Christmas Every Day

1520 Accession of Suleiman the Magnificent

The longest-serving and probably greatest of the Ottoman emperors was Suleiman, known in the West as “the Magnificent” and to the Turks as “the Lawgiver”. Born in 1494 to Sultan Selim the Grim, he followed his father’s policy of aggressive expansion of his empire and Sunni Islam.

In 1521 Suleiman struck into Serbia and captured Belgrade. The next year he took the important fortress of Rhodes from which the Knights of St John had bedevilled Islamic shipping in the eastern Mediterranean. In 1526 he smashed the Hungarians at Mohács and killed their king, but in 1527 he received a setback in his war on Christian Europe — his forces were turned back after an unsuccessful siege of Vienna. Fortunes in the battle between the Ottoman Empire and the Habsburg Holy Roman Empire would ebb and flow for centuries.

Next to face Suleiman’s armies were the Persians, recently made subject to the Shi’ite Safavid dynasty. A series of wars for the next three decades would advance the Turkish realm deeper into western Asia. 

At sea Ottoman navies battled the Portuguese in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean as far away as what is now Indonesia. In the Mediterranean Turkish fleets and their allies in the pirate states of North Africa had success against the ships of the Italian city states and Spain — a cynical alliance (is there any other kind?) with the French made that task easier.

In Turkey Suleiman was best known for codifying non-Sharia Islamic law and for sponsoring a flowering of arts and architecture. He himself was a poet of note.

Unlike previous Ottoman sultans, Suleiman married one of his concubines, a blonde Ukrainian beauty, daughter of an Orthodox priest, captured in a slaving raid and sold to the palace. Though their love affair was of epic proportions it did the empire no good. Under Roxelane’s influence, Suleiman killed two of his abler sons by other women in order to make her child, Selim, his heir. On his death in 1566 the apex of Ottoman grandeur had been reached, never again to be surpassed.

1902 Death of William Topaz McGonagall

Lovers of excruciatingly bad poetry have long honoured the shade of Irish-born Scottish poet William McGonagall, a weaver turned compulsive rhymester who to his dying day fancied himself among the greatest of his calling.

And, indeed, poetry was a calling. In 1877, when McGonagall was unemployed and in his 50s, he had a vision: I seemed to feel as it were a strange kind of feeling stealing over me, and remained so for about five minutes. A flame, as Lord Byron has said, seemed to kindle up my entire frame, along with a strong desire to write poetry; and I felt so happy, so happy, that I was inclined to dance, then I began to pace backwards and forwards in the room, trying to shake off all thought of writing poetry; but the more I tried, the more strong the sensation became. It was so strong, I imagined that a pen was in my right hand, and a voice crying, “Write! Write!“

For the next 25 years McGonagall proclaimed his creations on street-corners, in pubs, and in a circus where he was content, for fifteen shillings a night, to be pelted with refuse while he recited.  He died penniless and was buried in an unmarked Edinburgh grave but his memory lives on as long as poems like the one appended below, “The Death and Burial of Lord Tennyson”, are still treasured. His works are in print and, for their soporific qualities, make splendid bed-time reading.

Alas! England now mourns for her poet that's gone-
The late and the good Lord Tennyson.
I hope his soul has fled to heaven above,
Where there is everlasting joy and love.

He was a man that didn't care for company,
Because company interfered with his study,
And confused the bright ideas in his brain,
And for that reason from company he liked to abstain.

He has written some fine pieces of poetry in his time,
Especially the May Queen, which is really sublime;
Also the gallant charge of the Light Brigade-
A most heroic poem, and beautifully made.

He believed in the Bible, also in Shakspeare,
Which he advised young men to read without any fear;
And by following the advice of both works therein,
They would seldom or never commit any sin.

Lord Tennyson's works are full of the scenery of his boyhood,
And during his life all his actions were good;
And Lincolnshire was closely associated with his history,
And he has done what Wordsworth did for the Lake Country.

His remains now rest in Westminster Abbey,
And his funeral was very impressive to see;
It was a very touching sight, I must confess,
Every class, from the Queen, paying a tribute to the poet's greatness.

The pall-bearers on the right of the coffin were Mr W. E. H. Lecky,
And Professor Butler, Master of Trinity, and the Earl of Rosebery;
And on the left were Mr J. A. Froude and the Marquis of Salisbury,
Also Lord Selborne, which was an imposing sight to see.

The birthdays of screen sirens

1919 Doris Singleton

Singleton was a vocalist and radio star before getting the role she is best remembered for, playing Lucille Ball’s nemesis Carolyn Appleby on Love Lucy. 

1934 Brigitte Bardot

It is difficult to believe that Mademoiselle Bardot, who is still the epitome of the French “sex kitten”, was born the same year as Bonnie and Clyde were gunned down and the Dionne quintuplets dazzled the media. Bardot made 47 films before retiring in 1973 and becoming, first, an animal rights activist and then a critic of Muslim immigration.

1952 Sylvia Kristel

The Dutch model achieved soft-porn film immortality by starring in 1974’s Emmanuelle, Emmanuelle 2, Emmanuelle 3, Emmanuelle 4, Emmanuelle 7, Private Lessons, and Lady Chatterley’s Lover. She did not have a happy life, was addicted to cocaine, and died of throat cancer in 2021.

1967 Mira Sorvino

Academy Awards for supporting actors and actresses go to the strangest people — Walter Brennan won three of them. Mira Sorvino was tabbed for the prize in 1995 for her role as a prostitute in Woody Allen’s The Mighty Aphrodite. She has also been honoured by entomologists: an excretion of the sunburst diving beetle has been named  “mirasorvone”.

1983, The world is saved.

From The Spectator: In the early morning of September 26 1983, Stanislav Petrov of the Soviet Union’s Air Defense Force was on duty, monitoring his country’s satellite system, when the siren sounded. His computer indicated that the US had just launched five nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles, and protocol required him to notify superiors immediately. Soviet strategy was to ‘launch on warning’, and many in Moscow believed Ronald Reagan was planning a first strike. But Petrov had a gut feeling this was a false alarm. Five missiles seemed too few, and the system itself was new. He did not inform superiors and within a few minutes it became clear that he had been right. Much of the world could have been destroyed within an hour if Petrov had followed protocol.

1808 The Death of a Classicist

Richard Porson was born on Christmas Day in 1759 to a working-class English family but his brilliance and remarkable memory attracted sponsors who paid for his education at Eton and Cambridge. He soon developed a reputation as a keen scholar of the classics, publishing editions of Aeschylus, Xenophon and Aristophanes. Porson lost his teaching position at Cambridge because he was not in holy orders but his supporters pooled together enough money to give him a comfortable annuity. In 1792 he became Regius Professor of Greek at Cambridge, a position with few duties and less remuneration but in 1806 he was made librarian of the London Institution which came with a handsome salary.

Porson was an engaging conversationalist, though his excessive drinking and lack of personal hygiene were often remarked on. In 1808 he died of a stroke. Chambers has an anecdote to illustrate Porson’s unconventional behaviour:

The circumstances connected with Porson’s marriage are rather curious. He was very intimate with Mr. Perry, the editor of the Morning Chronicle, for whom his sister, Mrs. Lunan, a widow, kept house. One night the professor was seated in his favourite haunt, the Cider Cellars in Maiden Lane, smoking a pipe with a friend, when he suddenly turned to the latter and said: ‘Friend George, do you not think the widow Lunan an agreeable sort of personage, as times go?’ The party addressed replied that she might be so.

‘In that case,’ replied Porson, ‘you must meet me at St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields at eight o’clock to-morrow morning,’ and thereupon withdrew after having called for and paid his reckoning. His friend was somewhat puzzled, but knowing that Porson generally meant what he said, resolved to obey the summons, and accordingly next morning presented himself at the appointed hour at the church, where he found Porson, with Mrs. Lunan and a female friend, and a parson in full canonicals for the solemnisation of matrimony. The service was quickly got through, and thereupon the party quitted the sacred building, the bride and bridegroom going each different ways with their respective friends.

The oddity of the affair did not end here. Porson had proposed to Mrs. Lunan some time before, but had insisted on her keeping it a secret from her brother; and now that the ceremony was completed, seemed as determined as ever that nothing should be said of the marriage, having apparently also made no preparations for taking his bride home. His friend, who had acted as groomsman, then insisted that Mr. Perry should be informed of the occurrence; and Porson, after some opposition, consenting, the two walked together to the residence of the worthy editor, in Lancaster Court, where, after some explanation, an arrangement was effected, including the preparation of a wedding-dinner, and the securing of apartments for the newly-married couple.

After dinner, Porson, instead of remaining to enjoy the society of his bride, sallied forth to the house of a friend, and after remaining there till a late hour, proceeded to the Cider Cellars, where he sat till eight o’clock next morning! Not-withstanding what may well be called this most unprecedented treatment of a wife on her wedding-day, it is said that during the year and a half that the marriage subsisted, Porson acted the part of a kind and attentive husband, and had his wife lived, there is great reason to believe that she might have weaned him in time from his objectionable habits.

1893 Birth of blues legend

Lemon Henry “Blind Boy” Jefferson was born to a family of Texas sharecroppers. Visually impaired since birth, he became a street musician, playing gospel music and dance tunes, developing a unique vocal and guitar style. In the 1920s his talents were discovered and recording contracts made him a rich man. Hits like “See That My Grave is Kept Clean” and “Matchbox Blues” sold well and inspired later musicians such as the Beatles. Jefferson died in 1929 in mysterious circumstances, either in a blizzard, in a street robbery, or of a heart attack. He was indicted into the inaugural class of the Blues Hall of Fame.

Here Jefferson sings “Black Cat Moan”:

Let us also salute those other blues musicians with snappy nicknames: Lightning Hopkins, Blind Boy Grunt, Cripple Clarence Lofton, Muddy Waters, Peg Leg Sam, Washboard Sam, Backwards Sam Firk, Ironing Board Sam, Magic Sam, Watermelon Slim, Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson, Howlin’ Wolf, Cow-Cow  Davenport, Taj Mahal, and the immortal Johnny “Big Moose” Walker.