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"The North Pole is reached!" was the news that flashed all over the world...it was September
1909 when the news reached Amundsen. The original plan of the FRAM'S third voyage--the exploration of the North
Polar basin--was quickly called off. In order to save the expedition, Amundsen immediately turned his attention
to the South simultaneously emphasizing to his financial contributors that the FRAM'S Arctic voyage
would be, in every way, a scientific expedition and would have nothing to do with record-breaking. Therefore, as
far as the supporters were aware, Amundsen's Arctic voyage would not be influenced one way or another by
Peary's accomplishment. Since he was so heavily in debt, Amundsen felt his change in plans to head south
and capture the South Pole should be kept a secret. In his own words, Amundsen wrote, "I know that I have been
reproached for not having at once made the extended plan public, so that not only my supporters, but the
explorers who were preparing to visit the same regions might have knowledge of it. I was well aware that these
reproaches would come, and had therefore carefully weighed this side of the matter". As hinted at, he
also felt it important to keep his intentions secret from his peers. "Nor did I feel any great scruples with
regard to the other Antarctic expeditions that were being planned at the time. I knew I should be able to
inform Captain Scott of the extension of my plans before he left civilization, and therefore a few months sooner
or later could be of no great importance. Scott's plan and equipment were so widely different from my
own that I regarded the telegram that I sent him later, with the information that we were bound for the Antarctic
regions, rather as a mark of courtesy than as a communication which might cause him to alter his programme
in the slightest degree. The British expedition was designed entirely for scientific research. The Pole was only
a side-issue, whereas in my extended plan it was the main object". Amundsen must have been in a dream
world as this simply was not true. Scott's intention to try for the Pole had been widely publicized and was certainly
not a side issue...one only need turn to Scott's Antarctic Expedition announcement in the September
13, 1909, issue of The Times of London.
In December 1916 and January 1917, the British county of West
Cumberland erupted in violence. Prices for basic foodstuffs, potatoes, milk, wheat, and thus bread, butter, all sold in the
local markets, had skyrocketed over the preceding months, the result of at least the threat of scarcity, if not the actual
fact. The British agricultural sector was simply not able to meet the demands being placed on it, because of both a bad harvest
year and a long-term decline which had made Britain a net importer of food, a precarious position at a time of war with Germany.
At the time, profiteering by both farmers and shopkeepers was widely blamed for the rise. Many also felt that local traders
were removing foodstuffs from the district on a grand scale for sale in other regions, where they could get better prices
for their goods. (Indeed, there was some evidence that this was the case.) Then, on 20 December 1916, the government decreed
that it was going to fix prices for various goods. By January 1917, the women of the county were determined to enforce the
set prices. The riots began in the pitch market in Maryport, when women arrived determined not to buy above the decreed price.
When one farmer said he did not care what the government said, there was bedlam. The women rushed the farmers' carts,
and the "street was filled with hooting, yelling women and young people, while potatoes, cabbages and turnips were flying
through the air" The example of Maryport soon spread to other parts of the county. These riots were led by housewives,
who had filled the front lines and did much of the fighting, although the miners of Cumberland were also active in supporting
their wives' efforts, both as added bodies strengthening the crowds, but also through the Miners' Association and
other working-class organizations
1910. "Wellman airship
seen from Trent." Walter Wellman's hydrogen dirigible America just before being abandoned by its crew near Bermuda,
1,370 miles into an attempt to cross the Atlantic from New Jersey. Its engines having failed, the America drifted out of
sight, never to be seen again.
If my airship history serves me correctly, what
you see hanging below the airship in the water is a device Wellman called an "equilibrator" ... This was a set
of metal cylinders tied together and hung beneath the crew cabin, designed to keep the airship at a constant altitude (around
200 ft) and act as ballast. Unfortunately, neither the equilibrator nor the ship itself worked very well, resulting in the
crew having to abandon the airship as seen here. Fascinating photo!
Charles "Charlie" Spencer Chaplin,
the comic genius of silent films, has died aged 88. The "King of film"', knighted in 1975, died at 0400 today
at his Swiss manor at Corsier-sur-Vevey. His wife Oona, daughter of the late playwright Eugene O'Neill, and seven of their
eight children were present. The couple's eldest daughter, actress Geraldine, was abroad filming in Spain but his son
Sidney, the eldest son by the second of his four marriages was at his bedside. It is understood Sir Charles slipped into a
coma last night. A family spokesman said the actor would be buried in a private family ceremony in two days. As actor, writer,
director, producer, composer and choreographer he left his indelible legacy on 80 films including favourites The Gold Rush,
City Lights, and Limelight. From his screen debut in 1914, to his last completed film in 1967, Sir Charles is considered to
have helped found the modern film.
He rose from humble beginnings to become one of the highest paid films stars.
Born into poverty in London in
1889 his parents Charles Chaplin, senior, and Hannah Hill were music hall entertainers who separated shortly after his birth.
Sir Chaplin and his half-brother, Sydney, who later became his business manger, ended up in an institute for destitute children.
Performing from the age of five he moved to America in 1910. There he introduced the world to one of his most revered characters
- Little Tramp - in the 1914 film Kid's Auto Races. The shuffling, cane-twirling figure in over-sized trousers and a black
moustache, was born. By 1920, at the height of his fame worldwide regular cinema attendance, dances, dolls, comic books and
toys were created in his image. A colourful personal life combined with Left wing leanings during the Cold War led to him
being virtually expelled from America in 1952. He was awarded a special Oscar 20 years later but lived out the rest of his
life in Switzerland where he died.
Marcus Garvey (1887 - 1940)
Garvey was a Jamaican-born black nationalist who created a 'Back to Africa'
movement in the United States. He became an inspirational figure for later civil rights activists.
Marcus Garvey was born in St Ann's Bay, Jamaica on 17 August 1887, the
youngest of 11 children. He inherited a keen interest in books from his father, a mason and made full use of the extensive
family library. At the age of 14 he left school and became a printer's apprentice where he led a strike for higher wages.
From 1910 to 1912, Garvey travelled in South and Central America and also visited London.
He returned to Jamaica in 1914 and founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). In 1916, Garvey
moved to Harlem in New York where UNIA thrived. By now a formidable public speaker, Garvey spoke across America. He urged
African-Americans to be proud of their race and return to Africa, their ancestral homeland and attracted thousands of supporters.
To facilitate the return to Africa that he advocated, in 1919
Garvey founded the Black Star Line, to provide transportation to Africa, and the Negro Factories Corporation to encourage
black economic independence. Garvey also unsuccessfully tried to persuade the government of Liberia in west Africa to grant
land on which black people from America could settle.
In
1922 Garvey was arrested for mail fraud in connection with the sale of stock in the Black Star Line, which had now failed.
Although there were irregularities connected to the business, the prosecution was probably politically motivated, as Garvey's
activities had attracted considerable government attention. Garvey was sent to prison and later deported to Jamaica. In 1935,
he moved permanently to London where he died on 10 June 1940. In 1964, his body was returned to Jamaica where he was declared
the country's first national hero.
Born into a wealthy family, Florence got her first taste of nursing
at a charitable hospital in Germany before becoming superintendent of a sanatorium for sickly gentlewomen in London. With
the outbreak of the Crimean War in 1854, she became convinced that her nursing skills would be of use to wounded servicemen
and persuaded the Secretary of War to send her and a small group of nurses to the front. On her arrival at Scutari, the hospital
doctors were at first hostile towards her but they were soon stretching the new nursing staff to the limit.
Recently, Florence Nightingale's role in improving
the lot of the soldiers has been questioned, but she undoubtedly raised the profile of nursing. On her return to England,
she established the Nightingale School of Nursing, the first training school for nurses in Britain. She also instigated a
Royal Commission into medical care in the army. In 1907, she became the first woman to be honoured with the Order of Merit.
Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924)
Wilson was the 28th president of the United States. More than any other president before
him, he was responsible for increasing American involvement in world affairs and his vision led to the creation of the League
of Nations.
Thomas Woodrow Wilson was born in Staunton, Virginia,
on 28 December 1856. His father was a Presbyterian minister. Wilson was raised in Georgia and South Carolina against the backdrop
of the American Civil War. He studied at Princeton University, briefly became a lawyer and then went to Johns Hopkins University
where he received a doctorate in history and political science.
After a successful academic career, Wilson became
president of Princeton University, serving between 1902 and 1910. His reforming efforts brought him attention and the New
Jersey Democrats asked him to run for governor in 1910. His victory launched his political career. In 1912 he ran as the
Democratic candidate for president and won.
Wilson's domestic policies included the Federal Reserve Act of 1913,
which provides the framework that still regulates American banks and money supply. Wilson sought to maintain American neutrality
after the outbreak of World War One and was re-elected president in 1916 on the slogan 'He Kept Us Out of War.'
However, the German policy of unrestricted submarine warfare led Wilson to bring the US into the conflict in April 1917.
In
January 1918, in a major speech to Congress, Wilson laid out his Fourteen Points, which he believed should form the basis
of the peace settlements in Europe. He attended the Versailles peace negotiations to advocate this programme, but the resulting
treaties left him bitterly disappointed. Wilson returned to the US and waged a futile struggle to win American ratification
of the Treaty of Versailles and American support for the new League of Nations. He was awarded the 1919 Nobel Prize for
Peace for his efforts to create the League.
Immigrant is an American word used to describe
the huge influx of people to the States between 1800 and 1910. This included five million Germans, four million Irish, and
five million Central Europeans and Italians - enough foreign language speakers to destabilise, if not overwhelm English. But these
new immigrants wanted to become part of American society so wholeheartedly embraced English bringing with them words like
schlep, kosher, capo, pizza, delicatessen, spiel and many others. At home, they may have generally used their respective
mother tongues but, in society, English was used. Even now, many Americans are bilingual.
The United States has a long history of welcoming
immigrants from all over the world. We value the contributions of immigrants, who continue to enrich this country and preserve
its legacy as a land of freedom and opportunity. Though we are a nation of diverse cultures and backgrounds, we are bound
by our shared history, the common civic values set forth in our founding documents, and the English language.
With the outbreak of the First World War, differences were forgotten
as the suffrage leaders urged support. Women were called on to take up male jobs as their men folk were sent to the
front. They proved their worth as bus conductors, ambulance drivers, and office staff. Nearly a million women were employed
to work in the munitions industry, making vital, and dangerous weapons. The armed forces themselves made a big drive to recruit women and the war years saw the founding
of the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps, the Women's Royal Naval Service, and the Women's Royal Air Force. But most
women were employed well away from the fighting - as cooks, clerks, storewomen, messengers and signallers. Support for the
war was not universal. On 18 April 1915, 1500 women from Northern Europe and the USA met in The Hague to discuss peace at
the International Congress of Women. Sylvia Pankhurst was one of those who continued to protest against the conflict. In 1918 women had the vote, but not all were
enfranchised. The Representation of the People Act gave votes only to those women aged over 30 who held property. The following
year, Nancy Astor became the first woman to take her seat as an MP. Astor was soon championing women's causes such as
equal rights in the civil service, votes at twenty-one and keeping the women police. She was to become famous for her brilliant
repartee in the House and her ability to take on the most misogynist of male MPs.
Annie Besant is fascinating if only for the
amazing amount she managed to cram into her life. After leaving her strict clergyman husband (who denied her access to her
child), Annie Besant joined the Free Thought society. She then published an early book on birth control, which was branded
obscene, before taking on the cause of the Bryant and May Match Girls and organising their strike in 1888. In 1889 she became
one of the first women to sit on a school board. After converting to Theosophy she moved to India, where she championed Indian
home rule while still making time to return to London to address a suffragette rally. She was elected president of the Indian
National Congress in 1917 and died in Madras in 1933, where many streets still bear her name.
Sylvia Pankhurst was an accomplished artist
who used her skills to compliment the suffragette cause. A co-founder of the WSPU with her mother and sisters, she designed
banners, badges and posters for the Cause. Sylvia was a committed socialist who increasingly identifying herself with working
class women. She came into conflict with Christabel about the aims and methods of WSPU and in 1912, her East London Federation
of Suffragettes became a breakaway group. Like her mother and sister, she was imprisoned many times but her strong pacifist
views meant that whereas Emmeline and Christabel threw themselves into the war effort in 1914, Sylvia campaigned passionately
against the war. In the 1920s, she was a committed communist and continued to be active in international politics, especially
in Ethiopia , until her death in 1960.
Within days of Britain declaring war on Germany,
the two main women's suffrage organizations, the NUWSS and the WSPU agreed to end their protest and work for the war effort.
As men were called to the front, women were brought into the workplace to replace them, with the number of women in employment
rising from just over 3 million in 1914 to nearly 5 million in 1918. Women in their thousands went to work in private offices
and government departments. They became bus conductors, ambulance drivers and bank tellers. They trained as carpenters, stokers
and tool setters. Nearly a million women were employed to work in the munitions industry, making vital, and dangerous weapons.
As part of the Women's Land Army, thousands were sent to work on the land.
The armed forces also had a big drive to recruit women and the war years saw the founding of the
Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) in 1916 and the Women's Royal Naval Service (WRNS) and the Women's Royal Air
Force (WRAF) in 1917. Most women were employed well away from the fighting for example as cooks, clerks, storewomen, messengers
and signalers. Women also played an indispensable role as nurses. In 1907, the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY) had been
established to tend to soldiers at field hospitals in times of war. The Voluntary Aid Detachment had been set up in 1908,
the medical wing of the Territorial Army, involving both women and men. Both these organisations were to become invaluable
as the number of casualties grew. In 1914, the Scottish doctor, Elsie Inglis, founded her Scottish Women's Hospitals movement,
sending units of trained doctors and nurses to the Front. Not all women supported the war. On 18 April 1915, 1500 women from
Northern Europe and the USA met in The Hague to discuss peace at the International Congress of Women. Sylvia Pankhurst was
one of those who continued to protest against the war.
It was during family holidays in the Lake District
that the young Beatrix Potter had become entranced by nature, carefully drawing pictures of the wildlife around her. She
was soon illustrating greetings cards and was encouraged to write by a family friend. Her first book, Peter Rabbit , was
published in 1902 by her publisher friend, Frederick Warn who would publish all twenty-four of her books during the next
thirty years.
In 1905, she bought her first farm in the Lake District and began to indulge her other passion,
hill farming. During the 1920s, she became an expert in breeding Herdwick sheep, becoming the first woman president of the
Herdwick Sheepbreeders Association. By the time of her she death she had acquired 14 farms and 4000 acres of land.
The Morse code was invented in America in 1835 by American painter
Samuel Morse and Alfred Vail.
It
became the first form of radio communication and a global language which could be transmitted by flashes of light as well
as sound. It was used to send and receive military messages during several wars and was used by sailors up until 1997. The
first and most famous use in the UK of the classic "dot-dot-dot dash-dash-dash dot-dot-dot" SOS emergency signal
was from the Titanic on its doomed maiden voyage in 1912. It also famously led to the arrest of British murderer Dr Crippen
in 1910. He fled the UK by boat to Canada but thanks to a Morse Code radio message sent across the Atlantic he was arrested
on arrival.
Dr Crippin
After Crippen's first visit to England he
wandered about the USA, practising in a number of larger cities. In Utah, during 1890 or 1891, his wife died, and he sent
is 3 year old son to live with her late wife's Mother in California. During one of his stays in New York he married again.
His second wife was a girl of 17 years old whom Crippen knew as Cora Turner. Her real name was Kunigunde Mackamotski, her
Father being a Russian Pole and her Mother German. There were more wanderings: St. Louis, New York and Philadelphia, with
a short visit across the border to Toronto. The Munyon Company, a patent medicine company, now employed Crippen. Mrs. Crippen,
who was deluded by her modest singing talent, travelled to New York for opera training.
Crippen arrives in the UK
In
1900 Crippen was in England again, and except for one short interval, remained in England. He became the manager at Munyon's
offices in London's Shaftesbury Avenue, and later in the year his wife joined him in rooms in South Crescent, off Tottenham
Court Road, At one period, it is said, that he practising as a dentist and a women's consultant. In 1902 Munyon's
recalled him for six months in Philadelphia. Mrs. Crippen had been seeking music-hall work, with slight success. During one
of her music engagements, she met an American music-hall performer called Bruce Miller (who later testified at the trial).
The
Trial
On 18 October 1910, Crippen's trial opened before Lord Chief Justice Lord Alverstone, in the No. 1 Court
of London's Central Criminal Court (Old Bailey). The trial lasted five days. The prosecution's evidence was the
purchase of the poison by Crippen, and that no one had seen Mrs. Crippen since the Martinetti's left the whist game early
on the morning of 1 February 1910.
Crippen was defended by A.A. Tobin, KC (later a judge). Tobin was assisted
by Mr Huntly Jenkins and Mr. Roome.
Prosecution witnesses on the 1st day included Mrs. Martinetti, other acquaintances
of the Crippens, some of Mr. Crippen's business associates. Bruce Miller and Mrs. Crippen's sister travelled from
the USA to provide evidence.
At the start of the 2nd day, Chief Inspector Dew gave evidence, including the reading of a long
statement provided by Crippen. In the afternoon, Dr. Pepper took the stand. He stated that the mark on the piece of skin
(produced in the court) was caused by an abdominal operation. Someone skilled in dissection, he stated, carried out the
dismemberment of the body. The remains were those of an adult, young or middle-aged, but there was no certain anatomical
indication of body's sex. When the remains had been examined, they had been buried for around 4 to 8 months. The burial
had taken place soon after death had occurred. When asked by the prosecution whether the burial could have occurred before
21 September 1905 (when Crippen took up residence), Dr. Pepper relied "Oh, no, absolutely impossible." During
cross-examination, Dr. Pepper was asked whether he had cut a piece of the skin sample across the area of the scar and handed
it to Dr. Spilsbury. He confirmed that this was the case.
The jury took 27 minutes to find Crippen guilty and
sentenced to death by hanging. Ethel le Neve was tried 4 days later and found not guilty as an accessory after the fact.
On
23 November 1910, Crippen was hanged at Pentonville Prison in London. Before his execution, Crippen requested that a photograph
of Ethel le Neve be buried with him.
Ethel le Neve sailed for New York, under the name of Miss Allen, on the
morning of Crippen's execution. After reaching her final destination of Toronto, she started calling herself Ethel Harvey.
Sometime during the period 1914-18, she returned to London and married a clerk called Stanley Smith. The couple settled down
in Croydon and had several children, eventually becoming grandparents. Ethel died in hospital in 1967, aged 84.
The
once "most famous house in London" (as some newspapers called 39 Hilldrop Crescent at the time) was destroyed,
together with the surrounding houses, by German air raids in World War Two.
World War I claimed an estimated 16 million lives. The influenza
epidemic that swept the world in 1918 killed an estimated 50 million people. One fifth of the world's population was attacked
by this deadly virus. Within months, it had killed more people than any other illness in recorded history.
The
plague emerged in two phases. In late spring of 1918, the first phase, known as the "three-day fever," appeared
without warning. Few deaths were reported. Victims recovered after a few days. When the disease surfaced again that fall,
it was far more severe. Scientists, doctors, and health officials could not identify this disease which was striking so fast
and so viciously, eluding treatment and defying control. Some victims died within hours of their first symptoms. Others succumbed
after a few days; their lungs filled with fluid and they suffocated to death.
The plague did not discriminate.
It was rampant in urban and rural areas, from the densely populated East coast to the remotest parts of Alaska. Young adults,
usually unaffected by these types of infectious diseases, were among the hardest hit groups along with the elderly and young
children. The flu afflicted over 25 percent of the U.S. population. In one year, the average life expectancy in the United
States dropped by 12 years.
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