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THE RACE TO DISCOVER THE WORLD, FROM CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS TO SIR FRANCIS DRAKE
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FROM THE EDITOR
ON THE COVER: ALAMY X6, GETTY X3, BRIDGEMAN IMAGES X1, COVER IMAGE ENHANCEMENT - CHRISSTOCKERDESIGN.CO.UK / ON THIS PAGE: ALAMY
Welcome I remember well the sense of awe I felt when I first went aboard the replica of the Matthew that resides in Bristol harbour. The idea of climbing aboard such a tiny, cramped vessel and heading out to sea would fill me with dread today, so we can only imagine how the crew felt when they headed west out of the port, not knowing even if they would sail clean off the edge of the world. We salute these intrepid explorers in our biggest-ever cover feature, which sets sail on page 26. Just as these explorers set out into the unknown in search of new worlds, so we celebrate some of the pioneers of human rights elsewhere this issue. The freed African slave Equiano wrote a best-selling autobiography about his harrowing experiences, which changed many minds abut the barbaric institution of slavery in 18th-century Britain (p78 . And then there are the stories of the women who brought about huge leaps of change in sexual equality between the wars (p72 . We report from the crucial Battle of Hattin (p66 , during the Crusades, and the failed 20 July plot to assassinate
GET INVOLVED Like us on Facebook: facebook.com/ HistoryRevealed Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/ HistoryRevMag Email us: haveyoursay@ historyrevealed.com Or post: Have Your Say, History Revealed, Immediate Media, Tower House, Fairfax Street, Bristol BS1 3BN
Explore this replica of the Matthew at Bristol’s historic harbour
Hitler in 1944. And then there’s the extraordinary true story of Samurai revenge (p22 that inspired the recent movie, 47 Ronin. Finally, for those of you fancy getting out and about, the feature about ancient long barrows on page 90 should help you find the history dotted around our countryside. Enjoy!
Paul McGuinness Editor
Don’t miss our Christmas issue, on sale 11 December
GET YOUR DIGITAL COPY Did you know you can get a digital copy of History Revealed for iOS, Kindle Fire, PC or Mac? Visit iTunes, Amazon or zinio.com to find out more.
ON THE COVER Your key to the big stories… 54 66 84 59
26
60
THIS MONTH WE’VE LEARNED...
20
32
16
Number of volumes in Encyclopedia Britannica’s last-ever printed edition, in 2012. See page 18.
3600 BC
£10
The age of West Kennet Long Barrow in Wiltshire, which was used as a burial site for around 1,100 years. See page 90.
Reward money given by King Henry VII to John Cabot for discovering North America. See page 43.
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78
72 DECEMBER 2014
3
26 EXPLORING NEW WORLDS The race to discover the world in the Tudor age
48
CROUCHING DRAGON
– the Sir Francis Drake his sailor known by agon’ Dr e ‘th as ies em en
90
ANCIENT MONUMENTS
The long barrows older than the Pyramids
ALAMY X5, GETTY X2, BRIDGEMAN IMAGES X1, KOBAL X1, THINKSTOCK X1
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A TOUCH OF GLAMOUR Andrew Collins invites Elizabeth Taylor to dinner
TIME CAPSULE
THE BIG STORY
FEATURES
THIS MONTH IN HISTORY…
COVER STORY
GREAT EXPLORERS OF THE TUDOR AGE
DIGGING INTO HISTORY COVER STORY
Snapshots
The men who sailed off the edge of the map in pursuit of new lands...............................26
Top 10: Famous Last Words The most memorable words
Take a look at the big picture .............................. 8
I Read the News Today December, through the ages ............................. 14 COVER STORY
What Happened Next…
The 1919 Spanish Flu pandemic...................... 16
Graphic History Encyclopædia Britannica..........................................18 COVER STORY
Yesterday’s Papers
The day John Lennon was shot.................... 20 COVER STORY
The Extraordinary Tale of…
Revenge of the 47 ronin .......................................... 22
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Need to Know Who went where and when, and what made them steer into the unknown? ..... 28
Who Discovered America? Two explorers of a new continent who ended up on very different paths................40
Timeline The milestone events that defined the Age of Discovery.............................................................. 46
spoken from the deathbed .................................. 54 COVER STORY
Battlefield: Hattin
A crushing defeat for the Crusaders ..... 66
In Pictures: A Woman’s Place... The fight for sexual equality COVER STORY
in the interwar years..................................................... 72
The History Makers: Olaudah Equiano From slave to COVER STORY
famed author and freedom fighter ........... 78
England’s Sea Dragon
COVER STORY
How Sir Francis Drake sailed the world and won the praise of Elizabeth I .............. 48
How a German officer tried to kill Adolf Hitler, and why he failed .......................................... 84
The Reel Story: Valkyrie
78 FREEDOM FIGHTER
How Olaudah Equiano escaped slavery
72
RS BETWEEN THE WA of The changing place women in British society
84
66
KILLING HITLER The real plot of Operation Valkyrie
CRUSADE S CATASTROPRH E Saladin hamm ers the Crusader s
DECEMBER 2014
Q&A
HERE & NOW
Ask the Experts
On our Radar
Your questions answered.......................................56
Our pick of the exhibitions, activities, film and TV this month .............................................88
COVER STORY
In a Nutshell
The Irish Potato Famine...........................................59
How Did They do That?
How to Visit… Long barrows........................................................................ 90
Roman siege warfare..................................................60
Books
Design of the Times
The best new releases, plus read up on Roman Britain ...................................................................... 94
Byzantine cavalrymen................................................62
EVERY ISSUE Letters ......................................................................................... 6 Crossword...................................................................... 96 Next Issue........................................................................97 Be My Guest ............................................................ 98
CHRISTMAS SPECIAL SUBSCRIPTION OFFER! More details on page 24
HAVE YOUR SAY
READERS’ LETTERS Get in touch – share your opinions on history and our magazine
SAINT JOAN I absolutely love your magazine because of how many topics it covers and how unbiased it is. One of my favourite areas of history at the moment is medieval Europe, specifically the Hundred Years War (September 2014 . I love medieval warfare and the tacticians behind some of
TER LEOT F THE MONTH
land after the Hundred Years War because the English armies would have been too widely spread and would’ve been vulnerable to attacks from Scotland, Wales, revolt from the French people and possibly an attack from Spain.
OH WHAT A LENGTHY WAR The Hundred Years War was ‘The Big Story’ in our
It seems as if Joan of Arc was a saviour for both France and England the most famous battles like Agincourt and Poitiers. I don’t think it would’ve done England any good if they had owned vast amounts of French
I was so happy with this issue (October 2014), I have a little obsession with Elizabeth so it was great to read a few snippets I didn’t know about her! Jemima PuddleDuck
FORGOTTEN WARS I was pleased to see your cover story in the November issue was the English Civil War, as this is becoming a forgotten period of British history. I read that 90 per cent of people could not name a single battle from the war, 80
With that in account, it seems as if Joan of Arc was a saviour for both France and England. Glenn Armstrong, age 12, Hertfordshire
per cent could not name the monarch who was executed as a result of the war, and 67 per cent of schoolchildren did not know who Oliver Cromwell was. Articles and publications such as History Revealed can go a long way to changing this. The great thing about History Revealed is that it can appeal to any age group and to any level of understanding. All I can say is keep up the good work! Adam Oakley, Chaddesden, Derbyshire
Glenn Armstrong wins History of the World of Maps. Published by Times Books, worth £50. With huge colour photos, this richly illustrated hardback explores the history of mapmaking and the ever-changing view of the world.
Editor replies: You’re absolutely right – there is a risk of this period being overlooked. It may have something to do with the fact that there is a lot of misconception surrounding the wars. The typical image of a metal-clad Roundhead facing a beautifully shod Cavalier is no longer reliable, and there is even doubt over what we name the period. Is it ‘English Civil War’, ‘Wars of Three Kingdoms’ or ‘British Civil Wars’? Hopefully, it is a part of British history that won’t be lost, and there are plenty of societies around Britain putting on regular reenactments for us to enjoy. Loved the new issue out today. Always so much packed into one magazine, I really look forward to it. @Shar231983
CONFLICTED OPINIONS The Civil War is the subject of many misconceptions
AROUND THE WORLD Re ‘Did the Ancients know the world was round?’ (Q&A, August 2014 , on a tour of the ancient city of Ephesus on the west coast of Turkey, our tour guide pointed out a large broken statue of a Greek god with his foot perched on the world – which was round. Jack, via email
SHARING STORIES We went to Verona whilst on holiday in Italy and visited the ‘Juliet Balcony’ in the Capulet mansion. I already knew that the Capulet family was a real historical family as I had been told that they had ruled Sirmione whilst working in the area in the Medieval period. We found that the location of Juliet’s tomb was well signposted and at the entrance was a Chinese statue. The statue commemorates a couple in Ningbo who had an identical
story to Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet (‘The Greatest Loves of All’, November 2014 . This makes me wonder about what contact there has been between China and the west over the years. I am given to believe that the Chinese have a flood legend that includes a man called Noh Wah building a boat. If this is true, it seems to show more contact between civilisations than we previously thought possible. John Grove, via email Editor replies: It is strange when similar stories come from different sides of the world. The ‘Butterfly Lovers’ is one of China’s most beloved folktales. Before things were written down, the only way stories and ideas spread was by word of mouth. This made travellers and merchants very important to the dissemination of ideas. Aztec Rituals, Cleopatra, Ypres... The November issue looks cram packed with things I need to know about! @WWfun
VISITING PETRA Firstly, congratulations. I have, until now not found a readable history magazine! I enjoy every word of yours. I have been twice to Petra but nowhere could I find the meaning of Khaznah (Q&A,
November 2014 . It is ‘the Treasury’. I believe the modern meaning can also be used to mean safety deposit. Guy Alexander, via email I am addicted to History Revealed, esp loved the article about Elizabeth 1. I have just finished reading a book about her by David Starkey. Fascinating woman... Miranda Thibbaut
HISTORY FAN I would like to say that your magazine is quite simply the best magazine I have ever read. It is amazing. The content is superb and when reading the magazine, the reader is really spellbound by the fantastic features in the magazine. Keep up the good work! Penny Anderson, via email Buy this every month without fail. Always interesting content and keeps me riveted from cover to cover. Keep up the good work! Valerie Quinn
WITHOUT MISSING A BEATLE I don’t know if anyone else did, but I noticed on the 1963 Beatles photo of the crowd with the policeman with his fingers in his ears (Snapshot, November 2014 , behind him, on his left,
appears to be a young Paul McCartney! Here’s to many more brilliant issues for me to enjoy! Ronnie Hancox, via email Editor replies: Well spotted Ronnie –and the other readers who also pointed this out. I couldn’t help but wonder whether anyone who was in that photo would see it, but as yet nobody has come forward... Bessie 1 is VERY Joan Crawford in @ HistoryRevMag: “Her Majesty forbids the showing of any portraits which are ugly until they are improved.” @John_Bizzell
CORRECTIONS – ISSUE 8 • On page 90 of ‘How to visit Windmills’, we unintentionally misplaced Cranbrook Union Mill in Kent. We said it stood on drained marshland, which is usually the case with a smock mill design, but Cranbrook is actually on solid ground at the top of a hill. Rupert Matthews says: “While the lightweight smock mill design was usually chosen due to unstable soil conditions, It is perfectly true that in this instance the design was chosen for other reasons.”
CROSSWORD NO 7 WINNERS The lucky winners of the crossword from issue 7 are: Hugh Woodco*ck, County Antrim Alan Gee, Buckinghamshire BM Dyson, West Yorkshire Well done! You have each won Oscar Wilde’s Scandalous Summer, worth £20. Test your wits against this month’s crossword on page 96.
GET IN TOUCH
HOW TO CONTACT US haveyoursay@history revealed.com facebook.com/ HistoryRevealed twitter.com/HistoryRevMag
EDITORIAL Editor Paul McGuinness [emailprotected] Production Editor Mel Woodward [emailprotected] Staff Writer Jonny Wilkes [emailprotected] ART Art Editor Sheu-Kuei Ho Picture Editor Rosie McPherson Illustrators Dawn Cooper, Jess Hibbert, Chris Stocker, TIDY Designs CONTRIBUTORS & EXPERTS Florence Belbin, Emily Brand, Mark Glancy, Lottie Goldfinch, Steve Hartill, Julian Humphrys, Greg Jenner, Pat Kinsella, Sean Lang, Rupert Matthews, Gordon O’Sullivan, Jeremy Pound, Kirsty Ralston, Miles Russell, Ellen Shlasko, Richard Smyth, Nige Tassell, Sue Wingrove PRESS & PR Press Officer Carolyn Wray 0117 314 8812 [emailprotected] CIRCULATION Circulation Manager Helen Seymour ADVERTISING & MARKETING Senior Advertisem*nt Manager Steve Grigg [emailprotected] Advertisem*nt Manager Lucy Moakes 0117 314 7426 [emailprotected] Deputy Advertisem*nt Manager Sam Jones 0117 314 8847 [emailprotected] Junior Brand Sales Executive Jon Maney 0117 314 8754 [emailprotected] Subscriptions Director Jacky Perales-Morris Marketing Executive Gemma Burns PRODUCTION Production Director Sarah Powell Production Co-ordinator Emily Mounter Ad Co-ordinator Jade O’Halloran Ad Designer Rachel Shircore Reprographics Tony Hunt, Chris Sutch PUBLISHING Publisher David Musgrove Publishing Director Andy Healy Managing Director Andy Marshall Chairman Stephen Alexander Deputy Chairman Peter Phippen CEO Tom Bureau Basic annual subscription rates UK £51.87 Eire/Europe £56.25 ROW £58 © Immediate Media Company Bristol 2014. All rights reserved. No part of History Revealed may be reproduced in any form or by any means either wholly or in part, without prior written permission of the publisher. Not to be resold, lent, hired out or otherwise disposed of by way of trade at more than the recommended retail price or in mutilated condition. Printed in the UK by William Gibbons Ltd. The publisher, editor and authors accept no responsibility in respect of any products, goods or services which may be advertised or referred to in this issue or for any errors, omissions, misstatements or mistakes in any such advertisem*nts or references.
Or post:
FROM ME TO YOU A young fan turns out to see his double on stage
Have Your Say, History Revealed, Immediate Media, Tower House, Fairfax Street, Bristol BS1 3BN
DECEMBER 2014
7
TIME CAPSULE THIS MONTH IN HISTORY SNAPSHOT
1887 A BIT OF LEG
CORBIS
The Eiffel Tower is nearly a year into construction when this photo is taken. Its designer, Gustave Eiffel, promises the edifice will be a fitting centrepiece to the 1889 Exposition Universelle – a fair celebrating 100 years since the French Revolution. Not everyone is excited to see the finished thing. A guild of artists and intellectuals criticise the design, describing the iron tower as “useless and monstrous… a giddy, ridiculous tower dominating Paris like a gigantic black smokestack”.
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TIME CAPSULE DECEMBER
SNAPSHOT
1936 NO TRUNKS ON THE TRAM
GETTY
While working its route through London on a December day, a tram is stopped on Grays Inn Road by a cunning elephant sniffing for a snack. The driver relents and hands over an apple to the peckish pachyderm. Elephants may not have been the standard clientele for a London tram, but they were a relatively familiar sight in the British capital. Many appeared in theatre or circus performances and several were housed at both London Zoo and, since its opening in 1931, at Whipsnade Zoo.
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TIME CAPSULE DECEMBER
SNAPSHOT
1940 KEEP YOUR EYES OFF THE BALL
PRESS ASSOCIATION
As Charlton Athletic take on Arsenal at home on 7 December 1940, a qualified Observer watches the skies for signs of a Luftwaffe attack. The Blitz had begun and the threat of bombings by German planes was ever-looming, but that couldn’t stop the weekly football. The official Football League was abandoned in 1939 as stadiums were taken over for military purposes and hundreds of players signed up to fight, but regional games still, cautiously, took place. In the interests of public safety, the number of spectators was limited to 8,000, and Observers patrolled the perimeter of the pitch watching and listening for danger.
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TIME CAPSULE DECEMBER IGUANODON INNARDS
“I READ THE NEWS TODAY...”
The Iguanodon was 9 metres long and made of 600 bricks, barrels of stone and 38 casks of cement.
Weird and wonderful, it all happened in December
DINNER IN A DINOSAUR
1853 PARTY ANIMAL
TO LET
THE POPE SAYS NOPE
1294 BETWEEN THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP BLUE SEE When Pope Celestine V resigned the papacy, or the ‘See of Rome’, on 13 December, he not only became the first pontiff to abdicate but he also doomed himself to a place in Inferno, Dante’s literary version of Hell. Celestine had been a hermit in a remote Italian mountain range before becoming Pope, and he was in no way prepared for the role. He lasted just a few months before concluding that his duties were distracting him from his quest for eternal salvation. One not entirely credible account claimed that Celestine was tricked into resigning by Boniface – the man who succeeded him as Pope – by getting a cleric to whisper to Celestine, pretending to be God.
VAN GOGH’S UNUSUAL GIFT
1888 GETTING AN EARFUL ALAMY X4, GETTY X1, THINKSTOCK X5
In his lifetime, Vincent van Gogh only ever sold one painting, and he was cruelly mocked by the art world as he descended into insanity and depression. This came to a head, literally, in late December 1888, when the tortured genius cut off part of his left ear and sent it to a favourite prostitute of his. After the incident, van Gogh see-sawed between crippling madness and inspired creativity – among his works was a selfportrait showing a bandage wrapped around his ear.
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There was only one way to see in 1854 – attending a New Year’s party inside a giant model of a dinosaur. To celebrate the dozens of dino-dummies being built for Crystal Palace Park, creators Richard Owen and Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins invited 21 distinguished guests to a banquet inside an unfinished Iguanodon. The night was a huge success, and ended with everyone boisterously singing “The jolly old beast is not deceased! There’s life in him again!”
The dinner consisted of eight courses, including hare soup, pigeon pie and pheasant, woodco*ck and snipe meats.
NO CRIME, NO PUNISHMENT
1849 LET OFF AT THE LAST MINUTE Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky was in front of a firing squad, seconds from death, when a note from Tsar Nicholas I arrived cancelling the execution. He had been condemned for anti-government activities, based on his involvement with an intellectual group, and taken to St Petersburg on 22 December to be shot. But the Tsar had commuted the sentence to four years of hard labour in Siberia. After his release, Dostoyevsky penned his masterpiece, Crime and Punishment.
OUT THE WINDOW
1695 DAYLIGHT ROBBERY After William III introduced a window tax to England and Wales in December 1695, householders – who had to pay between two and eight shillings – began bricking up their windows. Evidence of the unpopular tax, which shattered the glass industry’s profits and may have led to the phrase ‘daylight robbery’, can still be seen today.
“…OH BOY” December events that changed the world 18 DECEMBER 1271 EMPIRE OF THE KHAN The Yuan Dynasty begins under Genghis Khan’s grandson, Kublai Khan.
13 DECEMBER 1642 TASMAN SEES NEW LAND Dutch merchant Abel Tasman becomes the first European to sail to New Zealand.
16 DECEMBER 1773 FANCY A CUP OF TEA? Protesting British rule, American demonstrators destroy a shipment of tea in Boston Harbour.
17 DECEMBER 1790 AZTEC ARCHAEOLOGY
ONE FOR THE BOOKS
! S T NU
1968 A LITTLE OVERDUE Richard Dodd returned a book to the University of Cincinnati medical library on 7 December 1968, admitting it was overdue. The librarian was shocked to see that Dodd’s great-grandfather had checked the book out in 1823, making it 145 years late. The fine, which Dodd luckily wasn’t asked to pay, would have been in excess of $20,000.
1823
Having been lost for 300 years, the Aztec Calendar Stone is rediscovered.
2 DECEMBER 1804 HERE’S TO THE LITTLE GUY Napoleon Bonaparte is crowned as Emperor of the French.
8 DECEMBER 1813 TAKE A BOW, BEETHOVEN
BATTLEFIELD DIPLOMACY
1944 TO THE GERMAN COMMANDER
1968
FINE0! .00
$20,00
In the bitterly cold winter of 1944, the Germans launched a last-ditch offensive to win World War II, but it was halted by fierce resistance from the surrounded American 101st Airborne at Bastogne. When the Germans demanded the “honourable surrender” of the Americans, General McAuliffe treated the request with little respect. His reply was just one word: “Nuts!”
To a packed Vienna theatre, Beethoven premieres his 7th Symphony.
1 DECEMBER 1959 STOPPING THE COLD WAR FROM FREEZING The signing of the Antarctica Treaty prevents nuclear tests in the frozen region.
AND FINALLY... On 15 December 1747, Royal Navy officer Edward Legge became a Member of Parliament, despite having died 87 days earlier. He had been elected while at sea, and news of his demise didn’t reach home until after the election.
DECEMBER 2014
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TIME CAPSULE DECEMBER PAIN IN SPAIN
WHAT HAPPENED NEXT? A deadly influenza virus affects a third of the world’s population
Spanish Flu neither originated in Spain nor hit the country particularly badly. The pandemic got its name as early reports of the virus were censored by Britain, France, America and Germany as they were at war. Papers in neutral Spain, however, reported freely, making the virus look worse there.
1918 MILLIONS DIE IN GLOBAL SPANISH FLU PANDEMIC The speed with which Spanish Flu spread and its unusual characteristics made the disease a record mass-killer...
W
orld War I was in its final stages. With the Germans in retreat, peace was on the horizon. After four years of fighting, thoughts drifted towards life after the war, and to the euphoric welcomes troops would receive when they returned home. Fewer men were dying in combat and there was a belief among soldiers that they might make it through the ‘Great War’. Yet millions were still dying as another scourge plagued the people of the world: disease.
ALAMY X1, PRESS ASSOCIATION X1
WAVE AFTER WAVE The first wave of H1N1 influenza, or Spanish Flu, came in March 1918 and was relatively mild, amounting to little more than typical flu. It is thought the first cases were in American military forts, but it wasn’t long before they reached the trenches in Europe. By August 1918, the flu mutated, making for a more virulent and deadly second wave. Symptoms included fatigue, headaches, coughs so violent that victims tore abdominal muscles, bleeding from the nose and ears, vomiting, and skin turning blue. Some people died within hours of first feeling ill. Whereas most influenzas are worst among the very young, elderly and weak,
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what was unusual about Spanish Flu was that it seemed to target healthy, young adults. To add to the woes, new transport meant the infected, mostly soldiers packed in troop ships, spread the virus at unprecedented speeds. MORTALITY RATE The average flu mortality rate is 0.1 per cent, but the death rate for the second wave was 20 times higher. Spanish Flu reached every corner of the world, from remote Pacific islands to the Arctic, and hit Europe and America hardest. US President Woodrow Wilson contracted the illness while negotiating the Treaty of Versailles. Focus was on prevention, rather than cure. People wore masks and public places were closed while the sick festered in crowded, temporary hospitals. And just like that, it was gone. In 1919, a last wave struck, but by then, the virus was a much less lethal strain. Spanish Flu infected a third of the world’s population, and killed, at a conservative estimate, 50 million people, making it one of the deadliest disasters in history. More died because of the pandemic than in World War I itself, and in a fraction of the time. d
TREATING THE SICK
The numbers of affected were so great that school gymnasiums were converted into makeshift wards
THE FORGOTTEN FLU Despite the colossal damage and hurt caused, the pandemic has been nearly forgotten. This may be due to the virus’s speed – it came and went too quickly for there to be much media coverage. As people were so used to tragic news from World War I, there is a possibility the pandemic was, as best as it could be, swept under the rug. People had had enough bad news.
SPREADING THE VIRUS The joy of returning troops – like these US soldiers arriving in New Jersey – was soon replaced by despair as influenza spread
FROM WAR TO WARDS The filthy, rat-infested, polluted trenches of World War I badly affected many men’s immune systems, making them more vulnerable to illness. When the war was over, massive troop movements sped up the transmission of the virus, hurling the world into another wave of Spanish Flu.
HOMESPUN REMEDIES In the hope of beating the pandemic, a host of sensible (and not-so-sensible) cures emerged, from eating raw onions, drinking a co*cktail of water, salt and coal oil, and keeping a potato in your pocket. Oxo began marketing itself as the best way of “fortifying the system”.
“By August 1918, the flu mutated, making for a more virulent and deadly second wave”
DECEMBER 2014
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TIME CAPSULE DECEMBER
GRAPHIC HISTORY A visual guide to the past
1768 ICONIC TOME HITS THE SHELVES
1
ALL GREEK TO HIM The first encyclopedia of which segments survive dates from c410-c339 BC. It was written by the philosopher Speusippus, who compiled his uncle Plato’s thoughts on natural history, mathematics, philosophy and more.
In December 1768, the very first edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica was launched. This epic compendium was borne of a rich heritage…
2
AD500–1600 MIDDLE AGES AND BEYOND
SACRED LEARNINGS Roman statesman Cassiodorus wrote Institutes of Divine and Secular Literature in the 550s, a book in which he divided the moral and immoral entries. Soon after, St Isidore of Seville compiled a Christian compendium.
3
EASTERN TAKE
ORDER, ORDER
THE BIG BOOK
In the 9th century, Ibn Qutaybah, an Arabian philologist and historian, penned the earliest-known Arabic encyclopedia. The contents run in order of importance, beginning with power and war, ending with food and women.
Suda, written around the 10th century, is the first encyclopedic dictionary with alphabetically ordered contents. It also has pictures and diagrams.
In the 12th century, scholar Honorius Inclusus wrote his Mirror of the World. It draws on the widest variety of sources yet, and is the most significant tome of its time.
1600–1750 MODERN KNOWLEDGE
BACON’S PLAN In the early 17th century, Francis Bacon began the Great Instauration. Though never finished, this massive project was planned to have 130 sections, in order to record “a total reconstruction of sciences, arts, and all human knowledge.”
DEAD LANGUAGE
REVOLUTIONARY READ
The use of English in books boomed from the late 1600s – until then, most western encyclopedias had used Latin.
Across the Channel, The Encyclopédie launched in 1751. It was a vast project with authority-challenging articles. In pre-revolutionary France, it earned some 2,000 subscribers to the very first volume.
LATIN TO
ENGLISH
INFOGRAPHIC: TIDY DESIGNS
ROCKY ROAD The 14th edition – produced in both America and the UK – launched the month before the Great Depression hit. The institution suffered, badly. When World War II broke out, it floundered further.
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410BC–AD500 ANCIENT TOMES
REBOOT 4 The number of pages dedicated to the bibliography in the second edition
2 The number of pirated versions of the third edition
44 MILLION The number of words in the 15th edition
In the sixties, an effort began to remake the first edition of the encyclopedia, with offices in London and Chicago working together. The replica was completed for the book’s 200th anniversary, in 1968.
4
1750–1950 BRITANNICA BEGINS
SCOTTISH IDEA Inspired by the success of The Encyclopédie, “a society of gentlemen in Scotland” decided to produce the Encyclopædia Britannica. First issued in 1768, it is the longest-running English-language general encyclopedia in the world.
5
1970–present GETTING DIGITAL
COMPACT KNOWLEDGE In 1993, 12 years after Britannica published the first text-only digital encyclopedia to selected users in 1981, Microsoft released Encarta CD. The compact compendium cost $400, and contained 25,000 articles, sound bites, a dictionary, and a quiz game.
In 2012, Britannica announced its 15th edition would be its last printed one. Over 32 volumes, the publication weighed 62 kg and retailed at £1,195.
ROMAN TOME The most important Roman encyclopedia that survives today is Natural History, completed by Pliny the Elder in AD 77. It has 37 volumes, and covers all sorts, from astronomy to zoology.
NUN THE WISER
PROLIFIC VINNIE
LET’S READ!
The first encyclopedia likely written by a woman is from the 12th century. The Alsatian Abess Herrad’s horticultural book Garden of Delights, is illustrated with 636 images.
The greatest compendium of this age was probably the Speculum majus by French priest and theologian, Vincent of Beauvais. With nearly 10,000 chapters, his work was the largest to date and remained so until the 18th century.
Around the end of the 15th century, German prior Gregor Reisch wrote a compendium for children – the Margarita philosophica.
22 20
Fourth
Number of volumes
18
1801-09
16
Third
14
1788-97
12 10
Second
8
1777-84
6 4 2
First
1768-71
For 40 years, the Scottish encyclopedia grew in size. The fifth and sixth editions remained much the same as the fourth, but supplements were added to keep the books up-to-date.
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Over the decades, the admired publication drew more and more famous writers, from Sir Walter Scott in the 19th century, to Alfred Hitchco*ck in the 20th.
By the early 20th century, Britannica had become a world leader and, in 1901, while the ninth edition was on sale, it was bought by two Americans and, shortly after, moved to New York.
Edition
WIKIMANIA
BRITANNICA DIGITISES 5
MILLIONS OF ARTICLES
In the nineties, Britannica launched two digital initiatives. First it launched Britannica CD, before its original online encyclopedia, which users paid to access, went live.
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WIKIPEDIA ARTICLES 4,629,086
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Launched in 2001, Wikipedia, a non-profit online compendium made a vast amount of knowledge freely available, and quickly became one of the world’s most popular websites. In early 2007, much of Britannica online became free to read.
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TIME CAPSULE DECEMBER
JOHN FROST NEWSPAPERS X1, GETTY X2
HARD DAY’S NIGHT Yoko Ono asked the doctor to delay announcing the news of John’s death so she could have time to break the news to their five-year-old son, Sean. A journalist, however, was in the hospital being treated after a motorcycle accident and got the scoop.
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YESTERDAY’S PAPERS On 9 December 1980, the world was in shock when they woke to the news that former Beatle and music deity John Lennon was shot at the door of his home
“I REFUSE TO BE A SAINT OR A MARTYR” JOHN LENNON N
othing could be done for John Lennon when he was rushed to Roosevelt Hospital late on 8 December 1980. His injuries were too severe. Seconds after dying from multiple gunshot wounds, the Beatles song All My Loving was heard on the hospital sound system. It had been a busy day of recording – and a photoshoot with Annie Liebovitz – when John and Yoko Ono returned to their apartment in New York’s swanky Dakota building. As they walked to the door at 10.50pm, five gunshots rang out and John was hit in the back and chest. The shooter, deranged fan Mark David Chapman, had been hanging around the Dakota all day, and even had his copy of John’s latest album, Double Fantasy, signed that afternoon, while he waited to kill his former hero. Chapman, with a history of mental instability and failed suicides, had been a zealous Beatles fan, but turned on the band when he became a born-again Christian. He regarded John’s “more popular than Jesus” comment to be blasphemous, and the lyrics “Imagine no possessions” from Imagine deeply hypocritical, considering John’s wealth. After the shooting, he made no attempt to flee, but sat reading The Catcher in the Rye, a book he had become obsessed by as he related to the troubled main character. Inside his copy, he had written, “This is my statement”. A disbelieving onlooker approached Chapman screaming, “Do you know what you’ve just done?” and he calmly answered: “Yes, I just shot John Lennon”. Refusing to plead insanity, Chapman was sentenced to 20 years to life. He remains behind bars, having been denied parole eight times. d
ALL MY LOVING In an interview only two days before the shooting, John enthusiastically talked about how safe he felt in New York – and free from the usual Beatles hysteria – claiming, “I can walk down the street safely”.
COME TOGETHER On 14 December, countless mourners converged in cities worldwide, with some 225,000 distraught people descending on Central Park, near where John was shot. Yoko had earlier released a statement reading, “John loved and prayed for the human race, please do the same for him”.
ABOVE: John Lennon had found a peaceful lifestyle with Yoko Ono in New York, away from Beatlemania RIGHT: Shocked and despondent Lennon fans gather in New York’s Central Park to mourn his death
1980 ALSO IN THE NEWS… 3 DECEMBER The British aristocrat despised for being a Nazi sympathiser and for leading the UK’s ‘Blackshirt’ fascist movement, Sir Oswald Mosley, dies in Paris, at the age of 84.
12 DECEMBER Electronics company Apple sells 4.6 million of its shares, instantly making around 300 people millionaires. Apple founder Steve Jobs makes $217 million dollars alone.
12 DECEMBER An early 16thcentury notebook filled with writings and drawings by Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci sells at auction, with the winning bid reaching over $5 million.
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TIME CAPSULE DECEMBER
THE EXTRAORDINARY TALE OF… When 47 samurai avenged the death of their master
1702 THE ‘47 RONIN’ TAKE REVENGE AND RESTORE THEIR HONOUR Even though they knew it would cost them their lives, the small band of samurai launched their revenge attack on 14 December...
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now was falling in the early hours of 14 December 1702, but the thin canopy of white coating the land couldn’t distract the 47 men from their mission. Before them was the mansion of their sworn enemy. All 47 pairs of eyes were fixed on the target, and 47 pairs of hands were ready to grasp their weapons – spears, bows or finely-honed katanas, the swords of the samurai. The warriors had waited a year for this moment, when they would finally have vengeance on the man who ruined their master’s reputation, and all they were waiting for was their leader, Oishi Kuranosuke Yoshio, to signal the start of the attack with the beating of a drum. A MASTER’S DOWNFALL Japan during the Tokugawa era (early-17th to late-19th centuries) was ruled by a military official, the Shogun, in the name of the
at Kira with a dagger, which Emperor. Under him were the caused barely a scratch on Kira’s daimyo, lords who controlled face, but any act of violence was their territories with armies of utterly forbidden in Edo. The fiercely loyal samurai. punishment was severe: Asano Asano Naganori was a young was ordered to kill himself by daimyo from Ako when, in committing seppuku, his land 1701, he was ordered to arrange and goods were confiscated, his a reception for the Emperor’s family ruined and his samurai envoys, but the ceremony had to were made ‘ronin’ – or leaderless. be inch-perfect – any mistake, Asano was told, would deeply LAYING IN WAIT insult the Emperor and reflect KEEPING THE SECRET In an instant, 300 samurai poorly on the Shogun. Kira So they wouldn’t arouse were cast out and shamed, Yoshinaka, an arrogant, rude and suspicion, the ronin’s armour but 47 of Asano’s warriors, pompous official, was therefore was homemade and weapons led by Oishi, sought sent to train Asano. What Asano were hidden in Edo. The armour and swords – as well as the drum vengeance. They took an didn’t know was that Kira used to signal the attack and the oath to murder Kira, an act expected lavish gifts and bribes whistle blown when Kira was punishable by death, as they for the service so the two men found – are kept in the temple where the ronin are buried. saw it as their duty to the instantly loathed each other. The samurai code of honour – fatal incident came at Edo Castle, Bushido – to avenge the death the seat of the Shogun’s power, when Kira insulted Asano, calling of their master. But to succeed, him a “country boy with no manners”. Enraged, Asano lunged SAMURAI SIEGE ing of A 19th-century paint mansion a’s Kir on ack att the
“Bushido is realised in the presence of death. This means choosing death whenever there is a choice between life and death. There is no other reasoning.” ALAMY X2
from Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai by Yamamoto Tsunetomo
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TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE? An annual festival in Japan celebrates the ronin, but there are some who don’t find their revenge so honourable. Yamamoto Tsunetomo, writing in the 18th century, insisted that they should have attacked Kira immediately, regardless of their chances of success. By planning, they put victory ahead of honour and risked Kira dying by other means.
FALLEN HEROES
All 47 ronin are buried sideby-side at Sengaku-ji temple, near the grave of their master
meticulous planning was needed. Kira was too well-guarded so the ronin had to wait. They split up and worked as tradesmen to throw Kira off the scent. Oishi’s devotion to the oath was absolute. He spent the year tricking Kira’s spies by pretending to be a womanising drunk, even divorcing his wife as part of the ruse. Placated that Asano’s men had no interest in revenge, Kira’s caution slackened and the 47 ronin saw that their time had come. They knew the layout of Kira’s mansion and had smuggled weapons into the grounds.
FIGHTING FOR HONOUR One of a series of paintings from the Meiji period depicting each of the 47 ronin
HONOUR SACRIFICE On that snowy night, under cover of darkness, the ronin launched their attack on Kira’s mansion at the sound of a drum. One group stormed the back gate while Oishi led a second through the front. The first ronin scaled the walls, subdued the guards and sent messages to the people of Edo saying they had nothing to fear. The people, who hated Kira, did nothing to stop the ronin. Kira’s bodyguards, although caught unawares, put up a brave and noble defence. They raced from their beds in bare feet to protect Kira, but they were overpowered by the organised ronin. It is unclear how many of the bodyguards were killed, but not one of the ronin died. Kira, who had fled once he was awoken by the sounds of the attack, was found cowering among a pile of firewood. Oishi offered the
THE 48TH SAMURAI Buried next to the ronin’s graves is another samurai – while Oishi was pretending to be drunk, he was once mocked and kicked by a samurai from Satsuma, but after the ronin’s honour was restored, that man visited the tombs of the ronin, begged for forgiveness and committed suicide.
speechless and shaking Kira the same dagger Asano had used to kill himself so that he could die with honour. When Kira made no response, Oishi ordered his head to be cut off. From there, the ronin carried the head to Asano’s grave in the temple of Sengakuji, six miles across Edo, where it was washed and laid before their master’s tomb. The ronin had their revenge, but they had committed murder. All 47 turned themselves over to the Shogun, in adherence to the code of Bushido, where, despite being praised for their loyalty to Asano, they were sentenced to death. The Shogun, however, permitted them a far more honourable death than execution – seppuku. On 4 February 1703, 46 of the ronin killed themselves with daggers to their bellies. The 47th, and youngest, was pardoned as a gesture of respect. When he died many years later, the last ronin was buried next to his comrades, in front of Asano’s tomb. The story of their revenge is now a national legend in Japan, celebrated as the best example of Bushido – devotion, loyalty, sacrifice and honour. d
WHAT DO YOU THINK? Was it right for the 47 ronin to take their own lives? Email: [emailprotected]
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THE BIG STORY GREAT EXPLORERS
WORDS: PAT KINSELLA
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D
uring the 15th and 16th centuries, powerful European nations embarked on frenetic campaigns of global discovery, colonial conquest and tradeorientated empire building. This was an era of intense ocean-crossing exploration. This was the Age of Discovery. The impact of the period was immense. The West’s understanding of the planet skyrocketed, as a ‘New World’ was revealed across the Atlantic. Enormous wealth poured into Europe, the daily diet of millions changed and technology boomed. Meanwhile, the African slave trade escalated, and disease and death were delivered to many indigenous peoples, whose cultures were also damaged or even destroyed.
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These consequences were as unpredictable as the new seas were uncharted. The Vikings had explored North America’s east coast centuries earlier, but their findings weren’t shared. While Aristotle showed, in the fourth century BC, that the Earth was spherical, a myth persisted that a great nothingness existed beyond the entrance to the Mediterranean. Explorers of the age were sailing off the edge of the map.
NOW READ ON… NEED TO KNOW 1 Into the Darkness
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2 Who Went Where and When?
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p32 4 Round the World p34 5 A Sailor’s Life p38 3 The Spice Race
WHO DISCOVERED AMERICA? Columbus and Cabot p40
TIMELINE Milestones in the Age of Discovery p46
SIR FRANCIS DRAKE England’s Sea Dragon p48
GET HOOKED Explore the Age of Discovery p53
CAPTAINS OF DISCOVERY Columbus, Cabot and Drake (left to right) led the way in this era of exploration
“THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA AND THAT OF A PASSAGE TO THE EAST INDIES… ARE THE TWO GREATEST AND MOST IMPORTANT EVENTS RECORDED IN THE HISTORY OF MANKIND” ECONOMIST AND PHILOSOPHER ADAM SMITH, 1776
THE BIG STORY GREAT EXPLORERS
“THE ARABIC NAME FOR THE VOID WAS BAHR AL-ZULAMAT… THE SEA OF DARKNESS”
THE SEA OF DARKNESS MAIN: Sailors feared unknown waters, shown in a nightmarish vision in this woodcut BELOW RIGHT: The highly successful Venetian traveller Marco Polo sets of in 1271
VOYAGE OF INSPIRATION
DEEP SEA DANGERS
Marco Polo left Venice in 1271 and, for 17 years, lived in China under Mongol ruler Kublai Khan. The book of his adventures inspired travellers for centuries.
Medieval maps warned of the danger of uncharted waters, often depicting sea serpents. One from 1539 showed a 60-metre serpent coiled around a ship. Sailors also feared sirens and giant squid – the latter, at least, are real and can reach 12m long.
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INTO THE DARKNESS Europeans had no idea what wonders or terrors awaited them in uncharted waters that would later drive the heroic age of Antarctic he Pillars of Hercules are Exploration and the Space Race. Geographical mountainous points either side of curiosity was a natural progression from the the narrow Strait of Gibraltar, one Renaissance – the fertile period of artistic being the rock of Gibraltar and the other expression that flowered across Europe from a peak on the North African shore. In the the 14th century – where creative boundaries 15th century, this is where maps ended were stretched and explored. The innate and a knowledge vacuum began. human inquisitiveness of key players The Latin countries called the was tickled by the tales of riches and Atlantic expanse beyond the adventure told by early travellers to strait Mare Tenebrosum, while The number of miles the Orient, such as Marco Polo in the Arabic name for the void estimated as travelled the early 1300s. was Bahr al-Zulamat. Both by Marco Polo from National pride and international mean ‘sea of darkness’. 1271 to his return to rivalry also played a role. Many Venice in 1295 European monarchs harboured Why, then, by the 15th century, were ambitions to build empires, just as the Europeans keen to sail off the end of the Greeks and Romans had done in antiquity, and known world and into the dark? The pursuit didn’t want to be outdone by their neighbours. of wealth is the basic answer. Africa promised Fear was equally important. Portugal was gold, jewels and slaves, while the East (India, exposed and cut off from the Mediterranean, China and the Spice Islands) had prized spices. while other European countries felt vulnerable Other factors were at play too, including many
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to attack from the east. There, large wealthy and advanced Islamic nations posed a potential threat – particularly with the dust having barely settled after centuries of violence brought about by the Crusades. More importantly, these Muslim countries stood in the way of the Silk Road, a land-based trading route to the East, where valuable and highly coveted spices such as pepper, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves originated. The most pressing brief for the major explorers of the era was to find a sea route to the Orient. As early as 1291, two Genoese brothers, Vandino and Ugolino Vivaldi, travelled through the Strait of Gibraltar in a bid to get to India. They disappeared without trace, but many more would follow – some sailing into the history books, others into oblivion.
BY SEA TO THE ORIENT
EVERY WHICH WAY BUT EAST A glance at a map shows that, before the construction of the Suez Canal, travelling to the Orient by sea from Europe would be a long and scenic way to reach the riches of the region, compared to going directly east, over land. The land route, however, had become problematic. The relationship between the Christian West and the Islamic East was far from friendly in the 15th century, after generations of bloody fighting caused by Crusading campaigns instigated by the Catholic Church to try and seize access to the Holy Lands. Even in times of relative peace, transporting bounty along an
overland route was problematic, with middlemen enforcing tariffs and pushing up prices. After the fall of Christian Constantinople (now Istanbul) in 1453, the Ottoman Empire controlled the important trading route to the east known as the Silk Road; the discovery of a sea route became imperative. Explorers took to the ocean, sailing through the Pillars of Hercules into the great unknown. Once into the Atlantic, there were two options: they could either head south, ultimately around the soon-tobe-infamous Cape of Good Hope at the tip of Africa, or go west, where, initially at least, they had no idea that an entirely new world stood in their way.
NOT-SO-SUPER HIGHWAY The Silk Road was the best trading route to Asia, but Muslim countries stood in the way
BRAVE LITTLE SHIPS MAIN: An expedition of caravels ready to set out on a voyage of discovery, shown in 1528 BELOW: Henry the Navigator developed the small but sleek caravel for exploration
STATE OF THE ARK Streamlined and swift, it was their lateen sails (triangular) that made caravels so much more manoeuvrable than ships with square sails.
EXPLORERS’ SHIP OF CHOICE
THE CARAVEL CLUB Developed initially by Portugal’s Prince Henry the Navigator, the caravel was a small, nimble, technologically-advanced ship, specifically designed for exploration. With lateen (triangular) sails, the two- or three-masted caravel performed well when sailing into the wind – using a technique called tacking. Its small size – around 23 metres long, with room for just 20 men – made it ill-suited for carrying cargo, but it was the perfect machine for pioneering new routes and became the weapon of choice for explorers venturing down the West African coast or across the Atlantic. Portuguese explorer Diogo Cão took two caravels down the coast of West Africa and his
compatriot Bartolomeu Dias sailed one, the São Cristóvão, round the Cape of Good Hope in 1488. John Cabot’s Atlantic-crossing Matthew, which left Bristol in 1497, was a caravel. Christopher Columbus took two, the Pinta and the Niña, to accompany his larger flagship, the Santa Maria, a three-masted carrack, on his first voyage in 1492. When Vasco da Gama set out for India in 1497, the larger, square-rigged carracks (or naos) were preferred, although one caravel did accompany him. Ferdinand Magellan’s round-the-world trip also featured a caravel, and Giovanni da Verrazzano’s one-ship exploration of North America’s Atlantic Coast was done in the Dauphine – a caravel.
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THE BIG STORY GREAT EXPLORERS
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WHO WENT WHERE AND WHEN?
Giovanni da Verrazzano (1485-1528)
Bartolomeu Dias
East or west, the pioneers forged routes around the globe
A
lthough John Cabot, sponsored by the English crown, was the first European to visit North America since the Vikings, it was Spain and Portugal that dominated transatlantic exploration in the 15th century. Finding a north-western route to Asia, rather than colonisation, preoccupied the first English explorers, but for
Though he worked for France, da Verrazzano was from Florence. He explored North America’s Atlantic coast extensively. It is believed he was eaten by Guadeloupeans.
(c1450-1500)
Spain and Portugal, conquest was the prime aim of early voyages. Within 50 years of Columbus’s landing in the Caribbean, the Spaniards had conquered three empires, including the Aztecs, and were shipping huge amounts of riches to Spain. Little wonder, then, that the Spanish crown was happy to sponsor the efforts of The number of Spaniards needed by early navigators.
The first explorer to successfully round the Cape of Good Hope, Dias did so in the name of his country, Portugal. He later drowned at the Cape.
PACIFIC OCEAN
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Cortés to capture the huge Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan in 1519
TREATY OF TORDESILLAS
DIVIDE AND CONQUER Signed by Portugal and Spain in 1494, the Treaty of Tordesillas was an attempt by the two Iberian powers to divvy up ownership of the new territories that the European nations had begun enthusiastically sticking their flags into. An imaginary meridian (north-to-south line) was sketched to the west of the Portuguese Cape Verde islands (off West Africa) but east of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, which Columbus had stumbled upon in
1492. Lands to the east of this line (including West Africa and much of Brazil) were deemed Portuguese prizes, and those to the west (Central and North America) were Spanish. While this affected the geographical and language divide in Latin America, which remains to this day, other European nations largely ignored the treaty, which became obsolete because neither signatory had sufficient firepower to enforce it.
ORY DEATH OR GL , it was Spanish and
With a few notable exceptions ed 15th-century voyages Portuguese explorers who dominat crowns, who were happy of discovery, encouraged by their ney to exploration. Those to commit men, materials and mo new territories and lucky enough to survive carved out to America and Asia. created trading routes in
LINE ON A MAP The Treaty of Tordesillas ruled on new colonisation, but land already in the hands of a Christian ruler was strictly off limits.
Diogo Cão (1452-1486)
LAND GRAB
A 1502 map shows how Spain and Portugal avoided treading on each other’s colonial toes
This pioneering Portuguese sailor explored the West African coast as far south as Namibia. Cão may have died while on expedition.
John Cabot (1450-1499)
Christopher Columbus
This Venetian sailor was tasked by England to search for new territories. He landed in Newfoundland in 1497, the first European to visit North America since the Vikings.
Vasco da Gama
(1451-1506)
ENGLAND
(1460-1524)
A Genoese explorer working for the Spanish. He landed in the Bahamas in 1492, while looking for a westward route to the Indies. Columbus made four transatlantic trips, all to the Caribbean, Central and South America.
An explorer from Portugal, he led the first successful sea expedition from Europe to India (1497-98). Da Gama consolidated the trade route and became Viceroy of India.
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1497
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NORTH AMERICA
EUROPE
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Sir Francis Drake (c1540-1596)
SPAIN
This English privateer spent much of his career raiding the Spanish Indies. He was the first Englishman to circumnavigate the globe, returning home in 1580.
PORTUGAL
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CAPE OF GOOD HOPE STRAIT OF MAGELLAN
Ferdinand Magellan (1480-1521) While working for Spain, this Portuguese explorer led the first European expedition to go west and reach Asia, passing through what is now called the Strait of Magellan, and crossing the Pacific. He was killed at the Battle of Mactan (now in the Philippines) en route.
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CAPE HORN
Juan Sebastián Elcano (1476-1526) The Spaniard who lead the second half of the first round-the-world navigation, (taking over after the death of Magellan, right). He arrived back in Spain in 1522.
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THE BIG STORY GREAT EXPLORERS
“THE SHIPS ARRIVED IN KERALA, CAPITAL OF INDIA’S SPICE TRADE, AND HISTORY TOOK A SUDDEN SWERVE” WARM WELCOME A contemporary journal of Vasco da Gama’s expedition describes its arrival in Kerala, where it attracted a huge crowd and was given advice on a safe anchorage.
PASSAGE TO INDIA Da Gama disembarks in India, winning the race to find a sea route for the spice trade
MEET THE KING On landing, da Gama was greeted by the governor with a large retinue of armed men, and conveyed with great ceremony to the grand court of the Zamorin, or king.
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THE SPICE RACE To break into the lucrative spice trade, Europeans competed to find a sea route to India
S
ponsored by Prince Henry the Navigator, (third son of King John I) and later his great nephew John II, the Portuguese explored Africa’s west coast throughout the 15th century. Ships returned with gold and slaves, but the ultimate goal was to find a route to the riches of the Orient.
his crew threatening mutiny, he turned around at present-day Kwaaihoek, where he left a padrão – a stone cross inscribed with Portugal’s coat of arms. While returning, Dias identified a point he christened Cape of Storms, but John II, optimistic that India’s riches were within reach, renamed it Cape of Good Hope.
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THE DOLDRUMS
Diogo Cão ventured as far south as John II died before his dream was Namibia’s Walvis Bay in 1486, and realised, but his successor, Manuel I, The number of explored the Congo River in a quest sent Vasco da Gama to complete crewmen, out of 170, to find Prester John’s lost Christian the journey in 1497, with bigger who survived the expedition that nation (see facing page). When ships and more men. It is thought discovered the sea Cão died, the expedition returned da Gama was also armed with route to India to Lisbon. Bartolomeu Dias followed knowledge supplied by Pêro da Cão’s route along the Skeleton Coast a Covilhã, a secret agent who’d travelled year later, with orders to continue to India. east by land ten years earlier, searching for His three ships rounded the tempestuous tip of Prester John and obtaining information about Africa far from shore, pulling into what’s now navigation along the East African coast. Mossel Bay in February 1488, dispelling the Dias accompanied the expedition to Cape myth that the Atlantic and Indian Oceans were Verde, and instructed da Gama to take a wide landlocked, and proving a sea route to India was berth around the bottom half of Africa, to avoid possible. Dias intended to press on, but with the doldrums in the Gulf of Guinea and to
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exploit what are now known as the Southern Trade Winds. After 13 weeks without sight of land, they came within 600 miles of Brazil’s coast before being blown back east. By Christmas they were safely around the cape. The fleet visited the port of Mozambique in March 1498, before continuing to Mombasa. In Malindi, da Gama employed an Arabic navigator, who guided them across the Arabian Sea to Malabar. On 20 May, the ships arrived at Calicut in Kerala, capital of India’s spice trade, and the course of history took a sudden swerve. Da Gama landed back in Portugal as a hero after a two-year absence, but the return trip had been horrific. Of his original 170-strong crew, just 55 survived, with his own brother among the dead. Almost immediately, 13 ships carrying 1,200 men were dispatched to India, returning with a cargo that broke the Arab land-based monopoly on the European spice trade. In 1502, da Gama sailed to consolidate the route he’d pioneered. He was later made Viceroy of India. However, his reputation is tarnished by atrocities reportedly committed on the Malabar Coast.
A BAD OMEN In ocean lore, the ghost of a wrecked ship is a portent of doom. By the 18th century, the most famous was a man-of-war lost off the Cape of Good Hope and destined to sail the oceans forever – The Flying Dutchman.
SAILORS’ NEMESIS
CAPE FEAR The Cape of Good Hope isn’t Africa’s Land’s End (that’s Cape Agulhas, 90 miles east, where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans really meet) but for thousands of unfortunate sailors, the infamous rocky headland has proved to be the end of the line. Dubbed Cape of Storms by Bartolomeu Dias when he led the first expedition to round it, the friendlier moniker may have been bestowed by Portugal’s John II, for whom it was merely a corner to be turned en route to riches promised by the region beyond. Dias’s description was more accurate; 12 years after his historic voyage, his ship went down during a tempest. Wrecks litter South Africa’s ocean floor – more than 2,500 vessels have come to grief since 1500, and hundreds of these sank around the Western Cape. There are boats from almost 40 countries in this ships’ graveyard. Its tales of horror and tragedy resonate around the seafaring globe, from yarns about The Flying Dutchman to the desperately sad story of the Arniston, which went down in 1815, packed with wounded soldiers returning from the Kandyan Wars in present-day Sri Lanka.
FABLED KING The legendary Prester John is shown enthroned on a 16th-century atlas
PRESTER JOHN LEGEND
LOST NATION
HORROR AT THE CAPE MAIN: Thousands of vessels foundered at the Cape, leading to legends of ghost ships LEFT: The rocky and treacherous Cape
HENRY THE NAVIGATOR
SEAFARING SCHOLAR A man of learning as much as adventure, Henry (centre) may have set up a mariners school
the caravel, a nifty little sailing ship that revolutionised the reach and speed of exploratory expeditions. He is also rumoured to have established an academy of cartography, astronomy and navigation at his base on the Sagres peninsula, the most south-westerly point of Europe, although some historians doubt this. He presided over great advancements in map making, sent navigators further down the coast of Africa than Europeans had ever been before, discovering and claiming the Madeira islands and the Azores for Portugal.
CREDIT INFORMATION HERE
ROYAL INNOVATOR For the Portuguese, who had no port in the Mediterranean and had to access the sea via the strategically sensitive Strait of Gibraltar, establishing an alternative ocean-based route to the Far East was crucial. Recognising this, and in response to attacks from African pirates, Infante Dom Henrique de Avis (1394-1460) – third son of Portugal’s King John I and now better known as Prince Henry the Navigator – kicked off the earliest European forays along the Atlanticfacing African coastline. Henry also instigated a number of seafaring innovations, including the development of
One of the more curious motivating factors behind some of the voyages undertaken during the Age of Discovery was the legend of Prester John – the (probably apocryphal) ruler of a lost nation of Christians, believed to reside somewhere in the east, in either India or Africa. Portugal’s Henry the Navigator and John II both firmly believed in the legend, and hoped to discover and build an alliance with this mysterious society. It was later narrowed down to Ethiopia, an island of Christianity in the middle of a Muslim map of nations since the fourth century. One of Dias’s objectives on his 1487-88 expedition was to look for Prester John. John II also dispatched two explorers, Afonso de Paiva and Pêro da Covilhã, to travel overland and search for the Christian kingdom, while also gaining geographical intelligence to aid the quest for a sea route to the Orient.
THE BIG STORY GREAT EXPLORERS
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ROUND THE WORLD Spain’s attempt to find a route to India ended in the first circumnavigation of the globe
the Atlantic. Manuel I sent a Portuguese naval nce the Portuguese established a detachment to follow the expedition; Magellan viable trading route to India, the Spanish had a problem. The Treaty soon lost them. By December, the fleet was tracing South America, searching for the strait of Tordesillas (see page 30) granted Magellan believed would allow them through. Portugal control of the African route At the onset of winter, this opening still and without independent access to the eluded them and a mutiny erupted involving Orient, Spain’s Iberian rivals could hold three ships. Magellan acted decisively, them to ransom. A potential solution pardoning many men involved – came from an unexpected source: including Juan Sebastián Elcano a Portuguese explorer with an – but brutally executing most of audacious plan, who’d fallen The number of years the ships’ captains and leading out with his king. before another round the world voyage was mutineers, abandoning others on achieved – by Francis the coast. The Santiago was lost in Ferdinand Magellan left Portugal Drake who arrived a storm before the strait that now in 1517, when Manuel I dismissed home in 1580 bears Magellan’s name was his idea of reaching the Spice discovered in October 1520. Islands (Moluccas) from the east via IT’S PARTY TIME While exploring the strait, the the Americas. However, Magellan successfully A 1522 celebration of the expedition that, despite its leader’s death, San Antonio deserted, returning to sold his idea to the King of Spain, Charles I. accidentally went round the world Spain, but the remaining three ships Spanish adventurer Vasco Núñez de Balboa had discovered the ocean beyond the New World four continued to the ocean that Magellan named Mar Pacifico, because of its years earlier. Magellan’s plan sounded plausible, apparent calmness. and it avoided treading on Portugal’s toes. Striking north-west, they crossed the equator in February 1521 and MAYHEM AND MUTINY by March had reached the islands In September 1519, Magellan led five ships known today as the Philippines. (Victoria, Santiago, San Antonio, Concepción Magellan became embroiled in a and Trinidad) and a multinational, 270-strong dispute between two chiefs, which crew into
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escalated into a skirmish on Mactan Island, where he was killed. More deaths followed and when the Europeans escaped, too few men remained to crew three ships. The Concepción was burnt, and the survivors fled to Brunei. In November, the remaining crew finally reached the Spice Islands and traded with the Sultan of Tidore. Loaded with spices, they attempted to return home by sailing west across the Indian Ocean, which hadn’t been Magellan’s intention, until the Trinidad started leaking. The damaged ship stopped for repairs and eventually tried to return via the Pacific, but was captured by the Portuguese and subsequently sank. Meanwhile, under the captaincy of Elcano, the Victoria continued, limping around the Cape of Good Hope on 6 May. Twenty men starved on the last leg and 13 were abandoned on Cape Verde, but around 6 September 1522, after three years’ absence, the Victoria arrived in Spain, having completed the first circumnavigation of the planet.
MACTAN REMAKE Most years, the Battle of Mactan is reenacted by the islanders. To recreate the drama, over 150 actors don loincloths or Spanish armour, while specially built makeshift huts are set on fire.
MAGELLAN MEETS HIS MATCH
Weighed down by armour, and perhaps his colonialist prejudices, the navigator underestimated Lapu-Lapu’s warriors
BEATEN BY BAMBOO
THE BATTLE OF MACTAN In the Philippines, Magellan communicated with local rajahs through his Malay slave, Enrique. A number of island chiefs, including Cebu’s Rajah Humabon, converted to Christianity. In return, Magellan supported Humabon in a disagreement with a neighbour, Lapu-Lapu, a chief on Mactan Island, who declined to convert or bow to the Spanish crown. On 27 April 1521, 60 heavily armed Europeans accompanied a fleet of indigenous boats to Mactan, where Lapu-Lapu again refused to recognise the authority of Humabon or the Spanish. Facing 1,500 warriors, Magellan – presumably confident of the shock-and-awe capability of his superior weaponry, which included guns, crossbows, swords and axes – instructed Humabon to hang back, while he waded ashore with an attack party of just 49 men.
They torched several houses in an attempt to scare the islanders, but this whipped Lapu-Lapu’s warriors into a battle rage. In the resulting beachfront melee, where the Europeans were weighed down by their armour, Magellan was identified and injured by a bamboo spear thrust. Felled, he was surrounded and killed, along with several others. Their captain dead, the survivors retreated to the boats. More deaths followed, when Humabon turned against the Europeans – possibly in support of Enrique, who the sailors refused to release, despite Magellan’s orders to do so in the event of his death. Several were poisoned during a feast, including Duarte Barbosa and João Serrão, who’d assumed leadership of the expedition. Juan Sebastián Elcano took command, and ordered an immediate departure.
LIMPING IN TO PORT Five ships set off on Magellan’s expedition but only one, Victoria, returned. It is thought their leader didn’t tell the expedition’s c270 sailors where they were going because they’d be too frightened. Just 18 of the Europeans survived.
“NO MAP MAKER COULD HAVE PREPARED MAGELLAN FOR THE CRUSHING MAGNITUDE OF THE PACIFIC” HOME AND DRY Captained by Elcano, the Victoria rounds Cape St VIncent on the approach to home
EXPLORE TURN OVER TO – THE THE VICTORIA SAIL FIRST SHIP TOWORLD AROUND THE
SURVEYING THE SEAS
OFF THE CHART The newly-invented printing press, along with Renaissance-led artistic advancements, heralded a revolution in map making during the 15th century. Now, detailed navigation charts, showing natural features and compass lines, could be produced. Reliable cartography and geographical knowledge remained valuable intellectual property, however, TO THE NEW WORLD for economic, military and Cosa’s sea chart shows the New diplomatic reasons. They were World, so recently discovered, and features a compass rose. jealously guarded, but there The Tropic of Cancer (top) and was collaboration, particularly equator are shown in red and among the Portuguese. Just to incorporate the Americas. the Tordesillas line in blue. as Diogo Cão benefited from Eight years later, the world map Christopher, patron saint of travellers, is seen on the left. Henry the Navigator’s work, Universalis Cosmographia by so Bartolomeu Dias provided German cartographers Martin expertise on avoiding the doldrums, catching Waldseemüller and Matthias Ringman had the first the Southern Trade Winds, and rounding the known use of the word America, and showed it cape to Vasco da Gama on his trip to India. unconnected to Asia. While explorers often travelled out blind, Magellan worked with cosmographer Rui they lit up the world in their wake. Columbus Faleiro – a pioneer in applying scientific methods didn’t know where he was when he landed of determining latitude and longitude – to plan in the Bahamas in 1492, but with him was his expedition. Portuguese cartographers Jorge Juan de la Cosa, a Spanish cartographer. Reinel and Diogo Ribeiro also developed charts for Magellan’s journey, but no map maker could In 1499, de la Cosa accompanied Alonso have prepared him for the crushing magnitude de Ojeda to South America, after which he of the previously uncrossed Pacific Ocean. In created the earliest European world chart
MAN WITH A PLAN RIGHT: Cartographer Juan de la Cosa, who travelled with Columbus MAIN: Cosa’s 1500 sea chart
1527, Ribeiro used data from Magellan’s epic expedition to create the first scientific world map, the Padrón Real. Magellan’s crew kept a periplus, a book in which they documented day-by-day locations, distances and landmarks. This revealed that the expedition lost a full day during the westward circumnavigation, going against the rotation of the Earth.
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THE VICTORIA The first round-the-world vessel was an example of one of the most successful ship designs ever
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agellan’s ambitious expedition was a gruelling experience for the crew, but the only ship to survive the trek, the Victoria, was put through its paces, too. A carrack – or a nao, as the Portuguese called them – the Victoria retained many of the innovations that had made caravels
fast and manoeuvrable, but with a few key advantages. Carracks were much bigger, with more masts and sails, plus a huge freeboard, a forecastle and an aftercastle. All this meant the Victoria could carry more men and, very importantly, more cargo than its predecessor could have done.
SAIL SURFACE SAILS
Victoria had a sail surface of 290 square metres.
Carracks typically had square sails on the foremast and main mast. This mizzenmast, at the back, had a lateen (triangular) sail.
FORECASTLE
ILLUSTRATION: SOL 90, GETTY X1
MANOEUVRABILITY RUDDER One of the big innovations on the caravel had been a rudder on a sternpost, which gave more manoeuvrability than a steering oar. Carracks retained this innovation.
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For centuries, ships were manoeuvred with a huge steering oar, but these could interfere with the sails and slow the vessel down. The carrack’s rudder made it easier and more efficient to steer.
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VICTORIA REBORN
The square sails of the foremast and main mast provided a much larger sail area than the caravel’s all-lateen sails, and so the carrack was much faster – provided the wind was right.
Built in 1992 for Seville’s World Expo, the carrack Victoria is a full-scale replica of the historical ship that sailed around the world. Magellan’s original vessel was built in the Basque region, an area known for shipbuilding.
“THE GLOBAL LOOP WAS NEVER PART OF THE PLAN UNTIL DISASTER STRUCK”
FOREMAST Mounted with square sails and an additional small topsail.
PROPORTIONS In carracks, the length of the boat was four times bigger than the beam (width at the widest point).
AFTERCASTLE
WEIGHT Victoria weighed approximately 170 tons and displaced 102 tons.
FACT FILE FREEBOARD The carrack has a huge freeboard – the section of a ship’s hull that sits above the waterline, as oppose to beneath it.
FREEBOARD
DECKS Victoria had four decks, with a total of around 120 square metres of useful surface.
STORAGE Carracks could carry more cargo than caravels, so were ideal for longer voyages. A ship of Victoria’s size could carry a crew of around 100.
WOOD Most of the ship was built with pine and oak.
6.7 M BEAM
26 M LENGTH
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A SAILOR’S LIFE Life at sea was a struggle – the odds of staying alive and finding your way home were not good Ships were often manned by a mix of ife on board ships in the Age nationalities. As well as Spaniards and of Discovery was typically Portuguese, Magellan’s fleet had sailors uncomfortable, unhealthy, from Greece, Sicily, England, France, dangerous and monotonous. Germany and North Africa. Ships Many expeditions lasted for were hierarchical; crew ranged several years, during which from peasant pages (boys as extended periods of time young as eight, who did the would be spent on the open The number of sailors most menial jobs) to skilled ocean, where sleeping and estimated to have died of scurvy between seamen such as the pilot, working conditions were 1500 and 1800 boatswain, gunner, carpenter woeful and the daily diet and barber, who would also dreadful. Exposure, draconic operate as the ship’s surgeon and discipline, cramped conditions and the ever-present scourge of scurvy were dentist. In between were the apprentices (grumetes) and sailors (marineros). sailors’ constant companions.
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WATCH DUTY A ship’s crew was divided into three watches, rotating day and night. Columbus’s crew worked four-hour shifts, measured using sandglasses (hourglasses). Glass bulbs allow a regulated trickle of sand from top to bottom. Once the top is empty, it is tipped to begin again. These usually measured 30 minutes, the length of time between ‘bells’, EIGHT BELLS eight of which made A sandglass from up a watch. the Mary Rose, the carrack-type ship of the English Tudor navy, built 1509-1511.
VICTOR R BOSWELL JR/NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC X1, NATIONAL MARTITIME MUSEUM – GREENWICH – LONDON X2
MILLION
FRYING TONIGHT This fishing set was probably used by crew to supplement their rations.
HEALTH Scurvy, which rots skin and gums, causes teeth to fall out and can lead to insanity and death, was suffered by most sailors. They also fell ill from excess salt (from ship’s meat). Infections and gangrene were common after injury, since surgeons operated in squalid conditions.
HARD TACK Ship’s biscuits of flour and water (dunked before eating) could last for years if kept dry.
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FOOD
AMPUTATION RUB IT IN A contemporary surgeon’s canister, which held beeswax and poppy oil for inflammations.
A sailor’s main rations consisted of salt beef and pork, cheese, fish and some form of ship’s biscuit, usually full of maggots and weevils (called hard tack by British sailors). Sailors drank large quantities of beer, which stored longer than water. During the Age of Discovery, food was cooked barbecue style on the open deck, often by sailors who had been wounded and were unable to do other tasks.
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Surgeon’s mallet from Mary Rose, for amputations, carried out without anaesthetic.
POINT THE WAY A replica mariner’s compass from the Age of Discovery. Used in Europe since the 10th century, compasses were an essential piece of kit for navigators.
BRASS IN POCKET This portable sundial has a built-in compass. Once north was located, the dial could be orientated correctly to tell the time.
SUNSHINE STATE This sophisticated sundial from the Middle Ages was also used to measure the Sun’s altitude.
NAVIGATION Correct navigation was life or death for sailors. Besides dead reckoning, which ‘guesstimated’ course and speed, seafarers also used a magnetic compass. With the help of instruments such as sea charts, astrolabes and backstaffs, navigators used the Sun, the Pole Star and the horizon to work out the time and their position.
DEGREE OF LATITUDE Astrolabes such as this helped measure latitude (north-south position on the Earths’ surface) to steer a ship’s course.
ROUGH SLEEPING Sleeping on deck was dangerous, as seamen could be thrown about in high seas.
MUTINY! Ringleaders would be executed, but ordinary mutineers were needed and often forgiven.
SLEEPING
In 1520, mutiny broke out on the Magellan expedition, then in South America. Some leaders were killed then drawn, quartered and impaled upon sticks. Others were marooned on the coast. Most sailors were forgiven.
DISCIPLINE MARY ROSE TRUST X5
Columbus discovered the concept of hammocks in the Bahamas, but before they were widely introduced on boats, sailors would sleep on the deck wherever they could find some space and a little comfort, such as a coil of rope.
MAKING AN EXAMPLE
To maintain order, rules were strict and penalties severe. The most common was flogging, but other methods of discipline, borrowed from the Spanish Inquisition, included the toca (a form of waterboarding) and the strappado, where men were strung up by their wrists.
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CREDIT INFORMATION HERE
THE BIG STORY GREAT EXPLORERS
WHO DISCOVERED
CREDITALAMY INFORMATION X2, THINKSTOCK HERE X2
AMERICA? Explorers Columbus and Cabot could both have claimed the discovery of the New World, but while one found fame, fortune (and later on, disgrace) the other almost disappeared from history
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uring the late-15th century, European eyes were firmly cast on the Portuguese. They were making more and more headway on their mission to find a sea trading route with India in the east, by sailing down the coast of Africa. That discovery, it was correctly anticipated, would trigger an earthquake in the global economy. With all of this to worry about, the powers of the world hardly noticed when two explorers with itchy feet set sail to the west. The story of how these two adventurers – Christopher Columbus and John Cabot – both came to be in the employment of foreign powers and accidently stumbled upon a new world, is a remarkable one, and the impact of their discoveries would change the course of human history.
a clue where he was when he landed on a beach in the Bahamas in 1492. Worse, Columbus’s continued insistence that he’d found another side of the Indies – a claim that he clung to until death – resulted in the Americas being named after a rival, Florentine explorer Amerigo Vespucci, one of his more clued-up contemporaries who knew they were exploring a new world.
recently his reputation has been blighted by revisionist revelations of horrific acts of violence and cruelty, inflicted on indigenous people and on settlers. But at least Columbus is remembered. Consider the plight of his compatriot John Cabot. John who? Well, exactly. Cabot was another intrepid Genoese who left Europe in the 1490s, sailed west looking for the Orient and instead found new land, which ended up being called Newfoundland. Cabot, who had lived for several years in Venice, was commissioned by England’s King Henry VII. He sailed from Bristol in a caravel called the Matthew in May 1497. A few weeks later, on 24 June, he landed in modern-day Canada, becoming the first known European to stretch his sea legs on North American soil since the Vikings. Cabot may have beaten Columbus to the mainland of the Americas by as much as a year – depending on where he landed. Cape Bonavista, Newfoundland, is the most popular theory, but others suggest Nova Scotia, Labrador or Maine. It wasn’t until Columbus’s third trip across the Atlantic in 1498 that he went beyond the Caribbean and stuck a Spanish flag in South
“CABOT BEAT COLUMBUS TO THE MAINLAND OF THE AMERICAS BY AS MUCH AS A YEAR”
INTREPID EXPLORERS
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Few historical characters have a legacy quite as double-edged as that of Christopher Columbus. In popular history, the stubborn globetrotter from Genoa (then an independent state, now part of Italy) is lauded as the European who discovered America – but in fact he didn’t have
VOYAGE INTO THE UNKNOWN ABOVE: Columbus sets off from Palos in Spain on his first voyage in 1492 RIGHT: Land ho! The explorer’s moment of discovery celebrated in a statue in Barcelona
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Monumentally mistaken Columbus may have been, but his discoveries were destined to have a profound effect on the course of history, and resulted in spectacular returns for his sponsors, Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile, and their newly-minted Spanish Empire. Yet it all ended in disaster, disgrace and disappointment for Columbus, with arrests, spells in chains, public humiliation, reneged agreements and bitter recriminations. Although he has been revered as a hero,
GREAT EXPECTATIONS Columbus had a lot at stake on his first voyage. His agreement with the Spanish crown was that he become governor of any new lands plus he would keep 10 per cent of the wealth he brought back.
ALL THIS COULD BE YOURS Columbus, seen showing a map to Ferdinand and Isabella, gained royal support with the promise of new land and riches
American soil, somewhere in the Gulf of Paria in Venezuela. He never ventured to North America. Cabot has not just been neglected by posterity, he was under appreciated in his own lifetime. In 1497, Henry VII rewarded “hym that founde the New Isle” with a prize of just £10. Although he did also receive a pension of £20 per year, perhaps he would have fared better if, like Columbus, he had shown up with evidence of gold, instead of fertile fishing grounds.
AMERICAN PIONEER ABOVE: John Cabot embarks from the port of Bristol, 1497 INSET: Henry VII’s commission to the explorer RIGHT: Cabot lands on the mainland of the Americas, anticipating the arrival of Columbus by around a year
rejected them several times until, in 1492, with the royal coffers running low after Long before he set sail for the west, Columbus their successful campaign had set his mind on the idea. He was influenced to subdue Granada, the by the theories of Florentine astronomer last Muslim stronghold on the Iberian Toscanelli who, as early as 1470, had Peninsula, they agreed to take a chance proposed that the best route to the east on the tenacious Genoese. was to sail west, and sneak through On 3 August 1492, Columbus led a the back door. fleet of three ships, the Santa Maria, Formulating a plan he dubbed The approximate miles that a young Columbus the Pinta and the Niña, into the the ‘Enterprise of the Indies’, swam to shore after Atlantic. Ten weeks later, on Columbus twice presented his being shipwrecked 12 October, terra firma was sighted. ideas to Portugal’s King John II. In near Portugal After landing in what is now the 1485, John’s royal experts in 1476 Bahamas, Columbus spotted Cuba (which decided the would-be he thought was China) and explored Hispaniola explorer had undercooked (which he mistook for Japan). His flagship, the his estimated distances, and Santa María, was wrecked here, in present-day they were right. Columbus Haiti, while the crew were apparently drunk or underestimated the size of the asleep. Columbus ordered the ship’s wood to be plane, and made a number used to construct a fort, named La Navidad, or of other critical geographical Christmas (as it was around 25 December) and left errors, including getting the 39 men behind to set up a colony. distance represented by each Columbus was a skilled sailor with good degree of longitude wrong. knowledge of the volta do mar (‘turn of the sea’, The second time he proposed a the Portuguese expression for trade winds) and westward expedition, in 1488, his he was back in Spain by March 1493. Ferdinand timing was terrible; Bartolomeu and Isabella, pleased with his bounty of gold, Dias had just rounded the Cape spices, and even ‘Indian’ captives, gave him the of Good Hope and the Portuguese title Admiral of the Ocean Sea. A fleet of 17 ships were close to establishing a direct was made available for a second journey, and he eastward trade route. sailed west again in September 1493. Frustrated, Columbus took his plans Despite discovering that all the men he’d left to France, England and, finally, Spain, in La Navidad had been killed by the indigenous where King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella
COLUMBUS GOES WEST
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people of the Caribbean, Columbus dropped off a large contingent of settlers – between 1,200 and 1,500 – on the other side of the island, now the Dominican Republic. He left his two brothers in charge of the colony, christened La Isabela. On this trip he explored the Lesser Antilles, Puerto Rico, Jamaica and Cuba, but his welcome back was less enthusiastic, as the expedition hadn’t covered its costs. Against the backdrop of Vasco da Gama’s attempt to sail from Portugal around Africa to India, Ferdinand and Isabella commissioned a third transatlantic trip in 1498. This time, Columbus was instructed to locate a strait through the landmass he’d discovered, to the unknown ocean on the other side, where, they assumed, India lay waiting. After visiting Trinidad, he finally landed on the South American mainland (in present-day Venezuela) in August 1498, and sighted the mouth of the Orinoco River. The immense DECEMBER 2014
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THE BIG STORY GREAT EXPLORERS EXPERT VIEW Dr Evan Jones, Cabot Project, University of Bristol
LETTER TO A KING On his way home in 1500, the disgraced Columbus wrote a persuasive letter to his royal patrons describing how close he’d been to an earthly paradise, which could have realms of gold. They sent him back on a fourth trip.
THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE AGE OF DISCOVERY ARE STILL FELT TODAY Which was the greatest single journey made during the Age of Discovery? The greatest voyage in terms of its consequences was that of 1492. Whether you regard Columbus as brave or mad is another matter. What sparked the explosion of exploratory zeal across Europe? Fear, then greed. In the 15th century, fear of Ottoman expansion in southeast Europe, plus the power of Islamic states, kicked off the voyages. As profits began to be made, people became convinced that exploration could yield great returns. How much public interest was there in the exploits of the explorers? Most people would have barely been aware of the voyages and nobody foresaw their long-term consequences. What we see as the most important were not necessarily regarded as such at the time. Da Gama’s return from India in 1499 caused consternation to those in Mediterranean commerce because it had such potential to disrupt trade networks, wrecking the economy of Venice, in particular. The voyages to the Americas of the 1490s attracted less interest until the 16th century.
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Why has Cabot largely been ignored? Mainly because little was recorded about his voyages at the time. By 1508, following a decade of voyages from Bristol to the New World, it seemed they’d failed. Europe wanted trade routes to the east or people to trade with. In North America it found neither. Why do we remain so fascinated with these explorers today? In the 16th to 19th centuries, people became fascinated by the discovery voyages as their long-term consequences became apparent. That the USA is today the world’s global superpower is, after all, just one consequence of 1492.
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CLAPPED IN IRONS Columbus was sent back to Spain in disgrace after his maladministration of the colony of La Isabela
“FAR FROM VANISHING, CABOT EXPLORED THE ENTIRE EAST COAST OF NORTH AMERICA” flow told him he was standing on a continent, not an island, and the devout explorer believed it may be Eden. Thoughts of paradise were quickly dispersed, however, when he called in to La Isabela and found the settlers in open revolt. They were livid about being misled by promises of wealth in the New World and resentful of the despotic rule of the Columbus brothers. He restored order with a brutal vengeance, but Ferdinand and Isabella had already sent Spanish Chief Justice to investigate and, in 1500, Columbus was hauled back to Spain in chains.
in Ireland after a storm) and was allegedly accompanied by several friars. At this point, Cabot sails into some serious sea mist. Very little information about his fate exists, and for years most historians assumed he was lost at sea. However, the foremost expert on his life, the late Dr Alwyn Ruddock, thought that far from vanishing, Cabot actually explored the entire east coast of North America, claiming it all for the British crown. The historian found evidence that Cabot travelled as far as South America, where he ran into one of Columbus’s captains, possibly Alonso de Ojeda, and blundered into the eye of a political storm. POLITICAL STORM According to the Treaty of Tordesillas, these Meanwhile, in May 1498, Cabot had left from western lands were Spain’s to explore Bristol on another Atlantic expedition. and exploit. Henry VII was in the This time he had five ships (one of middle of arranging a marriage which may have been abandoned between his son, Arthur, and The pension, in pounds, Catherine of Aragon, daughter of that Henry VII granted Ferdinand and Isabella, to cement to John Cabot upon an alliance against France. Things his discovery of North America were delicately poised and Cabot’s wanderings threatened to compromise Henry VII’s plans – as a result, news of the explorer’s achievements was subdued. Ruddock believed Cabot quietly returned to Bristol in 1500, and died shortly afterwards. Unfortunately, she never published her full findings and ordered all her notes be destroyed after her death in 2005. The Cabot Project at Bristol University is currently attempting to put the jigsaw back together, and discover the true extent of John Cabot’s travels and achievements. GONE WEST So how did the story end for Columbus? A statue of Cabot graces the docks at Bristol, Despite being dragged back in disgrace from his the port from which he embarked in 1497
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THE BIG STORY GREAT EXPLORERS previous trip, the explorer was sent on a fourth expedition by Ferdinand and Isabella, who had developed a royal appetite for the riches he had hinted at on the new continent. He left in May 1502, on a mission to locate a passage through to India and collect gold.
A CASTAWAY
WELSH WANDERERS Did a Welshman reach America in 1170? The Vikings crossed the Atlantic around 1000, some 500 years before Columbus was beached in the Bahamas and Cabot
This final journey was a disaster. Columbus became stranded on present-day Jamaica when his ships became unseaworthy. With his AMERICA-BOUND crew, he lived as a castaway Madoc allegedly discovered for a year, until eventually America while trying to get as far away as being rescued after two of possible from his family his captains had canoed 450 miles to Hispaniola to raise the alarm. Christopher Columbus finally returned to Spain in November 1504. Queen Isabella died a few weeks later, and he never managed to get another audience with King Ferdinand. The explorer himself died on 20 May 1506, a wealthy-but-embittered man and one who left an extraordinary legacy. d
crashed into Canada. But did a Welshman beat both men to the Americas? An intriguing legend tells of Prince Madoc and his brother Rhirid who, in 1170 – upset with family infighting after the death of their father, the Welsh king Owain Gwynedd – upped sticks and set sail west, all the way across the Atlantic to a new land where they settled and interbred with the indigenous population. The story was given substance by the discovery of some Native American tribes with a dialect that sounded very much like Welsh. Moreover, the Mandan Indians used boats with the same design as traditional Welsh coracles. The yarn was popular currency in Elizabethan England, when it was retold by respected writers such as Richard Hakluyt. It was used as propaganda to back up the crown’s claims to land already requisitioned by the Spanish. Sadly there’s no hard archaeological evidence to support it.
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THE BIG STORY GREAT EXPLORERS
TIMELINE Milestones in
With few charts to guide the way, early European navigators risked danger 1291
29 MAY 1453
Brothers Vandino and Ugolino Vivaldi from Genoa pass Gibraltar, through the Pillars of Hercules, in the first-known attempt to sail from Europe to India. They’re never seen again.
The fall of the Christian city of Constantinople (now Istanbul). The Ottoman Empire’s capture of the key city slams the door on overland trade routes between Europe and the east – making the discovery of a sea route imperative.
c1450
Map’s end: the Pillars of Hercules at the mouth of the Mediterranean Sea
Sponsored by Portugal’s Prince Henry the Navigator, the agile caravel ship is developed, allowing explorers to venture further and faster.
20 SEPTEMBER 1519 Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan leads a large Spanish expedition into the Atlantic, seeking a western route to the Orient via South America.
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27 APRIL 1521 Magellan dies in battle at Mactan (Philippines). By the time the expedition limps back to Spain on 6 September 1522, via the Indian Ocean, it is led by Spaniard Juan Sebastián Elcano. The ship, the Victoria, has made the first circumnavigation of the world.
1524 Italian Giovanni da Verrazzano explores the Atlantic coast of North America, including New York Bay.
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28 AUGUST 1481 John II becomes Portuguese King, rekindling efforts to explore Africa’s coast in search of a sea route to the Orient.
1507
MAY 1502
German cartographers Waldseemüller and Ringmann produce the Universalis Cosmographia, a world map containing the first use of the word America and showing that the New World is unconnected to Asia.
Columbus begins his fourth and final journey across the Atlantic. It ends in disaster and a year spent stranded on Jamaica.
24 JULY 1525
1543
1558
1565
Spaniard García Jofre de Loaísa leads a large fleet to Asia via the western route, intending to colonise the Spice Islands in the East Indies for Spain. One ship accidently rounds Cape Horn. The expedition ends in disaster and the death of de Loaísa, Elcano and hundreds of others.
Portuguese traders, thought to include the writer and explorer Fernão Mendes Pinto, arrive at Tanegashima, Japan, by mistake, and become the first Westerners to trade with that Eastern nation.
Mary I, Catholic Queen of England and wife of Philip II of Spain dies. She is succeeded by the Protestant Elizabeth I. This new clash of religions, among other factors, leads to a breakdown in relations between England and Spain.
Spanish navigator Miguel López de Legazpi pioneers a cross-Pacific route between Mexico and the Philippines, knitting together trade links that join China, the Americas, and Europe via the combined Pacific- and Atlanticcrossing routes.
HISTORYREVEALED.COM
the Age of Discovery and death to seek treasure and new lands JANUARY 1488
12 OCTOBER 1492
Portugal’s Bartolomeu Dias leads the first European expedition to survive rounding the Cape of Good Hope and the Southern tip of Africa.
Christopher Columbus makes landfall on an island in the Bahamas, believing he has reached the Indies. Unbeknown to anyone at the time, it’s a pivotal moment in Western history.
30 MAY 1498
20 MAY 1498
Columbus departs from Sanlúcar, Spain for his third transatlantic expedition, landing for the first time on the mainland of the Americas, in what is now Venezuela.
Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama arrives at Calicut in Kerala, India, directly connecting Europe to the lucrative spice trade and unleashing a tsunami of change that will sweep across the Western and Eastern worlds.
1500
Sir Francis Drake lands in modern-day California, claims all of America north of New Spain (now Mexico) for the English crown, and names it Nova Albion (New Britain).
26 SEPTEMBER 1580 On the Golden Hind, Sir Francis Drake sails into Plymouth. His ship is not only full of spices and purloined Spanish bounty, but has just completed may have been the second-ever circumnavigation of the globe.
Columbus embarks from Cadiz, Spain, heading off on a second mission, with 17 ships and a large colony of settlers bound for Hispaniola.
7 JUNE 1494 Portugal and Spain sign the Treaty of Tordesillas, claiming authority over all new land to the east and west (respectively) of an imaginary meridian line running down the Atlantic.
24 JUNE 1497 Setting out from Bristol, the Matthew, captained by John Cabot, a Genoese-born Venetian employed by Henry VII, lands in Newfoundland. The crew are the first-known Europeans on North American soil since c1000, when Vikings landed.
Spanish cartographer Juan de la Cosa completes the first world map to include the New World (the Americas).
JUNE 1579
25 SEPTEMBER 1493
1584
1585
24 MARCH 1603
Elizabeth I grants the English adventurer and writer Sir Walter Ralegh a charter to colonise America.
As a result of religious conflict and commercial disputes over trade with the New World, the Anglo–Spanish War begins. It rages on and off until 1604.
Queen Elizabeth I dies, bringing the Tudor age of discovery to an end.
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ON THE HIGH SEAS Drake sailed round the world in the Golden Hind. All that remains of the original are a chair made of the timbers, at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, and a table at Middle Temple, London. This working reconstruction was built in the seventies and is based in London.
THE BIG STORY GREAT EXPLORERS
SIR FRANCIS DRAKE
ENGLAND’S SEA DRAGON
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The first Englishman to sail around the world, Drake was feted at home for filling Elizabeth I’s coffers with stolen treasure, but hated by Spain, who feared the man they called ‘El Draque’
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T
Tudor age and one of the most famous English he Protestant Queen Elizabeth I naval leaders in history. ascended the English throne in Drake was first and foremost a privateer, 1558, succeeding her half-sister captaining a private ship given permission by Mary I, a Catholic who’d been the crown (often unofficially) to attack enemy married to King Philip II of Spain. ships. His popularity was built on the hurt he The relationship between the two heaped on England’s enemy, Spain, although European powers quickly soured. it began in less-than-glorious circ*mstances. Philip considered Elizabeth a heretic and During a slave-running expedition with his felt duty bound to protect England’s Catholics. cousin Sir John Hawkins, an English pioneer of The new Queen observed with alarm and resentment the growing wealth and power of the Spanish, as they extracted a seemingly endless supply of treasure from their new territories in the Americas. Fuelling the Spanish King’s anger the trade in humans, Drake narrowly escaped and delighting the English Queen in equal with his life when they came under attack from measure were the buccaneer-like shenanigans the Spanish in the port of San Juan de Ulúa, in of a swashbuckling English sea captain modern-day Mexico, in 1568. Thereafter, Drake called Francis Drake, known to the Spanish, waged a violent vendetta against Philip II’s who considered him a pirate, as El Draque interests around the globe, pocketing as – the Dragon. The eldest of 12 sons born to a Protestant farmer and vicar in Tavistock, Devon, much treasure as he could in raids that were wholeheartedly, if clandestinely, encouraged by in around 1540, Drake’s seafaring career began the English monarch. early, when he was apprenticed to a neighbour In 1577, shortly after Drake had conducted who owned a trading barge. From such lowly a chaotic but lucrative attack on the Spanish beginnings he would become vice admiral Main (the Isthmus of Panama), of the English fleet and a where he had stolen 20 tons of knight of the realm. He is SCOURGE OF SPAIN gold and silver from a Spanish remembered as an icon of the
mule train, Elizabeth engaged him on a secret mission. She wanted him to explore the Pacific coast of the Americas, disrupting Spanish activities along the way. Under the pretence of a voyage to Alexandria, Drake would leave Plymouth with a flotilla of ships and travel across the Atlantic with Thomas Doughty (a nobleman and soldier), and John Wynter (a sea captain, later an admiral) through the Straits of Magellan into the Pacific. As well as harassing the Spanish, they were also to search for the rumoured, but elusive, Northwest Passage. This, it was hoped, would connect the Atlantic and Pacific. Although command of the expedition was supposedly shared between the three senior men, Drake quickly assumed leadership. As the only one of the trio to make the full journey, he is credited for its achievements, which were considerable. He may not have found a northwest route to the Orient, but the three-year odyssey saw Drake complete the second-ever circumnavigation of the world, claim North America for the English crown and bring back enormous wealth for his Queen and country. The epic voyage began disastrously. Horrendous weather ended the first attempt at a launch shortly after the boats set sail on 15 November 1577, and they were forced to seek shelter in Falmouth, Cornwall. On 13 December, they left Plymouth a second time, with five ships: the 100-ton, 18-gun flagship the Pelican, plus the Elizabeth, Swan, Marigold and Benedict (later, swapped for the Christopher). There were
DRAKE WAGED A VIOLENT VENDETTA AGAINST PHILIP II’S INTERESTS, POCKETING AS MUCH TREASURE AS HE COULD
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The seas by the Spanish Main (the mainland of Spanish America) were rich with treasure ships on their return to Spain. In 1571, Drake and his crew joined French pirates in a raid on Spanish outposts there, in the Isthmus of Panama.
DRAKE’S TRAVELS ABOVE: Drake gets his first view of the Pacific Ocean at the isthmus of Panama, the narrow strip of land between it and the Atlantic LEFT: Drake (boarding, right) and his crew seize a Spanish ship at Santiago, Cape Verde
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SIR WALTER RALEGH The explorer who dreamed of El Dorado After Drake claimed North America for England in 1579, several attempts were made to establish colonies in Nova Albion. The earliest was organised by PERMIT another man who’d caught the Queen’s FOR PIRACY Letters to Drake about eye: Sir Walter Ralegh. An aristocratic his ‘trading voyage’ soldier, Ralegh’s early career was spent in from Elizabeth I, 1587 Ireland. In 1584, Elizabeth granted him a charter to establish a colony in America, essentially to gain a foothold in the 164 men, including Drake’s continent and provide a base from which brother, Thomas. A sixth boat the English could attack the Spanish. He was added to the flotilla when it would name the area Virginia, in honour was pinched from the Portuguese of the Virgin Queen. south of Morocco. A small vessel, Ralegh never travelled to North it was renamed the Mary and America, but in 1584 he organised an captained for a time by Doughty. exploratory expedition that travelled up After resupplying on the Cape Verde Islands, the east coast and identified Roanoke the party travelled west across the Atlantic. Island, in present-day Carolina (then The journey was tortuous, and when they Virginia), as a potential site. The next year, approached the South American coast in May Ralegh’s cousin, Sir Richard Grenville, took 1578, so many crew members had been lost that 108 men to Roanoke to begin work. the Christopher and the Swan were scuttled Eight months later, after Grenville failed because there was insufficient manpower to sail to return with promised supplies, and them. Later on in the trip, the Mary was also locals had attacked them, the colonists burned when rotten beams were discovered. gratefully accepted a lift back to England with Francis Drake, who dropped in on WITCHCRAFT AND MUTINY his way back from raiding the Spanish in In June, they made landfall at Puerto San Julian the Caribbean. With them, the returning in present-day Argentina, where the bleached pioneers brought tobacco, potatoes and remains of Magellan’s mutineers were still maize. Grenville arrived at the deserted hanging from gibbets on which the Portuguese colony shortly afterwards and left a explorer had left them after execution in 1519. contingent of men to look after the place Drake believed he was facing a mutiny of his – they were never seen again. own. He’d become increasingly hostile In 1587, Ralegh tried again to to Doughty during the awful Atlantic organise a colony in Virginia. The crossing, particularly after the latter colonists – men, women and had caught his brother, Thomas families – were left under the Drake, stealing supplies. Doughty The number of men who went to Roanoke, governorship of John White. had been taken off the Mary and the colony planned eventually placed in command of by Ralegh, the small supply ship the Swan, a in 1585 major insult to the nobleman. At one point, the Swan had been separated from the other boats during a huge storm, and when it rejoined the fleet, Drake had accused Doughty of witchcraft. All the ills of the unlucky expedition were blamed on Doughty, and when the unhappy party reached San Julian, he was put on trial for mutiny, witchcraft and treason. Perhaps inspired by Magellan’s macabre example, Drake ordered Doughty to be beheaded. Drake had dubious authority to carry out such a trial and pass a death penalty, and the incident remains controversial. Shortly afterwards, the Pelican RALEGH’S MYSTERY was renamed the Golden Hind, apparently to ABOVE: When relief reached the Virginian honour (or perhaps pacify) Christopher Hatton, colony in 1590, the crew found it deserted a major sponsor of the expedition who had RIGHT: Ralegh fell out of Elizabeth I’s good books when he secretly married employed Doughty as his private secretary, and whose family crest contains a hind.
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After an attack by hostile locals, White came back to England to seek extra help. He wasn’t able to return for three years because of the Anglo-Spanish war, and by that time the entire group (90 men, 17 women, and 11 children – including White’s daughter and baby granddaughter) had disappeared. It was another 17 years before the Colony of Virginia became properly established. Meanwhile, after getting one of Elizabeth’s ladies-in-waiting pregnant and marrying without the Queen’s consent c1591, Ralegh spent time in the Tower of London. He was released to conduct an attack on the Spanish in 1592. Hearing Spanish rumours of a golden city at the headwaters of the Caroní River, Ralegh set off to explore parts of modern-day Guyana and Venezuela in 1595. The following year, back in Europe fighting in the Anglo-Spanish War, he was injured during the capture of Cadiz. After Elizabeth died in 1603, Ralegh was accused of plotting against King James and spying for Spain. Sentenced to death for treason, he was imprisoned in the Tower until 1616, when he was released to go to Venezuela in search of El Dorado. While there, his men attacked a Spanish outpost, contravening the peace treaty recently signed with Spain. On Ralegh’s return to England, the Spanish ambassador demanded his death penalty be reinstated. On 29 October 1618, he was beheaded.
THE LOST COLONY The colony Governor left Virginia to get help, but on his return, all he found were the words ‘Croatoan’ carved into a tree, and ‘Cro’ into another. There was no sign of a struggle. The fate of the colonists is a mystery that intrigues historians to this day.
THE BIG STORY GREAT EXPLORERS
FROM PIRATE TO KNIGHT To avoid censure from Spain, no official inventory was made of the treasure Drake brought home. Only he and the Queen knew the exact sum but it was more than enough to earn him a knighthood.
DRAKE’S HAUL IS ESTIMATED TO BE WORTH £7 MILLION IN MODERN MONEY
The haul has been estimated to be worth the In September 1578, after over-wintering in equivalent of £7 million in modern money, Patagonia, the depleted flotilla negotiated the but even more valuable was the intelligence Straits of Magellan and entered the Pacific. The he acquired along with the booty. ocean was in a very different mood to the one Magellan had encountered 58 years earlier, when he named it. Drake and his crews were UNIMAGINABLE TREASURE hit by a terrible tempest, which drove them Drake learned of the Nuestra Señora de la south towards Cape Horn. The storm sank the Concepción (nicknamed Cacafuego – ‘the Marigold and separated the two remaining firesh*tter’), laden with even greater boats for so long that the Elizabeth, treasure, which was heading west captained by Wynter, eventually for Panama. He caught up with limped back to England, believing the galleon on 1 March 1579, the Golden Hind to be lost. close to Esmeraldas in Ecuador. Undeterred, Drake turned north He disguised the Golden Hind The number of tons of silver seized by Drake and proceeded to attack Spanish as a merchant ship until he from one Spanish ports and ships all along the coast came alongside the treasure ship treasure ship of modern-day Chile. Although these and demanded that her captain raids were largely successful, with surrender. The Spanish were taken by valuable seafaring charts being among the surprise and after a very brief struggle, the spoils, Drake was injured during a conflict with English captured the ship and with it a massive the indigenous Lafkenche people on Mocha swag that included 26 tons of silver, 36 kilos of Island, an encounter that left him with a deep gold, and an enormous amount of jewels. scar on his face. It was Drake’s greatest haul and the flamboyant After sacking the port of Valparaíso, Drake privateer, giddy with success, threw a dinner seized control of a ship full of Chilean wine, party for the occupants of the ship. He then but it was off the coast of Peru that he really hit put them ashore with a little souvenir of their the jackpot. Near Lima, Drake’s men captured experience (jewellery to match their rank) and a a Spanish vessel packed with Peruvian gold. letter of safe conduct.
ARISE, SIR FRANCIS Queen Elizabeth knights Francis Drake on the deck of his ship, the Golden Hind
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BEFRIENDING THE LOCALS Drake established friendly relations with the Coast Miwok Native Americans
Heavy with bounty, but still in search of prey and looking for a potential northern trade route, Francis Drake travelled up the American coast, possibly as far as the 38th parallel (just north of present-day San Francisco) before landing on the shores of what is now California on 17 June 1579. Here he audaciously claimed all of America north of New Spain, from “sea to sea”, in the name of the English crown, naming it Nova Albion – New Britain.
LEGEND OF THE DRUM Drake left behind him a drum that he’d taken round the world. Allegedly, he said if England was in danger someone was to beat the drum and he’d return to defend his country. Legend has it that it was heard when World War I broke out.
After forging good relations with the Coast Miwok Native Americans, Drake and his men stayed at this natural port for long enough to repair their boats and stock up for their return. The exact location of the spot is a matter for conjecture (it was a closely guarded secret at the time, with maps and charts sometimes altered so as to confuse the Spanish).
BURIAL AT SEA
ABOVE: Drake is delivered up to the sea, despite having asked to be buried on land LEFT: Drake took this drum, which shows his coat of arms, on his voyages
WORLD TRIP Whether or not Drake intentionally set out to complete a circumnavigation of the globe is another subject open for debate, but when he left the Americas he went south-west, searching for the winds that would carry him across the Pacific. In November 1579, the Golden Hind reached the Moluccas (the Maluku Islands, an archipelago within present-day Indonesia), where Drake established trading relations with the Sultan of Ternate and took on six tons of cloves. The ship grounded on a reef in January, and all her treasure was almost lost, but after one day she was afloat again and en route to Java. Striking out across the Indian Ocean, the
crew rounded the Cape of Good Hope without pause, and by 20 July were off the coast of Sierra Leone. Finally, on 26 September 1580, Drake sailed the Golden Hind triumphantly back into Plymouth, with 56 men and an almost unimaginable bounty of treasure on board. Despite its rocky start and misadventures on the way, the expedition had been a huge success financially. Of the loot that accompanied Francis Drake on his return, Elizabeth I’s claim was significant. The sum was greater than all the rest of the crown’s income for that year and the
treasure trove cleared England’s foreign debt. Drake was knighted aboard the Golden Hind and his status as an English hero was cemented. Any pretence of friendship with Spain crumbled, and within five years the nations were at war. Drake was part of the English command that famously inflicted a humiliating defeat on Philip’s Armada (see the October 2014 issue), ending Spain’s dominance of the seas. His later career involved several less-successful battles against forces in Spanish America, shortly after one of which he died of dysentery aged about 55. He was buried at sea near Portobelo in Panama, in full armour and encased in a lead coffin. d
GET HOOKED! Our shortlist of where to find out more about the exciting Age of Discovery
MUSEUMS AND MONUMENTS
BOOKS
ON SCREEN ELIZABETH’S SEA DOGS: HOW ENGLAND’S MARINERS BECAME THE SCOURGE OF THE SEAS by Hugh Bicheno The story of the privateers, including Drake, Ralegh and others.
G GOLDEN HINDE II, BANKSIDE, LONDON Fully working reconstruction of Drake’s flagship. Tours with costumed actors bring the history of the ship to life with tales of his voyages. www.goldenhinde.com ALSO LOOK OUT FOR E Buckland Abbey, Drake’s Devon home www.nationaltrust.org.uk E The Matthew, Bristol, a replica of Cabot’s ship www.matthew.co.uk E The Mary Rose Museum, Portsmouth www.maryrose.org
THE LAST CRUSADE: THE EPIC VOYAGES OF VASCO DA GAMA by Nigel Cliff A well-written, lively and stirring book that tells the story of da Gama’s exciting adventures.
1492: CONQUEST OF PARADISE (1992) Epic drama by Ridley Scott, telling a fictionalised story of the discovery of the New World by Christopher Columbus.
ALSO LOOK OUT FOR E The Race to the New World: Christopher Columbus, John Cabot, and a Lost History of Discovery by Douglas Hunter E Maps and Their Untold Stories by Rosie Mitchell & Andrew James E Magellan’s World by Stuart Waldman (for younger readers)
ALSO LOOK OUT FOR E The Sea Hawk (1940) with Errol Flynn is a piece of WWII propaganda, loosely based on Drake’s exploits
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TOP TEN… FAMOUS LAST WORDS
CHE GUEVARA
Famous
last words Apologies, complaints, messages of defiance… Nige Tassell repeats some memorable final words from history
WINSTON CHURCHILL After an extraordinary life that directed the path of 20th-century history, the former Prime Minister’s final utterance in 1965 indicated that he was ready to go after suffering a stroke. “I am bored with it all,” he noted, before slipping into a nine-day coma from which he never woke.
Declassified documents from the US Special Forces Group suggest the Argentinian revolutionary’s last words to be “Know this now, you are killing a man”. But Jon Lee Anderson’s biography of Guevara reports that, in his final moments at his Bolivian encampment in 1967, he told his executor: “Shoot me, you coward. You are only going to kill a man.”
“Shoot me, you coward. You are only going to kill a man”
“I am bored with it all” MALCOLM X
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ELIZABETH I Differing accounts and sources offer up several contenders for the crown of being the Virgin Queen’s last words in 1603. While it will be impossible to ever have a definitive answer, there’s no denying which of her supposed final statements was the most poetic: her request to swap “all my possessions for a moment of time”.
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“Brothers! Brothers, please! This is a house of peace!” When a rehearsed scuffle broke out in the audience while he was giving a speech at the Audubon Ballroom in 1965, the African-American activist tried to placate the apparent troublemakers. Distracted, he was confronted by three armed gunmen who fired 15 times. He died instantly.
SALVADOR ALLENDE
MARIE ANTOINETTE
As the military closed in on the presidential palace during the 1973 coup, Chilean President shot himself with an AK-47 assault rifle, but not before delivering his final speech live on radio. “Go forward knowing that, sooner rather than later, the great avenues will open again where free men will walk to build a better society. Long live Chile! Long live the people! Long live the workers!”
“Pardon me, sir. I did not mean to do it.” When the former Queen of France spoke her last words on the scaffold in Paris in 1793, anyone might have thought it a last-minute plea for clemency. Not so. She was apologising for accidentally standing on her executioner’s foot while getting into position for her beheading.
PT BARNUM The circus entrepreneur died in April 1891 at the age of 80, having suffered a stroke the previous year. But the final words of the ebullient showman reveal that he wasn’t one to put sentimentality before hard-nosed economics, for as he took his last breath he asked: “How were the circus receipts at Madison Square Garden?”
ow “I don’t know h ast so f you get along n the o c ffi a r t e h t h wit ys” roads these da THOMAS GRASSO Just before he was executed by lethal injection in Oklahoma in 1995, the convicted double murderer expressed his dissatisfaction with his final meal. He was served tinned spaghetti with meatballs, but it wasn’t the exact variety that Grasso had requested. “I did not get my SpaghettiOs. I got spaghetti. I want the press to know this.”
IAN FLEMING The author’s James Bond books brimmed over with tales of derring-do, but in 1964 his last words paid tribute to somewhat more everyday heroics. “I am sorry to trouble you chaps,” he said, apologising to the ambulance crew who were responding to what turned out to be a fatal heart attack. “I don’t know how you get along so fast with the traffic on the roads these days.”
LADY ASTOR
“I did not get my SpaghettiOs. I go t spaghetti. I want the press to know th is”
Famous for trading rhetorical barbs with Winston Churchill on many occasions, Nancy Astor, Britain’s first female MP, remained sharp right up to the end in 1964. On seeing the number of family and friends gathered around her deathbed, the American-born viscountess inquired: “Is it my birthday or am I dying?”
WHAT DO YOU THINK? Do you know any entertaining last words from history? Get in touch and let us know… Email: [emailprotected] DECEMBER 2014
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Q&A
YOU ASK, WE ANSWER IN A NUTSHELL 59 • HOW DID THEY DO THAT? 60 • DESIGN OF THE TIMES 62 OUR EXPERTS EMILY BRAND Historian, genealogist and author of Mr Darcy’s Guide to Courtship (2013)
CO
In 1911 MMONS , in L for the spired by IVING th deface vote, hundr e campaig n ed d from t their censu s of wome n he enu s form merat s or h Emily id or. Su Wild count ing Daviso ffragette n was ed aft er be only hiding in a cu ing found p the Ho board in of Com use mons.
THE MIND OF A GENIUS Preserved slices of Einstein's brain (bottom right) are kept in several museum collections
JULIAN HUMPHRYS Development Officer for The Battlefields Trust and author
GREG JENNER Former Consultant for CBBC’s Horrible Histories, his first book is due early next year
SEAN LANG Senior Lecturer at Anglia Ruskin Uni, focusing on the British Empire, and author
RUPERT MATTHEWS Author on a wide range of historical subjects, from ancient to modern
MILES RUSSELL Author and Senior Lecturer of Archaeology at Bournemouth Uni
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NOW SEND US YOUR QUESTIONS Wondering about a particular historical happening? Don’t rack your brains – our expert panel has the answer, so get in touch @Historyrevmag #askhistrevmag www.facebook.com/ HistoryRevealed editor@history revealed.com
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What happened to Einstein’s brain? Before his death in 1955, Albert Einstein had requested that he be cremated, so his corpse didn’t become the plaything of superfans and scientists. Yet the on-duty pathologist, Thomas Harvey, removed Einstein’s brain during the eminent physicist's autopsy. Many were outraged, but Harvey convinced Einstein’s son to let
him keep the brain, promising that it would further the cause of neuroscience. Indeed, he sliced the brain into over 200 pieces, some of which he sent to medical experts in the hope they could find clues to Einstein’s brilliance. However, few were interested in this madcap scheme, and so Harvey kept most of the brain stored in two glass jars, refrigerated inside a beer cooler. Eventually, he
tried to pass the bits of brain on to Einstein’s granddaughter, but she didn’t want them either. It wasn’t until 1978, when a journalist reported Harvey’s bizarre quest, that scientists took an interest. But Harvey’s DIY approach to preservation likely means any experimental results are flawed. The brain slices are now kept in two American medical museums. GJ
Who invented the umbrella? The use of umbrellalike devices to provide shelter from the Sun is an ancient one. Carvings from the Assyrian Empire depict parasols of circular fabric mounted on a stick as early as 1300 BC, and they appeared in China around the time of Christ. It is thought that the folding parasol, for ease of carrying, was invented in China c1270. Parasols – although first appearing centuries earlier – did not become popular in Europe until the late 16th or early 17th centuries, probably by way
of visiting Persian merchants and diplomats. The word ‘umbrella’ was coined in Italy around 1610 to describe a particular parasol of expensive silk, decorated with gold or silver thread and carried by men out riding in the countryside. By this time, the desire for umbrellas protecting people from the rain as well as the Sun was growing. In 1637, King Louis XIII of France bought the first waterproof umbrella, though sadly the name of its maker is not recorded. His umbrella had a canopy of heavy
WHICH UNI CAME FIRST: OXFORD OR CAMBRIDGE?
PRETTY PARASOL Early Chinese parasols were made of paper and painted with ornate decorations
silk and was liberally soaked in thick oil to render it waterproof. By the time the collapsible umbrella with a folding stick was developed by Marius de Paris in 1715, the umbrella had become a fashion item for ladies only. Englishmen stoically wore hats until the 19th century. RM
PUNY ROMANS
An oil painting of Hannibal's victory over Rome at the Battle of Trasimene
WHAT WERE THE PUNIC WARS? We get the word ‘Punic’ from the seafaring culture of Phoenicia – as ‘Phoenician’ in Latin is ‘Punicus’. Originating from the coastal districts of what is now
Lebanon and Syria, Phoenician colony cities were established across the eastern Mediterranean and the North African coast in the seventh and sixth centuries BC, the most successful being Carthage in
Tunisia. By the third century BC, Rome was expanding its power across Italy, directly threatening Carthaginian influence in Sicily and the western Mediterranean. The struggle between Carthage
The older of the two ‘great universities’ is Oxford. The city can trace the origins of its university institutions to 1167, when King Henry II banned English students from attending the University of Paris. The fact that students set up base in Oxford suggests some organised teaching was already going on there. The young students, however, didn’t get on too well with the townspeople. In 1209, two or three were unjustly hanged following the murder of a townswoman, causing many students to flee Oxford and make for Cambridge. JH
. and Rome erupted into bitter periods of open war three times: the First Punic War 264241 BC , Second Punic War 218-201 BC and Third Punic War 149-146 BC . The events of the Second are perhaps the most famous today, as they included the crossing of the Alps by Carthaginian general Hannibal, and his elephants (‘Great Adventures’, August 2014 and the campaign that nearly brought Rome to her knees. Unfortunately for Carthage, Hannibal's invasion failed and the Third Punic War ended with a Roman army sacking their chief city – and burning the library – as well as selling the Carthaginian population into slavery. The Romans, it has often been said, was rarely magnanimous in victory. MR
DECEMBER 2014
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Q&A
DID QUEEN VICTORIA HAVE A CHILDHOOD NICKNAME? Victoria's childhood was miserable. The ‘Kensington System’, adhered to by members of the Royal family, restricted her privacy and confined her to the palace. This was all part of a controlling strategy enacted by her overbearing German mother, Victoria, and her guardian, Sir John Conroy. Young Victoria was their ticket to power, but they didn’t call her Victoria – this was her second name. In fact, her baptismal name was Alexandrina, in honour of her godfather, Tsar Alexander of Russia, and so, to them, the little princess was simply ‘Drina’. GJ
.
What was the ‘North Sea Outrage’? Also known as the ‘Dogger Bank Incident’ or ‘The Russians’ Mad Midnight Murder’, this 1904 event put Hull in the international spotlight and brought Britain to the brink of war with Russia. At midnight on 21 October, Hull’s ‘Gameco*ck Fleet’ of around 50 fishing vessels was at work in the North Sea, near a spot named Dogger Bank, when it accidentally got caught in the middle of the Russo-Japanese War. The men, while gutting the day’s catches, saw the bright lights of large nearby warships and, believing them to be part of the British fleet on manoeuvres, gathered to watch the spectacle. Only when shots began to tear through the defenceless trawlers did the crews realise that the warships were not British, nor were they firing blanks. Two men were decapitated, around
30 injured – some losing limbs – RUSHING IN and one trawler was sunk. In the chaos, Russian ships Around 20 minutes later, the actually fired on each other, claiming two more lives firing stopped. The Russian forces claimed they mistook the trawlers for Imperial Japanese Navy ships, but the “senseless” attack provoked a major diplomatic dispute and Britain geared up for war. The BONEHE case was diffused in February When Na AD BONAPA R p 1905 when an inquiry decreed be exiled oleon heard he w TE to the tin as to yM that the incident resulted from island of Elba in 18 editerranean 14, he trie commit s confusion, not calculation. EB uicide w ith a pois d to But he h on pill. ad been carr since his retreat fr ying the pill om R it had los t its pote ussia, so ncy and failed to kill the French E mperor.
Have oysters always been used as aphrodisiacs? In its quest for pleasure and procreation, humanity has linked particular foods to lust for thousands of years – and the oyster is one of the most enduring. The Ancient Romans associated oysters with lewd practices, although the reasons aren't immediately clear. The Roman satirical poet Juvenal
wrote that they were devoured by loose women. In the 1700s, notorious lothario Casanova seduced women with oysters and champagne, as “a spur to spirit and to love”, and their reputation remains potent to this day. Other supposed aphrodisiacs have (thankfully) waned over time, including offal, sparrow brains and raw onion. EB
LEFT TO STARVE
With nothing to eat and no way of earning money, millions of Irish people succumbed to the famine
IN A NUTSHELL
WHAT WAS THE IRISH POTATO FAMINE? In the 19th century, Ireland was plagued by a famine that killed one million people and crippled the country
What caused the crop failure? The potatoes were struck by a disease called blight, which is caused by the fungus-like organism named Phytophthora infestans. Blight results in potatoes being small, mushy and impossible to eat. It is believed that the disease originated in North America and travelled by ship to Europe in 1845, damaging the potato crops in several countries and causing widespread hardship. Why were its effects so pronounced in Ireland? Many of Ireland’s inhabitants were poor and relied on potatoes as their staple food. Potatoes were
nutritious, well suited to the Irish climate and could be grown in large quantities on relatively small plots of land. Potato cultivation had enabled the Irish population to rise significantly but when the crop failed, millions were at risk of starvation. To make things worse, the potato blight did not just occur once, but returned to wreck the harvest for several years in a row. What impact did the crop failures have on Irish people? With their main source of food gone and rarely enough money to purchase alternatives, huge numbers of people succumbed to terrible hunger. The worst years of the famine were between 1845-49, and it is estimated that around one million people (or an eighth of the population) died from starvation or the diseases that preyed on their weakened bodies. Meanwhile, another
BRAVE NEW WORLD On board overcrowded ships bound for North America, many Irish emigrants fell gravely ill
million emigrated, with huge numbers making the perilous journey to North America. What was done to alleviate the effects of the famine? Ireland might have been poor, but as part of the United Kingdom, following the 1801 Act of Union, the country was connected to one of the world’s richest, industrial economies. The British government almost certainly could have prevented the heavy death toll had it responded quickly and effectively. The relief efforts, however, were rather patchy. Extra food was imported, soup kitchens ran for a few months and projects such as road building were initiated to provide jobs for the Irish poor. These measures did have some effect but were insufficient to deal with the scale of the problem. Could the British have done more to help? The muted response from the British was largely a result of the ideology of their political establishment. Many of them believed in the free market and the idea of laissez-faire, which meant that the government should not intervene too much in the economy and society.
As a result, the Irish were encouraged to feed their own people, which they couldn’t afford to do. At the same time, food exports from Ireland were somehow allowed to continue, despite the pressing need for this produce at home. As well as ideological resistance, many British policy makers harboured prejudices against the Irish due to their Catholicism, perceived backwardness, and supposed laziness and immorality. Some believed the Irish had brought the famine upon themselves and felt little inclination to prevent it. What were the legacies of the Irish Potato Famine? Ireland’s great famine was a watershed in the country’s history. The death toll and emigration – continuing long after the famine had ended – meant its population had virtually halved by the early 20th century. Even now, the population hasn’t reached pre1845 levels. Around the world, large Irish communities sprang up, particularly in North America. For those who remained, the failure of Britain to alleviate the horrific effects of the famine, helped fuel the fires of the nationalist movement. Effective independence was achieved for the majority of Ireland in 1922.
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ALAMY X4, THINKSTOCK X2
What was the Irish Potato Famine? The famine was a devastating moment in Ireland’s history, when the failure of the potato crop led to mass hunger during the mid-19th century.
Q&A
HOW DID THEY DO THAT?
ROMAN SIEGES The military skill and engineering ingenuity that cultivated the mighty Roman Empire The Roman army was a ruthless war machine that built an empire and remains one of the most respected armed forces in history. Its disciplined, well-armed legions could win both on the battlefield or when laying siege to a fortification. But success in lengthy sieges depended not only on leadership or the soldiers' fighting abilities, but on the highly efficient – and deadly – siege apparatus.
ARTILLERY The attacking Roman forces surrounded the city and would set up its array of artillery. With both short- and long-range weapons, the Romans aimed to breach the walls, take out as many of the defenders as they could, and dent enemy morale, as well as provide cover fire for the approaching siege towers.
LENGTHY CAMPAIGNS The besieged found it difficult to get supplies into the surrounded city, and the Romans would divert waterways. Sieges usually ended due to starvation rather than Roman offensives.
MINES AND TUNNELS Most sieges attempted to get over the city walls, but mines could be dug to weaken them from underneath. Special Roman soldiers, known as sappers, would go into the tunnels and cause explosions to collapse the walls.
SLOW BUT STEADY
THE ‘TESTUDO’ FORMATION
ILLUSTRATION: SOL 90, ALAMY X1
It wasn't just the weaponry that gave the Roman legions the edge in siege warfare, but the tactics too. The most effective was the ‘testudo’ formation (meaning ‘tortoise’). The soldiers formed a closely-bunched group and aligned their shields on top and to the sides, forming an impenetrable shell. Slowly, they would march towards the walls, carrying ladders, while staying safe from arrows or falling stones.
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Speed and mobility was sacrificed with the ‘testudo’ as the soldiers had to move very slowly as a single unit, but the curved shape of Roman shields meant the front ranks could always see where they were going with little risk.
A STONE'S THROW The artillery weapons were deadly but highmaintenance. They needed particular projectiles to be effective, with stones from rivers being the best as they were round and smooth. Stones have been found with chisel marks to make them smoother.
SCORPIO
ONAGER
BALLISTA
This crossbow-like weapon fired small arrows with pinpoint accuracy to a maximum range of 300 metres. Easy to handle, it could be operated by one man and could be mounted on the upper floors of siege towers.
A powerful weapon in the Roman artillery, the onager catapulted massive stones or burning projectiles over the walls of a besieged city to cause havoc among the defenders. The catapult got its name – which means 'wild ass' – as after firing, the back of the frame would kick up in the air.
Ballistas fired rocks at the walls in order to break through, but they were also an accurate sniper weapon. Many reports from Roman sieges claimed they could pick off individual soldiers on the walls.
INNOVATIONS Although siege weapons were introduced from Greece, the Roman army advanced them. Julius Caesar was able to use siege catapults from the decks of his ships during his invasion of Britain.
DEFENDING A CITY Roman commanders always gave enemies a chance to surrender. Under law, defenders who didn't give up before the first ram hits the wall forfeited any rights regarding how they were treated.
TOWERING WEAPONRY Siege towers were so sturdy that they could support dozens of soldiers and artillery, including Scorpios and Ballistas.
SIEGE TOWERS There was no set design for these towers as they were built for the specific needs of each siege. Roman historian Josephus reported that the siege towers at Jotapata were 15-20 metres high.
BATTERING RAMS RESISTANCE City defenders had few defences against siege towers, but there are accounts of tunnels being dug underneath an approaching tower in the hope of causing a collapse.
Sometimes attached to siege towers, or covered by a ‘testudo’ formation, battering rams were massive logs used to break down city walls. They got the name from the iron ram's heads attached to the front.
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Q&A
DESIGN OF THE TIMES
BYZANTINE WARRIOR The heavily armoured cavalry known as the cataphracts were the elite attacking force in many Byzantine armies The Byzantine Empire 4th to 15th centuries) controlled the Mediterranean Sea between modern-day Spain, Turkey and northern Africa. At the front of many of the
SCALE ARMOUR Overlapping bronze or iron scales were sewn together using bronze wire to create flexible armour.
empire's military victories were the battalions, or ‘tagma’, of the disciplined combat unit, armoured from head to toe – the cataphracts. Here is what made these cavalrymen such a deadly foe...
EPILORIKION A padded coat could be worn over the armour to offer further protection or help identify the rider.
INVINCIBLE SOLDIERS The armour was so effective – ‘cataphract’ means ‘completely enclosed’ – it could block spears or swords. It is said Emperor Alexios I Komnenos ended a battle with numerous spearheads embedded in his armour, but none touched his body.
HELMET The conical helmet fit over the chain mail of the head covering without restricting mobility. Not all cataphracts wore one.
CUIRASS The rider wore either scale or plate armour – it gave effective protection and could be made of over 1,000 scales, and weigh 40 kilograms.
CHAIN MAIL
CREST Hanging from the neck of the horses was a crest or colourful plume that identified the rider's tagma.
ILLUSTRATION: SOL 90, ALAMY X3, THINKSTOCK X2
HAMMER BLOWS
A heavy mask of chain mail left only the eyes visible. A chain mail coat was also worn under the armour.
BARDOUKION This mace could pierce armour and was a brutal weapon when swung in a cavalry charge.
PARAMERION In the aftermath of the cavalry charge, this short, curved sword was used in close combat.
As military leaders discovered the importance of cavalry in military action, the cataphracts became the initial attacking force in battle. They would charge the enemy infantry in wave after wave, cutting men down with spears and maces, until the opposing line broke. As their armour was so thick and seemingly impenetrable, they would lose few in this ‘hammer blow’ tactic.
SKOUTON
SPATHION KONTOS The spear varied in length but some reached over 4 metres long. It was used for charging rather than as a throwing weapon.
Each cataphract wore two swords into battle, the larger being a very heavy, straight, double-edged blade.
The shields were either circular of kite-shaped, made of wood and reinforced with a leather covering and steel.
PROVING LOYALTY
Some drawings sho w widows voluntarily jumping onto the funeral py re
WHO WAS THE ‘LONDON MONSTER’? In 1788, a series of attacks struck “terror in the female world of London”. A strange man approached women in the street, whispered “abominable bawdry” in their ears, before slashing their gowns or stabbing their buttocks. Other victims were cut in the face after smelling flowers filled with hidden blades. Fearful ladies took to padding their rumps with cork or putting copper in their petticoats. After two years and 50 attacks, 23-year-old artificial-flower maker Renwick Williams was identified as the ‘London Monster’. He was found guilty and jailed for six years. EB
.
What was ‘Sati’? The Victorians saw India as a cruel society in need of a western civilising influence. To prove their point, they often referred to sati, the ritual burning of widows, often young women, on the funeral pyres of their dead husbands. The ritual BANNING SATI usually took place before Lord William a large crowd and when Bentinck banned the European travellers observed practice in 1829 sati, they concluded that the women were succumbing unwillingly to family and community pressure. social reform both at home and The Indian reformer, Rajah in the empire. In 1829, the British Ram Mohan Roy, made it clear Governor-General, Lord William that sati was not a Hindu Bentinck, banned sati. religious requirement and urged Although few would defend the the British to ban it. Others practice, some historians point out argued the British should not that sati was never widespread impose their own values or ban but was used by the British as an traditional Indian practices, excuse to justify their rule of India however ghastly. Regardless, and to extend their own cultural by the 1820s the British were values deep within traditional enthusiastically promoting Indian society. SL
How dangerous was the penny-farthing? The penny-farthing was a style of bicycle popular in the 1870s and 1880s. The bike got its name from its two differently-sized wheels, with the front wheel likened to a penny coin and the much smaller rear wheel compared to a farthing (a quarter of a penny). The large wheel allowed each turn of the pedals to drive the bicycle a greater distance, and also allowed for a smoother ride over the cobbled streets and uneven roads
of the period. But with the rider sitting up to 1.5 metres off the ground, broken bones were all too common in the event of accidents. Even worse, the position of the rider over the front axle meant that any sudden stop caused by hitting a stone would hurl the rider forward headfirst. Hitting the ground with the head could be, and sometimes was, fatal. The popularity of penny-farthings waned with the development of gears, allowing the ratio between pedal and wheel to be varied. The second breakthrough was the pneumatic tyre, which gave a smoother ride. By 1893, ‘safety bicycles’ were on sale and pennyfarthings were no longer being made. RM
FILLING
A STAD The word ‘stadium’ co IUM ‘stadion’, a mes from n Ancient Greek unit length. A of stadion, m easuring around 19 2 metres, w as used to refer to a sprint race – the distance w as calcula ted as being 600 times the length of the foo t of Greek hero Hera cles.
HOW DEMOCRATIC WAS ANCIENT ATHENS? Not very. Although celebrated as the birthplace of democracy, not everyone in fifth-century-BC Athens had the right to vote. Of the 250,000 people living there, less than an eighth were permitted to vote. Women, slaves or non-Athenians (traders, visitors or refugees) were denied such rights. MR
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BATTLEFIELD HATTIN, 1187
WARRIOR STEEDS Because they usually lacked armour, the Christian knights’ horses were vulnerable to arrows, and needed to be shielded by foot soldiers until the very last minute.
KOBAL X1, THINKSTOCK X1
Saladin crushes the Crusaders W The Muslim forces’ victory over the Christian army at Hattin led to the recapture of Jerusalem and was seen as one of western Christendom’s most catastrophic defeats. Julian Humphrys explains how it happened… 66
HISTORYREVEALED.COM
hen Pope Urban II called for a Crusade against the Muslims in 1095, the Christian community responded. A major military expedition, mainly from France, Flanders and Germany, captured Jerusalem, massacring many of its inhabitants. The Crusaders founded four states in the eastern Mediterranean: Edessa, Antioch, Tripoli and, the jewel in the Christian crown, the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem.
IN THE NAME OF GOD PARCHED EARTH The barren, baked terrain of much of the Holy Land meant that, at most battles, water supply played an important strategic role. Hattin was no exception.
ARMOURED MIGHT A massed charge by the heavily armoured mounted knights was a key tactic for the Crusading forces during their battles for the Holy Land.
Ridley Scott’s Crusaders ride into battle in his 2005 epic, Kingdom of Heaven
BATTLE CONTEXT Who Muslims: 30,000, under Saladin Crusaders: 15,000-20,000, under Guy de Lusignan
Despite its grand name, this new kingdom was always short of men and was, in effect, merely a small coastal strip largely surrounded by enemies. But it did control the holy city of Jerusalem. For more than 50 years, the Muslim enemies were disunited and rarely able to cooperate in their desire to recapture the city. But that was about to change. In the 1170s, the Sultan of Egypt used a combination of warfare and diplomacy to unite the Muslim Middle East. His full name was Sal h al-D n Y suf ibn Ayy b - but to the West he was, and still is, known simply as Saladin.
Using Egypt as his power base, this educated, ambitious and sometimes ruthless Kurdish warrior won control of Yemen, Damascus, Aleppo and Al-Jazira (made up of modern-day northern Iraq, eastern Syria and southern Turkey). Jerusalem was now encircled by a unified enemy, led by a man who was determined to pursue a jihad, or holy war, against it.
INTERNAL CONFLICT The Christians had by now begun falling out among themselves. Tensions had arisen between the established lords of the kingdom,
notably Raymond of Tripoli, and a number of newcomers who had arrived in the Holy Land in a bid to find land. These newcomers followed a French nobleman called Guy de Lusignan, the brother-inlaw of Jerusalem’s King Baldwin IV. De Lusignan favoured an aggressive policy against the Muslims. He was supported by the Knights Templar, and also by one of the most controversial figures of the whole period, Raynald de Chatillon. At times it seems as if de Chatillon was determined to wage a one-man war against the Muslims. His colourful past had included
When 4 July 1187
Where Near Lake Tiberias, northern Palestine
Why Christian attempt to relieve the besieged town of Tiberias
Outcome A decisive Muslim victory, which leads to their recapture of Jerusalem
Losses Muslims: unknown Crusaders: heavy
BATTLEFIELD HATTIN, 1187
THE BATTLEFIELD
“They launched a daring charge, but were overwhelmed and bloodily defeated” ruling Antioch, plundering was crowned King. Disgruntled, Cyprus and spending 15 years in a Raymond retired to Tiberias on the Muslim prison. In 1177, he became banks of the Sea of Galilee. Tensions Lord of the isolated province of escalated, and civil war was only Transjordan, south-east of narrowly avoided. However, the Dead Sea, where his there was no escaping war castles overlooked the with the Muslims. trade routes between When, in 1187, Egypt and Damascus. Raynald once again By now, de Chatillon violated a truce by The approximate number seemed impossible to attacking a large of Templar and Hospitaller control. He violated caravan travelling knights who were fragile truces with the north from Cairo, beheaded after the battle Muslims by attacking Saladin prepared for the caravans that passed war, assembling a large by, he launched a fleet of pirate army on the borders of the ships into the Red Sea and, on one kingdom. Raymond had agreed occasion, appeared to threaten the his own peace treaty with Saladin holy cities of Mecca and Medina. and, on 30 April, he allowed a Why did he do this? Nobody is large Muslim reconnaissance force sure. He might simply have been to pass through his lands. What motivated by greed and hate, or Raymond didn’t know was that de he might have hoped to disrupt Lusignan had sent a delegation to the Muslim economy and damage seek a reconciliation with him. On Saladin’s reputation. its way to Tiberias, the delegation and its escort of knights, many of them Templars and Hospitallers, THE KING IS DEAD ran into the Muslims at the Springs In 1185, Baldwin IV died of leprosy of Cresson. Despite being heavily and, the following year, his young outnumbered, they launched a successor died as well. Raymond of daring charge against the Muslims Tripoli, who had become regent of but were overwhelmed and the kingdom, was soon ousted by bloodily defeated. the supporters of de Lusignan, who
This was the opportunity Saladin had been waiting for. The Christian troops were tired, dehydrated and suffocating in the heat of the desert. The Sultan used his knowledge of the landscape to his advantage, cutting his thirsty enemy off from the water supply and further disorienting them with fire, before committing his troops to land their devastating blow. It was to be an annihilation.
MUSLIM TROOPS CRUSADER TROOPS WATER SOURCE Mt Tur’an
HISTORYREVEALED.COM
ILLUSTRATION: SOL 90, ALAMY X1, CORBIS X1
HORNS OF HATTIN 4 July
Lubia
Mashhad
Cafarsset Cresson
NAZARETH
Tiberias besieged 2 July
W
dF idjd s
Sinnabra
Mt Tabor
Edessa Antioch
Tripoli TIBERIAS
KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM (1099-1187)
THE TRUE CROSS
Jerusalem
A relic, believed to have had some remnants of the cross on which Christ died, was placed on the front line of battle. Muslim forces captured it at Hattin and it was never recovered.
SCALE ARMOUR
QUIVER
SWORD MUSLIM TROOPS Saladin’s mounted archers played a vital part in the battle. They circled the Christian army, harassing it with arrow fire before riding away to safety.
TIBERIAS
SEPHORIA
FIGHTING STYLES
68
Nimrin Maskana
Tur’an
230
The Christian army was mainly made up of armoured knights, who fought with lances and swords, and shield-carrying infantry, equipped with spears and crossbows. The infantry would deploy in front of the knights to protect their horses from incoming arrows, before moving aside to allow the horsem*n to charge. Saladin’s troops included mounted archers, who were skilled skirmishers. But he too had well-armoured horsem*n and foot soldiers.
Lake Tiberias
HATTIN
BOW
MUSLIM TROOPS
BENEATH THE HORNS
In addition to having greater numbers, they were well-rested and more mobile than their Christian counterparts.
HORNS OF HATTIN The two peaks that overlook the battlefield at Hattin were formed by an extinct volcano. These hills became a place of retreat for the beleaguered Christian army.
Saladin blocked the road to Tiberias at Hattin, cutting off the Crusaders’ main line of retreat
CRUSADER INFANTRY Foot soldiers were deployed in front of the cavalry to protect the horses from enemy arrows.
FIRE The Muslims ignited the dry pastures, using the smoke and heat to confuse their enemies.
CRUSADER CAVALRY Protected by the men on the ground, the riders would have waited for the chance to mount a charge.
GLASS CHAMPIONS
SLING
This heavy cutting sword, with its two long, sharp edges, is typical of the sort of weapon carried by Christian knights.
ROPES
COAT OF MAIL Made of thousands of interlocking iron rings and worn by both Crusader and Muslim warriors, the metal could get unbearably hot in the Sun and so was often covered with a cloth robe known as a surcoat.
ORDER OF KNIGHTS
PIVOT THROWING ARM
TRACTION TREBUCHET Possibly developed in Islamic lands in the 7th century, these trebuchets hurled rocks into a fortification. Sometimes the rocks were replaced by the heads of prisoners. As the technology advanced, stones of up to 100kg could be thrown 150 metres.
From the 1110s, organisations known as military orders established themselves in the Crusader states. The most formidable were the Knights Templar and the Knights Hospitaller. The Templars were founded to protect pilgrims travelling in the Holy Land, while the Hospitallers established hospitals to care for them. As time went on, they developed into warrior monks, combining monastic vows of poverty, chastity and obedience with military discipline. They grew in importance and number until they were the fighting elite of the Christian army. They played a key role in the Hattin campaign.
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DK IMAGES/GEOFF DANN X1, ROYAL ARMOURIES X2
DOUBLE-EDGED SWORD
Templar and Hospitaller knights are immortalised in the windows of the Church of St Andrew, Temple Graf ton
BATTLEFIELD HATTIN, 1187 – a fragment of the True Cross. The news of this disaster led Marching in intense heat across Raymond to patch up his quarrel barren terrain and harassed all with de Lusignan. Tearing up the way by Saladin’s archers, the his treaty with Saladin, he Christians reached the springs at joined the royal army, which was Tur’an at about noon. Those that assembling near Acre, present-day could took a much needed drink. northern Israel. The Crusaders Despite the fact that Tiberias was had previously countered Muslim still nine miles away, with no invasions by taking up positions that were well supplied with water, reliable water supply en route, de Lusignan pressed on. Men letting heat and thirst defeat the collapsed in the heat and metal enemy. They did this once again, armour became too hot to advancing to the springs at touch as the midday Sun Sephoria and waiting there. blazed down on the But Saladin wasn’t going Christian army. to fall into the trap. In By mid-afternoon, a bid to turn the tables, The total number the thirsty Christians he attacked Tiberias, of Crusades that had reached a dry, dusty hoping that de Lusignan were sent to the plain in front of a double and Raymond would Holy Land hill known as the Horns march to its rescue. The of Hattin. Saladin now began town fell almost immediately, attacking in force, surrounding de but its defenders, together with Lusignan’s weary army, blocking Raymond’s wife, retreated into its its advance and cutting it off citadel and continued to hold out. from the springs back at Tur’an. Judging that his army could go COUNCIL OF WAR no further, de Lusignan gave the On 2 July, the Crusader leaders order to halt for the night. Those gathered to decide on the best who did manage to snatch some course of action. Raymond was sleep awoke in the morning to in favour of staying where they thick smoke – Saladin’s men had lit were, even if that probably meant bushfires to hide their movements he would lose his castle and, temporarily at least, his wife. Better and add to the Crusaders’ misery. Completely surrounded and with lose those, he argued, than the no water to drink, the Christian whole kingdom. But de Lusignan army was in dire elected to head for Tiberias. The straits. Raymond following morning, with Raymond gathered his leading the vanguard, the army knights set off. To ensure they had divine and led support, they carried with them them in the kingdom’s most precious relic
9
NOBLE EXECUTION BEFORE
After the battle, Guy de SALADIN Lusignan and Raynald The Crusading captives meet de Chatillon were the victor brought before Saladin. The Muslim offered a cup of iced water to de Lusignan, who drank and passed the cup to de Chatillon. The pair must have been relieved, as it was an Arab custom that a man who had been given food or drink by his captor would not be harmed. However, as Saladin pointed out to de Chatillon, it had not been his imprisoner who had handed him the water, but his own King. De Chatillon’s fate was sealed. He was beheaded shortly after, some say by Saladin himself. De Lusignan and the other Christian nobles were spared, but 230 captured Templars and Hospitallers who refused to convert to Islam were taken to Damascus and slaughtered.
“Surrounded, and with no water, the Christian army was in dire straits” a charge, which broke through Saladin’s lines, but he didn’t have enough men to influence the battle and had no alternative but to retreat. The rest of de Lusignan’s army began to crumble. His foot soldiers tried to break out of the trap they were in, but were driven back by Saladin’s infantry. Many took refuge atop the Horns of Hattin. Without
AFTER THE BATTLE
GET HOOKED!
What did victory at Hattin mean for the Muslims?
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Find out more about the battle and those involved
SULTAN OF SUCCESS
ART ARCHIVE X1, ALAMY X1
the shields of the infantry to protect them, the horses of de Lusignan’s trapped knights were easy targets for Saladin’s archers. More and more were killed as arrows rained down, forcing the knights to fight on foot, which was far less effective. Eventually, they too were driven up onto the Horns by Saladin’s men. Two charges by those knights still on horses came to nothing and, in the mid-afternoon, the exhausted and demoralised Christians laid down their arms and surrendered. d
Saladin followed up this victory with lightning speed. He captured most of the Kingdom’s coastal towns and then turned on Jerusalem in late September. Led by Balian of Ibelin, one of a few of knights who had escaped Hattin, the defenders of Jerusalem put up a desperate fight. When Balian threatened
Saladin’s numerous victories made him the most famous Muslim hero of the Crusades
to kill the 5,000 Muslim prisoners in the city, and to destroy its holy places, Saladin granted him generous terms of surrender. The loss of Jerusalem provoked a third Crusade, led by Richard the Lionheart and Philip of France. They failed to take
Jerusalem but recovered many of the towns that Saladin had captured. The Kingdom of Jerusalem was to survive for over a century until the Muslims captured Acre, its last mainland stronghold, in 1291.
Find out the whole story in The Oxford Illustrated History of the Crusades by Jonathan Riley-Smith. Starting with the preaching of the First Crusade in 1095, it goes on to look at the history of the Kingdom of Jerusalem as well as the later Crusades that tried to recover Jerusalem after its fall in 1087.
WHAT DO YOU THINK? How much do the Crusades resonate in today’s international climate? Email: [emailprotected]
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Examine the Past Pearson is recruiting History examiners for GCE/GCSE History for Summer 2015 With your knowledge of History and teaching skills, you could become an examiner for Pearson and help to shape the future of thousands of students. Being an examiner can inspire fresh ideas and new approaches to teaching your subject. For more information about the roles, GFFT CFOFmUTBOEIPXUPBQQMZ QMFBTFWJTJU
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IN IN PICTURES PICTURES BETWEEN XYXYXY THE WORLD WARS
WORKING WOMEN ON THE FACTORY FLOOR
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During World War I, while men fought, women joined the workforce in factories producing wartime supplies. When the war ended, women were devoted to holding on to their jobs.
A WOMAN’S PLACE... The end of World War I saw renewed vigour in the quest for sexual equality, and the interwar years marked a shift in women’s place in British society 72
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IN PICTURES XYXYXY
TES WINNING ofVO fighting for In 1918, after decades suffrage, some women were finally given the vote, but not all...
THE ENFRANCHISED PIONEERS AT THE POLLS
The 1918 law gave the vote to over eight million women, as long as they were over 30 and satisfied certain property qualifications. These women cast their first ballots at the election later that year.
GRADUATES ONE DEGREE AT A TIME Women had attended universities for years before the war, but they weren’t entitled to graduate. In the postwar years, however, university laws changed. In 1920, Ivy Williams became one of the first women to receive a degree from Oxford, nearly 20 years after taking her exams.
IN THE AFTERMATH OF THE WAR, THE PROGRESS OF WOMEN’S RIGHTS SPED UP T YET EQUAL NO THE FIGHT GOES ON
Demonstrations continued throughout the 1920s, demanding the voting age be lowered to 21 – the same age that men are entitled to vote. Electoral equality was eventually achieved in 1928.
RAISE YOUR CUP Equal suffrage had been achieved only after hundreds of women had sacrificed their freedom and safety. Sylvia Pankhurst (centre) had recently been released from prison when this photo was taken.
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TOASTING A SUFFRAGETTE
ON HER HEAD!
QUEENS OF FOOTBALL
Formed at a munitions factory during the war, Dick, Kerr ’s Ladies Footbal l Club paved the way for the women’s game. For the 1920/21 season, they wer e undefeated. XXXX 2014
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IN IN PICTURES PICTURES BETWEEN XYXYXY THE WORLD WARS
ENGINEERING EXCELLENCE A WOMAN’S TOUCH Throughout the 1920s, many British women were establishing careers for the first time. This engineering firm in London only hired women and, by the time this photo was taken in 1931, they were challenging other companies in this male-dominated industry.
MARRIED LIFE WORKING FROM HOME
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Many professions, from teaching to the civil service, prevented married women from being employed as it was believed that, after marriage, a woman’s chief responsibility was to the care of her home. When Sir Herbert Austin, a successful car manufacturer, proposed plans to fire female employees, women took to the streets in demonstration.
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NO LONGER WERE WOMEN SEEN ONLY AS BOUND TO DOMESTIC LIFE
HAVING FUN
Women’s place in society was changing – not just in work and education, but in everyday life...
IN PICTURES XYXYXY
JOINING THE RACE FIRST STROKES A women’s version of the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race was founded in 1927, but the two crews weren’t allowed on the river at the same time, rather they were judged on “time and style”. From the mid-1930s, the contest became a proper race. Here we see the Cambridge crew training before the 1936 outing.
DRESSING UP GLITZ AND GLAMOUR
Fashion changed dramatically for women in the ‘Roaring Twenties’. The dropped-waist dresses worn by these five models illustrated the greater focus for some on enjoyment and nightlife.
NEED FOR SPEED DAREDEVILS AND RACERS
While aviatrix Amy Johnson took to the skies and Mercedes Gleitze swam the Channel, other women were inspired to take up formerly maleonly hobbies, such as car and motorcycle racing.
WARM WELCOME WHEN GANDHI CAME TO VISIT
CHOOSING A JOB RING THE CHANGES
There were more opportunities for jobs in the 1930s but, generally, women found work as secretaries, switchboard operators or factory workers – including these workers making telephones.
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During his visit to Britain in 1931, Mahatma Gandhi met with hundreds of people around the country. When he turned up at a Lancashire textile factory, he was given an enthusiastic reception by its female employees.
DECEMBER XXXX 2014
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WOMEN WERE ONCE AGAIN CALLED ON TO HELP FIGHT A WORLD WAR
DIG FOR VICTORY HOME FRONT
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Shortly before World War II was declared, the Women’s Land Army was set up to grow food, relying, at the start, on volunteers. A third of the ‘Land Girls’ moved from cities to the countryside and had no experience in farming or country life.
BIT DOING THEIR the horizon, women dropped what they were With war once again on doing to contribute to the Home Front...
NURSES LIFE SAVERS
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One field dominated by women was nursing – they would be vital workers once war started
SIGN UP In the months leading to war, thousands enlisted in the Auxiliary Territorial Service, many rushing out in their lunch breaks to join.
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GUN GIRLS As in World War I, women worked in the factories, making munitions to be sent to the battlefields of Europe.
From the makers of
To commemorate the centenary of the declaration of the First World War, the team behind Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine has put together The Complete Guide To Tracing Your First World War Ancestors to help you research your forebears who served in the conflict. This 116-page special edition is crammed with practical tips and advice on how to interpret army, navy and air force war records, as well providing you with the skills to date medals and photographs and much more. Plus, learn the context of your ancestors’ lives and times during this turbulent period. Inside you will find: • Details of top archives and websites relevant to your research • Celebrity First World War case studies from the TV show • Guide to planning your own battlefield visit and much more!
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KING’S OWN ROYAL LANCASTERS
Got a First World War photo of an ancestor who you want to find out more about? Phil Tomaselli shares some of his photo identification secrets
M
any families have photographs showing ancestors who fought in the First World War – often with no annotation to identify them or their unit. We’ve rounded up some examples and revealed the clues the experts use to aid identification of regiment and year. Most of the British Army wore standard khaki cloth single breast tunics with
straight khaki trousers, puttees and boots with little to distinguish them, though Highlanders wore kilts, even in the trenches and Australians the slouch hat. There are other clues. All ranks wore cap badges identifying their unit. Some early Kitchener’s Army (1914/15) volunteers trained wearing blue cloth uniforms, which may be identified even in sepia photos.
Some early (1915) khaki uniforms lacked pleated pockets to save cloth. Tin helmets were introduced at the end of 1915. A wide range of rank, proficiency and service badges can tell you something about what an individual did. Service chevrons (right cuff) and wound stripes (left cuff) can help date a picture and tell you more about an individual.
Cap badge Beautifully clear and indicating the Royal Engineers. His daughter is wearing one round her neck as a reminder of her dad!
Scout badge
Shoulder titles These are in metal and say RE – indicating the Royal Engineers.
Service chevrons These indicate the number of years of active service abroad. If the bottom one was darker it would have been for 1914; later years are lighter. Here, three the same means the photo was taken in 1918.
Wound stripe
RIFLEMAN QUEEN VICTORIA’S RIFLES
What to look out for... Cap badge: With 100+ regiments and corps, the cap badge is vital for identification. Even an indistinct badge can be used to rule out many units; the shape is usually enough to limit the range of options.
Buttons Black buttons indicate that this soldier belongs to a Rifle battalion.
Rank indicators: Lance-corporals, corporals and sergeants had one, two or three stripes on the upper arm. Sergeant majors and staff sergeants had a crown above. Officers wore a combination of pips and crowns on cuffs or shoulders.
Badge (1)
Other badges: Trade and proficiency badges indicate skills – crossed rifles, marksman; horseshoe, farrier; crossed flags, signaller. Service chevrons (on the right cuff) indicate years served abroad. Wound stripes (left cuff) show the number of wounds. Divisional patch (right shoulder), the division served with.
Fusil This fusil (old-fashioned grenade) above this soldier’s sergeant stripes confirm him as an RE sergeant as they traditionally wore this in addition to their chevrons.
Who Do You Think You Are?
Uniform indicators: Spurs or bandoliers indicate horses – so the wearer could be cavalry or an artillery driver. A hard-peaked cloth cap signifies a date of 1914/15. Soft peaks indicate 1915 onwards. Tin helmets were introduced in early 1916, while sun helmets and shorts suggest tropical/desert service. Other clues: What are the photo’s subjects doing or what are they with? Lorries/buses usually indicate Army Service Corps; Artillery guns, the Royal Artillery. Horses can mean cavalry or transport. Are there clues such as place names or unit references?
The letters LG in a laurel wreath indicate he’s a trained Lewis gunner – the Lewis gun was the British infantry’s standard light machine gun. PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF PAUL COBB
Many wives and girlfriends wore ‘sweetheart brooches’ or pendants with the badge of their loved one’s regiment. It’s not clear, but this may be one.
Learn from the research experiences of celebrities featured in the Who Do You Think You Are? TV series
The three stripes of a sergeant are clear. Less clear is the single stripe of the lance corporal sat next to him.
Other unit identifiers: Metal shoulder titles give the regiment name. A letter ‘T’ above indicates the Territorial Force. Regimental badges often appear on the jacket collar of officers and sometimes the sleeves of cavalry, engineer or artillery sergeants.
Brooch
This shows the Lion of the King’s Own Royal Lancaster Regiment (KORL) and is plainly visible and identifiable.
Rank stripes
The lance corporal is wearing a soft service dress cap introduced in 1917, the Sergeant has the older stiff cap, with the stiffening wire removed – typical of an old soldier.
The gold cloth stripe indicates this man has been wounded. An individual could have several.
ROYAL ENGINEERS SERGEANT FAMILY GROUP
Though not military, his son looks to be wearing a boy scout badge on his lapel, with possibly a wolf on his watch chain – perhaps indicating his scout pack.
Cap badge
Cap
Badge (2)
Shoulder title
The intertwined S and B indicate he’s a battalion stretcher bearer – only members of the Royal Army Medical Corps could wear the Red Cross.
Though there’s no cap badge there’s a cloth shoulder title (increasingly common later in the war as they didn’t snag) with the letters QVR – Queen Victoria’s Rifles, a London Territorial Force unit.
Who Do You Think You Are?
Develop the skills and knowledge to interpret and date your family photographs
Get insider information to make the most of a visit to the battlefields of northern Europe
Order online www.buysubscriptions.com/ancestors
Or call 0844 844 0388† and quote WWAHAX14 †Calls to this number from a BT landline will cost no more than 5p per minute. Calls from mobiles and other providers may vary. Lines are open 8am-8pm weekdays & 9am-1pm Saturday. *Prices including postage are: £9.49 for UK residents, £10.99 for Europe and £11.49 for Rest of World. All orders subject to availability. Please allow up to 14 days for delivery.
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THE HISTORY MAKERS EQUIANO
OLAUDAH
EQUIANO FREEDOM FIGHTER Kidnapped, torn from his family as a child, and sold over and over as a slave, Equiano’s own story became a best-seller, and a catalyst for the abolition of slavery, as Lottie Goldfinch reveals…
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HIS OWN MASTER Equiano brought the horrors of the slave trade to the public’s attention
1757 SHIPPED OUT Equiano is transported to Virginia where he is bought by British Naval Lieutenant Michael Pascal. Equiano spends much of his time at sea and takes part in several battles during the Seven Years’ War.
1756 SLAVE TRADE
youngest of seven children. Little detail At the age of 11, Equiano, along with his sister, is kidnapped from is known of his early his native village of Essaka and is sold to various masters within life, but it is likely that Africa. After the pair are separated, Equiano is placed on a slave Equiano’s childhood ship bound for Barbados, where he observes firsthand the in Essaka was simple violence and horror of the slave trade. and happy. Agriculture was the province’s primary source of income, buildings favoured omewhere on the coast of what is practicality over extravagance, and life was lived now Nigeria, 11-year-old Olaudah to an established system of law and marriage. Equiano trembles with fear as “I had never heard of white men or Europeans, he is thrown aboard a slave ship. nor of the sea”, he recalled later in life. The year is around 1756, and the In his autobiography, published in 1789, vessel is crammed to bursting with Equiano recalled that he and the other village men, women and children from all over Africa. children would spend their afternoons keeping Confused and terrified, Equiano is placed below a lookout for the kidnappers, who would often deck, where the hot stench of sickness, chained steal unattended children to sell on as slaves. bodies and filth assails him. It was during one of these raids, in fact, that “The closeness of the place, and the heat of Equiano and his sister were seized, and carried the climate, added to the number in the ship, far away from their village. which was so crowded that each had scarcely room to turn himself, almost suffocated us”, he later wrote. “The shrieks of the women, and the groans of the dying, rendered the whole a scene of horror almost inconceivable.” As the huge boat creaked its way out to sea, Equiano, denied fresh air and surrounded by bleak, sorrowful faces, came to a bitter realisation. He would never again A few days later, the siblings were separated inhale the sweet air of his beloved Africa. and Equiano was sold to a new master. His recollection of the parting is heart wrenching: “My sister and I were then separated, while we THE PATH TO SLAVERY lay clasped in each other’s arms… It was in vain Equiano was born in Essaka, a small province that we besought them not to part us; she was in the kingdom of Benin, in Guinea – the
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torn from me, and immediately carried away, while I was left in a state of distraction not to be described. I cried and grieved continually…” Like most slaves, Equiano was sold and re-sold a number of times during those early weeks of imprisonment, but he eventually found himself in the town of Tinmah, “the most beautiful country I had yet seen in Africa”. There, he was purchased for 172 of the small white shells that constituted the currency of the town. His new mistress was a wealthy African widow with a young son, both of whom treated Equiano as one of the family. But his relative happiness lasted just two short months, as Equiano was again loaded onto a slave ship, this time bound for Barbados. At first, Equiano feared the “white men with horrible looks, red faces, and loose hair,” and he wrote later of the terror he felt as the ship pulled away from his homeland, and he was forced to come to terms with his uncertain future. Death permeated the voyage to Barbados: he described children as nearly suffocating in “necessary tubs”, while fatalities caused by flogging and starvation were frequent. The fate of those sold into slavery lay in the hands of the masters, who “rush at once into the yard where the slaves are confined, and make choice of that parcel they like best”. Equiano, after failing to secure a bidder in Barbados, was quickly transported to Virginia, where he was purchased by Lieutenant Michael Pascal of the Royal Navy, for around £30-£40. After a further 13 weeks at
“Equiano came to a bitter realisation. He would never again inhale the sweet air of his beloved Africa”
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1759 SLAVE TO SCHOLAR In London, Equiano attends school, learning to read and write. He is baptised into the Christian faith at St Margaret’s Church, Westminster Abbey – his faith in God is a source of comfort throughout his life.
sea, Equiano set foot on English soil for the first time, aged just 12.
LIFE IN ENGLAND Upon his arrival in Falmouth, Equiano – who had been renamed Gustavus Vassa (after the 16th-century Swedish King) by his new master – began to adjust to his new life, observing English customs and discovering a deep interest in literacy. Books were a constant source of curiosity to him. Believing that he could converse with them, Equiano later described how he had “often taken up a book, and have talked to it, and then put my ears to it, when alone, in hopes it would answer me”. Snow, too, fascinated the young African, who, upon seeing it covering the deck of the ship on which he’d sailed to England, declared that someone had thrown salt over the vessel during the night. But Equiano’s new life on land was to be a short-lived affair. War had broken out in 1754 – primarily between Britain and France – over competition for colonies and trading rights (known later as the Seven Years’ War), and Equiano was soon summoned to assist his master on board his ship, the Roebuck. Equiano sailed the oceans with Pascal for some eight years, travelling to Holland, Nova Scotia, Pennsylvania, Scotland and the Caribbean in his service. Life on board was often hard for the slave – Equiano wrote of how he was made to fight with white men for sport – and he saw combat in a number of battles,
LIFE IN CHAINS ABOVE: Slave auctions were commonplace in colonial America – this advertisem*nt promotes the sale of 170 young Guineans LEFT: African slaves were clapped in iron manacles, so there was no chance of escape
including the Siege of Louisbourg in Nova Scotia in 1758.
A NEW DIRECTION But it was during his time spent in London between naval engagements that Equiano gained the skills that were to change his life. Able to speak English acceptably, and no longer fearful of the white-skinned strangers who surrounded him, Equiano – now 14 – was
sent to school, where he learned to read and write. And it was during this period that Equiano discovered Christianity – a faith that was to guide him for the rest of his life. He was baptised in February 1759. “I now not only felt myself quite easy with these new countrymen,” he later wrote, “but relished their society and manners. I no longer looked upon them as spirits, but as men superior to us; and therefore I had the stronger desire to resemble them; to imbibe their spirit, and imitate their manners…”
OLAUDAH EQUIANO “I who had been a slave in the morning, trembling at the will of another, now became my own master, and completely free” DECEMBER 2014
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1766 WANDERLUST Ten years after he was stolen from his home village, Equiano is able to buy his freedom – a privilege denied the majo rity of his fellow slaves. He spends the next two decades travelling the world on various trading ships, before finally returning to London.
1788 ROYAL APPOINTMENT As a prominent member of abolitionist group, the Sons of Africa, Equiano presents an anti-slave trade petition to Queen Charlotte.
1763 BRUTAL LIFE
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Equiano is sold to Robert King in Montserrat. The young slave works with King on trading ships in the West Indies and on mainland America, earning money by trading on the side. He witnesses the brutality inflicted on slaves by their masters.
Equiano retained a firm belief that Pascal – the master who had shown him such kindness - would eventually free him from slavery, and he saved money in preparation for the event. But Equiano’s dreams were to be shattered. Pascal accused him of planning an escape, and he was subsequently sold to James Doran, Captain of the Charming Sally, a ship bound for the West Indies. Equiano was devastated at being forced into yet further slavery, and upon landing in Montserrat in February 1763, the young African “called on death to relieve me from the horrors I felt and dreaded”. There, beneath the blazing West Indian sun, Equiano experienced the true misery of slavery. Robbed of his precious savings, Equiano’s body was “mangled and torn” as he unloaded and loaded the ship of its cargo. Three months later, Equiano’s physical ordeal ended when he was sold again – this time to a prominent Quaker merchant named Robert King, under whose care he flourished. King even allowed Equiano to retain some of his
wages and often utilised him as a clerk, as well as a valet. Although relatively content with his new life, Equiano remained horrified at the atrocities he saw inflicted upon his fellow slaves by their masters: rape – often involving children as young as 10 – violence, abuse and murder were all commonplace. “I have seen a negro man staked to the ground, and cut most shockingly, and then his ears cut off bit by bit… I have seen a negro beaten till some of his bones were broken, for even letting a pot boil over”, he wrote. These were images that would haunt him his whole life. Equiano worked as a deckhand, valet and barber for King for some three years, quietly earning extra money by trading goods on the side until finally, in 1766, aged 21, he had earned enough money to buy his freedom. As a free man, Equiano spent much of the next 20 years of his life travelling the world. He made several voyages aboard trading vessels, making trips to Turkey, Portugal, Italy, Jamaica, Grenada, North America, and even the Arctic
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– the latter as assistant to scientist Dr Charles Irving. But no matter how successful he became, Equiano never forgot the plight of his fellow slaves, and, after returning to London in 1786, added his voice to the growing movement to abolish slavery.
FREEDOM FOR ALL Equiano, together with members of London’s black community, formed an abolitionist group: the Sons of Africa. The group campaigned tirelessly for abolition, working hard to dispel the many misconceptions held about Africans. In 1788, the former slave found himself standing before Queen Charlotte, wife of King George III. He presented her with a petition on behalf of his enslaved African brethren, beseeching her to take note of the tyranny and oppression of slavery in the West Indies. The publication of Equiano’s autobiography, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African, in 1789, also did much to publicise the horrors of slavery, and he spent several months travelling and promoting his book. Equiano finally settled down to raise a family in 1792, when he married Englishwoman Susannah Cullen in Soham, Cambridgeshire. The pair went on to have two daughters. His death in 1797, at the age of around 52, put an end to a truly remarkable life. Just ten years later, the Slave Trade Act was passed, making it illegal for British ships to carry enslaved peoples between Africa, the West Indies and America. d
WHAT DO YOU THINK? Should Olaudah Equiano be remembered as a hero? Email: [emailprotected]
“He beseeched the Queen to take note of the tyranny and oppression of slavery” MILIES 1792 HAPPY FA Englishwoman
Equiano marries Cullen in Cambridgeshire. The ah Susann ers, but pair go on to have two daught w up, as he gro them see to fails iano Equ dies in London in 1797.
ON BENDED KNEE The kneeling slave became an emblem of the abolitionist movement
SLAVERY ABOLISHED
THE END OF BRITAIN’S DARKEST INDUSTRY At the centre of the slave trade in the 18th century, Britain was responsible for the enslavement of millions of Africans. Though there were few slaves in Britain itself, it was common knowledge that captured Africans were sent to the colonies. The lucrative trade went largely unchallenged by the masses for 200 years. However, around the 1780s, public opinion on the matter began to shift, thanks
to a number of factors. Seeing black soldiers fight for Britain in the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783) brought the general issue of slavery to the surface. Then, in 1781, a captain of a slave ship threw 130 of his captives overboard, in order to fraudulently claim the insurance on his ‘cargo’. When the case went to court, the public suddenly became aware of the brutality of the trade. The campaigns of
Equiano, and his contemporaries, reinforced the newly revealed truth, and the public reacted. In total, 519 abolitionist petitions were presented to the Commons. In the British Empire, the act of trading slaves was made illegal in 1807, which largely put an end to the practice of kidnapping Africans. But it wasn’t until 1834 that slavery was abolished outright in the Empire.
THE REEL STORY KILLING HITLER
Valkyrie Mark Glancy unravels the conspiracy to kill Hitler that inspired one of the surprisingly few blockbusters about the Führer
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he 20th July 1944 was a stiflingly hot day in the muggy forests of East Prussia, where Hitler plotted the progress of the war in his military headquarters known as the ‘Wolf’s Lair’. Hitler’s generals dreaded their visits to this gloomy, isolated spot – one referred to it as “a cross between a monastery and a concentration camp” – but their attendance at the military briefings was compulsory. So just after noon on that day, in a conference hut with windows opened in the hope of a breeze, some 21 officers, two stenographers and the Führer himself sat down at a long and heavy oak conference table to consider the latest dispatches. The news was not good. Russian troops advancing along the Eastern Front were little more than 60 miles from the Wolf’s Lair. To the west, the Allies had landed on the beaches of Normandy on 6 June, and established a long-awaited second front. Meanwhile in Germany itself, cities were pounded during the day by the American Air Force and at night by the Royal Air Force. Although no one was likely to admit it to Hitler, Germany’s defeat now appeared inevitable, even if it was still many months away. Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg was late arriving at this inevitably tense and reproachful meeting, but the distinguished and trusted officer took a seat less than two metres to the right of Hitler, placing his briefcase just beneath the edge of the conference table. Then, insisting that he needed to ring Berlin urgently, he suddenly left the room. Seven minutes later, the briefcase that he left behind exploded, blasting the table apart, sending flames through the room, and bringing down parts of the ceiling. Three officers and a stenographer were fatally wounded. Several more suffered from concussion, but most of the men around the conference table staggered out of the smoke-filled room in a state of shock. Hitler was among
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DEUTSCHLAND ÜBER ALLES Von Stauffenberg may have opposed Nazism, but he was a German nationalist who believed in his country’s destiny as Europe’s most powerful nation.
THE FACTS Release date: 2008 Director: Bryan Singer Cast: Tom Cruise, Kenneth Branagh, Bill Nighy, Tom Wilkinson, Terence Stamp, Eddie Izzard
the survivors. He had burns to his hair, his right arm and right leg, and he was bleeding. His clothes were in shreds and he had been thrown from his chair, leaving his backside “as blue as a baboon’s behind”, as he later joked. But the bomb had not killed him, and he left the conference room determined to find and punish everyone involved in plotting his attempted assassination.
THE PLOT THICKENS Von Stauffenberg not only carried the two-pound bomb that nearly killed Hitler, he was also at the centre of a wider ring of conspirators who were determined to use the assassination of Hitler to spark a coup d’etat that would bring down the Nazi regime. An unlikely traitor, von Stauffenberg belonged to an aristocratic German family that traced its lineage back to the 14th century. He was born at the family’s castle in Swabia (south-west Germany) in 1907, and, in keeping with family custom, joined the army in 1926, receiving a commission in 1930. Like other traditional German officers, he was wary of the Nazis on the grounds
“You can serve Germany or the Führer, not both” MAIN: Herman Göring (in light uniform) examines the damage ABOVE LEFT: Tom Cruise’s casting was unpopular in Germany due to him being a Scientologist
that they were his social inferiors who lacked the discipline and natural authority of the aristocracy. Nevertheless, when Hitler came to power, he took the oath of loyalty and obedience to the Führer that was required of all members of the German armed forces, promising to risk his own life in defence of Hitler’s. He served enthusiastically in the invasion of Poland in 1939, believing the Poles to be “rabble” who should be colonized by Germany. He also served in the invasion of France in 1940, and was simultaneously impressed with Hitler’s military acumen and alarmed by his seemingly limitless ambitions. Von Stauffenberg’s willingness to join the resistance and to plot Hitler’s
“The briefcase exploded, blasting the table apart, and bringing down parts of the ceiling.”
HITLER’S SPEECH Unlike the majority of the Nazis portrayed by the mostly British and American actors, David Bamber’s Hitler speaks with a cod-German accent.
Hitler later described his buttocks as being “as blue as a baboon’s behind”. ABOVE: Adolf Hitler (David Bamber) is helped away by his officers after the blast failed to kill him LEFT: The scorched uniform of one of his officers illustrates how lucky an escape the Führer had at the Wolf’s Lair
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THE REEL STORY KILLING HITLER FAMILY PLANNING Von Stauffenberg’s wife and children knew nothing of his plans, but in the aftermath of the assassination attempt they were separated and put into camps.
“I will crush and destroy the criminals who have dared to oppose themselves to Providence and me” MAIN: Hitler makes a hospital visit to officers injured in the blast BELOW: Today, a memorial stands at Berlin’s Bendlerblock, where the conspirators were executed on 21 July 1944
LOOKALIKE
“If I fail, they’ll come for you. They’ll come for all of you.”
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ABOVE: In Valkyrie, Tom Cruise’s Claus von Stauffenberg warns his wife of the potential consequences of his actions RIGHT: Von Stauffenberg came from a wealthy aristocratic German family, and remained a practicing Catholic even during Nazi rule
overthrow is likely to have grown in stages. The savagery of the invasion of the Soviet Union, with its mass executions of Jews, Russians and Ukrainians, disgusted him. From 1942, the increasing sense that Hitler was leading Germany into an abyss also hardened his resolve. The injuries he suffered in North Africa in 1943 were devastating – he lost two fingers on his left hand, his entire right hand, and his left eye – and yet they ultimately put him in a position to act. When he recovered, von Stauffenberg was appointed to a post in Germany’s Reserve Army, where General Friedrich Olbricht had already developed a plot to use the Reserve Army’s powers against Hitler. At the heart of this was Operation Valkyrie, a plan that invested military commanders with authority over all others, including the Gestapo and the
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SS, in the event of a domestic uprising. Valkyrie was approved by Hitler on the grounds that it would allow the military to respond effectively to a revolt by foreign workers. But Olbricht and his fellow conspirators saw that if Hitler was assassinated, the resulting confusion could be used as a pretext to put Valkyrie into action and allow the military to overthrow the Nazi regime.
CATALOGUE OF ERRORS In July 1944, von Stauffenberg was promoted to Chief of Staff of the Reserve Army, serving under General Friedrich Fromm. This was a position that brought him into regular contact with the increasingly reclusive Hitler. The assassination plot thus became viable and was put into action. Von Stauffenberg rehearsed his role
Tom Cruise is said to have been attracted to the role due to his physical resemblance to Claus von Stauffenberg.
tirelessly: activating the bomb with his three remaining fingers was a particular challenge. However, while fate seems to have placed him in this unique position, there was much that went wrong on the day. Retreating to a changing room to activate the explosives, he was interrupted before he could complete the task on both of the two-pound bombs brought to the Wolf’s Lair, and only one bomb was activated. Also, when von Stauffenberg left the conference room, one of the generals unknowingly pushed his briefcase further beneath the table, and behind one of the heavy oak beams, which shielded Hitler from the full force of the blast. And of course, the heat of the day
COURT MARTIAL General Fromm (Tom Wilkinson) was executed in March 1945
PAYBACK TIME A furious Hitler ordered anyone connected with the plot to be rounded up. The Gestapo arrested some 7,000 people suspected of ties to the resistance, of whom almost 5,000 were executed.
ON LOCATION Permission was eventually given to film at the Bendlerblock, the building where von Stauffenberg was executed.
played its part, as all of the conference room windows had been thrown open. Had the windows been closed, and the blast contained within the room, the impact of the bombs would have been much more severe.
CONFUSION REIGNS After the explosion, von Stauffenberg fled from the Wolf’s Lair. The sound of the blast convinced him that Hitler had been killed, and during his threehour flight back to Berlin, he believed that Operation Valkyrie would proceed. By the time he arrived at the Reserve Army’s offices in Berlin’s Bendlerblock, however, rumours had begun to circulate that Hitler had survived. Von Stauffenberg’s insistence that Hitler was dead, and that the plan therefore must proceed, was supported by some and opposed by others, and fighting broke out. Ultimately, General Fromm, who had known of the plans, seized
control and, seeking to clear his own name, ordered the immediate execution of von Stauffenberg and three other conspirators. In the early morning of 21 July 1944, they were shot in the courtyard of the Bendlerblock. Von Stauffenberg’s possible last words – “Long live our sacred Germany” – testify to his love for his country, which led him to commit the ultimate act of treason under the Nazis, but allows him to be cast as a hero in Valkyrie. The film simplifies the man, characterizing him as an action hero rather than a German nationalist leading a military coup. But the story remains a gripping yarn, even as the plot inevitably unravels as it reaches its chaotic and messy ending. d
WHAT DO YOU THINK? How would history have been different had the plot to kill Hitler succeeded?
Ones to watch: Hitler The Great Dictator (Charlie Chaplin, 1940) Chaplin’s satirical talkie caused controversy as the US was still at peace with Nazi Germany. Downfall (Oliver Hirschbiegel, 2004) Bruno Ganz portrays Hitler’s final days in his bunker in this critically acclaimed Germanlanguage movie. Inglorious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, 2009) Brad Pitt stars in Quentin
Bruno Ganz’s harrowing performance as Hitler in Downfall is remarkable
Tarantino’s gory and historically ridiculous yarn of a plot to assassinate leading Nazis.
Email: [emailprotected] DECEMBER 2014
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Want to enjoy more history? Our monthly guide to activities and resources is a great place to start
HOW TO VISIT… LONG BARROWS 90 • BOOKS 94
ON OUR RADAR What’s caught our attention this month… EVENT
2X PHOTOS OF EDINBURGH CASTLE - © CROWN COPYRIGHT REPRODUCED COURTESY OF HISTORIC SCOTLAND, RAF MUSEUM LONDON X1
Mary Christmas!
How does the Queen of the Scots celebrate Christmas?
Visitors to Edinburgh Castle this Christmas time will be treated to a royal visit, as Mary, Queen of Scots will be holding court in the Great Hall, celebrating Christmas in the traditional 16th-century way. Just don’t mention the Tudors to her majesty. Mary – who was seen by many English Catholics as the legitimate heir to the throne of England – was imprisoned by Elizabeth I for over 18 years before being executed. There are four performances a day on 24 and 27-31 December, Edinburgh Castle www.edinburghcastle.gov.uk
TWITTER EXHIBITION diggingthedirt
War in the skies Only 11 years after the first powered flight, planes were being used in World War I, changing forever the way war is waged. How air power was utilised and developed over the war is the focus of the RAF Museum’s new exhibition, opening 4 December. With replica aircraft, the courage and sacrifices of the men who took to British, German the skies is evident and French aircraft are all through the on display exhibition. More info at rafmuseum org.uk
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@diggingthedirt This fun and informative account labels itself as “Archaeology’s answer to Heat magazine” – it is a great way to keep up-to-date with the world of excavations.
HISTORICAL WALK Strolling through Bristol A chance to see the locations that made Bristol one of Britain’s major ports and centres of commerce. 18 December, 10.30. Book in advance on 0117 352 6600
Either Moses is fighting to free his people, or Christian Bale is having another on-set tirade
EXHIBITION
On board Titanic After a temporary closure in order to install new displays, an impressive exhibition on RMS Titanic is re-opening in Liverpool. Featuring letters from passengers and items salvaged from the wreck, it is a fitting tribute to the tragedy. The reopened Titanic and Liverpool: the Untold Story is at the Merseyside Maritime Museum. Entry is free.
FILM
Let my people go! Exodus: Gods and Kings In cinemas 12 December The Biblical tale of Moses leading his people from Egypt to the Promised Land is a well-told story, the latest attempt being Ridley Scott’s
(Gladiator, Kingdom of Heaven) star-studded epic Exodus: Gods and Kings. With stunning visuals (just wait for the parting of the Red Sea) and Christian Bale in the lead role facing off against Joel Edgerton’s Ramesses, this is a more
action-fuelled telling than we’ve had before. But, even with a three-hour-plus runtime, it promises to be a compelling experience.
TALK
TV
The travels of Marco Polo Marco Polo Netflix, premieres 12 December The latest original series from Netflix starts this December. The ten-part drama Marco Polo follows the 13th-century Italian explorer as he travels to the court of the Mongol Emperor Kublai Khan. Described as “an epic, cinematic tale of power, adventure and betrayal”, the series hopes to give Game of Thrones a run for its money.
Stories from the Somme As part of Cheshire’s Great War Stories project, historian Alan Robinson is giving a talk on the horrific Battle at the Somme and stories from the survivors. 3 December, 7.30 pm at Mollington Village Hall www.thegreatwarcheshire.co.uk
EXHIBITION
Brilliant Blake A major new exhibition on the artist and This illustrated revolutionary poet copy of Blake’s William Blake. Songs of Innocence Apprentice and Master is on display opens at the Ashmoleon, Oxford, on 4 December www.ashmolean.org
WILLIAM BLAKE © BODLEIAN LIBRARY, UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
Newcomer Lorenzo Richelmy stars in the titular role
APP Virtual History - Roma £5.99/Arnoldo Mondadori Walk through Ancient Rome with this absorbing and interactive 3D reconstruction.
ALSO LOOK OUT FOR E Last chance to see D-Day: the Last of the Liberators, an exhibition marking the 70th anniversary at IWM Duxford, ends 31 December E Masters of Light starts at the Science Museum, London, on 2 December, displaying photos from the world’s oldest photographic society
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HERE & NOW ANCIENT MYSTERY
Recumbent stones such as this one at the Easter Aquhorthies are concentrated in the Grampians
CORBEL VAULTING Long barrows were built before the arch had been invented, so internal chambers were roofed by a process named ‘corbel vaulting’. By piling up overlapping stones, it was possible to construct a sturdy roof.
GOING UNDERGROUND
The entrance to West Kennet, the most accessible Neolithic long barrow in Britain
HOW TO VISIT…
ALAMY X5
Long Barrows Rupert Matthews explores the ancient burial sites of Britain that were built before the pyramids of Egypt...
LATER BURIALS
O
Some long barrows around Britain were used for Bronze Age, Roman and even pagan Anglo-Saxon burials. When found, they tend to be along the sides of the long barrow.
lder than Stonehenge, long barrows are the most ancient structures still standing in Britain, some dating back over 6,000 years. Although the massive edifices have been thoroughly excavated over the years, much about the long barrows remains mysterious. Archaeological digs show long barrows began as large wooden huts surrounded by earth banks and palisades, later to be replaced by stone chambers covered over with mounds of earth or stones. They usually stand on or near the crests of prominent hills or ridges, so when first built, they would have been obvious landmarks visible for miles. Their primary purpose was as burial centres. The dead were kept in long barrows for generations, perhaps for more than a thousand years, before the barrows were sealed or abandoned. It is usually thought these bodies were of the noble elite, but they may have come from a priestly caste, been sacrificial victims, battle casualties or perhaps everyone from a community was interred. With
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no written records, we simply do not know. Their prominent position may mean long barrows had a secondary purpose as a land ownership marker – such a structure was a visible statement by a tribe or family. The people who built long barrows were farmers, growing wheat and barley, and herding sheep and cattle. They also collected wild plant food from the woodlands. Life was harsh – most bodies found in long barrows belong to people aged under 30. Long barrows were abandoned and forgotten c2400 BC, about the time bronze began to be used. In the thousands of years since, long barrows have suffered from erosion and, more recently, ploughing. But there are over 300 long barrows in Britain, more than the rest of Europe put together, with most found south of the Wash. Many are now protected monuments and well worth a visit.
TURN OVER… for six of the best long barrows to visit
WEST KENNET Wiltshire West Kennet is easily Britain’s most visited long barrow, located in Wiltshire close to the enigmatic mound of Silbury Hill. It is one of the largest, most complete long barrows, measuring 100 metres in length and the huge sarsen stones that form the facade stand 3 metres tall. First constructed around 3650 BC, West Kennet was the location of numerous burials for 1,100 years before it was sealed. The long barrow has been excavated twice and has undergone restoration, but there are many more secrets to discover at West Kennet. www.english-heritage.org.uk/daysout/ properties/west-kennet-long-barrow
AVENUE
SIDE DITCHES The mound was built using earth excavated from ditches running along the sides of the barrow. These may remain to this day as dips in the ground.
Some long barrows have an avenue – parallel lines of ditches, stones or postholes leading to another nearby megalithic site or a river. West Kennet Avenue is near to the long barrow, but not visible in this shot.
FORECOURT In front of the entrance is often a small area surrounded by standing stones. The forecourt might also be paved and may have been a space where rituals were held.
ORIENTATION The entrance of many long barrows faces towards an astronomical feature. West Kennet, for instance, faces the rising Sun in midsummer.
DRY STONE WALLING In addition to large boulders, the facade and chambers were constructed by dry stone walling, as there was nothing to join the rocks together. Hundreds of small stones were carefully laid in interlocking patterns to compose the walls.
CHAMBERS The internal chambers are usually laid out so that they form a shape similar to an isosceles triangle. This can be seen at West Kennet, with the rear slightly narrower than the front.
DIG DAMAGE During the 18th and 19th centuries, rumours spread that vast treasures were buried in the ancient long barrows. This led to extensive digging by would-be treasure hunters, the evidence of which can still be seen in dips and hollows in the ground. In the 17th century, bones were removed from West Kennet by Dr Toope so he could grind them up to make a ‘cure-all’ medicine.
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HERE & NOW HOW TO VISIT...
SIX OF THE BEST LONG BARROWS COW GREEN Cumbria This long barrow is high on a windswept hill overlooking the Cow Green reservoir near the Moor House-Upper Teesdale Nature Reserve. The Cow Green
HOME OF A GOD
COLDRUM
Wayland’s Smithy: it was once believed that this was where the Saxon god Wayland lived
Kent
WAYLAND’S SMITHY Oxfordshire This long barrow got its name from Wayland, the smith god of the pagan English, but the structure is much older than that. It was begun in timber about 3600 BC, then rebuilt in stone
long barrow is 2 metres high and around 33 metres wide. www.themodernantiquarian. com/site/14954/cow_green_long_ barrow.html
200 years later. The earth mound has gone, revealing the internal structure rarely seen at barrows. www.english-heritage.org.uk/ daysout/properties/ waylands-smithy
ALL CANNINGS
Coldrum, in the care of the National Trust, organises an annual event on 1 May when local Morris Men perform a ‘singing up the Sun’ ceremony beside the long barrow. Coldrum is the best-preserved of the Kent barrows, the others having suffered badly from ploughing. www.nationaltrust.org. uk/coldrum-long-barrow
Wiltshire Completed in the summer of 2014, All Cannings is the first long barrow to be built for over 4,000 years. It was constructed by local farmer Tim Daw using traditional techniques. The barrow contains five chambers and has already begun to serve as a columbarium – a burial place for cremated remains – for local people and others. www.thelongbarrow.com
HESTON BRAKE Monmouthshire This long barrow sits on a hilltop near Portskewett and offers stunning views south and east to the Severn Estuary and north to the ruins of a Roman town.
PUDDING STONES
ALAMY X3, TESS SAVIGEAR X1
Heston Brake is marked by pudding stones – boulders peppered with pebbles
CAPO Aberdeenshire Hiding amid woods above the River North Esk, Capo is well signposted, so is easy to find. The mound stretches for 80 metres, but what is buried there remains
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a mystery. A geophysical survey was carried out recently, but Capo has not been excavated. www.themodernantiquarian. com/site/5167/capo.html
Heston Brake itself is reduced to a number of standing megaliths and remnants of the mound. www.themodernantiquarian. com/site/2311/heston_brake.html
HERE & NOW BOOKS
BOOKS BOOK OF THE MONTH Home: a Time Traveller’s Tales from Britain’s Prehistory By Francis Pryor Allen Lane, £20, 352 pages, hardback
We often think of the prehistoric past as so remote that it’s impossible to compare it to our lives today. Yet, as archaeologist and broadcaster Francis Pryor explores in his excellently written, semi-autobiographical new book, the family was just as important then as it is now. By exploring what can we learn from the evidence left behind, Pryor also reveals the ways in which archaeology can tell us about ‘ordinary’ lives. Don’t worry if all of this sounds a bit worthy: Pryor is a hugely entertaining writer, and manages to incorporate detours into the worlds of sheep farming and football fandom along the way.
THE FINDS Evidence of family life in the neolithic period is still being excavated, such as at this site in Cambridgeshire
MEET THE AUTHOR Francis Pryor combines extensive historical research with tales from his years of archaeology experience to uncover the origins of family life in prehistoric Britain
“Family life has always been so important to us humans” What inspired the book, and why did you decide to write it the way you have? I’ve had a lifelong interest in the way ordinary people lived their daily lives, but I knew, when I was writing this book, that a conventional series of descriptions wouldn’t work. They’re too remote, meaning
readers remain on the outside, looking in. I wanted to take my readers with me as I tried to experience what life might have been like such a long time ago. My experiences as a farmer helped here: I’m quite certain, for example, that a Bronze Age shepherd or shepherdess would have felt the same emotions
when a lamb was born every spring as I do. It’s important to remember that they weren’t stupid, either. They would have tried to ensure, for instance, that an ewe was milking – even if this meant unblocking and massaging teats. Things such as that are eternal and will always remain the same. What would family life have been like in prehistory? The answer to that is simple: remarkably stable. Family life has always been, and always will be, so important to us humans.
The neolithic settlement of Skara Brae in the Orkney Islands
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What were the biggest changes between the start of the period and the end? The population of Britain at 9000 BC was around 10,000 people. By the time of the Roman Conquest
in AD 43, it was over two million. In the interval between these end points, prehistoric people created settlements, villages, roads, farms, fields, barrows, cemeteries, hillforts, henges and other ceremonial places. And towards the close of the Iron Age, they had created ports and larger villages that resembled towns of the Roman period. These various expressions of communal identity had first to be created, then managed and maintained. It was a process that was initiated by the family. It is not until the Renaissance, the Reformation and the Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th centuries that we see the rise of social and political systems that are organised using different principles. What was the thing that most surprised you in the course of your research? The similarities in customs and traditions that continued through successive millennia. Ancestors were building on the remarkable achievements of their forebears.
THE BEST OF THE REST READ UP ON…
ROMAN BRITAIN BEST FOR… A CLASSIC OVERVIEW
Centuries of Change: Which Century Saw the Most Change and Why it Matters to Us by Ian Mortimer Bodley Head, £20, 416 pages, hardback
Starting in the 11th century and journeying to the present day, Mortimer considers the most impactful changes on civilisation. From disease to transport, technology to literature, it’s an epic overview of human development.
Dirty Old London: the Victorian Fight Against Filth by Lee Jackson Yale University Press, £18.99, 294 pages, hardback
Delve deep into Victorian London’s dirty streets in this detailed, but enjoyably graphic, account of efforts to make life better for the British capital’s growing population. Along the way, you’ll encounter such delights as dung-filled alleys, uncollected rubbish and the wonderfully euphemistic ‘night soil’.
TREASURE TROVE
Agincourt: My Family, the Battle, and the Fight for France by Ranulph Fiennes Hodder and Stoughton, £20, 326 pages, hardback
Renowned explorer Ranulph Fiennes here navigates his own family tree, and the role that his ancestors played on both the French and English side, not only in the 1415 Battle of Agincourt, but going back to the days of William the Conqueror. It’s an intimate, often wry, read.
Roman Britain: a New History By Guy de la Bédoyère Thames and Hudson, £16.95, 288 pages, paperback
If you’re looking to learn more about Britain under the rule of the Romans, this is a great place to start. Covering religion, politics, the military and domestic life, the book’s case studies and illustrations help provide a detailed, accessible picture.
BEST FOR… A GUIDED TOUR
Under Another Sky: Journeys in Roman Britain By Charlotte Higgins Vintage, £9.99, 304 pages, paperback
Embark on a tour of Britain under Rome in this vibrant look at the country’s culture and society of the period. Higgins takes a journey through space – both on foot and in a VW camper van – and time, tracing the changes wrought by Roman rule from 55 BC to AD 408.
BEST FOR… A CRITICAL VIEW THE HUMAN STORY As you journey from the ancient to the present day, the 1,000 objects are beautifully illustrated with colour photos
History of the World in 1,000 Objects
UnRoman Britain: Exposing the Great Myth of Britannia By Miles Russell and Stuart Layco*ck The History Press, £15.99, 256 pages, paperback
Dorling Kindersley, £25, 480 pages, hardback
The latest in a series of books or collections that attempt to capture history through objects, this packed visual guide offers an overview of human history through art, artefacts, maps and machines. Among the choices are the practical, the beautiful and the surprising poignancy – the classical figurines are compelling.
Did people in Britain ever truly see themselves as part of the Roman Empire? That’s the question at the heart of this book, which argues that people in many areas of the country never accepted the Roman way of life – and others only pretended for personal gain.
DECEMBER 2014
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CROSSWORD
CROSSWORD No 10 If you think you know your history, put your knowledge to the test and you could win a prize Set by Richard Smyth
ACROSS 9 London plaza named after nobleman Robert Sidney (9,6) 10 Ancient Roman goddess of war, usually wearing a military helmet and a sword (7) 12 Submarine-launched ballistic missile first deployed in 1979 (7) 13 2000 historical epic directed by Ridley Scott (9) 14 Baron von Krafft-___ (1840–1902), pioneering German psychiatrist (5) 15 Dashing air ace created by author WE Johns (7) 18 ___ League, alliance of Greek towns founded in the 3rd century BC (7) 21 La ___, Spanish province formerly known as Logroño (5)
CROSSWORD COMPETITION TERMS & CONDITIONS The competition is open to all UK residents (inc. Channel Islands), aged 18 or over, except Immediate Media Co Bristol Ltd employees or contractors, and anyone connected with the competition or their direct family members. By entering, participants agree to be bound by these terms and conditions and that their name and county may be released if they win. Only one entry per person.
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23 Neoclassical architectural style taught in Paris since the 17th century (5,4) 25 Frank ___ (1910–69), New York-born composer known for his Broadway hits (7) 26 City on the Tigris River, founded in AD 762 (7) 29 Region of the North Atlantic associated with strange disappearances (7,8)
DOWN
4 Royal house of which James I was the first monarch and Anne the last (6) 5 South African city established in 1855 and named for a Boer statesman (8) 6 A knight’s apprentice, servant and shield-bearer (6) 7 Synthetic resin patented in 1907, used in industry and consumer goods (8) 8 Headquarters of the US Department of Defense since the 1940s (8) 11 Zhou ___ (1898–1976), first Chinese premier (5) 15 The reluctant scrivener of Herman Melville’s famous 1853 short story (8) 16 “There is no royal road to ___” – said by Greek mathematician Euclid (8) 17 Trans-___ Railway, line from Moscow to Vladivostok, completed in 1904 (8) 19 Six-pointed star of historic significance to numerous religions and sects (8) 20 ‘Per ardua ad ___’, Latin motto of the Royal Air Force, first used in 1912 (5) 22 Chinese city known for its traditional wax-printing and clothing industries (6) 24 German-born consort of Queen Victoria (6) 27 “The more one gets to know of men, the more one values ___” – said by French naturalist A Toussenel (4) 28 ___ of Worms, 1521 assembly of the Holy Roman Empire (4)
YOU COULD WIN...
The Rhyme of King Harold by Ian Macgill A rhyming historical novel telling the story of how Harold Godwinson became King in 1066, written entirely in irreverent and enjoyable verse. Published by BOOK Grapevine Publishing, RTH £20 O W hardback: £20, R THREE O F ebook: £12.99. WINNERS HOW TO ENTER Post entries to History Revealed, December 2014 Crossword, PO Box 501, Leicester LE94 0AA or email them to December2014@ historyrevealedcomps.co.uk by noon on 10 December 2014. By entering, participants agree to be bound by the terms and conditions shown in the box below. Immediate Media Co Ltd, publishers of History Revealed, would love to keep you informed by post or telephone of special offers and promotions from the Immediate Media Co Group. Please write ‘Do Not Contact IMC’ if you prefer not to receive such information by post or phone. If you would like to receive this information by email, please write your email address on the entry. You may unsubscribe from receiving these messages at any time. For more about the Immediate Privacy Policy see the box below.
SOLUTION NO 9
1 The ___ (1958), horror film starring Steve McQueen (4) 2 ___ Canal, German waterway, originally named after Wilhelm I (4) 3 ___ Day, US holiday for the commemoration of those killed in the nation’s wars (8)
The closing date and time is as shown under How to Enter, above. Entries received after that will not be considered. Entries cannot be returned. Entrants must supply full name, address and daytime phone number. Immediate Media Company (publishers of History Revealed) will only ever use personal details for the purposes of administering this competition, and will not publish them or provide them to anyone without permission. Read more about the Immediate Privacy Policy at www.immediatemedia.co.uk/ privacy-policy.
The winning entrants will be the first correct entries drawn at random after the closing time. The prize and number of winners will be as shown on the Crossword page. There is no cash alternative and the prize will not be transferable. Immediate Media Company Bristol Limited’s decision is final and no correspondence relating to the competition will be entered into. The winners will be notified by post within 28 days of the close of the competition. The name and county of residence of the winners will be published in the magazine within two months of the
closing date. If the winner is unable to be contacted within one month of the closing date, Immediate Media Company Bristol Limited reserves the right to offer the prize to a runner-up. Immediate Media Company Bristol Limited reserves the right to amend these terms and conditions or to cancel, alter or amend the promotion at any stage, if deemed necessary in its opinion, or if circ*mstances arise outside of its control. The promotion is subject to the laws of England. Promoter: Immediate Media Company Bristol Limited
NEXT ISSUE ON SALE 11 DECEMBER 2014
THE SEARCH FOR
ALAMY X1, THINKSTOCK X1
KING ARTHUR ALSO NEXT ISSUE... CIVIL RIGHTS IN AMERICA THE BATTLE OF TRAFALGAR WILFRED THESIGER GUNFIGHT AT THE OK CORRAL 1914 CHRISTMAS ARMISTICE THE DARK AGES Q&A AND MUCH MORE...
Bringing the past to life
BE MY GUEST ANDREW COLLINS
BE MY GUEST
ILLUSTRATION: JESS HIBBERT, ALAMY X2, GETTY X2, SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY X1
Every issue, we ask a well-known personality to choose five guests from history to invite to their fantasy dinner party. This month’s host is writer, broadcaster and critic Andrew Collins
MARK ROTHKO
THOMAS MIDGLEY
The best abstract impressionist painter who ever lived and a very reluctant superstar of the 1950s. One of his most famous commissions was for The Four Seasons restaurant in New York. He decided to make these big, gloomy paintings to, in his words, “ruin the appetite of every son-of-a-bitch who ever eats in that room”. I’d put up big prints of his pictures and see how he likes it!
An American inventor who, when asked by General Motors to prevent ‘knocking’ in petrol tanks, realised if you put lead in petrol, the noise would stop. He also worked out a way of improving refrigerators by introducing CFCs into them. He died decades before they noticed the hole in the ozone layer, so it would be great to ask him “So, how do you feel mate?”
WOODY GUTHRIE I learned about Woody Guthrie when researching Billy Bragg’s biography. He’d obviously have to bring his guitar or banjo and play This Land Is Your Land, his alternative national anthem. He would never have known how long his legacy would have lasted, so it would be nice to bring him back. He was a funny guy too. And I could ring up Billy Bragg and say “Guess who’s at my house…?”
ELIZABETH TAYLOR You’d need a bit of glamour, so I’d invite probably the most glamorous Hollywood star of all time. She was the first woman to get paid a million dollars for a film – for Cleopatra – but I’d like her to tell me about being paid $100 a week for appearing in Lassie Come Home. That was less than half of what Lassie got paid!
ROSA PARKS “I THINK ROSA One of the greatest figures in PARKS WOULDN’T history – an ordinary person who refused to move on a bus so a white MIND IF, FOR person could sit down. She helped change the world. And because A LAUGH, YOU she died happy, I think she wouldn’t if, for a laugh, you moved her MOVED HER WHEN mind when she sat down at the table so Elizabeth Taylor could sit there. I SHE SAT DOWN genuinely think Rosa Parks would be up for that – she’d enjoy the joke! AT THE TABLE”
Andrew Collins presents a weekly TV review series Telly Addict for the Guardian. More info at www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/series/andrew-collins-telly-addict
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NEXT MONTH’S HOST ACTRESS AND COMEDIAN LUCY PORTER
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