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HP039: Christmas

HP039: Christmas

Christmas is a traditional Christian festival marking the birth of Jesus. Most, although not all, Christians observe this festival on December 25th. However, Christmas is now celebrated as a holiday by many people and cultures besides Christians, and indeed many Christmas traditions originated with pre-Christian observances that were subsumed into Christianity (e.g. Saturnalia, Yule or the Winter Solstice).

In predominantly Christian countries, Christmas has become the most economically significant holiday of the year, and it is also celebrated as a secular holiday in many countries with small Christian populations like Japan. It is largely characterized by gifts being exchanged within families and being brought by Santa Claus, Father Christmas or by other mythical figures. Local and regional Christmas traditions are still rich and varied, despite the widespread influence of American and British Christmas motifs disseminated by globalisation, popular literature, television, and other media.

The word Christmas is a contraction of Christ’s Mass, derived from the Old English Cristes maesse. It is often abbreviated Xmas, the X originates from the Greek letter X (chi) which has often historically been used as an abbreviation for Christ.

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Hello everyone and welcome to a very special episode of HistoryPodcast. The show will be packed full of holiday music and holiday history. For all of you out there that celebrate other holiday celebrations, Happy Holidays! I’ll play your responses on an upcoming episode.

Each year, late the month of December, millions of homes across America are decorated with Christmas trees and colored lights.

The middle of winter has long been a time of celebration around the world. Centuries before the arrival of the man called Jesus, early Europeans celebrated light and birth in the darkest days of winter. Many peoples rejoiced during the winter solstice, when the worst of the winter was behind them and they could look forward to longer days and extended hours of sunlight.

In Scandinavia, the Norse celebrated Yule from December 21, the winter solstice, through January. In recognition of the return of the sun, fathers and sons would bring home large logs, which they would set on fire. The people would feast until the log burned out, which could take as many as 12 days. The Norse believed that each spark from the fire represented a new pig or calf that would be born during the coming year.

The end of December was a perfect time for celebration in most areas of Europe. At that time of year, most cattle were slaughtered so they would not have to be fed during the winter. For many, it was the only time of year when they had a supply of fresh meat. In addition, most wine and beer made during the year was finally fermented and ready for drinking.

In Germany, people honored the pagan god Oden during the mid-winter holiday. Germans were terrified of Oden, as they believed he made nocturnal flights through the sky to observe his people, and then decide who would prosper or perish. Because of his presence, many people chose to stay inside.

In Rome, where winters were not as harsh as those in the far north, Saturnalia—a holiday in honor of Saturn, the god of agriculture—was celebrated. Beginning in the week leading up to the winter solstice and continuing for a full month, Saturnalia was a hedonistic time, when food and drink were plentiful and the normal Roman social order was turned upside down. For a month, slaves would become masters. Peasants were in command of the city. Business and schools were closed so that everyone could join in the fun.

Also around the time of the winter solstice, Romans observed Juvenalia, a feast honoring the children of Rome. In addition, members of the upper classes often celebrated the birthday of Mithra, the god of the unconquerable sun, on December 25. It was believed that Mithra, an infant god, was born of a rock. For some Romans, Mithra’s birthday was the most sacred day of the year.

In the early years of Christianity, Easter was the main holiday; the birth of Jesus was not celebrated. In the fourth century, church officials decided to institute the birth of Jesus as a holiday.

Unfortunately, the Bible does not mention date for his birth (a fact Puritans later pointed out in order to deny the legitimacy of the celebration). Although some evidence suggests that his birth may have occurred in the spring (why would shepherds be herding in the middle of winter?), Pope Julius I chose December 25. It is commonly believed that the church chose this date in an effort to adopt and absorb the traditions of the pagan Saturnalia festival. First called the Feast of the Nativity, the custom spread to Egypt by 432 and to England by the end of the sixth century. By the end of the eighth century, the celebration of Christmas had spread all the way to Scandinavia. Today, in the Greek and Russian orthodox churches, Christmas is celebrated 13 days after the 25th, which is also referred to as the Epiphany or Three Kings Day. This is the day it is believed that the three wise men finally found Jesus in the manger.

By holding Christmas at the same time as traditional winter solstice festivals, church leaders increased the chances that Christmas would be popularly embraced, but gave up the ability to dictate how it was celebrated. By the Middle Ages, Christianity had, for the most part, replaced pagan religion. On Christmas, believers attended church, then celebrated raucously in a drunken, carnival-like atmosphere similar to today’s Mardi Gras. Each year, a beggar or student would be crowned the “lord of misrule” and eager celebrants played the part of his subjects. The poor would go to the houses of the rich and demand their best food and drink. If owners failed to comply, their visitors would most likely terrorize them with mischief. Christmas became the time of year when the upper classes could repay their real or imagined “debt” to society by entertaining less fortunate citizens.

In the early 17th century, a wave of religious reform changed the way Christmas was celebrated in Europe. When Oliver Cromwell and his Puritan forces took over England in 1645, they vowed to rid England of decadence and, as part of their effort, cancelled Christmas. By popular demand, Charles II was restored to the throne and, with him, came the return of the popular holiday.

The pilgrims, English separatists that came to America in 1620, were even more orthodox in their Puritan beliefs than Cromwell. As a result, Christmas was not a holiday in early America. From 1659 to 1681, the celebration of Christmas was actually outlawed in Boston. Anyone exhibiting the Christmas spirit was fined five shillings. By contrast, in the Jamestown settlement, Captain John Smith reported that Christmas was enjoyed by all and passed without incident.

After the American Revolution, English customs fell out of favor, including Christmas. In fact, Congress was in session on December 25, 1789, the first Christmas under America’s new constitution. Christmas wasn’t declared a federal holiday until June 26, 1870.

It wasn’t until the 19th century that Americans began to embrace Christmas. Americans re-invented Christmas, and changed it from a raucous carnival holiday into a family-centered day of peace and nostalgia. But what about the 1800s peaked American interest in the holiday?

The early 19th century was a period of class conflict and turmoil. During this time, unemployment was high and gang rioting by the disenchanted classes often occurred during the Christmas season. In 1828, the New York city council instituted the city’s first police force in response to a Christmas riot. This catalyzed certain members of the upper classes to begin to change the way Christmas was celebrated in America.

In 1819, best-selling author Washington Irving wrote The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon, gent., a series of stories about the celebration of Christmas in an English manor house.

The sketches feature a squire who invited the peasants into his home for the holiday. In contrast to the problems faced in American society, the two groups mingled effortlessly. In Irving’s mind, Christmas should be a peaceful, warm-hearted holiday bringing groups together across lines of wealth or social status. Irving’s fictitious celebrants enjoyed “ancient customs,” including the crowning of a Lord of Misrule. Irving’s book, however, was not based on any holiday celebration he had attended—in fact, many historians say that Irving’s account actually “invented” tradition by implying that it described the true customs of the season.

Also around this time, English author Charles Dickens created the classic holiday tale, A Christmas Carol. The story’s message—the importance of charity and good will towards all humankind—struck a powerful chord in the United States and England and showed members of Victorian society the benefits of celebrating the holiday.

The family was also becoming less disciplined and more sensitive to the emotional needs of children during the early 1800s. Christmas provided families with a day when they could lavish attention—and gifts—on their children without appearing to “spoil” them.

As Americans began to embrace Christmas as a perfect family holiday, old customs were unearthed. People looked toward recent immigrants and Catholic and Episcopalian churches to see how the day should be celebrated. In the next 100 years, Americans built a Christmas tradition all their own that included pieces of many other customs, including decorating trees, sending holiday cards, and gift-giving.

Although most families quickly bought into the idea that they were celebrating Christmas how it had been done for centuries, Americans had really re-invented a holiday to fill the cultural needs of a growing nation.

The legend of Santa Claus can be traced back hundreds of years to a monk named St. Nicholas. It is believed that Nicholas was born sometime around 280 A.D. in Patara, near Myra in modern-day Turkey. Much admired for his piety and kindness, St. Nicholas became the subject of many legends. It is said that he gave away all of his inherited wealth and traveled the countryside helping the poor and sick. One of the best known of the St. Nicholas stories is that he saved three poor sisters from being sold into slavery or prostitution by their father by providing them with a dowry so that they could be married. Over the course of many years, Nicholas’s popularity spread and he became known as the protector of children and sailors. His feast day is celebrated on the anniversary of his death, December 6. This was traditionally considered a lucky day to make large purchases or to get married. By the Renaissance, St. Nicholas was the most popular saint in Europe. Even after the Protestant Reformation, when the veneration of saints began to be discouraged, St. Nicholas maintained a positive reputation, especially in Holland.

St. Nicholas made his first inroads into American popular culture towards the end of the 18th century. In December 1773, and again in 1774, a New York newspaper reported that groups of Dutch families had gathered to honor the anniversary of his death.

The name Santa Claus evolved from Nick’s Dutch nickname, Sinter Klaas, a shortened form of Sint Nikolaas (Dutch for Saint Nicholas). In 1804, John Pintard, a member of the New York Historical Society, distributed woodcuts of St. Nicholas at the society’s annual meeting. The background of the engraving contains now-familiar Santa images including stockings filled with toys and fruit hung over a fireplace. In 1809, Washington Irving helped to popularize the Sinter Klaas stories when he referred to St. Nicholas as the patron saint of New York in his book, The History of New York. As his prominence grew, Sinter Klaas was described as everything from a “rascal” with a blue three-cornered hat, red waistcoat, and yellow stockings to a man wearing a broad-brimmed hat and a “huge pair of Flemish trunk hose.”

In 1822, Clement Clarke Moore, an Episcopal minister, wrote a long Christmas poem for his three daughters entitled, “An Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas.” Moore’s poem, which he was initially hesitant to publish due to the frivolous nature of its subject, is largely responsible for our modern image of Santa Claus as a “right jolly old elf” with a portly figure and the supernatural ability to ascend a chimney with a mere nod of his head! Although some of Moore’s imagery was probably borrowed from other sources, his poem helped to popularize the now-familiar idea of a Santa Claus who flew from house to house on Christmas Eve—in “a miniature sleigh” led by eight flying reindeer, whom he also named—leaving presents for deserving children. “An Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas,” created a new and immediately popular American icon. In 1881, political cartoonist Thomas Nast drew on Moore’s poem to create the first likeness that matches our modern image of Santa Claus. His cartoon, which appeared in Harper’s Weekly, depicted Santa as a rotund, cheerful man with a full, white beard, holding a sack laden with toys for lucky children. It is Nast who gave Santa his bright red suit trimmed with white fur, North Pole workshop, elves, and his wife, Mrs. Claus.

Gift-giving, mainly centered around children, has been an important part of the Christmas celebration since the holiday’s rejuvenation in the early 19th century. Stores began to advertise Christmas shopping in 1820, and by the 1840s, newspapers were creating separate sections for holiday advertisements, which often featured images of the newly-popular Santa Claus. In 1841, thousands of children visited a Philadelphia shop to see a life-size Santa Claus model. It was only a matter of time before stores began to attract children, and their parents, with the lure of a peek at a “live” Santa Claus. In the early 1890s, the Salvation Army needed money to pay for the free Christmas meals they provided to needy families. They began dressing up unemployed men in Santa Claus suits and sending them into the streets of New York to solicit donations. Those familiar Salvation Army Santas have been ringing bells on the street corners of American cities ever since.

18th-century America’s Santa Claus was not the only St. Nicholas-inspired gift-giver to make an appearance at Christmastime. Similar figures were popular all over the world. Christkind or Kris Kringle was believed to deliver presents to well-behaved Swiss and German children. Meaning “Christ child,” Christkind is an angel-like figure often accompanied by St. Nicholas on his holiday missions. In Scandinavia, a jolly elf named Jultomten was thought to deliver gifts in a sleigh drawn by goats. English legend explains that Father Christmas visits each home on Christmas Eve to fill children’s stockings with holiday treats. Pere Noel is responsible for filling the shoes of French children. In Russia, it is believed that an elderly woman named Babouschka purposely gave the wise men wrong directions to Bethlehem so that they couldn’t find Jesus. Later, she felt remorseful, but could not find the men to undo the damage. To this day, on January 5, Babouschka visits Russian children leaving gifts at their bedsides in the hope that one of them is the baby Jesus and she will be forgiven. In Italy, a similar story exists about a woman called La Befana, a kindly witch who rides a broomstick down the chimneys of Italian homes to deliver toys into the stockings of lucky children.

Rudolph, “the most famous reindeer of all,” was born over a hundred years after his eight flying counterparts. The red-nosed wonder was the creation of Robert L. May, a copywriter at the Montgomery Ward department store.

In 1939, May wrote a Christmas-themed story-poem to help bring holiday traffic into his store. Using a similar rhyme pattern to Moore’s “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas,” May told the story of Rudolph, a young reindeer who was teased by the other deer because of his large, glowing, red nose. But, When Christmas Eve turned foggy and Santa worried that he wouldn’t be able to deliver gifts that night, the former outcast saved Christmas by leading the sleigh by the light of his red nose. Rudolph’s message—that given the opportunity, a liability can be turned into an asset—proved popular. Montgomery Ward sold almost two and a half million copies of the story in 1939. When it was reissued in 1946, the book sold over three and half million copies. Several years later, one of May’s friends, Johnny Marks, wrote a short song based on Rudolph’s story (1949). It was recorded by Gene Autry and sold over two million copies. Since then, the story has been translated into 25 languages and been made into a television movie, narrated by Burl Ives, which has charmed audiences every year since 1964.

That is about all we have time for. All this information was obtained from the HistoryChannel website. There is more information there as well as on the HistoryPodcast website at historypodcast.blogspot.com. You can contact me at historypodcast@gmail.com. Please send in your questions, comments and episodes to that address. Please add your self to the frapper map so Santa can find you. Don’t forget to post your thoughts about this episode on the forms. Links to all this and more at the website. Have a Merry Christmas and happy new year!

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HP038: New Thought

HP038: New Thought

A new episode from Christy Croft. The New Thought Movement describes a set of religious developments that originated in the United States during the late 19th century, beginning with Phineas Parkhurst Quimby. From this movement, several religious denominations have emerged that are actively spreading today, including Divine Science, Religious Science, the Universal Foundation for Better Living, and the Unity Church. Although Emma Curtis Hopkins, formerly associated with Christian Science, was considered the teacher of teachers of several key New Thought groups, Christian Science developed in a different direction and is not considered a New Thought denomination.

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HP037: Sealand

HP037: Sealand

The Principality of Sealand is a micronation (a self-declared, unrecognised state-like entity) located in the North Sea six miles (10 km) off the coast of Essex, United Kingdom.

Coordinates for Sealand:
51° 53’40 N, 1° 28’57 E

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Hello and welcome to another episode of HistoryPodcast. For all of those just joining us and to jog the memory of long time listeners, my name is Jason Watts and I like history. I really like it. The only problem is I don’t know Jack about it. That is why I started this podcast. I want to learn more about history and I enjoy researching history topics. I podcast them because I figured that there may be other people like me who want to learn more about history.

I think history can be boring, but I also think that there are thousands of things that have happened that are very interesting and worth talking about. The most important part of this podcast is you, the listener. I want this podcast to form a community of people interested in history. To that end I have a website which list related sites, books and anything else I think is pertinent to the episode. If a episode interest you and you want to learn more please visit the website there is a lot of information there. Also, there are forms where you can read what other listeners have to say and post your own comments. Lastly, again, driving home my point this is your podcast! Please email me and let me know what you would like me to do a show on, or better yet email in your own show just like Tom and Christy have done.

The website is located at historypodcast.blogspot.com and my email address is historypodcast@gmail.com. Please email me with feedback, questions or comments. I would also like to mention that I do not have a formal background in history other than a few general education classes in college. I am an avid reader and do research on a lot of historical topics, but this in no way qualifies me to be an expert, so from time to time you will hear me make mistakes and mispronunciations. Please bear with me I am learning as we go along. Sorry for the long introduction today. Lets get to the history!

A big thank you to Tim for recommending this topic for an episode on historypodcast. As I read “sealand” as a suggestion for a topic, I thought Tim had made a typo or he was asking for the history of some kind of denture adhesive. Of course, I was wrong and Tim was asking about the Principality of Sealand.

The Principality of Sealand is a micronation. Whats a micronation? A micronation is a self-declared but unrecognized state-like entity. Basically, for the purpose of this topic it is a made up state or country. Roughs Tower is a former Maunsell Sea Fort located in the North Sea six miles off the coast of Essex, United Kingdom. Exact coordinates can be found on the website. I checked with google maps and it doesn’t show up, too small. Same situation with Google Earth.

Sealand is occupied by the Paddy Roy Bates family. The population of the facility rarely exceeds five, and its living area is 5,920 square feet. Although it claims to sovereignty and legitimacy it is not recognized by any traditional States, it is nevertheless sometimes cited in debates as an interesting case study of how various principles of international law can be applied to a disputed territory. There is even a book on the subject that discusses Sealand called How to Start Your Own Country by Edwin S. Strauss. See the website for a link.

On February 8th, 1942 HM Fort Roughs was commissioned by the UK. Its purpose was to protect against aerial attacks from Germany. It comprised a floating pontoon base with a superstructure of two hollow towers joined by a deck upon which other structures could be added. The fort was towed to a position above Rough Sands sandbar where its base was intentionally flooded so that it sank to a resting place on the sandbar. The location chosen was in international waters, outside the then three-mile territorial water claim of the United Kingdom. Throughout the war it was occupied by 150-300 Royal Navy personnel; however, after the war all personnel was evacuated and HMS Fort Roughs was abandoned.

In the 60’s these Maunsells, which look like very small oil rigs, were used often for pirate radio stations. On September 2, 1967, the fort was occupied by Paddy Roy Bates, a British subject and pirate-radio broadcaster, who ejected a competing group of pirate broadcasters and claimed sovereignty on the basis of his interpretation of international law.

In 1968, Roy’s son Michael Bates was summoned to court as a result of an incident during which shots were fired at a British navy vessel in the vicinity of Sealand. According to some reports the vessel’s occupants were intending to evict Bates from the fortress, while others state that they were simply attempting to repair a nearby navigation buoy. In yet another I found that the British officers were making lewd comments toward a nude sunbather and this set Michael Bates off.

In delivering its decision on November 25, 1968, the court stated that because the incident occurred outside British territorial waters, the court possessed no jurisdiction to rule on the matter.

In 1978, while Bates was away, the Prime Minister he had appointed, Alexander G. Achenbach, and several German and Dutch citizens staged a forcible takeover of Roughs Tower, holding Bates’ son Michael captive, before releasing him several days later in the Netherlands.

Bates then enlisted armed assistance and, in a helicopter assault, retook the fortress. He then held the invaders captive, claiming them as prisoners of war. Most participants in the invasion were returned at the end of the so called war, but Gernot Pütz, a German lawyer who held a Sealand passport, was charged with treason against Sealand and was held for 75,000 DM ($46,000 USD). The governments of the Netherlands and Germany petitioned the British government for his release, but the United Kingdom disavowed all responsibility, citing the 1968 court decision.

Germany then sent a diplomat from its London embassy to Roughs Tower to negotiate for Pütz’s release, and after several weeks Roy Bates relented, subsequently claiming that the diplomat’s visit constituted de facto recognition of Sealand by Germany. Germany has not commented on this interpretation.

Following his return, Achenbach established an “exile government” in Germany, in opposition to Roy Bates, assuming the title of “Chairman of the Privy Council”. Upon Achenbach’s resignation for health reasons in August 1989, the rebel government’s “Minister for Economic Co-operation”, Johannes Seiger, assumed control, with the position of “Prime Minister and Chairman of the Privy Council”. Seiger continues to claim that he is Sealand’s legitimate ruling authority.

Sealand claims the waters surrounding Roughs Tower to the extent of twelve nautical miles, and it has claimed to have physically defended this claim on at least one occasion. In an incident in 1990, the Royal Maritime Auxiliary vessel Golden Eye was fired upon from Sealand.

For a period, Sealand passports were mass-manufactured and sold widely by a Spanish-based group believed to be associated with the exile government under Seiger. These passports, which were not authorized by the Bates family, were involved in several high-profile crimes, including the murder of Gianni Versace. Due to the massive quantity in circulation, an estimated 150,000, in 1997 the Bates family revoked all of the Sealand passports that they themselves had issued in the previous thirty years.

Sealand’s claim that it is an independent state is founded on the following two propositions:

1.When Paddy Roy Bates and his associates occupied Roughs Tower in 1967 it was located in international waters, outside the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom and all other sovereign states. Sealand claims legitimacy on this basis.

2.The interactions of the UK government and of other governments – specifically the government of Germany – with Sealand constitute de facto recognition. Sealand claims de facto legitimacy on this basis.

Since the 1968 UK court decision, the United Kingdom has extended its territorial sea to twelve nautical miles, which it had the legal right to do under international law since 1958. These and subsequent laws have dealt with the construction and legal position of artificial islands. However, as Roughs Tower is actually a sunken ship, it is not covered by these rulings.

According to the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, there is no transitional law and no possibility to consent to the existence of a construction, which was previously approved or built by a neighboring state. This means that artificial islands may no longer be constructed and then claimed as sovereign states, or as state territories, for the purposes of extension of an exclusive economic zone or of territorial waters. However, since Roughs Tower is not an artificial island but a sunken ship, it would be necessary for Her Majesty’s Crown Estate (which owns the land itself under the tower) to act as the complainant landlord in order to get the wreck removed from its property.

Although the UK has publicly asserted its authority over Roughs Tower, it appears to be government policy to refrain from comment or action except when forced. British Government documents, now available to the public under the 30 year expiry of confidentiality, show that the UK drafted plans to take the tower by force, but such plans were not implemented by the then Prime Minister due to the potential for loss of life, and the creation of a legal and public relations disaster.

According to the Wikipedia entry:

A report in the Times on December 6, 2005 claimed that the British government and courts finally admitted that Sealand “is outside British national territory […] and not part of the United Kingdom.”

Irrespective of its legal status, Sealand is managed by the Bates family as though it were a recognized sovereign entity, and they its hereditary royal rulers.

Roy and Joan Bates have been referred to internally since the foundation of Sealand as “Their Royal Highnesses Prince Roy and Princess Joan of Sealand”. Roy Bates is styled “Sovereign”, and Joan Bates is sometimes described as being “in joint rule” with him. Their son is known as “His Royal Highness Prince Michael”. Michael Bates has been referred to as the “Prince Regent” since 1999. In this role he apparently serves as Sealand’s acting “Head of State” and also its “Head of Government”. At a micronations conference hosted by the University of Sunderland on November 25, 2004, Sealand was represented by Michael Bates’ son James, who was referred to as “Prince Royal James”.

Sealand’s royals are all believed to retain UK citizenship, and the family has not been in permanent residence on the Roughs Tower facility since 1999. The facility is now occupied by one or more caretakers representing Michael Bates, who himself lives in Leigh on Sea, England. As Sealand is not a recognized country, the Bates family officially travel internationally as British subjects.

Sealand possesses a simple constitution, instituted in 1995, which consists of a preamble and seven articles.

In the year 2000 worldwide publicity was created about Sealand due to the establishment of a new entity called HavenCo, a data haven, which effectively took control of Roughs Tower itself. According to the Sealand official website, no other visitors or activities would be permitted. The original claim to the right to occupy Roughs Tower was maintained by Michael Bates, whose father Roy has removed himself to a great extent from further daily involvement.

Sealand’s legal system is claimed to follow British common law, and statutes take the form of Decrees enacted by the Sovereign.

HavenCo Limited is a data hosting services company founded in 2000 which operates from Sealand. It was registered by Michael Bates through Companies House, a part of the UK Department of Trade and Industry, on August 22, 2000. The directors were listed as Michael Roy Bates, who was named Chief Operating Officer, and Ryan Donald Lackey, a US citizen. Other founders included Sean and Jo Hastings and Avi Freedman. The company later relocated its registration to Cyprus.

HavenCo initially received broad coverage in the international media, appearing on the cover of Wired magazine, in over 200 other articles and in several television reports. In these reports, HavenCo claimed to have established a secure colocation facility on Sealand, and that it had commenced operations as a data haven. Detractors claim that these reports gave the impression that HavenCo was registered on Sealand itself, and that the company would issue domain names under the authority of that entity, when in fact it had no entitlement to do so.

The company announced that it had become operational in December 2000, and that its acceptable use policy prohibited child pornography, spamming, and malicious hacking, but that all other content was acceptable. It claimed that it had no restrictions on copyright or intellectual property for data hosted on its servers, arguing that as Sealand was not a member of the World Trade Organization, international intellectual property law did not apply. Other services available from HavenCo at the time included IT consulting, systems administration, offshore software development, and electronic mail services.

***Following the terrorist attacks on the US on September 11, 2001, Lackey announced that the operation would block initiatives “contrary to international custom and practice.” HavenCo claimed that it had experienced few difficulties with any foreign government or organisation, although according to detractors, the British government “reacted quietly” by enforcing British laws concerning unlicensed data transmissions to and from Sealand, although it is unclear what is meant by this, and no evidence has been produced in support of these claims.

Ryan Lackey left HavenCo under bad circumstances in 2001, citing disagreements with the Bates family over management of the company. HavenCo itself is still in operation, but handled through the Sealand Web reseller company. “Havenco has been going through some changes and now have a reseller company that is taking over end user sales and support issues. The service will still be supplied by Havenco, just managed and paid for through the reseller company Sealandweb.”

Sealand first issued postage stamps in 1969, when a helicopter service was instituted to carry mail between Roughs Tower and Brussels, Belgium. A significant volume of mail carrying Sealand stamps and postmarks was accepted without surcharge and passed by Belgian postal authorities into the international postal system at this time, which seems to indicate that a formal arrangement of some sort existed between them and Sealand.

Although few stamp issues have been made since early 1970s, Sealand postage stamps and postal cancellations continue to be used on most if not all mail from the principality, although the actual volume of such mail is believed to be limited.

The official policy of the United Kingdom’s Royal Mail is to stamp envelopes not bearing UK stamps with a ‘revenue protection’ cancellation, meaning that postal carriage charges may be claimed from the recipient – although recent examples exist of mail bearing Sealand stamps and cancellations, to the exclusion of all others, being transmitted through the international postal system.

Sealand is not a member of the Universal Postal Union, which regulates the sending of mail between countries, and its address is in what it claims is a foreign country. The address publicised by Sealand as its postal address is: ‘Sealand 1001; Sealand Post Bag, UK’. The Royal Mail postcode is the one for Felixstowe near Ipswich, and the Royal Mail website gives the following standardised address: ‘Sealand Fort, PO Box 3, FELIXSTOWE, UK’.

Sealand has declared its currency to be the “Sealand Dollar”, which it deems to be at parity with the U.S. dollar. Several dozen different coins have been minted since 1972 in various units of this currency. Given Sealand’s limited population, physical inaccessibility and lack of a real economy it is unlikely that these coins were ever intended for use as circulating currency. Most were produced in precious metals, which have appeal to investors and coin collectors. In the early 1990s, Achenbach’s German group also produced a coin, featuring a likeness of Prime Minister Seiger.

Sealand may soon have some new neighbors – several offshore wind farms are proposed to be built nearby. It is thought that any such developments would not require the British government to interact with Sealand in any fashion, however there may be scope for challenges over usage of sea rights over the different claims of UK and Sealand territorial waters.

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HP036: Ottoman Empire

HP036: Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman Empire was an imperial power, centered around the borders of the Mediterranean Sea, that existed from 1299 to 1922. At the height of its power in the 16th century, it included Anatolia, the Middle East, parts of North Africa, much of south-eastern Europe to the Caucasus in the north. It comprised an area of about 19.9 million km², though much of this was under indirect control of the central government. The Empire was situated in the middle of East and West, and interacted throughout its six-century history with both the East and the West.

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The Ottoman Empire was an imperial power centered around the borders of the Mediterranean Sea that existed from 1281 to 1923. Although, these exact dates are debated by historians, it is generally agreed that the fall of the Byzantine Empire marks the beinging and the establishment of Turkey in 1922 marks the end. At its height, the empire consisted of Antolia (modern day turkey), the Middle East, parts of North Africa, and much of south-eastern Europe. It was founded by a tribe of Oghuz Turks (the nomadic indigenous people of central Asia) in western Antolia and governed by the Osmanli dynasty, the descendents of those Turks.

The Empire was named after Oman the first. In Arabic his name (Uthman) sounds similar to Ottoman. Osman was a prince in Bithynia who began to conquest neighboring regions and who founded the empire’s dynasty around 1300.

The initial period of the Empire from about 1300 to 1481, was one of continous expansion of territory through war, alliances, and purchase. Osman and his sucessors counqured almost all of Anatolia. Alliances with different factions of the Byzantine Empire won the Ottoman’s a foothold in Europe in1336. At Kosovo in 1389 Murad, who ruled from 1360 to 1389, defeated the Balkan allies to complete Ottoman rule of that territory.

Bayezid who ruled from 1389 to 1402 increased the strength of Ottoman rule and was awarded the title of sultan by the Caliph of Cario. The rapid advancement of the Ottoman’s made Timur the leader of Tatar stand up and take notice. So much so that he pulled out of a conquest of India to protect his western flank. It was a good decision. With his extra forces he was able to defeat an Ottoman army at Ankara in 1402.

Of Bayezid’s four sons Mehmed emerged as sultan in 1413. Under his and his sucessor rule the Empire grew strong, defeating an army at Varna in 1444. In 1453 Constaninople was obtained, and later Morea, Trebizond, Bosnia, Albania the Crimea, and other areas all fell.

To supply their armies the Ottoman’s would draft Christian youths from the Balkan’s and convert them to Islam for a lifetime of service. This system of recruitment was called devsirme. Furthermore, as decreed by Mehmed II, all members of the government and army were to accpet the status of personal slave to the sultan.

Under Selim, who regined from 1512 to 1520 expansion increased dramatcially. He defeated the Mamluks in 1516 and 1517, which doubled the size of the empire, adding to it Syria, Palestine, Egypt and Algeria. Under Selim’s son, Suleyman (1520-1566) also known as “the magnificent” in Europe, the empire enjoyed it’s golden age. He conqured Hungry, Tripoli and extended the empire southeastward through Mesopotamia to the Persian Gulf. He also made the Ottoman Empire navy dominant in the eastern Mediterranean.

After Suleyman’s regin the empire started to decline. Eventhough, territorial expansion continued with Caucasus and Azerbaijan, the new sultans lacked the abilities of the predicessors. The fall of the empire is due in part to the increasing power the devsirme class and the tensions it created within the ruling class. The Ottoman industry began to erode. The number of Ottoman controlled trade routes begain to decrease.

Reforms were put in place in the 17th century, but they proved too weak. Meanwhile new powers within Europe forged alliances to drive the Ottoman’s out of the continent.

In the 18th century the empire saw the decay of rural administration into small, fuedal-like states and increased unrest in the cities, disrupting food supplies and leading to widespread famine. The empire withdrew from western styles and technologies. A revolt led by Msutafa IV in 1807 squashed Selim IInds attempt to modernize the government.

Mahumd II begain his reign in 1808 and faced desperate times. The local authorities openly opsoed the central government. In addition, the Ottoman Empire was at war with England and Russia. In the next few decades Mahumd reorganized the government and modernized the military. However, the boundries of the empire began to shrink.

Mahumd’s sons, Abdulmecid I and Abdulaziz established a series of liberal reforms called the Tazimat. In the west, these reforms were seen as an effort to encourage friendly relations with Euopean powers. Among the reforms were the first in depth education system and the westernization of commercial, martime, and penal codes.

This centralization of power removed all checks on the power of the emperor. In 1876 Abdulhamid II agreed to a constitution, the first in an Islamic country. Two years later as a result of the Treaty of San Stefano and negociations at the Congress of Berlin, the empire was forced to give up Romina, Serbia, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Cypress and other territories.

Abdulhamid was able to keep the remainder of the empire together through the end of the century. Although, there were may revolts, most notably that of the Young Turks. The Balkan wars of 1912 through 1913 almost succeed in pushing the empire out of the country.

After World War I and the immediate revolution the 36th and final Ottoman emporer Mehmed VI Vahideddin was overthrown in 1922 and modern Turkey was formed.

The Ottoman Empire was an imperial power, centered around the borders of the Mediterranean Sea, that existed from 1299 to 1922. At the height of its power in the 16th century, it included Anatolia, the Middle East, parts of North Africa, much of south-eastern Europe to the Caucasus in the north. It comprised an area of about 19.9 million km², though much of this was under indirect control of the central government. The Empire was situated in the middle of East and West, and interacted throughout its six-century history with both the East and the West.

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HP034: Thanksgiving

HP034: Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is an annual holiday observed in the United States and Canada. The most common view of its origin is that it was to give thanks to the Judeo-Christian God for the bounty of the autumn harvest. In this episode we will discuss some common misconceptions and the origins of this holiday celebration. This is also the last episode before I go on vacation. I will be back the week of December 5th.

Links:

Further Reading:

In 1621 the Plymouth colonists and the Wampanoag Indians shared an autumn harvest feast which is now known as the first Thanksgiving.

But first a little background with the help of James Loewen’s book, Lies My Teacher Told Me. Lowen reminds us that out of the 102 settlers aboard the Mayflower only about 35 of them were Pilgrims as we understand the word today. The rest were ordinary folk seeking fortunes in the new Virgina Colony.

Why did the settlers chose Plymouth? Lowen explains that, “The Pilgrims chose Plymouth because of its beautful clear fields, recently planted in corn, and it’s useful harbor and brook of fresh water. The perfect site for a town. Thats because it was until the plague (not the black plague, that was in Euope, here we are talking about the plague that all the previous visitors to North America gave the Indians). In fact this was the home town of Squanto. “One Colonist in 1622 noted that This bay werein we live, in former time hath lived about 2,000 Indians.

While we are on the subject of Squanto, how did that guy even know English? “According to Fedinandi Gorges, around 1605 a British captain stole Squanto, who was then still a boy, along with four others, and took them to England. There Squanto spent nine years, three in the employ of Gorges. At length, Gorges helped Squanto arrange passage back to Massachusetts. Some historians doubt that Squanto was among the five Indians stolen in 1605. All sources agree however, that in 1614 a British slave raider seized Squanto and two dozen fellow Indians and sold them into slavery in Malaga, Spain. Squanto oescaped from slavery, escaped from Spain, and made his way back to Enlgand. After trying to get home via Newfoundland, in 1619 he talked Thomas Demer into taking him alson on this next trip to Cape Cod. When Squanto did return to his town in Massachusetts he found that all of the people in his village had died about 2 years ago.

The Pilgrims did not introduce the tradition of Thanksgiving; Eastern Indians had observed autumnal harvest celebrations for centuries. Although Geroge Washington did set aside days for national Tahnksgiving, our celebrations date back only to 1863. During the Civil War Abraham Lincoln proclaimed Thanksgiving a national holiday. Not until the 1890s did that Pilgrims even get associated with Thanksgiving. For that matter no one even used the term Pilgrim until the 1870s.

A very interesting story from Loewen’s chapter on Thanksgiving was that in “…1970 the Massachusetts Department of Commerce asked the Wampanoags to select a speaker to mark the 350th anniversary of the Pilgrims’ landing. Frank James was selected, but first he had to show a copy of his speech to the white people in charge of the ceremony. When they saw what he had written, they would not allow him to read it. James had written:

Today is a time to celebrate for you…but it is not a time for celebrating for me. It is with a heavy heart that I look upon what happened to my people…The Pilgrims had hardly explored the shores of Cape Cod four days before the had robbed the graves of my ancestors, and stolen their corn, wheat and beans…Massasoit, the great leader of the Wampanoag, knew these facts; yet he and his People welcomed and befriended the settlers…,little knowing that…before 50 years were to pass, the Wampanoags and other Indians living near the settlers would be killed by their guns or dead from diseases we caught from them…Although out way of life is almost gone and our language is almost extinct, we the Wampanoags still walk the lands of Massachusetts…What has happened cannot be changed, but today we work toward a better America, a more Indian America where people and nature once again are important.”

What Was Actually on the Menu of the first Thanksgiving?

Historians aren’t completely certain about the full bounty, but it’s safe to say the pilgrims weren’t gobbling up pumpkin pie or playing with their mashed potatoes. The only two items that historians know for sure were on the menu are venison and wild fowl, which are mentioned in primary sources. The most detailed description of the “First Thanksgiving” comes from Edward Winslow from A Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, in 1621:

“Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labors. They four in one day killed as much fowl as, with a little help beside, served the company almost a week. At which time, among other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest king Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer, which they brought to the plantation and bestowed upon our governor, and upon the captain, and others. And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want that we often wish you partakers of our plenty.

Did you know that lobster, seal and swans were on the Pilgrims’ menu? Learn more…

Seventeenth Century Table Manners

The pilgrims didn’t use forks; they ate with spoons, knives, and their fingers. They wiped their hands on large cloth napkins which they also used to pick up hot morsels of food. Salt would have been on the table at the harvest feast, and people would have sprinkled it on their food. Pepper, however, was something that they used for cooking but wasn’t available on the table.

In the seventeenth century, a person’s social standing determined what he or she ate. The best food was placed next to the most important people. People didn’t tend to sample everything that was on the table (as we do today), they just ate what was closest to them.

Serving in the seventeenth century was very different from serving today. People weren’t served their meals individually. Foods were served onto the table and then people took the food from the table and ate it. All the servers had to do was move the food from the place where it was cooked onto the table.

Pilgrims didn’t eat in courses as we do today. All of the different types of foods were placed on the table at the same time and people ate in any order they chose. Sometimes there were two courses, but each of them would contain both meat dishes, puddings, and sweets.

More Meat, Less Vegetables

Our modern Thanksgiving repast is centered around the turkey, but that certainly wasn’t the case at the pilgrims’s feasts. Their meals included many different meats. Vegetable dishes, one of the main components of our modern celebration, didn’t really play a large part in the feast mentality of the seventeenth century. Depending on the time of year, many vegetables weren’t available to the colonists.

The pilgrims probably didn’t have pies or anything sweet at the harvest feast. They had brought some sugar with them on the Mayflower but by the time of the feast, the supply had dwindled. Also, they didn’t have an oven so pies and cakes and breads were not possible at all. The food that was eaten at the harvest feast would have seemed fatty by 1990’s standards, but it was probably more healthy for the pilgrims than it would be for people today. The colonists were more active and needed more protein. Heart attack was the least of their worries. They were more concerned about the plague and pox.

Surprisingly Spicy Cooking

People tend to think of English food at bland, but, in fact, the pilgrims used many spices, including cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, pepper, and dried fruit, in sauces for meats. In the seventeenth century, cooks did not use proportions or talk about teaspoons and tablespoons. Instead, they just improvised. The best way to cook things in the seventeenth century was to roast them. Among the pilgrims, someone was assigned to sit for hours at a time and turn the spit to make sure the meat was evenly done.

Since the pilgrims and Wampanoag Indians had no refrigeration in the seventeenth century, they tended to dry a lot of their foods to preserve them. They dried Indian corn, hams, fish, and herbs.

Dinner for Breakfast: Pilgrim Meals

The biggest meal of the day for the colonists was eaten at noon and it was called noonmeat or dinner. The housewives would spend part of their morning cooking that meal. Supper was a smaller meal that they had at the end of the day. Breakfast tended to be leftovers from the previous day’s noonmeat.

In a pilgrim household, the adults sat down to eat and the children and servants waited on them. The foods that the colonists and Wampanoag Indians ate were very similar, but their eating patterns were different. While the colonists had set eating patterns–breakfast, dinner, and supper–the Wampanoags tended to eat when they were hungry and to have pots cooking throughout the day.

Myths

Myth: The first Thanksgiving was in 1621 and the pilgrims celebrated it every year thereafter.

Fact: The first feast wasn’t repeated, so it wasn’t the beginning of a tradition. In fact, the colonists didn’t even call the day Thanksgiving. To them, a thanksgiving was a religious holiday in which they would go to church and thank God for a specific event, such as the winning of a battle. On such a religious day, the types of recreational activities that the pilgrims and Wampanoag Indians participated in during the 1621

harvest feast–dancing, singing secular songs, playing games–wouldn’t have been allowed. The feast was a secular celebration, so it never would have been considered a thanksgiving in the pilgrims minds.

Myth: The original Thanksgiving feast took place on the fourth Thursday of November.

Fact: The original feast in 1621 occurred sometime between September 21 and November 11. Unlike our modern holiday, it was three days long. The event was based on English harvest festivals, which traditionally occurred around the 29th of September. After that first harvest was completed by the Plymouth colonists, Gov. William Bradford proclaimed a day of thanksgiving and prayer, shared by all the colonists and neighboring Indians. In 1623 a day of fasting and prayer during a period of drought was changed to one of thanksgiving because the rain came during the prayers. Gradually the custom prevailed in New England of annually celebrating thanksgiving after the harvest.

During the American Revolution a yearly day of national thanksgiving was suggested by the Continental Congress. In 1817 New York State adopted Thanksgiving Day as an annual custom, and by the middle of the 19th century many other states had done the same. In 1863 President Abraham Lincoln appointed a day of thanksgiving as the last Thursday in November, which he may have correlated it with the November 21, 1621, anchoring of the Mayflower at Cape Cod. Since then, each president has issued a Thanksgiving Day proclamation. President Franklin D. Roosevelt set the date for Thanksgiving to the fourth Thursday of November in 1939 (approved by Congress in 1941).

Myth: The pilgrims wore only black and white clothing. They had buckles on their hats, garments, and shoes.

Fact: Buckles did not come into fashion until later in the seventeenth century and black and white were commonly worn only on Sunday and formal occasions. Women typically dressed in red, earthy green, brown, blue, violet, and gray, while men wore clothing in white, beige, black, earthy green, and brown.

Myth: The pilgrims brought furniture with them on the Mayflower.

Fact: The only furniture that the pilgrims brought on the Mayflower was chests and boxes. They constructed wooden furniture once they settled in Plymouth.

Myth: The Mayflower was headed for Virginia, but due to a navigational mistake it ended up in Cape Cod Massachusetts.

Fact: The Pilgrims were in fact planning to settle in Virginia, but not the modern-day state of Virginia. They were part of the Virginia Company, which had the rights to most of the eastern seaboard of the U.S. The pilgrims had intended to go to the Hudson River region in New York State, which would have been considered “Northern Virginia,” but they landed in Cape Cod instead. Treacherous seas prevented them from venturing further south.

Thanksgiving is an annual holiday observed in the United States and Canada. The most common view of its origin is that it was to give thanks to the Judeo-Christian God for the bounty of the autumn harvest. In this episode we will discuss some common misconceptions and the origins of this holiday celebration. This is also the last episode before I go on vacation. I will be back the week of December 5th.

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HP033: Steve Biko

HP033: Steve Biko

Stephen Bantu Biko was a noted nonviolent anti-apartheid activist in South Africa in the 1960s.

This episode was a request from Bo back in August.

Links:

Further Reading:

Other Related Links:

Music Heard on this Episode

Hello and welcome to this 33rd episode of HistoryPodcast. Ok here’s my little diclosure. I’m not a professional DJ and I am not a historian. Only a guy who enjoys history and podcasting. I put those together and here you have it! I will make mistakes.

On to the show. The two songs you will here in the background are: African Dope Records with Black Dillenger Big Trouble and Hungry Lucy with In the Circle. Today we are going to listen to a request from Bo back in August. Bo, thanks for introducing me and the rest of us to Steven Bantu Biko.

From About.com
Stephen Bantu (Steve) Biko
Founder and martyr of the Black Consciousness movement in South Africa

Date of birth: 18 December 1946, King William’s Town, Eastern Cape, South Africa

Date of death: 12 September 1977, Pretoria prison cell, South Africa

From an early age Steve Biko showed an interest in anti-Apartheid politics. After being expelled from his first school, Lovedale, in the Eastern Cape for ‘anti-establishment’ behaviour, he was transferred to a Roman Catholic boarding school in Natal. From there he enrolled as a student at the University of Natal Medical School (Black Section). While at medical school Biko became involved with the National Union of South African Students (NUSAS). But the union was dominated by white liberals and failed to represent the needs of black students, so Biko resigned in 1969 and founded the South African Students’ Organisation (SASO). SASO was involved in providing legal aid and medical clinics, as well as helping to develop cottage industries for disadvantaged black communities.

In 1972 Biko was one of the founders of the Black Peoples Convention (BPC) working on social upliftment projects around Durban. The BPC effectively brought together roughly 70 different black consciousness groups and associations, such as the South African Student’s Movement (SASM), which played a significant role in the 1976 uprisings, the National Association of Youth Organisations (NAYO), and the Black Workers Project (BWP) which supported black workers whose unions were not recognised under the Apartheid regime. Biko was elected as the first president of the BPC and was promptly expelled from medical school. He started working full time for the Black Community Programme (BCP) in Durban which he also helped found.

In 1973 Steve Biko was ‘banned’ by the Apartheid government. Under the ‘ban’ Biko was restricted to his home town of Kings William’s Town in the Eastern Cape – he could no longer support the BCP in Durban, but was able to continue working for the BPC – he helped set up the Zimele Trust Fund which assisted political prisoners and their families. (Biko was elected Honorary President of the BPC in January 1977.)

Biko was detained and interrogated four times between August 1975 and September 1977 under Apartheid era anti-terrorism legislation. On 21 August 1977 Biko was detained by the Eastern Cape security police and held in Port Elizabeth. From the Walmer police cells he was taken for interrogation at the security police headquarters. On 7 September “Biko sustained a head injury during interrogation, after which he acted strangely and was uncooperative. The doctors who examined him (naked, lying on a mat and manacled to a metal grille) initially disregarded overt signs of neurological injury.”1

By 11 September Biko had slipped into a continual, semi-conscious state and the police physician recommended a transfer to hospital. Biko was, however, transported 1,200 km to Pretoria – a 12-hour journey which he made lying naked in the back of a Land Rover. A few hours later, on 12 September, alone and still naked, lying on the floor of a cell in the Pretoria Central Prison, Biko died from brain damage.

The South African Minister of Justice, James (Jimmy) Kruger initially suggested Biko had died of a hunger-strike and said that his death “left him cold”. The hunger strike story was dropped after local and international media pressure, especially from Donald Woods, the editor of the East London Daily Dispatch. It was revealed in the inquest that Biko had died of brain damage, but the magistrate failed to find anyone responsible, ruling that Biko had died as a result of injuries sustained during a scuffle with security police While in detention.

The brutal circumstances of Biko’s death caused a worldwide outcry and he became a martyr and symbol of black resistance to the oppressive Apartheid regime. As a result, the South African government banned a number of individuals (including Donald Woods) and organisations, especially those Black Consciousness groups closely associatiated with Biko. The United Nations Security Council responded by finally imposing an arms embargo against South Africa.

Biko’s family sued the state for damages in 1979 and settled out of court for R65,000 (then equivalent to $25,000).

The three doctors connected with Biko’s case were initially exonerated by the South African Medical Disciplinary Committee. It was not until a second enquiry in 1985, eight years after Biko’s death, that any action was taken against them. The police officers responsible for Biko’s death applied for amnesty during the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings which sat in Port Elizabeth in 1997. The Biko family did not ask the Commission to make a finding on his death.

“The Commission finds that the death in detention of Mr Stephen Bantu Biko on 12 September 1977 was a gross human rights violation. Magistrate Marthinus Prins found that the members of the SAP were not implicated in his death. The magistrate’s finding contributed to the creation of a culture of impunity in the SAP. Despite the inquest finding no person responsible for his death, the Commission finds that, in view of the fact that Biko died in the custody of law enforcement officials, the probabilities are that he died as a result of injuries sustained during his detention.”1

1.From the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa report, published by Macmillan, March 1999.

Books
Biko by Donald Woods
I Write What I Like by Steve Biko

Thank you all for listening to another historypodcast. You can find out more about Steven Biko via the books and links listed on the website at historypodcast.blogspot.com. If you have suggestions or would like to do your own historypodcast then please send me an email at historypodcast@gmail.com. Many of you have already added yourself to the frapper map on the website. I encourage more of you to do so. It is really cool to see where all of you are listening from. You can get more involved in this podcast by visiting this forums where the transcript of this podcast will be listed in the members only section. Membership is free of course. Thanks for subscribing and I will talk to you again soon. I will let Hungry Lucy end the show for us.

Stephen Bantu Biko was a noted nonviolent anti-apartheid activist in South Africa in the 1960s.

This episode was a request from Bo back in August.

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HP032: Francis Marion

HP032: Francis Marion

Please join me in welcoming Christy Croft from the Thinking Southerner. Christy will be introducing us to Francis Marion an American Brigadier General in the American Revolutionary War. He became known as the “Swamp Fox” for his ability to use decoy and ambush tactics to disrupt enemy communications, capture supplies, and free prisoners.

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Further Reading:

Other Links from this Show

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HP031: H.P. Lovecraft

HP031: H.P. Lovecraft

This is a request from David Potesta from Chicago, IL. Howard Phillips Lovecraft was an American author of fantasy and horror fiction, noted for giving horror stories a science fiction framework. Lovecraft’s readership was limited during his life, but his works have become quite important and influential among writers and fans of horror fiction.

Links:

Further Reading:

USA Today; 02/10/2005

Stephen King, a modern-day master of horror writing, calls Howard Phillips Lovecraft “the 20th-century horror story’s dark and baroque prince.”

Indeed, most of Lovecraft’s stories (largely written in the ’20s and ’30s) are a spooky, guided tour back in time through fictional old New England towns where spirits, gods and demons lurk in shadows. His work inspired nearly every major writer who followed in the pulp horror genre.

Lovecraft died at 46, before his writing received acclaim, so he never knew the extent of his influence in literature and pop culture. Since his death in 1937, a huge fan base has evolved around what he called the “Cthulhu Cult” and is now known as the “Cthulhu Mythos.”

Lovecraft’s influence goes beyond literature. His creatures and characters turn up in the music of rock bands such as Metallica, Black Sabbath and the ’60s group H.P. Lovecraft, as well as in movies such as The Shining , Psycho and The Thing . Even the popular computer game Quake has numerous elements and characters taken from Lovecraft tales.

Source: Belanger, Craig
H.P. Lovecraft; 2005

H.P. Lovecraft was a writer of the early twentieth century whose work helped create the modern horror and fantasy genres. His complex fictional creations, such as the creatures and settings that came to be known as the Cthulhu Mythos, first appeared in the pulp magazines of the 1920s and 1930s, the forum for many of the most popular literary characters of the twentieth century, including Tarzan of the Apes and Conan the Barbarian. Lovecraft was never successful during his lifetime, but after his death he came to be known as one the most influential authors of all time.

Howard Phillips Lovecraft was born in Providence, Rhode Island, on August 20, 1890. His parents were Winfield Scott Lovecraft and Sarah Susan Phillips. He read widely in the classics as a child. Among the many items from his family’s vast library were classical literature and folk tales, including the works of Edgar Allan Poe. Lovecraft also developed into an amateur scientist, cultivating a broad general knowledge of astronomy and chemistry. He attended Slater Avenue School and Hope Street High School in Providence.

The Lovecraft family suffered a series of misfortunes early on in Lovecraft’s life. His father, a traveling salesman, was confined to a mental institution for five years, and died of paresis (complications from syphilis), when Lovecraft was only eight years old, in 1898. His maternal grandfather, Whipple Van Buren Phillips, the primary source for the family fortune, died when Lovecraft was 14 years old, in 1904. Whipple Phillips’ death was followed by a devastating financial loss for the family, and they were forced to leave their home in Providence to share a residence with another family. Because of a nervous breakdown in 1908, Lovecraft never finished high school, nor did he realize his dream of attending Brown University.

Lovecraft was a very prolific writer of fiction and non-fiction throughout his life. During his adolescence, Lovecraft published scientific articles in such periodicals as “The Scientific Gazette,” “The Rhode Island Journal of Astronomy” and the “Providence Tribune.” After his mental breakdown in 1908, he destroyed many of his earliest writings, and withdrew from public life.

Lovecraft first became widely known through his work for pulp magazines. The “pulps” were inexpensive periodicals which published adventure, detective and science fiction stories for a large readership. Among the many other authors who first appeared in the pulps were Dashiell Hammett, creator of the Continental Op and Sam Spade, and Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan the Barbarian.

In 1914, Lovecraft entered into a literary debate with a romance writer, Fred Jackson, whose works had appeared in “The Argosy,” a popular pulp magazine of the era. Lovecraft took exception to Jackson’s writings, and wrote a letter to the editor in protest. The editor was so impressed with Lovecraft that he decided to print the letter, and suggested that Lovecraft join a writer’s group, the United Amateur Press Association (UAPA). The UAPA was an association of self-publishing authors. During this period, Lovecraft became committed to the notion of amateur publishing. Lovecraft’s own magazine, “The Conservative,” was published between 1915 and 1923. He also contributed to many other small magazines managed by his UAPA peers.

Because of interest among other amateur authors in his earlier writings, Lovecraft was encouraged to begin writing fiction again. In 1917, he wrote two of his more important short stories, “Dagon” and “The Tomb.” After these first renewed attempts at fiction, Lovecraft continued writing fiction until his death. “Dagon” first appeared in the October 1923 issue of “Weird Tales” magazine; “The Tomb” was printed in the January 1926 issue.

Although Lovecraft would later be known primarily as a writer of fiction, he was also a very prolific letter-writer, poet and essayist. Several collections of his letters (estimated to be nearly 100,000 in number) have been published, as have his essays and poetry, most notably in a series of books edited by his biographer, S.T. Joshi.

In 1919, Lovecraft’s mother was admitted to a hospital following a nervous breakdown. Two years later, on May 24, 1921, she died of complications from gall bladder surgery. Shortly afterward, Lovecraft met Sonia Haft Greene, the owner of a successful hat shop in New York City. They were married in March 1924. Although they were initially happy and financially secure, partially as a result of the sale of Lovecraft’s stories to magazines, the marriage was troubled. Sonia became ill and was forced to recuperate in several sanitariums, forcing Lovecraft to hunt, unsuccessfully, for a job.

Sonia’s business suffered during her illness, and Lovecraft ultimately grew to resent New York City. He returned to Providence in April 1926, and they were divorced in 1929. Although the couple seem to have parted as friends, it has been speculated that two of Lovecraft’s aunts may have been instrumental in squashing a reconciliation because they feared the impact of Sonia, a Russian Jew, on their social standing in Providence.

Although Lovecraft’s work prior to the 1920s contained some fantasy and horror elements, it was during the last decade of his life that he created the works for which he was to become known as an innovator and an inspiration to generations of science fiction, fantasy and horror writers to follow. During this period, for instance, he wrote some of his important and recognizable works, including a six-part short story, “Herbert West: Reanimator,” another story, “The Rats in the Walls,” and an essay entitled “Supernatural Horror in Literature.” In this essay, considered one of the most concise essays about his craft ever written, Lovecraft outlined a history of the horror genre, and identified several key phases and works.

Although it is difficult to arrange Lovecraft’s career into a precise series of creative phases, there are three distinct types of fiction written by Lovecraft: his macabre stories of the 1910s, his tales based on his own dreams of the early 1920s, and his later works written between 1925 and the mid-1930s, many of which first appeared in the magazines “Weird Tales” and “Astounding Stories.” Many more of Lovecraft’s works were not published until after his death.

Despite his personal and professional difficulties of the mid-1920s, Lovecraft began writing what many consider to be his best works, including “The Call of Cthulhu” (1926), which provided the name for a series of stories based partially on Lovecraft’s own spiritual beliefs, known as the Cthulhu Mythos. The Cthulhu Mythos contained a rich history and literature of its own and was populated by many gods and other creatures whose interactions form the basis for a rich fantasy world.

These characters, plots and settings, as well as the unique philosophical basis for the stories, were later borrowed for many hundreds of imitations and continuations of Lovecraft’s Cthulhu creation. This formed the basis for a particular type of fantasy writing as well as a series of role-playing games devoted to the Cthulhu universe.

During the last decade of his life, Lovecraft began other important projects as well, but most led to disappointment, since publishers were either unwilling or unable to publish his writing. In 1928, “The Shunned House,” a haunted house tale written in 1924, was printed by W. Paul Cook of the Recluse Press, but it was never bound or distributed. The publisher G.P. Putnam’s Sons offered to review Lovecraft’s work, but rejected it for publication, as did many other important publishers of the era.

Lovecraft also attempted to generate excitement in his novella, “At the Mountains of Madness,” an important part of the Cthulhu works, but, that, too was rejected. Despite his frustration, Lovecraft continued to write more stories, and was becoming well known among other fantasy and horror writers, including August Derleth and Robert Bloch.

The last few years of his life were difficult ones. When one of his aunts died, in 1932, he moved in with another. He was unable to sell his original work, but found some work as a ghostwriter. In 1936 and early 1937, Lovecraft suffered from severe stomach pains brought about by intestinal cancer. Eventually, he was admitted to a Providence hospital and died five days later, on March 10, 1937.

Because of the dedication of his proteges, including Derleth and Bloch, many of Lovecraft’s writings eventually found their way into print and helped to develop the Lovecraft cult which is still growing at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Derleth and Bloch were instrumental in forming Arkham House, a publisher dedicated to publishing Lovecraft’s works. In 1939, they printed his book, “The Outsider and Others,” which was followed by many more editions of his writing. Over time, Arkham House became known as one of the premier outlets for the type of horror and fantasy writing Lovecraft helped create. In the years following the successful publication of Lovecraft’s works by Arkham House, many other publishers brought out editions of Lovecraft’s works. Aside from his fiction, Lovecraft’s non-fiction essays and letters were also published.

A direct result of the dedicated printing and reprinting of Lovecraft’s works was that Lovecraft came to be known widely as both a successor to and equal of Edgar Allan Poe, another American author whose popularity has only grown since his death. In an essay written by Bloch in 1973, he found many similarities between the two authors, but most notably, he argued that they both share a beloved place in American literature because of their ability to create unique worlds in their fiction, and their creative superiority to their imitators.

This is a request from David Potesta from Chicago, IL. Howard Phillips Lovecraft was an American author of fantasy and horror fiction, noted for giving horror stories a science fiction framework. Lovecraft’s readership was limited during his life, but his works have become quite important and influential among writers and fans of horror fiction.