Christmas Every Day

1783

The Montgolfier Brothers make a hot-air balloon ascent

Joseph-Michel Montgolfier (1740 – 1810) and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier (1745 –  1799) developed a balloon made of sackcloth and paper, propelled by hot air. The younger brother made the first human ascent in a balloon in front of a large crowd of French dignitaries at Annonany in southeastern France. The journey lasted about 10 minutes, with the craft reaching an altitude of perhaps a mile. This led to further, more ambitious attempts. Those interested in this subject will learn almost nothing about it in the Monty Python sketch below.

1839 Commissioner Lin destroys the opium

In the early 19th century the Qing dynasty ruling China was trying to keep foreigners at bay and closely regulate trade with the outside world. This policy resulted in a balance of payments problem for the British who imported far more Chinese goods than the value of what they could, with difficulty, sell the Chinese. In response to this, the British East India Company hit on the diabolical scheme of smuggling opium into southern China, a technique that soon created a widespread addiction problem among the Chinese and a  profitable harvest of silver for the British.

To remedy this,  Emperor Daoguang sent Lin Zexu as a specially appointed imperial commissioner to end the practice of the opium trade. To stamp out opium, Commissioner Lin used all the powers of the Chinese state: he instituted a public-health program warning of the dangers of addiction; he organized addicts into  five-man mutual-responsibility teams pledged to guarantee that no one in the group would smoke; he rewarded those informing on the drug pushers; he arrested dealers and seized their wares — tons of opium and tens of thousands of pipes.

He moved diplomatically with the foreigners behind the trade, not wishing to start a war he could not win, urging them to stick to their legitimate trade in tea, silk, and rhubarb (he believed this last to be essential to the health of foreigners) and to desist from harming the Chinese people. In a carefully phrased letter to Queen Victoria, Lin tried to appeal to her moral sense of responsibility. “We have heard that in your honorable nation, too,” wrote Lin, “the people are not permitted to smoke the drug, and that offenders in this particular expose themselves to sure punishment…. In order to remove the source of the evil thoroughly, would it not be better to prohibit its sale and manufacture rather than merely prohibit its consumption?” Opium in fact was not prohibited in Britain and was taken— often in the form of laudanum—by several well-known figures, Samuel Taylor Coleridge among them. Many Englishmen regarded opium as less harmful than alcohol, and Lin’s moral exhortations fell on deaf ears.

When the British in Canton refused to give up their opium, or to hand over only token amounts, he blockaded their compound. After six weeks, when the foreigners had agreed to give up over 20,000 chests of opium and Commissioner Lin had taken delivery, the blockade was lifted. Lin  was now faced with the remarkable challenge of destroying close to 3 million pounds of raw opium. His solution was to order the digging of three huge trenches, 7 feet deep and 150 feet long. Thereafter, five hundred laborers, supervised by sixty officials, broke up the large balls of raw opium and mixed them with water, salt, and lime until the opium dissolved. Then, as large crowds of Chinese and foreigners looked on, the murky mixture was flushed out into a neighboring creek, and so reached the sea.

In a special prayer on June 3, 1839, to the spirit of the Southern Sea, “you who wash away all stains and cleanse all impurities,” Lin brooded over the fact that “poison has been allowed to creep in unchecked till at last barbarian smoke fills the market.” He apologized to the spirit for filling its domain with this noxious mixture and, he wrote in his diary, advised it “to tell the creatures of the water to move away for a time, to avoid being contaminated.” As to the foreigners who had lived through the blockade and now watched the solemn proceedings, Lin wrote in a memorial to Emperor Daoguang, they “do not dare show any disrespect, and indeed I should judge from their attitudes that they have the decency to feel heartily ashamed.”

On the contrary, the shameless British appealed to their government who used Lin’s actions as a pretext for the start of the Opium Wars that blasted the doors open to Chinese trade.

1581

The execution of James Douglas

James Douglas, Earl of Morton (1516-1581) was a Scottish politician at a time when losing favour often meant losing one’s head. During the reign of Mary, Queen of Scots, he had sided with Protestant nobles supporting England and frustrating many of the queen’s actions. He had taken part in the murder of Mary’s favourite, David Rizzio, and was part of the army that compelled the queen to abdicate in favour of her baby son James. In 1572 he was named Regent, governing on behalf of James VI but he made enemies in the Scottish church and other noble factions. He was charged with the murder of Mary’s second husband Lord Darnley (who was blown up and strangled in 1567) and was executed by means of a guillotine-like device, nicknamed “The Maiden” which he had imported from England, based on the contraption used in Halifax, Yorkshire.

Holinshed’s Chronicle of 1587 describes the Halifax prototype of the guillotine and the curious law that made one susceptible to its embrace:

There is and hath been of ancient time a law, or rather a custom, at Halifax, that whosoever doth commit any felony, and is taken with the same, or confess the fact upon examination, if it be valued by four constables to amount to the sum of thirteen-pence halfpenny, he is forthwith beheaded upon one of the next market days (which fall usually upon the Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays), or else upon the same day that he is so convicted, if market be then holden. The engine wherewith the execution is done is a square block of wood, of the length of four feet and a half, which doth ride up and down in a slot, rabet, or regall, between two pieces of timber that are framed and set upright, of five yards in height.

In the nether end of the sliding block is an axe, keyed or fastened with an iron into the wood, which, being drawn up to the top of the frame, is there fastened by a wooden pin (with a notch made into the same, after the manner of a Samson’s post), unto the middest of which pin also there is a long rope fastened, that cometh down among the people; so that when the offender hath made his confession, and hath laid his neck over the nethermost block, every man there present doth either take hold of the rope (or putteth forth his arm so near to the same as he can get, in token that he is willing to see justice executed), and pulling out the pin in this manner, the head block wherein the axe is fastened doth fall down with such a violence, that if the neck of the transgressor were so big as that of a bull, it should be cut in sunder at a stroke, and roll from the body by an huge distance. If it be so that the offender be apprehended for an ox, sheep, kine, horse, or any such cattle, the self beast or other of the same kind shall have the end of the rope tied somewhere unto them, so that they being driven, do draw out the pin whereby the offender is executed.

1794 “The Glorious First of June”

We should need to bring back the horrors of the first French Revolution to enable us to understand the wild delight with which Lord Howe’s victory, in 1794, was regarded in England. A king, a queen, and a princess guillotined in France, a reign of terror prevailing in that country, and a war threatening half the monarchs in Europe, had impressed the English with an intense desire to thwart the republicans. Our army was badly organized and badly generalled in those days; but the navy was in all its glory. In April 1794, Lord Howe, as Admiral-in-Chief of the Channel fleet, went out to look after the French fleet at Brest, and a great French convoy known to be expected from America and the West Indies. He had with him twenty-six sail of the line, and five frigates. For some weeks the fleet was in the Atlantic, baffled by foggy weather in the attempt to discover the enemy; but towards the close of May the two fleets sighted each other, and a great naval battle became imminent. The French admirals had often before avoided when possible a close contest with the English; but on this occasion Admiral Villaret de Joyeuse, knowing that a convoy of enormous value was at stake, determined to meet his formidable opponent. The two fleets were about equal in the number of ships; but the French had the advantage in number of guns, weight of metal, and number of men. On the 1st of June, Howe achieved a great victory over Villaret, the details of which are given in all the histories of the period.

Thus reads a nineteenth-century account of Howe’s victory. The French, not unnaturally, view the battle differently. Though it was a tactical loss for them, the vital grain convoy made it safely through to France where it was greeted with jubilation and public parades and Admiral Villaret de Joyeuse was promoted.

1972

Lod Airport Massacre

The next time you fuss about airport security, remember that it was once possible to board an airplane carrying an assault rifle and explosives. On May 30, 1972 three Japanese travellers stepped off a flight from Rome at Lod Airport in Israel, took out their weapons from violin cases and indiscriminately sprayed fire into the crowd. 26 people were killed, most of them Puerto Rican pilgrims, and 80 were injured. Two of the terrorists were killed on the spot but the third was captured.

What were Japanese Red Army communists doing involving themselves in the Palestine-Israeli conflict? It appears that an exchange program had been worked out with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine — External Operations, a more radical offshoot of the already pretty radical PFLP, led by Wadie Haddad. Haddad, an associate of Carlos the Jackal, was experienced in airliner terror, having master-minded the Entebbe high-jacking. The PFLP-OE trained the Japanese in Lebanon, thinking, correctly, that they would be less likely to draw suspicion from airline security.

The surviving attacker, Kozo Okamoto, pled guilty to murder charges and was sentenced to an Israeli jail but he was released in a prisoner swap in 1985. He is reported to have converted to Islam and lives in Lebanon, which has resisted calls for his extradition.

A day of two maritime disasters.

1558 The Spanish Armada sets sail

Philip II of Spain was determined to end the rule of Elizabeth I and her Protestant regime. He had waited until the death of Mary Queen of Scots (a rival claimant to the English throne) before starting military operations against England, so that he, or another member of the Habsburg clan, could rule the country. The plan was to assemble an enormous fleet to seize control of the English Channel and provide cover for an invading army to be ferried over on barges from the Low Countries. Ships of the Spanish and Portuguese navies, as well as dozens of others that could be commandeered or hired, gathered in Lisbon and on this date the first of 130 ships set sail. Galleons, galleasses, caravels, naos, pataches, pinnaces, carracks, supply hulks and even (madness!) galleys carried 8,766 sailors, 21,556 soldiers, and 2,088 convict rowers. Over half the ships never returned home.

1905 The Battle of TsushimaA clash of two empires, one in the ascendant and the other in sharp decline. In 1904 Japan launched the Russo-Japanese War, primarily to expel Russia from the parts of China that Tokyo wanted to exploit and to prevent any further Russian expansion in east Asia. It laid siege to the Russian naval base of Port Arthur in northern China and won victories on land and sea. This compelled Russia to order its Baltic Fleet to the rescue. For the next six months the Russian armada made its sluggish way to the Sea of Japan, short on fuel and supplies, and having disgraced itself on the way by attacking a British fishing fleet in the North Sea under the impression it was a flotilla of Japanese torpedo boats.

By the time the Russian navy arrived, Port Arthur had fallen and the new plan of Admiral Rozhestvensky was to make his way to the port of Vladivostok where other Russian ships were waiting. Japanese Admiral Togo foresaw the Russian route; the two fleets met in the Straits of Tsushima off the coast of Korea. The Japanese gunnery and ship handling (both expertly tutored by the British Royal Navy) eviscerated the Russians — only three of their ships were able to escape to Vladivostok. Two Russian admirals were put on trial after their return home. The humiliating defeat contributed greatly to civilian unrest at home, weakening the position of the Romanov dynasty.

1332 Birth of Ibn Khaldun

The greatest of all Muslim historiographers is Abd-ar-Rahman ibn Muhammed ibn Khaldun al Hadrani or, for short, Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406). Ibn Khaldun was born in Tunis, of an Arab family with strong ties to Muslim Spain (especially Seville) going back to the 9^th century. The family had left Seville for North Africa immediately before the city’s Reconquista by Christian forces in 1288. From there they went to Ifriqiya and settled in Tunis becoming high-ranking civil servants and scholars. His great-grandfather was tortured and murdered by a usurper in the turbulent politics of the area.

Ibn Khaldun received a very thorough education, a classical education, based on the study of the qur’an, of hadith, of the Arabic language and of Islamic law. As a teenager he survived the Black Death of 1349 and moved to Fez, then the most brilliant capital of the Muslim West. For a time he served the Sultan of Fez and then visited Spain where he was employed by the King of Granada who used him as an envoy to Pedro the Cruel of Castile. Chaotic politics saw him cast into jail for two years and serving a number of masters in Spain and North Africa. He made the pilgrimage to Mecca and saw Alexandria and Cairo where he served as Chief Justice to the Mameluke Sultan of Egypt. He went into retirement but was recalled in 1400 and sent to Damascus where he found himself inside the city as it was besieged by the Mongol conqueror Timur or Tamerlane. He was lowered from the walls in a basket to negotiate with the blood-thirsty Mongol; he impressed Timur who consulted him on historical matters and spared him when the city was taken and its inhabitants massacred. He returned to Egypt (having been stripped and robbed by bandits) and took up a position again as judge. He died in Cairo in 1406.

Ibn Khaldun began his great work of history, the Muqaddimah (Introduction) in the 1370s when he was in his late 40s and spent the rest of his life accumulating material and refining it. In the author’s intention, and as the title indicates, it is an “Introduction” to the historian’s craft. Thus it is presented as an encyclopaedic synthesis of the methodological and cultural knowledge necessary to enable the historian to produce a truly scientific work. 

 In his preface to the Introduction proper, Ibn khaldun begins by defining history – which he expands to include the study of the whole of the human past, including its social, economic and cultural aspects – defining its interest, denouncing the lack of curiosity and of method in his predecessors, and setting out the rules of good and sound criticism. This criticism is based essentially, apart from the examination of evidence, on the criterion of conformity with reality, that is of the probability of the facts reported and their conformity to the nature of things, which is the same as the current of history and of its evolution. Hence the necessity of bringing to light the laws which determine the direction of this current. The science capable of throwing light on this phenomenon is, he says, that of “a science which may be described as independent, which is defined by its object: human civilization and social facts as a whole”.

The central point around which his observations are built and to which his researches are directed is the study of decline, that is to say the symptoms and the nature of the ills from which civilizations die. Hence the Muqaddima is very closely linked with the political experiences of its author, who had been in fact very vividly aware that he was witnessing a tremendous change in the course of history, which is why he thought it necessary to write a summary of the past of humanity and to draw lessons from it. He remarks that at certain exceptional moments in history the upheavals are such that one has the impression of being present “at a new creation, at an actual renaissance, and at [the emergence of] a new world. It is so at present. Thus the need is felt for someone to make a record of the situation of humanity and of the world”. This “new world”‘, as Ibn Khaldun knew, was coming to birth in other lands; he also realized that the civilization to which he belonged was nearing its end. Although unable to avert the catastrophe, he was anxious at least to understand what was taking place, and therefore felt it necessary to analyse the processes of history.

 His main tool in this work of analysis is observation.  Ibn Khaldun had a thorough knowledge of  logic and made use of it, particular of induction, but he greatly mistrusted speculative reasoning. He admits that reason is a marvellous tool, but only within the framework of its natural limits, which are those of the investigation and the interpretation of what is real. He was much concerned about the problem of knowledge and it led him finally, after a radical criticism, to a refutation of philosophy, casting doubts on the adequacy of universal rationality and of individual reality, on the whole structure of speculative philosophy as it then existed. Having thus calmly dismissed Arabo-Muslim philosophy, he chose, in order to explore reality and arrive at its meaning, a type of empiricism which has no hesitation in “having recourse to the categories of rational explanation which derive from philosophy”. In short, Ibn Khaldun rejects the traditional speculation of the philosophers, which gets bogged down in fruitless argument and controversy, only to replace it by another type of speculation, the steps of which are more certain and the results more fruitful since it is directly related to concrete facts.