common rocket propulsion units (11. 909)

Founded on this day in 1974 in the Frankfurt suburb of Neu-Isenburg by entrepreneur and aerospace engineer Lutz Kayser, the West German company Orbital Transport - und Raketen-Aktiengesellschaft became the first commercial developer of satellite launch vehicles, attempting to undercut national space agencies with a cheaper, modular alternative to traditional rocketry, French Ariane rockets and the US space shuttle. With Wernher von Braun and retired NASA director Kurt Debus as scientific advisors, OTRAG carried out their first test launches in Zaire, hoping to secure the market potential of Africa, with mixed results. France and the Soviet Union, concerned by the prospect of German reentry into the field of long-distance rocket, pressured the Zairian government of Mobutu Sese Seko to close down the research and development facility, and eventually convince Bonn to withdraw its support for the private operations. In response Kayser relocated production and testing to Libya by 1981, and for the next six years made some rather significant advances (differing from traditional multi-stage launchers, their rockets were bundled tubes that could be mass produced inexpensively) and even attempted the launch of a private space vehicle, until Gaddafi seized the facility and equipment and nationalised it.

synchronoptica

one year ago: a solar energy firm established in 1905 (with synchronoptica) plus assorted links worth revisiting

seven years ago: the panopticon of Piccadilly Circus plus more findings from gravitational waves

eight years ago: Mister Smith Goes to Washington plus atmospheric wells

nine years ago: the Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards plus more on America’s drone wars

twelve years ago: US military bases in Germany plus oversized landmarks

dromomania (11. 887)

Returning to his hometown of Waseca, Minnesota from the west, having departed on his journey accompanied by his brother and a mule nearly four years earlier and setting forth eastward, on this day in 1974, having walked just over twenty-three thousand kilometres, Dave Kunst became the first independently verified individual to have circumambulated the globe. Received by Princess Grace in Monaco and by chance meeting fellow adventurer Thor Heyerdahl in a restaurant in Italy, the epic walkers solicited donations to UNICEF along the way. Denied entry into the Soviet Union, about midway through their journey, the team continued through India and Afghanistan, where the two were tragically ambushed by bandits who believed they were carrying the monies pledged to the United Nations’ emergency children’s fund, killing his brother John, but Kunst finished after months recuperation, joined by his older sibling Pete. After the loss of his mule in the Australian Outback, a schoolteacher, who Kunst became enamoured with and eventually married, towed his supplies with her car for a thousand miles at walking pace, Dave keeping up alongside. Kunst’s trip consisted of twenty million steps and went through twenty-one pairs of shoes.

 

synchronoptica

one year ago: wine and quinces (with synchronoptica)

seven years ago: drawing logos from memory plus biofuels from moss

eight years ago: turning Twitter into a public utility, ghost signs plus an unpopular file format

nine years ago: the Norman Conquest and the Divine Right of Kings

ten years ago: Roman tax regimes

now, how your daddy don’t mind (11. 891)

Inspired by the memory of trying to encourage a date to remain out past her curfew, Maurice Williams penned the tune seven years earlier, aged fifteen as the more compelling argument came to him all of a sudden lyrically, in 1960 recording the song as a demo track with his doo-wop group the Zodiacs. Picked up as a single by the label Herald Records and re-recorded (removing the verse “Let’s have another smoke,” so it could be played on commercial radio) in August, on this day that same year, “Stay” entered the Billboard Hot 100 on its way to top the charts on 21 November. The lightly pared down version at one minute and thirty-six seconds (extended recent rendition by the band below) is the shortest tune to reach the number one spot. Inclusion on the soundtrack for Dirty Dancing revived its popularity. 

 

  *     *     *     *     *

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links to revisit plus the US Speaker of the House ousted

seven years ago: who played It better,  a uniquely American problem plus EU jargon

eight years ago: the physics of light-sabres, shifting zodiacal signs plus the US Motor Voter Act

nine years ago: the Crimean War, the voice acting talents of Paul Frees, actor Melina Mercouri plus more links to enjoy

eleven years ago: America in turmoil over Obama Care

antártica (11. 879)

Established in April of 1984 with the second person born on the continent in November of that year, we learn via Nag on the Lake of the larger of two permanent settlements just north of the Antarctic Circle on King George Island that is not a research outpost. With about one hundred fifty inhabitants during the summer and eighty hardy souls in the winter, the remote Villa Las Estrellas which arguably seems to exist in order to legitimise the Chilean claim against the overlapping British and Argentine ones—the latter having founded Base Esperanza in 1953, the community of fourteen homes has several amenities, though some like the school, souvenir shop, hostel and the post office which formerly was a significant draw for philately fans seeking to have a stamp cancelled with an Antarctic post mark seem to have closed in recent years at least temporarily, but the infirmary, fitness facility/cultural centre and library remain to support the community. More southerly and significantly smaller with a civilian population of only ten families, the Argentine settlement seems better outfitted.

urbanus vii (11. 877)

Despite having the shortest reign of any pope, Urban VII, dying on this day in 1590 of complications from malaria, nonetheless after a long and illustrious career as archbishop of Rossano in Calabria, papal legate and apostolic nuncio made notable impact. Elevated during the conclave following the death of Sixtus V less than two weeks prior, Urban fought vigorously against nepotism, competing against a Medici and his predecessor’s grand-nephew—instituting a standing policy in the Curia, and continued his subsidies to bakers to feed the poor under costs. The papacy of Urban also saw the first public smoking ban—levying excommunication for anyone partaking of tobacco in any form inside a church or within proximity of its entrance. His successor, Gregory XIV—also a short-timer with just under a year in office—still had the chance, no small feat, to order the emancipation of native Filipinos consigned to enslavement by colonisation, also under pain of casting out of the religious community and thus a legitimate compliance factor as the ousted were not allowed to continue commerce with Catholic members in good standing.

as safe as fort knox (11. 866)

With the exception of a brief tour granted to FDR in 1943 and a similar junket in August of 2017 to dispel the same rumours that the vaults had been emptied out, no members of the public had been admitted to the national gold bullion depository until when on this day in 1974 a contingent of journalists and a dozen congressional representatives were guided inspection by members of the American Mint (director Mary Brooks pictured) and the Treasury Department.

Requests to visit Ft Knox are summarily turned down but pressure by the House to conduct an independent audit of US gold reserves in response to the publication of a book, Conspiracy Against the Dollar: The Spirit of the New Imperialism by Peter David Beter, that attacked international monetary reform and cited the usual culprits, global elites, Bolsheviks, the Rockefeller-cartel, Soviet space lasers, important public figures were dead and had been replaced with “robotoids”—and most resoundingly with the public, that most of America’s gold had been trucked away and sold at depressed costs to European speculators—all claims without evidence or merit. Beter’s AM radio show gave him a platform to continue his allegations, making the military installation’s standing policy suspicious and proof that they had something to hide. The delegation was delighted with the tour and mostly cleared up the false speculation—largely imputed to America’s leaving the gold standard three years prior when the reality was that movement of gold had effectively halted (US silver bullion is stored at the military academy of West Point) and most gold is still in New York City—that is, until the rumours started circulating again and Kentucky senator Mitch McConnell visited with treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin, proclaiming the nation’s stockpile to be secure. 

synchronoptica

one year ago: David Bowie’s Heroes (with synchronoptica), robinsonades plus urban wildlife photography

seven years ago: shibboleths 

eight years ago: smart carts for airport security, windpipes plus point-of-sales machines

nine years ago: algae-based membranes as liquid containers 

eleven years ago: a census of house plants

getting to philosophy (11. 854)

Reminiscent of other connections and daisy chains discovered in the linkages in the growing universe of articles, following the first hyperlink in the main text of a Wikipedia entry (in English at least) and repeating the process for subsequent pages will bring one ultimately to the article on the love of wisdom and the process of critical inquiry, some ninety-seven percent of the time, with the small remainder consisting of orphaned topics or a self-referencing tautologies. This phenomenon may be due to the recommended style of contributing and editing and points to a certain hierarchy of taxia. Because of the changing nature of online encyclopaedia, the number of steps it takes to arrive a philosophy can vary from day to day, sixteen paces from apple juice to the discipline and it would be interesting to see the outliers that take the most jumps. More from Open Culture at the link above.

coup d’etat (11. 837)

Bringing an end to the House of Solomon that ruled since 1270, members of the Ethiopian army and police, a junta backed by the USSR, who would go on to govern the country as the Derg (ደርግ, the Provisional Military Administrative Council) deposed Emperor Haile Selassie on this day in 1974. The emperor was imprisoned by the Marxist-Leninist group upset with his failure to deliver on promised land-reform measures in the semi-feudal state that left many subsistence farmers destitute and effectively indentured to landlords, perpetuating famine and forced relocation of thousands, eventually nationalising all property and abolishing the empire but not before proclaiming crown prince, in exile, Asfaw Wossen Tafari, as king (significantly not emperor, Negusa Nagast, king of kings) who wisely declined and avoided the imprisonment and execution that awaited other members of the court and royal family as well as government ministers and the emperor himself under treacherous circumstances not revealed until after the people’s revolution overthrew the military regime. His death and later ceremonial reinterment was not accepted by adherents of the Rastafarian movement who regard Haile Selassie as god incarnate and hope of deliverance from colonial powers for Africa’s diaspora.

tsardom (11. 823)

Unveiled on this day in 1862 to commemorate the thousand-year anniversary of the arrival of of the Varangian viking conquerors from Sweden in the Kievan Rus’, traditionally taken as the starting point of statehood, the hundred-ton bronze monument, the Millennium of Russia, in the kremlin of Novgorod is a fifteen metre high globus cruciger atop a bell-shaped pedestal, representing the history and culture of the empire. One-hundred twenty-nine figures line the middle and bottom levels and uniquely for an official state work include academics, writers and artists along with rulers, heroes, military commanders and men of enlightenment, but conspicuously absent is Ivan the Terrible (though is wife Anastasia Romanovna is present) for his pillage and massacre of the city founded by Prince Rurik in the ninth century. The monument was captured and dismantled by the Nazis during World War II but Novgorod was recaptured by the Red Army before transportation to Germany could be arranged and restored the work and put it back on display in 1944. Since 1988, among the signals of easing official atheistic policy, the celebration of this state baptism was the first national observance with a religious character.

d-minus (11. 818)

Beginning on this day in 1962 and concluding at the month’s end just weeks before the Cuba Missile Crisis, Exercise Spade Fork was part of a US federal emergency preparedness plan to mobilise and reconstitute the government in the aftermath of a nuclear attack (see previously). In this scenario, run parallel to the military exercise codenamed High Heels II, America was hit first with a pre-emptive, decapitation strike targeting the presidential retreat and childhood home of Jacqueline Bouvier, Hammersmith Farm in Newport, Rhode Island. Comprised of a force of seventeen hundred civil servants, an “Executive Reserve” received specialised training to maintain command and control and manage resources. Subsequent strategic doctrine, however, has superseded such a sequence of events, since taking out another power’s leadership is prone to failure and backfire as the easiest contingency to prepare for and without the central authorities in place, belligerents lose the ability to negotiate and put the decision to retaliate in the hands of rogue elements. Midway into the drill, plans were modified in order to provide cover for the mobilisation of army units to deploy to Mississippi in order to enforce the ruling of desegregation of public schools when the governor refused to honour the court order to integrate the state university.

synchronoptica

one year ago: a banger from The Jam (with synchronoptica), Keith Haring’s computer art plus a musical number about medication from Ginette Garcin

seven years ago: assorted links worth revisiting

eight years ago: Powers of Ten, The Great Fire of 1666, colonising Venus, discarded shopping lists plus a tree house in Stuttgart

nine years ago: more links to enjoy, a more accurate tree census, Aloha attire plus an antonym for omnipresent

ten years ago: the life of Caesar, the new temperance laws plus common misconceptions

in my considered judgment, we have comported ourselves in a manner faithful to our history (11. 815)

As the first major celebration of the bicentennial of the American revolution, the contemporary governors of the original Thirteen Colonies were invited to reenact, reconvene the First Continental Congress (see also) in Philadelphia, gathering for an event at the original venue of Carpenters’ Hall on this day on this day in 1974.

Chaired by Virginia governor Mills E Godwin, Junior as presiding officer, delegates re-legislated the several grievances lodged against the Crown, not quite revising history and remaining patriotic but coming to some re-evaluation and different conclusions on oppression and tyranny. The original 1774 summit, whose delegation makeup was more diverse than that of two centuries prior and included women and minorities, adopted among other things the Articles of Association that called for a general boycott of British goods, which was soon escalated by punitive sanctions against the Colonies.

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth the revisit (with synchronoptica)

seven years ago: the first in-flight movie (1925) plus Excalibur found

eight years ago: the flak towers of World War II, weather at Jupiter’s pole, more on Merkel’s hand posture plus Michaelmas

nine years ago: the innovation of the stirrup, a vintage arcade in Saint Petersburg, a Bell logo redesign, emoji urls plus more on stave architecture

ten years ago:  the NATO summit in Wales

nickle, nickle (11. 798)

Originally sold in the inventor’s drugstore in North Carolina in 1893 as Brad’s Drink, Caleb Bradham rebranded his tonic as Pepsi-Cola on this day in 1898, as our faithful chronicler informs, to emphasise its reputed benefits in aiding digestion (not the enzyme pepsin but rather as a relief for being dyspeptic, the former never being an additive, neither cocaine). Expanding bottling operations and recovering from bankruptcy—during which a merger was proposed with rival soda brand Coca-Cola, the drink especially flourished during the Depression by undercutting the competition and doubling its serving size, the thrifty and smart shopper vindicated by the above radio jingle. Afterwards, Pepsi pursued sports and entertainment sponsorships and received several celebrity endorsements, beginning with Joan Crawford who was married to the company president and agreed to product-placement in her films (a tradition carried on) as well as being a general spokesperson and appearing in advertisements, followed by Duke Ellington and others. The soft drink in 1972 became the first Western product to be given official sanction by the government of the Soviet Union (see also), PepsiCo granted export rights in exchange for marketing and import of Stolichnaya in the US.

synchronoptica

one year ago: a tour of a nuclear waste depository (with synchronoptica) plus AI versus a giraffe with no spots

seven years ago: climate change and tourism, forced reunions in Chechnya plus maths in corals and crochet

eight years ago: a Victorian pumping station, the Wright Brothers’ sister plus spying on Turkish diaspora

ten years ago: Rome against Carthage

eleven years ago: consulting medieval texts for modern advice

lady death (11. 795)

Arriving in Washington, DC on this day in 1942 as a part of a tour of the US, Canada and the UK to encourage the Allies to open up a second front against Nazi Germany, at the invitation of Eleanor Roosevelt, Lyudmila Pavlichenko (Людмила Михайлівна Павличенко) of Odesa became the first official Soviet guest in the White House. Credited with killing three-hundred nine Axis soldiers—likely an undercount as confirmed kills required a witness and included thirty-six enemy snipers—after being retired after a blow from shrapnel, Pavlichenko was reassigned as a trainer and propagandist for the Red Army. Not particularly fond of her new role as a diplomat, shy and quiet and only wanting to get on with beating the fascists, Pavlichenko complained that she was not taken seriously by the press, but her blunt responses to sexist questions were well received by the public. Calling on Chicago with the First Lady, citing her credentials, she chided, “Don’t you think, gentlemen, that you have been hiding behind my back for too long?”

synchronoptica

one year ago: the Guinness World Records (with synchronoptica)

eight years ago: ghost malls plus duped by Brexit

nine years ago: assorted links worth revisiting plus the oracle of Delphi

ten years ago: work-life balance plus Austria hosts the Bilderberg conference

eleven years ago: social media and credit scores

odometer (11. 784)

Occurring every one thousand twenty-four weeks—a nineteen and a half year’s cycle—the Global Position System broadcast date, which includes a week number, counted in ten binary digits reaches an integer overflow causing the values to rollover. Whilst not on the level of a y2k or related events because systems reliant on GPS and synchronisation of payments and broadcasting are coded to anticipate this limitation of the satellite network due the relatively short time-horizon. The first occurrence took place at midnight on this day in 1999, and due to its limited use, disruptions were minor. For the second rollover, early April 2019, proactive programming contained problems in the travel industry and most setbacks happened in consumer devices that had not been updated. Unrelated to the ominously sounding Year 2038 Epochalyse for Unix time (y2k38, see above), the next rollover will happen in late November of that year.

 synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth revisiting (with synchronoptica)

seven years ago: US roadside attractions plus purpose-built advertising columns

eight years ago: emergency preparedness plus more links to enjoy

ten years ago: sponsored links plus encyclopedic errata

twelve years ago: predacious snails plus Norse cosmology

absaroka (11. 772)

With the notable exceptions of Alaska and Hawaii and those that successfully petitioned for partition from larger territories like Kentucky and West Virginia and Vermont—Maine was created from the Massachusetts exclave district of the same name that existed until the War of 1812 when pro-British sentiments prompted the separatist movement—every state in the union has had its share of break-away polities, but none as we learn courtesy of Strange Company had consisted of counties of three different states proposing to reincorporate like the above coalition, named after an endonym of the Crow people (“children of the large-beaked bird) though no one consulted the indigenous population despite being formed in large part from reservation land. The movement for Absaroka—whose seriousness is disputed as either an earnest attempt at secession or a publicity stunt that achieved their desired goal—began in the mid 1930s during the Depression and attendant dust-bowls when rural residents far removed from their respective capitals protested that their governments were not doing enough to extend NewDeal federal aid to farmers and ranchers. Distant residents of Montana, Wyoming and South Dakota did not feel that Helena, Cheyenne and Pierre had their best interests in mind. The street commissioner of the city and county of Sheridan Wyoming, halfway between Yellowstone Park and Mount Rushmore (further encompassing the Bighorn and Great Teton ranges and Devil’s Tower and thus the motto the Nation’s Playground) spearheaded the drive for independence and recognition, later proclaiming himself governor of the unrecognised forty-ninth state in 1939, issuing their own license plates, choosing a Miss Absaroka in a beauty pageant and inviting the king of Norway, Haarkon VII, to visit as part of his tour of the region to signal formal and diplomatic recognition and even debate in congress about the order of accession and wanting Hawaii to be admitted first. Though abandoned with the outbreak of World War II, the movement achieved its goal of having state governments responsive to their farthest reaches.

crossing the line (11. 768)

In contrast and correspondence with the previous post, also on this day the following year, in 1962, twenty-one year old US army private first class Joe Dresnok (제임스 조새프 드레스녹), feeling hopeless, recovering from a recent divorce, and facing a court-martial for forging his commanding sergeant’s signature for passes to leave the army base at night, dashed across the minefield of the Demilitarised Zone into North Korean territory. The defector was apprehended instantly and taken to Pyongyang for interrogation, eventually resolved to settle there. Dresnok along with six other American service members taught English and participated in propaganda campaigns to entice more US soldiers at the border to join them. Praising Dear Leader and vowing to never return to the West, Dresnok became a celebrity, cast in several domestic films as an American villain—including a very popular 1978 mini-series called Nameless Heroes (along with fellow defector Charles Robert Jenkins as Dr Kelton, the fictional mastermind behind the peninsular conflict) in which he played the role of lieutenant colonel Arthur Cockstud, commander of a prisoner of war camp, with most North Koreans calling him “Arthur” after his character.  Dresnok died of a stroke in November 2016, confirmed by his sons the following year in an interview on state-run television. 

the people’s crusade (11. 766)

Though sanctioned officially by Pope Urban II to begin on this day in 1096 (the Feast of the Assumption) in order reassert Church primacy in society having lost influence under the rise of feudalism and mercantilism, restoring fealty to the faith rather than allegiance to overlords and landed-gentry, and counter Muslim influence in the Holy Land and Byzantium, armed pilgrimages were already mobilised under the charismatic French priest known as Peter the Hermit (Pierre d’Amiens) with an advance though untrained and mostly illiterate and ignorant—not knowing where Jerusalem was and reacting as if any sizeable settlement they encountered along the way was their goal—army of disaffected Christian peasants. The call for a crusade (against holy war) issued first during the Council of Clermont the preceding year was met with enthusiastic acclaim, particularly as tenant farmers had experienced famine and drought in recent seasons—possibly an outbreak of ergotism due to poorly stored grain—and a strongly held belief in Millenarianism (see also) and Peter’s forces gathered and set out from Flanders in April. En route, the pilgrims destroyed Jewish communities along the Rhein in unprecedentedly large and violent pogroms in Metz, Speyer, Trier and Köln—condemned by the Church and secular leaders and forbidden during the following Crusades. Joined by many thousands of the poor, they marched through Hungary and attempted entered Byzantine territory at Belgrade, who were refused entry due to their unexpected early arrival and unheralded commander. Eventually the crusaders we granted admittance at Niš after making a general nuisance of themselves and pillaging local markets and proceeded to Constantinople but were massacred by the Seljuks on the road to Nicaea, the army of some hundred-thousand destroyed—although the many women, children and those who surrendered were spared. Peter and some of the remaining leadership, broken and bankrupt, continued to Palestine to join the better organised and funded First or rather Princes’ Crusade in October.

ῑ̓χώρ (11. 757)

Pathologically-speaking, the antiquated term for watery discharge, especially with an offensive odour, was deliberately given in negative connotations by early Christian writers to dispel the last vestiges of pagan veneration for the old gods by turning the ethereal fluid that flows in the veins of the immortals of mythology into something foul and corrupt. Classically ichor was understood to be the blood of the Olympians and—unlike the blood of Christ—was deadly toxic to humans if they came in contact with it. A Cretan myth, later appropriated by the Greeks in the Colossus of Rhodes, told of a giant bronze automaton made by Hephaestus at Zeus’ request to protect Europa and the island from invaders and pirates, this sentinel called Talos circling the shores three times a day, lobbing boulders at approaching ships. The robot was powered by a single circuit vein that ran from its head to its ankle filled with ichor, and was eventually defeated by Jason and the Argonauts with the help of Medea, who told them to unscrew the retaining plug at the base and exsanguinate it. In modern Greek, ichor is also used for the words gravy and naphtha, an older term for petroleum, probably due to the belief it was a by-product of decaying giants.

commonwealth electoral act (11. 734)

Receiving Royal Assent on this day in 1924 by George V in his capacity as King of Australia, the collection of statutes governing eligibility and processes established compulsory voting for referenda and federal elections for enrolled, registered voters. In effect a century later, individuals who fail to cast a ballot face not insignificant fines if unable to give an adequate excuse. Inspired by low turn out during the 1922 by-elections and local and state mandates already in place in Queensland, participation jumped instantly from under sixty percent to over ninety. No explicit requirement is made to vote for any candidate and abstention is possible, only to enrol, show up to a polling station, mark the ballot and go into the voting booth, with whatever the mark signifies left up to the conscience of the individual (a secret ballot a radical idea), with early-voting and mail-in ballots as options offered to avoid sanction. While having consistent levels of engagement, some have lobbied against the practise, calling it paternalistic and claiming that involuntary participation illegitimates the outcome for those who disagree or hold no opinion. 

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links to revisit (with synchronoptica)

seven years ago: life as an expression of the laws of thermodynamics plus Einstein’s brain

eight years ago: vintage Cuban propaganda, a visit to a vineyard plus Portugal’s experiment with drug decriminalisation

nine years ago: more links to enjoy plus time zone deviants

ten years ago: arming Israel and Russian incursions in Ukraine, the Pope on fostering happiness, more adventures in Croatia plus Apple fashion

 

dioecesis selenis (11. 725)

Delving the depths of Wikipedia, we learn via Neatorama that the bishop of the diocese of Orlando, Florida established in 1968, citing the 1917 Code of Canon Law (Iuris Codex Canonici) which extended pastoral jurisdiction over newly discovered territories to the episcopal authority of the diocese from which the expedition was launched, claimed the Moon in the name of the Church, his appointment coinciding with the Apollo missions to the lunar surface. With a counter-claimant in the archbishop of New York as vicar of the Military Ordinariate as chaplain to all military bases, including Cape Canaveral, the matter was never resolved as it was ultimately a papal decision and Pope Paul VI was bemused by the question, not issuing an official response.