Happy Birthday, New Haven

New Haven, CT, where I spent some time as a student, was first the lands of the Quinnipiack tribe. On April 24, 1638, 500 English Puritans led by Rev. John Davenport and Theophilus Eaton  arrived in the harbor. The Quinnipiacks secured the Puritans' support against rival tribes. New Haven was one of the first planned cities in America. The town was laid out on a grid, with a central block (the Green). Eventually, three of the major streets out of downtown--Dixwell, Goffe, and Whalley--were named for three judges hiding in New England for signing the death warrant of Charles I, while another major street, Whitney, was named for the inventor of the cotton gin who had business roots in New Haven. In the 1670s, frustrated Native tribes attacked many colonial villages, but New Haven missed the worst of the violence; the horrible massacre of the Pequot tribe in nearby Mystic in the 1630s had lessened English-Native tensions in southern Connecticut. New Haven and Hartford were co-capitals in 1701-1873. Collegiate School, which had begun in 1701, moved to New Haven from Old Saybrook in 1718 and changed its name to Yale College.

Here are some of my own photos from around campus, plus my humongous 1879 history of Yale College. 

   

                  

Happy Birthday, Samuel F. B. Morse

Born April 27 1791, Samuel F. B. Morse began his career as a portrait painter. For a while he was one of the first photographers in America. Later, he contributed toward the invention of a single-wire telegraph system. He co-developed the Morse Code used in telegraph transmission. Here he is in the 1850s; in his 1812 self-portrait; Morse's portrait of the Marquis de Lafayette; an unknown young man, in the only known photograph from Morse's daguerreotype studio (1840); and Morse's first telegraph.

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Happy Birthday, Sun of York

The Wars of the Roses (1455-1487) was called that because the two factions in conflict, the House of Lancaster and the House of York, had as their royal emblems a red rose and a white rose, respectively. Edward IV of the House of York first ruled England in 1461-1470. He was forced to flee the kingdom in the face of a Lancastrian army, but he regained the throne the following year and reigned until 1483.  As Shakespeare's play "Richard III" begins, Edward's brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester, mocks the fact that Edward had regained the throne ("Now is the winter of our discontent/ Made glorious summer by this sun of York..."), for he himself longed for power. When Edward died in 1483, he was briefly succeeded by his young son Edward V, until Gloucester seized the throne and became Richard III. But in two years, Richard was killed in battle between York and Lancaster forces in 1485. He was succeeded by Henry VII of Lancaster--whose victory and subsequent marriage to Edward IV's daughter Elizabeth of York ended the War of the Roses. Henry was the first Tudor monarch. Did you get all that? whew!.... And now for the reason for this long post, LOL: Edward IV was born on April 28, 1442.

Anniversary of "Blinky the Friendly Hen"

On April 27, 1978, artist Jeffrey Vallance (b. 1955) purchased a frozen chicken at the Ralph's Supermarket in Canoga Park, CA. He named it Blinky and purchased a full service for the chicken at the Los Angeles Pet Cemetery, including casket and tombstone. He considered the event a memorial to the millions of chickens that are killed, processed, and sold each year. He published a short book--this YouTube video shows the short book's contents. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuxMv7M1AeQ 

Vallance has done a number of installations and performance art projects over the years, and he is especially known for Blinky. I found this interview that I originally saw on the Ovation Network: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZogBISO0bjY

40th Anniversary of the Chernobyl Disaster

Forty years ago, on April 26, 1986, one of the reactors exploded at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, near Pripyat, Ukrainian SSR. At first the disaster was covered up, as discussed at this site: https://www.historyextra.com/period/20th-century/chernobyl-disaster-1986-reactor-four-what-happened-why-when-facts/?fbclid=IwY2xjawRePpdleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFGWG05eGxYbmJmYzNzaGJwc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHrTWKAW5oDHeoN75d1mlLAgY7gF1lHEpLpifEzPHC8ejz0N3Jo5E2swFCaWQ_aem__EVLJX8WV77RR1UA5cvGrg 

Chernobyl is the worse nuclear disaster in history and one of two such accidents rated as "maximum severity" on the International Nuclear Event Scale, the other being the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident. Here is an article about the ongoing human and environmental costs:  https://time.com/5255663/chernobyl-disaster-book-anniversary/?fbclid=IwY2xjawRePrNleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFGWG05eGxYbmJmYzNzaGJwc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHiDelmNzqo4Sgk8fz8YYrYxIVab_tsIVAUTeeNwyFm5BSNpQ4ntZ_ODa4umL_aem_dPfZOub43ZqVh4eGF-cV_Q

The Guernica Bombing

The town of Guernica is in the Basque area of northern Spain. It has about 17,000 population today. During the Spanish Civil War, on April 26, 1937, the Nazi Luftwaffe and the Italian Aviazione Legionaria bombed Guernica at the request of Francisco Franco, who wanted to overthrow the Basque government. The bombing went on for three hours. Although casualty figures differ, the official Basque figures were 1,654 civilians killed. The horror became the subject of Picasso's famous painting "Guernica". I've read that it is a huge painting--about 11 feet by 25 feet--now on display in Madrid. The painting is one of the greatest pieces of anti-war art.

both pictures copied under fair use principles. 

Remembering Rodney King

During his arrest in March 1991 for DUI, following a high speed chase, Rodney King was severely beaten by LAPD officers. An uninvolved bystander recorded the beating and sent the footage to a TV station. Outrage at the brutality of the beating led to public uproar. When a jury acquitted all four officers of assault, six days of rioting in L.A. followed. King made a plea for peace during the riots: "I just want to say – you know – can we, can we all get along? Can we, can we get along? Can we stop making it horrible for the older people and the kids?" King did receive a significant award from the city. He continued to struggle with alcohol and addiction. His daughter created a foundation to build bridges between the black community and the police--and his anxious words, asking for people to get along, have entered the culture. King was born on April 2, 1965. 

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