POP1
In the year of Our Lord 1515, on the day of the Three Holy Kings (January 6), there was a certain young citizen of Augsburg in Constance who invited a handsome whore, and when she was with him in a little room, he took up a loaded gun in his hand, the lock of which functioned in such a way that when the trigger was pressed, it ignited itself and so discharged the piece (a wheel lock). Accordingly he played around with the gun and pressed the trigger and shot the whore through the chin, so that the bullet passed out through the back of her neck. So he had to compensate her and give her 40 florins and another 20 florins per annum for life. He also paid her doctor 37 florins, and the other costs amounted to some 30 or 40 florins.
From 'Chronica Newer Geschichten' by Wilhelm Ren, Under the title, 'How Laus Pfister Shot a Whore in Constance'
Thursday, July 5, 2012
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
Bodie and Aurora, Mining Camps and Violence
Bodie is in California, and Aurora in Nevada. A study of crime in these two mining towns offers a glimpse of life in the Old West. The period for Aurora is the 1860's, after which Aurora became a ghost town and Bodie which boomed in the mid-1870's into the early 1880's. The towns are ten miles apart.
POP1
Nearly every man went about armed.
Sam Clemens, (the future Mark Twain) visited Bodie and spent some time in Aurora working as a miner and writing for the Esmeralda Star. He said that he had never had occasion to kill anybody with the Colt Navy revolver he carried, but he had "worn the thing in deference to popular sentiment, and in order that I might not, by its absence, be offensively conspicuous, and a subject of remark."
POP2
Thirty-one Bodieites and at least 17 Aurorans were victims of homicide during the towns' boom years.
Women residents of the towns were far safer than their counterparts are today in any American city. Men fought men with fists, knives, and guns, and they often fought to the death. They occasionally fought over women or mining property, or even politics. But mostly they fought over who was the better man, real or imagined insults, and challenges to pecking order in the saloon. The men involved in the fights were willing—often very willing—participants. Some of them were professionals, hired as gunmen for mining companies. Others were simply miners, teamsters, bartenders, carpenters, woodchoppers, and the like. The men were mostly young and single, and adventurous and brave. The combination, sometimes laced with alcohol, led often to displays of reckless bravado and not infrequently to death.
In a study of violence in nineteenth-century Michigan lumber towns, Jeremy W. Kilar has found that there were some 112 homicides in the lumber counties of Bay, Saginaw, and Muskegon during the years 1868-1888. More than half of the lumber town homicides occurred from 1881 through 1886. In 1881, East Saginaw, with a population of some 20,000, had 15 homicides.
The men of Aurora and Bodie were miners and ready to fight if the need arose. Their consumption of alcohol meant that they would fight often. And their carrying of guns meant that fighting could easily prove fatal.
Although the armed state of the citizenry reduced the incidence of robbery, burglary, and theft, it also increased the number of homicides.
Residents of Aurora and Bodie accepted the killings because those killed, with only a few exceptions, had been willing combatants. They had chosen to fight.
Commenting on killings in Bodie, the Daily Free Press said on January 7, 1880: 'There has never yet been an instance of the intentional killing of a man whose taking off was not a verification of the proverb that "He that liveth by the sword shall perish by the sword.' " The old and the weak, women and those unwilling to fight were almost never the object of an attack.
POP3
Robbery.
Robbery occurred only infrequently. There were eleven robberies and three attempted robberies of stages during Bodie's boom years and a nearly equal number during Aurora's heyday.
When highwaymen stopped a stagecoach, they normally took only the express box and left the passengers with their possessions intact. Passengers frequently remarked that they had been treated courteously by the highwaymen.
Only twice were passengers robbed. In the first instance the highwaymen later apologized for their conduct, and in the second the road agents were drunk. Highwaymen seemed to understand that they could take the express box without arousing the general populace, but if they began robbing passengers they would possibly precipitate a vigilante reaction.
Bullion shipments carried occasionly by stagecoaches were often of great value: some of them would be worth $5 or $10 million in today's dollars. Yet, not one of the bullion stages was ever attacked by highwaymen.
The reason is obvious. The bullion stages, unlike the regular stages, were always guarded by two or three or more rifle and shotgun toting guards. Highwaymen preferred to prey on unguarded coaches, take whatever was in the express box, and escape unharmed.
Only once did highwaymen and guards exchange gunfire - a highwayman was killed and a guard wounded - and in that case the highwaymen had not expected to encounter any guards.
Fear of arrest could not have served as much of a deterrent to stage robbery since only three road agents were ever apprehended, and only two of the three were convicted of robbery.
POP4
Bank holdups, after stagecoach holdups, are the form of robbery most popularly associated with the frontier West; yet none of the several banks that operated in Aurora and Bodie were robbed. Bankers went about armed, as did their employees, and robbers, like the highwaymen who avoided the guarded bullion stages, evidently were not willing to tangle with armed men.
POP5
During this same periods there were ten robberies and three attempted robberies of individual citizens in Bodie and a somewhat smaller number in Aurora.
In nearly every one of these robberies the circumstances were almost identical: the robbery victim had spent the evening in a gambling den, saloon, or brothel; he had revealed in some way that he had on his person a tidy sum of money; and he was drunk, staggering toward home late at night when the attack occurred.
More robberies might have occurred if Aurorans and Bodieites had not gone about armed and ready to fight. They were, unless staggering drunk, simply too dangerous to rob.
POP6
Theft.
Theft was more common than robbery or burglary in Aurora and Bodie but still infrequent. Bodie recorded some 45 instances of theft, and Aurora somewhat fewer. Since both towns were high up in mountain valleys at elevations of 8,400 and 7,500 respectively, firewood and blankets were the items most commonly stolen.
POP7
Horse thieves.
Of Bodie's 45 instances of theft only six involved horses. Just two horse thieves were caught, and they were punished far less severely than has been traditionally supposed: one was sentenced to serve six months in the county jail, and the other a year in the state penitentiary.
POP8
Rustling.
Although thousands of head of cattle grazed to the west of Bodie and Aurora in the Bridgeport Valley and to the south in the Owens Valley, cattle rustling, except for Indian thefts during the Owens Valley warfare of the 1860s, seems not to have occurred.
From 'Violence in America' edited by Ted Gurr.
POP1
Nearly every man went about armed.
Sam Clemens, (the future Mark Twain) visited Bodie and spent some time in Aurora working as a miner and writing for the Esmeralda Star. He said that he had never had occasion to kill anybody with the Colt Navy revolver he carried, but he had "worn the thing in deference to popular sentiment, and in order that I might not, by its absence, be offensively conspicuous, and a subject of remark."
POP2
Thirty-one Bodieites and at least 17 Aurorans were victims of homicide during the towns' boom years.
Women residents of the towns were far safer than their counterparts are today in any American city. Men fought men with fists, knives, and guns, and they often fought to the death. They occasionally fought over women or mining property, or even politics. But mostly they fought over who was the better man, real or imagined insults, and challenges to pecking order in the saloon. The men involved in the fights were willing—often very willing—participants. Some of them were professionals, hired as gunmen for mining companies. Others were simply miners, teamsters, bartenders, carpenters, woodchoppers, and the like. The men were mostly young and single, and adventurous and brave. The combination, sometimes laced with alcohol, led often to displays of reckless bravado and not infrequently to death.
In a study of violence in nineteenth-century Michigan lumber towns, Jeremy W. Kilar has found that there were some 112 homicides in the lumber counties of Bay, Saginaw, and Muskegon during the years 1868-1888. More than half of the lumber town homicides occurred from 1881 through 1886. In 1881, East Saginaw, with a population of some 20,000, had 15 homicides.
The men of Aurora and Bodie were miners and ready to fight if the need arose. Their consumption of alcohol meant that they would fight often. And their carrying of guns meant that fighting could easily prove fatal.
Although the armed state of the citizenry reduced the incidence of robbery, burglary, and theft, it also increased the number of homicides.
Residents of Aurora and Bodie accepted the killings because those killed, with only a few exceptions, had been willing combatants. They had chosen to fight.
Commenting on killings in Bodie, the Daily Free Press said on January 7, 1880: 'There has never yet been an instance of the intentional killing of a man whose taking off was not a verification of the proverb that "He that liveth by the sword shall perish by the sword.' " The old and the weak, women and those unwilling to fight were almost never the object of an attack.
POP3
Robbery.
Robbery occurred only infrequently. There were eleven robberies and three attempted robberies of stages during Bodie's boom years and a nearly equal number during Aurora's heyday.
When highwaymen stopped a stagecoach, they normally took only the express box and left the passengers with their possessions intact. Passengers frequently remarked that they had been treated courteously by the highwaymen.
Only twice were passengers robbed. In the first instance the highwaymen later apologized for their conduct, and in the second the road agents were drunk. Highwaymen seemed to understand that they could take the express box without arousing the general populace, but if they began robbing passengers they would possibly precipitate a vigilante reaction.
Bullion shipments carried occasionly by stagecoaches were often of great value: some of them would be worth $5 or $10 million in today's dollars. Yet, not one of the bullion stages was ever attacked by highwaymen.
The reason is obvious. The bullion stages, unlike the regular stages, were always guarded by two or three or more rifle and shotgun toting guards. Highwaymen preferred to prey on unguarded coaches, take whatever was in the express box, and escape unharmed.
Only once did highwaymen and guards exchange gunfire - a highwayman was killed and a guard wounded - and in that case the highwaymen had not expected to encounter any guards.
Fear of arrest could not have served as much of a deterrent to stage robbery since only three road agents were ever apprehended, and only two of the three were convicted of robbery.
POP4
Bank holdups, after stagecoach holdups, are the form of robbery most popularly associated with the frontier West; yet none of the several banks that operated in Aurora and Bodie were robbed. Bankers went about armed, as did their employees, and robbers, like the highwaymen who avoided the guarded bullion stages, evidently were not willing to tangle with armed men.
POP5
During this same periods there were ten robberies and three attempted robberies of individual citizens in Bodie and a somewhat smaller number in Aurora.
In nearly every one of these robberies the circumstances were almost identical: the robbery victim had spent the evening in a gambling den, saloon, or brothel; he had revealed in some way that he had on his person a tidy sum of money; and he was drunk, staggering toward home late at night when the attack occurred.
More robberies might have occurred if Aurorans and Bodieites had not gone about armed and ready to fight. They were, unless staggering drunk, simply too dangerous to rob.
POP6
Theft.
Theft was more common than robbery or burglary in Aurora and Bodie but still infrequent. Bodie recorded some 45 instances of theft, and Aurora somewhat fewer. Since both towns were high up in mountain valleys at elevations of 8,400 and 7,500 respectively, firewood and blankets were the items most commonly stolen.
POP7
Horse thieves.
Of Bodie's 45 instances of theft only six involved horses. Just two horse thieves were caught, and they were punished far less severely than has been traditionally supposed: one was sentenced to serve six months in the county jail, and the other a year in the state penitentiary.
POP8
Rustling.
Although thousands of head of cattle grazed to the west of Bodie and Aurora in the Bridgeport Valley and to the south in the Owens Valley, cattle rustling, except for Indian thefts during the Owens Valley warfare of the 1860s, seems not to have occurred.
From 'Violence in America' edited by Ted Gurr.
Dodge City Homicide Statistics
Contrary to the impression left by Western movies, homicides were rare in the Wild West
POP1
In 1880, wide-open towns like Virginia City, Leadville or Dallas had no homicides. Compare this to Cincinnati, in the 'civilized' state of Ohio, which had 17 homicides in that same year.
Virginia city had 8 homicides during the year-and-half following its founding in 1859. In 1876, the year of its birth, Deadwood had 4 homicides. Ellsworth, one of the Kansas cattle towns, had 8 homicides during the twelve months following its establishment in 1867, and Dodge city, the queen of the cattle towns, had 9 in its first year, 1872-1873. (Note: this number of nine homicdes from Frontier Violence: Another Look, author W. Eugene Hollon does not agree with the number given below.)
POP2
From 1870 to 1885, the fabled cattle towns of Abilene, Caldwell, Dodge City, Ellsworth and Wichita had a total of 45 homicides between them - an average of three per year spread over five towns, or roughly one killing every one-and-half years per town. Sixteen of these 45 homicides were committed by duly authorized peace officers. Some of these were domestic quarrels.
The population of Dodge City was never much more than 3,000. In its worst year (1876), Dodge City had 5 killings. This translates to approximately 1 murder per 600 residents per year. Remember, this is 'the worst year'. To keep everything in perspective, consider that in Abilene, supposedly one of the wildest of the cow towns, not a single person was killed in 1869 or 1870.
One homicide per 600 residents would translate to 5000 homicides in a city the size of Chicago, with a population of approx. 3 million.
POP3
Sounds awfully high, but it all depends on your perspective.
Most city suburbs have a population greater than 3000, and to have 5 killings in a small suburb of a size comparable to taht of Dodge city would be considered horrendous.
On the other hand, six or seven weekends in Chicago in 2012 can leave 45 homicides - it took 15 years and 5 cattle towns to reach that figure in the Wild West. Then consider Cincinnati again which in one year (1880) had 18 homicides.
In conclusion it looks as if the Wild West was a relatively safe place to be.
Sunday, July 1, 2012
Dunces and Supreme Court Justices
Given the intellectual and scholastic abilities of the justices of the United States Supreme Court, the term 'dunces' hardly seems applicable. But what about by association:
POP1
The 'Supreme Court Of The United States' is being referred to more and more by the media using the acronym "SCOTUS".
Lets look at John Duns Scotus (1265-1308). He was one of the most important and influential philosopher-theologians of the High Middle Ages. 'Scotus’ was a nickname, identifying him as a Scot. His family name was Duns, which was the name of the village where he was born. His brilliantly complex and nuanced thought earned him the nickname 'Doctor Subtilis'.
Later philosophers in the sixteenth century were not as complimentary about his work, and accused him of sophistry.
In the 16th century, the followers of Scotus (Scotists or Dunses)) obstinately opposed the new learning (i.e., the King James Bible). The term duns or dunce became in the mouths of the Protestants a term of abuse - someone who is incapable of scholarship.
So that's where the word "dunce' comes from.
POP2
It just goes to show that when you're dead, your enemies make the rules and get to do the name calling. Consider Nero, Alexander, and even Judas Iscariot.
POP1
The 'Supreme Court Of The United States' is being referred to more and more by the media using the acronym "SCOTUS".
Lets look at John Duns Scotus (1265-1308). He was one of the most important and influential philosopher-theologians of the High Middle Ages. 'Scotus’ was a nickname, identifying him as a Scot. His family name was Duns, which was the name of the village where he was born. His brilliantly complex and nuanced thought earned him the nickname 'Doctor Subtilis'.
Later philosophers in the sixteenth century were not as complimentary about his work, and accused him of sophistry.
In the 16th century, the followers of Scotus (Scotists or Dunses)) obstinately opposed the new learning (i.e., the King James Bible). The term duns or dunce became in the mouths of the Protestants a term of abuse - someone who is incapable of scholarship.
So that's where the word "dunce' comes from.
POP2
It just goes to show that when you're dead, your enemies make the rules and get to do the name calling. Consider Nero, Alexander, and even Judas Iscariot.
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
The Right Stuff, Astronauts and Actors
The movie The Right Stuff is about the first seven astronauts of the American Mercury program, and the great test pilot Chuck Yaeger. The following Popthems expand on some of the incidents shown in the movie.
POP1
The first American to go into space was Alan Shepard played in the movie by Scott Glenn. On May 5, 1961, 23 days after the Russians sent Yuri Gagarin into space, Shepard piloted the Freedom 7 mission. Unlike Gagarin's 108-minute orbital flight, Shepard stayed on a ballistic trajectory (basically up and down)—a 15-minute suborbital flight which carried him to an altitude of 116 statute miles.
The euphoria that followed the flight may seem extravagant to us today given that the flight lasted only as long as the time it would take to eat a hamburger. But it meant a lot at the time.
POP2
Shortly before the launch, Shepard said to himself: "Don't fuck up, Shepard..." This quote was reported as "Dear Lord, please don't let me fuck up" in The Right Stuff, though Shepard confirmed this as a misquote. The latter quote has since become known among aviators as "Shepard's Prayer."
He nearly 'fucked up'. When he tried to observe the scene below him, he noticed that he had forgotten to remove the grey filter from the periscope. He tried to remove it, but as he reached for the filter knob the pressure gauge on his left wrist banged into the abort handle. He carefully pulled his hand away without removing the filter. He observed the wondrous sights below through the grey slide, but still said "What a beautiful view!"
POP3
According to Gene Kranz in his book, Failure Is Not an Option, when reporters asked Shepard what he thought about as he sat atop the Redstone rocket, waiting for liftoff, he replied, "The fact that every part of this ship was built by the low bidder".
After a dramatic Atlantic Ocean recovery, Shepard observed "It's not the fall that hurts; it's the sudden stop".
POP4
During the pre-launch countdown a small electrical part had a problem and this resulted in an hour and twenty six minute delay. Shepard was on top of the Redstone rocket for so long now that he had to urinate.
The liquid pooled in the small of his back. His heavy undergarment soaked up the urine, and with 100 percent oxygen flowing through the suit he was soon dry. The countdown resumed.
POP5
The name "Freedom Seven" was Alan Shepard's choice. "Freedom" because it was patriotic and "Seven" because it was the seventh Mercury capsule produced. It also represented the seven Mercury astronauts. To help relieve any tension Shepard might have built up before his flight, Glenn pasted a little sign on the spacecraft instrument panel, reading "No handball playing here." This bit of humor hearkened back to their training days.
POP6
Ten years later, at age 47 the oldest astronaut in the program, Shepard commanded the Apollo 14 mission, piloting the lander to the most accurate landing of the Apollo missions. He became the fifth person to walk on the Moon, and the only one of the seven Mercury astronauts to walk on the moon. During the mission he hit two golf balls on the lunar surface.
POP7
On July 21, 1961, Gus Grissom was pilot of the second Project Mercury flight, popularly known as Liberty Bell 7. He was played by Fred Ward.
_Grissom_portrait.jpg)
The flight was a suborbital flight and lasted 15 minutes and 37 seconds. After splashdown, emergency explosive bolts unexpectedly fired and blew the hatch off, causing water to flood into the spacecraft. Grissom asserted he had done nothing to cause the hatch to blow. In the movie we are led to believe that Grissom had panicked and and blown the cover off. This is what the NASA engineers are shown in the movie to believe.
In reality NASA officials eventually concluded that Grissom was correct. Initiating the explosive egress system required hitting a metal trigger with the side of a closed fist, which unavoidably left a large, obvious bruise on the astronaut's hand, but Grissom was found not to have any of the tell-tale bruising. Fellow Mercury astronaut Wally Schirra, at the end of his October 3, 1962 flight, remained inside his spacecraft until it was safely aboard the recovery ship, and made a point of deliberately blowing the hatch to get out, bruising his hand.
POP8
Gus Grissom died on January 27, 1967 when he and two other astronauts burned to death in the command capsule during a pre-launch test. An investigation revealed a wide range of lethal hazards. These were fixed and the Apollo program reached its objective of landing men on the Moon.
POP9
John Glenn was played by Ed Harris. He was the first American to orbit the Earth, aboard Friendship 7 on February 20, 1962,
What were those mysterious 'fireflies' that Glenn saw during his orbital flight? The mystery was solved later that year, when another Mercury astronaut, Scott Carpenter, made his orbital flight aboard Aurora 7. Carpenter also reported seeing the particles, and to him they looked like snowflakes. Carpenter was close to the truth. They were bits of frozen condensation on the capsules’ exterior that broke off as the capsule moved through areas of varying temperatures.
Monday, June 25, 2012
Hannibal. How Real Estate Speculators Saved Rome.
In the year 211 B.C. Hannibal brought his army to the gates of Rome and camped by the river Anio three miles from Rome. The Romans had suffered two devastating defeats at the battles of Lake Trasimene and Cannae.
POP1
After some skirmishing Hannibal withdrew. Specifically, there were two reasons why at this point he gave up hope of capturing Rome. First was that he heard that, although his army was under the very walls of Rome, yet detachments of Roman troops had set out under their colors to reinforce Spain; not to reinforce Rome but in the opposite direction - such was the force of Roman confidence.
Secondly he learned from a prisoner that about this time the land on which he had camped his army was put up for sale and was sold, and with no reduction in price despite his army being parked on the property.
It seemed to him so arrogant and such an indignity that a purchaser should have been found at Rome for the ground which he had seized in war and was himself its occupier and owner. He considered himself to be the owner of the land and yet it was being sold from underneath him.
As a psychological countermeasure, he summoned a herald and ordered the bankers' shops which were round the Roman Forum to be sold.
But the damage had been done. He had been faked out. This was the closest he ever came to capturing Rome.
There's a saying; 'When there's blood on the streets buy real estate'.
From Livy, 'The War With Hannibal'. Book 26, Chapter11
Friday, June 22, 2012
Lindbergh's Guardian Angel
POP1
As he fights sleep with his eyes constantly closing and opening and closing again, he finds something within himself. Above the mind and the body he finds a third element:
"My body knows definitely that what it wants most in the world is sleep. My mind which is constantly making decisions that my body refuses to comply with is weakening in resolution."
But something else "which seems to become stronger instead of weaker with fatigue, an element of spirit, a directive force"....... "has stepped out from the background and taken control of both mind and body".
"It seems to guard them as a wise father guards his children; letting them venture to the point of danger, then calling them back, guiding with a firm but tolerant hand."
“When my body cries out that it must sleep, this third element replies that it may get what rest it can from relaxation, but that sleep is not to be had."
"When my mind demands that my body stay alert and awake, it is informed that alertness is too much to expect under these circumstances."
"And when it argues excitedly that to sleep would be to fail, and crash, and drown in the ocean, it is calmly reassured, and told it’s right, but that while it must not expect alertness on the body’s part, it can be confident there’ll be no sleep."
POP2
"This third element, this separate mind which is mine and yet is not, this mind both far away in eternity and within the confines of my skull, within the cockpit and outside of it at the same moment, connected to me and yet unlimited to any finite space."
POP3
When he landed in Paris, Lindbergh had not slept for 72 hours. Consider this; when Hannibal led his army into Italy, there was a period when he went without sleep for four days. He caught an infection and went blind in one eye.
POP
Lindbergh was the 92nd person to fly across the Atlantic, and his was the 14th flight. (Thirty-one of the flyers were on one dirigible, the R-34 in 1919.)
He was the first person to cross the Atlantic alone by air, whether in an airplane or airship.
He was the first person to fly nonstop from the U.S. to Europe in an airplane (as distinct from an airship).
He broke the record for longest straight-line distance flown nonstop in an airplane, and what's more, he did it alone, (which meant of course that he could carry more gas).
And his was the first flight in an airplane (solo or not) from New York to France.
In New York, about four million people lined the parade route, equivalent to about 60% of the city's population (although this number included out-of-towners).
An estimated 25% of the entire U.S. population came out to see him on his 82-stop tour of the country after his return.
Within a few months, there was more film footage of him in existence than of any other human being, ever.
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