Isebrand

In Our Time: The Rapture

I'm quite please with this episode of BBC Radio 4's In Our Time, the long-running topical panel discussion series hosted by Melvyn Bragg, about the Rapture.

 

Now perhaps primarily thought of as a podcast, In Our Time has been my favorite radio show for almost 20 years, since well before the days of podcasts. There have been 873 episodes, all relating to arts, science, history, and ideas.

 

For most of the show's run, its format has been Bragg and three, sometimes four, academics, with Bragg asking questions to ensure that he elicits from the academics a solid if basic overview of the topic in the given 45 minutes. And he's not afraid to show some impatience or frustration with the academics if he feels they are losing the thread a bit.

The episode is available through iTunes (podcasts) and online here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qykl 

Tynwald's 940th anniversary

2019 is the 940th anniversary of the founding of Tynwald, the Isle of Man's legislature and arguably the oldest continuous parliamentary body in the world. (Image: Flag of the High Court of Tynwald, i.e., the Parliament of the Isle Of Man.)

Like the Icelandic Þingvellir, the word Tynwald derives from the Old Norse word Þingvǫllr, meaning the meeting place of the assembly. The Old Norse word for meeting, Þing (thing), is one of the few Old Norse words to pass directly into English, though in English it obviously means more than just a meeting—it can refer to just about...any thing.

The Isle of Man is a self-governing British Crown dependency. Its head of state is Queen Elizabeth II in her own right as Lord of Mann. She's represented by a lieutenant governor. The defense of the island falls under the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom.

For centuries, the first language of the island's native inhabitants was Manx, also known as Manx Gaelic (sometimes historically spelled Manks). It's no longer spoken widely on Man and since 1974 is extinct as a first language, but it still plays an important cultural role. 

The island is also known for, among other things, the Manx cat breed—noteworthy for its genetic mutation resulting in very short, stubby tails and slightly longer hind legs—and the Manx Loaghtan sheep, which can have up to six horns; the sheep's meat is considered a delicacy.

The map below shows the Isle of Man's place within the Kingdom of the Isles, which

comprised the Hebrides, the islands of the Firth of Clyde and the Isle of Man from the 9th to the 13th centuries AD. The islands were known to the Norse as the Suðreyjar, or "Southern Isles" as distinct from the Norðreyjar or Northern Isles of Orkney and Shetland. (Wikipedia)

One-hundred years ago, November 21, 1918: The Qualification of Women Act allowed women to be elected to the Parliament

One-hundred years ago today, the British Parliament passed the "Parliament (Qualification of Women) Act" allowing women to become MPs (Members of Parliament). It read in part:

woman shall not be disqualified by sex or marriage for being elected to or sitting or voting as a Member of the Commons House of Parliament.

The United States of America preceded the United Kingdom by two years in electing a woman to the national legislative assembly.

 

Jeannette Pickering Rankin (1880–1973) was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives by the state of Montana in 1916.

 

Constance Georgine Markievicz (nee Gore-Booth; 1986–1927) was elected to the UK Parliament in 1918, however, as a member of Sinn Fein, she did not take her seat. Nancy Astor (Viscountess Astor), CH (1879–1964) was the first woman to take her seat in Parliament, which she did after winning a by-election in 1919.

Lieutenant-Colonel John "Mad Jack" Malcolm Thorpe Fleming Churchill, DSO & Bar, MC & Bar (1906–1996)

"Fighting Jack Churchill", born on this day in Hong Kong, September 16, 1906, was a British Army officer who fought in the Second World War equipped with bagpipes and armed with a longbow and a basket-hilted Scottish broadsword. (Churchill, leading troops with his broadsword drawn, is identifiable on the far right in the photograph above of a military training exercise.)

Churchill is the last British soldier known to have killed an enemy combatant with a bow and arrow, which he did during the British Expeditionary Force's retreat to Dunkirk, France, in May 1940.

For his actions at Dunkirk and later at Vågsøy, Norway, Churchill received the Military Cross and Bar. He also won the Distinguished Service Order and Bar.

He also fought with distinction in Italy (1943) and Yugoslavia (1944), being captured by Germans in the later. After Germany's surrender, he fought in Burma (1945), and supposedly remarked relative to the war's sudden end, "If it hadn't been for those damn Yanks, we could've kept the war going for another ten years!"

He later served in British Palestine and Australia, and upon returning to England, before he retired, became the first man to ride a surfboard—which he designed himself—on the River Severn's five-foot tidal bore.

His motto: "Any officer who goes into action without his sword is improperly dressed."

In January 2018, with his two sons in the audience as special guests, Jack was added to the Museum of Curiosity during a live broadcast of BBC Radio 4's panel show The Museum of of Curiosity. (The museum is imaginary, in case you're wondering.) The show's host related this tale:

Churchill eventually settled for a desk job. On his daily journey home to Surrey his fellow commuters were often alarmed when just before his stop he would suddenly hurl his briefcase out of the train window. What they didn't know was that he was tossing it into his back garden so he wouldn't have to carry it home.

Vindolanda birthday invitation to the commander's wife

The earliest known example of writing in Latin by a woman—and the earliest message known to have been written by a woman in Britain—is a birthday invitation, from Claudia Severa, written in ink on wood and sent around the year A.D. 100 to Sulpicia, the wife of the prefect of the Ninth Cohort of Batavians and commander of Vindolanda, an Imperial Roman army fort manned by auxiliaries (non-citizens). The invitation is the most well-known of the Vindolanda Tablets found at the notoriously waterlogged Vindolanda archaeological site.

See the translation and description below.

I'd like to think that Sulpicia eagerly accepted the invitation.

Claudia Severa to her Lepidina greetings. On 11 September, sister, for the day of the celebration of my birthday, I give you a warm invitation to make sure that you come to us, to make the day more enjoyable for me by your arrival, if you are present (?). Give my greetings to your Cerialis. My Aelius and my little son send him (?) their greetings. (2nd hand) I shall expect you, sister. Farewell, sister, my dearest soul, as I hope to prosper, and hail. (Back, 1st hand) To Sulpicia Lepidina, wife of Cerialis, from Severa.

British Museum Museum number: 1986,1001.64.

"This diptych contains a letter to Sulpicia Lepidina from Claudia Severa, wife of Aelius Brocchus, sending Lepidina a warm invitation to visit her for her (Severa's) birthday (on the celebration of birthdays by private individuals see RE VII, 1142-4) and appending greetings to Cerialis from herself and greetings from her husband. The elegant script in which this letter is written is also probably to be recognised in 243, 244 and 248. The letters are slim, with marked ascenders and descenders, and very little use of ligature. There is occasional use of the apex mark for which see pp.57-61, above. In the present text the use is not always in long quantities. It is quite certain that the author is Severa herself, adding a brief message and the closing greeting in her own hand as she also does in 292 and 293. Almost certainly, therefore, these are the earliest known examples of writing in Latin by a woman."

Memorial Day 2018

"When you go home, tell them of us and say,
For your tomorrow, we gave our today."
- John Maxwell Edmonds (1875–1958)

See the PBS NewsHour story "Thousands of American military graves lie forgotten and lost abroad."

Here is the The Foreign Burial of American War Dead map for the book and project of the same name. The project invites all to "participate in the development of the map with corrections, additions and comments sent to [email protected]."

John Maxwell Edmonds (1875–1958), a vicar, schoolmaster, and later classics scholar, at Jesus College, Cambridge University, penned his famous epitaph for commemoration of British and Indian dead at the Kohima War Cemetery in India (Second World War). The lines were inspired by those of Simonides honoring the Spartans who died in the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C.

Photo by U.S. Navy by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Jennifer L. Jaqua.

John James Audubon (April 26, 1785 – January 27, 1851)

It was British appetite for Audubon's work that catapulted his career forward. He couldn't find a U.S. publisher.

The Saint-Domingue-born (French-citizen) Audubon was an illegal immigrant—sent to America by his father, with a fake passport.

Audubon was born Jean Rabin. The French colony of Saint-Domingue gained independence in 1804 as the sovereign nation of Haiti following an insurrection by self-liberated slaves.

Audubon's paintings are iconic Americana. Working in America, including frontier regions, as an ornithologist and naturalist, he identified 25 new species of birds. His wife Lucy (Bakewell) Audubon was the family's main breadwinner until, at the age of 41, Audubon found interest in his naturalist artwork among British audiences. His most famous work is a massive color-plate book The Birds of America.

Audubon was born on this day in 1785. He died in Manhattan on January 27, 1851, aged 65.

Image: The snowy owl, in John James Audubon’s The Birds of America, 1827–38, (c) The British Library Board. 

February 6, 1918 — Women (Some Anyway) Gain the Right to Vote in the United Kingdom

On the 6th of February in 1918, the Representation of the People Act 1918 was approved by Royal Assent and began the enfranchisement of women in the United Kingdom. Under the 1918 Act, all men over the age of 21, or over the age of 19 if they were servicemen, were enfranchised. So too, women over 30 years of age received the vote, but only if they were a member of or married to a member of the Local Government Register, if they were a property owner, or if they were a graduate voting in a University constituency.

Nonetheless, the Act was a huge step forward for democracy and women's suffrage in particular. By the end of 1918, the size of the British electorate tripled to about 21,400,000, which included voters in Ireland, then still under British rule, with women accounting for approximately 43% of eligible voters nationwide.

Today, Shadow Minister for Labour Laura Pidcock MP (North West Durham) tweeted:

The 1918 Act is a milestone that should be celebrated, but it's also important to remember that (a) the vote was not given to working class women & (b) when the vote was achieved, it was due to the protests & sacrifices of those women, not the gift of men.

And Prime Minister Theresa May tweeted:

What better way to start today's #Vote100 celebrations than by gathering with all the talented female MPs in Parliament. More must be done, but I'm proud that there are over 200 female MPs — our democracy is stronger as a result.

In the United States, women gained the right to vote through the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which was ratified on August 18, 1920.

Image, click to enlarge: Suffragette in Trafalgar Sq., c. 1911. Charles Chusseau-Flaviens, photographer. Photograph from Spitalfields Life blog courtesy of George Eastman House.

Image, click to enlarge: Photograph posted to Twitter by British Prime Minister Theresa May.

#VOTE100

The majority of Brits oppose a hard Brexit. They should act

The greater British majority are those opposing a hard Brexit, the Remain voters plus those desiring a soft Brexit. Stated in the inverse, British voters who back a hard Brexit are a minority of all voters and possibly a minority, albeit a large one, of all pro-Brexit voters. Therefore, the Conservative element represented by Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, fellow Cabinet minister Michael Gove, and Jacob Rees-Mogg MP, among others, represent at best a plurality view among the British electorate.

Theresa May's Government should recognize that and act accordingly.

"Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few...."

On the 20th day of August, 1940, in a speech in The House of Commons, Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (UK), credited the Royal Air Force (RAF) with valiant determination and effort in the air war against the numerically superior Luftwaffe, the German air force, in the unfolding Battle of Britain. 

"Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few...."

At the time of the speech, Britain was enhancing and expanding defenses in preparation of invasion by the military of the German Third Reich. The first phase of the German effort consisted of bombing targets of the UK, primarily in England, both military and civilian, in an attempt to weaken British defenses and morale.

Churchill's The speech is widely considered to have been a great inspiration to Great Britain's general population and her military personnel. 

Churchill:

[W]e have not only fortified our hearts but our Island. We have rearmed and rebuilt our armies in a degree which would have been deemed impossible a few months ago.… The whole Island bristles against invaders, from the sea or from the air. …the stronger our Army at home, the larger must the invading expedition be, and the larger the invading expedition, the less difficult will be the task of the Navy in detecting its assembly and in intercepting and destroying it in passage....

The Battle of Britain, which lasted from the July 10 until October 31, 1940, was fought almost entirely in the skies over England and The English Channel but including bombing raids against Germany by RAF Bomber Command. Pilots of the Royal Canadian Air Force and from other countries and territories of the British Empire, including Australians in Bomber Command, as well as Polish, American, and other nationals, were among those active in the British effort against the German aerial onslaught.

For the most part, Britain's military posture throughout the battle was defensive as it sought to diminish German air power and delay the German invasion. In the end, Britain won the Battle of Britain and emerged as a victor of the Second World War.