1. Ancient Olympic Athletes Competed in the Nude
Milo of Kroton, one of the greatest Ancient Olympic champion. He won
the wrestling event 6 times, over the span of 34 years!
Yes, that's right - ancient Olympic sportsmen (all men, by the way) ran, wrestled, and fought buck naked. The ancient Greeks had a tradition of doing things nude (they walked around in the buff in the bedroom and at parties called sympsia*, and they exercised without any clothes on) - indeed, the word gymnasium came from the Greek word gymos, which means "naked."
Why naked? Well, to appreciate and celebrate the male physique, of course, and as a tribute to the gods. Participants regularly anointed themselves with olive oil to enhance their looks ... and to keep the skin smooth!
In the sixth century, there was an actually attempt to make athletes wear loincloths, but this proved to be unpopular and soon afterwards nudity regained its status as fashion in athletics.
*Great trivia for the next time you're in a boring symposium: the original symposium is a nude drinking party (sympotein is Greek for "to drink together"), complete with courtesans (basically sophisticated prostitutes).
2. The Prudes Wore Penis Restraints
Did I say all athletes competed naked in the Ancient Olympics? Silly me - actually, not all of them were naked.
Some wore a kynodesme (literally a "dog leash"), a thin leather thong used as a penis restraint:
[The kynodesme] was tied tightly around the part of the foreskin that extended beyond the glans. The kynodesme could then either be attached to a waist band to expose the scrotum, or tied to the base of the penis so that the penis appeared to curl upwards.
3. A Chef Won the Very First Olympic Games
The very first recorded Ancient Olympic Games took place in 776 BC. The event was a stadion race (a foot race equivalent to a 190-m or 208-yard dash). The winner was a humble baker from the Greek city state of Elis named Coroebus (also spelled Koroibos).
For the first 13 games, the stadion race was the only competition. At the 14th Ancient Olympic Games, a double race was added.
4. ... and He Won ... An Olive Branch!
An Olympionike or a winner of an event receiving an olive wreath and red ribbons
(Epiktetos Painter, 520 - 510 BC - from mlahanas.de)
Yup - that's because the Ancient Olympic Games didn't have any medals or prizes. Winners of the competitions won olive wreaths, branches, as well as woolen ribbons. Oh, that and the all important honor.
They did, however, come home as heroes - and got showered with gifts there. Many victors subsequently used their fame to endorse products and to get paid posing for sculptures and drawings (just like today, huh?)
5. More than Just Running: Wrestling and Boxing Added to the Ancient Olympics
Tired of all the running, a new game of wrestling (called pale) was added to the 18th Olympics in 708 B.C.
Greek wrestling was a bit more fun than your regular high school wrestling. For one, submission holds were allowed (actually, they were encouraged) and that a referee could punish an infraction by whipping the contestant with a stick until the undesirable behavior stopped!
Later, pygme/pygmachia or Ancient Greek boxing was added. Now, some historian believed that boxing was originally developed in Sparta. Being the original tough guys, Spartans believed that helmets were unnecessary in battle. Instead, they boxed themselves in the face to prepare for battles!
In the Ancient Olympics, there were no rounds - boxing was done when a fighter was knocked out cold (if the fight lasted too long, then they each took turn punching each other in the head until one collapsed).
6. Pankration: Ancient Greek Mixed Martial Arts
In this Pankration scene, the pankriatiast on the right is trying to gouge his opponent's eye and the ref is about to beat the living tar out of him with a stick
(Photo: Jastrow [Wikimedia])
If you think that Ancient Greek boxing was violent, it's more like knitting when compared to pankration, the ancient form of mixed martial arts.
How violent was pankration? Let's just say that there were only two rules: no eye gouging and no biting (the referees carried sticks to beat those who violated the rules). Everything else - including choke holds, breaking fingers and neck - was legit. There was no weight division or time limits: the fight continued until a combatant surrendered, lost consciousness, or died.
In 564 BC, Arrhachion of Philgaleia was crowned the pankration victor ... even after he had died:
Arrhachion's opponent, having already a grip around his waist, thought to kill him and put an arm around his neck to choke off his breath. At the same time he slipped his legs through Arrhachion's groin and wound his feet inside Arrhachion's knees, pulling back until the sleep of death began to creep over Arrhachion's senses. But Arrhachion was not done yet, for as his opponent began to relax the pressure of his legs, Arrhachion kicked away his own right foot and fell heavily to the left, holding his opponent at the groin with his left knee still holding his opponent's foot firmly. So violent was the fall that the opponent's left ankle was wrenched from his socket. The man strangling Arrhachion ... signaled with his hand that he gave up. Thus Arrhachion became a three-time Olympic victor at the moment of his death. His corpse ... received the victory crown. (Source)
Lastly, just to prove that they're bad asses, the ancient Greeks then decided to start a pankration event for the paides or youth (boys aged 12 to 17) Olympic games!
7. The Olympic Games Weren't the Only One
Those Greeks sure did love their sports! The Ancient Olympic games were actually just a part of four sports festival called the Panhellenic Games:
- The Olympic Games, the most important and prestigious game of them all, was held in honor of Zeus every four years near Elis.
- Pythian Games was held every four years near Delphi in honor of Apollo
- Nemean Games was held every two years near Nemea, in honor of Zeus
- Isthmian Games was held every two years near Corinth, in honor of Poseidon
The games were arranged in such a way that there was one going on (almost) every year.
8. Heraea: Ancient Olympics for Women
Married women were banned at the Ancient Olympics on the penalty of death. The laws dictated that any adult married woman caught entering the Olympic grounds would be hurled to her death from a cliff! Maidens, however, could watch (probably to encourage gettin' it on later).
But this didn't mean that the women were left out: they had their own games, which took place during Heraea, a festival worshipping the goddess Hera. The sport? Running - on a track that is 1/6th shorter than the length of a man's track on the account that a woman's stride is 1/6th shorter than that of a man's!
The female victors at the Heraea Games actually got better prizes: in addition to olive wreaths, they also got meat from an ox slaughtered for the patron deity on behalf of all participants!
Overall, young girls in Ancient Greece weren't encouraged to be athletes - with a notable exception of Spartan girls. The Spartans believed that athletic women would breed strong warriors, so they trained girls alongside boys in sports. In Sparta, girls also competed in the nude or wearing skimpy outfits, and boys were allowed to watch (to encourage gettin' it on later marriage and procreation). (Photo: Sikyon.com)
9. Ancient "Computer" Used to Set Olympics Date
In 1901, a Greek sponge diver discovered the wreck of an ancient cargo ship off the coast of the Antikythera island. One of the item recovered was an ancient mechanical computer that became known as the Antikythera mechanism. Scientists estimated that it was created in 150 to 100 BC
For over a hundred years, scientists debated the true purpose of the Antikythera mechanism and marveled at the intricacies of the device (mind you, the mechanical clock didn't appear in the West until about a thousand years later).
Recently, scientists believed that they've finally cracked the mystery:
Tony Freeth, a member of the Antikythera Mechanism Research Project, said he was "astonished" at the discovery.
"The Olympiad cycle was a very simple, four-year cycle and you don't need a sophisticated instrument like this to calculate it. It took us by huge surprise when we saw this.
"But the Games were of such cultural and social importance that it's not unnatural to have it in the Mechanism." (Source)
10. Christianity Killed the Ancient Olympics
The Romans, who conquered Greece, viewed the Olympics as a pagan festival.
So, in AD 393, Roman Emperor Theodosius I banned the Ancient Olympics in part to institute Christianity as a state religion. The Olympics was no more ... until it was revived 1,500 years later in 1896.
Monday, August 4, 2008
6 Historical Snitches
1. Anna Sage: Dillinger’s Deadly Date
Picture 9.pngThe Tale: Anna Sage was a Romanian immigrant who came to America in 1909 and found work in a brothel in East Chicago, Ind. Although she was successful in this venerable and established field (she opened several of her own houses of ill repute in Indiana and Illinois), the Department of Labor sought to deport her as an “alien of low moral character.” But when famed bank robber John Dillinger—whom she met through mutual gal pal Polly Hamilton—asked her to a movie, Sage thought she’d found a way to stamp her Green Card. Dillinger was wanted in five states, and Sage hoped that if she turned him in, the good karma would translate into an invitation to stay in the U.S.
Picture 10.pngThe Tattle: To stage the arrest, Sage called her ex-boyfriend, Martin Zarkovich, at the East Chicago Police Department, and was put in contact with agent Melvin Purvis, who was working the Dillinger case for the FBI. Sage told Purvis about her upcoming date with Dillinger at the Biograph Theater on July 22, 1934. (O.k., maybe she didn’t specify the year…) In order to be identified in the crowd, Sage agreed to wear a white blouse and orange skirt that night, even though history would later dub her the “Lady in Red.” (Historians believe the lights of the marquee made her outfit appear red, spawning the moniker.) As she, Dillinger, and Polly Hamilton exited the theater, Purvis confronted the group. Dillinger tried to run, which worked pretty well until four FBI bullets put a hitch in his stride. He died at the scene.
The Aftermath: Sage collected $5,000 for information leading to Dillinger’s “capture,” but was soon sent back to Romania. According to most sources, agents at the FBI told Sage they couldn’t prevent her deportation because of the organization’s lack of influence over the Department of Labor, but recent research suggests a more devious motive. In Jay Robert Nash’s book Dillinger: Dead or Alive, the author suggests the whole episode was a setup. Because the FBI’s failure to capture the elusive Public Enemy No.1 was a source of considerable consternation, Nash believes the scene outside the theater that night was the shooting of an innocent man staged by Sage, Zarkovich, and the FBI. The goal? Alleviate pressure on the FBI and help keep the “Lady in Red” in the country. Nash claims Sage’s hasty deportation was part of the cover-up, and also points to discrepancies between the body of the dead man and Dillinger. John Dillinger was widely known for his blue eyes and missing upper tooth. The body from the scene, however, had brown eyes and a full set of teeth. Adding further credence to Nash’s theory is the disappearance of local criminal John Lawrence the night of the shooting.
2. Aldrich Ames: Soviet Mole and CIA Rat
Picture 15.pngThe Tale: Aldrich Hazen Ames was pretty much born a CIA agent. His father spied for the CIA in Burma during the 1950’s, and at age 16, Aldrich went to “The Farm,” a CIA training facility, to learn the ropes himself. Despite his pedigree, it seems unlikely that Ames will win CIA Employee of the Year. Not now. Not tomorrow. Not ever. Why? Because Ames was the most damaging mole in CIA history. Beginning in 1985, he sold out every spy the CIA and FBI had in the then-USSR, and we doubt a “my bad” will cover that.
The Tattle: Ironically, Ames started out at the CIA recruiting Soviets to spy on their government, but he soon discovered he wasn’t very good at convincing people to snitch. Luckily for him (and his career), his next assignment was with a Soviet Diplomat to Colombia named Aleksandr Dmitrievich Ogorodnik. Ogorodnik had already been convinced to spy for the U.S., but he didn’t prove very useful until he was transferred to Ames’ CIA department. In Ames’ hands, Ogorodnik (code-named Trigon) was reassigned to the Russian Foreign Ministry, where he developed a knack for photographing sensitive documents and files. Although Ames had never successfully recruited a single spy, his handling of Trigon earned him a promotion. He became the Counterintelligence Branch Chief of Soviet Operations, where he had access to information on every aspect of U.S. operations in Russia. Life was looking swell for Ames until he ran into some girl trouble. Ames was having an affair with a Colombian woman named Maria del Rosario Casas. He brought Rosario to Washington, D.C., and it wasn’t long before she started making trouble. She demanded Ames divorce his wife, which he did, wiping out almost all of his savings and assets. Rosario also spent money like it was going out of style, calling home daily and swiftly digging Ames nearly $35,000 into debt.
Ames became so desperate for funds that he considered robbing a bank. But then he remembered that the Soviets paid $50,000 for the names of U.S. spies working in their country. He arranged a meeting with Sergei Chuvakhin of the Soviet Embassy and gave him the names of three CIA spies. In exchange for this information, Ames received $50,000. The story could have ended here but for the arrest of another tattletale, former Navy Warrant Officer John Walker, Jr., who was caught selling information to the Russians. Ames got so freaked out that he, too, would be exposed that he decided to beat all possible blabbers to the chase. He contacted Chuvakhin and gave him the names of every single “human asset” the CIA had in Russia. To make the deal sweeter, he also reportedly gave up a British spy and nearly seven pounds of documents that he’d carried out of the CIA office in his briefcase. For his generosity in “playing the game,” the double agent was made the world’s highest-paid spy, with an annual salary of $300,000.
The Aftermath: Ames named 25 spies. All of them were caught, and at least 10 were executed. Meanwhile, the unsuspecting CIA transferred him to its office in Rome. Ames felt Rosario would be happier there and wanted to distance himself from all his mischief. He did not, however, distance himself from the cash the Russians were paying him, and he and Rosario lived lavishly. Although his CIA salary was $70,000 a year, he wore a Rolex watch and drove a Jaguar to work. It only took the CIA nine years to notice that something didn’t quite add up, and the couple was arrested in 1994. Today, Ames is serving out a life sentence, and Rosario was shipped off to Colombia after serving a five-year jail term.
3. Doña Marina: Dictator’s Translator
Picture 16.pngThe Tale: To this day, Doña Marina remains a controversial figure in Mexican history. To some, she’s the embodiment of treason for her role in helping the Spanish conquer the Aztecs. Others believe she was simply a victim. To still others, La Malinche (as she was called) is the symbolic mother of the Mexican race who saved hundreds of Aztecs from the conquistadores.
This is what we do know: Doña Marina was born to a noble tribal chief in the southeast part of the Aztec Empire. As firstborn, she was to become her father’s successor. After her father died, however, her mother remarried and had a son whom she wanted to rule the tribe. To make sure La Malinche didn’t make too much trouble over the deal, her parents sold her into slavery. She spent several years as a slave in the present-day state of Tabasco. When Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés invaded the country, she became one of his servants.
The Tattle: Although described as intelligent, forward, and ambitious, La Malinche’s most important attribute was her linguistic skill. A native speaker of the Aztec tongue, Nahuatl, her years in Tabasco also left her fluent in Mayan. This was of tremendous help to Cortés, who was negotiating with Mayan tribes as a means of usurping power in Mexico. Her talents were discovered when she began speaking in Mayan to a member of Cortés’ party, a friar named Gerónimo de Aguilar. It was unusual for a Spanish monk like Aguilar to know Mayan, but as luck would have it, he had been shipwrecked in Mexico in 1511 and spent seven years living among the Mayan tribes and learning their language. Before long, Aguilar was translating La Malinche’s Mayan into Castilian for Cortés. This was a major breakthrough in communicating with the Aztecs, but the process was slow and cumbersome. Fortunately, La Malinche quickly achieved fluency in Castilian, converted to Christianity, took the name Doña Marina, and was promoted to Cortés’ personal staff. Soon, she became Cortés’ constant companion (read: mistress) and played an essential role in the Spanish conquest.
The Aftermath: Aided by Marina (not to mention his superior weapons and military tactics), Cortés subdued the Aztecs in 1521, marking the official fall of the Aztec Empire. Amid all of his conquering, Cortés and Marina had a son who, as the product of Native American and European ancestry, is recognized as the first official Mexican citizen.
Today, much of the Hispanic world sees La Malinche only as a woman who betrayed her people. In fact, her name eventually coined the term malinchista, which describes a Mexican who favors and/or imitates the language and customs of another country. Some modern Mexican feminists even claim that the stereotypical disdain that Mexican men display toward their women is rooted in their anger at Marina’s betrayal. Is all this anger misplaced? There’s evidence to suggest so. Many historians contend that Marina’s diplomacy saved Aztec lives and brought civility to an otherwise barbaric society. Still, to this day, the house Marina and Cortés shared in Mexico City is not even adorned by a plaque. Current resident Rina Lazo explained, “For Mexico to make this house a museum would be like the people of Hiroshima creating a monument for the man who dropped the atomic bomb.”
4. Mordechai Vanunu: Paying the Price of Going Public
Picture 14.pngThe Tale: Mordechai Vanunu was a Moroccan who immigrated to Israel in 1963 with his parents and his ten siblings. Upon arrival, Vanunu served in the Israeli army before finding employment at the Dimona Nuclear Research Center in the Negev desert. Happy to have a job, he worked there from 1976 to 1985 before concluding that Dimona was a secret nuclear weapons production plant that was covertly producing military warheads. That’s when he started to feel a smidge uncomfortable. The “research facility” housed an enormous plutonium separation plant that rendered the Israeli nuclear arms program vastly more advanced than the international community suspected and operated entirely without the knowledge of the Israeli people. Fully aware of the harsh repercussions he could face, Vanunu felt it was incumbent on him to share this information with the world.
The Tattle: Despite having signed an “Official Secrets Pact,” Vanunu brought a camera to work one day and stealthily photographed the facility. Soon thereafter, he fled Israel and went public with his information. On October 5, 1986, The London Sunday Times headline blared, “Revealed: The Secret of Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal.” The cat was out of the bag, and it was sharing Israel’s secrets with anyone who’d listen.
The Aftermath: Even before the Times story ran, the Israelis knew what Vanunu was up to. Agents from Israel’s intelligence institute, Mossad, lured him to Italy, where he was kidnapped, drugged, and cargo-shipped back to Israel. (Details of this abduction were made public when Vanunu inked them on his hand and allowed quick-thinking news photographers to snap pictures.) In Israel, Vanunu was charged with treason and espionage. Despite international outcry, the closed-door trial led to an 18-year prison sentence, the first 11 of which he spent in solitary confinement. In 1998, Vanunu was allowed to join the general prison population, and in 2004, he was “conditionally” released. While currently “free,” the Israeli government still refuses to let Vanunu leave the country, and he is forbidden to speak with the international media. He remains an unrepentant whistleblower and has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize several times.
5. Elia Kazan: Snitch To The Stars
Picture 13.pngThe Tale: Between 1945 and 1957, Elia Kazan enjoyed a hot streak few in Hollywood could even dream about. He directed 13 acclaimed motion pictures (including “A Streetcar Named Desire” and “East of Eden”) and was nominated for four Best Director awards. Kazan was riding high when Hollywood entered the blackest period in its history (barring the second and third installments of the “Matrix” trilogy): the Communist witch hunts of the 1950’s.
The Tattle: A philosophical and politically passionate man, Kazan had been a founding member of the leftist Group Theater in New York and, for a little more than a year, was a member of the Communist Party. In 1934, however, Kazan’s ideals began to diverge sharply from those of the Party, and he soon found himself a zealous anti-Communist. Wanting names, the government pressured Kazan to spill the beans, even threatening to have him blacklisted by major Hollywood studios. After wrestling with the question of whether or not he should sacrifice his career for people whose ideals he disdained, Kazan decided to share his knowledge of Communists in Hollywood with the House Committee on Un-American Activities. In 1952, he went before the Committee and named eight of his Group Theater buddies who had been members of the Communist Party with him.
The Aftermath: After Kazan’s testimony, the government was fast on the tails of those he’d named, pressuring them for yet more names, and it was officially witchhuntin’ season! Many actors, writers, and directors were blacklisted, and scores of careers were ruined. The era remains one of the least tinselly in Tinseltown history.
Not surprisingly, pretty much everyone not already in the business of rooting out Commies reviled Kazan. His longtime friend and confidant, Arthur Miller, explained his feelings on the matter in his allegorical play “The Crucible.” Not to be outdone, Kazan shot back by crafting a sympathetic informer character in his film “On The Waterfront,” which Miller rebutted in “A View From The Bridge.” (Jeez, guys, just pick up the phone or something.) But the controversy surrounding Kazan was yet to abate. In 1999, Kazan was presented with a lifetime achievement award at the Oscars, and more than 500 people showed up to protest. Writer and director Abraham Polonsky, whom 20th Century Fox had fired and blacklisted for his refusal to cooperate with the House Un-American Activities Committee, said of the event, “I’ll be watching, hoping someone shoots him.” Um, Mr. Polonsky, do you think you could put that in the form of a play?
6. Sammy “The Bull” Gravano: Blabbing on the Boss
Picture 12.pngThe Tale: Probably the world’s most notorious hairdresser-turned-hitman, Salvatore “Sammy The Bull” Gravano was the highest-ranking Italian Mafia member ever to break omerta, the mob code of silence. Born in Brooklyn and nicknamed “The Bull” for his short stature, thick neck, and ruthless fighting tactics, Gravano rose to the position of underboss in the Gambino crime family. Allegedly responsible for 19 murders, Gravano was no angel, and no tight-lips, either. Sammy’s damning testimony sealed the fate of many in the organization, including his former boss, John Gotti.
The Tattle: The reason Gravano snitched varies depending on whom you ask. Some claim he did it to receive a lighter prison sentence, while others say he got mad after hearing Gotti badmouthing him on a wiretap. But in Underboss: Sammy The Bull Gravano’s Life In The Mafia, Gravano says Gotti needed to be taken down because he was addicted to publicity, and all the attention was harming the mob. Either way, Gravano delivered such damaging testimony in court that lead Gotti prosecutor John Gleeson described him as having rendered “extraordinary, unprecedented, historic assistance to the government.”
The Aftermath: Information provided by Gravano created a ripple effect throughout the Mafia underground, and numerous corroborating witnesses came forward. Dozens of luminaries in the Cosa Nostra crime syndicate were convicted, jury-rigging schemes were exposed, mobsters already in jail had their sentences extended, and high-ranking members of the Gambino, Colombo, DeCalvacante, and Lucchese families were imprisoned. In 1995, Gravano got a cushy five-year sentence for his 19 murders, and was later placed in the Witness Protection Program. After his release, Sammy made the most of his second chance by teaming up with some neo-Nazis and getting busted for selling Ecstasy. Not so bright, Bull. He got 19 years in the slammer this time, a sentence he’s still serving.
Picture 9.pngThe Tale: Anna Sage was a Romanian immigrant who came to America in 1909 and found work in a brothel in East Chicago, Ind. Although she was successful in this venerable and established field (she opened several of her own houses of ill repute in Indiana and Illinois), the Department of Labor sought to deport her as an “alien of low moral character.” But when famed bank robber John Dillinger—whom she met through mutual gal pal Polly Hamilton—asked her to a movie, Sage thought she’d found a way to stamp her Green Card. Dillinger was wanted in five states, and Sage hoped that if she turned him in, the good karma would translate into an invitation to stay in the U.S.
Picture 10.pngThe Tattle: To stage the arrest, Sage called her ex-boyfriend, Martin Zarkovich, at the East Chicago Police Department, and was put in contact with agent Melvin Purvis, who was working the Dillinger case for the FBI. Sage told Purvis about her upcoming date with Dillinger at the Biograph Theater on July 22, 1934. (O.k., maybe she didn’t specify the year…) In order to be identified in the crowd, Sage agreed to wear a white blouse and orange skirt that night, even though history would later dub her the “Lady in Red.” (Historians believe the lights of the marquee made her outfit appear red, spawning the moniker.) As she, Dillinger, and Polly Hamilton exited the theater, Purvis confronted the group. Dillinger tried to run, which worked pretty well until four FBI bullets put a hitch in his stride. He died at the scene.
The Aftermath: Sage collected $5,000 for information leading to Dillinger’s “capture,” but was soon sent back to Romania. According to most sources, agents at the FBI told Sage they couldn’t prevent her deportation because of the organization’s lack of influence over the Department of Labor, but recent research suggests a more devious motive. In Jay Robert Nash’s book Dillinger: Dead or Alive, the author suggests the whole episode was a setup. Because the FBI’s failure to capture the elusive Public Enemy No.1 was a source of considerable consternation, Nash believes the scene outside the theater that night was the shooting of an innocent man staged by Sage, Zarkovich, and the FBI. The goal? Alleviate pressure on the FBI and help keep the “Lady in Red” in the country. Nash claims Sage’s hasty deportation was part of the cover-up, and also points to discrepancies between the body of the dead man and Dillinger. John Dillinger was widely known for his blue eyes and missing upper tooth. The body from the scene, however, had brown eyes and a full set of teeth. Adding further credence to Nash’s theory is the disappearance of local criminal John Lawrence the night of the shooting.
2. Aldrich Ames: Soviet Mole and CIA Rat
Picture 15.pngThe Tale: Aldrich Hazen Ames was pretty much born a CIA agent. His father spied for the CIA in Burma during the 1950’s, and at age 16, Aldrich went to “The Farm,” a CIA training facility, to learn the ropes himself. Despite his pedigree, it seems unlikely that Ames will win CIA Employee of the Year. Not now. Not tomorrow. Not ever. Why? Because Ames was the most damaging mole in CIA history. Beginning in 1985, he sold out every spy the CIA and FBI had in the then-USSR, and we doubt a “my bad” will cover that.
The Tattle: Ironically, Ames started out at the CIA recruiting Soviets to spy on their government, but he soon discovered he wasn’t very good at convincing people to snitch. Luckily for him (and his career), his next assignment was with a Soviet Diplomat to Colombia named Aleksandr Dmitrievich Ogorodnik. Ogorodnik had already been convinced to spy for the U.S., but he didn’t prove very useful until he was transferred to Ames’ CIA department. In Ames’ hands, Ogorodnik (code-named Trigon) was reassigned to the Russian Foreign Ministry, where he developed a knack for photographing sensitive documents and files. Although Ames had never successfully recruited a single spy, his handling of Trigon earned him a promotion. He became the Counterintelligence Branch Chief of Soviet Operations, where he had access to information on every aspect of U.S. operations in Russia. Life was looking swell for Ames until he ran into some girl trouble. Ames was having an affair with a Colombian woman named Maria del Rosario Casas. He brought Rosario to Washington, D.C., and it wasn’t long before she started making trouble. She demanded Ames divorce his wife, which he did, wiping out almost all of his savings and assets. Rosario also spent money like it was going out of style, calling home daily and swiftly digging Ames nearly $35,000 into debt.
Ames became so desperate for funds that he considered robbing a bank. But then he remembered that the Soviets paid $50,000 for the names of U.S. spies working in their country. He arranged a meeting with Sergei Chuvakhin of the Soviet Embassy and gave him the names of three CIA spies. In exchange for this information, Ames received $50,000. The story could have ended here but for the arrest of another tattletale, former Navy Warrant Officer John Walker, Jr., who was caught selling information to the Russians. Ames got so freaked out that he, too, would be exposed that he decided to beat all possible blabbers to the chase. He contacted Chuvakhin and gave him the names of every single “human asset” the CIA had in Russia. To make the deal sweeter, he also reportedly gave up a British spy and nearly seven pounds of documents that he’d carried out of the CIA office in his briefcase. For his generosity in “playing the game,” the double agent was made the world’s highest-paid spy, with an annual salary of $300,000.
The Aftermath: Ames named 25 spies. All of them were caught, and at least 10 were executed. Meanwhile, the unsuspecting CIA transferred him to its office in Rome. Ames felt Rosario would be happier there and wanted to distance himself from all his mischief. He did not, however, distance himself from the cash the Russians were paying him, and he and Rosario lived lavishly. Although his CIA salary was $70,000 a year, he wore a Rolex watch and drove a Jaguar to work. It only took the CIA nine years to notice that something didn’t quite add up, and the couple was arrested in 1994. Today, Ames is serving out a life sentence, and Rosario was shipped off to Colombia after serving a five-year jail term.
3. Doña Marina: Dictator’s Translator
Picture 16.pngThe Tale: To this day, Doña Marina remains a controversial figure in Mexican history. To some, she’s the embodiment of treason for her role in helping the Spanish conquer the Aztecs. Others believe she was simply a victim. To still others, La Malinche (as she was called) is the symbolic mother of the Mexican race who saved hundreds of Aztecs from the conquistadores.
This is what we do know: Doña Marina was born to a noble tribal chief in the southeast part of the Aztec Empire. As firstborn, she was to become her father’s successor. After her father died, however, her mother remarried and had a son whom she wanted to rule the tribe. To make sure La Malinche didn’t make too much trouble over the deal, her parents sold her into slavery. She spent several years as a slave in the present-day state of Tabasco. When Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés invaded the country, she became one of his servants.
The Tattle: Although described as intelligent, forward, and ambitious, La Malinche’s most important attribute was her linguistic skill. A native speaker of the Aztec tongue, Nahuatl, her years in Tabasco also left her fluent in Mayan. This was of tremendous help to Cortés, who was negotiating with Mayan tribes as a means of usurping power in Mexico. Her talents were discovered when she began speaking in Mayan to a member of Cortés’ party, a friar named Gerónimo de Aguilar. It was unusual for a Spanish monk like Aguilar to know Mayan, but as luck would have it, he had been shipwrecked in Mexico in 1511 and spent seven years living among the Mayan tribes and learning their language. Before long, Aguilar was translating La Malinche’s Mayan into Castilian for Cortés. This was a major breakthrough in communicating with the Aztecs, but the process was slow and cumbersome. Fortunately, La Malinche quickly achieved fluency in Castilian, converted to Christianity, took the name Doña Marina, and was promoted to Cortés’ personal staff. Soon, she became Cortés’ constant companion (read: mistress) and played an essential role in the Spanish conquest.
The Aftermath: Aided by Marina (not to mention his superior weapons and military tactics), Cortés subdued the Aztecs in 1521, marking the official fall of the Aztec Empire. Amid all of his conquering, Cortés and Marina had a son who, as the product of Native American and European ancestry, is recognized as the first official Mexican citizen.
Today, much of the Hispanic world sees La Malinche only as a woman who betrayed her people. In fact, her name eventually coined the term malinchista, which describes a Mexican who favors and/or imitates the language and customs of another country. Some modern Mexican feminists even claim that the stereotypical disdain that Mexican men display toward their women is rooted in their anger at Marina’s betrayal. Is all this anger misplaced? There’s evidence to suggest so. Many historians contend that Marina’s diplomacy saved Aztec lives and brought civility to an otherwise barbaric society. Still, to this day, the house Marina and Cortés shared in Mexico City is not even adorned by a plaque. Current resident Rina Lazo explained, “For Mexico to make this house a museum would be like the people of Hiroshima creating a monument for the man who dropped the atomic bomb.”
4. Mordechai Vanunu: Paying the Price of Going Public
Picture 14.pngThe Tale: Mordechai Vanunu was a Moroccan who immigrated to Israel in 1963 with his parents and his ten siblings. Upon arrival, Vanunu served in the Israeli army before finding employment at the Dimona Nuclear Research Center in the Negev desert. Happy to have a job, he worked there from 1976 to 1985 before concluding that Dimona was a secret nuclear weapons production plant that was covertly producing military warheads. That’s when he started to feel a smidge uncomfortable. The “research facility” housed an enormous plutonium separation plant that rendered the Israeli nuclear arms program vastly more advanced than the international community suspected and operated entirely without the knowledge of the Israeli people. Fully aware of the harsh repercussions he could face, Vanunu felt it was incumbent on him to share this information with the world.
The Tattle: Despite having signed an “Official Secrets Pact,” Vanunu brought a camera to work one day and stealthily photographed the facility. Soon thereafter, he fled Israel and went public with his information. On October 5, 1986, The London Sunday Times headline blared, “Revealed: The Secret of Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal.” The cat was out of the bag, and it was sharing Israel’s secrets with anyone who’d listen.
The Aftermath: Even before the Times story ran, the Israelis knew what Vanunu was up to. Agents from Israel’s intelligence institute, Mossad, lured him to Italy, where he was kidnapped, drugged, and cargo-shipped back to Israel. (Details of this abduction were made public when Vanunu inked them on his hand and allowed quick-thinking news photographers to snap pictures.) In Israel, Vanunu was charged with treason and espionage. Despite international outcry, the closed-door trial led to an 18-year prison sentence, the first 11 of which he spent in solitary confinement. In 1998, Vanunu was allowed to join the general prison population, and in 2004, he was “conditionally” released. While currently “free,” the Israeli government still refuses to let Vanunu leave the country, and he is forbidden to speak with the international media. He remains an unrepentant whistleblower and has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize several times.
5. Elia Kazan: Snitch To The Stars
Picture 13.pngThe Tale: Between 1945 and 1957, Elia Kazan enjoyed a hot streak few in Hollywood could even dream about. He directed 13 acclaimed motion pictures (including “A Streetcar Named Desire” and “East of Eden”) and was nominated for four Best Director awards. Kazan was riding high when Hollywood entered the blackest period in its history (barring the second and third installments of the “Matrix” trilogy): the Communist witch hunts of the 1950’s.
The Tattle: A philosophical and politically passionate man, Kazan had been a founding member of the leftist Group Theater in New York and, for a little more than a year, was a member of the Communist Party. In 1934, however, Kazan’s ideals began to diverge sharply from those of the Party, and he soon found himself a zealous anti-Communist. Wanting names, the government pressured Kazan to spill the beans, even threatening to have him blacklisted by major Hollywood studios. After wrestling with the question of whether or not he should sacrifice his career for people whose ideals he disdained, Kazan decided to share his knowledge of Communists in Hollywood with the House Committee on Un-American Activities. In 1952, he went before the Committee and named eight of his Group Theater buddies who had been members of the Communist Party with him.
The Aftermath: After Kazan’s testimony, the government was fast on the tails of those he’d named, pressuring them for yet more names, and it was officially witchhuntin’ season! Many actors, writers, and directors were blacklisted, and scores of careers were ruined. The era remains one of the least tinselly in Tinseltown history.
Not surprisingly, pretty much everyone not already in the business of rooting out Commies reviled Kazan. His longtime friend and confidant, Arthur Miller, explained his feelings on the matter in his allegorical play “The Crucible.” Not to be outdone, Kazan shot back by crafting a sympathetic informer character in his film “On The Waterfront,” which Miller rebutted in “A View From The Bridge.” (Jeez, guys, just pick up the phone or something.) But the controversy surrounding Kazan was yet to abate. In 1999, Kazan was presented with a lifetime achievement award at the Oscars, and more than 500 people showed up to protest. Writer and director Abraham Polonsky, whom 20th Century Fox had fired and blacklisted for his refusal to cooperate with the House Un-American Activities Committee, said of the event, “I’ll be watching, hoping someone shoots him.” Um, Mr. Polonsky, do you think you could put that in the form of a play?
6. Sammy “The Bull” Gravano: Blabbing on the Boss
Picture 12.pngThe Tale: Probably the world’s most notorious hairdresser-turned-hitman, Salvatore “Sammy The Bull” Gravano was the highest-ranking Italian Mafia member ever to break omerta, the mob code of silence. Born in Brooklyn and nicknamed “The Bull” for his short stature, thick neck, and ruthless fighting tactics, Gravano rose to the position of underboss in the Gambino crime family. Allegedly responsible for 19 murders, Gravano was no angel, and no tight-lips, either. Sammy’s damning testimony sealed the fate of many in the organization, including his former boss, John Gotti.
The Tattle: The reason Gravano snitched varies depending on whom you ask. Some claim he did it to receive a lighter prison sentence, while others say he got mad after hearing Gotti badmouthing him on a wiretap. But in Underboss: Sammy The Bull Gravano’s Life In The Mafia, Gravano says Gotti needed to be taken down because he was addicted to publicity, and all the attention was harming the mob. Either way, Gravano delivered such damaging testimony in court that lead Gotti prosecutor John Gleeson described him as having rendered “extraordinary, unprecedented, historic assistance to the government.”
The Aftermath: Information provided by Gravano created a ripple effect throughout the Mafia underground, and numerous corroborating witnesses came forward. Dozens of luminaries in the Cosa Nostra crime syndicate were convicted, jury-rigging schemes were exposed, mobsters already in jail had their sentences extended, and high-ranking members of the Gambino, Colombo, DeCalvacante, and Lucchese families were imprisoned. In 1995, Gravano got a cushy five-year sentence for his 19 murders, and was later placed in the Witness Protection Program. After his release, Sammy made the most of his second chance by teaming up with some neo-Nazis and getting busted for selling Ecstasy. Not so bright, Bull. He got 19 years in the slammer this time, a sentence he’s still serving.
10 Most Decisive Ancient Battles
10
Carrhae
53 BC
The Battle of Carrhae in 53 BC was a decisive victory for the Parthian Spahbod Surena (try saying that 10 times fast!) over the Roman general Crassus near the town of Carrhae (now the present-day ruins of Harran, Turkey). A Parthian force of 1,000 cataphracts and 9,000 horse archers under general Surena met the Romans at Carrhae. Crassus’ cavalry was screening ahead of the main force when they were engaged by the cataphracts, and the weapons his cavalry employed were not capable of piercing the cataphracts armor. His cavalry was soon surrounded and routed, and his son Publius killed. Rome was humiliated by this defeat, and this was made even worse by the fact that the Parthians had captured several Legionary Eagles. It is also mentioned by Plutarch that the Parthians found the Roman prisoner of war that resembled Crassus the most, dressed him as a woman and paraded him through Parthia for all to see. The capture of the golden Aquilae (legionary battle standards) by the Parthians was considered a grave moral defeat and evil omen for the Romans. It required a generation of diplomacy before the Parthians returned them. An important and unexpected implication of this battle was that it opened up the European continent to a new and beautiful material: silk. However, the most immediate effect of the battle was that Carrhae was an indirect cause for the fall of the Republic, and the rise of the Empire. [Source]
9
Pydna
168 BC
The Battle of Pydna in 168 BC between Rome and the Macedonian Antigonid dynasty represents the ascendancy of Rome in the Hellenic/Hellenistic world and the end of the Antigonid line of kings, whose power traced back to Alexander III of Macedon. It is often considered to be the classic example of the Macedonian phalanx against the Roman legion, and generally accepted as proving the superiority of the latter over the former. This was not the final conflict between the two rivals, but it broke the back of Macedonian power. The political consequences of the lost battle were severe. The Senate’s settlement included the deportation of all the royal officials and the permanent house arrest of Perseus. The kingdom was divided into four republics that were heavily restricted from intercourse or trade with one another and with Greece. There was a ruthless purge, with allegedly anti-Roman citizens being denounced by their compatriots and deported in large numbers (300 000). [Source]
8
Ipsus
301 BC
The Battle of Ipsus was fought between some of the Diadochi (the successors of Alexander the Great) in 301 BC near the village of that name in Phrygia. Antigonus I Monophthalmus and his son Demetrius I of Macedon were pitted against the coalition of three other companions of Alexander: Cassander, ruler of Macedon; Lysimachus, ruler of Thrace; and Seleucus I Nicator, ruler of Babylonia and Persia. The battle opened with the usual slowly intensifying skirmishing between the two armies’ light troops, with elephants eventually thrown into the fray by both sides. Efforts were made by both sides to hamstring the enemy’s elephants, but also had to hang back to protect their own. Demetrius’ superior right-flank cavalry drove Antiochus’ wing back, but was halted in his attempted rear blow by Seleucus, who moved the elephant reserve to block him. More missile troops moved to the unprotected Antigonid right flank, as Demetrius was unable to disengage from the elephants and enemy horse to his front. At the beginning of the day, Antigonus had not been able to wear plate armor; this disadvantage was unexpectedly used by an anonymous allied peltast, who killed him with a well-thrown javelin. Without leadership and already beginning to flee, the Antigonid army completely disintegrated. The last chance to reunite the Alexandrine Empire had now passed. Antigonus had been the only general able to consistently defeat the other Successors; without him, the last bonds the Empire had had began to dissolve. Ipsus finalized the breakup of an empire, which may account for its obscurity; despite that, it was still a critical battle in classical history and decided the character of the Hellenistic age. [Source]
7
Gaugamela
331 BC
The Battle of Gaugamela took place in 331 BC between Alexander the Great of Macedonia and Darius III of Achaemenid Persia. The battle, which is also inaccurately called the Battle of Arbela, resulted in a massive victory for the Macedonians. While Darius had a significant advantage in numbers, most of his troops were of a lower quality than Alexander’s. Alexander’s pezhetairoi were armed with a six-meter spear, the sarissa. The main Persian infantry was poorly trained and equipped in comparison to Alexander’s pezhetairoi and hoplites. After the battle, Parmenion rounded up the Persian baggage train while Alexander and his own bodyguard chased after Darius in hopes of catching up. As at Issus, substantial amounts of loot were gained following the battle, with 4,000 talents captured, as well as the King’s personal chariot and bow. The war elephants were also captured. In all, it was a disastrous defeat for the Persians, and possibly one of Alexander’s finest victories. At this point, the Persian Empire was divided into two halves – East and West. Bessus murdered Darius, before fleeing eastwards. Alexander would pursue Bessus, eventually capturing and executing him the following year. The majority of the existing satraps were to give their loyalty to Alexander, and be allowed to keep their positions, however, the Persian Empire is traditionally considered to have fallen with the death of Darius. [Source]
6
Marathon
490 BC
The Battle of Marathon during the Greco-Persian Wars took place in 490 BC and was the culmination of King Darius I of Persia’s first full scale attempt to conquer the remainder of Greece and incorporate it into the Persian Empire, which would secure the weakest portion of his western border. The longest-lasting legacy of Marathon was the double envelopment. Some historians have claimed it was random rather than a conscious decision by Miltiades - the Tyrant of the Greek Colonies. In hoplitic battles, the two sides were usually stronger than the center because either they were the weakest point (right side) or the strongest point (left side). However, before Miltiades (and after him until Epaminondas), this was only a matter of quality, not quantity. Miltiades had personal experience from the Persian army and knew its weaknesses. As his course of action after the battle shows (invasions of the Cyclades islands), he had an integrated strategy upon defeating the Persians, hence there is no reason he could have not thought of a good tactic. The double envelopment has been used ever since, such as when the German Army used a tactic at the battle of Tannenberg during World War I similar to that used by the Greeks at Marathon. [Source]
5
Cynoscephalae
197 BC
The Battle of Cynoscephalae was fought in Thessaly in 197 BC between the Roman army, led by Titus Quinctius Flamininus, and the Antigonid dynasty of Macedon, led by Philip V. This Macedonian defeat marks the passing of imperial power from the successors of Alexander the Great to Rome. Along with the later Battle of Pydna, this defeat is often held to have demonstrated that the Macedonian phalanx, formerly the most effective fighting unit in the ancient world, was now obsolete, although in fact the phalanx was able to force the legions back and held their own with swords until twenty maniples fell upon their rear (due to the weak Macedonian flanks and the Roman elephants routing the disordered Macedonian left flank). As a consequence of his loss, Philip had to pay 1,000 talents to Rome, as well as disband his navy and most of his army. He also had to send his son to Rome as a hostage. The battle in many ways determined the subsequent history of the Mediterranean. It also was a major turning point in how wars were fought. The image above is the site of the Battle of Cynoscephalae today. [Source]
4
Actium
31 BC
The Battle of Actium was the decisive engagement in the Final War of the Roman Republic between the forces of Octavian and those of the combined forces of Mark Antony and Cleopatra. It was fought on September 2, 31 BC, on the Ionian Sea near the Roman colony of Actium in Greece. Octavian’s fleet was commanded by Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, while Antony’s fleet was supported by the fleet of his lover, Cleopatra VII, queen of Ptolemaic Egypt. The victory of Octavian’s fleet enabled him to consolidate his power over Rome and its domains, leading to his adoption of the title of Princeps (”first citizen”) and his accepting the title of Augustus from the Senate. As Augustus Caesar, he would preserve the trappings of a restored Republic, but many historians view his consolidation of power and the adoption of his honorifics flowing from his victory at Actium as the end of the Roman Republic and the beginning of the Roman Empire. The political consequences of this sea battle were far-reaching. As a result of the loss of his fleet, Mark Antony’s army, which had begun as equal to that of Octavian’s, deserted in large numbers. In a communication breakdown, Antony came to believe that Cleopatra had been captured, and so he committed suicide. Cleopatra heard the news about Mark Antony and, rather than risk being captured by Octavian, committed suicide herself, on August 12, 30 BC. She allowed herself to be bitten by a poisonous asp that was reportedly hidden for her in a basket of figs. [Source]
3
Siler River
73 BC
The Third Servile War, also called the Gladiator War, The Battle of Siler River, and The War of Spartacus by Plutarch, was the last of a series of unrelated and unsuccessful slave rebellions against the Roman Republic, known collectively as the Servile Wars. The Third Servile War was the only one to directly threaten the Roman heartland of Italia and was doubly alarming to the Roman people due to the repeated successes of the rapidly growing band of rebel slaves against the Roman army between 73 and 71 BC. The rebellion was finally crushed through the concentrated military effort of a single commander, Marcus Licinius Crassus, although the rebellion continued to have indirect effects on Roman politics for years to come. The Third Servile War was significant to the broader history of ancient Rome mostly in its effect on the careers of Pompey and Crassus. The two generals used their success in putting down the rebellion to further their political careers, using their public acclaim and the implied threat of their legions to sway the consular elections of 70 BC in their favor. Their actions as Consuls greatly furthered the subversion of Roman political institutions and contributed to the eventual transition of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire. [Source]
2
Pharsalus
48 BC
The Battle of Pharsalus was a decisive battle of Caesar’s Civil War. On August 9, 48 BC, the battle was fought at Pharsalus in central Greece between forces of the Populares faction and forces of the Optimates faction. Both factions field armies from the Roman Republic. The Populares were led by Gaius Julius Caesar (Caesar) and the Optimates were led by Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (Pompey). In addition to Pompey, the Optimates faction included most of the Roman Senate. The victory of Caesar weakened the Senatorial forces and solidified his control over the Republic. Pompey fled from Pharsalus to Egypt, where he was assassinated on the order of Pharaoh Ptolemy XIII. The Battle of Pharsalus ended the wars of the First Triumvirate. The Roman Civil War, however, was not ended. Pompey’s two sons, the most important of whom was Sextus Pompeius, and the Pompeian faction led now by Labienus, survived and fought their cause in the name of Pompey the Great. Caesar spent the next few years ‘mopping up’ remnants of the senatorial faction. After finally completing this task, he was assassinated in a conspiracy arranged by Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus. [Source]
1
Salamis
480 BC
The Battle of Salamis, was a decisive naval battle between the Greek city-states and Persia in September, 480 BC in the strait between Piraeus and Salamis Island, an island in the Saronic Gulf near Athens. The Greeks were not in accord as to how to defend against the Persian army, but Athens under Themistocles used their navy to defeat the much larger Persian navy and force King Xerxes I of Persia to retreat. The Greek victory marked the turning point of the campaign, leading to the eventual Persian defeat. The Battle of Salamis has been described by many historians as the single most significant battle in human history. The defeat of the Persian navy was instrumental in the eventual Persian defeat, as it dramatically shifted the war in Greece’s favor. Many historians argue that Greece’s ensuing independence laid the foundations for Western civilization, most notably from the preservation of Athenian democracy, the concept of individual rights, relative freedom of the person, true philosophy, art and architecture. Had the Persians won at Salamis, it is very likely that Xerxes would have succeeded in conquering all the Greek nations and passing to the European continent, thus preventing Western civilization’s growth (and even existence). Given the influence of Western civilization on world history, as well as the achievements of Western culture itself, a failure of the Greeks to win at Salamis would almost certainly have had seriously important effects on the course of human history. [Source]
Carrhae
53 BC
The Battle of Carrhae in 53 BC was a decisive victory for the Parthian Spahbod Surena (try saying that 10 times fast!) over the Roman general Crassus near the town of Carrhae (now the present-day ruins of Harran, Turkey). A Parthian force of 1,000 cataphracts and 9,000 horse archers under general Surena met the Romans at Carrhae. Crassus’ cavalry was screening ahead of the main force when they were engaged by the cataphracts, and the weapons his cavalry employed were not capable of piercing the cataphracts armor. His cavalry was soon surrounded and routed, and his son Publius killed. Rome was humiliated by this defeat, and this was made even worse by the fact that the Parthians had captured several Legionary Eagles. It is also mentioned by Plutarch that the Parthians found the Roman prisoner of war that resembled Crassus the most, dressed him as a woman and paraded him through Parthia for all to see. The capture of the golden Aquilae (legionary battle standards) by the Parthians was considered a grave moral defeat and evil omen for the Romans. It required a generation of diplomacy before the Parthians returned them. An important and unexpected implication of this battle was that it opened up the European continent to a new and beautiful material: silk. However, the most immediate effect of the battle was that Carrhae was an indirect cause for the fall of the Republic, and the rise of the Empire. [Source]
9
Pydna
168 BC
The Battle of Pydna in 168 BC between Rome and the Macedonian Antigonid dynasty represents the ascendancy of Rome in the Hellenic/Hellenistic world and the end of the Antigonid line of kings, whose power traced back to Alexander III of Macedon. It is often considered to be the classic example of the Macedonian phalanx against the Roman legion, and generally accepted as proving the superiority of the latter over the former. This was not the final conflict between the two rivals, but it broke the back of Macedonian power. The political consequences of the lost battle were severe. The Senate’s settlement included the deportation of all the royal officials and the permanent house arrest of Perseus. The kingdom was divided into four republics that were heavily restricted from intercourse or trade with one another and with Greece. There was a ruthless purge, with allegedly anti-Roman citizens being denounced by their compatriots and deported in large numbers (300 000). [Source]
8
Ipsus
301 BC
The Battle of Ipsus was fought between some of the Diadochi (the successors of Alexander the Great) in 301 BC near the village of that name in Phrygia. Antigonus I Monophthalmus and his son Demetrius I of Macedon were pitted against the coalition of three other companions of Alexander: Cassander, ruler of Macedon; Lysimachus, ruler of Thrace; and Seleucus I Nicator, ruler of Babylonia and Persia. The battle opened with the usual slowly intensifying skirmishing between the two armies’ light troops, with elephants eventually thrown into the fray by both sides. Efforts were made by both sides to hamstring the enemy’s elephants, but also had to hang back to protect their own. Demetrius’ superior right-flank cavalry drove Antiochus’ wing back, but was halted in his attempted rear blow by Seleucus, who moved the elephant reserve to block him. More missile troops moved to the unprotected Antigonid right flank, as Demetrius was unable to disengage from the elephants and enemy horse to his front. At the beginning of the day, Antigonus had not been able to wear plate armor; this disadvantage was unexpectedly used by an anonymous allied peltast, who killed him with a well-thrown javelin. Without leadership and already beginning to flee, the Antigonid army completely disintegrated. The last chance to reunite the Alexandrine Empire had now passed. Antigonus had been the only general able to consistently defeat the other Successors; without him, the last bonds the Empire had had began to dissolve. Ipsus finalized the breakup of an empire, which may account for its obscurity; despite that, it was still a critical battle in classical history and decided the character of the Hellenistic age. [Source]
7
Gaugamela
331 BC
The Battle of Gaugamela took place in 331 BC between Alexander the Great of Macedonia and Darius III of Achaemenid Persia. The battle, which is also inaccurately called the Battle of Arbela, resulted in a massive victory for the Macedonians. While Darius had a significant advantage in numbers, most of his troops were of a lower quality than Alexander’s. Alexander’s pezhetairoi were armed with a six-meter spear, the sarissa. The main Persian infantry was poorly trained and equipped in comparison to Alexander’s pezhetairoi and hoplites. After the battle, Parmenion rounded up the Persian baggage train while Alexander and his own bodyguard chased after Darius in hopes of catching up. As at Issus, substantial amounts of loot were gained following the battle, with 4,000 talents captured, as well as the King’s personal chariot and bow. The war elephants were also captured. In all, it was a disastrous defeat for the Persians, and possibly one of Alexander’s finest victories. At this point, the Persian Empire was divided into two halves – East and West. Bessus murdered Darius, before fleeing eastwards. Alexander would pursue Bessus, eventually capturing and executing him the following year. The majority of the existing satraps were to give their loyalty to Alexander, and be allowed to keep their positions, however, the Persian Empire is traditionally considered to have fallen with the death of Darius. [Source]
6
Marathon
490 BC
The Battle of Marathon during the Greco-Persian Wars took place in 490 BC and was the culmination of King Darius I of Persia’s first full scale attempt to conquer the remainder of Greece and incorporate it into the Persian Empire, which would secure the weakest portion of his western border. The longest-lasting legacy of Marathon was the double envelopment. Some historians have claimed it was random rather than a conscious decision by Miltiades - the Tyrant of the Greek Colonies. In hoplitic battles, the two sides were usually stronger than the center because either they were the weakest point (right side) or the strongest point (left side). However, before Miltiades (and after him until Epaminondas), this was only a matter of quality, not quantity. Miltiades had personal experience from the Persian army and knew its weaknesses. As his course of action after the battle shows (invasions of the Cyclades islands), he had an integrated strategy upon defeating the Persians, hence there is no reason he could have not thought of a good tactic. The double envelopment has been used ever since, such as when the German Army used a tactic at the battle of Tannenberg during World War I similar to that used by the Greeks at Marathon. [Source]
5
Cynoscephalae
197 BC
The Battle of Cynoscephalae was fought in Thessaly in 197 BC between the Roman army, led by Titus Quinctius Flamininus, and the Antigonid dynasty of Macedon, led by Philip V. This Macedonian defeat marks the passing of imperial power from the successors of Alexander the Great to Rome. Along with the later Battle of Pydna, this defeat is often held to have demonstrated that the Macedonian phalanx, formerly the most effective fighting unit in the ancient world, was now obsolete, although in fact the phalanx was able to force the legions back and held their own with swords until twenty maniples fell upon their rear (due to the weak Macedonian flanks and the Roman elephants routing the disordered Macedonian left flank). As a consequence of his loss, Philip had to pay 1,000 talents to Rome, as well as disband his navy and most of his army. He also had to send his son to Rome as a hostage. The battle in many ways determined the subsequent history of the Mediterranean. It also was a major turning point in how wars were fought. The image above is the site of the Battle of Cynoscephalae today. [Source]
4
Actium
31 BC
The Battle of Actium was the decisive engagement in the Final War of the Roman Republic between the forces of Octavian and those of the combined forces of Mark Antony and Cleopatra. It was fought on September 2, 31 BC, on the Ionian Sea near the Roman colony of Actium in Greece. Octavian’s fleet was commanded by Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, while Antony’s fleet was supported by the fleet of his lover, Cleopatra VII, queen of Ptolemaic Egypt. The victory of Octavian’s fleet enabled him to consolidate his power over Rome and its domains, leading to his adoption of the title of Princeps (”first citizen”) and his accepting the title of Augustus from the Senate. As Augustus Caesar, he would preserve the trappings of a restored Republic, but many historians view his consolidation of power and the adoption of his honorifics flowing from his victory at Actium as the end of the Roman Republic and the beginning of the Roman Empire. The political consequences of this sea battle were far-reaching. As a result of the loss of his fleet, Mark Antony’s army, which had begun as equal to that of Octavian’s, deserted in large numbers. In a communication breakdown, Antony came to believe that Cleopatra had been captured, and so he committed suicide. Cleopatra heard the news about Mark Antony and, rather than risk being captured by Octavian, committed suicide herself, on August 12, 30 BC. She allowed herself to be bitten by a poisonous asp that was reportedly hidden for her in a basket of figs. [Source]
3
Siler River
73 BC
The Third Servile War, also called the Gladiator War, The Battle of Siler River, and The War of Spartacus by Plutarch, was the last of a series of unrelated and unsuccessful slave rebellions against the Roman Republic, known collectively as the Servile Wars. The Third Servile War was the only one to directly threaten the Roman heartland of Italia and was doubly alarming to the Roman people due to the repeated successes of the rapidly growing band of rebel slaves against the Roman army between 73 and 71 BC. The rebellion was finally crushed through the concentrated military effort of a single commander, Marcus Licinius Crassus, although the rebellion continued to have indirect effects on Roman politics for years to come. The Third Servile War was significant to the broader history of ancient Rome mostly in its effect on the careers of Pompey and Crassus. The two generals used their success in putting down the rebellion to further their political careers, using their public acclaim and the implied threat of their legions to sway the consular elections of 70 BC in their favor. Their actions as Consuls greatly furthered the subversion of Roman political institutions and contributed to the eventual transition of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire. [Source]
2
Pharsalus
48 BC
The Battle of Pharsalus was a decisive battle of Caesar’s Civil War. On August 9, 48 BC, the battle was fought at Pharsalus in central Greece between forces of the Populares faction and forces of the Optimates faction. Both factions field armies from the Roman Republic. The Populares were led by Gaius Julius Caesar (Caesar) and the Optimates were led by Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (Pompey). In addition to Pompey, the Optimates faction included most of the Roman Senate. The victory of Caesar weakened the Senatorial forces and solidified his control over the Republic. Pompey fled from Pharsalus to Egypt, where he was assassinated on the order of Pharaoh Ptolemy XIII. The Battle of Pharsalus ended the wars of the First Triumvirate. The Roman Civil War, however, was not ended. Pompey’s two sons, the most important of whom was Sextus Pompeius, and the Pompeian faction led now by Labienus, survived and fought their cause in the name of Pompey the Great. Caesar spent the next few years ‘mopping up’ remnants of the senatorial faction. After finally completing this task, he was assassinated in a conspiracy arranged by Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus. [Source]
1
Salamis
480 BC
The Battle of Salamis, was a decisive naval battle between the Greek city-states and Persia in September, 480 BC in the strait between Piraeus and Salamis Island, an island in the Saronic Gulf near Athens. The Greeks were not in accord as to how to defend against the Persian army, but Athens under Themistocles used their navy to defeat the much larger Persian navy and force King Xerxes I of Persia to retreat. The Greek victory marked the turning point of the campaign, leading to the eventual Persian defeat. The Battle of Salamis has been described by many historians as the single most significant battle in human history. The defeat of the Persian navy was instrumental in the eventual Persian defeat, as it dramatically shifted the war in Greece’s favor. Many historians argue that Greece’s ensuing independence laid the foundations for Western civilization, most notably from the preservation of Athenian democracy, the concept of individual rights, relative freedom of the person, true philosophy, art and architecture. Had the Persians won at Salamis, it is very likely that Xerxes would have succeeded in conquering all the Greek nations and passing to the European continent, thus preventing Western civilization’s growth (and even existence). Given the influence of Western civilization on world history, as well as the achievements of Western culture itself, a failure of the Greeks to win at Salamis would almost certainly have had seriously important effects on the course of human history. [Source]
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
What You Didn’t Know About the Lincoln Assassination
I’m reading Assassination Vacation right now, a book by Sarah Vowell about her trips across America to visit destinations involved with Presidential assassinations.
The Lincoln Administration Assassination?
If everything went as planned, it wouldn’t have been just the Lincoln Assassination – it would have been the Lincoln Administration Assassination. At the same time John Wilkes Booth was offing Lincoln, two accomplices were supposed to be doing the same to Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William Seward. Booth thought he could also kill General U.S. Grant, who was supposed to have been attending Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theater with the Lincolns. Johnson’s assassin chickened out and didn’t even attempt; the Seward attempt was unsuccessful. He was stabbed a number of times but survived. U.S. and Julia Grant declined the Lincoln’s invitation, so Henry Rathbone and his fiancee Clara Harris went in their place. Rathbone was a military officer and Harris was the daughter of U.S. Senator Ira Harris. In a weird side note, Rathbone’s mother married Harris’ father, making them step-siblings as well as husband and wife when they eventually tied the knot.
The Kidnapping Plot
Actually, before it was an assassination plot, it was a kidnapping plot. Booth wanted to kidnap Lincoln and exchange him for Southern Prisoners of War. In 1865, Booth spent about $4,000 of his own money to arrange the kidnapping. There are couple of reasons why the plot failed. At one point, Booth was lying in wait to kidnap Lincoln, but he didn’t show up at the right time. Then, a couple of days after Robert E. Lee surrendered, Booth was in attendance when Lincoln gave a speech about giving black people the right to vote. Infuriated, Booth decided a mere kidnap attempt wouldn’t do – assassination was the only answer.
His Name is Mudd
People will still debate this point today – did Dr. Samuel Mudd have a part in the assassination, or was he merely a doctor doing his duty? Here’s the story: After shooting Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth jumped off the balcony to escape. The spur of his boot got caught in the flag hanging on the balcony and he fell to the stage rather ungracefully, breaking his leg.
He somehow managed to escape on horseback anyway, and went to Dr. Mudd’s house in southern Maryland on his way to Virginia. Mudd set Booth’s leg and even had a carpenter make him a pair of crutches. Mudd never contacted authorities, not even when he went to town the next day and saw the news of Lincoln’s assassination (if he had not heard of it before then). A couple days later, he finally asked his cousin to tell the Cavalry what happened. Mudd was questioned and didn’t tell the whole truth, thus making him suspicious. He said he had met Booth before, but only once, and only coincidentally. The truth was, the pair had met at least twice before the fateful night in April when Mudd fixed Booth’s leg. The first time, Booth was scouting out the area “for real estate” and was introduced to Mudd. Some people believe he was there to recruit Mudd in the assassination plot. The second time, Booth, Mudd, and two other men who had roles in the murder had drinks together in Washington. Mudd accidentally (or not) forgot to mention the second meeting.
Mudd was convicted for being part of the conspiracy to murder Lincoln, and he served nearly four years at Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas, about 70 miles from Key West. After one escape attempt, Mudd was an outstanding prisoner who saved the lives of many inmates when Yellow Fever broke out at the Fort in 1867. When prison doctor died, Mudd took over his duties.
Both Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan wrote letters to the Mudd family during their administrations stating that Samuel Mudd had only been performing his duties as a doctor, and was clear of all suspicion.
John Wilkes Booth’s Mummy
Most people believe that John Wilkes Booth died when soldiers caught up to him at the Garrett Farm in Virginia. When Booth refused to surrender, the barn he was hiding in was set on fire, and Booth was fatally shot in the neck. I guess the soldiers wanted to cover their bases. But of course, some people believe it wasn’t really Booth in the barn. Supposedly, Booth escaped, and a look-alike died in his place. Here’s how that story came about: In the 1870s, a man named Finis Bates became friends with a man named John St. Helen. St. Helen became very ill and thought he was on his deathbed. He confessed to Bates that he was John Wilkes Booth. St. Helen recovered and denied ever saying it, then skipped town. Then, roughly 30 years later, a man named David E. George died and had confessed to someone else that he was John Wilkes Booth. Bates traveled to Enid, Oklahoma, where George had died, to see if it was the same man he knew as John St. Helen. It was. The body was mummified, sold and toured for a while, including at the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904. Its whereabouts today are unknown.
The Robert Todd Lincoln Curse
Robert Todd Lincoln might have been the kiss of death for Presidents. He wasn’t actually at Ford’s Theater when his father was shot, although he was invited to go. He was informed that the elder Lincoln had been shot and made it to his deathbed. A little more than 16 years later, in 1881, President James A. Garfield invited Robert Todd (Garfield’s Secretary of War) to accompany him to his alma mater, Williams College, to give a speech. Garfield was shot by Charles J. Guiteau at the train station on his way to the speech, with Robert Todd standing right there. Fast-forward another 20 years and you’ll find Robert Todd at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, N.Y. You know who else was there? President McKinley and his assassin, Leon F. Czolgosz. Although Robert Todd didn’t witness the shooting, he was definitely present when it happened. In Assassination Vacation, Sarah Vowell says that when Robert Todd was asked to attend some White House function later in life, he declined and grumbled, “If only they knew, they wouldn’t want me there.”
A few other tidbits about the Lincoln Assassination:
• Later in life, Henry Rathbone lost his mind and tried to kill himself. Although that attempt failed, he succeeding in shooting his wife, Clara, before stabbing her to death. He went after his kids, too, but that didn’t pan out. His son, Henry Riggs Rathbone, later represented Illinois in the U.S. Congress.
• Like Robert Todd Lincoln, maybe Ford’s Theater was cursed. The government bought the theater from owner John Ford, then gutted it to create an office building. In 1893, the inner structure of the building collapsed and killed 22 people. The building was then used as a warehouse for a bit, and then remained empty until it was reconstructed to look like the original theater. It reopened in 1968.
• You can find one of John Wilkes Booth’s legacies in Central Park. Well, a legacy of sorts. On November 25, 1864, Booth performed Julius Caesar with his two brothers at the Winter Garden Theater in New York. Proceeds from the play went to buy a statue of Shakespeare for Central Park, and it’s still there today.
The Lincoln Administration Assassination?
If everything went as planned, it wouldn’t have been just the Lincoln Assassination – it would have been the Lincoln Administration Assassination. At the same time John Wilkes Booth was offing Lincoln, two accomplices were supposed to be doing the same to Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William Seward. Booth thought he could also kill General U.S. Grant, who was supposed to have been attending Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theater with the Lincolns. Johnson’s assassin chickened out and didn’t even attempt; the Seward attempt was unsuccessful. He was stabbed a number of times but survived. U.S. and Julia Grant declined the Lincoln’s invitation, so Henry Rathbone and his fiancee Clara Harris went in their place. Rathbone was a military officer and Harris was the daughter of U.S. Senator Ira Harris. In a weird side note, Rathbone’s mother married Harris’ father, making them step-siblings as well as husband and wife when they eventually tied the knot.
The Kidnapping Plot
Actually, before it was an assassination plot, it was a kidnapping plot. Booth wanted to kidnap Lincoln and exchange him for Southern Prisoners of War. In 1865, Booth spent about $4,000 of his own money to arrange the kidnapping. There are couple of reasons why the plot failed. At one point, Booth was lying in wait to kidnap Lincoln, but he didn’t show up at the right time. Then, a couple of days after Robert E. Lee surrendered, Booth was in attendance when Lincoln gave a speech about giving black people the right to vote. Infuriated, Booth decided a mere kidnap attempt wouldn’t do – assassination was the only answer.
His Name is Mudd
People will still debate this point today – did Dr. Samuel Mudd have a part in the assassination, or was he merely a doctor doing his duty? Here’s the story: After shooting Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth jumped off the balcony to escape. The spur of his boot got caught in the flag hanging on the balcony and he fell to the stage rather ungracefully, breaking his leg.
He somehow managed to escape on horseback anyway, and went to Dr. Mudd’s house in southern Maryland on his way to Virginia. Mudd set Booth’s leg and even had a carpenter make him a pair of crutches. Mudd never contacted authorities, not even when he went to town the next day and saw the news of Lincoln’s assassination (if he had not heard of it before then). A couple days later, he finally asked his cousin to tell the Cavalry what happened. Mudd was questioned and didn’t tell the whole truth, thus making him suspicious. He said he had met Booth before, but only once, and only coincidentally. The truth was, the pair had met at least twice before the fateful night in April when Mudd fixed Booth’s leg. The first time, Booth was scouting out the area “for real estate” and was introduced to Mudd. Some people believe he was there to recruit Mudd in the assassination plot. The second time, Booth, Mudd, and two other men who had roles in the murder had drinks together in Washington. Mudd accidentally (or not) forgot to mention the second meeting.
Mudd was convicted for being part of the conspiracy to murder Lincoln, and he served nearly four years at Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas, about 70 miles from Key West. After one escape attempt, Mudd was an outstanding prisoner who saved the lives of many inmates when Yellow Fever broke out at the Fort in 1867. When prison doctor died, Mudd took over his duties.
Both Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan wrote letters to the Mudd family during their administrations stating that Samuel Mudd had only been performing his duties as a doctor, and was clear of all suspicion.
John Wilkes Booth’s Mummy
Most people believe that John Wilkes Booth died when soldiers caught up to him at the Garrett Farm in Virginia. When Booth refused to surrender, the barn he was hiding in was set on fire, and Booth was fatally shot in the neck. I guess the soldiers wanted to cover their bases. But of course, some people believe it wasn’t really Booth in the barn. Supposedly, Booth escaped, and a look-alike died in his place. Here’s how that story came about: In the 1870s, a man named Finis Bates became friends with a man named John St. Helen. St. Helen became very ill and thought he was on his deathbed. He confessed to Bates that he was John Wilkes Booth. St. Helen recovered and denied ever saying it, then skipped town. Then, roughly 30 years later, a man named David E. George died and had confessed to someone else that he was John Wilkes Booth. Bates traveled to Enid, Oklahoma, where George had died, to see if it was the same man he knew as John St. Helen. It was. The body was mummified, sold and toured for a while, including at the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904. Its whereabouts today are unknown.
The Robert Todd Lincoln Curse
Robert Todd Lincoln might have been the kiss of death for Presidents. He wasn’t actually at Ford’s Theater when his father was shot, although he was invited to go. He was informed that the elder Lincoln had been shot and made it to his deathbed. A little more than 16 years later, in 1881, President James A. Garfield invited Robert Todd (Garfield’s Secretary of War) to accompany him to his alma mater, Williams College, to give a speech. Garfield was shot by Charles J. Guiteau at the train station on his way to the speech, with Robert Todd standing right there. Fast-forward another 20 years and you’ll find Robert Todd at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, N.Y. You know who else was there? President McKinley and his assassin, Leon F. Czolgosz. Although Robert Todd didn’t witness the shooting, he was definitely present when it happened. In Assassination Vacation, Sarah Vowell says that when Robert Todd was asked to attend some White House function later in life, he declined and grumbled, “If only they knew, they wouldn’t want me there.”
A few other tidbits about the Lincoln Assassination:
• Later in life, Henry Rathbone lost his mind and tried to kill himself. Although that attempt failed, he succeeding in shooting his wife, Clara, before stabbing her to death. He went after his kids, too, but that didn’t pan out. His son, Henry Riggs Rathbone, later represented Illinois in the U.S. Congress.
• Like Robert Todd Lincoln, maybe Ford’s Theater was cursed. The government bought the theater from owner John Ford, then gutted it to create an office building. In 1893, the inner structure of the building collapsed and killed 22 people. The building was then used as a warehouse for a bit, and then remained empty until it was reconstructed to look like the original theater. It reopened in 1968.
• You can find one of John Wilkes Booth’s legacies in Central Park. Well, a legacy of sorts. On November 25, 1864, Booth performed Julius Caesar with his two brothers at the Winter Garden Theater in New York. Proceeds from the play went to buy a statue of Shakespeare for Central Park, and it’s still there today.
10 Failed Assassination Attempts
1. Andrew Jackson, 1835. I love this one, because when house painter Richard Lawrence’s shots misfired, Old Hickory beat him with a cane until he could be apprehended. Dude was tough.
2. Teddy Roosevelt, 1912. Teddy was giving a speech in Milwaukee when he was shot once by saloon-keeper John Schrank. Unperturbed, Roosevelt announced that he had been shot but insisted on finished out his speech anyway. His thick speech and his glasses case stopped the bullet from being fatal. The bullet was never removed.
3. Franklin Roosevelt, 1933. Giuseppe Zangara shot five times at Roosevelt. He wounded four people and killed Chicago mayor Anton Cermak. The shooting happened on February 15; Zangara was executed in Florida’s infamous Old Sparky for Cermak’s murder on March 20.
4. Harry Truman, 1950. Two Puerto Rican pro-independence activists walked right up to the Blair House, where Truman was staying, with intent to assassinate Truman. One of the men distracted Secret Service while the other approached a guard booth and killed the guard inside. President Truman looked out his bedroom window; one of the activists was only 31 feet away. Both men were killed by gunfire – one at the hand of the other, and one by the Secret Service.
5. JFK, 1960. Years before Lee Harvey Oswald, 73-year-old Richard Pavlick intended to crash his car, loaded up with dynamite, into Kennedy’s car. Pavlick saw Jackie and Caroline saying goodbye to the President and decided to call the operation off. When he was pulled over for a moving violation a few days later, he still had dynamite in his car and the Secret Service nabbed him.
6. Richard Nixon #1, 1972. Arthur Bremer intended to shoot Nixon when he was visiting Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Ontario. He was unable to get a good shot and there was too much security due to Vietnam War protests. When he gave up on that attempt, he settled for shooting Democratic Presidential Candidate George Wallace a month later instead.
7. Nixon #2, 1974. Samuel Byck, a former tire salesman, hijacked a plane at the Baltimore/Washington International Airport. He shot both the pilot and the co-pilot and told a passenger to fly the plane. Byck was shot through the glass of the aircraft door and ended up finishing himself off before the police could make their way into the cockpit.
8. Gerald Ford #1, 1975. Charles Manson devotee Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme tried to shoot Ford when he was shaking hands in a crowd in Sacramento. She tried to fire on him when he reached to shake her hand, but the firing chamber was empty.
9. Gerald Ford #2, 1975. Just 17 days later, on September 22, Sara Jane Moore fired at Ford in San Francisco. The guy standing next to Moore saw what was happening and jerked her arm away, making the shot miss the President. She was paroled just last year.
10. Jimmy Carter, 1979. Carter was in L.A. to give a speech when a man was arrested with a gun. His story was that he was only there to distract Secret Service; other hit men with sniper rifles were waiting in the wings to assassinate Carter. The man, Raymond Lee Harvey, escaped conviction because there was a lack of evidence.
2. Teddy Roosevelt, 1912. Teddy was giving a speech in Milwaukee when he was shot once by saloon-keeper John Schrank. Unperturbed, Roosevelt announced that he had been shot but insisted on finished out his speech anyway. His thick speech and his glasses case stopped the bullet from being fatal. The bullet was never removed.
3. Franklin Roosevelt, 1933. Giuseppe Zangara shot five times at Roosevelt. He wounded four people and killed Chicago mayor Anton Cermak. The shooting happened on February 15; Zangara was executed in Florida’s infamous Old Sparky for Cermak’s murder on March 20.
4. Harry Truman, 1950. Two Puerto Rican pro-independence activists walked right up to the Blair House, where Truman was staying, with intent to assassinate Truman. One of the men distracted Secret Service while the other approached a guard booth and killed the guard inside. President Truman looked out his bedroom window; one of the activists was only 31 feet away. Both men were killed by gunfire – one at the hand of the other, and one by the Secret Service.
5. JFK, 1960. Years before Lee Harvey Oswald, 73-year-old Richard Pavlick intended to crash his car, loaded up with dynamite, into Kennedy’s car. Pavlick saw Jackie and Caroline saying goodbye to the President and decided to call the operation off. When he was pulled over for a moving violation a few days later, he still had dynamite in his car and the Secret Service nabbed him.
6. Richard Nixon #1, 1972. Arthur Bremer intended to shoot Nixon when he was visiting Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Ontario. He was unable to get a good shot and there was too much security due to Vietnam War protests. When he gave up on that attempt, he settled for shooting Democratic Presidential Candidate George Wallace a month later instead.
7. Nixon #2, 1974. Samuel Byck, a former tire salesman, hijacked a plane at the Baltimore/Washington International Airport. He shot both the pilot and the co-pilot and told a passenger to fly the plane. Byck was shot through the glass of the aircraft door and ended up finishing himself off before the police could make their way into the cockpit.
8. Gerald Ford #1, 1975. Charles Manson devotee Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme tried to shoot Ford when he was shaking hands in a crowd in Sacramento. She tried to fire on him when he reached to shake her hand, but the firing chamber was empty.
9. Gerald Ford #2, 1975. Just 17 days later, on September 22, Sara Jane Moore fired at Ford in San Francisco. The guy standing next to Moore saw what was happening and jerked her arm away, making the shot miss the President. She was paroled just last year.
10. Jimmy Carter, 1979. Carter was in L.A. to give a speech when a man was arrested with a gun. His story was that he was only there to distract Secret Service; other hit men with sniper rifles were waiting in the wings to assassinate Carter. The man, Raymond Lee Harvey, escaped conviction because there was a lack of evidence.
Friday, July 11, 2008
MR. GATLING'S TERRIBLE MARVEL
The Gun That Changed Everything and the Misunderstood Genius Who Invented It
By Julia Keller
Viking. 294 pp. $25.95
The Gatling gun, invented during the Civil War by an ardent Unionist but not really put into use until afterward, bore only passing resemblance to the modern machine gun. Mounted on a carriage, towed into position by horses or troops, it was large, clumsy and had limited mobility. It was used by the artillery rather than by the infantry (which now employs what Julia Keller calls "the deadly bouquet of assorted assault rifles"), and it was rejected by the Union's procurement officer, who "was notoriously resistant to any sort of innovation in firearms."
Had that officer been less stiff-necked and more open-minded, it's possible that the war would have ended sooner and the casualty lists would have been shorter. Or so one can infer from Keller: "For all of Richard Jordan Gatling's cool-headed technical finesse and businessman's brio, he actually came up with his gun, he claimed, for the most tender-hearted of reasons: as a way of saving lives. 'It occurred to me,' he wrote to a friend in 1877, 'that if I could invent a machine -- a gun -- which could by rapidity of fire, enable one man to do as much battle duty as a hundred, that it would, to a great extent, supersede the necessity of large armies, and consequently, exposure to battle and disease be greatly diminished.' As disingenuous and self-serving as that sentiment sounds, it ended up being quite correct: Innovations in arms steadily reduced the relative lethality of battles (not to mention the cost of waging war) throughout the twentieth century."
The great significance of the Gatling gun, as subsequent use demonstrated all too bloodily, was that it began the transformation of warfare from man-to-man combat into a depersonalized arena in which "men, women, and children were like stalks of wheat beneath a scythe," mowed down with total disregard for their individuality. It presaged modern warfare in all the dehumanized anonymity with which combatants and innocents are killed. But Julia Keller, cultural critic at the Chicago Tribune, looks on a brighter side as well:
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"The Gatling gun is a weapon of death, but its story is not altogether grim. For it is also the story of a nation on the rise and of a man who, by inventing a new kind of machine, helped propel it in that upward trajectory. It is the story of a country just at the moment when its destiny begins to stir, and of an individual whose career was hitched to that amazing creative and economic boom. It is the story of one genius who helped push America to the top, a man of decency and vision and ambition, a man who held dozens of patents for a variety of life-enhancing gadgets but who died disillusioned, his name attached in the popular mind not to plows or bicycles or flush toilets or dry-cleaning machines, all of which he improved, but to a gun. A utilitarian device whose use came down to a chilling simplicity: death."
As that paragraph suggests, Keller is given to broad strokes, sweeping generalizations, large claims and overheated prose. More about that later. For now suffice it to say that she's obviously smart and has done a lot of interesting research into the life of a man who is almost totally forgotten. Whether this is the great injustice she believes it to be is for each reader to decide, but Gatling was a formidably inventive man at a time when Yankee tinkerers -- "untutored dreamers," Keller calls them -- were coming up with new stuff day after day and flooding the Patent Office with their inventions. Gatling "was no crackpot eccentric, but a respected and socially connected businessman, married to the daughter of a prominent Indianapolis physician." Indeed, Keller finds it "difficult to reconcile the man who created the Gatling gun with the loyal husband and gentle father, to reconcile the canny, competitive arms merchant with the decent, peace-loving citizen," though in truth those contradictions have been constant themes in the business, commercial and industrial life of this country and most others.
Keller argues that Gatling possessed a "phenomenal mechanical genius," and though "genius" strikes me as more than a bit over the top, the range of his inventions is impressive. Early in his career he came up with "a new variety of plow, a cotton cultivator, a washer to tighten gears more effectively"; between 1844 and 1862, he obtained "nine patents for agricultural implements; his inventions include a hemp brake, a rotary plow, a lath-making machine, a gearing machine and a steam-driven marine ram." All told, he received 43 patents in his lifetime. One of his agricultural inventions, a seed planter, was the inspiration, Keller believes, for the gun: "Fed by a gravity-driven hopper, the seeds dropped, one by one, into the furrow. Gatling couldn't get that process out of his mind: its rotating simplicity, its smooth mechanical perfection." She traces this idea to the summer of 1861. By then it was clear that the Civil War, which confident Yankees thought would be over in a matter of weeks, was going to be a tough slog. Keller writes:
"Gatling had everything he needed: the basic mechanical design, embodied in his seed planter; the moral imperative, supplied by the memory of the dead and ailing soldiers as they arrived at the Indianapolis train station; and the commercial impulse, which arose as a possibly awkward but completely predictable consequence of the realization that this might well be a drawn-out, expensive affair. It might last years, not months, despite all the breezy hypothesizing at the outset. And long wars meant large profits for gunmakers."
By 1863 Gatling's gun was in production, and he sold 13 that year, principally to the controversial Union general Benjamin F. Butler, who bought them "for a thousand dollars apiece with his own money, after the ordnance department had turned down his request for funds." He doesn't seem to have gotten productive use out of them. "Indeed," Keller writes, "the only place in which a Gatling gun was destined to make an appreciable difference during the Civil War wasn't on a battlefield at all. It didn't come in the midst of a struggle between competing armies. And it would set the tone for the weapon's dark reputation later in the century, for its grim identification with the forces of oppression and exploitation."
In July 1863, during the draft riots in New York City, three Gatling guns were set up at the offices of the New York Times, whose editor, Henry Jarvis Raymond, was an outspoken opponent of the rioters' anti-draft sentiments. The mob approached the Times but backed off when it saw the guns: "The story foretells the way Gatling's guns would be deployed after the war: as menacing symbols, as icons of sheer destructive ferocity, even if they just sat there." That's putting it a little melodramatically, but in essence it's true. During the last three decades of the 19th century, "Gatling guns were purchased by police departments, state militias, and factory owners" and became known as "tools of domination and intimidation, both at home and abroad." In time "Gatling guns became the weapon of choice for British forces determined to enforce colonial rule in Africa," and Teddy Roosevelt became their ardent champion; he called them the "inseparable companions" of his Rough Riders in the Spanish-American War.
Gatling died in 1903 at 85. The likely explanation for his drift into the fog of history is that his gun was soon replaced by other automatic weapons -- light, portable, efficient and even more deadly -- and the phrase "Gatling gun" pretty much vanished from common usage. Certainly the gun seems a period piece now, though it's difficult to find anything to regret in that. Its inventor's story is interesting, but it really can't carry all the thematic weight Keller lards onto it -- she works overtime trying to portray him as the definitive 19th-century American -- and there are times when her prose simply gets out of hand: "No, no, no. His head was too full of all the things he wanted to build. Things he thought he could sell, thereby building a great fortune. He was a restless young man. He was brimming with energy and purpose and hope. He had caught his country's peculiar fever. There was no cure," or, "Richard Gatling and his brothers had followed different rivers as they moved beyond their youth, into the world at large; but everything eventually would come back to one river, the river of the past, and it ran, as it always does, from darkness into light and then into darkness again."
Whatever that means. What it means to me is: Beware of journalists who think they're poets. ·
By Julia Keller
Viking. 294 pp. $25.95
The Gatling gun, invented during the Civil War by an ardent Unionist but not really put into use until afterward, bore only passing resemblance to the modern machine gun. Mounted on a carriage, towed into position by horses or troops, it was large, clumsy and had limited mobility. It was used by the artillery rather than by the infantry (which now employs what Julia Keller calls "the deadly bouquet of assorted assault rifles"), and it was rejected by the Union's procurement officer, who "was notoriously resistant to any sort of innovation in firearms."
Had that officer been less stiff-necked and more open-minded, it's possible that the war would have ended sooner and the casualty lists would have been shorter. Or so one can infer from Keller: "For all of Richard Jordan Gatling's cool-headed technical finesse and businessman's brio, he actually came up with his gun, he claimed, for the most tender-hearted of reasons: as a way of saving lives. 'It occurred to me,' he wrote to a friend in 1877, 'that if I could invent a machine -- a gun -- which could by rapidity of fire, enable one man to do as much battle duty as a hundred, that it would, to a great extent, supersede the necessity of large armies, and consequently, exposure to battle and disease be greatly diminished.' As disingenuous and self-serving as that sentiment sounds, it ended up being quite correct: Innovations in arms steadily reduced the relative lethality of battles (not to mention the cost of waging war) throughout the twentieth century."
The great significance of the Gatling gun, as subsequent use demonstrated all too bloodily, was that it began the transformation of warfare from man-to-man combat into a depersonalized arena in which "men, women, and children were like stalks of wheat beneath a scythe," mowed down with total disregard for their individuality. It presaged modern warfare in all the dehumanized anonymity with which combatants and innocents are killed. But Julia Keller, cultural critic at the Chicago Tribune, looks on a brighter side as well:
ad_icon
"The Gatling gun is a weapon of death, but its story is not altogether grim. For it is also the story of a nation on the rise and of a man who, by inventing a new kind of machine, helped propel it in that upward trajectory. It is the story of a country just at the moment when its destiny begins to stir, and of an individual whose career was hitched to that amazing creative and economic boom. It is the story of one genius who helped push America to the top, a man of decency and vision and ambition, a man who held dozens of patents for a variety of life-enhancing gadgets but who died disillusioned, his name attached in the popular mind not to plows or bicycles or flush toilets or dry-cleaning machines, all of which he improved, but to a gun. A utilitarian device whose use came down to a chilling simplicity: death."
As that paragraph suggests, Keller is given to broad strokes, sweeping generalizations, large claims and overheated prose. More about that later. For now suffice it to say that she's obviously smart and has done a lot of interesting research into the life of a man who is almost totally forgotten. Whether this is the great injustice she believes it to be is for each reader to decide, but Gatling was a formidably inventive man at a time when Yankee tinkerers -- "untutored dreamers," Keller calls them -- were coming up with new stuff day after day and flooding the Patent Office with their inventions. Gatling "was no crackpot eccentric, but a respected and socially connected businessman, married to the daughter of a prominent Indianapolis physician." Indeed, Keller finds it "difficult to reconcile the man who created the Gatling gun with the loyal husband and gentle father, to reconcile the canny, competitive arms merchant with the decent, peace-loving citizen," though in truth those contradictions have been constant themes in the business, commercial and industrial life of this country and most others.
Keller argues that Gatling possessed a "phenomenal mechanical genius," and though "genius" strikes me as more than a bit over the top, the range of his inventions is impressive. Early in his career he came up with "a new variety of plow, a cotton cultivator, a washer to tighten gears more effectively"; between 1844 and 1862, he obtained "nine patents for agricultural implements; his inventions include a hemp brake, a rotary plow, a lath-making machine, a gearing machine and a steam-driven marine ram." All told, he received 43 patents in his lifetime. One of his agricultural inventions, a seed planter, was the inspiration, Keller believes, for the gun: "Fed by a gravity-driven hopper, the seeds dropped, one by one, into the furrow. Gatling couldn't get that process out of his mind: its rotating simplicity, its smooth mechanical perfection." She traces this idea to the summer of 1861. By then it was clear that the Civil War, which confident Yankees thought would be over in a matter of weeks, was going to be a tough slog. Keller writes:
"Gatling had everything he needed: the basic mechanical design, embodied in his seed planter; the moral imperative, supplied by the memory of the dead and ailing soldiers as they arrived at the Indianapolis train station; and the commercial impulse, which arose as a possibly awkward but completely predictable consequence of the realization that this might well be a drawn-out, expensive affair. It might last years, not months, despite all the breezy hypothesizing at the outset. And long wars meant large profits for gunmakers."
By 1863 Gatling's gun was in production, and he sold 13 that year, principally to the controversial Union general Benjamin F. Butler, who bought them "for a thousand dollars apiece with his own money, after the ordnance department had turned down his request for funds." He doesn't seem to have gotten productive use out of them. "Indeed," Keller writes, "the only place in which a Gatling gun was destined to make an appreciable difference during the Civil War wasn't on a battlefield at all. It didn't come in the midst of a struggle between competing armies. And it would set the tone for the weapon's dark reputation later in the century, for its grim identification with the forces of oppression and exploitation."
In July 1863, during the draft riots in New York City, three Gatling guns were set up at the offices of the New York Times, whose editor, Henry Jarvis Raymond, was an outspoken opponent of the rioters' anti-draft sentiments. The mob approached the Times but backed off when it saw the guns: "The story foretells the way Gatling's guns would be deployed after the war: as menacing symbols, as icons of sheer destructive ferocity, even if they just sat there." That's putting it a little melodramatically, but in essence it's true. During the last three decades of the 19th century, "Gatling guns were purchased by police departments, state militias, and factory owners" and became known as "tools of domination and intimidation, both at home and abroad." In time "Gatling guns became the weapon of choice for British forces determined to enforce colonial rule in Africa," and Teddy Roosevelt became their ardent champion; he called them the "inseparable companions" of his Rough Riders in the Spanish-American War.
Gatling died in 1903 at 85. The likely explanation for his drift into the fog of history is that his gun was soon replaced by other automatic weapons -- light, portable, efficient and even more deadly -- and the phrase "Gatling gun" pretty much vanished from common usage. Certainly the gun seems a period piece now, though it's difficult to find anything to regret in that. Its inventor's story is interesting, but it really can't carry all the thematic weight Keller lards onto it -- she works overtime trying to portray him as the definitive 19th-century American -- and there are times when her prose simply gets out of hand: "No, no, no. His head was too full of all the things he wanted to build. Things he thought he could sell, thereby building a great fortune. He was a restless young man. He was brimming with energy and purpose and hope. He had caught his country's peculiar fever. There was no cure," or, "Richard Gatling and his brothers had followed different rivers as they moved beyond their youth, into the world at large; but everything eventually would come back to one river, the river of the past, and it ran, as it always does, from darkness into light and then into darkness again."
Whatever that means. What it means to me is: Beware of journalists who think they're poets. ·
Saturday, July 5, 2008
5 Forgotten Founding Fathers
There were 56 men who put quill to parchment during the Summer of Independence in 1776. Most of the signers would be unrecognized today, even if they turned up on Dancing with the Stars. In their time, they were colorful men, prominent patriots and leaders of their colonies. So this Independence Day weekend, let us reacquaint ourselves with five of these forgotten Founding Fathers.
Carter Braxton—Virginia (1736-1797)
One of the few signers from Virginia whose name wasn’t Jefferson or Lee, Carter Braxton nevertheless belonged to the colony’s plantation-owning aristocracy.
He sired 18 children—surely qualifying him as a founding father by anyone’s standards. His first wife, who brought him a small fortune that augmented his own, died in childbirth two years after their marriage. His second wife went on to give birth to their last 16 offspring, and outlived her virile husband by 17 years.
In 1761, the same year his second marriage began, Braxton, then 25, was elected to the House of Burgesses for King William County, in southeast Virginia. By the spring of 1775, tensions with the British were running high. The day after shots were fired in anger at Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, the British colonial governor of Virginia seized the gunpowder stored in Williamsburg. Local militias were itching to fight to retrieve the powder. Cooler heads – among them Braxton’s and George Washington’s – convinced most of the militiamen to stand down. Still, one militia, led by Patrick Henry, threatened to retaliate unless the British returned the gunpowder or paid for it.
Braxton intervened. He set up a meeting with the king’s receiver-general, who happened to be Braxton’s father-in-law. Braxton convinced him to pay for the gunpowder. Revolution in Virginia was saved for another day.
In early 1776, Braxton went to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia to fill the seat of a Virginia delegate who had died. Historical sources disagree about Braxton’s initial position on independence, but in the end he signed on. His is the final name in the Virginia delegation, the bottom-most name on the entire parchment.
Button Gwinnett—Georgia (1732 or 1735-1777)
Even by the standards of the revolutionary period, Georgia’s Button Gwinnett practiced X-treme politics. He was born in England and arrived in Savannah in 1765, when the colony of Georgia was just 33 years old. He bought land for a plantation, but failed as a gentleman farmer.
Where Carter Braxton was moderate and conciliatory, Gwinnett was incendiary. As the split with Britain widened, he became a leader of Georgia’s radical faction of patriots. In 1776, he was elected to the Continental Congress. His signature on the Declaration of Independence is the first of Georgia’s three-man delegation, at the far left of the document.
Back home in 1777, Gwinnett participated in the convention that drew up Georgia’s first state constitution. He also sought the leadership of the Georgia militia, a position that went to Col. Lachlan McIntosh, a prominent member of a rival political faction.
Gwinnett’s “ambition was disappointed,” the Rev. Charles A. Goodrich wrote in Lives of the Signers to the Declaration of Independence (1856), “and being naturally hasty in his temper, and in his conclusions, he seems, from this time, to have regarded Colonel McIntosh as a personal enemy.”
After the president of Georgia’s Committee of Safety (the state’s executive council) died, Gwinnett was appointed to finish his term. The only vote opposing Gwinnett’s candidacy was cast by George McIntosh—Lachlan’s brother. As council president Gwinnett was Georgia’s commander-in-chief, and he proposed an attack on British East Florida to secure Georgia’s southern border.
The McIntosh brothers and their circle condemned the plan as politically motivated. Gwinnett had George McIntosh arrested for treason. Amid the power struggle between Gwinnett and Lachlan McIntosh, the Florida expedition failed, and when a new legislature convened, it declined to elect Gwinnett governor. It also cleared Gwinnett of charges of wrongdoing in the Florida debacle. This gwinnett.jpginfuriated Lachlan McIntosh, who denounced his rival publicly. Gwinnett, following the script of the times, sought satisfaction from McIntosh’s attack on the field of honor.
“They fought [with pistols] at the distance of only 12 feet,” the Rev. Goodrich wrote. “Both were severely wounded. The wound of Mr. Gwinnett proved mortal; and on the 27th of May, 1777, in the forty-fifth year of his age, he expired.”
Gwinnett’s name lives on in suburban Gwinnett County, northeast of Atlanta, and in the value placed by collectors on his signature, the rarest of the Founding Fathers.
Robert Treat Paine—Massachusetts (1731-1814)
During two trials in 1770, as John Adams argued for the defense of the British soldiers who carried out the Boston Massacre, the man who faced him as prosecutor was friend and fellow Harvard graduate Robert Treat Paine. Adams proved to have the superior courtroom strategy. Juries acquitted the British commander and six soldiers for the murder of five Americans. Two other soldiers were found guilty of manslaughter, punished and released.
Adams described Paine as conceited, but enjoyed his quick wit, and he was elected to the Massachusetts colonial assembly the same year as the trial. Paine was chosen a delegate to the first and second Continental Congresses, where he acquired the nickname “Objection Maker” as independence from Britain was being argued. “He seldom proposed anything, but opposed nearly every measure that was proposed by other people…” said Benjamin Rush, a semi-forgotten Founding Father from Pennsylvania.
Nevertheless, Paine signed the declaration – one of five Massachusetts men to do so. He went on to become the new state’s attorney general, served on the committee that drafted the Massachusetts constitution, and was a founding member of the Academy of Arts and Sciences in Boston. In 1796, he accepted a seat on the Massachusetts Supreme Court, where he served until increasing deafness and poor health forced his resignation in 1804.
“It would divert you to witness conversation between my ancient friend and colleague Robert T. Paine and me,” an elderly John Adams wrote in 1811. “He is above 80. I cannot speak and he cannot hear. Yet we converse.”
Edward Rutledge—South Carolina (1749-1800)
In 1774, just a year after returning to his native Charleston upon completing his legal studies in England, Edward Rutledge was elected to the Continental Congress. Two years later, at age 26, he was the youngest man to sign the Declaration of Independence. (Benjamin Franklin, at 70, was the oldest.)
rutledge.jpgEdward and his elder brother John were both central figures in South Carolina politics and the fight for independence – John gave up his seat in Congress before independence was declared to help rewrite South Carolina’s constitution – thus missing the chance to have his own section in this article.
Meanwhile, in Philadelphia, Edward was working to delay the moment independence was declared. “Rutledge firmly believed that the Colonies should first confederate and nurture foreign alliances to strengthen themselves for the perilous step they were about to take,” according to a biography published by the National Park Service.
In a vote on independence on July 1, Rutledge led the South Carolina delegation in opposing a break with Britain. Nine of the 13 colonies were in favor, so Rutledge proposed another vote the next day. On July 2, South Carolina sided with the majority for independence.
By the end of August, the British had occupied Long Island and were poised to conquer New York City. Admiral Lord Richard Howe sent out peace feelers, and Rutledge was chosen, along with Benjamin Franklin and John Adams, to meet with the British commander. The discussion ended without positive results.
Rutledge spent the war years in political and military activities in South Carolina. As a militia captain, he was captured by the British when they conquered Charleston in 1780. Rutledge spent a year in prison, until he was released in a prisoner swap.
He served in the state legislature in 1782-1798. During this period, the legislature appointed him a presidential elector three times. His flourishing law practice and investments in plantations expanded his wealth.
By the time he was elected governor, in 1798, his health was failing. He died in early 1800, at age 50. Elder brother John died the same year.
William Whipple—New Hampshire (1730-1785)
Born in Kittery, Maine, William Whipple shipped out to sea early as a cabin boy. By the time he retired from the mariner’s life, around the age of 30, he had captained ships and was a wealthy man. He settled in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and went into business as a merchant with his brother.
By 1775, his fortune secure, Whipple had the wherewithal and local standing to be elected to statewide offices and then to the Continental Congress. He was the second of three New Hampshire men to sign the Declaration of Independence. The first – fans of TV’s West Wing will appreciate – was Josiah Bartlett (although the eponymous fictional president had only one “t” in his last name).
Whipple’s sea-toughened revolutionary activities were just beginning. In 1777, he became brigadier general of the New Hampshire militia. That autumn, he was a commander in the American campaign against the British that led to Gen. John Burgoyne’s surrender at Saratoga, in New York’s Hudson River Valley. The American victory prevented the British from severing New England from the rest of the country. And it demonstrated that the Americans could defeat the British on their own.
Throughout the campaign, Whipple was attended by a slave named Prince. It is believed Prince is the black oarsman depicted in the famous Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze painting George Washington Crossing the Delaware, although it’s doubtful Prince actually was at the crossing.
In 1780, Whipple was elected to the New Hampshire General Assembly, and in 1782 was made a judge of the state Supreme Court. By then he was suffering from heart failure, and he once fainted on his horse while riding his circuit.
In 1875, the New Hampshire Patriot summed up his legacy this way: “If not a star of the first magnitude…the life of Whipple yet emitted a clear and steady effulgence, which sided in conducting the people in to the goal of independence.”
Carter Braxton—Virginia (1736-1797)
One of the few signers from Virginia whose name wasn’t Jefferson or Lee, Carter Braxton nevertheless belonged to the colony’s plantation-owning aristocracy.
He sired 18 children—surely qualifying him as a founding father by anyone’s standards. His first wife, who brought him a small fortune that augmented his own, died in childbirth two years after their marriage. His second wife went on to give birth to their last 16 offspring, and outlived her virile husband by 17 years.
In 1761, the same year his second marriage began, Braxton, then 25, was elected to the House of Burgesses for King William County, in southeast Virginia. By the spring of 1775, tensions with the British were running high. The day after shots were fired in anger at Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, the British colonial governor of Virginia seized the gunpowder stored in Williamsburg. Local militias were itching to fight to retrieve the powder. Cooler heads – among them Braxton’s and George Washington’s – convinced most of the militiamen to stand down. Still, one militia, led by Patrick Henry, threatened to retaliate unless the British returned the gunpowder or paid for it.
Braxton intervened. He set up a meeting with the king’s receiver-general, who happened to be Braxton’s father-in-law. Braxton convinced him to pay for the gunpowder. Revolution in Virginia was saved for another day.
In early 1776, Braxton went to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia to fill the seat of a Virginia delegate who had died. Historical sources disagree about Braxton’s initial position on independence, but in the end he signed on. His is the final name in the Virginia delegation, the bottom-most name on the entire parchment.
Button Gwinnett—Georgia (1732 or 1735-1777)
Even by the standards of the revolutionary period, Georgia’s Button Gwinnett practiced X-treme politics. He was born in England and arrived in Savannah in 1765, when the colony of Georgia was just 33 years old. He bought land for a plantation, but failed as a gentleman farmer.
Where Carter Braxton was moderate and conciliatory, Gwinnett was incendiary. As the split with Britain widened, he became a leader of Georgia’s radical faction of patriots. In 1776, he was elected to the Continental Congress. His signature on the Declaration of Independence is the first of Georgia’s three-man delegation, at the far left of the document.
Back home in 1777, Gwinnett participated in the convention that drew up Georgia’s first state constitution. He also sought the leadership of the Georgia militia, a position that went to Col. Lachlan McIntosh, a prominent member of a rival political faction.
Gwinnett’s “ambition was disappointed,” the Rev. Charles A. Goodrich wrote in Lives of the Signers to the Declaration of Independence (1856), “and being naturally hasty in his temper, and in his conclusions, he seems, from this time, to have regarded Colonel McIntosh as a personal enemy.”
After the president of Georgia’s Committee of Safety (the state’s executive council) died, Gwinnett was appointed to finish his term. The only vote opposing Gwinnett’s candidacy was cast by George McIntosh—Lachlan’s brother. As council president Gwinnett was Georgia’s commander-in-chief, and he proposed an attack on British East Florida to secure Georgia’s southern border.
The McIntosh brothers and their circle condemned the plan as politically motivated. Gwinnett had George McIntosh arrested for treason. Amid the power struggle between Gwinnett and Lachlan McIntosh, the Florida expedition failed, and when a new legislature convened, it declined to elect Gwinnett governor. It also cleared Gwinnett of charges of wrongdoing in the Florida debacle. This gwinnett.jpginfuriated Lachlan McIntosh, who denounced his rival publicly. Gwinnett, following the script of the times, sought satisfaction from McIntosh’s attack on the field of honor.
“They fought [with pistols] at the distance of only 12 feet,” the Rev. Goodrich wrote. “Both were severely wounded. The wound of Mr. Gwinnett proved mortal; and on the 27th of May, 1777, in the forty-fifth year of his age, he expired.”
Gwinnett’s name lives on in suburban Gwinnett County, northeast of Atlanta, and in the value placed by collectors on his signature, the rarest of the Founding Fathers.
Robert Treat Paine—Massachusetts (1731-1814)
During two trials in 1770, as John Adams argued for the defense of the British soldiers who carried out the Boston Massacre, the man who faced him as prosecutor was friend and fellow Harvard graduate Robert Treat Paine. Adams proved to have the superior courtroom strategy. Juries acquitted the British commander and six soldiers for the murder of five Americans. Two other soldiers were found guilty of manslaughter, punished and released.
Adams described Paine as conceited, but enjoyed his quick wit, and he was elected to the Massachusetts colonial assembly the same year as the trial. Paine was chosen a delegate to the first and second Continental Congresses, where he acquired the nickname “Objection Maker” as independence from Britain was being argued. “He seldom proposed anything, but opposed nearly every measure that was proposed by other people…” said Benjamin Rush, a semi-forgotten Founding Father from Pennsylvania.
Nevertheless, Paine signed the declaration – one of five Massachusetts men to do so. He went on to become the new state’s attorney general, served on the committee that drafted the Massachusetts constitution, and was a founding member of the Academy of Arts and Sciences in Boston. In 1796, he accepted a seat on the Massachusetts Supreme Court, where he served until increasing deafness and poor health forced his resignation in 1804.
“It would divert you to witness conversation between my ancient friend and colleague Robert T. Paine and me,” an elderly John Adams wrote in 1811. “He is above 80. I cannot speak and he cannot hear. Yet we converse.”
Edward Rutledge—South Carolina (1749-1800)
In 1774, just a year after returning to his native Charleston upon completing his legal studies in England, Edward Rutledge was elected to the Continental Congress. Two years later, at age 26, he was the youngest man to sign the Declaration of Independence. (Benjamin Franklin, at 70, was the oldest.)
rutledge.jpgEdward and his elder brother John were both central figures in South Carolina politics and the fight for independence – John gave up his seat in Congress before independence was declared to help rewrite South Carolina’s constitution – thus missing the chance to have his own section in this article.
Meanwhile, in Philadelphia, Edward was working to delay the moment independence was declared. “Rutledge firmly believed that the Colonies should first confederate and nurture foreign alliances to strengthen themselves for the perilous step they were about to take,” according to a biography published by the National Park Service.
In a vote on independence on July 1, Rutledge led the South Carolina delegation in opposing a break with Britain. Nine of the 13 colonies were in favor, so Rutledge proposed another vote the next day. On July 2, South Carolina sided with the majority for independence.
By the end of August, the British had occupied Long Island and were poised to conquer New York City. Admiral Lord Richard Howe sent out peace feelers, and Rutledge was chosen, along with Benjamin Franklin and John Adams, to meet with the British commander. The discussion ended without positive results.
Rutledge spent the war years in political and military activities in South Carolina. As a militia captain, he was captured by the British when they conquered Charleston in 1780. Rutledge spent a year in prison, until he was released in a prisoner swap.
He served in the state legislature in 1782-1798. During this period, the legislature appointed him a presidential elector three times. His flourishing law practice and investments in plantations expanded his wealth.
By the time he was elected governor, in 1798, his health was failing. He died in early 1800, at age 50. Elder brother John died the same year.
William Whipple—New Hampshire (1730-1785)
Born in Kittery, Maine, William Whipple shipped out to sea early as a cabin boy. By the time he retired from the mariner’s life, around the age of 30, he had captained ships and was a wealthy man. He settled in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and went into business as a merchant with his brother.
By 1775, his fortune secure, Whipple had the wherewithal and local standing to be elected to statewide offices and then to the Continental Congress. He was the second of three New Hampshire men to sign the Declaration of Independence. The first – fans of TV’s West Wing will appreciate – was Josiah Bartlett (although the eponymous fictional president had only one “t” in his last name).
Whipple’s sea-toughened revolutionary activities were just beginning. In 1777, he became brigadier general of the New Hampshire militia. That autumn, he was a commander in the American campaign against the British that led to Gen. John Burgoyne’s surrender at Saratoga, in New York’s Hudson River Valley. The American victory prevented the British from severing New England from the rest of the country. And it demonstrated that the Americans could defeat the British on their own.
Throughout the campaign, Whipple was attended by a slave named Prince. It is believed Prince is the black oarsman depicted in the famous Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze painting George Washington Crossing the Delaware, although it’s doubtful Prince actually was at the crossing.
In 1780, Whipple was elected to the New Hampshire General Assembly, and in 1782 was made a judge of the state Supreme Court. By then he was suffering from heart failure, and he once fainted on his horse while riding his circuit.
In 1875, the New Hampshire Patriot summed up his legacy this way: “If not a star of the first magnitude…the life of Whipple yet emitted a clear and steady effulgence, which sided in conducting the people in to the goal of independence.”
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