#Irish Confederate War | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

blorger · 8 days ago

Text

I don't think I'm saying anything earth-shatteringly new when I state that the inner workings of the Ministry of Magic aren't exactly expanded upon in the hp books. it's safe to say that Rowling herself probably didn't think too deeply about the executive, judiciary and legislative powers of the magical government since the information we do have is scant and often contradictory; nevertheless, I have attempted to compile all the relevant facts disclosed in the books.

When researching the subject, I have not used any external material (i.e. Pottermore, JKR interviews, facts gleaned from post-7th book canon) because, having been written ex post facto, they are by nature unreliable. In the time inbetween writing the original books and the disclosure of post-canon details, jkr had time to do some revisionism and fill in existing gaps (the existence of which she may have been alerted to by others) and I'm not interested in any of jkr's attempts to rewrite history, regardless of the subject.

That said, I give you

The Definitive HP Law Compendium

a) THE MINISTRY

Our most exhaustive documentation on how the Ministry of Magic is structured comes by courtesy of the ministry elevators, which helpfully list all departments floor by floor.

on level 1: Minister of Magic and Support Staff (Umbridge's offices in DH are located here)

on level 2: Department of Magical Law Enforcement (henceforth shortened to DMLE), which includes the Improper Use of Magic offices, Auror Headquarters and the Wizengamot Administrative Services.

although not specified by the lift, this is also where the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts office (where Arthur Weasley works) is located, which tells us that the lift's announcements are not necessarily exhaustive.

on level 3: Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes composed of the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad, Obliviator Headquarters and Muggle-worthy Excuse Committee

on level 4: Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures which includes of the Beast, Being and Spirit Divisions, the Goblin liaison Office and the Pest Advisory Bureau.

on level 5: Department for International Magical Cooperation including the International Magical Trading Standards body, the International Magical Office of Law, and the British chapter of the International Confederation of Wizards (also referred to as the "International Confederation of Warlocks")

on level 6: Department of Magical Transport which includes the Floo Network Authority, Broom Regulatory Control, the Portkey Office and the Apparition Test Center (considering that Hogwarts student seem to take their apparition test at school, this is likely where adult wizards take and/or retake their tests)

on level 7: Department of Magical Games and Sports, which includes the British and Irish quidditch League (is magical Ireland not divided? unclear), the Headquarters of the Official Gobstones Club and, bizarrely, the Ludicrous Patents office (I'd be inclined to think this is a sports-related patent office if it wasn't the only one mentioned in the books)

on level 8 is the atrium, which Harry describes as a "very long and splendid hall" with many gilded fireplaces on both sides (left is for arrivals and right is for departures). This is also where the Fountain of Magical Brethren and the security desk are located. At the end of the hall, golden gates lead to a smaller room where the lifts (at least 20 in number) are.

on level 9: Department of Mysteries and beyond

The lift stops here but we know from OotP that there's at least one more floor that is only accessible by stairs from level 9 (which also brings up the question: are the upper floors also connected by stairs or is it an either/or scenario?). On this additional floor is Courtroom 10, which is supposedly no longer in use as of OotP but was still being used in the immediate aftermath of the first wizarding war. The courtroom's name implies the presence of at least 9 other courtrooms and, though their location is unclear, they do not seem to be located on this floor.

b) KNOWN GOVERNING BODIES

Going purely off of the only two law-adjacent departments mentioned by the ministry lifts, there's both and international and state law department (on level 5 and 2 respectively) but seemingly no distinction between civil and criminal law.

Besides what described above by the lift, level 2 also appears to be where some offences are judged, as Harry's trial in OotP was originally scheduled to take place here, right inside the office of the head of the DMLE.

We know that, during Harry's time, the DMLE is headed by Amelia Bones, who gets quietly offed between OotP and HBP. She is succeeded by the imperiused Pius Thicknesse (who goes on to become minister of magic during the second war), who is in turn succeeded by noted Death Eater Corban Yaxley.

We further know that, prior to Amelia's tenure (though it's unknown if directly preceding), the department used to be headed by Barty Crouch sr., who later went on to head the office for International Magical Cooperation (where he was Percy Weasley's boss). This is implied to be a lateral career move at best since Sirius describes Crouch in GoF as being "shunted sideways".

The International Federation of Warlocks (part of the Office for International Cooperation) seems to be a legislative body of sorts, as we'll see later that it originated many of the laws mentioned in the books. We know that it was established prior to the advent of the Statue of Secrecy (and the subsequent creation of the Ministry of Magic) because professor Binns mentions they convened in 1289 in one of his lectures, implying that its existence precedes that date.

The books make no mention of the presence of a parliament in the wizarding world, not even in a Chamber of Lords-type fashion.

[note that Dumbledore seems to have had high positions in both the International Federation, where he was Supreme Mugwump, and the Wizengamot, where he was Chief Warlock. It's unknown what either of these titles entail]

Moving on to the judiciary branch, we know of the existence of the Wizengamot. It's described as "the wizard high court", which (to me) implies the presence of a lower court. The Council of Magical Law may be the lower court's name, as it may be the court presiding the trials Harry witnesses in Dumbledore's pensieve

(from PoA)

As we'll see later, the postwar trials of Igor Karkaroff and Ludo Bagman, and the joint trial of Rabastan Lestrange, Rodolphus Lestrange, Bellatrix Lestrange and Barty Crouch jr are described quite differently from Harry's trial before the Wizengamot, which is what led me to believe that they were presided by two different courts.

The magical world doesn't appear to have an appellate court although, if jkr modeled the wizarding judiciary after the ones present in British Law, the Wizengamot may be modeled after the Crown Court and thus also serve an appellate function.

Finally, the books make no mention of barristers, solicitors or any other type of lawyer. The trials we witness are not presided by judges but by government officials and there is no indication that the Wizengamot members (who serve the function of a jury) have any type of legal training.

The defendants in the trials we happen to witness don't appear to have counsel of any type. Dumbledore acts as a defense lawyer of sorts for Harry in OotP but he announces himself as a "witness for the defence". Seeing that Dumbledore appears to be a living exception to all magical laws and customs, this doesn't actually tell us much.

The government officials acting in the function of the prosecution and the judge both do exhibit some knowledge of wizarding laws, as does Dumbledore (who was at one point chief Warlock) although, since Dumbledore is Dumbledore and therefore omniscient, this may not be indicative of any skill requirement for the position he held.

c) KNOWN LAWS

1.1 legal documents referenced in the books (in tentatively chronological order)

the Statute of Secrecy, decreed by the International Confederation of Warlocks in 1689

unnamed law decreed by the Warlocks' Convention of 1709: it outlaws dragon Breeding (as per Ron in PS)

The Decree for the Reasonble Restriction of Underage Sorcery (1875), which partly states in clause seven that "magic may be used before Muggles in exceptional circumstances, and as those exceptional circumstances include situations that threaten the life of the wizard or witch himself, or witches, wizards, or Muggles present at the time of the..." (as quoted by Dumbledore in OotP)

unnamed law punishing the use of Unforgivables

unnamed law delineating the purposes and limitations of the Trace

the Wizengamot charter of rights (mentioned on OotP): it partly states that an accused has the right to present defence witnesses (as stated by Dumbledore in OotP)

law fifteen B "any attack by a magical creature who is deemed to have near-human intelligence, and therefore considered responsible for its actions..." (as incompletely quoted by Dolores Umbridge in OotP)

the Decree for Justifiable Confiscation, which gives the ministry power to confiscate the contents of a will. It was created to stop wizards from passing on dark artefacts (as mentioned in DH)

unnamed law written by Arthur Weasley regarding the possible legality of flying cars/ enchanted muggle vehicles (as mentioned in CoS)*

unnamed document establishing an embargo on flying carpets, implied to have been drafted by Arthur Weasley (from GoF)*

Arthur Weasley's Muggle Protection Act (proposed legislation c.a. 1992, unknown contents, unknown if put into law)*

the International Ban on Dueling, implied to be an international agreement, Transylvanians haven't signed it as of summer 1994 (from GoF)

*: it's unclear how Arthur Weasley, who is not a lawyer, an elected official or a member of the only known legislative body in the books (the International federation of wizards), is able to both draft and propose legislation

1.2 educational decrees

I am including these because they are treated like laws. They are pushed for by a minister and they need to "pass", presumably through a parliament of sorts, in order to be enacted. Prior to the events of OotP there seem to have been 21 educational decrees, the contents of which we are unaware of. The ones added in book 5 by the Fudge administration (with the help of Dolores Umbridge) are as follows:

n.22 "in the event of the current headmaster being unable to provide a candidate for a teaching post, the Ministry should select an appropriate person"

n.23, creates the new position of "Hogwarts high inquisitor"

n.24:

n25:

n.26 "teachers are hereby banned from giving students any information that is not strictly related to the subjects they are paid to teach"

n.27 "any student found in possession of the magazine The Quibbler will be expelled"

n.28 "Dolores Jane Umbridge (High Inquisitor) has replaced Albus Dumbledore as Head of Hogwarts School of Wichcraft and Wizardry"

n.29: never enacted, concerning the use of physical punishment at Hogwarts

unnamed order for the expulsion of peeves, possibly part of decree 29, also never enacted

d) HARRY'S TRIAL

In OotP, Harry is tried for underage magic following his use of the Patronus enchantment to protect both himself and his cousin Dudley from dementors.

This is Harry's second infraction of the Decree for the Reasonble Restriction of Underage Sorcery and he is being made an example of for political reasons since, in recently claiming that Voldemort had returned, he made an enemy out of the Fudge administration. It's therefore unclear if the Decree has a two strikes and you're out policy or if Harry's prosecution is just caused by the Ministry's desire to throw the book at him. By the time Harry receives the letter informing him of this upcoming trial, he'd supposedly performed underage magic outside of Hogwarts thrice but only received a written warning once (in Cos, when said magic was actually performed by Dobby). When Harry blew up his aunt Marge in PoA, Fudge himself dismissed the event as a non-issue, claiming:

The circumstances in this case being Sirius's escape of Azkaban and his presumed intention to target Harry. Of course, Harry's notoriety may have also played a factor.

Despite being a minor, Harry doesn't seem to be allowed an escort as Arthur Weasley is unable to enter the courtroom. Harry goes in alone (as does every other defendant we meet); it also appears that the trial is closed to the public.

Harry's trial is described as a "disciplinary hearing", both before it was supposed to take place in front of the Wizengamot and after:

and

Despite this, the hearing is presided by the Ministry of Magic himself, (Cornelius Fudge). A Wizengamot trial seems to be, by nature, a criminal trial and Dumbledore, in his defense of Harry, implies it is highly unusual for disciplinary hearings to be tried as such. Indeed, before the trial was moved from Amelia Bones's office to Courtroom 10, the judgement of the head of DMLE was deemed to be sufficent.

The Wizengamot members act as a jury of sort, they are described to be:

The Wizengamot appears to have elders; we are introduced to only two - Griselda Marchbanks and Tiberius Ogden - so it's unclear how many there are and, furthermore, we are never informed of their function.

Wizengamot proceedings require the presence of interrogators. In Harry's trial they are Cornelius Fudge (Minister of Magic), Amelia Bones (Head of the DMLE) and Dolores Umbridge (Senior Undersecretary to the Minister).

For some reason, Percy Weasley acts as court scribe despite it not being his job title. It's unclear wether this is an extraordinary case or if stenographers really don't exist in the magical world. (also, why do they even need stenographers when wizards have quick quotes quills?)

Dumbledore describes himself as a witness for the defense, even if he takes on a role that seems more similar to that of a defense attorney. Mrs Figg is also described as a witness but, unlike Dumbledore, she was not allowed to enter the court by herself and required an escort in order to join the proceedings (Percy Weasley).

For some reason, Dumbledore was informed of the trial's change of location, which implies he was also aware of the time and location of the original hearing. At no point in time does Harry retain his services (he is in fact surprised to see Dumbledore there) despite the fact that Dumbledore speaks for Harry throughout.

Interestingly, though the trial also serves to determine wether Harry is going to be expelled from Hogwarts, Dumbledore's judgement in his role as Headmaster is not required. The Ministry, it appears, can decide to expel students without the approval of the school's headmaster (can the headmaster expel students without ministry approval? unclear).

The proceedings seem to be very formal, as Harry is being interrogated with yes and no questions and is given no time for elucidations. Despite this, Dumbledore is allowed to have multiple very informal conversations with the minister of magic himself and at no point does he use court lingo, in complete opposition to how Umbridge, an interrogator, is treated.

Harry observes that, in order to speak, she has to lean forward, at which point the Minister states

This is the only time in all of the books that this happens. The other interrogator, head of DMLE Amelia Bones, appears to speak whenever she pleases, as she interrupts Harry mid-sentence and addresses the Minister like a peer.

It's quite likely that Dumbledore was allowed free rein on account if his status and fame and his presence likely threw a wrench in what were otherwise going to be very strict bureaucratic proceedings.

Finally, Wizengamot rulings are made by show of hands and it doesn't look like they need to be initiated by the person heading the proceedings. For Harry's trial, it's Amelia Bones that calls onto the jury's decision and not Fudge.

e) OTHER TRIALS

The first trial we see in the books happens at least six months after the first wizarding war, since that's the time it took for Alastor Moody to track down the defendant, Igor Karkaroff.

What Harry witnesses (by wading through Dumbledore's pensieve memories) is not, however, Karkaroff's sentencing but a follow-up hearing to determine wether he is in possession of information that may lead to the capture of more Death Eaters. Karkaroff is taken from Azkaban in order to do so and he is accompanied/carried by dementors.

The case takes place in open court, as Harry sees that "rows and rows of witches and wizards were seated around every wall on what seemed to be benches rising in levels"; these proceedings, in stark difference to Harry's, are open to the public (possible proof n.1 that this is not taking place in front of the Wizengamot but in a different court).

At this moment in time, Dumbledore could very well be chief warlock of the wizengamot (we don't know when he was instated) but he sits among the spectators (possible proof n.2 ). Despite being a member of the public, Dumbledore is seen interrupting proceedings without permission (to defend Snape, whom Karkaroff implicates). Because it's Dumbledore doing it, it's again unclear wether this is permitted or if the court is making an exception for him.

This first trial is, like all the trials Harry witnesses indirectly, presided by Barty Crouch sr., who at this point in time heads the DMLE. (possible proof n.3, maybe all wizengamot trials are presided by the minister and all council trials are headed by the DMLE chief?)

The Second trial Harry sees in Dumbledore's memories is that of Ludo Bagman (for passing information to Rockwood, whom Karkaroff implicated in the first memory). Dumbledore is once again not there in any official capacity and is sitting among the public; the proceedings are implied to take place at a later date, as Harry remarks that Crouch's appearance has changed.

We join Ludo in his trial's sentencing phase and indeed Harry notices the presence of a jury, which is not described as having the monogrammed plum robes of Wizengamot members (possible proof n.4 although, since the events take place in GoF and Harry's trial occurs in OotP, jkr may have simply done an oopsie).

This trial seems to be more informal, as the crowd appears to behave quite rowdily (with no intervention) and a member of the jury waylays the proceedings in order to compliment Ludo's flying at his most recent Quidditch match. This is most likely because of both public sentiment and the perceived innocence of the defendant.

Notably, Ludo's trial is the only one that we know for sure was attended by the press, as Harry notices a young Rita Skeeter sitting near Dumbledore.

The final trial witnessed by Harry appears to once again be a sentencing, that of Barty Crouch jr, Bellatrix Lestrange and the brothers Rodolphus and Rabastan Lestrange (who were seemingly all tried together and received a single sentence). Harry once again remarks that Crouch Sr's looks have changed, helping us determine that time has once again passed between the memories. This sentencing is once again done through show of hands by a jury (who, again, is not described as wearing Wizengamot robes) and Dumbledore is still sitting among the public.

Despite it being another sentencing, it appears that the defendants were already being detained in Azkaban as they are accompanied by six dementors, unlike Ludo Bagman, though this may be due to the difference in the severity of their actions; Bagman was seemingly a free man when he entered the courtroom as he'd participated in a quidditch match not one week before.

It's during his trial that the Council of Magical Law is mentioned by name (the only time in the books). Since all three of the pensieve trials share multiple similarities - way more than they do with Harry's- this, together with the evidence shown above, leads me to conclude that

1 All three trials take place before the same court

2 the Council of Magical Law is not necessarily another the name for the Wizengamot and therefore

3 there's at least two different courts codified in the magical law system

Of course, these discrepancies may very well be oopsies on jkr's part. Although Dumbledore's role as chief Warlock can be ascertained as early as PS (thanks to the header on Harry's acceptance letter), the Wizengamot doesn't get mentioned by name until OotP. Furthermore, the pensieve trials and Harry's take place in different books which means jkr may have added on to the concept in the interim.

f) CONCLUSION

There is none, I have nothing else to say. Class is dismissed, I need to go have a lie-down.

#hp #hp meta #harry potter meta #this took years off my life and I didn't need to write any of it #I just noticed that Harry is being tried for improper use of magic but Mafalda Hopkirk is not present at his trial #and she's the head of that department #I don't feel like rewriting anything so this stays in the tags #the blorger special

25 notes · View notes

ameliafuckinjones · 2 days ago

Text

So I lust finished reading "Uncle Sam is to be sacrificed: Anglophobia in late 19th century politics and culture" which -to summarize- essentially discusses the Anglophobia that ran concurrent with Anglophilia due to America's rising imperial interests in the Western Hemisphere (interests which were ironically protected by British presence in the Western Hemisphere from other European powers), economic nationalism, populism and grassroot politics. You had the Northeastern states that leaned more toward Anglophilia among the WASP population all the while nurturing a growing Irish population -fleeing imperial Britian- with a strong and lethal bent toward anti-British/Anglophobia sentiment not only to stoke a strategic anti-British culture within American politics but to also emphasize their Americanness by drawing parallels between Ireland's revolutionary struggle with Britian and America's revolutionary struggle with Britian.

As a result, politicians courting the Irish vote and Irish Newspapers often attacked -who they dubbed- the Anglomaniac who loved Britian more than he loved America. Anti-British sentiment was also prevalent in the south, midwest, and western states due to populism, Wall Street elites, and British ties to it. There was also some anti-British sentiment due to holdover resentments from the Civil War (both with former confederates who suspected British influence in the abolition/emancipation movement and former unionist who believed the British sought to ally itself with the rebellious south as seen via the Alabama claims).

Anglophobia in America dies down during the Spanish-American War, where the loudest critics of Anglomania/Anglophilia (mainly political factions that once used Anglophobia as a tool for electorate victory) change course and begin to draw on shared heritage and interests between America and Great Britain with regards to imperialism and opposition against common foes in the old world (Spain and eventually Russia during the Russo-Japanese war in 1904). Though, even during the height of anti-British sentiment, it was married with begrudging respect.

Anglo-Saxonism in this article doesn't seem to be interchangeable with Anglophilia, but a state in which one maintains a rivalry with Britian alongside a camaraderie in a united goal for imperial ambition. Anglo-Saxonism (as well as Anglophobia, which can be seen as a branch of Anglo-Saxonism alongside Anglophilia) was a simply pragmatic assessment paired with transatlantic sympathy for Britian and vice versa. America was the rising power clashing with the pre-eminent power that ironically often acquiesced to the former's demands and sought out a closer relationship based on familial and imperial bonds. You'll note that as Anglophobia sentiment found purchase in American political thought, Americomania steadily grew in Britain among some of its elite, such as Andrew Carnegie, who yearned for a re-union between America and Great Britain.

So America's heart was basically in conflict with itself. He yearned for England, wanted to emulate him both culturally and politically all the while resenting him for what he saw as an overstepping of bounds upon his (economic and international) autonomy as an independent nation paired with a desire to surpass England in a seemingly one-sided rivalry. Meanwhile, England just wanted to be friends and do imperialism together, nursing power fantasies of two Anglo-Saxon nations conquering the world and beating up their annoying enemies (Russia, Spain, Germany, etc).

I'm sure I'm missing some things (and I link the article which I annotated if anyone wants to read, but you do need Adobe Acrobat, I think), but this is the gist of it. I'll probably go over it again while looking up more articles that discuss Anglophobia in America. From what I'm gathering, though, the animosity was mostly one-sided. Even when England takes a semi-antagonistic stance toward America, as he did during the Civil War, he makes a great effort to show remorse and apologizes via Alabama claims and Treaty of Washington:

Reading and analyzing this article is my way of challenging my thoughts about their (mainly) pre-WWII relationship and finding a balance between hostility and friendliness for them. At the moment, I'm of the mind that America still idolized and emulated him but had a really funny, rebellious, and childish way of showing that which exasperated and perplexed England to no end. Like America really likes and wants to be like England, is terribly conscious of this fact, and really, really resents it for a point in time before fully embracing it (again?). But the animosity is all one-sided, because England doesn't have that many hard feelings about their past squabbling, apologizes when he truly feels like he messed up or overstepped, tries to do things to indirectly/directly support America's political interests, and tries to foster friendship and camaraderie between them and...America is just NOT having it (but is secretly loving it and wants more even as he rebuffs it until finally giving in for a moment toward the end of the 19th century???).

#this is kind of a wordy mess i apologize lol #long post #historical hetalia meta #hetalia meta #historical hetalia #ukus #platonic or romantic #aph england #aph america #hws england #hws america #arthur kirkland #amelia f jones #alfred f jones #a nation is a god verse #the special relationship #“twisting the lions tail” as a slogan is so childish and so America love it #the gilded age

14 notes · View notes

camisoledadparis · 28 days ago

Text

THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY

based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more … November 30

November 30 Holidays

1554 – Sir Philip Sidney, English courtier, soldier, and writer (d.1586); the English courtier and poet was one of the leading lights of Queen Elizabeth's court and a model of Renaissance chivalry. His Apostrophel and Stella is one of the great sonnet sequences in English and was inspired by his love for Penelope Devereaux, even though he later married Frances Walsingham. Lest one confuse Renaissance "love" and "marriage" with the modern versions, it should be pointed out that Penelope Devereaux was 12-years old when Sidney fell in love with her, and that Frances Walsingham was 14 when she was married to the 29-year-old courtier. Marriages were arranged then and not made in heaven, more a real estate transaction than a spiritual love match.

Sidney, himself, was in his teens when the Huguenot writer and diplomat Hubert Languet fell in love with him. Languet was 36 years his senior, lived with him for a time, and, when they parted, wrote passionate letters to him weekly. In his youth, Sidney was strongly attached to two young men, Fulke Greville and Edward Dyer, and wrote love verses to them both, a point not lost on gay John Addington Symonds when he wrote Sidney's biography.

Sidney died in battle at the age of 32. According to the story, while lying wounded he gave his water-bottle to another wounded soldier, saying, "Thy necessity is yet greater than mine". This became possibly the most famous story about Sir Phillip, intended to illustrate his noble character.

1624 – In the Virginia Colony, Richard Cornish was hanged for sodomy for allegedly making advances on an indentured servant, William Couse. His conviction and execution, angrily contested by his brother and others, is the first to be recorded in the American colonies. In 1993 the William and Mary Gay and Lesbian Alumni created the Richard Cornish Endowment Fund for Gay and Lesbian Resource.

1864 – Died: Major General Patrick (Ronayne) Cleburne (b.1828), who was an Irish American soldier, best known for his service in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. Born in County Cork, Ireland, Cleburne served in the 41st Regiment of Foot of the British Army after failing to gain entrance into Trinity College of Medicine in 1846. He emigrated to the U.S. three years later. At the beginning of the Civil War, Cleburne sided with the Confederacy. He progressed from being a private soldier in the local militia to a division commander. Cleburne participated in many successful military campaigns, especially the Battle of Stones River and the Battle of Ringgold Gap. His strategic ability gained him the nickname "Stonewall of the West".

According to Randy Shilts ("Conduct Unbecoming"), the Major General might have earned the "Stonewall" appellation for less martial reasons. According to Shilts in his bestselling Conduct Unbecoming the Major General was a 'life-long bachelor' and wrote of the great love of his life:

Cleburne's relationship with his twenty-two year old adjutant, Captain Irving Ashby Buck, drew the notice of the general's colleagues. Cleburne's biographer John Francis Maguire wrote that the general's 'attachment' to Buck 'was a very strong one' and that Buck 'for nearly two years of the war, shared Cleburne's labors during the day and his blankets at night.' Buck himself wrote that the pair were 'close and confidential. I habitually messed with him and shared his tent and often his blankets."

Prior to the campaigning season of 1864, Cleburne became engaged to Susan Tarleton of Mobile, Alabama. Their marriage was never to be, as Cleburne was killed during an ill-conceived assault (which he opposed) on Union fortifications at the Battle of Franklin, just south of Nashville, Tennessee, on November 30, 1864.

Self-portrait

1869 – Konstantin Somov (d.1939) Russian Artist associated with the Mir iskusstva. He was the son of a curator at the Hermitage, and he attended the St Petersburg Academy of Art from 1888 to 1897, studying under the Realist painter Il'ya Repin from 1894. Somov was homosexual, like many of the World of Art members.

Sleeping Nude

In 1897 and again in 18989 he went to Paris and attended the studios of Filippo Colarossi and of Whistler. Neither the Realism of his Russian teachers nor the evanescent quality of Whistler's art was reflected for long in Somov's work. He turned instead for inspiration to the Old Masters in the Hermitage and to works of contemporary English and German artists, which he knew from visits abroad and from the art journals.

Following the Russian Revolution, he emigrated to the United States, but found the country "absolutely alien to his art" and moved to Paris. He was buried at the Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois Cemetery.

1874 – Winston Churchill, British prime minister and statesman (d.1965). He was Britain's wartime prime minister whose courageous leadership and defiant rhetoric fortified the English during their long struggle against Hitler's Germany. "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat," he stated upon becoming prime minister at the beginning of the war. He called Hitler's Reich a "monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime." Following the war, he coined the term "Iron Curtain" to describe the barrier between areas in Eastern Europe under Soviet control and the free West.

In his wonderfully entertaining and informative biography of W. Somerset Maugham, Ted Morgan tells how Maugham once asked Churchill whether it was true, as the statesman's mother had claimed, that he had had affairs with other young men in his youth.

"Not true!" Churchill replied. "But I once went to bed with a man to see what it was like."

The man turned out to be musical-comedy star, Ivor Novello.

"And what was it like?" asked Maugham.

"Musical" Churchill replied.

Another famous story goes that when Winston Churchill was Prime Minister, he was woken one freezing February morning by a Downing Street aide bearing the shocking news that a male Tory MP had been caught having sex with a naked guardsman in St James’s Park.

Noting that it had been the coldest night of the winter, Churchill is said to have remarked: "Makes you proud to be British."

1900 – On this date, Oscar Wilde, Irish writer, wit and raconteur died (b.1854); Prison, after his conviction for "gross indecency," was unkind to Wilde's health and after he was released on May 19, 1897 he spent his last three years penniless, in self-imposed exile from society and artistic circles. He went under the assumed name of Sebastian Melmoth, after the famously "penetrated" Saint Sebastian and the devilish central character of Wilde's great-uncle Charles Robert Maturin's gothic novel Melmoth the Wanderer.

Nevertheless, Wilde lost no time in returning to his previous pleasures. According to Lord Alfred Douglas, Robbie Ross "dragged [him] back to homosexual practices" during the summer of 1897, which they spent together in Berneval. After his release, he also wrote the famous poem The Ballad of Reading Gaol.

Wilde spent his last years in the Hôtel d'Alsace, now known as L'Hôtel, in Paris, where he was notorious and uninhibited about enjoying the pleasures he had been denied in England. Again according to Douglas, "he was hand in glove with all the little boys on the Boulevard. He never attempted to conceal it." In a letter to Ross, Wilde laments, "Today I bade good-bye, with tears and one kiss, to the beautiful Greek boy. . . he is the nicest boy you ever introduced to me."

Just a month before his death he is quoted as saying, "My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or other of us has got to go." His moods fluctuated; Max Beerbohm relates how, a few days before Wilde's death, their mutual friend Reginald 'Reggie' Turner had found Wilde very depressed after a nightmare. "I dreamt that I had died, and was supping with the dead!" "I am sure," Turner replied, "that you must have been the life and soul of the party." Reggie Turner was one of the very few of the old circle who remained with Wilde right to the end, and was at his bedside when he died. On his deathbed he was received into the Roman Catholic church. Wilde died of cerebral meningitis on November 30, 1900.

Wilde was buried in the Cimitiere de Bagneaux outside Paris but was later moved to Père Lachaise in Paris. His tomb in Père Lachaise was designed by sculptor Sir Jacob Epstein, at the request of Robert Ross, who also asked for a small compartment to be made for his own ashes. Ross's ashes were transferred to the tomb in 1950. The numerous spots on it are lipstick traces from admirers.

The modernist angel depicted as a relief on the tomb was originally complete with male genitals. They were broken off as obscene and kept as a paperweight by a succession of Père Lachaise cemetary keepers. Their current whereabouts are unknown. In the summer of 2000, intermedia artist Leon Johnson performed a forty minute ceremony entitled Re-membering Wilde in which a commissioned silver prosthesis was installed to replace the vandalized genitals.

Note: As a general rule, this site does not list persons' death dates - unless their death was something out of the ordinary, a reason for them to be remembered, or because we don't know their date of birth. However, Oscar Wilde desreves special treatment. His name is referenced in this collection of brief biographies far more than any other person. His life, trial, and death had a world-wide effect on gay history.

1924 – San Francisco police sergeant Elliott Blackstone (d.2006) was the first police officer in the nation assigned to work with the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender communities.

Elliott grew up in Chinook, MT. He graduated from Chinook High School (class of 1942) and immediately joined the United States Navy. He served in Naval Air in the Pacific Theater of World War II. He was honorably discharged in San Francisco, and made Northern California his home for the rest of his life.

He became a San Francisco police officer in 1949, serving until his retirement in 1975. As one of the City's ground-breaking Community Relations officers, he became the nation's first police liaison with the lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender community and a tireless advocate for its individual members.

During his 26-year career with the San Francisco Police Department, Mr. Blackstone helped mend the rift between the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community and the police department. Before his assignment in 1962, the department's previous interaction with the community largely involved raids on bars and entrapment of gay men in bathrooms.

"He didn't see any reason why homosexuality or cross-dressing should be illegal," said Susan Stryker, a historian and scholar who directed and produced a documentary, "Screaming Queens," which tells the story of a 1966 riot at Compton's Cafeteria in San Francisco's Tenderloin neighborhood. That event sparked San Francisco's transgender rights movement. After the riot, Mr. Blackstone trained other officers on transgender issues, and he is featured throughout the documentary.

The Pride Foundation of San Francisco named him Lifetime Achievement Grand Marshal for the 2006 Gay Pride Parade.

1955 – Kevin Conroy was an American actor and voice actor (d.2022). He is best known for his voice role as the DC Comics character Batman on the 1990s Warner Bros. television show Batman: The Animated Series, as well as various other TV series and feature films in the DC animated universe.

Due to the popularity of his performance as Batman, Conroy went on to voice the character for multiple films under the DC Universe Animated Original Movies banner, the critically acclaimed Batman: Arkham video games, and in fall 2019 he will play a live action Bruce Wayne in the Arrowverse adaptation of Crisis on Infinite Earths.

Conroy was born in Westbury, New York. Conroy was born into an Irish Catholic family which moved to Westport, Connecticut when he was about 11 years old. He moved to New York City in 1973 when he earned a full scholarship to attend Juilliard's drama division, studying under actor John Houseman. While there, he roomed with Robin Williams, who was in the same group as both Conroy and Kelsey Grammer.

After graduating from Juilliard in 1978, he toured with Houseman's acting group The Acting Company, and the following year he went on the national tour of Ira Levin's Deathtrap.

Filmreference.com listed Conroy as having been married, and having a child, though an interview with The New York Times in 2016 stated that he was single. He also said that he was gay.

In the 2016 interview with The New York Times promoting the animated adaptation of The Killing Joke, Conroy revealed that he was gay. As part of DC Comics' 2022 Pride anthology, Conroy wrote "Finding Batman", a story that recounted his life and experiences as a gay man. It received critical acclaim upon release. He was married to Vaughn C. Williams at the time of his death.

Conroy made an effort to conceal his homosexuality throughout most of his career. He spoke in "Finding Batman" about the discrimination he faced once potential collaborators and employers found out about his homosexuality. Conroy has said that on multiple occasions he had been removed from consideration for acting jobs due to his sexual orientation.

1978 – Born: Clay Aiken, American singer songwriter, actor, producer and author who began his rise to fame on the second season of the television program American Idol in 2003. Rolling Stone magazine featured Aiken on the cover of their July 2003 issue. In the cover article Aiken said, "One thing I've found of people in the public eye, either you're a womanizer or you've got to be gay. Since I'm neither one of those, people are completely concerned about me." In subsequent interviews he has expressed frustration over continued questions about his sexual orientation, telling People magazine in 2006, "It doesn't matter what I say. People are going to believe what they want."

After several years of public speculation, Aiken confirmed that he is gay in a September 2008 interview with People magazine. On November 18, 2010, Clay went to Washington, D.C. at a Capitol Hill briefing talking about anti-gay bullying.

1980 – Pepe Julian Onziema is an LGBT rights activist from Uganda. In 2012, he was named a Global Citizen by the Clinton Global Initiative for his work in human rights advocacy. He began his human rights work in 2003, which has twice led to his arrest. He has since participated in organizing gay pride celebrations in Uganda.

In 2012 he was invited to the Ugandan TV show Morning Breeze to join a debate about sexual minorities and their situation in Uganda. However the interview turned into a wild dispute when suddenly Martin Ssempa stormed into the show trying to discredit Onziema, waving fruits and vegetables while shouting in both English and Luganda over the moderator. The interview itself was uploaded to the internet and sparked internet memes.

In 2013, he was shortlisted for the David Kato Vision and Voice Award, an award in honour of his slain friend and colleague, and fellow advocacy officer for Sexual Minorities Uganda, David Kato.

In 2014, he was interviewed by John Oliver on the American television series Last Week Tonight about the human rights situation for LGBT people in Uganda. Stonewall selected Onziema as Hero of the Year in 2014.

Onziema initially identified as lesbian, and now lives as a trans man. He lives in Kampala.

2006 – South Africa is the first African country to legalize same-sex marriage.

Today's Gay Wisdom: The wit of Oscar Wilde

A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything but the value of nothing.

Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess.

There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating: people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing.

To lose one parent, Mr Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.

An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.

Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.

One should absorb the colour of life, but one should never remember its details. Details are always vulgar.

The truth is rarely pure and never simple.

Children begin by loving their parents; after a time they judge them; rarely, if ever, do they forgive them.

Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.

Illusion is the first of all pleasures.

All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling.

It is better to be beautiful than to be good. But... it is better to be good than to be ugly.

There is nothing so difficult to marry as a large nose.

Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead.

Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one.

There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.

Now that the House of Commons is trying to become useful, it does a great deal of harm.

The difference between literature and journalism is that journalism is unreadable and literature is not read.

Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life.

It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you place the blame.

The old believe everything, the middle-aged suspect everything, the young know everything.

America had often been discovered before Columbus, but it had always been hushed up.

There is no sin except stupidity.

It is only the modern that ever becomes old-fashioned.

A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied. What more can one want?

Only the shallow know themselves.

Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.

He hadn't a single redeeming vice.

A pessimist is one who, when he has a choice of two evils, chooses both.

Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.

8 notes · View notes

dreaminginthedeepsouth · 6 months ago

Text

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

July 3, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

JUL 04, 2024

And on July 4, 1776, the Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, declaring: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” For all the fact that the congressmen got around the sticky little problem of Black and Indigenous enslavement by defining “men” as “white men,” and for all that it never crossed their minds that women might also have rights, the Declaration of Independence was an astonishingly radical document. In a world that had been dominated by a small class of rich men for so long that most people simply accepted that they should be forever tied to their status at birth, a group of upstart legislators on the edges of a continent declared that no man was born better than any other.

America was founded on the radical idea that all men are created equal. What the founders declared self-evident was not so clear eighty-seven years later, when southern white men went to war to reshape America into a nation in which African Americans, Indigenous Americans, Chinese, and Irish were locked into a lower status than whites. In that era, equality had become a “proposition,” rather than “self-evident.”

“Four score and seven years ago,” Abraham Lincoln reminded Americans, “our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” In 1863, Lincoln explained, the Civil War was “testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.” It did, of course. The Confederate rebellion failed. The United States endured, and Americans began to expand the idea that all men are created equal to include Black men, men of color, and eventually women. But just as in the 1850s, we are now, once again, facing a rebellion against our founding principle, as a few people seek to reshape America into a nation in which certain people are better than others. The men who signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, pledged their “Lives, [their] Fortunes and [their] sacred Honor” to defend the idea of human equality. Ever since then, Americans have sacrificed their own fortunes, honor, and even their lives, for that principle. Lincoln reminded Civil War Americans of those sacrifices when he urged the people of his era to “take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” Words to live by in 2024.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#July 4 #Heather Cox Richardson #Letters From An American #Declaration of Independence #the Confederacy

18 notes · View notes

fictionadventurer · 2 years ago

Text

Every time I think I'm tired of these guys and their endless rivalries, I learn about another crazy facet of the political system of the time and I get obsessed all over again.

You've got the chaos of 1840-1860, where slavery's increasingly becoming the all-important issue. The Whig Party is fracturing over it and turning into a bunch of tiny little one-issue parties that split the Northern vote. The only reason the South isn't seceding is because the chaos in the North keeps Southern-sympathizing Democratic presidents in power. By the time the 1860 election rolls around, the tiny little Northern parties have finally coalesced into the Republican Party, whose one issue is opposing slavery, and the Democrats are fracturing to back three separate presidential candidates. This allows the North to finally get a Republican in the White House, upon which the South immediately throws a tantrum and bails.

Which then transitions us to the political climate of the Civil War, where the war effort is vastly complicated by the fact that you've got to keep a jillion tiny little factions happy to prevent the country from splintering further. You've got the slave-holding border states who need to be placated so they don't decide to secede. You've got abolitionists who want to make the end of slavery the prime object of the war, which would be a great way to send all those border states straight into the arms of the Confederacy. You've got German-Americans and Irish-Americans and a bunch of different ethnic groups who all want representation among the high-ranking officers of the war. Within the Republican Party itself, you've got former Whigs and Know-Nothings and Radical Republicans and Free Soilers and anti-slavery Democrats who all agree that slavery is bad, but disagree about the best way to get rid of it, plus they all retain vastly different political beliefs from their former party associations. Plus, there are still some pro-Union Democrats you have to deal with, who also splinter among themselves into War Democrats and Peace Democrats who disagree on whether we should continue this horrific war or sue for peace.

And then there's the Confederate politics. You have Davis, the so-called President-General who'd rather be leading troops and hates politicking so much that he'll allegedly cross the street when he sees a Congressman coming rather than risk talking to him and be accused of currying political favor. He's dealing with a Congress that's essentially the Anti-Davis Party, because it's made up of a bunch of men who thought they should have been president (and I cannot explain just how hilarious that is to me). They're uniting under their belief that slavery should be preserved, and yet by the end of the war they're considering emancipation efforts in a last-ditch attempt convince France or England to help them out. They seceded because of one issue and they're willing to throw that away rather than admit defeat.

The chaos just keeps going. It's a never-ending series of high-drama rabbit holes to jump down. You couldn't make this stuff up if you tried. Politics nowadays is crazy, but Civil War politics are crazier, plus we have the distance of history that makes it fun to just sit back with a bag of popcorn and watch the insanity unfold.

#history is awesome #presidential talk #i've reached the point of watching 2012 cspan videos to satisfy my curiosity if you were wondering how my day is going #the mosaic book made a mention of how davis' son died during the war just like lincoln's did #which intensified my desire to learn more about davis as a politician #and the comparison was even more fun than i could have imagined #love to see two old guys sit on a stage and judge long-dead politicians

95 notes · View notes

dontforgetukraine · 6 months ago

Text

To understand Ukraine better, think about Ireland

What analogy would help American Catholics understand the situation in Ukraine?

Perhaps we should think about Ireland.

Like Ukraine, Ireland was dominated for more than 200 years by a huge imperial neighbor. Britain in Ireland. Russia in Ukraine. Both nations disappeared from political maps for more than two centuries.

Ireland got its independence from Britain in 1921 after 230 years of domination. Ukraine was finally free of Russian (Soviet) domination in 1991, after more than nearly 300 years of domination. Ukraine had the added problem of more than one colonial ruler, with Poland and Lithuania and Austria in the west, the Ottoman Turks in the south, and the Russians in the east.

Ukraine is a huge country, with relatively level topography, in the middle of Europe. It has been overrun with invaders since the Mongols invaded in the 13th century from the east. Poland and Lithuania dominated Ukraine in the west. In 1686, the Treaty of Eternal Peace between the Polish/Lithuanian confederation and tsarist Russia divided Ukraine in two, with everything east of the Dnieper River and Kyiv going to the Russians. So, beginning in the 1690s Russia dominated eastern Ukraine. They did their best to eclipse Ukrainian culture and referred condescendingly to Ukrainians and "Little Russians." Even the name "Ukraine" is from the Russian perspective. It means "borderland" — and the border is from Moscow's perspective.

Language is an important part of identity. The indigenous languages of Ireland and Ukraine were both suppressed and supplanted by their colonial rulers. Ireland's educated elite spoke English and were sent to England to study. Ukraine's educated elite spoke the languages of their cultural masters: Polish in the west, Russian in the east. Under the tsars and the Soviets, the elites from Ukraine were sent to Russia to study and were expected to become cultural Russians. Today the Ukrainian language is making a comeback, even in the east. In Ukraine, I've met several Russian-speaking Ukrainians who now refuse to speak the Russian language. And Ukrainian is not a dialect of Russian, any more than Spanish is a dialect of Italian. They are distinct.

Both Irish and Ukrainian cultures were preserved in the rural areas. In the countryside, people spoke their native languages at home, in church and among themselves. But in business and in cities they spoke the language of their colonizers, English and Russian. That seems to have been especially true in Ukraine.

While neither Ireland nor Ukraine governed themselves for more than 200 years, their sons were drafted to fight the wars of their colonizers. The people of both nations generally remained poor, while the agriculture of both nations fed their rulers.

Both nations were visited by unnecessary starvation, despite their rich land and agriculture. Ireland had the Great Hunger of the 19th century, brought on by the potato blight and land rents. It killed a million people and sent another million into exile.

In Ukraine, the breadbasket of Europe, at least 4 million Ukrainians starved to death in the 1930s under Joseph Stalin during the Holodomor ("death by hunger"). It was totally unnecessary, brought on by Stalin's policy of "collectivization" of farming and persecution of Ukraine's Culak farmers, who were perceived as anti-Bolshevik. Russian police entered Ukrainian homes and literally took the food from families.

Eastern Ukraine was severely depopulated by starvation, war and political purges by the end of World War II. Russian speakers were brought in to repopulate eastern Ukraine. (That's similar to what the English did in Northern Ireland when they brought in Scots.) This "Russification" changed the ethnic makeup of eastern Ukraine.

World War II was especially cruel in Ukraine. Between 7 and 8 million Ukrainians died in the war; at least 5 million were civilians. The population of the Ukrainian Soviet Republic was 41 million in 1940 and 36 million people in 1950.

Millions of people have emigrated from both Ireland and Ukraine. After World War II, many Ukrainians came to the U.S. and Canada. The Ukrainian Catholic churches that dot our landscape today are testament to their presence here. A new exodus took place from Ukraine in 2022, when about 6 million people left the country as refugees in just a few months. They settled mostly in western Europe. The population of Ukraine had been 41 million before Russia's full-scale invasion began Feb. 25, 2022. Now it is estimated at about 36 million. (No one is sure because a census is impossible to do in wartime.)

Both Ireland and Ukraine have seen severe religious persecution. In Ireland, the British crown banned Roman Catholicism under Irish penal laws. In Ukraine, under the Soviets, all religion — except Orthodox Christianity under the Moscow patriarch — was banned. The state was officially atheist during the Soviet era, 1921 to 1991. Today, as a result of Russia's invasion, the number of followers of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate is declining and the independent Orthodox Church of Ukraine is growing. Whole parishes are leaving the Moscow patriarch. A July 2022 survey by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology found only 1 of 25 of Ukrainians (4%) identified with Moscow Patriarchate, a considerable drop from nearly 1 of 5 (18%) in June 2021.

Catholics, of both Eastern and Western rites, saw their churches, seminaries, monasteries, convents, schools and universities seized and closed during the Soviet period. Many church leaders had to go into exile. We visited one formerly Latin Rite church in Lviv, built by Polish Jesuits in the 1700s, which had been a book warehouse under the Soviet regime.

The war seems to have promoted the growth and independence of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. It was recognized as a self-governing (autocephalous) church only in 2018, by the Patriarch of Constantinople (Istanbul). That resulted in the patriarch of Moscow excommunicating the patriarch of Constantinople.

Why is this important for American Catholics? Because I have heard a fair amount of Russian disinformation from American Catholics after our two visits to Ukraine in the last two years.

People ask: Isn't Ukraine really just part of Russia? Answer: No. Not willingly.

Isn't the Ukrainian language just a dialect of Russian? No. It is a distinct Slavic language.

Wasn't Crimea always Russian? No. Catherine the Great seized it from the Ottoman Turks in 1783. Stalin deported most of the local Tatars to concentration camps in the 1930s.

History matters. It helps us to understand the past and deal with the present.

In 1991 Ukrainians took their rightful place among the peoples of the world. It has been a centuries-long struggle to be free of domination by their imperial neighbors. From what I have seen, they are absolutely determined that they will not again disappear from the maps of the world.

#Ukraine #Russia #Ireland #catholicism #America #catholic #holodomor #article #the great hunger #potato famine #russification #Mod note: disappointed they didn't mention the other hypothesis that the name Ukraine means land or country in Ukrainian #But the comparison is interesting and useful at least

8 notes · View notes

stairnaheireann · 1 year ago

Text

#OTD in 1862 – The Irish Brigade suffered over 60% casualties at the Battle of Antietam at an area that came to be known as Bloody Lane.

At the Battle of Antietam, the Irish Brigade led its division in attacking the infamous Bloody Lane. In preparation for the deadly work ahead, Father William Corby, one of the brigade’s chaplains and future president of Notre Dame, rode down the firing line and administered a general rite of absolution to the men. Thomas Meagher advanced to the crest of a hill overlooking a brigade of North…

View On WordPress

#69th New York Militia #American Civil War #Bloody Lane #Captain McGee #Confederates #Father William Corby #Fighting 69th #Gen. Israel Richardson #The Battle of Antietam #The Battle of Antietam Monument #The Irish Brigade #Thomas Meagher #Unions

9 notes · View notes

st-just · 7 months ago

Text

So obviously the fact that Irish/Catholic/Irish Catholic people were considered suspect at best and subhuman at worst was the bigger part of the issue, but man the Adventurers Act feels like something you'd write if you specifically wanted to make any sort of diplomatic compromise impossible.

(For context: at the start of 1st English Civil War Parliament funded the raising of armies in part by a) notionally seizing the lands of every Irish notable involved in the Confederate rebellion and b) selling those lands to the highest bidder, to be redeemed when the rebellion was crushed)

13 notes · View notes

tedwardremus · 5 months ago

Text

Mel's Favorite Lighthouses

To say goodbye to TheLightHousesTale url here is some of my favorite lighthouses

(follow @lighthousetale for more lighthouse content in the future)

Old Point Loma Lighthouse - Obviously, I have to represent my hometown on this list. While in operation, the lighthouse had the highest elevation of any lighthouse in the United States. It was too foggy in that location though so they built another lighthouse in 1891 at lower elevation.

Fastnet Lighthouse - The tallest lighthouse in Ireland. I am fond of lighthouses on jagged rocks that look impossible to get to. The best of lighthouse vibes.

Blacksod Lighthouse - Another Irish lighthouse (Ireland has great lighthouses). Weather observations in June 1944 by the Blacksod lighthousekeepers caused the Normandy landings to be postponed because even though Ireland was neutral during the war it provided the British with weather reports. We love lighthouses that helped us beat the Nazis.

Thomas Point Shoal Light - The most recognized lighthouse in Maryland. It's shaped like a hexagon which is cool.

Sidi Ifni Lighthouse- I don't need to say much about this beauty. It is gorgeous.

Point Lookout Lighthouse - 8,000 Confederates died there during the American Civil War. Love a haunted lighthouse.

St. Simons Lighthouse - Another haunted lighthouse. After an argument the lighthouse assistant shot and killed the lighthouse keeper.

Tourlitis Lighthouse - This just looks like a magical lighthouse from a fairytale. A Disney princess lives there.

Tower of Hercules - lighthouse built by Romans. Myth has it that Hercules buried the head of Geryon underneath the land that lighthouse now stands on.

4 notes · View notes

rabbitcruiser · 18 days ago

Text

Statute of Westminster (11 December 1931) gave complete legislative independence to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Ireland (Free State), and Newfoundland (not then part of Canada).

Anniversary of the Statute of Westminster

The Anniversary of the Statute of Westminster is observed on December 11 every year. Although it is a holiday, Canadians still go to work, and it is pretty much an ordinary day for them. It is a nod to Canadian independence. The “Union Jack,” where logistics allow, is flown along with the Maple Leaf on federal buildings, airports, military bases from dawn to dusk to mark this day. It commemorates a British law that was passed on 11 December 1931. It was Canada’s final achievement of independence from Britain. The Statute of Westminster gave Canada and the other Commonwealth Dominions legal equality with Britain. These countries now had full legal freedom — except in areas which they chose. The Statute also defined the powers of Canada’s Parliament and those of the other Dominions. The day is mostly celebrated in Canada.

History of Anniversary of the Statute of Westminster

Before 1931, the British government had much influence over legislation passed by the Commonwealth Dominions (Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, the Irish Free State, and Newfoundland). Things began to change after the First World War — after the sacrifices of Canada and other Dominions on the battlefield stirred feelings of nationhood and desires for complete autonomy.

Canada began to assert its independence in foreign policy in the early 1920s. In 1922, Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King denied help to British occupation forces in Turkey without first getting the approval of his Parliament. Later on, in 1923, Canada signed a fisheries’ treaty with the United States without seeking permission from Britain. In 1926, Canada established an embassy in Washington, DC, and Vincent Massey was named its first Canadian minister. This made him Canada’s first-ever diplomatic envoy posted to a foreign capital.

The Imperial Conference of 1926 was a more formal step. It gave legal backbone to the Balfour Report from earlier that year. The report had announced that Britain and its Dominions were constitutionally “equal in status.” The work of changing the Commonwealth’s complex legal system continued at the 1929 Conference on the Operation of Dominion Legislation. The Imperial Conference of 1930 further confirmed the need for the Dominions to have greater autonomy of their legislature. On 11 December 1931, the Statute of Westminster was passed by the British Parliament. This was done at the request and with the consent of the Dominions. This statute ratified the Dominions’ legislative independence. Although it had been granted the right to self-government in 1867, Canada did not enjoy full legal autonomy until the Statute was passed on December 11, 1931.

Anniversary of the Statute of Westminster timeline

15th and 16th Centuries Age of Discovery

Portugal and Spain pioneer European exploration of the globe, leading to the discovery of continents such as the Americas.

1757 Britain in India

Britain becomes the dominant power in the Indian subcontinent after defeating the Mughal in the Battle of Plassey.

1783 The American War of Independence

The war results in Britain losing some of its oldest and most populous colonies in North America.

1956 The Suez Crisis

The Suez Crisis confirms Britain's decline as a global power, because the Egyptian president nationalizes the Canal, owned by the Suez Canal Company, and formerly controlled by French and British interests.

Anniversary of the Statute of Westminster FAQs

Who is the current sovereign under the Statute of Westminster?

Today, the Statute of Westminster’s restrictive clause is still valid, so the current sovereign is Queen Elizabeth II. Her acting advisors are known as federal ministers of the Crown.

Which is more important: the Statute of Westminster or confederation?

The Statute of Westminster is arguably a more momentous occasion in Canada’s journey to sovereignty than to a confederation.

When did New Zealand adopt the Statute of Westminster?

The Parliament of New Zealand adopted the Statute of Westminster in November 1947.

How To Observe Anniversary of the Statute of Westminster

Explore from your armchair

Study your country’s history

Play a game such as balderdash

We have only given you brief information on the statute. Observe the anniversary by reading in detail about the statute — and things relating to it.

Britain had successfully colonized some of the biggest nations in the world. On this day, read about your country’s past — colonial or not — and try to understand how colonialism continues to affect the world today.

There are games that have categories including really strange laws from around the world, which would be fun with friends and family. While you are all laughing, remember that most laws had reasons, and have fun discussing that.

5 Facts About Canada That Will Blow Your Mind

Canadians eat the most donuts in the world

Bigfoot is legally protected in Canada

Smelling bad is illegal in Canada

The money is vision-impaired friendly

Canada has two national sports

There are only 30 million people in Canada, but over 1 billion donuts are eaten annually.

It is illegal to kill a Sasquatch in British Columbia.

Anyone smelling offensive in a public place could face two years in jail.

Canadian banknotes have braille writing on them for the blind.

Ice hockey and lacrosse are the national sports of Canada.

Why We Love the Anniversary of the Statute of Westminster

It’s a part of history

This day encourages us to explore our history

A day to learn and chat about laws

The Statute of Westminster played an important role in the history of Canada and other former dominions. The anniversary acknowledges this crucial day in history.

5 notes · View notes