Christmas Every Day

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.