History, anything goes, including pictures

grahamg said:
Very important guy in my view, building on the work of his father, and others ji believe, but he felt the need MTO sit on his manuscript for thirty years before publishing "Origins of species", so worried was he of the likely backlash, and he found a politicians to support his publishing his findings before doing so too. :)
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Probably all to do with Alfred Wallace IMO. Alfred Russel Wallace OM FRS, 1823 – 1913, was a British naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist, biologist and illustrator. He is best known for independently conceiving the theory of evolution through natural selection; his paper on the subject was jointly published with some of Charles Darwin's writings in 1858. This prompted Darwin to publish On the Origin of Species.

Alfred Russel Wallace.
 

grahamg said:
Very important guy in my view, building on the work of his father, and others ji believe, but he felt the need MTO sit on his manuscript for thirty years before publishing "Origins of species", so worried was he of the likely backlash, and he found a politicians to support his publishing his findings before doing so too. :)
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Works for me. Take care.
 
February 13
1942 Hitler’s Operation Sealion – the invasion of England – is cancelled

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Goering, sixth from right and other German officers look out across the English Channel towards Dover on 1 July 1940. It was as close as they would get to invading.
 
13 February 1542 – Catherine Howard, the fifth wife of Henry VIII of England, is executed for adultery.

Catherine Howard (circa 1523 – 13 February 1542) was Queen of England from 1540 until 1541, as the fifth wife of Henry VIII. Catherine married Henry when she was 16 or 17 and he was 49 on 28 July 1540, at Oatlands Palace, in Surrey, almost immediately after the annulment of his marriage to Anne of Cleves was arranged. Catherine was stripped of her title as queen within 16 months, in November 1541. She was beheaded three months later, on the grounds of treason for committing adultery while married to Henry.

King Henry and Catherine were married by Bishop Bonner of London at Oatlands Palace on 28 July 1540, the same day Cromwell was executed.

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13 February 1967 – American researchers discover the Madrid Codices by Leonardo da Vinci in the National Library of Spain.

The Madrid Codices I–II are two manuscripts by Leonardo da Vinci which were discovered in the Biblioteca Nacional de España in Madrid on 13 February 1967 by Dr. Jules Piccus. The Madrid Codices I was finished during 1490 and 1499, and II from 1503 to 1505 and are considered to be of great importance as they contain about 15% of his notes referenced today. The two notebooks contain 197 pages, with the first volume largely discussing mechanics, statics, and geometry. The two volumes also include a list of 116 books da Vinci was using at the time for his research.

Leonardo's Horse
Double manuscript page on the Sforza monument.
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The Sforza monument refers to Leonardo’s Horse, a sculpture that was a commission of Leonardo da Vinci in 1482 from the Duke of Milan Ludovico il Moro, but not completed.
It was intended to be the largest equestrian statue in the world, a monument to the duke’s father Francesco. Leonardo did extensive preparatory work for it, but produced only a clay model, which was destroyed by French soldiers when they invaded Milan in 1499, interrupting the project. Centuries later, Leonardo’s surviving design materials have been used as the basis for a number of sculptures intended to bring his horse statue project to fruition.
Leonardo’s horse in Milan. Leonardo’s horse in America.
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On April 21, 1967 in France, the mayor of Marseille Gaston Defferre and the Gaullist René Ribière crossed the iron for a fight for honour, despite the disapproval of then President General Charles de Gaulle. They were the protagonists of the last duel disputed in France. The duel took part in the park of a mansion in Neuilly-sur-Seine, near Paris:

Four minutes after the beginning of the duel, the fight was stopped as one of the two duelists, Ribière, was hit twice on the arm.

The day before, during a heated debate at the French National Assembly, Defferre shouted at his colleague Ribière: "Shut up, fool!”.

The incident did not stop there. Later, in the Salle des Quatre-Colonnes room, Ribière asked for apologies from his offender, but the fiery Marseillais Defferre refused.

Then Ribière challenged Defferre to a duel in front of two witnesses. The offended, Ribière, having the choice of weapons, chose the sword.

On the day of the duel and three assaults and two slashes later, the referee Jean de Lipkowski stopped the fight, with Ribière left with two minor injuries.

Ribière had actually never touched a sword, and the fact that one of his grandfathers fought a duel in 1910 was not very helpful to him. His opponent, Defferre, on the other hand, was an old veteran who used to fight and had already duelled against another politician, Paul Bastide, twenty years earlier with a pistol.

Later, whenever he was given the opportunity to discuss this duel, the facetious Defferre did not fail to recall that he had targeted the crotch of his opponent to spoil his wedding night, the latter marrying the next day!

The few drops of blood shed by Ribière were the last to be spilt during a duel in France. The penultimate duel had taken place nine years earlier, on March 30, 1958, near Vernon in Normandy, for an artistic dispute between dancer Serge Lifar, 53, and the Marquis de Cuevas, 72 years old (this duel was witnessed by a certain Jean-Marie Le Pen).
 

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February 13-15 1945​

76 years ago the Allied bombing of Dresden began. More than 3,400 tons of explosives were dropped by 800 American and British aircraft. Eight square miles of the city was ruined, and the total body count was between 22,700 and 25,000 dead.​

 
mellowyellow said:

View attachment 149690​

February 13-15 1945​

76 years ago the Allied bombing of Dresden began. More than 3,400 tons of explosives were dropped by 800 American and British aircraft. Eight square miles of the city was ruined, and the total body count was between 22,700 and 25,000 dead.​

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Such devastation and death.
People collect the dead bodies of the victims in the rubble after the 1945 fire bombings.
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Valentine’s Day
The Feast of Saint Valentine was established by Pope Gelasius I in AD 496 to be celebrated on February 14 in honour of the Christian martyr, Saint Valentine of Rome, who died on that date in AD 269.
Saint Valentine of Rome was imprisoned for performing weddings for soldiers who were forbidden to marry and for ministering to Christians persecuted under the Roman Empire. According to legend, Saint Valentine restored sight to the blind daughter of his judge, and he wrote her a letter signed “Your Valentine” as a farewell before his execution.
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The day first became associated with romantic love within the circle of Geoffrey Chaucer in the 14th century, when the tradition of courtly love flourished. In 18th-century England, it evolved into an occasion in which lovers expressed their love for each other by presenting flowers, offering confectionery, and sending greeting cards known as “valentines”. Valentine’s Day symbols that are used today include the heart-shaped outline, doves, and the figure of the winged Cupid.
World's oldest printed Valentine's Day card from 1797. Valentine greeting card dated 1909.
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14 February 1779 – Captain James Cook is killed in Hawaii.

Cook was attacked and killed in 1779 during his third exploratory voyage in the Pacific to discover the Northwest Passage. Cook had returned to the Islands of Hawaii discovered earlier on the voyage for supplies. After a month’s stay, Cook attempted to resume his exploration of the northern Pacific. Shortly after leaving Hawaii Island, however, Resolution’s foremast broke, so the ships returned to Kealakekua Bay for repairs. Tensions rose, and a number of quarrels broke out between the Europeans and the local Hawaiians. An unknown group of Hawaiians took one of Cook’s small boats. In retaliation, Cook attempted to kidnap the Island of Hawaii’s monarch, Kalani’opu’u, in order to reclaim the stolen cutter. On 14 February 1779, Cook marched through the village to retrieve the king.

Cook took the king by his own hand and led him willingly away. One of the king’s favourite wives and two chiefs approached the group as they were heading to boats pleading with the king not to go. A large crowd began to form at the shore and the king began to understand that Cook was his enemy. As Cook turned his back to help launch the boats, he was struck on the head by the villagers and then stabbed to death as he fell on his face in the surf. Four marines were also killed and two others were wounded in the confrontation.

The Death of Captain Cook painted by John Webber.
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14 february 1859 – George Washington Gale Ferris Jr., American engineer, inventor of the Ferris wheel is born.

George Washington Gale Ferris Jr. (February 14, 1859 – November 22, 1896) was an American engineer. He is mostly known for creating the original Ferris Wheel for the 1893 Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition. The Ferris Wheel had 36 cars, each fitted with 40 revolving chairs and able to accommodate up to 60 people, giving a total capacity of 2,160. When the fair opened, it carried some 38,000 passengers daily, taking 20 minutes to complete two revolutions, the first involving six stops to allow passengers to exit and enter and the second a nine-minute non-stop rotation, for which the ticket holder paid 50 cents. It carried 2.5 million passengers before it was finally demolished in 1906.

The original 1893 Chicago Ferris Wheel. New York Times photo archive.
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RnR said:
Valentine’s Day
The Feast of Saint Valentine was established by Pope Gelasius I in AD 496 to be celebrated on February 14 in honour of the Christian martyr, Saint Valentine of Rome, who died on that date in AD 269.
Saint Valentine of Rome was imprisoned for performing weddings for soldiers who were forbidden to marry and for ministering to Christians persecuted under the Roman Empire. According to legend, Saint Valentine restored sight to the blind daughter of his judge, and he wrote her a letter signed “Your Valentine” as a farewell before his execution.
KLQAfDJ.png

The day first became associated with romantic love within the circle of Geoffrey Chaucer in the 14th century, when the tradition of courtly love flourished. In 18th-century England, it evolved into an occasion in which lovers expressed their love for each other by presenting flowers, offering confectionery, and sending greeting cards known as “valentines”. Valentine’s Day symbols that are used today include the heart-shaped outline, doves, and the figure of the winged Cupid.
World's oldest printed Valentine's Day card from 1797. Valentine greeting card dated 1909.
Xomo474.jpg
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I hope everyone had a great Valentine's Day
 
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February 15
1986 Ferdinand Marcos wins rigged presidential election in the Philippines.
Why Famous: Ferdinand Marcos is remembered for running a corrupt and undemocratic government as the 10th President of the Philippines (1965-1986).
The so-called People's Power Revolution gained strength, eventually forcing Marcos and his government to capitulate and he is forced to flee to Hawaii where he dies in 1989.
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mellowyellow said:
View attachment 149859
February 15
1986 Ferdinand Marcos wins rigged presidential election in the Philippines.
Why Famous: Ferdinand Marcos is remembered for running a corrupt and undemocratic government as the 10th President of the Philippines (1965-1986).
The so-called People's Power Revolution gained strength, eventually forcing Marcos and his government to capitulate and he is forced to flee to Hawaii where he dies in 1989.
View attachment 149860
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So much excess. Two of their children, Imee Marcos and Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr., are still active in Philippine politics.
 
15 February 1564 – Galileo Galilei, Italian astronomer, physicist, and mathematician is born.

Galileo Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642) was an Italian polymath and a central figure in the transition from natural philosophy to modern science and in the transformation of the scientific Renaissance into a scientific revolution. According to Stephen Hawking, Galileo probably bears more of the responsibility for the birth of modern science than anybody else. Albert Einstein called him the father of modern science.
Galileo e Viviani, Tito Lessi, 1892. Statue outside the Uffizi, Florence.
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Galileo’s championing of heliocentrism and Copernicanism, which maintained that the Earth and planets revolve around the Sun, when prevailing theory held that the earth was the centre of the universe, was controversial during his lifetime. He met with opposition from astronomers and the church. He was investigated by the Roman Inquisition in 1615 and found “vehemently suspect of heresy”, and forced to recant. Galileo spent the rest of his life under house arrest.
Cristiano Banti’s 1857 painting ‘Galileo facing the Roman Inquisition’.
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Known for his work as astronomer, physicist, engineer, philosopher, and mathematician, Galileo has been called the “father of observational astronomy”, the “father of modern physics”, the “father of the scientific method”, and even the “father of science”.
 
15 February 1796 – Australia’s first bushranger, John ‘Black’ Caesar, is shot.
Convict John ‘Black’ Caesar became Australia’s first bushranger when he fled the settlement in December 1795 and led a gang of fellow escapees in the bush surrounding Port Jackson.
It is believed that Caesar was born in Madagascar or the West Indies. He moved to England and was a servant living in the parish of St Paul, Deptford, England, in 1786. On 17 March 1786, he was tried at Maidstone, Kent for stealing 240 shillings. His sentence was transportation to NSW for seven years. He arrived on the Alexander, a First Fleet convict transport ship.
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Caesar escaped from the Sydney Cove settlement no less than four times during his sentence, the last time in December 1795 when he led a gang of absconders and vagabonds in the Port Jackson area thus becoming Australia’s first bushranger. On 29 January 1796 Governor Hunter offered a reward for his capture of five gallons of spirits. On 15 February 1796 John Wimbow and another man tracked Caesar down at Liberty Plains, now Strathfield. Caesar fired at them but Wimbrow managed to wound him. Caesar was taken to the hut of Thomas Rose where he died of his wounds.
 
15 February 1946 – ENIAC, the first electronic general-purpose computer, is formally dedicated at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

ENIAC was formally dedicated at the University of Pennsylvania on 15 February 1946 and was heralded as a “Giant Brain” by the press. It had a speed on the order of one thousand times faster than that of electro-mechanical machines; this computational power, coupled with general-purpose programmability, excited scientists and industrialists alike.
Glen Beck and Betty Snyder program ENIAC in the Ballistic Research Laboratory building 328. U.S. Army photo.
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By the end of its operation in 1956, ENIAC contained 20,000 vacuum tubes, 7200 crystal diodes, 1500 relays, 70,000 resistors, 10,000 capacitors and approximately 5,000,000 hand-soldered joints. It weighed more than 27 tonnes and was roughly 2.4 m × 0.9 m × 30 m in size, occupied 167 square metres and consumed 150 kW of electricity. This power requirement led to the rumour that whenever the computer was switched on, lights in Philadelphia dimmed. Several tubes burned out almost every day, leaving ENIAC nonfunctional about half the time. In 1954, the longest continuous period of operation without a failure was 116 hours—close to five days.
 
RnR said:
15 February 1564 – Galileo Galilei, Italian astronomer, physicist, and mathematician is born.

Galileo Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642) was an Italian polymath and a central figure in the transition from natural philosophy to modern science and in the transformation of the scientific Renaissance into a scientific revolution. According to Stephen Hawking, Galileo probably bears more of the responsibility for the birth of modern science than anybody else. Albert Einstein called him the father of modern science.
Galileo e Viviani, Tito Lessi, 1892. Statue outside the Uffizi, Florence.
39364339175_9f12c66648_o.jpg

Galileo’s championing of heliocentrism and Copernicanism, which maintained that the Earth and planets revolve around the Sun, when prevailing theory held that the earth was the centre of the universe, was controversial during his lifetime. He met with opposition from astronomers and the church. He was investigated by the Roman Inquisition in 1615 and found “vehemently suspect of heresy”, and forced to recant. Galileo spent the rest of his life under house arrest.
Cristiano Banti’s 1857 painting ‘Galileo facing the Roman Inquisition’.
40261854451_7c953521b5_o.jpg

Known for his work as astronomer, physicist, engineer, philosopher, and mathematician, Galileo has been called the “father of observational astronomy”, the “father of modern physics”, the “father of the scientific method”, and even the “father of science”.
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He was forced to recant his belief that the Earth orbits the Sun by the Pope. (Vatican only admits it was wrong on Oct 31, 1992)
 
February 16
1659 1st known cheque (£400) (on display at Westminster Abbey)

cheque.jpg
The history of the cheque dates back to the 13th century in Venice when the bill of exchange was developed as a legal device to allow international trade without the need to carry around large amounts of gold and silver. Their use was subsequently adopted in France, and from there the practice was brought to England.

In 1659 the first known English cheque was made payable to Mr Delboe for the grand sum of £400 by merchant Nicholas Vanacker, to be drawn on City bankers Messrs Morris and Clayton. (on display at Westminster Abbey)
 

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