MARCH 17 = St. Patrick's Day

"I saw a man coming, as it were from Ireland. His name was Victoricus, and he carried many letters, and he gave me one of them. I read the heading: 'The Voice of the Irish'. As I began the letter, I imagined in that moment that I heard the voice of those very people who were near the wood of Foclut, which is beside the western sea—and they cried out, as with one voice: 'We appeal to you, holy servant boy, to come and walk among us.' "

Thus spake Saint Patrick, in Latin that's Sanctus Patricius, and in the Irish (Gaellic) tongue, Naomh Pádraig, born in AD 387 and who died on this date, March 17, in the year AD 461. The man was a was a Romanized-Celt, and a Christian missionary, who is considered the patron saint of Ireland. The above is from one of two  letters generally accepted by historians as having been written by Patrick, and recounts a vision which he had a few years after returning there from Gaul.


St. Patrick Wasn't WHAT??

Well here's a kicker for you: the man was not actually Irish!! Actually, he was not really BORN in Ireland herself. As stated above, he was a Romanized Celt. Remember, the Roman Empire went on for quite a long time. The island of Britain was conquered by the Romans lead by Julius Caesar in @ 50 BC. But it was not until the reign of Claudius Caesar that Britain was brought firmly back into the Roman world in @ 56 AD. Thus the people of this part of the world thought of themselves as being Romans. It was into this world that the young Patrick was born to the given name of Maewyn. His birth place was most likely a small village near the mouth of the Severn River in what is now Wales. And here's the other kicker: he was dragged to Ireland as a slave by Irish marauders! These rogues kidnapped (or Saint-napped) the boy when he was sixteen years old, along with hundreds of other men and women, and for six years he was a kind of captive sheep herder in County Antrim. It was during this period that he came to an increasing awareness of God in his heart.

St. Patrick's Conversion

He managed to escape his slavery in Ireland and went to Gaul (modern day France) wherein he spent a dozen years studying the Christian faith under the eyes of St. Germain, the Bishop of Auxerre, who instilled in his young pupil a desire to convert pagans to the Christian faith. By the time of his return to Ireland, and his installation as Ireland's second Bishop, he had adopted the christian name of Patrick. He had, by all accounts, an imposing physical presence, and a very winning and unaffected manner about him, which enabled him to win over a good number of converts. This made him a burr under the saddle of the local Celtic Druid priests, who were forever having the man arrested, only to watch him escape. In time he managed to travel extensively throughout the green hills of the Irish countryside founding monasteries, and churches. He is said to have given a sermon from a hilltop which drove the snakes from Ireland for good. Once, struggling during a sermon to describe the Holy Trinity of the father, the son and the holy ghost, he happened to look down and saw the clovers growing in the ground. He picked up the herb, and holding it up, asked his listeners to imagine this as the father, the son, and the holy ghost, and the stem as the single God head from which they proceeded. St. Patrick died on this date of March 17, in or about the year of AD 461, and ever after, his converts wore the shamrock or the three-leafed clover as a religious symbol on his feast day. And thus it has come down through the years as a symbol of Ireland and all things Irish.


READERS!! If you would like to comment on this, or any "Today in History" posting, I would love to hear from you!!  You can either sign up to be a member of this blog and post a comment in the space provided below, or you can simply e-mail me directly at:  krustybassist@gmail.com  I seem to be getting hits on this site all over the world, so please do write and let me know how you like what I'm writing (or not!)!!

Sources:

"Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things"  by Charles Panati, Harper & Row Publ. Inc., New York, 1987.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Patrick

+ 154.
+ 107.

MARCH 16 = James Madison is Born

"At five feet six and less than 140 pounds 'little Jimmy Madison' (left) had the frail and discernibly fragile appearance of a career librarian or schoolmaster, forever lingering on the edge of some fatal ailment , overmatched by the daily demands of ordinary life.... Not only did he look like the epitome of insignificance -- diminutive, colorless, and sickly -- he was also paralyzingly shy, the kind of guest at a party who instinctively searched out the corners of the room."

- Joseph J. Ellis

James Madison, born on today's date, March 16 in 1751, was a giant. No, he didn't look like one; he was obviously a small-sized man, and painfully shy, by all accounts. But he had an intelligence so discerning, and a sense of reason so acute that he produced the framework for our national Constitution and our Bill of Rights, and guided both to passage. And for all of his shyness, he landed one of the brightest ladies of his day for his wife - Dolley. And his spirit was active enough to serve two terms as Secretary of State, and two terms as President of the United States.  No, this was no small man.

Father of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights

James Madison had been a delegate to the Continental Congress and along with many he was seriously worried that the "Articles of Confederation" under which the country had first formed their government were too weak.  So he and others such as Ben Franklin, James Monroe, and George Washington pressed for the convening of a Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia (May to September of 1787) to form a stronger national government to govern our new nation. But he and many of our founders were worried about making a central

government so strong as to overwhelm the powers of the states.  Thus he arrived in the then Capitol city with a plan of checks and balances within a government divided into three branches: Executive (the President), Legislative (the Congress), and Judicial (the Court System) which became known as the "Virginia Plan" all ready to go. Writing to Washington on April 16, 1787, he said that he had "formed in my mind some outlines of a new system, I take the liberty of submitting them without apology, to your eye."  This plan was eventually adopted as our system of government. Following this he was the primary author of the Bill of Rights (adopted, 1791), which enumerated our most basic rights, such as freedom of religion, of the press, to assemble, seek redress of grievances, and other freedoms which we enjoy to this day.  It took a huge amount of debate, but Madison's powers of persuasion were very keen.  "His physical deficiencies meant", said Joseph Ellis,  "that the Madisonian argument lacked all the usual emotional affectations and struck with the force of pure, unencumbered thought.  Or as one observer put it later, 'Never have I seen so much mind in so little matter.' His style was in effect, not to have one." 

Dolley Madison

Madison may have been painfully shy, but he when he saw an opportunity he went for it.  In the 1790's he saw a beautiful widow at Washington social functions named Dolley Payne Todd, who was said to have a "regal" bearing, but a charming personality.  So in May of 1794, Madison asked Aaron Burr, a mutual friend to arrange a meeting

between the two. This was arranged and shy little James must have turned on a charm of his own, because by August, she had accepted his proposal of marriage. He was 43 and she was 26.  By the time Thomas Jefferson was President, he was a widower, so Dolley wound up playing the role of hostess for many official functions during her husband's time as Secretary of State.  She had a truly outgoing and warm personality which would serve her well when she became First Lady for her husband a few years later. The two of them had a close and loving marriage which lasted the rest of their lives together.  By redecorating the White House, she made it into the social center of Washington and became the first "First Lady" according to many historians. She saved Gilbert Stuart's portrait of George Washington from being burned in the 1814 British attack on the city... a singular act of courage on her part.

Secretary of State and President

James Madison followed up this already full and rich public career with two full terms in the office of Secretary of State under Thomas Jefferson, as well as two full terms as President of the United States. His terms in both offices were marked by frequent difficulties and armed conflict with he European powers of France and England. There was a world conflict going on between those two nations at that time, and the United States could not avoid getting caught up in it.  During Jefferson's term as President (1801 - 1809) France went over from the Revolutionary governments to the government of Emperor (Dictator) Napoleon.  There were constant difficulties with U.S. Shipping being stopped by both powers, and with British impressment of American sailors into British service.  Jefferson dealt with this by the Embargo Act which cut off trade between America and these two belligerent powers.  This kept America out of war with these two powers, but

wound up costing American merchants so much that it also wound up costing Jefferson his popular- ity.  But one big item on the plus side during Jefferson's administration was that Madison was able to arrange the sale of the huge Louisiana Territory to the United States from France.  During Madison's administration (1809 - 1817), the Embargo Act, which had expired left trade with England and France open again. But this simply resulted in further acts of seizure of American sailors from British ships.  This resulted in Madison delivering America's first Declaration of War.  But it was a huge mess with our Capitol city of  Washington D.C. being sacked and burned to the ground by the Brits on August 24, 1814 (above).  Eventually the Treaty of Ghent ended the conflict, but not before the Battle of New Orleans left the War of 1812 with a positive taste in every one's memory.  Madison was thus able to leave office with some degree of popularity.  James Madison died at his home of Montpelier, Virginia on June 23, 1836, the last of the Founding Fathers of our country, and it would seem certainly the hardest working of the group.

Sources:

"Founding Brothers"  by Joseph J. Ellis, Vintage Books, New York, 2002.

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/madison_papers/mjmconst.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Madison

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_of_Washington

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolley_Madison

MARCH 15 = Julius Caesar is Assassinated

Caesar:
Who is it in the press that calls on me?
I hear a tongue shriller than all the music
Cry "Caesar!" Speak, Caesar is turn'd to hear.
Soothsayer:
Beware the ides of March.
Caesar:
What man is that?
Brutus:
A soothsayer bids you beware the ides of March.

"Julius Caesar" Act 1, scene 2, 15–19, by William Shakespeare

It is Lupercalia, an ancient Roman religious holiday. Julius Caesar, the Roman leader, and would-be dictator, appears before the "press" (crowd) in the streets. From out of the crowd, a soothsayer proclaims an infamous warning. Caesar, who was like most Romans, a very superstitious man, isn't one to take a soothsayer lightly. Nevertheless, he fails to take this warning seriously enough. And as a result, he was murdered on this date in the year 44 BC, by a group of Roman Senators, in the Roman Senate chambers themselves. Shakespeare got this scene, along with others depicting Caesar's downfall, from Plutarch's Life of Julius Caesar. English translations were easily obtained in Shakespeare's London, but the exact phrasing which Plutarch used was likely not dramatic enough for the bard's purposes. This was not terribly unusual. Shakespeare has altered the exact phrasing elsewhere in his plays for dramatic reasons, in Henry V for example. In this instance he has the soothsayer saying, "Beware the Ides of March!" Whereas the original merely has the soothsayer warning Caesar "to take heed of the day of the Ides of March."

The Rise of Julius Caesar

Whatever it was that Shakespeare and/or Plutarch had in mind, there can be no mistaking what Caesar's fellow Senators had in mind for him.... they certainly did make it plain enough. Their difficulties with Caesar were long-standing. As a politician, Caesar had outmaneuvered his rivals completely. His rise had been in association with that of Marcus Lucinius Crassus during the revolt of Spartacus, and his slave armies. During the late 60s, he had made political alliances with Crassus and Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus ("Pompey the Great"), which came to be known as the "First Triumvirate", wherein the three men would jointly run the Roman world. But this was of course an extra-legal arrangement, and it was bound to fall apart. Caesar led an invasion of Gaul (mostly modern day France) which resulted in the extension of Rome's dominion to the North Sea. Further, he conducted Rome's first invasion of Britain. These great conquests put Caesar in a position of considerable popularity and military strength. With the death of Crassus, the political tensions increased with Pompey's supporters believing that he represented the tradition of Senatorial rule of the burgeoning Roman Empire. Eventually their quarrel erupted into a Civil War in 49 BC from which the forces of Caesar emerged triumphant.

The Conspiracy Against Caesar

Having come out of the Civil War against the forces of Pompey as the undisputed leader of the Roman government, Caesar began a set of far reaching and extensive reforms of Roman society and governance. He centralized Roman government and bureaucracy in a way that left many of his one time supporters, among them Marcus Junius Brutus, and Gaius Cassius Longinus convinced that Caesar (pictured above in the "Tusculum portrait", possibly the only surviving bust of Caesar made during his lifetime) would never give up power, that he intended the Senate to be nothing more than a rubber-stamp to his will. This was too much even for these one time supporters of the man, and they conspired to assassinate him. They accosted him on that fateful day in mid-March. Historian Nicolaus of Damascus tells what happened next:

"The Senate rose in respect for his position when they saw him entering. Under the pretext of a humble request on behalf of (his) brother, Tillius Cimber approached and grasped the mantle of his toga seeming to want to make a more positive move with his hands upon Caesar. Caesar wanted to get up and use his hands, but was prevented by Cimber and became exceedingly annoyed. That was the moment for the men to set to work. All quickly unsheathed their daggers and rushed at him. First Sevilius Casca struck him the point of the blade a little above the collar-bone. Caesar rose to defend himself, and in the uproar Casca shouted out in Greek to his brother. The latter heard him and drove his sword into the ribs. After a moment, Cassius made a slash at his face, and Brutus pierced him in the side.... Under the mass of wounds, he fell at the foot of Pompey's statue. Everyone wanted to seem to have had some part in the murder, and there was not one of them who failed to strike his body as it lay there, until, wounded thirty-five times, he breathed his last."

READERS!! If you would like to comment on this, or any "Today in History" posting, I would love to hear from you!!  You can either sign up to be a member of this blog and post a comment in the space provided below, or you can simply e-mail me directly at:  krustybassist@gmail.com  I seem to be getting hits on this site all over the world, so please do write and let me know how you like what I'm writing (or not!)!!

Sources:

"The Mammoth Book of Eyewitness History" Edited by Jon E. Lewis, Carroll and Graf Publishers, New York, 1998.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ides_of_March

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Caesar

+ 90.
+ 38.

MARCH 14 = Eli Whitney Patents the Cotton Gin

On today's date, March 14, 221 years ago in 1794 a Massachusetts-born, Yale-educated engineer named Eli Whitney was granted a patent on a new machine called the "Cotton Gin" ("Gin" being short for "engine").  Whitney apparently intended nothing more with his invention (original patent is pictured at left) than to make the business of cotton production easier and more efficient.  And of course to make some money into the bargain.  But what Mr. Whitney could not have known was that his invention would profoundly divide his county, laying the bitter seeds of a terrible and destructive Civil War that would break out 35 years after his death.

What Exactly Did the Cotton Gin Do?

Cotton had been a lucrative but troublesome crop to cultivate before the advent of  Mr. Whitney's cotton gin. It had to be looked after and maintained in great abundance.  This was because the fibers it produced grew in little pods which had to be harvested.  Then these pods had to have the cotton removed and these fibers had to be separated from the sticky seeds which were embedded in them. Whitney graduated from Yale in 1792 and moved to South Carolina to accept a job as a tutor.  His landlady had a small crop of cotton, and Whitney got into discussions with planters in the area about the fact

that this seed extraction made cotton very unprofit- able because it had to be done by hand - a grueling, labor intensive process. Whitney believed that this could be done mechanically and came up with a device that could do it (above). It consisted of a wooden cylinder which was lined with slender spikes. These spikes would pull the cotton fibers through a comb-like mesh. The teeth of this mesh were small enough that while the cotton fibers would easily be pulled through the seeds would not fit, and would fall outside. The effect of this on cotton production was clear.  Before the gin, it would take a single slave working by hand some ten hours to separate a single pound of cotton from the seeds. Whereas working with the gin, it would be possible for a team of two or three slaves to produce fifty pounds of cotton in a single day.

What Exactly Was the Effect of the Cotton Gin?

The effect that this labor saving device had on the Southern economy in America was profound. The United States had always been an agricultural nation. This was particularly so in the American south with its warm climate and rich soil.  A large labor force in the form mostly of African slaves was needed to maintain and harvest such crops as sugar, rice, and tobacco in addition to cotton.  But these other crops were

perishable and therefore not in such demand. Whereas cotton would last for it's entire shipping period. Before the cotton gin slavery was dying out on its own.  But with the cotton gin, cotton exports skyrocketed. Cotton production went from 750,000 bales in 1830 to 2.85 million bales in 1850.  By 1860, the Southern states produced two thirds of the worlds' cotton. And the population of slaves increased along with the cotton production from 700,000 in 1790 to 3.2 million in 1850. In short, because of Whitney's cotton gin, cotton became very profitable, and a large cheap labor force of slaves was needed to maintain this crop and its profitability.

Two Different Economies & Two Different Systems

As a result of all of this, the Southern economy became a one-crop affair, which was dependent upon slavery.  On the other hand, the Northern states in America became primarily industrial. And northern society evolved as different classes of people interacted in the north's more urban social setting.  The South for its part remained in it's rural, and plantation setting, and thus in a modern and evolving world the

South remained stuck in an antiquated social system. Thus were the bitter seeds of civil war planted in two very different economic systems based on two VERY different social orders:  a northern economy based on a free, wage earning labor force, and a southern economy based on a labor force which was captive to the morally repugnant system of legalized human slavery.  A clash was inevitable, and it came a mere 35 years after the death of Eli Whitney (above) on January 8, 1825 at age 59 from a very modern scourge: prostate cancer.


Sources :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton_gin

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eli_Whitney#Cotton_gin

http://americancivilwar.com/kids_zone/causes.html

http://americanhistory.about.com/od/civilwarmenu/a/cause_civil_war.htm

MARCH 13 = Kitty Genovese is Murdered

"For more than half an hour 38 respectable, law-abiding citizens in Queens watched a killer stalk and stab a woman in three separate attacks in Kew Gardens."

- Martin Gansburg, New York Times, March 27, 1964

"(The case) caught the spirit of the time.... It seemed to symbolize that society no longer cared about other people."

- Thomas Reppetto,  police historian

Early on today's date, March 13, in 1964, a bright and friendly young 28 year old woman named Kitty Genovese (above) was murdered outside her apartment building in New York City. The case garnered national attention when it was reported in the New York Times some days later that a total of 38 people had heard her screams and witnessed the crime and did nothing, saying that they didn't want to get involved. The outrage that this public display of apathy caused opened a whole new area of social science, but it may have been based on faulty reporting in the Times.

Kitty Genovese is Stalked and Killed

At about 3:15 a.m. on this date, Ms. Genovese arrived home from her job as Manager of at "Ev's Eleventh Hour Sports Bar" on Jamaica Avenue and 193rd Street in Hollis, Queens. She lived at the Kew Apartments in Queens (below) where she shared # 80-20

with her partner, Mary Ann Zielonko.  She was at this time attacked by Winston Moseley, a married 29 year old father of two children who was driven by a psycho- pathic need to kill and who had been out searching for a victim (in his own words). Moseley stabbed Kitty several times with a knife and she screamed: "Oh my God, he stabbed me! Help me!" Her cries were heard by one of her neighbors, Robert Mozer, who yelled out through his window: "Let that girl alone!" This scared off Moseley who retreated to his car.  Kitty was able in spite of her wounds to crawl to an outside hallway at the back of her building, some small distance from where she had been attacked. Barely conscious, she was kept from entering the building by a locked door, but had crawled into the vestibule. By this point, about ten minutes later Moseley returned, and attacked her again, stabbing her several more times.  As she lay dying, Moseley then raped her, stole $49.00 from her wallet and finally left her. Genovese died on the way to the hospital.

The Story is Printed in the New York Times

This was certainly brutal crime, but it did not make major headlines until the Metro Editor of the Times, A.M Rosenthal had lunch a few days later with Police Commissioner Michael Murphy. The reporting from officers at the scene had emphasized that there had been many witnesses to the crime, 38 in fact and that the police had not been called until it was too late. When Commissioner Murphy told this to

Rosenthal he was so shocked that he assigned a reporter to do a story on the apathy of the neighbors towards the crime. The resulting article, quoted at the top of this posting painted a damning picture of uncaring people: "Twice their chatter and the sudden glow of their bedroom lights interrupted him and frightened him off. Each time he returned, sought her out, and stabbed her again. Not one person telephoned the police during the assault; one witness called after the woman was dead." The resulting publicity created a firestorm of public condemnation about this story of the callousness or apathy of life in big cities, especially in New York.  The story was picked up by "Life" magazine, and then by newspapers all over the world.  New York became a place of infamy, filled with callous uncaring people.  Since that time the image has been very tough to combat.  And an entire branch of sociology has risen from this crime, centering on the "bystander effect" which along with the Genovese case has become a staple of social psychology textbooks.

Did 38 People Really See It Happen?

But a study of the crime completed in 2007 found many of the reported "facts" of the crime to be unfounded.  The report in fact concluded that there was "...no evidence for the presence of 38 witnesses, or that witnesses observed the murder, or that witnesses remained inactive".  There were in fact a total of two separate attacks, the first one of which was ended by a witness yelling to leave the girl alone.  It was cold that night, so most of the windows were closed, and were several floors up (Another part of the scene is pictured below). Thus what may have

been heard by those few who were awake sounded like a drunken argument to those who heard it, especially in the second portion of the attack which was hidden from any one's view.  Further, just one witness, Joseph Fink, was aware she was stabbed in the first attack, and Karl Ross was aware of it in the second attack, and he did in fact call the police.  And the fact is that one woman - Sophie Farrar - who was all of 4ft.11" tall actually did go down to the scene of the crime, and stayed with Ms. Genovese until the ambulance arrived. So it is likely that the report of 38 law-abiding citizens just blowing off was to say the least exaggerated.  Nevertheless, there are many who believe that bystanders could and should have done more.  Author Catherine Pelonero has said "Many people heard the screams and had very good reasonable cause to believe that a crime was taking place.....The most chilling part is that once she reached the back of the building, she was lying down there for several minutes calling for help." 

Whatever the case with the witnesses, Winston Moseley (below) was caught a short time after on another crime and confessed to

the Genovese murder.  He was sentenced to death, but that penalty was reduced to life imprisonment on a technicality by an appeals court.  After escaping in March of 1968, and committing more hideous crimes including rape and murder, he was recaptured and is now in prison with two more 15 year sentences added to his life sentence running concurrently.  He was denied parole for the 17th time in December of 2013.

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Kitty_Genovese

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2014/0311/Kitty-Genovese-50-years-later-New-York-murder-still-fascinates

http://nypost.com/2014/02/16/book-reveals-real-story-behind-the-kitty-genovese-murder/

http://www.angelfire.com/comics/mooreportal/kitty.html

MARCH 12 = Anschluss, The Sound of Music

“Well, now you have seen what the Fuehrer can be like at times. But the next time I am sure that it will be different. You know the Fuehrer can be absolutely charming!”

- Franz von Papen to Kurt von Schuschnigg following his Feb. 12, 1938 meeting with Adolf Hitler. The events of this day would lead the world closer to war, but also would lead to a musical phenomenon which still holds the world enthralled to this day. But first, the dark side....

Hitler -vs- Schuschnigg - a Stacked Deck

This must have been cold comfort to Schuschnigg, the Austrian Chancellor who had just gotten a full taste of the Fuehrer’s charm during a meeting in which he had been bullied into effectively signing away his nation’s independence. The day would “…forever remain one of the darkest and most fateful days in the annals of Austria.” in Schuschnigg's words. "Anschluss" is the German word for "Link-up" and that is what Adolf Hitler had been pressing to do with Austria ever since he had come to power in Germany. With his consolidation of power in Germany, Hitler now cast his menacing gaze upon his native Austria, and determined to annex her to Germany. In the February 12th meeting mentioned above, the Austrian Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg

(pictured, left) had met with Hitler, hoping to negotiate some sort of settlement which would preserve Austria's independence. But he found Hitler to be in an extremely foul frame of mind. By threats and bluffs, and by more subtle means Hilter played on the Austrian’s weaknesses. He knew that Schuschnigg was a chain smoker, and kept him from smoking for over two hours as he harangued him about Germany’s destiny (nobody was permitted to smoke in the Fuehrer's presence). Then allowing him to meet with his aide, he made known the presence of soldiers which lead the Austrians to fear imminent arrest. He was bullied that night into signing away Austria's independence on paper.


Austria is Swallowed up on March 12, 1938

Schuschnigg found over the next four weeks that Hitler fully intended to make good on that night's work. Basically, Schuschnigg was forced into accepting into his cabinet, several Nazis, including a leading Austrian quisling (traitor), Dr. Arthur Seyss-Inquart (“the gentle Judas” in William Shirer’s phrase) as Minister of the Interior with authority over the police. These men saw to it that Hitler’s threats of invasion were taken seriously. Schuschnigg surprised and infuriated Hitler by calling for a plebiscite on the question of union with Germany. But by threats of force and bloodshed, which Schuschnigg was not prepared to risk, the plebiscite was cancelled and the defeated Austrian Chancellor resigned. German troops entered the country and took control without opposition on today's date, March 12, 1938. This is important, because yet again, Hitler discovered that the west would not interfere as it could have done. He now had his next target, Czechoslovakia enveloped on three sides as the map above shows. Another step was thus taken on the road to war.

The Saga of the von Trapps and 51 Years of "the Sound of Music"

While the Anschluss had a chilling effect on the growing number of people who understood the Nazi threat, it would have what would come eventually to be a brightening effect on American Musical Theater, and ultimately upon American popular culture many years later. The von Trapp family, then living near Salzburg would be driven from Austria by the Nazi take-over of Austria. But those expecting the real Maria von Trapp to resemble Julie Andrews who played her in the film version of "The Sound of Music" are likely to be disappointed. Similarly, those expecting Christopher Plummer as Captain von Trapp, Uncle Max, the merry story of the von Trapp family singers, and a daring escape across the mountains with the Nazis nipping at their heels will be disappointed as well. The actual story of the von Trapp family was greatly simplified for both the Broadway musical starring Mary Martin and for the wildly successful film version which was named the Best Picture of the Year at the 1965 Academy Awards after its release 51 years ago, winning a total of five Academy Awards, including Best Director for Robert Wise.  But the most basic facts of their story as it has come to be known are true.

Georg von Trapp (left) had been an officer in Austria's Imperial navy during World War One. But when Austria was left without seaports following the Great War, he retired from active service. His first wife with whom he had had seven children died in 1922, and Maria Augusta Kutschera came to the family from an Abbey in Salzburg as a tutor to von Trapp's daughter Maria who was recovering from scarlet fever.

As depicted in the film, Maria (right) did indeed develop a loving and nurturing relationship with the children. But they were already musically inclined, so she did not teach them to sing. And while Captain von Trapp was indeed reluctant to have his family sing in public, he was far from the glowering and distant figure who was brought to love his children through music by Frauline Maria. He was in fact a loving father who had always enjoyed singing with his family.

The von Trapps Depart Austria

But the essential fact that Captain von Trapp was unwilling to cooperate with the Nazi absorption of his country into the German Reich was correctly portrayed. Not only did he refuse to fly the swastika banner of the Nazis, stubbornly persisting in displaying the flag of Austria, but he refused to accept an offer of a naval commission in the navy of the Third Reich. The fact was that von Trapp had lost a great deal of money during the world wide depression, so the family singing act was actually a way to keep the von Trapp family in the black. There was no "Uncle Max"; the manager of the act was a clergyman, Reverend Franz Wasner. The group was sufficiently famous to receive an invitation to sing at Hitler's birthday party in 1938. But they refused. Despite the simplification and sugar-coating of their story for Hollywood, the basic fact was that when faced with the choice of continued fame and success under the Nazis, and leaving everything and everyone they knew in order to escape a regime they detested, the von Trapps chose to leave. But it was not the daring trek over the mountains after the Nazis had sealed the borders. They simply took a train to Italy.

Additional Blog postings on this subject: "Maria von Trapp Dies"

READERS!! If you would like to comment on this, or any "Today in History" posting, I would love to hear from you!! You can either sign up to be a member of this blog and post a comment in the space provided below, or you can simply e-mail me directly at: krustybassist@gmail.com I seem to be getting hits on this site all over the world, so please do write and let me know how you like what I'm writing (or not!)!!

Sources:

Austrian requiem / Kurt Von Schuschnigg Chancellor of Austria and prisoner of Hitler by Kurt von Scuschnigg, Putnam & Sons, New York, 1947.

"The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" by William Shirer, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1960

http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2005/winter/von-trapps.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_von_Trapp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Ludwig_von_Trapp

- "The Sound of Music", 50th Anniversary Edition, 1965, Directed by Robert Wise.

+ 170.
+ 198.

MARCH 11 = The Blizzard of 1888

"When the people began to stir to go about their daily tasks and vocations, they found that a blizzard, just like those they have been accustomed to read about as occurring in the far West had struck this city and its environs and had held an embargo on the travel and traffic of the greatest city on the continent. What the presence of a blizzard meant was soon manifest."

- New York Times; March 13, 1888

So said the Times of the ravages of the blizzard which which dumped 20 to 60 inches of snow the North Eastern United States between March 11 and 14 in 1888.  “The Great White Hurricane” as it was called in some quarters, or simply “The Great Blizzard of ‘88” as it was known to the New Yorkers who took the brunt of it, put New York into a stranglehold shutting down train, horse and foot traffic for four days and kept some people trapped in their homes for nearly a week.

The Storm Gathers and Then Lets Loose

That Sunday, the weather had seemed unseasonably mild, with heavy rain coming down.  But then the temperatures began to drop quickly and that rain turned to snow. Winds that blew from the west and the north at speeds of 100 MPH brought huge gusts of snow and ice.  In one report, by 4:00 pm "The snow came up so fast that five 

minutes sufficed to obliterate the footprints of a man or a horse in the streets." Snow drifts of six to ten feet had by midnight shut down rail lines between cities (the image at the top shows efforts to clear the Grand Central Depot) and also caused fire-alarm systems to malfunction, thus causing many homes and businesses that caught fire during the storm to be lost. People found themselves snowed in from the lowliest slums to the most fashionable neighborhoods, such as Park Place (pictured above).

"It's death out there...."

New York City began to shut down completely on Monday, the 12th as nobody could get where they needed to go.  The Custom House and the Stock Exchange wee both closed.  Price gougers began charging exorbitant fees to move: "Twenty dollars was paid for a conveyance from Astor House to Madison Square" reported "Harper's Weekly",

"and forty dollars for a cab from Wall Street to the Fifth Avenue Hotel." The infamous political boss, Roscoe Conkling (left) refused to submit to the snow and nearly paid for his insolence with his life. He began striding into the teeth of the storm at 6:00 pm moving from Wall Street to Twenty-fifth Street and the New York Club.  Struggling against hurricane-force winds he pushed himself for two miles until he reached an unlit Union Square.  There, he sunk into snow up to his armpits.  He managed to free himself and after a struggle of nearly four hours, finally reached his club, nearly frozen and dead.  "It's death out there..." he gasped.  "People are dying everywhere... I saw bodies sticking from the snow... I was almost in their number!"

"The sleet came and blinded men's eyes..."

Still the snow continued to blow in huge drifts.  In Brooklyn nine families were obliged to sit and freeze as the wind blew the roofs off of their houses. Hundreds of victims were taken to hospitals wherein many died from exposure. According to "Leslie's", "The 

hospitals and station houses were filled with sufferers from frostbite or broken limbs." And still the snow came on with howling winds and ice: The New York Sun reported on March 13 that "Dusk came and then darkness, and the wonderful visitation was still in progress. Still the streets were banked high with rifts of snow, still the wind roared and howled and bellowed and flung itself against the city's walls, still the horse cars were cut off their tracks and the pillared roads were idle, still the wagons were few, the women were obliterated from the outdoor scenes, the pelting snow and sleet blinded men's eyes, the cold wind numbed man and beast, the uproar of wild voices continued."

Electrical Lines Come Down Under the Weight of Ice

Thousands of feet of electrical wires for everything from telegraphs to telephones to electric lighting were weighed down by snow and ice and lay useless to the irritation of the Times.  Progress had boasted of "...our superior means of inter- communication. Before the fury of 

the great blizzard they all went down, whether propelled by steam or electricity. The elevated trains became useless; so did the telegraph wires, the telephone wires, the wires for conveying the electric lights, the wires for giving the alarms of fire. And, worse than useless, they became dangerous." The paper of record testily concluded: "It is hard to believe in this last quarter of the nineteenth century that for even one day New-York could be so completely isolated from the rest of the world as if Manhattan Island was in the middle of the South Sea." 

March 14 - the Snow Finally Turns to Powder

At long last, by March 14, the snow turned into a light, powdery shower, people were able to come out of their dwellings.  They began to build bonfires in the streets, which of course overwhelmed the sewer systems for several days creating small lakes from melted snow at several points throughout the city. "The sun was a splendid and efficacious ally..." according to one writer.  But the Blizzard and the troubles it had caused with the veritable forest of overhead wires were not forgotten.  Over the next few years after considerable political wrangling, the poles and the wires all came down and were buried underground. According to the website "Virtual New York":
"The Blizzard of 1888 was not directly responsible for the movement to bury city’s electrical hard wiring; the movement to bury the wires dated back to well before the storm and continued for two years after it. But the events of that frosty and dangerous March week dramatized the problem, and contributed significantly to the developing movement to bury the wires, once and for all." 

Sources:

"Darkest Hours" by Jay Robert Nash, Wallaby Books, 1976

http://www.nycsubway.org/wiki/The_Blizzard_of_1888%3b_the_Impact_of_this_Devastating_Storm_on_New_York_Transit

http://www.virtualny.cuny.edu/blizzard/building/building_fr_set.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Blizzard_of_1888

Images:

Grand Central Depot =
http://theboweryboys.blogspot.com/2013/02/frozen-in-time-blizzard-of-1888-knocks.html

Park Place =
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Blizzard_of_1888

Boss Conkling =
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roscoe_Conkling

Leslie's Illustrated =
http://history1800s.about.com/od/crimesanddisasters/ss/Great-Blizzard-Of-1888.htm

Wires Weighed Down by Ice =
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Blizzard_of_1888