Christmas Every Day

1902 Discovery of the Antikythera Mechanism

Amongst the remains of a 2,000-year-old shipwreck off the Greek island of Antikythera, archaeologists identified bits and pieces of an ancient device. Over the past century, investigators have probed its secrets and identified it as the world’s earliest analogue computer. Reconstructed, it would have looked like this:

A complicated series of gears rotated by hand would have performed a series of astronomical tasks. 

• Little stone or glass orbs would have moved across the machine’s face to show the motion of Mercury, Venus, Mars, Saturn, and Jupiter in the night sky
• The position of the sun and moon, relative to the 12 constellations of the zodiac
• Another dial forecasting solar and lunar eclipses
• A solar calendar, charting the 365 days of the year
• A lunar calendar, counting a 19-year lunar cycle
• A tiny pearl-size ball that rotated to show you the phase of the moon
• A dial that counted down the days to regularly scheduled sporting events such as the Olympic Games

1919 The Winnipeg General Strike begins

There is no doubt that the economic situation in the year following the end of the Great War was not a happy one for the labouring classes of Winnipeg. Prices had risen sharply during the war years of 1914-18, much more sharply than wages. Returning veterans often found it hard to get their old jobs back and were particularly resentful when it seemed that these jobs were now held by immigrants, aliens who had not fought for King and Country. Some discontented veterans turned to anti-foreign bigotry; some turned to more radical politics than they would have espoused before their war experiences.

If a Winnipegger in early 1919 were to read one of the numerous newspapers that the city boasted, they would see that the world was on fire. In Russia a full-scale civil war was in progress with murderous armies of Reds, led by V.I. Lenin’s Bolsheviks, and Whites killing and starving miilions. Inspired by Bolshevik successes, soviet revolutions broke out over Europe. On January 5 in Berlin, the left-wing Spartacists led by Rosa Luxembourg and Karl Liebknecht, rose up to establish a communist republic, prompting battles with the right-wing Freikorps. Two days later, anarchists rebelled in Argentina. Two weeks after that, a revolution took place in Portugal, and Irish rebels began a civil war. Over the next few months, there were labour riots in Glasgow necessitating the calling in troops, disturbances in Czecholslovakia, a General Strike was launched in Seattle, Egypt broke out in rebellion, and Canadian troops overseas mutinied on British bases. In Moscow the Comintern was formed to coordinate Marxist rebellions on a global scale; soviet republics were set up in Hungary and Bavaria. Mexico was in the throes of revolution: the rebel Emiliano Zapata was assassinated and Pancho Villa was on a rampage. In Europe, in response to left-wing activism, veterans, such as Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, were creating new fascist parties.

Class tensions and potential violence were not absent from Winnipeg. A well-attended meeting at Winnipeg’s  Walker Theatre in December 1918, co-sponsored by the Trades and Labour Council and the Socialist Party of Canada, had heard speakers denounce capitalism, and demand that Canadian troops be withdrawn from the expedition to fight the Reds in Russia. The Chairman, John Queen, then called for three cheers for the Russian Revolution. The meeting ended with deafening cries of “Long live the Russian Soviet Republic! Long live Karl Liebknecht! Long live the working class!” A telegram of congratulations to the Bolsheviks was to be sent. Late in the following month , a mob  of returned veterans in Winnipeg attacked socialists mourning the deaths of Luxembourg and Liebknecht, marched on a meat-packing pant to demand that immigrant workers be fired, vandalized businesses, and forced suspected foreigners to kiss the Union Jack.

 In March of 1919, the Western Labour Conference opened in Calgary with a large delegation from Manitoba, including men such as R.B. Russell, Andy Scoble, and R.J. Johns who would be involved in the Winnipeg General Strike. Johns was noted back in Winnipeg for opposing conscription and urging a general strike during wartime. The conference called for the formation of One Big Union, the ultimate weapon in the labour arsenal, and the replacement of capitalism with industry controlled by workers’ soviets. Among two of the motions passed unanimously were one placing those present “on record as being in full accord and sympathy with the aims and purposes of the Russian Bolshevik and German Spartacan Revolutions” and accepting “the principle of ‘Proletariat Dictatorship’ as being absolute and efficient for the transformation of capitalistic private property to communal wealth, and that fraternal greetings be sent to the Russian Soviet Government, the Spartacans in Germany, and all definite working class movements in Europe and the world, recognizing they have won first place in the history of the class struggle.” Russell was dispatched back to Winnipeg to carry out “propaganda” on behalf of these resolutions.

National and provincial officials were not unaware of these tensions and were seeking to understand the situation better. The Manitoba government had proposed an Industrial Disputes Commission but the Trades and Labour Council in Winnipeg refused to nominate labour members to it. The Borden government in Ottawa had set up the Mathers Commission (under the Chief Justice of Manitoba) to investigate industrial relations across Canada – but again the TLC refused to cooperate or testify before the commission went it came to Manitoba.

This was the situation on May 15, 1919 when the General Strike was launched – a world in turmoil, Marxist revolutionaries in bloody rebellion, local labour leaders praising Bolshevism, and using the language of class warfare. If the strikers were misunderstood, if the pro-establishment  Citizens’ Committee of One Thousand, local newspapers, and the Borden government over-reacted in perceiving revolutionary intent, the Left had nobody to blame but itself.

The strike lasted until late June when it was abandoned in what was seen at the time as a failure, but it lives on in progressive folk memory as a moral victory.

1610 Assassination of Henri IV

Frenchmen spent the last half of the 16th century persecuting each other over the question of religion. The last stage of these conflicts was known as The War of the Three Henris because each of the factions was led by (you guessed it) someone named Henri. The last of the Valois dynasty, which pursued a variable middle course, that of the so-called “Politiques”, was Henri III. Henri, Duc de Guise, led the ultra-Catholic League, while Protestant forces were under Henri of Navarre. In 1588 Henri III had Guise murdered and in the next year a Catholic partisan took revenge by knifing the king to death. This left Navarre next in line to the throne but he only won nation-wide acceptance when he converted to Catholicism, becoming Henri IV, first of the Bourbon dynasty.

But old hatreds died hard. In 1610, François Ravaillac approached the coach of Henri IV as it was stuck in a Parisian traffic jam and plunged his dagger into the king. Though he swore, under hideous torture, that he had no accomplices and was motivated by a desire to punish someone who was no true Catholic, a recent historian has speculated that he was aided by a noblewoman, the Marquise de Verneuil, who was a spiteful discarded royal mistress, and the Duc d’Epernon who had never reconciled himself to Henri’s rule.

Ravaillac was executed in a gruesome fashion which the loathsome Michel Foucault recounted in some detail in Discipline and Punish. Suffice it here to say only that he was, after much other unpleasantness, torn apart by six horses. The standard text on the affair is Roland Mousnier, The Assassination of Henry IV.

1885

Métis defeat at Batoche

In 1885, the Métis settlers of the South Saskatchewan River valley and a number of western native tribes arose in rebellion against the Canadian state, motivated by fears of loss of land, dwindling natural food resources, and government mismanagement. They were led by the mad visionary Louis Riel, and chiefs Poundmaker and Big Bear. After a number of rebel successes against white settlers, militia and police, a Canadian army led by General Frederick Middleton advanced against the centre of resistance, the village of Batoche.

After two days of shelling and outflanking maneuvers had failed to dislodge the Métis from their rifle pits, the army tried another unsuccessful attack on May 12, which failed because of miscommunication between units. Finally, frustrated Canadian regulars belonging to the Winnipeg Rifles, the Royal Grenadiers and the Midland regiment staged a mass frontal charge that overwhelmed the outnumbered and outgunned rebels. The surrender of Louis Riel hastened the end of the uprising, which would end in July when the last of the native warriors gave themselves up.

The rebellion was ill-advised and resulted in hard times for the Métis, though Riel remains a hero in the eyes of many.

1849

The Astor Place Riot

A quarrel over the merits of American and British actors led to an astonishing outbreak of violence in New York.

Theatres in the nineteenth century were a place where citizens of all social classes could gather and where loud expressions of opinion and taste could burst into riotous disorder. In 1849 the issue was whether American actors, exemplified by 45-year-old star Edwin Forrest, had attained an excellence in their portrayal of Shakespearean characters that was the equal of British actors, such as the touring player, the venerable Edwin Charles Macready. The two men had a history of hostility dating back to earlier tours of England which had resulted in threats of lawsuits and nasty letters to newspapers. Back in the U.S.A., Forrest had pressed the question by following Macready’s troupe about the country and challenging him by performing the same roles. Throw in the anti-British sentiment espoused by American patriots and recent Irish immigrants and you have an explosive situation in the making. Worse yet, was Forrest’s appeal to working class toughs and street gangs who claimed to prefer his rugged “American” style of acting to the more refined techniques of his foreign rival.

On May 7, 1849, Macready’s performance of Macbeth was interrupted by elements in the audience who pelted the stage with fruit, pennies and rotten eggs, while ripping up seats, hissing, and crying “Shame!” Though the actors tried to continue, the show had to be cancelled. The elderly Macready vowed to return to Britain in high dudgeon but influential New Yorkers urged him to stay and assured him that the better natures of the townsfolk would prevail. Alas it was not to be; the lower orders resented the interference of the upper class and were bent on mayhem.

Three nights later, Macready attempted to put on the Scottish play once more, and once more sections of the audience were determined to drive him from the stage. But the real problems were outside the theatre where a mob of 10,000 had gathered, armed with stones and bottles. For them, opposition to Macready was a patriotic act — street posters had stirred them up, demanding “SHALL AMERICANS OR ENGLISH RULE THIS CITY?” Someone attempted to set the theatre on fire.

Knowing that the local police were not up to the task, the Governor had summoned the state militia to protect the performance and to guard the residences of the well-to-do. When the mob would not disperse, a tragic decision was taken. In the words of a contemporary account:

At last the awful word was given to fire—there was a gleam of sulphurous light, a sharp quick rattle, and here and there in the crowd a man sank upon the pavement with a deep groan or a death rattle. Then came a more furious attack, and a wild yell of vengeance! Then the rattle of another death-dealing volley, far more fatal than the first. The ground was covered with killed and wounded—the pavement was stained with blood. A panic seized the multitude, which broke and scattered in every direction. In the darkness of the night yells of rage, screams of agony, and dying groans were mingled together. Groups of men took up the wounded and the dead, and conveyed them to the neighboring apothecary shops, station-houses, and the hospital.

The result was up to 30 dead, most innocent bystanders, and a sharpening of class hostility in New York.

1671

Colonel Blood Steals the Crown Jewels

This day, in the year 1671, witnessed one of the most extraordinary attempts at robbery recorded in the annals of crime. The designer was an Irishman, named Thomas Blood, whose father had gained property, according to the most probable account, as an iron-master, in the reign of Charles I.

When the civil wars broke out, the son espoused the cause of the parliament, entered the army, and rose to the rank of colonel; at least, in subsequent times, he is always spoken of as Colonel Blood. As, at the Restoration, we find him reduced to poverty, we may conclude that he had either squandered away his money, or that his property had been confiscated, perhaps in part both, for he seems to have laboured under the impression of having been injured by the Duke of Ormond, who had been appointed lord lieutenant of Ireland, and against whom he nourished the bitterest hatred.

In 1663, he formed a plot for surprising Dublin Castle, and seizing upon the lord lieutenant, which, however, was discovered before it could be carried into execution. Blood then became a wandering adventurer, roaming from one country to another, until he established himself in London, in the disguise of a physician, under the name of Ayliffe. Such was his position in 1670, when he made another attempt on the life of his enemy, the Duke of Ormond. On the evening of the 6^th of December in that year, as the duke was returning home from a dinner given to the young Prince of Orange, in St. James’s Street, he was stopped by six men on horseback, who dragged him from his coach, and having fastened him with a belt behind one of them, were carrying him off towards Tyburn, with the intention of hanging him there. But, by desperate struggling, he succeeded in slipping out of the strap which bound him, and made his escape, under favour of the darkness, but not without considerable hurt from the brutal treatment he had undergone. A reward of a thousand pounds was offered for the discovery of the ruffians concerned, but in vain.

It was not many months after this event, that Colonel Blood formed the extraordinary design of stealing the crown of England, and he contrived his plot with great artfulness. The regalia were at this time in the care of an aged but most trustworthy keeper, named Talbot Edwards, and Blood’s first aim was to make his acquaintance. Accordingly, he one day in April went to the Tower, in the disguise of a parson, with a woman whom he represented as his wife, for the purpose of visiting the regalia. After they had seen them, the lady pretended to be taken ill, upon which they were conducted into the keeper’s lodgings, where Mr. Edwards gave her a cordial, and treated her otherwise with kindness. They parted with professions of thankfulness, and a few days afterwards the pretended parson returned with half-a-dozen pairs of gloves, as a present to Mrs. Edwards, in acknowledgment of her courtesy.

An intimacy thus gradually arose between Blood and the Edwardses, who appear to have formed a sincere esteem for him; and at length he proposed a match between their daughter and a supposed nephew of his, whom he represented as possessed of two or three hundred a-year in land. It was accordingly agreed, at Blood’s suggestion, that he should bring his nephew to be introduced to the young lady at seven o’clock in the morning on the 9^th of May (people began the day much earlier then than now); and he farther asked leave to bring with him two friends, who, he said, wished to see the regalia, and it would be a convenience to them to be admitted at that early hour, as they were going to leave town in the forenoon.

Accordingly, as we are told by Strype, who received his narrative from the lips of the younger Edwards, ‘at the appointed time, the old man had got up ready to receive his guest, and the daughter had put herself into her best dress to entertain her gallant, when, behold! parson Blood, with three more, came to the jewel house, all armed with rapier blades in their canes, and every one a dagger and a pair of pocket pistols. Two of his companions entered in with him, and a third stayed at the door, it seems, for a watch.’ At Blood’s wish, they first went to see the regalia, that his friends might be at liberty to return; but as soon as the door was shut upon them, as was the usual practice, they seized the old man, and bound and gagged him, threatening to take his life if he made the smallest noise. Yet Edwards persisted in attempting to make all the noise he could, upon which they knocked him down by a blow on the head with a wooden mallet, and, as he still remained obstinate, they beat him on the head with the mallet until he became insensible; but recovering a little, and hearing them say they believed him to be dead, he thought it most prudent to remain quiet. The three men now went deliberately to work; Blood placing the crown for concealment under his cloak, while one of his companions, named Parrot, put the orb in his breeches, and the other proceeding to file the sceptre in two, for the convenience of putting it in a bag.

The three ruffians would probably thus have succeeding in executing their design, but for the opportune arrival of a son of Mr. Edwards from Flanders, accompanied by his brother-in-law, a Captain Beckman, who, having exchanged a word with the man who watched at the door, proceeded upstairs to the apartments occupied by the Edwardses. Blood and his companions thus interrupted, immediately decamped with the crown and orb, leaving the sceptre, which they had not time to file.

Old Edwards, as soon as they had left the room, began to shout out, ‘Treason! Murder!’ with all his might; and his daughter, rushing out into the court, gave the alarm, and cried out that the crown was stolen. The robbers reached the drawbridge without hindrance, but there the warder attempted to stop them, on which Blood discharged a pistol at him. As he fell down, though unhurt, they succeeded in clearing the other gates, reached the wharf, and were making for St. Katherine’s-gate, where horses were ready for them, when they were overtaken by Captain Beckman.

Blood discharged his second pistol at the captain’s head, but he escaped hurt by stooping, and immediately seized upon Blood, who struggled fiercely; but finding escape impossible, when he saw the crown wrested from his grasp, he is said to have exclaimed, in a tone of disappointment, ‘It was a gallant attempt, however unsuccessful; for it was for a crown!’ A few of the jewels fell from the crown in the struggle, but all that were of any value were recovered and restored to their places. Blood and Parrot (who had the orb and the most valuable jewel of the sceptre in his pocket) were secured and lodged in the White Tower, and three others of the party were subsequently captured.

The king, when informed of this extraordinary outrage, ordered Blood and Parrot to be brought to Whitehall to be examined in his presence. There Blood behaved with insolent effrontery He avowed that he was the leader in the attempt upon the life of the Duke of Ormond, in the preceding year, and that it was his intention to hang him at Tyburn; and he further stated that he, with others, had on another occasion concealed themselves in the reeds by the side of the Thames, above Battersea, to shoot the king as he passed in his barge; and that he, Blood, had taken aim at him with his carbine, but that ‘his heart was checked by an awe of majesty,’ and that he had not only relented himself, but had prevented his companions from proceeding in their design. This story was probably false, but it seems to have had its designed effect on the king, which was no doubt strengthened by Blood’s further declaration that there were hundreds of his friends yet undiscovered (he pretended to have acted for one of the discontented parties in the state), who were all bound by oath to revenge each other’s death, which ‘would expose his majesty and all his ministers to the daily fear and expectation of a massacre.

But, on the other side, if his majesty would spare the lives of a few, he might oblige the hearts of many; who, as they had been seen to do daring mischief, would be as bold, if received into pardon and favour, to perform eminent services for the crown.’ The singularity of the crime, the grand impudence of the offender, united perhaps with a fear of the threatened consequences, induced the king to save Blood from the vengeance of the law. He not only pardoned the villain, but gave him a grant of land in Ireland, by which he might subsist, and even took him into some degree of favour. It is alleged that Blood occasionally obtained court favours for others, of course for ‘a consideration.’ Charles received a rather cutting rebuke for his conduct from the Duke of Ormond, who had still the right of prosecuting Blood for the attempt on his life. When the king resolved to take the ruffian into his favour, he sent Lord Arlington to inform the duke that it was his pleasure that he should not prosecute Blood, for reasons which he was to give him; Arlington was interrupted by Ormond, who said, with formal politeness, that ‘his majesty’s command was the only reason that could be given; and therefore he might spare the rest.’

Edwards and his son, who had been the means of saving the regalia—one by his brave resistance, and the other by his timely arrival—were treated with neglect; the only rewards they received being grants on the exchequer, of two hundred pounds to the old man, and one to his son, which they were obliged to sell for half their value, through difficulty in obtaining payment.

After he had thus gained favour at court, Blood took up his residence in Westminster; and he is said by tradition to have inhabited an old mansion forming the corner of Peter and Tufton streets. Evelyn, not long after the date of the attempt on the crown, speaks of meeting Blood in good society, but remarks his ‘villanous, unmerciful look; a false countenance, but very well spoken, and dangerously insinuating.’ He died on the 24^th of August, 1680.

1915 Sinking of the Lusitania

If you wonder whether “the Hun”, the popular nickname for Germans in the First World War, was justified, you have only to look at the behaviour of their armed forces over a six-week period in 1915. 

The nickname initially sprang from Kaiser Wilhelm II’s instructions to his troops departing for the Boxer Rebellion in China. He licensed their atrocities by urging them to act in the same way that the real Hunnic horde had and to make sure that the Chinese would remember the Germans a thousand years hence. By the time World War I broke out, his country — which had given the world Dürer, Handel, Bach, Beethoven, Heine and Goethe – had a well-deserved reputation for militarism and brutality.

The unprovoked German invasion of neutral Belgium in August 1914 was marked by the usual outrages that attend such affairs – rape, looting, and murder of civilians – but the Kaiser’s High Command hoped that this surprise attack would bring a swift victory. Instead, the war on the Western Front bogged down in static trench warfare which produced massive casualties but no breakthrough. Seeking solutions to this stalemate led the German military to undertake decisive actions in contravention of the rules of warfare.

The first of these steps was to use poison gas against Allied troops. On April 22, 1915 waves of phosgene gas billowed around Canadian and French troops at Ypres. This “higher form of killing”, as a German scientist called it, caused a panic which just about succeeded in affording the desired collapse of the line. It encouraged the Germans to try even more deadly gases and encouraged the British and French to employ their own poisonous aerosols.

The second step was to declare a “maritime exclusion zone” around the British Isles and to warn that any ships, neutral or hostile, venturing into it would be subject to submarine attack. A notice was sent to American newspapers:

NOTICE!
TRAVELLERS intending to embark on the Atlantic voyage are reminded that a state of war exists between Germany and her allies and Great Britain and her allies; that the zone of war includes the waters adjacent to the British Isles; that, in accordance with formal notice given by the Imperial German Government, vessels flying the flag of Great Britain, or any of her allies, are liable to destruction in those waters and that travellers sailing in the war zone on the ships of Great Britain or her allies do so at their own risk.

IMPERIAL GERMAN EMBASSY
Washington, D.C., 22 April 1915.

R.M.S. Lusitania, a Cunard ocean liner, set sail from New York for Liverpool nine days later. On May 7, off the coast of Ireland, Lusitania was spotted by submarine U-20 of the Imperial German Navy which fired one torpedo at the passenger vessel. It struck the Lusitania on the starboard bow and precipitated a second explosion within the ship. Within 18 minutes the liner had sunk, taking almost 1,200 passengers and crew with it, mostly British and Canadians but 128 Americans as well, including some prominent public figures.

There was wide-spread outrage on both sides of the Atlantic but Germany maintained that the vessel was carrying munitions (it was, despite British denials) and that passengers had been warned. Nonetheless, the publicity caused the Germans to forbid any further attacks on passenger vessels until the resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare in January 1917. One historian has described the ultimate consequence of the sinking of the Lusitania: it had failed to bring two hundred American civilians to Liverpool in 1915 but had brought 2 million American troops in 1917.

Germany followed up this outrage with another innovation in May 1915, the aerial bombardment of civilians. German dirigible balloons, dubbed Zeppelins, began attacks on London and coastal cities, the forerunner of the hideous bombardments 25 years later that began with the Blitz, and led to the incineration of Hamburg, Berlin, Dresden, Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

Bicentenary of the death of Napoleon

Two hundred years ago, a great (but definitely not good) man died. Napoléon Bonaparte (15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821) was a military leader of great success, a reformer, a visionary, a rapist, and a mass murderer. Since the fall of the Roman Empire, Western Civilization had seen nothing like him, someone who rose from obscurity to grab destiny by the scruff the neck, win an imperial crown, and dictate the fortunes of a continent. Since his death, the world has been plagued by swarms of such would-be imitators: V.I. Lenin, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Jean-Bédel Bokassa, Mao Tse-tung, Saddam Hussein, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Juan Peron, Benito Mussolini, Kwame Nkrumah, “Papa Doc” Duvalier, etc., ad nauseam.

From his 1799 coup to his defeat at Waterloo in 1815, Napoléon had kept Europe in turmoil, overthrowing ancient dynasties, establishing new republics, settling his relatives on various thrones from Sweden to Spain, modernizing laws and bureaucracies, and killing millions of soldiers and civilians with the incessant wars prompted largely by his planetary-sized vanity. The crowned heads whose armies had finally brought him low were averse to killing a fellow monarch. This had resulted in an 1814 comic exile to the Italian island of Elba but Napoléon’s escape from there had taught a lesson — now he was to be sent to a speck of land over a thousand miles off the African coast. On the island of St Helena he would spend six uncomfortable years, constantly complaining about his food and lodgings, attended by a scruffy but mostly loyal band of retainers, and gradually growing sicker. 

He died on this date in 1821, probably of stomach cancer (his father had similarly suffered), though for two centuries rumours have circulated about his being poisoned by one of his own entourage or the British. On his deathbed he returned to the Catholic Church he had done so much to manipulate during his reign.

1728 Benefit Performance of The Beggar’s Opera

John Gay’s musical treatment of the London underworld was the sensation of 1728’s theatre season. The star of the show was 20-year-old Lavinia Fenton who played the heroine Polly Peachum. Though not a striking beauty she was a good actress and singer who seemed to radiant attractiveness. Her picture became a London pin-up, her songs were printed on ladies, crowds flocked to hear her sing, and a special benefit performance of the opera was held in her honour.

Certainly one frequent attender in the audience found her irresistible. This was Charles Powlett, the third Duke of Bolton, older than Lavinia by over 20 years, but possessed of huge tracts of land, deep pockets, and political clout. He was unhappily married, separated from his wife, and was determined that the fair Lavinia should be his. A print by Hogarth shows a scene from The Beggar’s Opera with a portrait of the actress in white, kneeling, and the smitten Duke seated in the box at the far right.

By the end of the theatre season Bolton had persuaded Miss Fenton to leave the stage for good and become his mistress. Their relationship was a long and happy one. She was treated well by society and bore him three sons out of wedlock. In 1751 Bolton’s wife died and he promptly married Lavinia, making her a Duchess. She was the first of a long line of actresses who married into the aristocracy; a model, perhaps, for Meghan Markle. 

 

The birthday of a plethora of popular culture luminaries:

1903 Bing Crosby. Harry Lillis “Bing” Crosby was more than the quintessential crooner whose career coincided with the introduction of the microphone that suited his intimate baritone. He was an Academy Award winning actor; he dominated record sales for decades; he was star on radio and television. Sadly his last public appearance was a bizarre Christmas duet with David Bowie.

1906 Mary Astor. The gorgeous Lucile Vasconcellos Langhanke was a splendid actress with a tawdry personal life. She won eternal fame for playing villainess Brigid O’Shaughnessy in The Maltese Falcon, and an Oscar for The Great Lie. Her parents were leeches and a constant source of embarrassment while Astor herself enjoyed a string of husbands and lovers. Her diary, in which she kept details of her amorous encounters, proved a scandal during one of her divorces but she died a faithful Catholic and a recovered alcoholic. 

1919 Pete Seeger. A splendid folk singer and an engaging personality, Seeger never quite shook off his association with Stalinism in the 1930s. Following the Moscow line, Seeger and his fellow American Marxists opposed any war against Hitler until mid-1941 and the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. Seeger quit the Communist Party in 1949 but continued to have trouble with Washington who viewed his progressive politics as being subversive. He supported every conceivable left wing cause in his music, from Republican Spain, unionism, the Hollywood Ten, the Rosenbergs, the death penalty, the Vietnam War, Occupy Wall Street, Obama, and environmentalism. He professed communism until the day he died but, late in life, did express misgivings about the Gulags. I love his banjo-only versions of some traditional Christmas music.

1928 Dave Dudley. David Darwin Pedruska became a big cross-over star in 1963 with his truck-driving ballad,”Six Days on the Road”. The song set the fashion for a new genre of country music and provided a decent living for Dudley who found that his popularity lingered in Europe for decades after his star had faded at home.

1933 James Brown. “Mr. Dynamite.” “The Hardest Working Man in Show Business.” “The Godfather of Soul”. “Soul Brother No. 1.” No more need be said. 

1938 Napoleon XIV. In 1966 Jerrold “Jerry” Samuels gave us the definition of a one-hit wonder and a testimony to the debased taste of a lost generation with the immortal cry of existential angst that was “They’re Coming to Take Me Away”. With great sensitivity, he further examined the hilarious side of mental illness with such other gems as “Bats in My Belfry”, “The Nuts on My Family Tree”, and “Photogenic, Schizophrenic You”.