Christmas Every Day

1970

The Hutt River Principality is declared

The Principality of Hutt River, situated 595 km north of Perth, Western Australia and about 75 square km in area, declared its independence from Australia under the rule of His Royal Highness Prince Leonard I of Hutt, born Leonard Casley. His wife was styled “Her Royal Highness Princess Shirley of Hutt, Dame of the Rose of Sharon.” His son, Prince Graeme, succeeded to the throne upon his father’s abdication at the age of 91.

The declaration of sovereignty arose over a dispute about a wheat production quota. When Casley got nowhere with his protests, he renounced Australian claims on his land and set up his own sovereign state which has issued its own stamps and coins for some decades. The principality has been engaged in legal wrangles with the Australian government which refuses to recognize its independence and Australian courts have declared that “the arguments advanced by the applicants [were] fatuous, frivolous and vexatious.” Nonetheless the Crasley dynasty maintains its claims and attracts thousands of tourists a year to its desolate domain.

1984

Australia chooses a national anthem

In 1878 the song “Advance Australia Fair” was first performed. Its composer Peter Dodds McCormick said of it:

One night I attended a great concert in the Exhibition Building, when all the National Anthems of the world were to be sung by a large choir with band accompaniment. This was very nicely done, but I felt very aggravated that there was not one note for Australia. On the way home in a bus, I concocted the first verse of my song & when I got home I set it to music. I first wrote it in the Tonic Sol-fa notation, then transcribed it into the Old Notation, & I tried it over on an instrument next morning, & found it correct. Strange to say there has not been a note of it altered since. Some alteration has been made in the wording, but the sense is the same. It seemed to me to be like an inspiration, & I wrote the words & music with the greatest ease. 

Here is a 1927 rendition of it, replete with British jingoism that a later generation would excise. Fans of royalty will note the appearance of our Queen and her late consort.

Though widely popular, it did not replace “God Save the Queen” as the national anthem until a referendum in which “Advance Australia Fair” nudged out “Waltzing Matilda” as the winner. The current version, more politically correct than the original, now reads:

Australians all let us rejoice, For we are young and free; We’ve golden soil and wealth for toil; Our home is girt by sea; Our land abounds in nature’s gifts Of beauty rich and rare; In history’s page, let every stage Advance Australia Fair. In joyful strains then let us sing, Advance Australia Fair.

Verse 2 Beneath our radiant Southern Cross We’ll toil with hearts and hands; To make this Commonwealth of ours Renowned of all the lands; For those who’ve come across the seas We’ve boundless plains to share; With courage let us all combine To Advance Australia Fair. In joyful strains then let us sing, Advance Australia Fair.

1913

Birth of the Most Hated Woman in America

Madalyn Murray O’Hair was a cantankerous and foul-mouthed activist and one of the most influential women of her generation. Her relentless court cases and her founding of American Atheists scored a number of victories for godlessness and the separation of church and state in America.

Born into a Presbyterian family, she led a disordered life for some time, marrying, serving in the Second World War, discarding a husband, taking a lover, having children by different men, battling depression, and fleeing to Europe to defect to the Soviet Union, which she respected for its state atheism. After the USSR declined her bid for citizenship, O’Hair returned to Baltimore where she launched a lawsuit against the local school board for requiring Bible readings. The case reached the Supreme Court in 1963 and O’Hair was victorious: compulsory Bible readings were outlawed in American public schools. She would go on to try and prevent an astronaut from a Bible reading in space; she encouraged governments to tax the Catholic Church; she railed against the phrase “In God We Trust” on currency; and tried to ban the pope from holding mass in a public park. She served as the president or de facto leader of American Atheists from 1963 to 1995.

Her oldest son, William Murray, left atheism for Christianity and was disinherited by his mother. She remarked on his apostasy: “One could call this a postnatal abortion on the part of a mother, I guess; I repudiate him entirely and completely for now and all times. He is beyond human forgiveness.” He is now a Baptist minister and continues to speak out against O’Hair’s irreligion.

In 1995, she, her son Jon, and her grand-daughter Robin were kidnapped by a former employee of American Atheists and forced to withdraw considerable sums of money before they were murdered, dismembered and buried on a Texas ranch.

A recent movie, The Most Hated Woman in America, cast the attractive actress Melissa Leo as O’Hair. Somewhere, O’Hair is snickering.

1865 Lee surrenders at Appomattox

The American Civil War, aka the War Between the States, aka the War of Northern Aggression, aka the War for Southern Independence, aka the Great Rebellion, had begun effectively in 1861 with the bombardment of a Union fort in Charleston harbor. It effectively ended four years later with the decision by Robert E. Lee to surrender his Army of Northern Virginia after losing a final battle to Ulysses S. Grant close to the village of Appomattox Court House. Lee had been trying to link up with other remaining Confederate forces but, surrounded and cut off from supplies, had to admit that he, and the Southern cause, were finally at the end of their rope. “There is nothing left for me to do”, he said, “but to go and see General Grant, and I would rather die a thousand deaths.”

On the afternoon of April 12, in the parlor of a house owned by Wilmer McLean, Lee met Grant and agreed to very generous terms: the rebels would down their major weapons but would be allowed to march home under parole keeping their personal baggage, sidearms, and horses. Food for the journey was provided by the Union commissary and there was a tactful lack of triumphalism in the behaviour of the Northern Army. General Joshua Chamberlain, hero of Little Round Top, ordered his men to salute the passing grey-clad soldiers:

Instructions had been given; and when the head of each division column comes opposite our group, our bugle sounds the signal and instantly our whole line from right to left, regiment by regiment in succession, gives the soldier’s salutation, from the “order arms” to the old “carry”—the marching salute. [Confederate General] Gordon at the head of the column, riding with heavy spirit and downcast face, catches the sound of shifting arms, looks up, and, taking the meaning, wheels superbly, making with himself and his horse one uplifted figure, with profound salutation as he drops the point of his sword to the boot toe; then facing to his own command, gives word for his successive brigades to pass us with the same position of the manual,—honor answering honor. On our part not a sound of trumpet more, nor roll of drum; not a cheer, nor word nor whisper of vain-glorying, nor motion of man standing again at the order, but an awed stillness rather, and breath-holding, as if it were the passing of the dead!

Secessionist armies remained in the field as far away as Texas but Lee’s surrender prompted theirs as well. On May 9, the end of the war and of the Confederate States of America became official.

 

 

A very grim day in history with a number of catastrophic events.

1250

Louis IX (later St Louis), King of France, is captured by Muslim forces during the ill-fated Seventh Crusade. He will be ransomed and return home, but will not lose the crusading spirit. On his next attempt to invade North Africa he will die at Tunis.

1453

Mehmet II begins the Ottoman siege of Constantinople which will eventually capture the city and bring down the Byzantine Empire.

1712

A rebellion by black slaves to burn down New York breaks out. It begins with arson and then an ambush of white people, killing 9 and wounding 6. The perpetrators were hunted down and captured; most of them were burnt at the stake, though one was broken on the wheel. Laws were tightened to prevent any repetition of such an uprising.

1968

Quebec politician Pierre Elliot Trudeau wins the Liberal Party leadership and becomes Prime Minister. Canada has yet to recover.

1973

Major League Baseball sanctions the use of the “designated hitter” for the American League. The National League continues to hold out against this hideous innovation.

1609

Spain expels the Moriscos

The Iberian peninsula was invaded by Arab and Berber conquerors in the eighth century. In addition to the Islamic religion, these migrants brought with them new crops and agricultural techniques and connects to the wider Muslim world of trade and culture. This made for a rich and prosperous culture, in which many Christian subjects decided to participate and change religions. There was considerable intermarriage between the original inhabitants and the newcomers. The Moors, as they were called, did not succeed in subjugating the whole peninsula, however; for centuries, Christian kingdoms in the north of Spain fought back, gradually driving Islamic dominions southward. Muslim Spaniards tended to not wish to live under Christian rule and when their rulers were defeated they most often migrated too, leaving the land to be resettled by Catholics.

In 1492, Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile completed the Christian reconquest of Spain. Despite promises of religious toleration, they soon demanded that those Muslims unwilling to convert should leave the country (a similar demand was made of Jews.) Thousands left and resettled in North Africa but many stayed behind and changed religions (at least on the surface). These “Moriscos” were always regarded with suspicion by the government who believed that their real allegiance was to Islam, at a time when Spain was fighting for control of the Mediterranean with Muslim powers. From 1568-73 an attempt by Philip II to ban the use of Arabic and Arab clothing, and to force church education on Morisco children resulted in several rebellions. Relations between these New Christians and the Old Christians was always tense, and increasingly so as the Spanish economy failed to prosper despite the influx of gold from the Americas.

Pressure grew on the government of Philip III to expel the ex-Muslim population as a threat to Spanish security. The king was also attracted to the notion of confiscating their property for the crown and so in April, 1609, the first of a series of expulsions was enforced at the point of a sword. The refugees could take only what they could carry; their land and homes were to be confiscated, and any vandalism to this property as they left was punishable by death. Rebellions broke out, especially as those yet to be expelled learned of the harsh treatment given to them in North Africa. Historians are still debating the number of those expelled; estimates range from 300,000 to 1,000,000.

Like many of the Spanish government’s religious and racial policies, this atrocity was self-defeating. Whole towns were left deserted; agricultural production in many provinces of Spain collapsed — prices rose, rents had to be raised on remaining (Christian) tenants, landlords with no cheap Morisco labour to draw on were bankrupted. The expulsion was unpopular with much of the Christian population who often helped their Muslim neighbours evade the order or who aided them to return later. The government of Philip IV gave up on further prosecutions and looked the other way when Moriscos returned.

1968 

Martin Luther King gives his final speech

By 1968 Martin Luther King Jr., the Baptist clergyman who was a leading figure in the American civil rights movement and the winner of the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize, was an even more controversial figure than he had been during the campaigns of the 1950s and 1960s. Many white Americans who had supported him during the Montgomery bus boycott, the March on Washington, or the demonstrations in Selma had grown uneasy when he spoke of his opposition to the war in Vietnam, economic reparations for blacks, and what sounded like socialist economic solutions to poverty. To King, however, these issues were all of a piece and were a seamless appeal for justice. That commitment brought him to Tennessee in the spring of 1968 to support a strike by African-American sanitation workers against the city of Memphis (pictured above).

On April 3, 1968 in the Mason Temple, headquarters of the Church of God in Christ, King gave his last speech, one that was eerily prophetic and ended with this affirmation:

Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind.

Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!

And so I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.

Within 24 hours King was dead from an assassin’s rifle bullet.

1930

The Motion Picture Production Code is introduced

Movie-making in the Hollywood of the 1920s was often lurid and violent. Arab sheiks kidnapped virtuous white girls and made them their love slaves; Jazz Age flappers and playboys cavorted; Asian women beguiled and Asian men used drugs; divorce and adultery were frankly treated; and off-screen scandals involved movie stars. Various states introduced local censorship but it was not until the Production Code took effect that Hollywood was tamed for over three decades.

A Catholic layman and a Jesuit priest drew up a suggested list of approved and forbidden topics which was submitted to studio heads. They agreed to implement it but for years enforcement was sporadic and resisted by many in the industry. It was only in 1934 that the following rules began to be widely heeded.

Resolved, That those things which are included in the following list shall not appear in pictures produced by the members of this Association, irrespective of the manner in which they are treated:

1. Pointed profanity – by either title or lip – this includes the words “God,” “Lord,” “Jesus,” “Christ” (unless they be used reverently in connection with proper religious ceremonies), “hell,” “damn,” “Gawd,” and every other profane and vulgar expression however it may be spelled;
2. Any licentious or suggestive nudity – in fact or in silhouette; and any lecherous or licentious notice thereof by other characters in the picture;
3. The illegal traffic in drugs;
4. Any inference of sex perversion;
5. White slavery;
6. Miscegenation (sex relationships between the white and black races);
7. Sex hygiene and venereal diseases;
8. Scenes of actual childbirth – in fact or in silhouette;
9. Children’s sex organs;
10. Ridicule of the clergy;
11. Willful offense to any nation, race or creed;

And be it further resolved, That special care be exercised in the manner in which the following subjects are treated, to the end that vulgarity and suggestiveness may be eliminated and that good taste may be emphasized:

1. The use of the flag;
2. International relations (avoiding picturizing in an unfavorable light another country’s religion, history, institutions, prominent people, and citizenry);
3. Arson;
4. The use of firearms;
5. Theft, robbery, safe-cracking, and dynamiting of trains, mines, buildings, etc. (having in mind the effect which a too-detailed description of these may have upon the moron);
6. Brutality and possible gruesomeness;
7. Technique of committing murder by whatever method;
8. Methods of smuggling;
9. Third-degree methods;
10. Actual hangings or electrocutions as legal punishment for crime;
11. Sympathy for criminals;
12. Attitude toward public characters and institutions;
13. Sedition; 
14. Apparent cruelty to children and animals;
15. Branding of people or animals;
16. The sale of women, or of a woman selling her virtue;
17. Rape or attempted rape;
18. First-night scenes;
19. Man and woman in bed together;
20. Deliberate seduction of girls;
21. The institution of marriage;
22. Surgical operations;
23. The use of drugs;
24. Titles or scenes having to do with law enforcement or law-enforcing officers;
25. Excessive or lustful kissing, particularly when one character or the other is a  ‘heavy”.

Despite the heavy-handedness of this censorship, it is well to remember that movies made under its sway form part of the Golden Age of cinema. One could still make classics such as Over the Rainbow, Casablanca, Citizen Kane, It’s a Wonderful Life, and High Noon.

1282 The Sicilian Vespers

The kingdom of Sicily, consisting of Naples and southern Italy as well as the island, had been established by the Normans and later fell into the hands of the German imperial dynasty known as the Hohenstaufens. After Emperor Frederick II’s death it passed to his illegitimate son, Manfred. The papacy, determined to rid Italy of Hohenstaufen rule, bent all its energies to securing Manfred’s downfall. At length it offered the Sicilian crown to Charles of Anjou, a younger brother of King Louis IX of France (St. Louis). The intention was that the power of France be used to drive Manfred out of Italian kingdom. Charles of Anjou—dour, cruel, and ambitious—defeated Manfred in 1266 and established a new French dynasty on the throne of the kingdom.

The inhabitants of the realm, particularly those on the island of Sicily, had been accustomed to Hohenstaufen rule and resented Charles of Anjou. They looked on his French soldiers as an army of occupation. When, on Easter Monday, a French soldier molested a young married woman on her way to evening services in Palermo, he was struck down, and on all sides was raised the cry “Death to the French!” (Note in the melodramatic representation above, a knife-wielding figure topped by the Phrygian cap symbolizing Liberty.)

The incident resulted in a spontaneous uprising and a general massacre of Frenchmen, (some 13,000 dead) which spread swiftly throughout the island. When the French retaliated, the Sicilians offered the crown to Peter III of Aragon, Manfred’s son-in-law, who claimed the Hohenstaufen inheritance and led an expedition to Sicily.

There ensued a long, bloody, indecisive struggle known by the romantic name the “War of the Sicilian Vespers.” For twenty years Charles of Anjou and successors, backed by the French monarchy and the papacy, fought against Sicilians and Aragonese. In the end, southern Italy remained under Charles of Anjou’s heirs, who ruled it from Naples, while the island of Sicily passed under control of the kings of Aragon. The dispute between France and Aragon over southern Italy and Sicily persisted for generations and became an important in the politics of modern Europe.

The strife of the thirteenth century destroyed Sicilian prosperity. Once the wealthiest and best administered state in Italy, the kingdom of Sicily became pauperized and divided—a victim of international politics and of the ruthless struggle between papacy and Empire.

1930

Farewell Constantinople, Hello Istanbul

One of the great cities of the world is located just south of the Black Sea and reaches across the Bosphorus Strait from Europe to Asia. It was founded as a Greek city, a colony of Megara, named Byzantion. When the site was chosen as the location of the new capital of the recently-Christianized Roman Empire, it was dubbed New Rome but became better known as Constantinople. Since 1930 it has been called Istanbul.

When the Ottoman Turks blew open the walls of Constantinople and killed the last Roman Emperor in 1453, the once-magnificent city was a ghostly shell of its former self: underpopulated, poverty-stricken, with vast areas inside its walls returned to nature. Mehmet the Conqueror was determined to revive the city and make it his capital; he encouraged the Christian population to stay on, compelled Turkish settlers to immigrate, and began an infrastructure and building campaign that his successors would continue until the glory of the city was restored. For almost 500 years under the Turkish empire the name Constantinople was retained, but when that empire was toppled a change was made.

Mehmet Pasha, aka Ataturk, was the founder of a new, secular Turkish republic in 1923 and he meant to drag his nation into the 20th century. He crushed the power of the Islamic clergy, abolished the Caliphate, banned Arabic and replaced it with Roman letters, discouraged the wearing of the turban (the fedora was now the headgear of choice), and moved the capital from cosmopolitan Constantinople to the provincial city of Angora in the interior. Ataturk wished to emphasize Turkishness, not the multi-national Ottoman regime. As a symbol of this, Angora became Ankara and Constantinople was renamed Istanbul, probably from a bastardization of the Greek phrase. “to the City”.

In 1953, in honour of the 500th anniversary of the fall of the city, the Canadian pop group The Four Lads recorded “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)”, a humorous take on the name change written by Jimmy Kennedy and Nat Simon.  The lyrics proclaim:

Istanbul was Constantinople
Now it’s Istanbul, not Constantinople
Been a long time gone, Oh Constantinople
Now it’s Turkish delight on a moonlit night.

Every gal in Constantinople
Lives in Istanbul, not Constantinople
So if you’ve a date in Constantinople
She’ll be waiting in Istanbul.

Even old New York was once New Amsterdam;
Why they changed it I can’t say;
People just liked it better that way.

So, Take me back to Constantinople
No, you can’t go back to Constantinople
Been a long time gone, Oh Constantinople
Why did Constantinople get the works?
That’s nobody’s business but the Turks

Istanbul
Istanbul
Istanbul

Even old New York was once New Amsterdam
Why they changed it I can’t say
People just liked it better that way

Istanbul was Constantinople
Now it’s Istanbul, not Constantinople
Been a long time gone, Oh Constantinople
Why did Constantinople get the works?
That’s nobody’s business but the Turks

So, Take me back to Constantinople
No, you can’t go back to Constantinople
Been a long time gone, Oh Constantinople
Why did Constantinople get the works?
That’s nobody’s business but the Turks