London Olympics

I love the Olympics! Having no athletic abilities myself, I respect and enjoy watching individuals who are driven and passionate about sports. And I love the celebration of world athletes. “Go World,” as one of my friends said.

My favorite sport to watch is actually rowing. I discovered it during the Olympics in Athens. I actually channel those rowers when I’m at the gym on the rowing machine. But I digress.

London is currently hosing its third Olympic games, the only city to have hosted this many times in history. The last time they hosted was in 1948, right after the conclusion of WWII. We are going to be hearing a lot about the 2012 London Olympics in the coming days, so I thought I would focus on those 1948 Olympics for this post.

London was originally selected as the host city for the 1944 Olympics, however the games were cancelled due to WWII. After the war, London was awarded the 1948 games, and while the country almost handed the games to the United States, decided they would use the game to restore the country.

This Olympics came to be known as the Austerity Games for many reasons. Food was still rationed from the war, and the athletes received the same rations the miners received. No new structures were built for these games; Wembley Stadium was not damaged during the war, and it was the main stadium for the games. There was also no Olympic Village, and the athletes stayed in canvas tents and structures used to house the prisoners of war.

Remarkably, 59 nations were represented with 4,104 athletes. Neither Germany nor Japan was invited to participate because of their role as aggressors in the war, and while the USSR was invited, it chose not to participate. United States won the most metals, with the United Kingdom winning the second most.

Sports at this Olympics included: basketball, boxing, canoeing, cycling, diving, equestrian, fencing, field hockey, football, gymnastics, lacrosse, modern pentathlon, rowing, sailing, shooting, swimming, water polo, weightlifting and wrestling.

I am so excited for the Olympic games this year. Each games I discover a new sport I didn’t know of before. This year, archery and badminton have caught my attention. Happy Olympics, and as always Happy History!

Independence

Growing up, July 4 is explained as the day America gained its independence from England. We celebrated in my neighborhood with a water fight, cult-d-sac BBQ and in the old days, fireworks and a bon fire. But it was not until much later that I started questioning what July 4 was. It was also a day that happened 442 days into the Revolutionary War. As a child learning this from my father (who himself is not a great teacher, but I digress) I was confused. Why would the Constitutional Convention wait until the middle of the war to declare independence? And why as Americans do we celebrate July 4, and not August 9, the day the Declaration was actually signed, or September 3, the day the Treaty of Paris was signed as our day of independence? It didn’t quite make sense.

And I still don’t really have these answers. So it is time that I answer them. It is my way of celebrating America since every firework show in Colorado has been cancelled because of the fires.

The first shots of the Revolutionary war were fired in Concord Massachusetts on April 19, 1775. It wasn’t until the spring of 1776 that support for independence swept through the colonies. A five-person committee was established to write the declaration, although Thomas Jefferson wrote a majority of the document, drawing heavily from the philosophy of John Locke.

July 2, 1776 the Constitutional Convention voted to support Virginiaian motion for independence. On July 4, 1776, 12 of the colonies officially supported the Declaration, and after some rewording New York approved on July 19, 1776. But the Declaration was not even signed until August 9, 1776.

After I researched the history of the federal holiday, I realized that it has been celebrated in a way since 1777 when thirteen gunshots were fired in salute. In 1781, Massachusetts became the first state to recognize July 4 as a state celebration. In 1791, the first record of July 4 as Independence Day occurred. In 1870, Congress made Independence Day the day became a federal unpaid holiday, and in 1938, the day became a paid federal holiday.

After all this research I realized I don’t have an answer for why we celebrate July 4 as Independence Day. What I do know is that today is the day the Declaration of Independence was voted on, and that document serves as one of the greatest documents ever written. And, according to this article by the Wall Street Journal, in the next 100 years, other nations and people would issue 200 similar documents to the American Declaration of Independence. That is certainly something worth celebrating.

Happy Fourth of July everyone!

Spam

I don’t think it comes as a surprise when I say that I love Monty Python. My highest viewed blog post was actually the one about the Spanish Inquisition, no doubt because I mentioned Monty Python and used one of their images (the power of SEO at work).

However, I know that when a joke is overdone it can lose its charm, so I was not looking for another way to incorporate the British comedy into my blog. But last week, SPAM® and Monty Python both found me, and I learned something I just could not resist sharing.

While I was reading the book Digital Advertising by Andrew McStay last week and McStay claims the unwanted email messages were dubbed “spam” because of the Monty Python SPAM® sketch.

“Although most commonly associated with email, the expression spam also applies to internet forums, mobile, instant messaging, posting within blogs and unwanted advertisements within newsgroups. The term probably derives from a Monty Python comedy sketch where every item in a café comes with spam (a type of tinned meat).” (McStay, Digital Advertising (England, 2010), 47.)

I have quoted Monty Python before, I have had professors who referenced Monty Python in class lectures, but I have never read someone who linked Monty Python to a term that we use daily. It was just too good not to comment further on. If you have not seen the sketch, click this link to view the short sketch yourself.

My interest was peaked so I decided to see what I could find about the history of the lunchmeat SPAM®. In all honesty I didn’t find much, which was a little disappointing. If I’ve gained anything from this post, other than an awesome random fact, it's a pressing desire to actually try SPAM®.

According to McStay, SPAM® was one of the few meats excluded from the UK food rationing policy during World War II and the years beyond. For this reason, the British people grew heartily tired of it, which is where the humor of the Monty Python sketch came from.

SPAM® was first sold in 1937 as a quality canned lunchmeat. It was the first of its kind, and by 1940, 40 million pounds of SPAM® had been sold. During WWII Hormel Foods provided 15 million cans of the luncheon meat to the troops every week and over time SPAM® lunchmeat became an essential item in the soldiers’ diets.

As marketers began exploiting email and the Internet, the word spam became synonymous with unwanted advertising messages. SPAM® fought the use of its name, but eventually dismissed the trademark hearing and required that writers simply use their trademark when referring to their lunchmeat so readers could tell the difference.

Who would have thought Monty Python would play such an important role in our everyday vocabulary? As always, happy history!

April 15 - Titanic and the Unsinkable

I think I would be the worst historical blogger if I forgot to blog about the R.M.S. Titanic today. This morning at 2 a.m. marked the 100 anniversary of the disaster, and besides the movie coming back to theatres in 3D, there have been a plethora of articles already written on the subject this year to get people ready for the event.

I feel most people know about the Titanic, the mistakes that led to the sinking and loss of life. So instead, I’m going to bring the event back to one person who happened to survive the Titanic, a person with local Denver ties.

I am talking about the iconic Mrs. Margaret (Maggie) Brown.

I took two hours today to make the trip to see the Molly Brown House museum. Her old house has been restored to the way it looked during the time Margaret was living there. Because I am me, and I love history, my friends and I went on the Titanic tour, a tour that incorporated Margaret’s life in Denver in with the story of Titanic. It was absolutely fantastic, and it was a wonderful way to spend a Sunday. It also accomplished exactly what I wanted: it forced me to think about Titanic.

Margaret Brown was born in 1867 to Irish immigrants in Missouri, and was not born wealthy. When she was a teenager, she moved to Leadville, Colorado, and it was here she met her future husband James Joseph Brown. Nicknamed J.J. he was a self-educated, and after a brief courtship they married. Margaret was 19 and J.J. was 32. Margaret always said she would marry for money, but she married J.J. for love.

The Browns were married in 1886 and had two children. It wasn’t until later when J.J. was able to use his engineering skills to a benefit. He was responsible for finding the ore in the Liggle Jonny Mine, and was awarded 12,500 shares of stock.

The family relocated to Denver where they were able to buy a new house, which is now the Molly Brown House Museum. It was one of the first in Denver to have electricity, central heating and water through the house. Unfortunately, Margaret and J.J.’s marriage did not withstand time, and the couple was separated shortly after they moved. Margaret and J.J. had two children, Lawrence Palmer Brown and Catherine Ellen Brown.

Margaret took her new wealth and used it to try and benefit society. She was fluent in Russian, Italian, Spanish and French, and traveled through Europe.

Margaret was traveling in Egypt before she broke from her party to return to France. It was there that she heard her son’s child was ill. She booked immediate passage on the Titanic, and boarded the ship with two crates filled with Egyptian artifacts she planned to give to the Denver Museum.

In Egypt, Margaret heard from a fortuneteller that she would have a mishap at sea. While she took the warning with a grain of salt, it is amazing to realize how right the psychic was. It was not so much her actions while aboard the ship that made Margaret iconic with the Titanic, but rather her actions after. Because Margaret was schooled in so many languages, she went immediately to the surviving women from steerage to help translate for them. Margaret was responsible for helping change laws on ships, including the necessity to have enough lifeboats for every passenger, and to fill the boats completely. Margaret awarded the crew of the Carpathia special awards for the courage the had during their rescue.

Also worth mentioning is that Margaret helped establish the dumb friends league in Denver and ran for Colorado senate three times.

It was fantastic to visit the museum today, and I thoroughly enjoyed the information I received on Margaret and the Titanic. I was not allowed to take pictures inside, but I did sneak a few at the back of the house.

If you’re especially interested in the Titanic, I did find this great map of the people on the ship.

Enjoy, and as always, happy history!

This is one of the actual medals Margaret presented to the crew of the Carpathia.

This is a replica of the small Egyptian statue she was able to take in her pocket the night the Titanic sank. She later presented this to the Captain Rostron of the Carpathia.

Triangle Shirtwaist Fire

March 25, 1911

There are times as a history lover that I am reminded that very few people care about history. And honestly, it’s a bit lonely.

While I doubt all of my history knowledge will be interesting to everyone, I usually only nerd out when I know the information is pertinent to a conversation, or will enlighten the person I am telling the fact to.

Of all my random facts, the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire fact is my personal favorite random fact. I told two co-workers about the event recently, and had two totally different reactions: one was interested, the other… seemed to fake interest.

High school is really when I discovered my passion for history. Junior year of high school I learned about the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire and what it really meant for our country. I remember the day really vividly: My teacher was being critiqued, and so he was a little more rigid than usual. But he had spoken with such passion, and tied together the ideals so beautifully, I felt that at the end of the lecture I really understood this event.

What many probably don’t know is this event was crucial for our country, and the way people approached public safety. It was also a turning point in ideology.

The beginning of the Twentieth Century was termed “The Gilded Age” because while it was the Golden Age for immigration, the country was really not as golden as it seamed from far away. Three prominent mentalities were creating harsh and cruel working conditions for the newly industrialized country:

• Social Darwinism was the idea reflecting Darwin’s theory: survival of the fittest. If someone was weak, they should not be helped, but weeded out of society;

• Popular Calvinism was the religious ideology of the time, focused on the idea of predestination. Every person’s actions were pre destined by a higher being, meaning intervention was useless; and

• Constitutional conservatism was the idea of “liberty of contract” or the 14th Amendment. You work because you choose to work, but must maintain the contract at all costs.

The working class in America felt the full brunt of these ideologies. They lived in poor living conditions, working factory jobs that exploited them in wages, hours and in safety. The worst part of this is because of these ideologies, the elite in America felt that it was the fault of these people that they lived and worked in these conditions. The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire changed all of these mentalities. Basically, the factory housing hundreds of young women caught fire. Keep in mind this was before labor laws regulating working hours, working conditions, or minimum wage.

Women who were unable to escape the building simply jumped from the burning building, dying from the fall.

The inside of the factory after the fire.

Next time you are in a public place, notice the doors open out. It is a small detail people rarely notice, but it is a fire code so that if a fire were to break out, people could easily push the doors open and flood out. In the time of Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, the doors did not open out, the opened into the room, and hundreds of women were flooding against the doors, making it impossible to open the door to escape. Hundreds of women died in this fire, trapped inside the factory. The sheer magnitude of this disaster helped change the way society thought about working conditions, and about the working individuals as well. The Gilded Age gave way to the Progressive Era, dominated by three different ideals:

• Social gospel was the idea of a social response and socialized permeating society. The main idea was to bring Heaven to Earth;

• Reform Darwinism where man does not live in a state of nature, but rather in an artificial nature where natural law does not apply; and

• Legal Pragmatism where it was the idea of promoting the Great American Ideas. Balance principle and value vs. the common god and impact on society.

This is one of those facts that I think a lot of people rarely think of. Changes across other industries slowly began to happen after this point. And every time I notice a door opening in, which does happen in historic buildings, I think of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire.

As always, Happy History!

Mithra

I have found that sometimes it is not what you know, but who you know that will get you places in this world. Sherry was in charge of the lab on our site, and she processed everything we found on the site, whether it was a large mortar stone, or a small shurd of pottery. Not only was she fantastic in the lab, and had a wealth of knowledge at her disposal, she is one of the nicest people I have ever had the fortune of knowing.

When we visited Maresha we had the pleasure of having Sherry take us on a tour of the site. Maybe that is what helped add to the appeal of the site, the personal connection I had because I was given a tour by someone who was passionate about the place, who dedicated years to excavating there, who loved learning about it, and who shared that passion with all of us.

In addition to seeing the main part of Maresha, Sherry also took us to visit a place dubbed the Horse Cave. This cave held a special meaning to Sherry, who overlooked the excavations that went on in the cave, and who wrote her graduate thesis about the cave.

Although called the horse cave, Sherry’s argument was it was a place of worship for those who were part of the religion Mithraism, a growing religion at the turn of the century. Mithraism should ring a bell, because I mentioned it in my winter solstice post; I think it was interesting for me to see it pop up there, after touching the surface of the religion when Sherry showed us her cave.

That got me thinking about what the religion actually involved. It was limited to men, and during the Roman rule it spread to, first to the men in the army, than to others in the Roman Empire.

As previously stated, Mithraism derives from the Persian religion Zoroastrianism. (I honestly have no idea how Zoroastrianism works, but one of my professors compared it to Lord of the Rings, with good and evil influences... take that description as you will.) Mithraism is a religion dedicated to Mithra, God of light and wisdom for Romans, and contracts and oaths for Persians. The slaying of a bull is also central to Mithra.

Mithraism rapidly spread through the Roman Empire during the Second Century C.E. About 400 different sites have been found across the empire, extending from Turkey to Britain, most concentrated in Rome.

The religion is one of contracts and loyalty between men. There were no known women followers, and the religion was immensely popular. Members met in small caves for worship. While not all were caves, these temples were dug into the earth, and lacked exterior decoration. A communal meal was important to the religion, with all caves finding evidence of large dining quarters. There was an initiation into seven successive levels of the religion, some including ablutions (baptism), purifications and ceremonial passwords. A simulated death and resurrection was probably part of the ceremony. The levels were:


Raven (Murcury)
Nymphus (Venus)
Soldier (Mars)
Lion (Jupiter)
Persian (Moon)
Heliodromus (Sun)
Father (Saturn)

There are several similarities between Mithraism and Christianity, one being the celebration of Christmas on December 25. The idea of resurrection is also central to Mithraism.

Having Sherry there to give background on the site really made it one of my favorites to visit. Even now, thinking back to the site I still think fondly of that day, and having Sherry as our tour guide.

My camera died (shock!) so thanks to Kendra Day for the photos. Not as good as I would have liked, but you can see a bit of this temple and some of the structures there.

Leap Year

Every four years we have an extra day in February. The reason, scientifically, is because the earth takes longer than 365 days to go around the sun- 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes and 46 seconds to be exact.

Historically it was the Egyptians who were the first to figure out the solar year and the man made calendar didn’t always match up. Therefore, an extra day was added to compensate for the extra time.

The Romans were the first to designate February 29 as leap day. The first leap day was celebrated in 40 B.C.E. thanks to Mr. Julius Caesar.

Some other interesting leap year historical facts:

In 1288 Scotland established this day as one when a woman could propose to a man!

In 1940 Hattie McDaniel became the first black person to win an Oscar for her performance in Gone with the Wind. A random fact about McDaniel is she lived for a time in Fort Collins, Colorado! Her house still stands today.

In 1952 the first pedestrian regulation signs were installed in New York City.

Happy Leap Day everyone! Enjoy the day, since it won’t come back around until 2016!