going to happen again anyway. After all, we have had at least five instances of global warming without the use of fossil fuels and other contaminants.

All of this being said I agree that the burning of fossil fuels is hastening another unwanted or needed global warming. Mother nature needs no assistance.

It is believed that ice ages are caused by “polar regression”. That is in addition to the Earth rotating on its axis, it wobbles like a toy top when it begins to slow down. This regression changes the sequence of the seasons and either creates or discontinues ice ages...that is the theory at least.

                This Date in History   April 28

1789 Earlier the Government of England had tasked ship captain William Bligh to sail into the South Pacific with a ship load of breadfruit saplings. The idea was to plant the breadfruit saplings and see if the fruit grew in sufficient quantity to feed the slaves that were going to be used in the area later on. The ship he was commanding was the HMS Bounty. The ship arrived in Tahiti in October of 1788 and remained five months doing research. But the Captain and his botanist was not the only people aboard doing research and planting. The ships crew had fallen for the warm weather, laid-back life style not to mention the beautiful and receptive Polynesian women. To make it worse, Captain Bligh was a notorious hard-ass and was unmerciful in the dispensing of his form of discipline, many unfair floggings included. After leaving Tahiti the ship went to Tonga to plant some more saplings. It was during this trip that the crap hit the fan. The majority of the crew persuaded the second in command, Lieutenant Fletcher Christian, to take over the ship and stop this brutal treatment by Captain Bligh. On this date, the majority of the crew led by Fletcher Christian did indeed mutiny and took control of the ship. Christian chose to put Bligh and 18 of his loyal crew men adrift in a 25 foot sailboat and sailed away.  In a superb show of seamanship, Bligh was able to navigate the boat using the stars alone to Timor Island, a distance of 3,600 mile and he made it there on June 24, 1789. After a brief stop at Tubuai Island looking for a place to settle, the crew of the Bounty set sail for the ever loving arms of Tahiti. After arriving at Tahiti Christian had second thoughts knowing the British Navy would be there soon looking for the Bounty because that was on Bligh’s pre-sailing log. So he gave his crew the choice of going with him to find another settlement or to stay here in Tahiti and risk the wrath on the British Navy. 16 of the crew chose to stay in Tahiti, the British Navy be damned. Fletcher Christian sailed off with eight of the crewmen, six Tahitian men and 12 Tahitian women looking for a remote island to settle. They chose Pitcairn Island about 1,000 miles southeast of Tahiti. After stripping the Bounty, Christian ordered it burned. The British navy never looked for them there but they were discovered in 1806 by a whaling vessel that saw smoke from a cooking fire. In 1825 a British ship finally arrived at tiny Pitcairn and those remaining crew members were granted amnesty and were taken to Tahiti. After a few year they decided that they had rather be on Pitcairn and went back home. To this day there are about 40 people on Pitcairn all of which can trace their ancestry to the British crewman of the Bounty. By the way, this was not the only mutiny Bligh had to endure, this one was the third.

1945 On the date the Fascist Leader of Italy, Benito Mussolini was caught trying to cross the Italian border into Switzerland with his mistress Clara Petacci and both were shot to death by Italian troops. This jackass had sided with Hitler early on and was hoping to bring Italy back to the glory of ancient Rome. The only problem here was that the present day Italian infantry were the worst fighter on the planet and Hitler was constantly having to bail them out an the smallest conflict. After the Allies landed on Sicily and Italy soon after and met with success against the defending Germans, although it was a bloody one, Mussolini saw that his days were numbered. It was then that he gathered up his girl friend and split for Switzerland. Mussolini had a wife and 6 children and apparently he just abandoned then to whatever the Allies chose to do with them. What a great husband and father.  After Mussolini and Petracci were killed they were transported to the town square of Milan and hanged upside down for all to see, spit upon and throw rocks at, etc. What goes around.....

1955 On this date little Stephanie Bryan disappeared from her neighborhood in Berkeley, California. The police were about to write this one off when something peculiar happened. The wife of one Burton Abbot found a strange pocketbook in their garage. After looking inside she found Stephanie’s student identification card and knowing the cops were looking for her gave them a call. The cops swarmed down on the garage and found a bra that same size and type of that worn by Stephanie. They interviewed Burton extensively but he denied everything and said that his garage had been used as a polling place in the past and that is where the evidence came from. The police were about to buy Abbot’s story when a radio news reporter hired a detective and a bloodhound and went to the Abbot’s mountain cabin and found the corpse of little Stephanie. Abbot was tried and convicted of murder and was sentenced to death. Abbot appealed his death penalty unsuccessfully several time but he was one too short when he was sitting in a chair when some pellets were dropped into a pan of acid under his seat and he was dead in four minutes. Two minutes later the Governor called and tried to issue a stop execution order. Too bad.

1950 US comic Jay Leno. He said “You can say want you want but when Dan Quayle was in the National Guard, not one Viet Cong got past Muncie, Indiana.”

                               Thanks for listening   I can hardly wait until tomorrow

Monday

  Musings and History

Quote of the day:

“When you come to a fork in the road...take it.”

                               Yogi Berra

Trivia question of the day:

Barbara Bush was the wife of one president and the mother of another. There is one other woman with that distinction, who is it? Answer at the end of the blog.

I am once again reading Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond. It is a book about how the human species have changed and/or adapted to their environment.

The very first grain identified as being raised as a crop rather than wild was in the “Fertile Crescent”. That is in present day Iraq, Syria and Turkey primarily on the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and their tributaries. Some may find this reading very boring but it is exciting for me to realize that the workers building the pyramids in Egypt were fed grain raised in the Fertile Crescent. Certain cereal grains were being farmed for over 2,000 years before the pyramids were built. The oldest human bi-ped (walking upright) yet identified was a fossilized skeleton named “Lucy” that is about 3 ½ million years old. It was found in east-central Africa by an expedition led by Mary and Louis Leakey . From this location to the Fertile Crescent is about 1,800 miles. This means that humankind migrated north and east to the Fertile Crescent learning how to raise their own food as they went...I guess. The rise of mankind is an amazing montage of enigmas.

                        This Date in History   April 27

4977BC This is the date that German mathematician/astronomer Johann Kepler named as the date the Universe came into being. It was Kepler, Galileo and Copernicus that promoted the idea that it was the planets orbiting the sun rather that the Earth being the center of the Universe as taught by the all powerful Catholic Church. Kepler was correct in determining that the sun was the center of the “universe” but he was wrong in supposing the earth was created on April 27, 4977BC. Anyone can go out into their backyard and pick up a rock that is a million years old. Kepler was fortunate in that he was able to study with another genius astronomer in Nicholas Copernicus. Kepler also came up with laws of motion one of which is that the orbits of the planets are ellipses and tend to speed up when closest to the sun and slow down as the travel away from the sun. Another law was that ratio to how long a planet takes to orbit the sun as to its distance from the sun.  Kepler was able to continue his research unhindered because he joined the brilliant Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe in Prague. Brahe died and left all of his writings and notes about observations Brahe had made with the naked eye. Kepler became the chief astronomer for Rudolf II, the Holy Roman Emperor. Kepler and Copernicus had been communicating with Galileo and found that Galileo had improved upon a telescope and had sent them instructions on how to make one of their own. Kepler had a telescope made for him. Galileo was forced to recant any teaching about the earth orbiting the sun because the Pope did not see it that way and promised Galileo a life of torture if he didn’t recant. After the telescope a light came on in the mind of Kepler. It was Kepler that described in detail the operation of the human eye. Kepler died in Regensburg, Germany in 1630. Then 13 years later the sun rose over the scientific and mathematical community with the birth of Isaac Newton. Newton utilized many of Kepler’s theories in defining his own laws of motion that are still in use to this day. Even though Kepler made gigantic contributions to the scientific world, he was wrong about the age of the earth. Since the universally accepted beginning of the universe is the so-called “Big Bang” theory, Kepler was only off by a mere 13.7 billion years.

1805 For the past few years a powerful leader in the North African country of Tripoli had been sending raiders out of his ports to prey upon American merchant ships crossing the Mediterranean. US President Thomas Jefferson got a belly full of this and tasked a company of the recently formed US Marines to put a stop to it. An American mercenary named William Eaton was put in charge and formed up a company of Marines and a few Berber tribesmen and landed about 500 miles east of Tripolania (in present day Libya), as it was called then. Eaton led the small force to Tripolania and sent in the Marines under the command of Lieutenant Pressley O’Bannon to take care of business. And take care they did. The Marines attacked from the southeast in two columns and two US gun ships in the Mediterranean, the USS Argus and the USS Hornet, open fire from the north. It was all over but the shouting in very short order when the Tripolania leader, Hemet Karamanli, had his ass handed to him by the Marines. Karmanli was so impressed with the bravery of Lieutenant O’Bannon that he presented him with a fancy-schmantsy sword that every Marine sword to this day is modeled after. It was from this expedition that the phrase “to the shores of Tripoli” appears in the Marine Corp Hymn. By the way, the frequency of attacks on American shipping dropped precipitously.

1865 Just a few days after the end of the Civil War one of the worst marine disasters in history occurs. The steamboat Sultana had departed New Orleans headed for Cairo, Illinois via the Mississippi River. The Captain of the ship was offered money per person by the US Army to take Union soldiers that were in the south at the end of the war, especially those poor souls that endured the Andersonville Prison, back up north an let them off in Cairo. The Captain saw dollar signs and began loading more and more soldiers aboard his vessel at each stop. After a while he was more than doubly overloaded. His chief mechanic came and told the Captain that the steam boiler had a leak in the plating and they needed to stop, bleed off the steam and make repairs. The Captain could not see anything but dollar signs and ordered a temporary repair and he continued up the river. The temporary repair was made and on they went with about 2,100 people aboard on a boat made for 1,100 passengers and crew. Just above Memphis the Sultana’s boiler exploded and all but 400 are either scalded to death in the steam or drown in the swift river which was just under flood stage after heavy rains. Nearly all of the victims were Union soldiers from Andersonville prison.

1521 Earlier the Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan had departed Spain in the search for a westward passage to the Molucca, or Spice Islands. He sailed south to West Africa, crossed over to South America and began searching for a passage west. He searched several South American rivers to no avail and finally he found a passage near the tip of South America that is named for him to this day, the Straights of Magellan. It took 38 days to make passage but Magellan wept when he sailed out onto the broad Pacific knowing he had succeeded. His first stop was Guam and just in the nick of time because the crews of the remaining two ships were near starvation. From there he sailed to the Philippines just 400 miles from the Moluccas. While in the Philippines he met with a friendly tribesman that requested his help in suppressing another nearby village that had been raiding his village. Magellan foolishly agreed. So the raiders appeared and Magellan took a poison dart in the leg and was dead in a matter of hours. Here he was, had sailed ¾ of the way around the world and is killed by a poison dart. Anyway, his navigator took command and sailed to the Moluccas, loaded spices to the gunnels, and sailed across the Indian Ocean, around the tip of Africa and back to Spain. This was one of the most important expeditions ever undertaken. It was too bad that Magellan was not there to accept the accolades.

Answer to the trivia question:

The only other woman that was the wife of one president and the mother of another beside Barbara Bush was Abigail Adams...John Adams and John Quincy Adams.

                       Thanks for listening   I can hardly wait until tomorrow

Friday

 MUSINGS AND HISTORY

In addition to my daily history items I have over 300 essays and biographies...I think it is time to spread them around, here is the first. Enjoy

                            

                                Eleanor of Aquitaine

                                                             1122-1204

This is a biography of one of the most fascinating people in history. Her life reads like a soap opera so I will give the main characters soap opera nicknames to save space and they are:

Eleanor of Aquitaine………..Ellie

Henry II, King of England….Hank

Louis VII, King of France…..Lou

Eleanor’s real name was Alia-Aenor meaning “another Aenor”. Eleanor’s mother’s name was Aenor of Chatellerault and a female birth was of no consequence in the high middle ages, they were looking for male heirs to carry on the family name. Her father was William X, Duke of Aquitaine, one of the richest men in Europe and Ellie was his eldest child and the apple of William’s eye. William died when Ellie was 15 and he left everything to Ellie making her the richest woman in history to date. Before he died William had contacted the king of France, Louis VI earlier and requested that in the event of his death Louis VI would promulgate the marriage of Ellie and Louis’ son who would become Louis VII, king of France. Louis VI obliged William and after much pomp and circumstance, Ellie and Lou were married eventually making Ellie the Queen of France. There was one stipulation. Ellie made the Aquitaine estate exempt from being absorbed into the French realm. Aquitaine estate was in what is now south central France. Now here is where the fun starts. The 2^nd Crusade began a few years after Lou became King and he being a very pious man, did the Pope’s bidding and started gathering an army to go to Jerusalem and try to kick the Muslims out. Ellie joined in the fervor and personally began recruiting men to go. She even offered 2,000 of her own vassals. Not only that, she insisted on going on the Crusade herself being the first woman to do so. Upon arrival in the Holy Land, Ellie became enamored with all those knights literally in shining armor and decided it was party time especially with her uncle Raymond, a French knight. Many people were not pleased that Lou brought Ellie with him, but Lou was so enamored with his young bride that any thing she wanted was OK with him. Lou was an ineffective military leader; he was more of a religiously pious man.  He was pretty wimpy on the whole. Even before leaving on the Crusade, Lou and Ellie were estranged and after they returned Ellie wearied of Lou’s weaknesses and began looking for a way out of the marriage. She found that they had a mutual relative which made their marriage illegal and Lou granted a divorce but kept custody of their two children. While all of this was going on, Ellie was scanning the countryside looking for a virile and powerful bachelor. She found one in the 19 year old Henry, the Duke of Normandy and heir to the English throne. Ellie wrangled a meeting with Hank and had a series of sleepovers. Ellie was a sexually experienced 30 year old woman and Hank was a 19 year old virtual virgin meaning that Hank didn’t have a chance. Soon after this encounter he and Ellie were married. Eventually Hank was crowned Henry II, the King of England and Ellie as Queen. Ellie and Hank squabbled from the git-go primarily because of what Ellie perceived as Hank’s indiscretions with other women. Although it was well known that Ellie’s pantyhose had been on fire continuously since the Crusades and she had innumerable trysts and brief encounters herself. You men that are married and those that have been married will understand how Ellie was able to justify this hypocrisy in her own mind. Nearly all women are capable of it. In fact one of her lovers was probably Hank’s father Geoffrey of Anjou who counseled Hank to not mess with Ellie from the git-go. But in spite of all of that, Ellie delivered Hank five sons and three daughters in a span of 13 years. They were William, Henry, Richard (the Lionhearted), Geoffrey, John, Matilda, Eleanor and Joan. Hank had many, many illegitimate children also. In spite of her obvious hypocrisy, Ellie went to France and started planning the unseating of Hank with the help of the King of France among others. She called in two of her sons to help plan a coup but her sons ain’t buying what Mom is selling and tell Hank what is going down. Hank took a ship over to France, gathered up Ellie and headed back to England. As soon as the ship docked at Southampton Hank sent her to the Castle of Winchester to cool her heel under house arrest. Ellie remained under arrest for 15 years in spite of her sons beseeching Hank to release her. While Ellie was paying her dues in Winchester, Hank struck up a liaison with an Irish beauty named Rosemund Clifford. Normally, Hank was discreet with his mistresses, but he flaunted Rosemund for several years. Rosemund died in 1176 and was buried in the nunnery at Godstow and Hank contributed largely to the nunnery in her behalf. Hank died in 1186 and the unquestioned heir to the throne was he and Ellie’s son Richard. The only problem here was that Richard had been captured on the way home from yet another Crusade and was being held for ransom in a castle in Germany. Upon hearing of Hank’s death, Richard got word back to England to immediately release his Mother. Ellie was released and immediately beseeched the Pope to engineer the release of her son which he did, for a price. After an enormous ransom had been paid with a large chunk going to the Vatican, Richard was released and returned to England and was crowned King. During all of this time Ellie had engineered the marriage of two of her daughters to the King of Castile and the King of Navarre respectively. Ellie lived through the reign of Richard and a large part of the reign of her son King John also. It was her son King John that signed the Magna Carta declaring that the king was not omnipotent and granted certain rights. This document was the first its kind and laid the foundation for human rights in England. Ellie returned to Aquitaine for a while and in fact directed the defense of her castle from an attack by some of her grandchildren. What I am trying to tell you is that greed knows no limits even up to trying to savage your own grandmother. Ellie eventually tired of all of this hassle and went to the place of Hank and Richard’s tombs, Fontevraud Abbey, and took the oath of a nun. She lived the rest of her days in relative serenity. In 1204, at the age of 81, Ellie died and was buried along side her husband Henry II and son Richard I (The Lionhearted).

This tale of Eleanor is by no means complete with all the plots, intrigues and travels that occurred throughout her long life. But in summary she was the richest woman in history up until that time, the Queen of two countries, the mother of two Kings and the mother of two Queens. What a magnificent life.

              

                       Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow

Thursday

  Musings and History

Quote of the day:

“The eyes are open and the mouth moves but Mr. Brain has long since departed.”

W.C. Fields when speaking of Mae West

Trivia question of the day:

Who was the first European to step foot on North America that we know of? Answer at the end of the blog. (It ain't Christopher Columbus)

                                           This Date in History April 23

1934 On this date the FBI thought they had the John Dillinger gang cornered at Little Bohemia Inn in central Wisconsin. As you might suspect, there was the mother of all shoot outs when the gang chose to fight their way out. Among the gang was George “Baby-Face” Nelson. Nelson had a pistol in each hand when he ran from the Inn toward a car he was going to use for escape. Two agents tried to intercept Nelson and he yelled “I know you wear bullet-proof vests so I will shoot high and low” and fire away he did. He was successful in reaching the car after killing FBI agent H. Carter Baum along the way. Nelson led what would be called a “normal” childhood but upon reaching adulthood he decided on the ways of the gun. He started of as a member of Al Capone’s gang in Chicago. The only problem here was that Nelson was so mean and brutal that he scared other members of the gang and he was kicked out.  Can you imagine being too mean for Al Capone? He preferred to be called “Big George” Nelson but because of his juvenile appearance he was called “Baby Face” but not to his face. You would risk annihilation if you did. This man hated to be called “Baby Face”. Anyway after splitting with Capone he joined with some California bootleggers then he met his mentor, John Dillinger. He accompanied Dillinger on two bank robbing trips to Iowa and South Dakota with Nelson killing a bank employee in each. Dillinger perfectly understood Nelson’s rage and said nothing to him about it. However with Nelson killing someone at every stop, Dillinger finally had to put a stop to it. When Dillinger was killed in an ambush by the FBI in Chicago, Nelson became # 1 on the FBI’s most wanted list. Nelson was spotted in Illinois and two FBI agents cornered him on a remote dirt road. Nelson hid behind his car and the agents hid behind theirs and they blazed away at each other. Finally Nelson got fed up and jumped out from behind his car, Tommy gun in hand, and charged the two agents like John Wayne. He was successful in killing both of the agents and staggered back to his car. The next morning the FBI found the dead agents and the body of George “Baby Face” Nelson in a ditch beside his car. He had 17 bullet wounds. I guess the agents called him “Baby Face”.

1002 In 963 Brian Boru from southern Ireland wrests away control of the Irish throne. By 1002 he had amassed all of the control in Ireland much to the chagrin of the Irish Vikings. King Sitric of the Dublin Norse gathered together other Vikings from Ireland, the Hebrides, the Orkney Islands and Vikings from Scandinavia and formed them up into an army to take control of Ireland by force. On this date Brian sent an army led by his son Muchan to meet Sitric and his Vikings. The Vikings were destroyed by Muchan’s army almost to the point of annihilation. There was just a handful of Vikings left. By some strange coincidence these few Vikings stumbled upon the tent of King Brian and killed his guards and the elderly King. The loss of commanding leadership plunged Ireland into anarchy for several years.

1564 It is on this date and on this same date in 1616 that most historians name as the date that William Shakespeare was born and died. Shakespeare was born in Stratford-on Avon, England. When he was 18 he got married to Anne Hathaway and 6 months later a daughter was born. It appears that William was doing more than writing plays. Anyway, he wrote most of his comedies in his younger days and his tragedies in his later years. In any event he became a member of one of the most envied acting troops called “Lord Chamberlain’s Men” and moved to London and acted and wrote many plays. He did the greatest majority of his acting in the Globe Theatre (been there) in London. There was a move afoot that it was impossible for a man of less than noble birth such as Shakespeare to have authored so many gems of plays and sonnets. They suggest it was a man of more noble birth like Sir Francis Bacon that chose to remain anonymous. The elitists can kiss my ass; I will take the beloved Bard of Avon every time.

Born today:

1524 English playwright William Shakespeare. He said “Many a good hanging stops a bad marriage.” William, methinks thee are a bit harsh.

1791 US President James Buchanan. He said “I like the noise of a democracy”. Me too, like “Off with his head!”

1818 English historian Edward Froude. He said “The superstition of science scoffs at the superstition of faith.” Hey Ed, how can science be a superstition, it does not require a leap of faith.

1834 US senator Chauncey Depew. He said “I get my exercise acting as pallbearer to my friends that exercise.” Me too.

1897 Canadian Prime Minister Lester Pearson. He said “Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.” I felt that was the case.

1928 US actress Shirley Temple Black. She said “I quit believing in Santa Claus when I was six. My mother took me to a department store to see Santa and he asked for my autograph.” Notoriety is a heavy burden.

1936 US musical legend Roy Orbison. He said “I may be a living legend but that does not help when changing a flat tire.” See item above.

1954 US film maker and political activist Michael Moore when speaking of President George “Dubya” Bush he said “When the Pope and The Dixie Chicks are against you, your time is up.” Michael Moore is full of shit.

Died today:

1616 English playwright William Shakespeare. He said “I am basically not an honest man, but I am that way sometimes by mistake”. I love you, Bill

Answer to the trivia question:

The first European to step foot on North America was Leif Ericcson. Leif was a Norwegian Viking born in Iceland and the son of Eric the Red. Leif established a village in present day Newfoundland in about 1,000 AD. The National Historic site is known as L'Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland

                                   Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow