View allAll Photos Tagged disarray
Ethiopia is building one of the most powerful hydroelectric dams in Africa: the Gibbe 3. According to the
government, it will double the country’s energy capacity. The water from dam will be stocked in a giant
reservoir which will be used to irrigate to plantations owned by foreign companies (Saudis, Malaysians,
Indians…) who all rent land at the paltry cost of one euro per hectare a year, and who export the crops. The
dam will also change the lives of all of the 200000 inhabitants, considered as subhuman by the capitol, and
who all totally depend on the river Omo.
The government plans to move them all to new villages, where they are promised access to heath and
education. These tribes, who’ve lived forever from agriculture and livestock, are seeing their ecosystem
totally thrown into disarray. The UN has requested that all construction be ceased, but nothing is being
done. The coup de grâce occurred on the 16th of July: the world bank and other institutions accepted to
finance an electricity network linked to the dam which will hook up the Kenyan energy grid to the power
generated by the Ethiopian dam.
© Eric Lafforgue
All rights reserved by Mark Patton. Any use of my images without my express written consent is forbidden!
La naveta de "Es Tudons" es el monumento individual más emblemático de la prehistoria de las Baleares, tanto por su belleza como por su excelente estado de conservación (fue restaurada entre 1959 y 1960). Esta construcción mantiene un aura mágica a su alrededor, que le confiere una belleza sin posibles comparaciones. Esta belleza la ha hecho más famosa que las mismísimas taulas, que son sobradamente espectaculares, pero ninguna de ellas ha alcanzado tanta difusión individualmente.
Una naveta es un tipo de monumento funerario que sólo se encuentra en Menorca. Está construido con técnica ciclópea, es decir con piedras de dimensión mediana encajadas sin ayuda de mortero. En ella se llevaban a cabo entierros colectivos, por lo que durante las excavaciones se encontraron los cuerpos en desorden, aunque acompañados de los ajuares más personales con que fueron enterrados: joyas, botones de hueso, algún arma... También
se encontraron pequeñas ollas, vasos de cerámica y un tapón de hueso decorado.
La forma, que recuerda una nave invertida, es lo que proporcionó el nombre de naveta al monumento. La entrada de éste lleva a un pequeño corredor que conduce a la cámara superior y a una segunda puerta que lleva a la inferior. El piso intermedio y la cubierta superior están construidos con grandes losas que actúan como vigas.
------------------------------------------00000000000000000000000000000------------------------------------
The naveta de "Es Tudons" is a single most emblematic monument of prehistory of the Balearic Islands, both for its beauty and its excellent condition (was restored between 1959 and 1960). This building holds a magical aura around him, that confers a beauty without any comparisons. This beauty has made her more famous than the very taulas, which are amply spectacular, but none has achieved so much coverage individually.
A naveta is a type of monument found only in Menorca. Cyclopean technique is constructed, ie median dimension stone mortar embedded unaided. It carried out collective burials, so during excavations bodies were found in disarray, but accompanied by more personal regalia that were buried with jewelry, bone buttons, a weapon ... also found small pots, ceramic cups and a decorated bone plug.
The shape, reminiscent of a ship reversed, is what gave the name as a shuttle to the monument. The entry of this leads to a small corridor leading to the upper chamber and a second door leading to bottom. The intermediate floor and top cover are constructed of large slabs which act as beams.
American postcard by Florida Natural Colour, Miami, Fla., no. FG-58 20137. Caption: Devastating Disarray.
Join now our group Vintage Bikini Postcards. And take a look at our albums Sizzling Swimwear Postcards, Va-Va-Va-Voom Vintage Pin-ups, Beefcake, Beautiful Bikini Beach Babes and It's a Bikini World .
With the repainting, the living room has been in disarray for two weeks? three weeks? I've lost track.
As a result, there have been stacks of books on the dining room table. I think it's time to put them back.
-----
"No one's ever come between your memory and me
'Cus I need someone who can touch me
Who'll put no one above me
Someone who needs me
Like the air he breathes
These days my life is an open book
Missing pages I cannot seem to find
These days your face
In my memory
Is in a folded hand of grace against these times"
-----
These Days in an Open Book - Nanci Griffith (ft. Indigo Girls)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZj8wTdxYHk
There are many Nanci Griffith songs that fall among my favorites. This is definitely one of them. I couldn't find this one on YouTube, so I uploaded it myself. The copyright police usually hate when I do that. Hopefully the link works.
The “Secret” to Saving a Marriage (Part 1) —Almighty God Saved My Marriage
Li Quan
When I was young, my mom and dad often argued, and my mom frequently suffered beatings and abuse at the hands of my dad. She carried so much rancor in her heart that she died quite young. Thereafter I promised myself: When I grow up and start a family, I will be good to my wife and create a happy and peaceful family. I would not repeat the failures of my mother and father’s marriage.
In 1995, I was the department director for installation engineering at a restaurant. At first, all I could think about was being an entrepreneur and making money and that I just needed to find a wife who was wise and kind so we could live happily together and that would be enough. But after a while, my work required that I go out often with other department leaders to restaurants, foot spa inn, karaoke parlors, hotels and other entertainment venues. During that time they would often say things like, “Have a wife and mistresses too!” or “‘Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.” or “We only live 90 years, so live it up while you’re young” or “This is how men are. Who doesn’t want to eat, drink, and be merry!?” or “Our nation is promoting rapid economic growth and spurring all sorts of entertainment businesses, so we should respond enthusiastically. As Chinese citizens, we would be letting the government down if we didn’t do our part in living the nightlife!” Their influence started to rub off on me and, over time, I began to follow them in their nightlife pursuits and started to think of it as enjoyable.
In late 2000 I got married. At the very beginning there wasn’t a deep emotional connection between me and my wife, but we got along well and understood one another. However, due to the social events for my work and the complicated personal relationships I had to maintain, I still kept the party going just like before. I lived a hedonistic life and stumbled home late every night. After two years of this, my wife finally figured out that my coming home late wasn’t because I was working so hard, but because I was out carousing; that’s when she became cold with me. We each did our own thing, never speaking with one another and never showing understanding or consideration for one another. We became estranged from one another. When I saw how awkward our relationship had become, I was worried that my marriage was broken. I hardly slept. In hopes of getting through this impasse, I asked my friends for help. One of them said, “Your guy friends are a part of you, just like your hands and feet, but women are nothing more than clothing; don’t worry too much about them. Just keep her in check and you’ll be fine.” I thought what my friend said was reasonable as I listened, so I thought I should teach my wife a lesson. I needed to establish my authority over her and get her to submit to me. That way she would never dare cast a dirty look my way ever again. So, I went and did what my friend had said. When I got home I didn’t lift a finger to help and I made my wife wait on me hand and foot. She served me food she had made, which I ate, and then I shouted at her to give me another helping. I acted as high and mighty as I could. I even made my wife track every single living expenditure for the month and I refused to give her another nickel until after I reviewed it. After some time had passed, I found that not only had I failed to establish my authority, but our relationship became even more estranged. When I saw that this method didn’t work, I tried to have a heart-to-heart talk with my wife. But before I could get two words out she laid into me to settle old scores telling me that I did nothing but go out carousing and never brought money home, etc., and we started arguing and ended up parting on bad terms. I felt racked with pain and sadness every time after we argued. If a husband and wife don’t share a common language, then being in a family together is like living with an enemy. You try to get out a few words but that just starts an argument! Those were painful days to get through. Divorce almost seemed a better alternative than going on like that and prolonging the agony. Nonetheless, I didn’t want to air my dirty laundry for all to see, so for the sake of my own self-respect and for my children—but mostly for the pursuit of the dream of a happy family I always wanted—I stayed in my bad marriage. Besides, it was me who was in the wrong in the first place, so I should be the one to fix it, right?!
After my friends found out about how much misery I was in, they recommended I read up on emotions and marriage so that I could emotionally connect better with my wife and children. I then started taking the time to go with my wife and two children to the bookstore, the zoo, or to the mall, and I started giving my wife money to buy things for her side of the family. I went out with my friends less and less…. I thought to myself that this was how I would save my broken marriage. However, my wife was still unhappy and cold toward me, and I couldn’t do anything about it. I asked a good friend to come talk to my wife to try and straighten things out, but my friend was at a loss and just told me: “These things take time.”
Not long after, I started an installation company and brought in my brother-in-law to learn the ropes. I thought: Here I am, a man of status and a good earner. That should be enough to satisfy my wife’s vanity, plus I’m looking out for her younger brother; this ought to fix our relationship right up. However, we still fought often, which I did not expect. My wife even brought up my shortcomings in front of my employees, saying that I didn’t take good care of my family…. I couldn’t take this arguing anymore, so I was going to leave some money behind and take off for another construction site. When I confronted my wife about leaving, she looked bewildered and I just felt awful. I just couldn’t understand it. They always say that a husband and wife shouldn’t fret about yesterday’s troubles, but why was there so much terrible animosity between us? Why did we argue or give one another the cold shoulder every time we looked at each other? How did we make things so painful for each other and put our home in such disarray? We lived this way for four or five years; was there really nothing we could do to fix our relationship? Because our relationship as husband and wife worsened by the day and my pressures at work mounted, I couldn’t eat or sleep. I was exhausted. New wrinkles drew deep lines on my forehead, and I, once a large man, had shrunk to 143 lbs. Sometimes things would come to a boil and I’d wish for death to come and save me from my life of turmoil…. But then I’d think of my two lovely children and I couldn’t bear to throw that all away. And thus I dwelled in a life of suffering that knew no end.
When people have reached their limit, that’s when God begins! In March of 2008, I had the fortune to receive Almighty God’s salvation of the last days. After coming to The Church of Almighty God, I often read God’s word and started being active in the church life. I listened to brothers and sisters fellowship about the truth and the experiences they shared and thereby unwittingly came to understand some truths about family, marriage, and I came to a new understanding about the fate of mankind. The anxiety and stress weighing on my mind was greatly reduced. I began to experience a happiness I had never felt before and my whole body felt more relaxed and at ease. During one congregation I opened up and fellowshiped about the pain and confusion of the last few years, and the brothers and sisters read the following passage of God’s word to me: “Since the creation of the world I have begun to predestine and select this group of people, namely, you today. Your temperament, caliber, appearance, stature, family in which you were born, your job and your marriage, the entirety of you, even the color of your hair and your skin, and the time of your birth were all arranged by My hands. Even the things you do and the people you meet every single day are arranged by My hands, not to mention the fact that bringing you into My presence today is actually My arrangement. Do not throw yourself into disorder; you should proceed calmly” (The Word Appears in the Flesh). Through God’s word I came to understand: It turns out that God has predetermined the course and trajectory of our lives. My family, my marriage, my wife, and my children were given to me by God’s arrangement and as a being of creation, I should accept and submit to God’s ruling plan. Furthermore, the path my marriage had taken up to today was my own doing, but my trying to escape the pain of my family and marriage through divorce or thoughts of suicide. Wasn’t that just trying to escape from God’s ruling plan by applying mankind’s solutions to problems? I had been so foolish. What would happen in my marriage in the end is all in God’s hands and I need to entrust all of my family affairs to God and let God be in charge of the plan. After understanding God’s intentions I felt so much relief; the pressure and pain that had been in my heart was greatly reduced.
One day, I saw these words of God: “Born into such a filthy land, man has been severely blighted by society, he has been influenced by feudal ethics, and he has been taught at ‘institutes of higher learning.’ The backward thinking, corrupt morality, mean view on life, despicable philosophy, utterly worthless existence, and depraved lifestyle and customs—all of these things have severely intruded upon man’s heart, and severely undermined and attacked his conscience. As a result, man is ever more distant from God, and ever more opposed to Him. Man’s disposition becomes more vicious by the day, and there is not a single person who will willingly give up anything for God, not a single person who will willingly obey God, nor, moreover, a single person who will willingly seek the appearance of God. Instead, under the domain of Satan, man does nothing but pursue pleasure, giving himself over to the corruption of the flesh in the land of mud” (“To Have an Unchanged Disposition Is to Be in Enmity to God” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). The word of Almighty God lays bare the source of mankind’s pain, and it turns out the source of all my pain was Satan’s corruption. I had been under Satan’s domain and affected by the influences of evil social trends. I had been living under evil, satanic views that said to “have a wife and mistresses too.” In my enjoyment of hedonistic pleasures, I had fallen into Satan’s trap and corrupted to the point where I didn’t even seem like a real person at all. I thought back to when I had first become enticed to fall under evil social trends under the guise of having a social life, and how my debauchery and carousing had brought unending conflict between me and my wife such that we were estranged from one another. Later, in order to improve the relationship that my wife and I had, I sought out the “kind advice” of a friend who told me: “Your guy friends are a part of you, just like your hands and feet, but women are nothing more than clothing, just keep her in check and you’ll be fine.” These were nothing more than a shocking display of chauvinism with his talk of “keeping her in check.” Not only was it ineffective, it made things worse. Because I tried to handle things with these satanic views, my family life was on the verge of falling to pieces and I was physically and mentally exhausted. I had been in pain beyond description and my thoughts had even drifted to suicide. But now, I see clearly. Satan was just using these methods to trap and corrupt me, destroy my marriage and family, and make me live a life of evil and misery. Satan’s evil goal was to devour me; Satan really is full of treachery and malice!
Once I saw through Satan’s tricks, I resolved to completely abandon those evil and satanic thoughts and to conduct myself by God’s word. I also wanted to bring the gospel to my wife as soon as possible so that she too could gain God’s salvation.
Source: The “Secret” to Saving a Marriage (Part 1) —Almighty God Saved My Marriage
Recommendation: Where Does Eastern Lightning Come From?
The heath spotted orchid (Dactylorhiza maculata) grows on acid soil in heath. I am pretty sure that the taxonomy of this genus is in disarray as the D maculata in Austria seem quite different from those in Orkney.
An interpretive sign discussing King Kamehameha I's struggle for power.
Kamehameha I (c. 1758–May 8, 1819), also known as Kamehameha the Great, conquered the Hawaiian Islands and formally established the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi in 1810. By developing alliances with the major Pacific colonial powers, Kamehameha preserved Hawaiʻi's independence under his rule. Kamehameha is remembered for the Kanawai Mamalahoe, the "Law of the Splintered Paddle", which protects human rights of non-combatants in times of battle. Kamehameha's full Hawaiian name is Kalani Paiʻea Wohi o Kaleikini Kealiʻikui Kamehameha o ʻIolani i Kaiwikapu kaui Ka Liholiho Kūnuiākea.
Although there is some debate as to the precise year of his birth, Hawaiian legends claimed that a great king would one day unite the islands, and that the sign of his birth would be a comet. Halley's comet was visible from Hawaiʻi in 1758 and it is likely Kamehameha was born shortly after its appearance. Other accounts state that he was born in November 1737. The 1758 date is most likely, since his eldest son was born in 1797.
He was known as Paiea, which means "hard-shelled crab". His father by blood was Chief Keōua Nui. His mother was Chiefess Kekuʻiapoiwa of the Kohala district on the island of Hawaiʻi. In ancient Hawaiian culture it was common for royalty to mentor or "adopt" other children, so they can have another honorary parent. The ruler of the adjacent island of Maui, Kahekili II took Kamehameha into his court.
His father Keōua was the grandson of Keaweikekahialiʻiokamoku, who had once ruled a large portion of the island of Hawaiʻi. When Keaweikekahialiʻiokamoku died, war broke out over succession between his sons, Kalani Kama Keʻeaumoku Nui and Kalaninuiʻamamao, and a rival chief, Alapaʻinuiakauaua. Alapaʻi emerged victorious over the two brothers, and their orphan sons (including Kamehameha's father) were absorbed into his clan. He may also be the son of the chief of Maui named Kahikili.
When Kamehameha (Paiea) was born, Alapaʻi ordered the child killed. One of his priests (kahuna) had warned him that a fiery light in the sky would signal the birth of a "killer of chiefs". Alapaʻi, nervous at the thought of this child eventually usurping his rule, decided to take no chances. Paiʻea's parents, however, had anticipated this. As soon as he was born, he was given into the care of Naeʻole, another noble from Kohala, and disappeared from sight. Naeʻole raised Paiʻea for the first few years of his life. Five years after his birth, Alapaʻi, perhaps remorseful of his actions, invited the child back to live with his family. There under the guidance of his kahu (teacher), Kekuhaupiʻo, he learned the ways of court diplomacy and war. Kekuhaupiʻo remained a faithful and trusted advisor to Paiʻea until the accidental death of the loyal kahu during a sham battle.
Another story says the name Paiʻea was given to Kamehameha after he first distinguished himself as a warrior in a battles between Maui and Hawaiʻi island in 1775–1779.
Paiʻea is said to have had a dour disposition, and acquired the name he is best known for today: Ka mehameha, from the Hawaiian language for "the lonely one"
When Alapaʻi died, his position was succeeded by his son Keaweaʻopala. Kalaniʻōpuʻu, Alapaʻi's great-nephew, challenged his rule, and was backed by his nephew Kamehameha. In fierce fighting at Kealakekua Bay, Keaweaʻopala was slain and Kalaniʻōpuʻu claimed victory. For his loyal service to his uncle, Kamehameha was made Kalaniʻōpuʻu's aide.
In 1779, Kamehameha again traveled with Kalaniʻōpuʻu to Kealakekua Bay. This time he, among other young chiefs accompanying their senior chief, met with Captain James Cook. Cook was perhaps mistaken by some Native Hawaiians to be Lono, the Hawaiian god of fertility. Cook's ship was the HMS Discovery; Kamehameha may have stayed on board at least one night. It was Kamehameha's first contact with non-Hawaiians.
Raised in the royal court of his uncle Kalaniʻōpuʻ, Kamehameha achieved prominence in 1782, upon Kalaniʻōpuʻu's death. While the kingship was inherited by Kalaniʻōpuʻu's son Kiwalaʻo, Kamehameha was given a prominent religious position, guardianship of the Hawaiian god of war, Kūkaʻilimoku, as well as the district of Waipiʻo valley. There was already bad blood between the two cousins, caused when Kamehameha presented a slain aliʻi's body to the gods instead of to Kiwalaʻo. When a group of chiefs from the Kona district offered to back Kamehameha against of Kiwalaʻo, he accepted eagerly. The five Kona chiefs supporting Kamehameha were: Keʻeaumoku Pāpaʻiahiahi (Kamehameha's father-in-law), Keaweaheulu Kaluaʻapana (Kamehameha's uncle), Kekūhaupiʻo (Kamehameha's warrior teacher), Kameʻeiamoku and Kamanawa (twin uncles of Kamehameha). Kiwalaʻo was soon defeated in the battle of Mokuʻohai, and Kamehameha took control of the districts of Kohala, Kona, and Hamakua on the island of Hawaiʻi.
Kamehameha then moved against the district of Puna in 1790 deposing Chief Keawemaʻuhili. Keōua Kuahuʻula, exiled to his home in Kaʻū, took advantage of Kamehameha's absence and led an uprising. When Kamehameha returned with his army to put down the rebellion, Keōua fled past the Kilauea volcano, which erupted and killed nearly a third of his warriors from poisonous gas.[5]
Questioning a kahuna on how best to go about securing the rest of the island, Kamehameha resolved to construct a temple (heiau) to Kūkaʻilimoku, as well as lay an aliʻi's body on it.
When the Puʻukoholā Heiau was completed in 1791, Kamehameha invited Keōua to meet with him. Keōua may have been dispirited by his recent losses. He may have mutilated himself before landing so as to make himself an imperfect sacrificial victim. As he stepped on shore, one of Kamehameha's chiefs threw a spear at him. By some accounts he dodged it, but was then cut down by musket fire. Caught by surprise, Keōua's bodyguards were killed. With Keōua dead, and his supporters captured or slain, Kamehameha became King of all Hawaiʻi island.
Kamehameha lifted the Naha Stone at age 14, and was the only person to ever lift it. The legend that goes with this particular stone is that the man who lifted it was the legendary warrior who would unite all of the islands. The prophecy was meant to be with Kamehameha. The Naha Stone now rests in front of the Hilo Public Library on the island of Hawaiʻi.
Kamehameha's dreams included far more than the island of Hawaiʻi; with the council of his favorite wife Kaʻahumanu, who became one of Hawaiʻi's most powerful figures, he set about planning to conquer the rest of the Hawaiian Islands. Help came from British and American traders, who sold guns and ammunition to Kamehameha. Two westerners who lived on Hawaiʻi island, Isaac Davis and John Young, became advisors of Kamehameha and trained his troops in the use of firearms.
With his new weapons, Kamehameha felt confident enough to move on the neighboring islands of Maui and Oʻahu, already weakened by a war of succession that had broken out between King Kahekili II's son and brother. Kamehameha may or may not have known that his rival, King Kalanikupule, also possessed firearms, and was planning a move against him when the aliʻi nui of Hawaiʻi invaded those islands.
In 1795, Kamehameha set sail with an armada of 1,200 war canoes and 10,000 soldiers. He quickly secured the lightly defended islands of Maui and Molokaʻi at the Battle of Kawela. The army moved on the island of Oʻahu, landing his troops at Waiʻalae and Waikīkī. What Kamehameha did not know was that one of his commanders, a high-ranking aliʻi named Kaʻiana, had defected to Kalanikupule. Kaʻiana assisted in the cutting of notches into the Nuʻuanu Pali mountain ridge; these notches, like those on a castle turret, would serve as gunports for Kalanikupule's cannon.
In a series of skirmishes, Kamehameha's forces were able to push back Kalanikupule's until he was cornered on the Pali Lookout. While Kamehameha moved on the Pali, his troops took heavy fire from the cannon. In desperation, he assigned two divisions of his best warriors to climb to the Pali to attack the cannons from behind; they surprised Kalanikupule's gunners and took control of the weapons. With the loss of their guns, Kalanikupule's troops fell into disarray and were cornered by Kamehameha's still organized troops. A fierce battle ensued, with Kamehameha's forces forming an enclosing wall and by using their traditional Hawaiʻian spears, muskets and cannon, were able to kill Kalanikupule's forces to the man. Over 400 men were forced off the Pali's cliff, a drop of 1,000 feet. Kaʻiana was killed during the action; Kalanikupule was captured some time later and sacrificed to Kūkaʻilimoku.
Kamehameha was now ruler of all of all islands from Oʻahu to the east, but the western islands of Kauaʻi and Niʻihau continued to elude him. Using Honolulu as a base, he had a forty-ton ship built. When he attempted to invade the western islands in 1796, Kaʻiana's brother Namakeha led a rebellion on Hawaiʻi island against his rule, and Kamehameha was forced to return and put down the insurrection.
In 1803 he tried again, but this time, disease broke out among his warriors; Kamehameha himself fell ill, though he later recovered. During this time, Kamehameha was amassing the largest armada Hawaiʻi had ever seen - foreign-built schooners and massive war canoes, armed with cannon and carrying his vast army. Kaumualiʻi, aliʻi nui of Kauaʻi, watched as Kamehameha built up his invading force and decided he would have a better chance in negotiation than battle. He may also have been influenced by foreign merchants, who saw the continuing feud between Kamehameha and Kaumualiʻi as bad for the sandalwood trade.
In 1810, Kaumualiʻi became a vassal of Kamehameha, who therefore emerged as the sole sovereign of the unified Hawaiian islands.
As king, Kamehameha took several steps to ensure that the islands remained a united realm even after his death. He unified the legal system and he used the products he collected in taxes to promote trade with Europe and the United States. Kamehameha did not allow non-Hawaiians to own land; they would not be able to until the Great Mahele of 1848. This edict ensured the islands' independence even while many of the other islands of the Pacific succumbed to the colonial powers.
In fact, the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi that Kamehameha established retained its independence, except for a five-month British occupation in 1843, until it was annexed by the United States in 1898. It was this legacy that earned Kamehameha the epithet "Napoleon of the Pacific.".
Kamehameha also instituted the Mamalahoe Kanawai, the Law of the Splintered Paddle. Its origins derived from before the unification of the Island of Hawaiʻi, in 1782, when Kamehameha, during a raid, caught his foot in a rock. Two local fisherman, fearful of the great warrior, hit Kamehameha hard on the head with a large paddle, which actually broke the paddle. Kamehameha was stunned and left for dead, allowing the fisherman and his companion to escape. Twelve years later, the same fisherman was brought before Kamehameha for punishment. King Kamehameha instead blamed himself for attacking innocent people, gave the fisherman gifts of land and set them free. He declared the new law, "Let every elderly person, woman and child lie by the roadside in safety". This law, which provided for the safety of noncombatants in wartime, is estimated to have saved thousands of lives during Kamehameha's campaigns. It became the first written law of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi, was included in the state constitution, and has influenced many subsequent humanitarian laws of war.
Although he ended human sacrifice, Kamehameha was to the last a follower of the Hawaiian religion and Hawaiian traditions (such as Lua). He believed so strongly in his religion and culture that he would execute his subjects for breaches of the strict rules called kapu. Although he entertained Christians, he did not appear to take them seriously.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamehameha_I
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_Creative_Commons_...
No rest for the weary, they say, and I have to admit (whoever "they" is) they might be right. Despite making a concerted effort to get more sleep these days, my attempts to get a good night's sleep have been thwarted by my very own dreams. I'm having trouble recalling the last time my nocturnal escapades didn't include some kind of work, whether I'm managing a restaurant , waiting tables, working retail or even taking college classes again. Regardless of the job, the situation is typically hopeless, the setting in complete disarray. Par example: if I'm waiting tables, it's inevitably in a vast and multi-roomed restaurant where everything continually changes, I often lose my tables, and I rarely ever get beyond fetching the first table's drinks before my section is completely out of control, I've been quadruple sat and all hope is lost.
Last night was slightly different in that I was actually attending a party. In fact, I was getting a bit sloshed on white wine (wtf?) when I realized that (shocker), all the party goers were my employees and the hostess was my event coordinator. Figures.
At any rate, at this point I'm considering learning how to hypnotize myself in and train my subconscious to dream of nothing but vacations :)
The Books of Knowledge(at the House of Knowledge) include the complete sets of the "popular"Books of Knowledge and Popular Science,as well as the Encyclopedia Americana.Strangely,with all the disarray and vandalism throughout the rest of the house,these are basically untouched.I guess vandals aren't interested in improving their 1970's knowledge...
Urquhart Castle;( Scottish Gaelic: Caisteal na Sròine) sits beside Loch Ness in the Highlands of Scotland. The castle is on the A82 road, 21 kilometres (13 mi) south-west of Inverness and 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) east of the village of Drumnadrochit.
The present ruins date from the 13th to the 16th centuries, though built on the site of an early medieval fortification. Founded in the 13th century, Urquhart played a role in the Wars of Scottish Independence in the 14th century. It was subsequently held as a royal castle, and was raided on several occasions by the MacDonald Earls of Ross. The castle was granted to the Clan Grant in 1509, though conflict with the MacDonalds continued. Despite a series of further raids the castle was strengthened, only to be largely abandoned by the middle of the 17th century. Urquhart was partially destroyed in 1692 to prevent its use by Jacobite forces, and subsequently decayed. In the 20th century it was placed in state care and opened to the public: it is now one of the most-visited castles in Scotland.
The castle, situated on a headland overlooking Loch Ness, is one of the largest in Scotland in area.[2] It was approached from the west and defended by a ditch and drawbridge. The buildings of the castle were laid out around two main enclosures on the shore. The northern enclosure or Nether Bailey includes most of the more intact structures, including the gatehouse, and the five-storey Grant Tower at the north end of the castle. The southern enclosure or Upper Bailey, sited on higher ground, comprises the scant remains of earlier buildings.
History
Early Middle Ages
The name Urquhart derives from the 7th-century form Airdchartdan, itself a mix of Gaelic air (by) and Old Welsh cardden (thicket or wood). Pieces of vitrified stone, subjected to intense heat and characteristic of early medieval fortification, had been discovered at Urquhart from the early 20th century.Speculation that Urquhart may have been the fortress of Bridei son of Maelchon, king of the northern Picts, led Professor Leslie Alcock to undertake excavations in 1983. Adomnán's Life of Columba records that St. Columba visited Bridei some time between 562 and 586, though little geographical detail is given. Adomnán also relates that during the visit, Columba converted a Pictish nobleman named Emchath, who was on his deathbed, his son Virolec, and their household, at a place called Airdchartdan. The excavations, supported by radiocarbon dating, indicated that the rocky knoll at the south-west corner of the castle had been the site of an extensive fort between the 5th and 11th centuries. The findings led Professor Alcock to conclude that Urquhart is most likely to have been the site of Emchath's residence, rather than that of Bridei who is more likely to have been based at Inverness, either at the site of the castle or at Craig Phadrig to the west.
The early castle
Some sources state that William the Lion had a royal castle at Urquhart in the 12th century, though Professor Alcock finds no evidence for this.[12] In the 12th and 13th centuries, the Meic Uilleim (MacWilliams), descendents of Malcolm III, staged a series of rebellions against David I and his successors. The last of these rebellions was put down in 1229, and to maintain order Alexander II granted Urquhart to his Hostarius (usher or door-ward), Thomas de Lundin. On de Lundin's death a few years later it passed to his son Alan Durward. It is considered likely that the original castle was built soon after this time, centred on the motte at the south-west of the site.In 1275, after Alan's death, the king granted Urquhart to John II Comyn, Lord of Badenoch.
The first documentary record of Urquhart Castle occurs in 1296, when it was captured by Edward I of England. Edward's invasion marked the beginning of the Wars of Scottish Independence, which would go on intermittently until 1357. Edward appointed Sir William fitz Warin as constable to hold the castle for the English. In 1297 he was ambushed by Sir Andrew de Moray while returning from Inverness, and Moray subsequently laid siege to the castle, launching an unsuccessful night attack. The English must have been dislodged soon after, since in 1298 Urquhart was again controlled by the Scots. In 1303 Sir Alexander de Forbes failed to hold off another English assault. This time Edward installed as governor Alexander Comyn, brother of John, as the family had sided with the English against Robert Bruce. Following his murder of the Red Comyn in 1306, Bruce completed his defeat of the Comyns when he marched through the Great Glen in 1307, taking the castles of Inverlochy, Urquhart and Inverness. After this time Urquhart became a royal castle, held for the crown by a series of constables.
The remains of the 13th-century "shell keep" or motte is the earliest part of the castle to survive
Sir Robert Lauder of Quarrelwood was constable of Urquhart Castle in 1329. After fighting at the Battle of Halidon Hill in 1333, where the Scots were defeated, Lauder returned to hold Urquhart against another threatened English invasion. It is recorded as being one of only five castles in Scotland held by the Scots at this time.[nb 1] In 1342, David II spent the summer hunting at Urquhart, the only king to have stayed here.
Over the next two hundred years, the Great Glen was raided frequently by the MacDonald Lords of the Isles, powerful rulers of a semi-independent kingdom in western Scotland, with a claim to the earldom of Ross. In 1395, Domhnall of Islay seized Urquhart Castle from the crown, and managed to retain it for more than 15 years. In 1411, he marched through the glen to take on the king's supporters at the Battle of Harlaw. Although an indecisive battle, Domhnall subsequently lost the initiative and the crown was soon back in control of Urquhart. In 1437 Domhnall's son Alexander, now Earl of Ross, raided around Glen Urquhart but could not take the castle. Royal funds were granted to shore up the castle's defences. Alexander's son John succeeded his father in 1449, aged 16. In 1452 he too led a raid up the Great Glen, seizing Urquhart, and subsequently obtained a grant of the lands and castle of Urquhart for life. However, in 1462 John made an agreement with Edward IV of England against the Scottish King James III. When this became known to James in 1476, John was stripped of his titles, and Urquhart was turned over to an ally, the Earl of Huntly.
The Grants
The Grant Tower viewed from Loch Ness
Huntly brought in Sir Duncan Grant of Freuchie to restore order to the area around Urquhart Castle. His son John Grant of Freuchie (d.1538) was given a five-year lease of the Glen Urquhart estate in 1502. In 1509, Urquhart Castle, along with the estates of Glen Urquhart and Glenmoriston, was granted by James IV to John Grant in perpetuity, on condition that he repair and rebuild the castle.[20] The Grants maintained their ownership of the castle until 1912, although the raids from the west continued. In 1513, following the disaster of Flodden, Sir Donald MacDonald of Lochalsh attempted to gain from the disarray in Scotland by claiming the Lordship of the Isles and occupying Urquhart Castle. Grant regained the castle before 1517, but not before the MacDonalds had driven off 300 cattle and 1,000 sheep, as well as looting the castle of provisions. Grant unsuccessfully attempted to claim damages from MacDonald. James Grant of Freuchie (d.1553) succeeded his father, and in 1544 became involved with Huntly and Clan Fraser in a feud with the Macdonalds of Clanranald, which culminated in the Battle of the Shirts. In retaliation, the MacDonalds and their allies the Camerons attacked and captured Urquhart in 1545. Known as the "Great Raid", this time the MacDonalds succeeded in taking 2,000 cattle, as well as hundreds of other animals, and stripped the castle of its furniture, cannon, and even the gates. Grant regained the castle, and was also awarded Cameron lands as recompense.
The Great Raid proved to be the last raid. In 1527, the historian Hector Boece wrote of the "rewinous wallis" of Urquhart,[21] but by the close of the 16th century Urquhart had been rebuilt by the Grants, now a powerful force in the Highlands. Repairs and remodelling continued as late as 1623, although the castle was no longer a favoured residence. In 1644 a mob of Covenanters (Presbyterian agitators) broke into the castle when Lady Mary Grant was staying, robbing her and turning her out for her adherence to Episcopalianism. An inventory taken in 1647 shows the castle virtually empty.[25] When Oliver Cromwell invaded Scotland in 1650, he disregarded Urquhart in favour of building forts at either end of the Great Glen.
Broken masonry from the destruction of the gatehouse
When James VII was deposed in the Revolution of 1688, Ludovic Grant of Freuchie sided with William of Orange and garrisoned the castle with 200 of his own soldiers. Though lacking weapons they were well-provisioned and, when a force of 500 Jacobites (supporters of the exiled James) laid siege, the garrison were able to hold out until after the defeat of the main Jacobite force at Cromdale in May 1690. When the soldiers finally left they blew up the gatehouse to prevent reoccupation of the castle by the Jacobites. Large blocks of collapsed masonry are still visible beside the remains of the gatehouse. Parliament ordered £2,000 compensation to be paid to Grant, but no repairs were undertaken.Subsequent plundering of the stonework and other materials for re-use by locals further reduced the ruins, and the Grant Tower partially collapsed following a storm in 1715.
Later history
By the 1770s the castle was roofless, and was regarded as a romantic ruin by 19th-century painters and visitors to the Highlands.In 1884 the castle came under the control of Caroline, Dowager Countess of Seafield, widow of the 7th Earl of Seafield, on the death of her son the 8th Earl. On Lady Seafield's death in 1911 her will instructed that Urquhart Castle be entrusted into state care, and in October 1913 responsibility for the castle's upkeep was transferred to the Commissioners of His Majesty's Works and Public Buildings. Historic Scotland, the successor to the Office of Works, continues to maintain the castle, which is a category A listed building and a scheduled monument in recognition of its national significance.
In 1994 Historic Scotland proposed construction of a new visitor centre and car park to alleviate the problems of parking on the main A82 road. Strong local opposition led to a public inquiry, which approved the proposals in 1998 .The new building is sunk into the embankment below the road, with provision for parking on the roof of the structure.The visitor centre includes a display on the history of the site, including a series of replicas from the medieval period; a cinema; a restaurant; and shop. The castle is open all year, and can also host wedding ceremonies.[33] In 2011 more than 315,000 people visited Urquhart Castle, making it Historic Scotland's third most visited site after the castles of Edinburgh and Stirling.
Urquhart Castle is sited on Strone Point, a triangular promontory on the north-western shore of Loch Ness, and commands the route along this side of the Great Glen as well as the entrance to Glen Urquhart. The castle is quite close to water level, though there are low cliffs along the north-east sides of the promontory. There is considerable room for muster on the inland side, where a "castle-toun" of service buildings would originally have stood, as well as gardens and orchards in the 17th century.[2] Beyond this area the ground rises steeply to the north-west, up to the visitor centre and the A82. A dry moat, 30 metres (98 ft) across at its widest, defends the landward approach, possibly excavated in the early Middle Ages. A stone-built causeway provides access, with a drawbridge formerly crossing the gap at the centre. The castle side of the causeway was formerly walled-in, forming an enclosed space similar to a barbican .
Urquhart is one of the largest castles in Scotland in area The walled portion of the castle is shaped roughly like a figure-8 aligned northeast-southwest along the bank of the loch, around 150 by 46 metres (492 by 151 ft), forming two baileys (enclosures): the Nether Bailey to the north, and the Upper Bailey to the south.[nb 2] The curtain walls of both enclosures date largely to the 14th century, though much augmented by later building, particularly to the north where most of the remaining structures are located.
Nether Bailey
The remains of the gatehouse
The 16th-century gatehouse is on the inland side of the Nether Bailey, and comprises twin D-plan towers flanking an arched entrance passage. Formerly the passage was defended by a portcullis and a double set of doors, with guard rooms either side. Over the entrance are a series of rooms which may have served as accommodation for the castle's keeper. Collapsed masonry surrounds the gatehouse, dating from its destruction after 1690.
The Nether Bailey, the main focus of activity in the castle since around 1400,[36] is anchored at its northern tip by the Grant Tower, the main tower house or keep. The tower measures 12 by 11 metres (39 by 36 ft), and has walls up to 3 metres (9.8 ft) thick. The tower rests on 14th-century foundations, but is largely the result of 16th-century rebuilding Originally of five storeys, it remains the tallest portion of the castle despite the southern wall collapsing in a storm in the early 18th century. The standing parts of the parapet, remodelled in the 1620s, show that the corners of the tower were topped by corbelled bartizans (turrets). ] Above the main door on the west, and the postern to the east, are machicolations, narrow slots through which objects could be dropped on attackers. The western door is also protected by its own ditch and drawbridge, accessed from a cobbled "Inner Close" separated from the main bailey by a gate. The surviving interior sections can still be accessed via the circular staircase built into the east wall of the tower. The interior would have comprised a hall on the first floor, with rooms on another two floors above, and attic chambers in the turrets. Rooms on the main floors have large 16th-century windows, though with small pistol-holes below to allow for defence.
To the south of the tower is a range of buildings built against the thick, buttressed, 14th-century curtain wall. The great hall occupied the central part of this range, with the lord's private apartments of great chamber and solar in the block to the north, and kitchens to the south. The foundations of a rectangular building stand on a rocky mound within the Nether Bailey, tentatively identified as a chapel.
Upper Bailey
The Upper Bailey is focused on the rocky mound at the south-west corner of the castle. The highest part of the headland, this mound is the site of the earliest defences at Urquhart. Vitrified material, characteristic of early medieval fortification, was discovered on the slopes of the mound, indicating the site of the early medieval fortification identified by Professor Alcock. In the 13th century, the mound became the motte of the original castle built by the Durwards, and the surviving walls represent a "shell keep" (a hollow enclosure) of this date. These ruins are fragmentary, but indicate that there were towers to the north and south of the shell keep.
A 16th-century water gate in the eastern wall of the Upper Bailey gives access to the shore of the loch.The adjacent buildings may have housed the stables. To the south of this, opposite the motte, is the base of a doocot (pigeon house) and the scant remains of 13th-century buildings, possibly once a great hall but more recently re-used as a smithy.
My tactile production of James Clavell's epic, stately novel, Shogun, is a detailed study in femme fatale disarray with lavish accents of theatrical pageantry thrown in for good measure.
This layered and tattered concoction features a most aesthetic sterling cast of Bollywood Brocade, Italian Dupioni Silk, extensive Hand-Embroidery and decadent trims of Victorian Copper Steel Beads.
Slither this over your ensemble to parade the sexiest silhouette ever.
THE BEAUTIFUL LADY MARIKO is easily adjustable to wrap around waists measuring 27" to approximately 32.5". In addition, should you prefer an expanded waistline, I can increase the length of the ribbon ties in the middle :)
All fabrics and findings used in Sheela Goh Couture designs (unless indicated otherwise) are antique and over 100 years old. In fact, some bits are authentic Edwardian and Victorian. Seriously. So please, do wear her with care and respect.
OOAK.
Dry Clean only please.
Stitched entirely by hand, with needle and thread.
©2009 Sheela Goh (that means absolutely NO copying of my work or my style of writing, thanks very much).
Pure moonlight isn't so different from sun, just paler and bluer, cast in strange and ghostly shades. There's no spark of artificial shine, no streetlights on this stretch of road – just a distant whisper from some far-off sparks across the Bay of Fundy, twinkling through the big blue blackness. Moonlight swallows colour, and even here at the peak of summer, only a little brown, green, and yellow survives. Hay bales scattered in their sleepy disarray, waited to be carried away. First crop of summer, there'll be another in August, and maybe a third if it's a lucky season. This is the place I come most often on any clear night. Standing where it's eerily windless, mostly cloudless and unusually warm, with a sense of thunderstorms coming up the coast. Out of reach for now. Stayed up late into the early morning, evening dreaming.
July 14, 2022
St. Croix Cove, Nova Scotia
facebook | instagram | tumblr | youtube | etsy
You can support my work
get things in the mail
and see everything
first on Patreon
Colby has returned to the campfire, & Marianne is now coming out of the tent, her hair a bit disarrayed!
Lisa: It's starting to get a bit chilly now."
Chris: "I'll go grab our sweatshirts."
Hyun Wook: I think I'll do the same. How about you Honey, You want an extra coat?"
Honey: "No Thankyou Sweetie, I'm fine as I am now, & the fire is warm enough."
Marianne: "Hey you guys .... I'm starving! Why don't we do smores now?!"
Bryggen is best known for its waterfront facade, but I find the back also very interesting with its disarray of colours and lines (see another picture of mine).
Bryggen is the hanseatic settlement in Bergen, Norway. Imagine the two thousand male unmarried German traders living here amongst their stock of stockfish and fish oil. No mingling with the Norwegian population was (officially) allowed, this included women. Needless to say it was a rough bunch; 14 or 15-year old recruits arriving from Germany had to endure initiation rites that included getting repeatedly dunked naked into the frigid harbor, flogged with birch switches, and hung in the smoke of a fire stoked with various pungent debris. These rites were a part of the so-called "Bergen Games"...
Bryggen (Norwegian, "The Wharf"), also known as Tyskebryggen ("the German Wharf") is a series of Hanseatic commercial buildings lining the eastern side of Vågen, the fjord coming into Bergen, Norway. These storage houses annex offices and living quarters were rebuild in 1702 after a major fire, but the architecture dates from the High Middle Ages (11 to 13th century). The main trade was dried cod from Northern Norway in return for cereals from mainland Europe.
Bryggen was entered on Unesco's World Heritage listing in 1979.
[modified after Wikipedia]
Enjoy it better large and on black.
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov[b] (22 April [O.S. 10 April] 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until his death in 1924, and of the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1924. Under his administration, Russia, and later the Soviet Union, became a one-party socialist state governed by the Communist Party. Ideologically a Marxist, his developments to the ideology are called Leninism.
Born to a schoolteacher's family in Simbirsk, Lenin embraced revolutionary socialist politics following his brother's 1887 execution. Expelled from Kazan Imperial University for participating in protests against the Tsarist government, he devoted the following years to a law degree. He relocated to Saint Petersburg in 1893 where he became a senior Marxist activist. In 1897, he was arrested for sedition and exiled to Shushenskoye in Siberia for three years, where he married Nadezhda Krupskaya. After his exile, he moved to Western Europe, where he became a prominent theorist in the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP). In 1903, he took a key role in the RSDLP ideological split, leading the Bolshevik faction against Julius Martov's Mensheviks. Following Russia's failed Revolution of 1905, he initially campaigned for the First World War to be transformed into a Europe-wide proletarian revolution, which, as a Marxist, he believed would cause the overthrow of capitalism and the rise of socialism. After the 1917 February Revolution ousted the Tsar and established a Provisional Government, he returned to Russia and played a leading role in the October Revolution, in which the Bolsheviks overthrew the new government.
Lenin's Bolshevik government initially shared power with the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, elected soviets, and a multi-party Constituent Assembly, although by 1918 it had centralised power in the new Communist Party. Lenin's administration redistributed land among the peasantry and nationalised banks and large-scale industry. It withdrew from the First World War by signing a treaty conceding territory to the Central Powers, and promoted world revolution through the Communist International. Opponents were suppressed in the Red Terror, a violent campaign administered by the state security services; tens of thousands were killed or interned in concentration camps. His administration defeated right and left-wing anti-Bolshevik armies in the Russian Civil War from 1917 to 1922 and oversaw the Polish–Soviet War of 1919–1921. Responding to wartime devastation, famine, and popular uprisings, in 1921 Lenin encouraged economic growth through the New Economic Policy. Several non-Russian nations had secured independence from Russia after 1917, but five were forcibly re-united into the new Soviet Union in 1922, while others repelled Soviet invasions. His health failing, Lenin died in Gorki, with Joseph Stalin succeeding him as the pre-eminent figure in the Soviet government.
Widely considered one of the most significant and influential figures of the 20th century, Lenin was the posthumous subject of a pervasive personality cult within the Soviet Union until its dissolution in 1991. He became an ideological figurehead behind Marxism–Leninism and a prominent influence over the international communist movement. A controversial and highly divisive historical figure, Lenin is viewed by his supporters as a champion of socialism, communism, anti-imperialism and the working class, while his critics accuse him of establishing a totalitarian dictatorship that oversaw mass killings and political repression of dissidents.
University and political radicalisation: 1887–1893
Upon entering Kazan University in August 1887, Lenin moved into a nearby flat. There, he joined a zemlyachestvo, a form of university society that represented the men of a particular region. This group elected him as its representative to the university's zemlyachestvo council, and he took part in a December demonstration against government restrictions that banned student societies. The police arrested Lenin and accused him of being a ringleader in the demonstration; he was expelled from the university, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs exiled him to his family's Kokushkino estate. There, he read voraciously, becoming enamoured with Nikolay Chernyshevsky's 1863 pro-revolutionary novel What Is to Be Done?
Lenin's mother was concerned by her son's radicalisation, and was instrumental in convincing the Interior Ministry to allow him to return to the city of Kazan, but not the university. On his return, he joined Nikolai Fedoseev's revolutionary circle, through which he discovered Karl Marx's 1867 book Capital. This sparked his interest in Marxism, a socio-political theory that argued that society developed in stages, that this development resulted from class struggle, and that capitalist society would ultimately give way to socialist society and then communist society. Wary of his political views, Lenin's mother bought a country estate in Alakaevka village, Samara Oblast, in the hope that her son would turn his attention to agriculture. He had little interest in farm management, and his mother soon sold the land, keeping the house as a summer home.
In September 1889, the Ulyanov family moved to the city of Samara, where Lenin joined Alexei Sklyarenko's socialist discussion circle. There, Lenin fully embraced Marxism and produced a Russian language translation of Marx and Friedrich Engels's 1848 political pamphlet, The Communist Manifesto. He began to read the works of the Russian Marxist Georgi Plekhanov, agreeing with Plekhanov's argument that Russia was moving from feudalism to capitalism and so socialism would be implemented by the proletariat, or urban working class, rather than the peasantry. This Marxist perspective contrasted with the view of the agrarian-socialist Narodnik movement, which held that the peasantry could establish socialism in Russia by forming peasant communes, thereby bypassing capitalism. This Narodnik view developed in the 1860s with the People's Freedom Party and was then dominant within the Russian revolutionary movement. Lenin rejected the premise of the agrarian-socialist argument but was influenced by agrarian-socialists like Pyotr Tkachev and Sergei Nechaev and befriended several Narodniks.
In May 1890, Maria, who retained societal influence as the widow of a nobleman, persuaded the authorities to allow Lenin to take his exams externally at the University of St Petersburg, where he obtained the equivalent of a first-class degree with honours. The graduation celebrations were marred when his sister Olga died of typhoid. Lenin remained in Samara for several years, working first as a legal assistant for a regional court and then for a local lawyer. He devoted much time to radical politics, remaining active in Sklyarenko's group and formulating ideas about how Marxism applied to Russia. Inspired by Plekhanov's work, Lenin collected data on Russian society, using it to support a Marxist interpretation of societal development and counter the claims of the Narodniks. He wrote a paper on peasant economics; it was rejected by the liberal journal Russian Thought.
Revolutionary activity
Early activism and imprisonment: 1893–1900
In late 1893, Lenin moved to Saint Petersburg. There, he worked as a barrister's assistant and rose to a senior position in a Marxist revolutionary cell that called itself the Social-Democrats after the Marxist Social Democratic Party of Germany. Championing Marxism within the socialist movement, he encouraged the founding of revolutionary cells in Russia's industrial centres. By late 1894, he was leading a Marxist workers' circle, and meticulously covered his tracks to evade police spies. He began a romantic relationship with Nadezhda "Nadya" Krupskaya, a Marxist schoolteacher. He also authored a political tract criticising the Narodnik agrarian-socialists, What the "Friends of the People" Are and How They Fight the Social-Democrats; around 200 copies were illegally printed in 1894.
Hoping to cement connections between his Social-Democrats and Emancipation of Labour, a group of Russian Marxists based in Switzerland, Lenin visited the country to meet group members Plekhanov and Pavel Axelrod. He proceeded to Paris to meet Marx's son-in-law Paul Lafargue and to research the Paris Commune of 1871, which he considered an early prototype for a proletarian government. Financed by his mother, he stayed in a Swiss health spa before travelling to Berlin, where he studied for six weeks at the Staatsbibliothek and met the Marxist Wilhelm Liebknecht. Returning to Russia with a stash of illegal revolutionary publications, he travelled to various cities distributing literature to striking workers. While involved in producing a news sheet, Rabochee delo (Workers' Cause), he was among 40 activists arrested in St. Petersburg and charged with sedition.
Refused legal representation or bail, Lenin denied all charges against him but remained imprisoned for a year before sentencing. He spent this time theorising and writing. In this work he noted that the rise of industrial capitalism in Russia had caused large numbers of peasants to move to the cities, where they formed a proletariat. From his Marxist perspective, Lenin argued that this Russian proletariat would develop class consciousness, which would in turn lead them to violently overthrow tsarism, the aristocracy, and the bourgeoisie and to establish a proletariat state that would move toward socialism.
In February 1897, Lenin was sentenced without trial to three years' exile in eastern Siberia. He was granted a few days in Saint Petersburg to put his affairs in order and used this time to meet with the Social-Democrats, who had renamed themselves the League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class. His journey to eastern Siberia took 11 weeks, for much of which he was accompanied by his mother and sisters. Deemed only a minor threat to the government, he was exiled to Shushenskoye, Minusinsky District, where he was kept under police surveillance; he was nevertheless able to correspond with other revolutionaries, many of whom visited him, and permitted to go on trips to swim in the Yenisei River and to hunt duck and snipe.
In May 1898, Nadya joined him in exile, having been arrested in August 1896 for organising a strike. She was initially posted to Ufa, but persuaded the authorities to move her to Shushenskoye, where she and Lenin married on 10 July 1898. Settling into a family life with Nadya's mother Elizaveta Vasilyevna, in Shushenskoye the couple translated English socialist literature into Russian. There, Lenin wrote A Protest by Russian Social-Democrats to criticise German Marxist revisionists like Eduard Bernstein who advocated a peaceful, electoral path to socialism. He also finished The Development of Capitalism in Russia (1899), his longest book to date, which criticised the agrarian-socialists and promoted a Marxist analysis of Russian economic development. Published under the pseudonym of Vladimir Ilin, upon publication it received predominantly poor reviews.
Munich, London, and Geneva: 1900–1905
After his exile, Lenin settled in Pskov in early 1900. There, he began raising funds for a newspaper, Iskra (Spark), a new organ of the Russian Marxist party, now calling itself the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP). In July 1900, Lenin left Russia for Western Europe; in Switzerland he met other Russian Marxists, and at a Corsier conference they agreed to launch the paper from Munich, where Lenin relocated in September. Containing contributions from prominent European Marxists, Iskra was smuggled into Russia, becoming the country's most successful underground publication for 50 years. He first adopted the pseudonym Lenin in December 1901, possibly based on the Siberian River Lena; he often used the fuller pseudonym of N. Lenin, and while the N did not stand for anything, a popular misconception later arose that it represented Nikolai. Under this pseudonym, in 1902 he published his most influential publication to date, the pamphlet What Is to Be Done?, which outlined his thoughts on the need for a vanguard party to lead the proletariat to revolution.
Nadya joined Lenin in Munich and became his secretary. They continued their political agitation, as Lenin wrote for Iskra and drafted the RSDLP programme, attacking ideological dissenters and external critics, particularly the Socialist Revolutionary Party (SR),[ a Narodnik agrarian-socialist group founded in 1901. Despite remaining a Marxist, he accepted the Narodnik view on the revolutionary power of the Russian peasantry, accordingly, penning the 1903 pamphlet To the Village Poor. To evade Bavarian police, Lenin moved to London with Iskra in April 1902, where he befriended fellow Russian-Ukrainian Marxist Leon Trotsky. Lenin fell ill with erysipelas and was unable to take such a leading role on the Iskra editorial board; in his absence, the board moved its base of operations to Geneva.
The second RSDLP Congress was held in London in July 1903. At the conference, a schism emerged between Lenin's supporters and those of Julius Martov. Martov argued that party members should be able to express themselves independently of the party leadership; Lenin disagreed, emphasising the need for a strong leadership with complete control over the party. Lenin's supporters were in the majority, and he termed them the "majoritarians" (bol'sheviki in Russian; Bolsheviks); in response, Martov termed his followers the "minoritarians" (men'sheviki in Russian; Mensheviks). Arguments between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks continued after the conference; the Bolsheviks accused their rivals of being opportunists and reformists who lacked discipline, while the Mensheviks accused Lenin of being a despot and autocrat. Enraged at the Mensheviks, Lenin resigned from the Iskra editorial board and in May 1904 published the anti-Menshevik tract One Step Forward, Two Steps Back. The stress made Lenin ill, and to recuperate he holidayed in Switzerland. The Bolshevik faction grew in strength; by spring 1905, the whole RSDLP Central Committee was Bolshevik, and in December they founded the newspaper Vperyod (Forward).
Revolution of 1905 and its aftermath: 1905–1914
In January 1905, the Bloody Sunday massacre of protesters in St. Petersburg sparked a spate of civil unrest in the Russian Empire known as the Revolution of 1905. Lenin urged Bolsheviks to take a greater role in the events, encouraging violent insurrection. In doing so, he adopted SR slogans regarding "armed insurrection", "mass terror", and "the expropriation of gentry land", resulting in Menshevik accusations that he had deviated from orthodox Marxism. In turn, he insisted that the Bolsheviks split completely with the Mensheviks; many Bolsheviks refused, and both groups attended the Third RSDLP Congress, held in London in April 1905. Lenin presented many of his ideas in the pamphlet Two Tactics of Social Democracy in the Democratic Revolution, published in August 1905. Here, he predicted that Russia's liberal bourgeoisie would be sated by a transition to constitutional monarchy and thus betray the revolution; instead, he argued that the proletariat would have to build an alliance with the peasantry to overthrow the Tsarist regime and establish the "provisional revolutionary democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry."
The uprising has begun. Force against Force. Street fighting is raging, barricades are being thrown up, rifles are cracking, guns are booming. Rivers of blood are flowing, the civil war for freedom is blazing up. Moscow and the South, the Caucasus and Poland are ready to join the proletariat of St. Petersburg. The slogan of the workers has become: Death or Freedom!
In response to the revolution of 1905, which had failed to overthrow the government, Tsar Nicholas II accepted a series of liberal reforms in his October Manifesto. In this climate, Lenin felt it safe to return to St. Petersburg. Joining the editorial board of Novaya Zhizn (New Life), a radical legal newspaper run by Maria Andreyeva, he used it to discuss issues facing the RSDLP. He encouraged the party to seek out a much wider membership, and advocated the continual escalation of violent confrontation, believing both to be necessary for a successful revolution. Recognising that membership fees and donations from a few wealthy sympathisers were insufficient to finance the Bolsheviks' activities, Lenin endorsed the idea of robbing post offices, railway stations, trains, and banks. Under the lead of Leonid Krasin, a group of Bolsheviks began carrying out such criminal actions, the best-known taking place in June 1907, when a group of Bolsheviks acting under the leadership of Joseph Stalin committed an armed robbery of the State Bank in Tiflis, Georgia.
Although he briefly supported the idea of reconciliation between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks, Lenin's advocacy of violence and robbery was condemned by the Mensheviks at the Fourth RSDLP Congress, held in Stockholm in April 1906. Lenin was involved in setting up a Bolshevik Centre in Kuokkala, Grand Duchy of Finland, which was at the time an autonomous state within the Russian Empire, before the Bolsheviks regained dominance of the RSDLP at its Fifth Congress, held in London in May 1907. As the Tsarist government cracked down on opposition, both by disbanding Russia's legislative assembly, the Second Duma, and by ordering its secret police, the Okhrana, to arrest revolutionaries, Lenin fled Finland for Switzerland. There, he tried to exchange those banknotes stolen in Tiflis that had identifiable serial numbers on them.
Alexander Bogdanov and other prominent Bolsheviks decided to relocate the Bolshevik Centre to Paris; although Lenin disagreed, he moved to the city in December 1908. Lenin disliked Paris, lambasting it as "a foul hole", and while there he sued a motorist who knocked him off his bike. Lenin became very critical of Bogdanov's view that Russia's proletariat had to develop a socialist culture in order to become a successful revolutionary vehicle. Instead, Lenin favoured a vanguard of socialist intelligentsia who would lead the working-classes in revolution. Furthermore, Bogdanov, influenced by Ernest Mach, believed that all concepts of the world were relative, whereas Lenin stuck to the orthodox Marxist view that there was an objective reality independent of human observation. Bogdanov and Lenin holidayed together at Maxim Gorky's villa in Capri in April 1908 on returning to Paris, Lenin encouraged a split within the Bolshevik faction between his and Bogdanov's followers, accusing the latter of deviating from Marxism.
In May 1908, Lenin lived briefly in London, where he used the British Museum Reading Room to write Materialism and Empirio-criticism, an attack on what he described as the "bourgeois-reactionary falsehood" of Bogdanov's relativism. Lenin's factionalism began to alienate increasing numbers of Bolsheviks, including his former close supporters Alexei Rykov and Lev Kamenev. The Okhrana exploited his factionalist attitude by sending a spy, Roman Malinovsky, to act as a vocal Lenin supporter within the party. Various Bolsheviks expressed their suspicions about Malinovsky to Lenin, although it is unclear if the latter was aware of the spy's duplicity; it is possible that he used Malinovsky to feed false information to the Okhrana.
In August 1910, Lenin attended the Eighth Congress of the Second International, an international meeting of socialists, in Copenhagen as the RSDLP's representative, following this with a holiday in Stockholm with his mother. With his wife and sisters, he then moved to France, settling first in Bombon and then Paris. Here, he became a close friend to the French Bolshevik Inessa Armand; some biographers suggest that they had an extra-marital affair from 1910 to 1912. Meanwhile, at a Paris meeting in June 1911, the RSDLP Central Committee decided to move their focus of operations back to Russia, ordering the closure of the Bolshevik Centre and its newspaper, Proletari. Seeking to rebuild his influence in the party, Lenin arranged for a party conference to be held in Prague in January 1912, and although 16 of the 18 attendants were Bolsheviks, he was heavily criticised for his factionalist tendencies and failed to boost his status within the party.
Moving to Kraków in the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, a culturally Polish part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, he used Jagiellonian University's library to conduct research. He stayed in close contact with the RSDLP, which was operating in the Russian Empire, convincing the Duma's Bolshevik members to split from their parliamentary alliance with the Mensheviks. In January 1913, Stalin, whom Lenin referred to as the "wonderful Georgian", visited him, and they discussed the future of non-Russian ethnic groups in the Empire. Due to the ailing health of both Lenin and his wife, they moved to the rural town of Biały Dunajec, before heading to Bern for Nadya to have surgery on her goitre.
First World War: 1914–1917
The [First World] war is being waged for the division of colonies and the robbery of foreign territory; thieves have fallen out–and to refer to the defeats at a given moment of one of the thieves in order to identify the interests of all thieves with the interests of the nation or the fatherland is an unconscionable bourgeois lie.
Lenin was in Galicia when the First World War broke out. The war pitted the Russian Empire against the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and due to his Russian citizenship, Lenin was arrested and briefly imprisoned until his anti-Tsarist credentials were explained. Lenin and his wife returned to Bern, before relocating to Zürich in February 1916. Lenin was angry that the German Social-Democratic Party was supporting the German war effort, which was a direct contravention of the Second International's Stuttgart resolution that socialist parties would oppose the conflict and saw the Second International as defunct. He attended the Zimmerwald Conference in September 1915 and the Kienthal Conference in April 1916, urging socialists across the continent to convert the "imperialist war" into a continent-wide "civil war" with the proletariat pitted against the bourgeoisie and aristocracy. In July 1916, Lenin's mother died, but he was unable to attend her funeral. Her death deeply affected him, and he became depressed, fearing that he too would die before seeing the proletarian revolution.
In September 1917, Lenin published Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, which argued that imperialism was a product of monopoly capitalism, as capitalists sought to increase their profits by extending into new territories where wages were lower and raw materials cheaper. He believed that competition and conflict would increase and that war between the imperialist powers would continue until they were overthrown by proletariat revolution and socialism established. He spent much of this time reading the works of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Ludwig Feuerbach, and Aristotle, all of whom had been key influences on Marx. This changed Lenin's interpretation of Marxism; whereas he once believed that policies could be developed based on predetermined scientific principles, he concluded that the only test of whether a policy was correct was its practice. He still perceived himself as an orthodox Marxist, but he began to diverge from some of Marx's predictions about societal development; whereas Marx had believed that a "bourgeoisie-democratic revolution" of the middle-classes had to take place before a "socialist revolution" of the proletariat, Lenin believed that in Russia the proletariat could overthrow the Tsarist regime without an intermediate revolution.
February Revolution and the July Days: 1917
In February 1917, the February Revolution broke out in St. Petersburg, renamed Petrograd at the beginning of the First World War, as industrial workers went on strike over food shortages and deteriorating factory conditions. The unrest spread to other parts of Russia, and fearing that he would be violently overthrown, Tsar Nicholas II abdicated. The State Duma took over control of the country, establishing the Russian Provisional Government and converting the Empire into a new Russian Republic. When Lenin learned of this from his base in Switzerland, he celebrated with other dissidents. He decided to return to Russia to take charge of the Bolsheviks but found that most passages into the country were blocked due to the ongoing conflict. He organised a plan with other dissidents to negotiate a passage for them through Germany, with which Russia was then at war. Recognising that these dissidents could cause problems for their Russian enemies, the German government agreed to permit 32 Russian citizens to travel by train through their territory, among them Lenin and his wife. For political reasons, Lenin and the Germans agreed to a cover story that Lenin had travelled by sealed train carriage through German territory, but in fact the train was not truly sealed, and the passengers were allowed to disembark to, for example, spend the night in Frankfurt. The group travelled by train from Zürich to Sassnitz, proceeding by ferry to Trelleborg, Sweden, and from there to the Haparanda–Tornio border crossing and then to Helsinki before taking the final train to Petrograd in disguise.
Arriving at Petrograd's Finland Station in April, Lenin gave a speech to Bolshevik supporters condemning the Provisional Government and again calling for a continent-wide European proletarian revolution. Over the following days, he spoke at Bolshevik meetings, lambasting those who wanted reconciliation with the Mensheviks and revealing his "April Theses", an outline of his plans for the Bolsheviks, which he had written on the journey from Switzerland. He publicly condemned both the Mensheviks and the Social Revolutionaries, who dominated the influential Petrograd Soviet, for supporting the Provisional Government, denouncing them as traitors to socialism. Considering the government to be just as imperialist as the Tsarist regime, he advocated immediate peace with Germany and Austria-Hungary, rule by soviets, the nationalisation of industry and banks, and the state expropriation of land, all with the intention of establishing a proletariat government and pushing toward a socialist society. By contrast, the Mensheviks believed that Russia was insufficiently developed to transition to socialism and accused Lenin of trying to plunge the new Republic into civil war. Over the coming months Lenin campaigned for his policies, attending the meetings of the Bolshevik Central Committee, prolifically writing for the Bolshevik newspaper Pravda, and giving public speeches in Petrograd aimed at converting workers, soldiers, sailors, and peasants to his cause.
Sensing growing frustration among Bolshevik supporters, Lenin suggested an armed political demonstration in Petrograd to test the government's response. Amid deteriorating health, he left the city to recuperate in the Finnish village of Neivola. The Bolsheviks' armed demonstration, the July Days, took place while Lenin was away, but upon learning that demonstrators had violently clashed with government forces, he returned to Petrograd and called for calm. Responding to the violence, the government ordered the arrest of Lenin and other prominent Bolsheviks, raiding their offices, and publicly alleging that he was a German agent provocateur. Evading arrest, Lenin hid in a series of Petrograd safe houses. Fearing that he would be killed, Lenin and fellow senior Bolshevik Grigory Zinoviev escaped Petrograd in disguise, relocating to Razliv. There, Lenin began work on the book that became The State and Revolution, an exposition on how he believed the socialist state would develop after the proletariat revolution, and how from then on the state would gradually wither away, leaving a pure communist society. He began arguing for a Bolshevik-led armed insurrection to topple the government, but at a clandestine meeting of the party's central committee this idea was rejected. Lenin then headed by train and by foot to Finland, arriving at Helsinki on 10 August, where he hid away in safe houses belonging to Bolshevik sympathisers.
October Revolution: 1917
In August 1917, while Lenin was in Finland, General Lavr Kornilov, the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army, sent troops to Petrograd in what appeared to be a military coup attempt against the Provisional Government. Premier Alexander Kerensky turned to the Petrograd Soviet, including its Bolshevik members, for help, allowing the revolutionaries to organise workers as Red Guards to defend the city. The coup petered out before it reached Petrograd, but the events had allowed the Bolsheviks to return to the open political arena. Fearing a counter-revolution from right-wing forces hostile to socialism, the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries who dominated the Petrograd Soviet had been instrumental in pressuring the government to normalise relations with the Bolsheviks. Both the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries had lost much popular support because of their affiliation with the Provisional Government and its unpopular continuation of the war. The Bolsheviks capitalised on this, and soon the pro-Bolshevik Marxist Trotsky was elected leader of the Petrograd Soviet. In September, the Bolsheviks gained a majority in the workers' sections of both the Moscow and Petrograd Soviets.
Recognising that the situation was safer for him, Lenin returned to Petrograd. There he attended a meeting of the Bolshevik Central Committee on 10 October, where he again argued that the party should lead an armed insurrection to topple the Provisional Government. This time the argument won with ten votes against two. Critics of the plan, Zinoviev and Kamenev, argued that Russian workers would not support a violent coup against the regime and that there was no clear evidence for Lenin's assertion that all of Europe was on the verge of proletarian revolution. The party began plans to organise the offensive, holding a final meeting at the Smolny Institute on 24 October. This was the base of the Military Revolutionary Committee (MRC), an armed militia largely loyal to the Bolsheviks that had been established by the Petrograd Soviet during Kornilov's alleged coup.
In October, the MRC was ordered to take control of Petrograd's key transport, communication, printing and utilities hubs, and did so without bloodshed. Bolsheviks besieged the government in the Winter Palace and overcame it and arrested its ministers after the cruiser Aurora, controlled by Bolshevik seamen, fired a blank shot to signal the start of the revolution. During the insurrection, Lenin gave a speech to the Petrograd Soviet announcing that the Provisional Government had been overthrown. The Bolsheviks declared the formation of a new government, the Council of People's Commissars, or Sovnarkom. Lenin initially turned down the leading position of Chairman, suggesting Trotsky for the job, but other Bolsheviks insisted and ultimately Lenin relented. Lenin and other Bolsheviks then attended the Second Congress of Soviets on 26 and 27 October and announced the creation of the new government. Menshevik attendees condemned the illegitimate seizure of power and the risk of civil war. In these early days of the new regime, Lenin avoided talking in Marxist and socialist terms so as not to alienate Russia's population, and instead spoke about having a country controlled by the workers. Lenin and many other Bolsheviks expected proletariat revolution to sweep across Europe in days or months.
Lenin's government
Organising the Soviet government: 1917–1918
The Provisional Government had planned for a Constituent Assembly to be elected in November 1917; against Lenin's objections, Sovnarkom agreed for the vote to take place as scheduled. In the constitutional election, the Bolsheviks gained approximately a quarter of the vote, being defeated by the agrarian-focused Socialist-Revolutionaries. Lenin argued that the election was not a fair reflection of the people's will, that the electorate had not had time to learn the Bolsheviks' political programme, and that the candidacy lists had been drawn up before the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries split from the Socialist-Revolutionaries. Nevertheless, the newly elected Russian Constituent Assembly convened in Petrograd in January 1918. Sovnarkom argued that it was counter-revolutionary because it sought to remove power from the soviets, but the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks denied this. The Bolsheviks presented the Assembly with a motion that would strip it of most of its legal powers; when the Assembly rejected the motion, Sovnarkom declared this as evidence of its counter-revolutionary nature and forcibly disbanded it.
Lenin rejected repeated calls, including from some Bolsheviks, to establish a coalition government with other socialist parties. Although refusing a coalition with the Mensheviks or Socialist-Revolutionaries, Sovnarkom partially relented; they allowed the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries five posts in the cabinet in December 1917. This coalition only lasted four months until March 1918, when the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries pulled out of the government over a disagreement about the Bolsheviks' approach to ending the First World War. At their 7th Congress in March 1918, the Bolsheviks changed their official name from the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party to the Russian Communist Party, as Lenin wanted to both distance his group from the increasingly reformist German Social Democratic Party and to emphasise its ultimate goal, that of a communist society.
Although ultimate power officially rested with the country's government in the form of Sovnarkom and the Executive Committee (VTSIK) elected by the All-Russian Congress of Soviets (ARCS), the Communist Party was de facto in control in Russia, as acknowledged by its members at the time. By 1918, Sovnarkom began acting unilaterally, claiming a need for expediency, with the ARCS and VTSIK becoming increasingly marginalised, so the soviets no longer had a role in governing Russia. During 1918 and 1919, the government expelled Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries from the soviets. Russia had become a one-party state.
Within the party was established a Political Bureau (Politburo) and Organisation Bureau (Orgburo) to accompany the existing Central Committee; the decisions of these party bodies had to be adopted by Sovnarkom and the Council of Labour and Defence. Lenin was the most significant figure in this governance structure as well as being the Chairman of Sovnarkom and sitting on the Council of Labour and Defence, and on the Central Committee and Politburo of the Communist Party. The only individual to have anywhere near this influence was Lenin's right-hand man, Yakov Sverdlov, who died in March 1919 during a flu pandemic. In November 1917, Lenin and his wife took a two-room flat within the Smolny Institute; the following month they left for a brief holiday in Halila, Finland. In January 1918, he survived an assassination attempt in Petrograd; Fritz Platten, who was with Lenin at the time, shielded him and was injured by a bullet.
Concerned that the German Army posed a threat to Petrograd, in March 1918 Sovnarkom relocated to Moscow, initially as a temporary measure. There, Lenin, Trotsky, and other Bolshevik leaders moved into the Kremlin, where Lenin lived with his wife and sister Maria in a first-floor apartment adjacent to the room in which the Sovnarkom meetings were held. Lenin disliked Moscow, but rarely left the city centre during the rest of his life. He survived a second assassination attempt, in Moscow in August 1918; he was shot following a public speech and injured badly. A Socialist-Revolutionary, Fanny Kaplan, was arrested and executed. The attack was widely covered in the Russian press, generating much sympathy for Lenin and boosting his popularity. As a respite, he was driven in September 1918 to the luxurious Gorki estate, just outside Moscow, recently nationalized for him by the government.
Social, legal, and economic reform: 1917–1918
To All Workers, Soldiers and Peasants. The Soviet authority will at once propose a democratic peace to all nations and an immediate armistice on all fronts. It will safeguard the transfer without compensation of all land—landlord, imperial, and monastery—to the peasants' committees; it will defend the soldiers' rights, introducing a complete democratisation of the army; it will establish workers' control over industry; it will ensure the convocation of the Constituent Assembly on the date set; it will supply the cities with bread and the villages with articles of first necessity; and it will secure to all nationalities inhabiting Russia the right of self-determination ... Long live the revolution!
Upon taking power, Lenin's regime issued a series of decrees. The first was a Decree on Land, which declared that the landed estates of the aristocracy and the Orthodox Church should be nationalised and redistributed to peasants by local governments. This contrasted with Lenin's desire for agricultural collectivisation but provided governmental recognition of the widespread peasant land seizures that had already occurred. In November 1917, the government issued the Decree on the Press that closed many opposition media outlets deemed counter revolutionary. They claimed the measure would be temporary; the decree was widely criticised, including by many Bolsheviks, for compromising freedom of the press.
In November 1917, Lenin issued the Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia, which stated that non-Russian ethnic groups living inside the Republic had the right to secede from Russian authority and establish their own independent nation-states. Many nations declared independence (Finland and Lithuania in December 1917, Latvia and Ukraine in January 1918, Estonia in February 1918, Transcaucasia in April 1918, and Poland in November 1918). Soon, the Bolsheviks actively promoted communist parties in these independent nation-states, while at the Fifth All-Russian Congress of the Soviets in July 1918 a constitution was approved that reformed the Russian Republic into the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. Seeking to modernise the country, the government officially converted Russia from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar used in Europe.
In November 1917, Sovnarkom issued a decree abolishing Russia's legal system, calling on the use of "revolutionary conscience" to replace the abolished laws. The courts were replaced by a two-tier system, namely the Revolutionary Tribunals to deal with counter-revolutionary crimes, and the People's Courts to deal with civil and other criminal offences. They were instructed to ignore pre-existing laws and base their rulings on the Sovnarkom decrees and a "socialist sense of justice." November also saw an overhaul of the armed forces; Sovnarkom implemented egalitarian measures, abolished previous ranks, titles, and medals, and called on soldiers to establish committees to elect their commanders.
Earth of Filth".
In October 1917, Lenin issued a decree limiting work for everyone in Russia to eight hours per day. He also issued the Decree on Popular Education that stipulated that the government would guarantee free, secular education for all children in Russia, and a decree establishing a system of state orphanages. To combat mass illiteracy, a literacy campaign was initiated; an estimated 5 million people enrolled in crash courses of basic literacy from 1920 to 1926. Embracing the equality of the sexes, laws were introduced that helped to emancipate women, by giving them economic autonomy from their husbands and removing restrictions on divorce. Zhenotdel, a Bolshevik women's organisation, was established to further these aims. Under Lenin, Russia became the first country to legalize abortion on demand in the first trimester. Militantly atheist, Lenin and the Communist Party wanted to demolish organised religion. In January 1918, the government decreed the separation of church and state, and prohibited religious instruction in schools.
In November 1917, Lenin issued the Decree on Workers' Control, which called on the workers of each enterprise to establish an elected committee to monitor their enterprise's management. That month they also issued an order requisitioning the country's gold, and nationalised the banks, which Lenin saw as a major step toward socialism. In December, Sovnarkom established a Supreme Council of the National Economy (VSNKh), which had authority over industry, banking, agriculture, and trade. The factory committees were subordinate to the trade unions, which were subordinate to VSNKh; the state's centralised economic plan was prioritised over the workers' local economic interests. In early 1918, Sovnarkom cancelled all foreign debts and refused to pay interest owed on them. In April 1918, it nationalised foreign trade, establishing a state monopoly on imports and exports. In June 1918, it decreed nationalisation of public utilities, railways, engineering, textiles, metallurgy, and mining, although often these were state-owned in name only. Full-scale nationalisation did not take place until November 1920, when small-scale industrial enterprises were brought under state control.
A faction of the Bolsheviks known as the "Left Communists" criticised Sovnarkom's economic policy as too moderate; they wanted nationalisation of all industry, agriculture, trade, finance, transport, and communication. Lenin believed that this was impractical at that stage and that the government should only nationalise Russia's large-scale capitalist enterprises, such as the banks, railways, larger landed estates, and larger factories and mines, allowing smaller businesses to operate privately until they grew large enough to be successfully nationalised. Lenin also disagreed with the Left Communists about the economic organisation; in June 1918, he argued that centralised economic control of industry was needed, whereas Left Communists wanted each factory to be controlled by its workers, a syndicalist approach that Lenin considered detrimental to the cause of socialism.
Adopting a left-libertarian perspective, both the Left Communists and other factions in the Communist Party critiqued the decline of democratic institutions in Russia. Internationally, many socialists decried Lenin's regime and denied that he was establishing socialism; in particular, they highlighted the lack of widespread political participation, popular consultation, and industrial democracy. In late 1918, the Czech-Austrian Marxist Karl Kautsky authored an anti-Leninist pamphlet condemning the anti-democratic nature of Soviet Russia, to which Lenin published a vociferous reply, The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky. German Marxist Rosa Luxemburg echoed Kautsky's views, while Russian anarchist Peter Kropotkin described the Bolshevik seizure of power as "the burial of the Russian Revolution."
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk: 1917–1918
[By prolonging the war] we unusually strengthen German imperialism, and the peace will have to be concluded anyway, but then the peace will be worse because it will be concluded by someone other than ourselves. No doubt the peace which we are now being forced to conclude is an indecent peace, but if war commences our government will be swept away and the peace will be concluded by another government.
Upon taking power, Lenin believed that a key policy of his government must be to withdraw from the First World War by establishing an armistice with the Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary. He believed that ongoing war would create resentment among war-weary Russian troops, to whom he had promised peace, and that these troops and the advancing German Army threatened both his own government and the cause of international socialism. By contrast, other Bolsheviks, in particular Nikolai Bukharin and the Left Communists, believed that peace with the Central Powers would be a betrayal of international socialism and that Russia should instead wage "a war of revolutionary defence" that would provoke an uprising of the German proletariat against their own government.
Lenin proposed a three-month armistice in his Decree on Peace of November 1917, which was approved by the Second Congress of Soviets and presented to the German and Austro-Hungarian governments. The Germans responded positively, viewing this as an opportunity to focus on the Western Front and stave off looming defeat. In November, armistice talks began at Brest-Litovsk, the headquarters of the German high command on the Eastern Front, with the Russian delegation being led by Trotsky and Adolph Joffe. Meanwhile, a ceasefire until January was agreed. During negotiations, the Germans insisted on keeping their wartime conquests, which included Poland, Lithuania, and Courland, whereas the Russians countered that this was a violation of these nations' rights to self-determination. Some Bolsheviks had expressed hopes of dragging out negotiations until proletarian revolution broke out throughout Europe. On 7 January 1918, Trotsky returned from Brest-Litovsk to St. Petersburg with an ultimatum from the Central Powers: either Russia accept Germany's territorial demands or the war would resume.
In January and again in February, Lenin urged the Bolsheviks to accept Germany's proposals. He argued that the territorial losses were acceptable if it ensured the survival of the Bolshevik-led government. The majority of Bolsheviks rejected his position, hoping to prolong the armistice and call Germany's bluff. On 18 February, the German Army launched Operation Faustschlag, advancing further into Russian-controlled territory and conquering Dvinsk within a day. At this point, Lenin finally convinced a small majority of the Bolshevik Central Committee to accept the Central Powers' demands. On 23 February, the Central Powers issued a new ultimatum: Russia had to recognise German control not only of Poland and the Baltic states but also of Ukraine or face a full-scale invasion.
On 3 March, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed. It resulted in massive territorial losses for Russia, with 26% of the former Empire's population, 37% of its agricultural harvest area, 28% of its industry, 26% of its railway tracks, and three-quarters of its coal and iron deposits being transferred to German control. Accordingly, the Treaty was deeply unpopular across Russia's political spectrum, and several Bolsheviks and Left Socialist-Revolutionaries resigned from Sovnarkom in protest. After the Treaty, Sovnarkom focused on trying to foment proletarian revolution in Germany, issuing an array of anti-war and anti-government publications in the country; the German government retaliated by expelling Russia's diplomats. The Treaty nevertheless failed to stop the Central Powers' defeat; in November 1918, the German Emperor Wilhelm II abdicated and the country's new administration signed the Armistice with the Allies. As a result, Sovnarkom proclaimed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk void.
Anti-Kulak campaigns, Cheka, and Red Terror: 1918–1922
[The bourgeoisie] practised terror against the workers, soldiers and peasants in the interests of a small group of landowners and bankers, whereas the Soviet regime applies decisive measures against landowners, plunderers and their accomplices in the interests of the workers, soldiers and peasants.
By early 1918, many cities in western Russia faced famine as a result of chronic food shortages. Lenin blamed this on the kulaks, or wealthier peasants, who allegedly hoarded the grain that they had produced to increase its financial value. In May 1918, he issued a requisitioning order that established armed detachments to confiscate grain from kulaks for distribution in the cities, and in June called for the formation of Committees of Poor Peasants to aid in requisitioning. This policy resulted in vast social disorder and violence, as armed detachments often clashed with peasant groups, helping to set the stage for the civil war. A prominent example of Lenin's views was his August 1918 telegram to the Bolsheviks of Penza, which called upon them to suppress a peasant insurrection by publicly hanging at least 100 "known kulaks, rich men, [and] bloodsuckers."
The requisitions disincentivised peasants from producing more grain than they could personally consume, and thus production slumped. A booming black market supplemented the official state-sanctioned economy, and Lenin called on speculators, black marketeers and looters to be shot. Both the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Left Socialist-Revolutionaries condemned the armed appropriations of grain at the Fifth All-Russian Congress of Soviets in July 1918. Realising that the Committees of the Poor Peasants were also persecuting peasants who were not kulaks and thus contributing to anti-government feeling among the peasantry, in December 1918 Lenin abolished them.
Lenin repeatedly emphasised the need for terror and violence in overthrowing the old order and ensuring the success of the revolution. Speaking to the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the Soviets in November 1917, he declared that "the state is an institution built up for the sake of exercising violence. Previously, this violence was exercised by a handful of moneybags over the entire people; now we want [...] to organise violence in the interests of the people." He strongly opposed suggestions to abolish capital punishment. Fearing anti-Bolshevik forces would overthrow his administration, in December 1917 Lenin ordered the establishment of the Emergency Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage, or Cheka, a political police force led by Felix Dzerzhinsky.
In September 1918, Sovnarkom passed a decree that inaugurated the Red Terror, a system of repression orchestrated by the Cheka secret police.[261] Although sometimes described as an attempt to eliminate the entire bourgeoisie, Lenin did not want to exterminate all members of this class, merely those who sought to reinstate their rule. The majority of the Terror's victims were well-to-do citizens or former members of the Tsarist administration; others were non-bourgeois anti-Bolsheviks and perceived social undesirables such as prostitutes. The Cheka claimed the right to both sentence and execute anyone whom it deemed to be an enemy of the government, without recourse to the Revolutionary Tribunals. Accordingly, throughout Soviet Russia the Cheka carried out killings, often in large numbers. For example, the Petrograd Cheka executed 512 people in a few days. There are no surviving records to provide an accurate figure of how many perished in the Red Terror; later estimates of historians have ranged between 10,000 and 15,000, and 50,000 to 140,000.
Lenin never witnessed this violence or participated in it first-hand, and publicly distanced himself from it. His published articles and speeches rarely called for executions, but he regularly did so in his coded telegrams and confidential notes. Many Bolsheviks expressed disapproval of the Cheka's mass executions and feared the organisation's apparent unaccountability. The Communist Party tried to restrain its activities in February 1919, stripping it of its powers of tribunal and execution in those areas not under official martial law, but the Cheka continued as before in swathes of the country. By 1920, the Cheka had become the most powerful institution in Soviet Russia, exerting influence over all other state apparatus.
A decree in April 1919 resulted in the establishment of concentration camps, which were entrusted to the Cheka, later administered by a new government agency, Gulag. By the end of 1920, 84 camps had been established across Soviet Russia, holding about 50,000 prisoners; by October 1923, this had grown to 315 camps and about 70,000 inmates. Those interned in the camps were used as slave labour. From July 1922, intellectuals deemed to be opposing the Bolshevik government were exiled to inhospitable regions or deported from Russia altogether; Lenin personally scrutinised the lists of those to be dealt with in this manner. In May 1922, Lenin issued a decree calling for the execution of anti-Bolshevik priests, causing between 14,000 and 20,000 deaths. The Russian Orthodox Church was worst affected; the government's anti-religious policies also harmed Roman Catholic and Protestant churches, Jewish synagogues, and Islamic mosques.
Civil War and the Polish–Soviet War: 1918–1920
The existence of the Soviet Republic alongside the imperialist states over the long run is unthinkable. In the end, either the one or the other will triumph. And until that end will have arrived, a series of the most terrible conflicts between the Soviet Republic and the bourgeois governments is unavoidable. This means that the ruling class, the proletariat, if it only wishes to rule and is to rule, must demonstrate this also with its military organization.
Lenin expected Russia's aristocracy and bourgeoisie to oppose his government, but he believed that the numerical superiority of the lower classes, coupled with the Bolsheviks' ability to effectively organise them, guaranteed a swift victory in any conflict. In this, he failed to anticipate the intensity of the violent opposition to Bolshevik rule in Russia. A long and bloody Civil War ensued between the Bolshevik Reds and the anti-Bolshevik Whites, starting in 1917 and ending in 1923 with the Reds' victory. It also encompassed ethnic conflicts on Russia's borders, and anti-Bolshevik peasant and left-wing uprisings throughout the former Empire. Accordingly, various historians have seen the civil war as representing two distinct conflicts: one between the revolutionaries and the counterrevolutionaries, and the other between different revolutionary factions.
The White armies were established by former Tsarist military officers, and included Anton Denikin's Volunteer Army in South Russia, Alexander Kolchak's forces in Siberia, and Nikolai Yudenich's troops in the newly independent Baltic states. The Whites were bolstered when 35,000 members of the Czech Legion, who were prisoners of war from the conflict with the Central Powers, turned against Sovnarkom and allied with the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly (Komuch), an anti-Bolshevik government established in Samara. The Whites were also backed by Western governments who perceived the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk as a betrayal of the Allied war effort and feared the Bolsheviks' calls for world revolution. In 1918, Great Britain, France, United States, Canada, Italy, and Serbia landed 10,000 troops in Murmansk, seizing Kandalaksha, while later that year British, American, and Japanese forces landed in Vladivostok. Western troops soon pulled out of the civil war, instead only supporting the Whites with officers, technicians and armaments, but Japan remained because they saw the conflict as an opportunity for territorial expansion.
Lenin tasked Trotsky with establishing a Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, and with his support, Trotsky organised a Revolutionary Military Council in September 1918, remaining its chairman until 1925. Recognising their valuable military experience, Lenin agreed that officers from the old Tsarist army could serve in the Red Army, although Trotsky established military councils to monitor their activities. The Reds held control of Russia's two largest cities, Moscow and Petrograd, as well as most of Great Russia, while the Whites were located largely on the former Empire's peripheries. The latter were therefore hindered by being both fragmented and geographically scattered, and because their ethnic Russian supremacism alienated the region's national minorities. Anti-Bolshevik armies carried out the White Terror, a campaign of violence against perceived Bolshevik supporters which was typically more spontaneous than the state-sanctioned Red Terror. Both White and Red Armies were responsible for attacks against Jewish communities, prompting Lenin to issue a condemnation of antisemitism, blaming prejudice against Jews on capitalist propaganda.
In July 1918, Sverdlov informed Sovnarkom that the Ural Regional Soviet had overseen the murder of the former Tsar and his immediate family in Yekaterinburg to prevent them from being rescued by advancing White troops. Although lacking proof, biographers and historians like Richard Pipes and Dmitri Volkogonov have expressed the view that the killing was probably sanctioned by Lenin; conversely, historian James Ryan cautioned that there was "no reason" to believe this. Whether Lenin sanctioned it or not, he still regarded it as necessary, highlighting the precedent set by the execution of Louis XVI in the French Revolution.
After the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries had abandoned the coalition and increasingly viewed the Bolsheviks as traitors to the revolution. In July 1918, the Left Socialist-Revolutionary Yakov Blumkin assassinated the German ambassador to Russia, Wilhelm von Mirbach, hoping that the ensuing diplomatic incident would lead to a relaunched revolutionary war against Germany. The Left Socialist-Revolutionaries then launched a coup in Moscow, shelling the Kremlin and seizing the city's central post office before being stopped by Trotsky's forces. The party's leaders and many members were arrested and imprisoned but were treated more leniently than other opponents of the Bolsheviks.
By 1919, the White armies were in retreat and by the start of 1920 were defeated on all three fronts. Although Sovnarkom were victorious, the territorial extent of the Russian state had been reduced, for many non-Russian ethnic groups had used the disarray to push for national independence. In March 1921, during a related war against Poland, the Peace of Riga was signed, splitting disputed territories in Belarus and Ukraine between the Republic of Poland and Soviet Russia. Soviet Russia sought to re-conquer all newly independent nations of the former Empire, although their success was limited. Estonia, Finland, Latvia, and Lithuania all repelled Soviet invasions, while Ukraine, Belarus (as a result of the Polish–Soviet War), Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia were occupied by the Red Army. By 1921, Soviet Russia had defeated the Ukrainian national movements and occupied the Caucasus, although anti-Bolshevik uprisings in Central Asia lasted until the late 1920s.
After the German Ober Ost garrisons were withdrawn from the Eastern Front following the Armistice, both Soviet Russian armies and Polish ones moved in to fill the vacuum. The newly independent Polish state and the Soviet government each sought territorial expansion in the region. Polish and Russian troops first clashed in February 1919, with the conflict developing into the Polish–Soviet War. Unlike the Soviets' previous conflicts, this had greater implications for the export of revolution and the future of Europe. Polish forces pushed into Ukraine and by May 1920 had taken Kiev from the Soviets. After forcing the Polish Army back, Lenin urged the Red Army to invade Poland itself, believing that the Polish proletariat would rise up to support the Russian troops and thus spark European revolution. Trotsky and other Bolsheviks were sceptical, but agreed to the invasion. The Polish proletariat did not rise, and the Red Army was defeated at the Battle of Warsaw. The Polish armies pushed the Red Army back into Russia, forcing Sovnarkom to sue for peace; the war culminated in the Peace of Riga, in which Russia ceded territory to Poland.
Death and funeral: 1923–1924
Lenin's funeral, as painted by Isaac Brodsky, 1925
In March 1923, Lenin had a third stroke and lost his ability to speak; that month, he experienced partial paralysis on his right side and began exhibiting sensory aphasia. By May, he appeared to be making a slow recovery, regaining some of his mobility, speech, and writing skills. In October, he made a final visit to the Kremlin. In his final weeks, Lenin was visited by Zinoviev, Kamenev, and Bukharin; the latter visited him at his Gorki mansion on the day of his death. On 21 January 1924, Lenin fell into a coma and died later that day at age 53. His official cause of death was recorded as an incurable disease of the blood vessels. "Good dog", are said to have been Lenin's last words, upon his dog having brought him a dead bird.
The Soviet government publicly announced Lenin's death the following day. On 23 January, mourners from the Communist Party, trade unions, and Soviets visited his Gorki home to inspect the body, which was carried aloft in a red coffin by leading Bolsheviks. Transported by train to Moscow, the coffin was taken to the House of Trade Unions, where the body lay in state. Over the next three days, around a million mourners came to see the body, many queuing for hours in the freezing conditions. On 26 January, the eleventh All-Union Congress of Soviets met to pay respects, with speeches by Kalinin, Zinoviev, and Stalin. Notably, Trotsky was absent; he had been convalescing in the Caucasus, and he later claimed that Stalin sent him a telegram with the incorrect date of the planned funeral, making it impossible for him to arrive in time. Lenin's funeral took place the following day, when his body was carried to Red Square, accompanied by martial music, where assembled crowds listened to a series of speeches before the corpse was placed into the vault of a specially erected mausoleum. Despite the freezing temperatures, tens of thousands attended.
Against Krupskaya's protestations, Lenin's body was embalmed to preserve it for long-term public display in the Red Square mausoleum. During this process, Lenin's brain was removed; in 1925 an institute was established to dissect it, revealing that Lenin had had severe sclerosis. In July 1929, the Politburo agreed to replace the temporary mausoleum with a permanent one in granite, which was finished in 1933. His sarcophagus was replaced in 1940 and again in 1970. For safety amid the Second World War, from 1941 to 1945 the body was temporarily moved to Tyumen. As of 2023, his body remains on public display in Lenin's Mausoleum on Red Square.
Summon the Swarm
"Summon the Swarm and prepare to move to Korhal" The Queen of Blades ordered.
"The Swarm is in disarray and will not answer your call." Izsha replied.
This is a personal remake of the scene in StarCraft 2 when Sarah Kerrigan comes back to the Leviathan to claim her ownership of the Swarm and speaks with Izsha, the Zerg who were made to store all ideas and memories of the Queen.
Models:
The Queen of Blades: myself
Izsha: Zephyra Gilgandra
Peeling paint and general disarray in a room at an abandoned psychiatric hospital.
View large (Press L)
This image can be made available for purchase at Fine Art America upon request.
A little darker and less cutesy than my usual, but I wanted to show off this lovely kimono dress from the Dark Water Designs at the Wash Cart Sale! Only 10L!
Also, Gauze just put out a load of appliers for their Chronicle skins, which makes me a very happy baby.
Credits:
Skin: [Gauze] Chronicle - Drow - Frost
Eyes: (*ANGELICA) Clear eyes - Queen
Body: Maitreya Lara 2.1
Hair: .Olive. the Cherry Hair (@ Origami)
Hands/Feet: SLINK
Eyeliner: Lovely Disarray - Devotion Eye Shadows - Red
Lipstick: .Atomic. {Muse} LipSet 2
Flower Makeup: antielle. Sakurification (@ Origami)
Dress: Dark Water Designs - Tokyo Party Girl dress - Black
Stocking Appliers: .:Avanti:. Classique Nylons - Black
Shoes: Sweet Thing. Sakura Heels (@ Origami)
Background items:
Two items from the Silvery K gacha @ Origami
Oil on canvas; 73 x 94 cm.
Jean-Baptiste Greuze was a French genre and portrait painter who initiated a mid-18th-century vogue for sentimental and moralizing anecdotes in paintings.
Greuze studied first at Lyon and afterward at the Royal Academy in Paris. He first exhibited at the Salon of 1755 and won an immediate success with his moralizing genre painting of Father Reading the Bible to His Children (1755). Although Greuze’s attention at this time was fixed on a less-pretentious type of genre painting in which the influence of 17th-century Dutch masters is apparent, the favorable attention he received turned his head and established the lines of his future career.
In 1755 Greuze left for Italy but remained impervious to the influence of Italian painting. In 1759 he became acquainted with Denis Diderot, who encouraged his inclination toward melodramatic genre, and throughout the 1760s Greuze reached new heights of popular acclaim with such works as The Village Betrothal (1761) and The Father’s Curse and The Prodigal Son (both c. 1765).
Greuze submitted to the Salon in 1769 a large, rather dreary historical painting, Septimius Severus Reproaching Caracalla, which he hoped would gain him admission to the academy as a history painter. But the academy would admit him to membership only as a genre painter, and so the resentful artist exhibited his works to the public only in his own studio for the next 30 years. In addition to moralizing genre, he painted young girls in poses of feigned innocence and calculated disarray.
Throughout the 1770s Greuze was kept busy painting moralizing pictures, but by the 1780s his work had gone out of fashion and his income was precarious. By 1785 his once-considerable talent was exhausted. The reaction against his sentimental genre paintings resulted in critical neglect of his drawings and portraits, in which Greuze’s superb technical gifts are displayed with great integrity.
With the South Yorkshire RHTT season in disarray following the failure of the allocated pool of 20's with wheelset issues the Saturday diagram was covered by almost consecutively numbered 66432 / 66434 missing out any possible encounters with low bridges . With the failure once again of the DRS 20's at Grimsby this afternoon and tomorrow what will make an appearance ? the DRS 66's or M Owens 20007 and 20205 which have covered the circuit M-Th whilst the DRS choppers have been at Roberts Rd undergoing tyre turning...
66432 / 434 are seen at Beighton working the 3S13 0849 Sheffield - Sheffield crossing over the 'old road'.
13 10 18
VIDEO: (Coming when it does)
••• SCRIPT/LYRICS: •••
(Continued from: www.deviantart.com/molemanninethousand/art/MERB-43-B-Soni...)
Darth Plagueis:
I'm a Munn of wealth and taste who needn't be self-introduced,
Repping the reemergence of ways a millennium reclused!
Manipulating midi-chlorians? I've maximized the biz,
So let me educate you on my origins, and all that jizz:
Ol' Tenebrous may not have been my father, but he was my daddy;
Even so, I silenced him, and now he yearns for screaming badly.
No malady you can bring, though, could so much as shut my mouth up:
What I spit is Venemis; that, I leave rivals with no doubt of.
Although not exactly old, my legend's legacy's eternal:
Look to Tarkin; call me Darth Da Vinci, so dope are my journals!
Not delaying, I'll show what wicked wisdom's held behind Damask;
Your group couldn't take me down with more than FourDee arms' combined attacks!
For my foes' ancient prophecy's hijacking, I've been vying lots,
But as for your alleged "Chosen One", I give no flying fox!
These beats go by the Rule of One; I'd hardly call it irony
That you could save yourselves from death by others' hands, but not from me!
Sonic the Hedgehog:
Your mind is surely Plagued by something; why the long face, Darth BoJack?
Rotor: We won't forgive you, anyway, so get the fuck out Knothole, hack!
Bunnie Rabbot: Don't you come touting "immortality" in our town, you old meanie!
Antoine D'Coolette: We'll go Tale of the Three Brothers on you, striking far less cleanly!
Darth Plagueis:
What in San Hill are you thinking, fighting back? You cannot thwart me;
I'll be chosen winner, fair and square: the votes are due in shortly… (*BLAM!*)
Freedom Fighters: AW, SHIT!
Darth Plagueis: …Oh, drop the feigned surprise; there's no need for pretending.
What did you expect based on the opera scene; a happy ending? (*BOOM!*)
Palpatine:
It seems your Qin-esque quest for life eternal was in vain,
But fret not, "master"; I'll take in your stead the new Empire's reins!
You should have settled for possession; I know well that power's merits,
Case in point: my evil essence's transference to these lyrics!
Hitting woodland critters far worse than some droids attacking Wookiees,
One could say death spared a great deal of distress for Master Mundi!
Snuffing Sal like Spidey's Stacy, orders left unexecuted,
But Count on it, Dookie-heads, that I won't hesitate to do it!
Sally Acorn:
Our spy network's got your number, Dawg; it doesn't take a Sleuth,
You all-bark, lying, far-side Dark Side douchebag, self-orphaned as a youth!
Sonic the Hedgehog: We're turning your own words against you, for with ours, we're flowing hate,
And screw the senate: this sick cypher will be what decides your fate!
Emperor Palpatine:
I am this cypher! As for senates, Sonic, let me tell you something:
You remind me of Jar Jar; one fool got played, and one's a Gungan!
They staved off 'Twan's planned demise with fan-outcry and cosmic waves,
But once I'm fed up with him, he's a goner no reboot could save!
Don't go 'round dissing me tonight: it's bound to take your whole world's lives,
And it's no mere bad moon I speak of: there's a Death Star on the rise!
Match your dumb dash against my spinning lunge? I'd like to see you try;
Now, thunderously and to mass-applause, young hedgehog, you will die…
Doctor Eggman:
Zapping as usual, I see; go eat my Crocodile's gun!
I'm highest of the Overlanders, and there can be only one,
Cross-zone encounters notwithstanding; that's what saved me way back when:
I nuked the world, then hopped dimensions just to do it all again!
I've heard rotund robotic folks excel at ending you for good;
Clean Sweeping floors with you, you Sheevposted in the wrong neighborhood!
Though twenty-plus post-EndGame issues passed before I would arrive,
This'll be over faster than your reign, had you said "Sixty-Five"!
Check out my Legion: we are many, and above discrimination;
Kukkus flock beneath my wing, while I annex echidna nations!
I possess a magic touch, and my big brother knows it well.
My Death-ship's one tough Egg to crack; yours takes one shot to blow to Hell!
Emperor Palpatine:
Oh, don't bring up your puny parody of my great superweapon,
For compared, you'll find it pales, just like my face upon arresting!
Although I'm the old man here, try throwing off the Emperor's groove,
And get dropped harder than the ARK with your granddaddy's dying move!
Doctor Eggman:
I'll take control of my whole horde, press on with alternating tactics,
And D.E.L.ete your sorry ass; you'll be devoured by my Badniks!
It's my most triumphant moment since issue one-seven-five:
Brace for a fall no form of Emerald could allow you to survive…
(*Palpatine is sent plummeting to his death and explodes for no reason…*)
Palpatine, Emperor Reborn:
Did you think hatching that old hat hatch-trick would truly do me in?
You seem to be confusing me with he who taught me, Julian,
For when it comes to saving my own self from death, I can and have:
Back with my Empire's Darkness up twofold, and wrinkles down by half!
I have no time for naming heirs; I'm an eternal autocrat!
You'll never hold such power; not again: those Bem freaks saw to that.
I'm brewing up a Forceful storm, Eclipsing your Egg Fleet by far;
You'll fall to madness as I squash you like the wretched bug you are!
Returned by Byss from the abyss, watch me tear Mon Cala to bits,
Springing a trap so devastating, Ackbar's warning won't do shit!
I needn't share my son's defects to see through all your ploys blindfolded;
Just take it from my apprentice, in my image newly-molded…
Luke Skywalker:
You know what they say, and I ain't talking more being merrier:
If you can't beat them, join them; my new master couldn't be scarier,
And so I'm fighting for the strongest side, dark though it clearly is!
Don't underestimate its power, as I quite severely did!
I've got this covered, going deep like Quinlan Vos for Shadow Hand;
Ask Endor's vets: there's strength in simply acting under his command!
Now, summoned once more from far, far away to carry out his bidding,
I'll be crashing Carriers; smashing through barriers with spitting!
…Also: kidding! (*SLASH!*)
Yo, Hideous: how's that for sabotage?
As if I'd ever… crap, it's that blue butthole and his entourage;
I'm not about to start with you again!
Doctor Eggman:
…Then try his nemesis,
And get served with Mobian bacon; think my namesakes, Benedict!
I'm Warlord-Doctor Julian Ivo Eggman Robo-Kintobor,
And I'm gonna be a rapping star before this battle's over!
Neither your arch-foe's rebirth nor my own Prime-self's lasted long,
But I'm like Hamill's other tour de force: immune to staying gone! (*BOOM!*)
Snively Robotnik:
It's just been revoked, dear uncle; now, at last, I see your heart,
And it's my turn, for reals this time: can't cancel this before it starts!
While his fat ass fills up the Void, I'll fill the void left, taking power:
Bay's Starscream, but to survive here, I don't have to be a coward!
You'll soon share my cousin's fate: G.U.N.ned down with cruel efficiency;
My rhymes are programmed for annihilating you specifically!
Long live me four times over, for both Emperors are double-dead;
There's fewer out there who could stop me now than hairs left on my head!
Palpatine, Reborn Again:
Did you ever hear of the tragedy wrought by my resurrection?
It's not a story Disney would tell you; it's a Star Wars Legend!
Palpatine is no mere Pac-Man; past three lives, I have loads more!
Take on them all, and I'll need no grand plan for winning that Clone War.
I see just what you're made of, Colin, and you shouldn't pose a problem:
You're a bit of Grimer Wormtongue mixed with twice as much of Gollum!
While your sister-kinship's Hopeless, you'll find me still less forgiving:
Get out of this battle, my Empire, and this realm of living!
Snively Robotnik:
Oh, I won't be cucked again by you and your decaying cells:
I'll feed you to your rank Rancors; chop down your flimsy citadel!
You'll find I've been preparing for this like you should have for the Vong,
For I'm DYNAMAC, and I've waited long…
?????????: Yes, I'll bet you have!
Luke Skywalker: Han; what are you doing here?!
Han Solo:
In Oscar's words, a very brief cameo:
Think The Lego Movie; dropping by real quick, I'll soon have to go.
Thankfully, all that I need deliver here's a single blast,
'Cause Palpatine's no Greedo; I'll be proud to say I shot him last! (*KA-BANG!*)
Snively Robotnik:
…Well, that's just perfect! Now, his very soul is sealed away,
And the Empire entire's in a dire state of disarray,
With many warlords out there, feuding over territories, splintered;
Rising up, I'll claim the mantle as the one and only victor!
(*Glowing red eyes appear in the foreground…*)
?????????:
HERE COMES THE ADMIRAL!
Ladies and gentlemen…
HERE COMES THE ADMIRAL!
…The moment you've been waiting for…
HERE COMES THE ADMIRAL!
…The pride of Mount Tantiss…
HERE COMES THE ADMIRAL!
…Mitth'raw'nuruodo!
Grand Admiral Thrawn:
Seeing Sheev's shortsightedness as to succession, I'm his Heir apparent:
The exception to perceptions against aliens' "aberrance"!
Failure's fatal under Vader; with manpower, I don't squander it:
You're kriffing with the living Mitth behind the whole Triumvirate!
I am the very model of an Imperial Admiral,
Who studies matters cultural, artistic and behavioral
To form psychological profiles of my foes for masterful
Strategic tactics carried out with minimal collateral
Damages; I can manage shit! Abandon ship, you Muppet:
I'm as Far Outside your scope as those who'd slaughter the Republic!
Lessers of my rank are best remembered for creating memes;
When I see traps, they're neutralized with tact: no need of making scenes!
The Force can Chiss my ass; I'm more than just another silly wizard
Villain: chilling in my ship with trick-resisting kitty-lizards!
You should catch an Outbound Flight from here: get out the path of Thrawn,
The mighty menace never met by the main cast; think Wrath of Khan!
The aftermath of Zahn's post-Endor event-chronicling creation
Paved the way for countless tales; indeed, my very reputation
Carried sequels even following my own untimely slaying!
Thus, I borrow back from Saw: game over, Snively; thanks for playing.
Snively Robotnik:
Bah! I'll end your Flimsy legacy; abort your every clone!
You ought to know: this little bastard's next up for the Iron throne,
But unlike Joffrey, once with my love, I'll be far less choking-prone,
For though the red-eyed one's against me here, I still am not alone…
Iron Queen Regina Ferrum:
Let me be Frank: a Storm's a-brewing, per this Iron Maiden's will:
A Beastly bitch, I've got your Number; Troopers, best Run to the Hills!
Wanna compare yourself to Khan? I'll make a Monkey out of you,
And you'll be never seen again, as it seemed I would post-debut,
But I'm a real-deal comeback queen there can be no impersonating;
Didn't come here to make fans: I'll need but one to douse your flaming!
Like Lien-Da, your resistance will blow right up in your face;
A padded cell will be your home as I usurp and take your place!
I wedded that Old Iron King, but I rule over more than Ash:
Have my own posse of dark brides; for you, each one of them's a match!
You'd better keep a Constant Vigil once I've started hatching plans:
My Reach is Endless; check my Conquests, forces Storming clashing clans!
I couldn't hold NICOLE's control? I'm glad: we cut our weakest lynx!
I got exiled? Need you be reminded what your species thinks?
What you found admirable in that brute's backstabbing is a mystery;
I'll show you what it truly means to be done in artistically!
Grand Admiral Thrawn:
Oh, quit your badgering; you're dumber than Natasi Daala,
And as queens go, you're about as threatening as Amidala!
You chose midget over minotaur? Well, love can be surprising;
Step to me, though, and your ass will see a second huge downsizing!
Snively Robotnik:
Bullcrap, as when you "returned" before! I won't abide being lied to:
Like Honoghr's "restoration", we'll be coming back to bite you!
Iron Queen Regina Ferrum: Don't you underestimate the sway my Magitek can grant;
Just ask the Freedom Fighters of my kingdom! Oh, that's right: you can't!
Grand Admiral Thrawn:
Listen, Maleficent: you're merely an interim enemy;
A temporary threat at best, fleeting in your relevancy.
I built a legacy! Intent on ending me tonight? That's rich;
I'll throw you down a well, ensuring that you suffer with my wish!
Sparing your life based on your youth was a mistake; beyond erroneous,
And you talk of taking my place, yet you failed to even notice
When your love was left to rot, swapped out for his own wack invention!
One need not be a Shinobi to get shit past your attention,
So if your Dominion's Iron, my Empire's Durasteel:
The Hand of Thrawn just bitch-smacked Regina Repulsa; left her sealed,
For my regime's unrivaled throughout this entire lame dimension!
?????????: Well, then, let me up the Anti with a lesson in Suppression!
TO BE CONTINUED…
CONFUSING is the topic for Tuesday April 26th 2011
This confuses myself and others. The title is the key.
Yay! [http://www.flickr.com/photos/pocu] Pocu wins! It's a close up of the alignment marks on my putter. I had to dust it off for this shot. Putting is so confusing at times.
Summon the Swarm
"Summon the Swarm and prepare to move to Korhal" The Queen of Blades ordered.
"The Swarm is in disarray and will not answer your call." Izsha replied.
This is a personal remake of the scene in StarCraft 2 when Sarah Kerrigan comes back to the Leviathan to claim her ownership of the Swarm and speaks with Izsha, the Zerg who were made to store all ideas and memories of the Queen.
Models:
The Queen of Blades: myself
Izsha: Zephyra Gilgandra
Latterly converted by Eastern National as a wheelchair accessible coach, 2203, XOO 878L sits in a state of disarray at J. Sykes' yard at Carlton.
Shawano is a city in Shawano County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 9,243 at the 2020 census. It is the county seat of Shawano County.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 6.67 square miles (17.28 km2), of which, 6.57 square miles (17.02 km2) is land and 0.10 square miles (0.26 km2) is water.
Shawano County originally Shawanaw County) is a county located in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. As of the 2020 census, the population was 40,881.[1] Its county seat is Shawano.
Shawano County is included in the Shawano, WI Micropolitan Statistical Area, which is also included in the Green Bay–Shawano, WI Combined Statistical Area.
Its name is from a modified Ojibwa term meaning "southern"; it was the southern boundary of the Ojibwa nation. A Menominee chief named Sawanoh led a band that lived in the area. Many citizens of Shawano believe the lake, county, and city (Town of Shawanaw founded 1853 and changed to Shawano in 1856), were named after Chief Sawanoh. A historical marker placed in 1958 near the lake along Highway 22 states the lake was named as the southern boundary of Chippewa (Ojibwe) territory.
Various historical recordings of the spelling of Shawano include Sawanoh, Shawanaw, Sharuno, Shabin, Savannah, and Savanah. This shows the influence of French, German, and English translation (v's, w's, and b's sounding very similar and thus being recorded incorrectly at times). Similar differences in spelling have been seen in the Mahican/Mahikan/Maikens tribe or Mohecan/Morhican/Mohican tribe, all referring to the same Algonquian-speaking people.
The federally recognized Stockbridge-Munsee Community (made up of Algonquian-speaking Mahican and Lenape), whose ancestors traditionally lived in the East along the Hudson River Valley, is located in Shawano County. Their reservation encompasses the towns of Bartelme and Red Springs.
It was created as a separate county in 1853 under the name Shawanaw County. The county, unlike the city, retained the old spelling until 1864.
From the mid-nineteenth century on, the county was settled by European Americans, including many German, and later, Polish immigrants. They developed the county for agriculture. Before that, French-Canadian and British fur traders traveled widely through the area, trading with the Chippewa and other Native American peoples of the region.
The first non-Indian credited with exploring the region where Shawano is now located is Samuel Farnsworth. He paddled up the Wolf River in 1843 with a few men to scout the area for logging the vast forests. A small Menominee village was located along the Shawano lake Channel when their party arrived, and the Indians were friendly and cooperative. Charles Wescott and the Farnsworth group then set up a sawmill where the Channel meets the Wolf River.
Captain William Powell, an officer of the Black Hawk War, established a trading post on the Wolf River about two miles from the village in 1844. He had been an interpreter for the government when the treaties were signed allowing white people to settle this area of Wisconsin.
E. F. Sawyer platted a village near Powell's trading post in 1854 but public favor clung to the region adjacent to the old mill property and it was decided by popular vote to locate the county seat at Shawanaw, which was the name of the newly formed county.
The county, which was organized in 1853, was formed from areas of Oconto and Outagamie Counties. Forty-seven votes were cast and Elias Murray, Charles D Wescott and Elisha Alexander were elected supervisors. At that time there were 254 registered inhabitants, but only the men were allowed to vote.
When the county was first organized the name was spelled Shawanaw, taken from the Indian Sha-wa-Nah-Pay-Sa which meant “lake to the south” in Menominee and Chippewa. The spelling was changed in 1864 to its present Shawano, with three townships: Richmond, Waukechon and Shawano. Later others were added, making 25 townships.
In 1860 the first school house was erected in the county and Orlin Andrews was employed as its teacher. In 1898 there were 108 public schools in the county with 124 teachers.
A courthouse was erected on Main Street in 1857 and was replaced in 1879–80 at a cost of $17,000.00. The County Board authorized a new courthouse and jail in June 1953.
The earliest settlers who came to Shawano County consisted mostly of people from the New England States, Canada, and a few from British Columbia. A large influx of Bohemians settled in the Leopolis area and near Powell's Trading Post in the area about two miles from the city on Highway K. Norwegians settled in the area around Wittenberg, Lessor, Lunds and Navarino. Germans have been very predominate in the entire county, with 4,524 of the 27,475 inhabitants in 1900 born in Germany.
Wisconsin is a state in the Upper Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by land area and the 20th-most populous.
The bulk of Wisconsin's population live in areas situated along the shores of Lake Michigan. The largest city, Milwaukee, anchors its largest metropolitan area, followed by Green Bay and Kenosha, the third- and fourth-most-populated Wisconsin cities, respectively. The state capital, Madison, is currently the second-most-populated and fastest-growing city in the state. Wisconsin is divided into 72 counties and as of the 2020 census had a population of nearly 5.9 million.
Wisconsin's geography is diverse, having been greatly impacted by glaciers during the Ice Age with the exception of the Driftless Area. The Northern Highland and Western Upland along with a part of the Central Plain occupy the western part of the state, with lowlands stretching to the shore of Lake Michigan. Wisconsin is third to Ontario and Michigan in the length of its Great Lakes coastline. The northern portion of the state is home to the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest. At the time of European contact, the area was inhabited by Algonquian and Siouan nations, and today it is home to eleven federally recognized tribes. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, many European settlers entered the state, most of whom emigrated from Germany and Scandinavia. Wisconsin remains a center of German American and Scandinavian American culture, particularly in respect to its cuisine, with foods such as bratwurst and kringle. Wisconsin is home to one UNESCO World Heritage Site, comprising two of the most significant buildings designed by Wisconsin-born architect Frank Lloyd Wright: his studio at Taliesin near Spring Green and his Jacobs I House in Madison.
The Republican Party was founded in Wisconsin in 1854. In more recent years, Wisconsin has been a battleground state in presidential elections, notably in 2016 and 2020.
Wisconsin is one of the nation's leading dairy producers and is known as "America's Dairyland"; it is particularly famous for its cheese. The state is also famous for its beer, particularly and historically in Milwaukee, most notably as the headquarters of the Miller Brewing Company. Wisconsin has some of the most permissive alcohol laws in the country and is well known for its drinking culture. Its economy is dominated by manufacturing, healthcare, information technology, and agriculture—specifically dairy, cranberries, and ginseng. Tourism is also a major contributor to the state's economy. The gross domestic product in 2020 was $348 billion.
The history of Wisconsin encompasses the story not only of the people who have lived in Wisconsin since it became a state of the U.S., but also that of the Native American tribes who made their homeland in Wisconsin, the French and British colonists who were the first Europeans to live there, and the American settlers who lived in Wisconsin when it was a territory.
Since its admission to the Union on May 29, 1848, as the 30th state, Wisconsin has been ethnically heterogeneous, with Yankees being among the first to arrive from New York and New England. They dominated the state's heavy industry, finance, politics and education. Large numbers of European immigrants followed them, including German Americans, mostly between 1850 and 1900, Scandinavians (the largest group being Norwegian Americans) and smaller groups of Belgian Americans, Dutch Americans, Swiss Americans, Finnish Americans, Irish Americans and others; in the 20th century, large numbers of Polish Americans and African Americans came, settling mainly in Milwaukee.
Politically the state was predominantly Republican until recent years, when it became more evenly balanced. The state took a national leadership role in the Progressive Movement, under the aegis of Robert M. "Fighting Bob" La Follette and his family, who fought the old guard bitterly at the state and national levels. The "Wisconsin Idea" called for the use of the higher learning in modernizing government, and the state is notable for its strong network of state universities.
The first known inhabitants of what is now Wisconsin were Paleo-Indians, who first arrived in the region in about 10,000 BC at the end of the Ice Age. The retreating glaciers left behind a tundra in Wisconsin inhabited by large animals, such as mammoths, mastodons, bison, giant beaver, and muskox. The Boaz mastodon and the Clovis artifacts discovered in Boaz, Wisconsin show that the Paleo-Indians hunted these large animals. They also gathered plants as conifer forests grew in the glaciers' wake. With the decline and extinction of many large mammals in the Americas, the Paleo-Indian diet shifted toward smaller mammals like deer and bison.
During the Archaic Period, from 6000 to 1000 BC, mixed conifer-hardwood forests as well as mixed prairie-forests replaced Wisconsin's conifer forests. People continued to depend on hunting and gathering. Around 4000 BC they developed spear-throwers and copper tools such as axes, adzes, projectile points, knives, perforators, fishhooks and harpoons. Copper ornaments like beaded necklaces also appeared around 1500 BC. These people gathered copper ore at quarries on the Keweenaw Peninsula in Michigan and on Isle Royale in Lake Superior. They may have crafted copper artifacts by hammering and folding the metal and also by heating it to increase its malleability. However it is not certain if these people reached the level of copper smelting. Regardless, the Copper Culture of the Great Lakes region reached a level of sophistication unprecedented in North America. The Late Archaic Period also saw the emergence of cemeteries and ritual burials, such as the one in Oconto.
The Early Woodland Period began in 1000 BC as plants became an increasingly important part of the people's diet. Small scale agriculture and pottery arrived in southern Wisconsin at this time. The primary crops were maize, beans and squash. Agriculture, however, could not sufficiently support these people, who also had to hunt and gather. Agriculture at this time was more akin to gardening than to farming. Villages emerged along rivers, streams and lakes, and the earliest earthen burial mounds were constructed. The Havana Hopewell culture arrived in Wisconsin in the Middle Woodland Period, settling along the Mississippi River. The Hopewell people connected Wisconsin to their trade practices, which stretched from Ohio to Yellowstone and from Wisconsin to the Gulf of Mexico. They constructed elaborate mounds, made elaborately decorated pottery and brought a wide range of traded minerals to the area. The Hopewell people may have influenced the other inhabitants of Wisconsin, rather than displacing them. The Late Woodland Period began in about 400 AD, following the disappearance of the Hopewell culture from the area. The people of Wisconsin first used the bow and arrow in the final centuries of the Woodland Period, and agriculture continued to be practiced in the southern part of the state. The effigy mound culture dominated Southern Wisconsin during this time, building earthen burial mounds in the shapes of animals. Examples of effigy mounds still exist at High Cliff State Park and at Lizard Mound County Park. In northern Wisconsin people continued to survive on hunting and gathering, and constructed conical mounds.
People of the Mississippian culture expanded into Wisconsin around 1050 AD and established a settlement at Aztalan along the Crawfish River. While begun by the Caddoan people, other cultures began to borrow & adapt the Mississippian cultural structure. This elaborately planned site may have been the northernmost outpost of Cahokia, although it is also now known that some Siouan peoples along the Mississippi River may have taken part in the culture as well. Regardless, the Mississippian site traded with and was clearly influenced in its civic and defensive planning, as well as culturally, by its much larger southern neighbor. A rectangular wood-and-clay stockade surrounded the twenty acre site, which contained two large earthen mounds and a central plaza. One mound may have been used for food storage, as a residence for high-ranking officials, or as a temple, and the other may have been used as a mortuary. The Mississippian culture cultivated maize intensively, and their fields probably stretched far beyond the stockade at Aztalan, although modern agriculture has erased any traces of Mississippian practices in the area. Some rumors also speculate that the people of Aztalan may have experimented slightly with stone architecture in the making of a man-made, stone-line pond, at the very least. While the first settler on the land of what is now the city supposedly reported this, he filled it in and it has yet to be rediscovered.
Both Woodland and Mississippian peoples inhabited Aztalan, which was connected to the extensive Mississippian trade network. Shells from the Gulf of Mexico, copper from Lake Superior and Mill Creek chert have been found at the site. Aztalan was abandoned around 1200 AD. The Oneota people later built agriculturally based villages, similar to those of the Mississippians but without the extensive trade networks, in the state.
By the time the first Europeans arrived in Wisconsin, the Oneota had disappeared. The historically documented inhabitants, as of the first European incursions, were the Siouan speaking Dakota Oyate to the northwest, the Chiwere speaking Ho-Chunk (Winnebago) and the Algonquian Menominee to the northeast, with their lands beginning approximately north of Green Bay. The Chiwere lands were south of Green Bay and followed rivers to the southwest. Over time, other tribes moved to Wisconsin, including the Ojibwe, the Illinois, the Fauk, the Sauk and the Mahican. The Mahican were one of the last groups to arrived, coming from New York after the U.S. congress passed the Indian Removal Act of 1830.
The first European known to have landed in Wisconsin was Jean Nicolet. In 1634, Samuel de Champlain, governor of New France, sent Nicolet to contact the Ho-Chunk people, make peace between them and the Huron and expand the fur trade, and possibly to also find a water route to Asia. Accompanied by seven Huron guides, Nicolet left New France and canoed through Lake Huron and Lake Superior, and then became the first European known to have entered Lake Michigan. Nicolet proceeded into Green Bay, which he named La Baie des Puants (literally "The Stinking Bay"), and probably came ashore near the Red Banks. He made contact with the Ho-Chunk and Menominee living in the area and established peaceful relations. Nicolet remained with the Ho-Chunk the winter before he returned to Quebec.
The Beaver Wars fought between the Iroquois and the French prevented French explorers from returning to Wisconsin until 1652–1654, when Pierre Radisson and Médard des Groseilliers arrived at La Baie des Puants to trade furs. They returned to Wisconsin in 1659–1660, this time at Chequamegon Bay on Lake Superior. On their second voyage they found that the Ojibwe had expanded into northern Wisconsin, as they continued to prosper in the fur trade. They also were the first Europeans to contact the Santee Dakota. They built a trading post and wintered near Ashland, before returning to Montreal.
In 1665 Claude-Jean Allouez, a Jesuit missionary, built a mission on Lake Superior. Five years later he abandoned the mission, and journeyed to La Baie des Puants. Two years later he built St. Francis Xavier Mission near present-day De Pere. In his journeys through Wisconsin, he encountered groups of Native Americans who had been displaced by Iroquois in the Beaver Wars. He evangelized the Algonquin-speaking Potawatomi, who had settled on the Door Peninsula after fleeing Iroquois attacks in Michigan. He also encountered the Algonquin-speaking Sauk, who had been forced into Michigan by the Iroquois, and then had been forced into central Wisconsin by the Ojibwe and the Huron.
The next major expedition into Wisconsin was that of Father Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet in 1673. After hearing rumors from Indians telling of the existence of the Mississippi River, Marquette and Joliet set out from St. Ignace, in what is now Michigan, and entered the Fox River at Green Bay. They canoed up the Fox until they reached the river's westernmost point, and then portaged, or carried their boats, to the nearby Wisconsin River, where they resumed canoeing downstream to the Mississippi River. Marquette and Joliet reached the Mississippi near what is now Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin in June, 1673.
Nicolas Perrot, French commander of the west, established Fort St. Nicholas at Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin in May, 1685, near the southwest end of the Fox-Wisconsin Waterway. Perrot also built a fort on the shores of Lake Pepin called Fort St. Antoine in 1686, and a second fort, called Fort Perrot, on an island on Lake Peppin shortly after. In 1727, Fort Beauharnois was constructed on what is now the Minnesota side of Lake Pepin to replace the two previous forts. A fort and a Jesuit mission were also built on the shores of Lake Superior at La Pointe, in present-day Wisconsin, in 1693 and operated until 1698. A second fort was built on the same site in 1718 and operated until 1759. These were not military posts, but rather small storehouses for furs.
During the French colonial period, the first black people came to Wisconsin. The first record of a black person comes from 1725, when a black slave was killed along with four Frenchmen in a Native American raid on Green Bay. Other French fur traders and military personnel brought slaves with them to Wisconsin later in 1700s.
None of the French posts had permanent settlers; fur traders and missionaries simply visited them from time to time to conduct business.
In the 1720s, the anti-French Fox tribe, led by war chief Kiala, raided French settlements on the Mississippi River and disrupted French trade on Lake Michigan. From 1728 to 1733, the Fox fought against the French-supported Potawatomi, Ojibwa, Huron and Ottawa tribes. In 1733, Kiala was captured and sold into slavery in the West Indies along with other captured Fox.
Before the war, the Fox tribe numbered 1500, but by 1733, only 500 Fox were left. As a result, the Fox joined the Sauk people.
The details are unclear, but this war appears to have been part of the conflict that expelled the Dakota & Illinois peoples out onto the Great Plains, causing further displacement of other Chiwere, Caddoan & Algonquian peoples there—including the ancestors of the Ioway, Osage, Pawnee, Arikara, A'ani, Arapaho, Hidatsa, Cheyenne & Blackfoot.
The British gradually took over Wisconsin during the French and Indian War, taking control of Green Bay in 1761, gaining control of all of Wisconsin in 1763, and annexing the area to the Province of Quebec in 1774. Like the French, the British were interested in little but the fur trade. One notable event in the fur trading industry in Wisconsin occurred in 1791, when two free African Americans set up a fur trading post among the Menominee at present day Marinette. The first permanent settlers, mostly French Canadians, some Anglo-New Englanders and a few African American freedmen, arrived in Wisconsin while it was under British control. Charles Michel de Langlade is generally recognized as the first settler, establishing a trading post at Green Bay in 1745, and moving there permanently in 1764. In 1766 the Royal Governor of the new territory, Robert Rogers, engaged Jonathan Carver to explore and map the newly acquired territories for the Crown, and to search for a possible Northwest Passage. Carver left Fort Michilimackinac that spring and spent the next three years exploring and mapping what is now Wisconsin and parts of Minnesota.
Settlement began at Prairie du Chien around 1781. The French residents at the trading post in what is now Green Bay, referred to the town as "La Bey", however British fur traders referred to it as "Green Bay", because the water and the shore assumed green tints in early spring. The old French title was gradually dropped, and the British name of "Green Bay" eventually stuck. The region coming under British rule had virtually no adverse effect on the French residents as the British needed the cooperation of the French fur traders and the French fur traders needed the goodwill of the British. During the French occupation of the region licenses for fur trading had been issued scarcely and only to select groups of traders, whereas the British, in an effort to make as much money as possible from the region, issued licenses for fur trading freely, both to British and French residents. The fur trade in what is now Wisconsin reached its height under British rule, and the first self-sustaining farms in the state were established at this time as well. From 1763 to 1780, Green Bay was a prosperous community which produced its own foodstuff, built graceful cottages and held dances and festivities.
The United States acquired Wisconsin in the Treaty of Paris (1783). Massachusetts claimed the territory east of the Mississippi River between the present-day Wisconsin-Illinois border and present-day La Crosse, Wisconsin. Virginia claimed the territory north of La Crosse to Lake Superior and all of present-day Minnesota east of the Mississippi River. Shortly afterward, in 1787, the Americans made Wisconsin part of the new Northwest Territory. Later, in 1800, Wisconsin became part of Indiana Territory. Despite the fact that Wisconsin belonged to the United States at this time, the British continued to control the local fur trade and maintain military alliances with Wisconsin Indians in an effort to stall American expansion westward by creating a pro-British Indian barrier state.
The United States did not firmly exercise control over Wisconsin until the War of 1812. In 1814, the Americans built Fort Shelby at Prairie du Chien. During the war, the Americans and British fought one battle in Wisconsin, the July, 1814 Siege of Prairie du Chien, which ended as a British victory. The British captured Fort Shelby and renamed it Fort McKay, after Major William McKay, the British commander who led the forces that won the Battle of Prairie du Chien. However, the 1815 Treaty of Ghent reaffirmed American jurisdiction over Wisconsin, which was by then a part of Illinois Territory. Following the treaty, British troops burned Fort McKay, rather than giving it back to the Americans, and departed Wisconsin. To protect Prairie du Chien from future attacks, the United States Army constructed Fort Crawford in 1816, on the same site as Fort Shelby. Fort Howard was also built in 1816 in Green Bay.
Significant American settlement in Wisconsin, a part of Michigan Territory beginning in 1818, was delayed by two Indian wars, the minor Winnebago War of 1827 and the larger Black Hawk War of 1832.
The Winnebago War started when, in 1826, two Winnebago men were detained at Fort Crawford on charges of murder and then transferred to Fort Snelling in present-day Minnesota. The Winnebago in the area believed that both men had been executed. On June 27, 1827, a Winnebago war band led by Chief Red Bird and the prophet White Cloud (Wabokieshiek) attacked a family of settlers outside of Prairie du Chien, killing two. They then went on to attack two keel-boats on the Mississippi River that were heading toward Fort Snelling, killing two settlers and injuring four more. Seven Winnebago warriors were killed in those attacks. The war band also attacked settlers on the lower Wisconsin River and the lead mines at Galena, Illinois. The war band surrendered at Portage, Wisconsin, rather than fighting the United States Army that was pursuing them.
In the Black Hawk War, Sac, Fox, and Kickapoo Native Americans, otherwise known as the British Band, led by Chief Black Hawk, who had been relocated from Illinois to Iowa, attempted to resettle in their Illinois homeland on April 5, 1832, in violation of Treaty. On May 10 Chief Black Hawk decided to go back to Iowa. On May 14, Black Hawk's forces met with a group of militiamen led by Isaiah Stillman. All three members of Black Hawk's parley were shot and one was killed. The Battle of Stillman's Run ensued, leaving twelve militiamen and three to five Sac and Fox warriors dead. Of the fifteen battles of the war, six took place in Wisconsin. The other nine as well as several smaller skirmishes took place in Illinois. The first confrontation to take place in Wisconsin was the first attack on Fort Blue Mounds on June 6, in which one member of the local militia was killed outside of the fort. There was also the Spafford Farm Massacre on June 14, the Battle of Horseshoe Bend on June 16, which was a United States victory, the second attack on Fort Blue Mounds on June 20, and the Sinsinawa Mound raid on June 29. The Native Americans were defeated at the Battle of Wisconsin Heights on July 21, with forty to seventy killed and only one killed on the United States side. The Ho Chunk Nation fought on the side of the United States. The Black Hawk War ended with the Battle of Bad Axe on August 1–2, with over 150 of the British Band dead and 75 captured and only five killed in the United States forces. Those crossing the Mississippi were killed by Lakota, American and Ho Chunk Forces. Many of the British Band survivors were handed over to the United States on August 20 by the Lakota Tribe, with the exception of Black Hawk, who had retreated into Vernon County, Wisconsin and White Cloud, who surrendered on August 27, 1832. Black Hawk was captured by Decorah south of Bangor, Wisconsin, south of the headwaters of the La Crosse River. He was then sold to the U.S. military at Prairie du Chien, accepted by future Confederate president, Stephen Davis, who was a soldier at the time. Black Hawk's tribe had killed his daughter. Black Hawk moved back to Iowa in 1833, after being held prisoner by the United States government.
The Francois Vertefeuille House in Prairie du Chien was built in the 1810s by fur traders. A rare example of the pièce-sur-pièce à coulisse technique once common in French-Canadian architecture, it is one of the oldest buildings in the state and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Cornish immigrants who worked in Wisconsin's lead mines build simple stone cabins from limestone. Six cabins are preserved at the Pendarvis Historic Site in Mineral Point.
The resolution of these Indian conflicts opened the way for Wisconsin's settlement. Many of the region's first settlers were drawn by the prospect of lead mining in southwest Wisconsin. This area had traditionally been mined by Native Americans. However, after a series of treaties removed the Indians, the lead mining region was opened to white miners. Thousands rushed in from across the country to dig for the "gray gold". By 1829, 4,253 miners and 52 licensed smelting works were in the region. Expert miners from Cornwall in Britain informed a large part of the wave of immigrants. Boom towns like Mineral Point, Platteville, Shullsburg, Belmont, and New Diggings sprang up around mines. The first two federal land offices in Wisconsin were opened in 1834 at Green Bay and at Mineral Point. By the 1840s, southwest Wisconsin mines were producing more than half of the nation's lead, which was no small amount, as the United States was producing annually some 31 million pounds of lead. Wisconsin was dubbed the "Badger State" because of the lead miners who first settled there in the 1820s and 1830s. Without shelter in the winter, they had to "live like badgers" in tunnels burrowed into hillsides.
Although the lead mining area drew the first major wave of settlers, its population would soon be eclipsed by growth in Milwaukee. Milwaukee, along with Sheboygan, Manitowoc, and Kewaunee, can be traced back to a series of trading posts established by the French trader Jacques Vieau in 1795. Vieau's post at the mouth of the Milwaukee River was purchased in 1820 by Solomon Juneau, who had visited the area as early as 1818. Juneau moved to what is now Milwaukee and took over the trading post's operation in 1825.
When the fur trade began to decline, Juneau focused on developing the land around his trading post. In the 1830s, he formed a partnership with Green Bay lawyer Morgan Martin, and the two men bought 160 acres (0.6 km2) of land between Lake Michigan and the Milwaukee River. There they founded the settlement of Juneautown. Meanwhile, an Ohio businessman named Byron Kilbourn began to invest in the land west of the Milwaukee River, forming the settlement of Kilbourntown. South of these two settlements, George H. Walker founded the town of Walker's Point in 1835. Each of these three settlements engaged in a fierce competition to attract the most residents and become the largest of the three towns. In 1840, the Wisconsin State Legislature ordered the construction of a bridge over the Milwaukee River to replace the inadequate ferry system. In 1845, Byron Kilbourn, who had been trying to isolate Juneautown to make it more dependent on Kilbourntown, destroyed a portion of the bridge, which started the Milwaukee Bridge War. For several weeks, skirmishes broke out between the residents of both towns. No one was killed but several people were injured, some seriously. On January 31, 1846, the settlements of Juneautown, Kilbourntown, and Walker's Point merged into the incorporated city of Milwaukee. Solomon Juneau was elected mayor. The new city had a population of about 10,000 people, making it the largest city in the territory. Milwaukee remains the largest city in Wisconsin to this day.
Wisconsin Territory was created by an act of the United States Congress on April 20, 1836. By fall of that year, the best prairie groves of the counties surrounding Milwaukee were occupied by New England farmers. The new territory initially included all of the present day states of Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa, as well as parts of North and South Dakota. At the time the Congress called it the "Wiskonsin Territory".
The first territorial governor of Wisconsin was Henry Dodge. He and other territorial lawmakers were initially busied by organizing the territory's government and selecting a capital city. The selection of a location to build a capitol caused a heated debate among the territorial politicians. At first, Governor Dodge selected Belmont, located in the heavily populated lead mining district, to be capital. Shortly after the new legislature convened there, however, it became obvious that Wisconsin's first capitol was inadequate. Numerous other suggestions for the location of the capital were given representing nearly every city that existed in the territory at the time, and Governor Dodge left the decision up to the other lawmakers. The legislature accepted a proposal by James Duane Doty to build a new city named Madison on an isthmus between lakes Mendota and Monona and put the territory's permanent capital there. In 1837, while Madison was being built, the capitol was temporarily moved to Burlington. This city was transferred to Iowa Territory in 1838, along with all the lands of Wisconsin Territory west of the Mississippi River.
Wyman calls Wisconsin a "palimpsest" of layer upon layer of peoples and forces, each imprinting permanent influences. He identified these layers as multiple "frontiers" over three centuries: Native American frontier, French frontier, English frontier, fur-trade frontier, mining frontier, and the logging frontier. Finally the coming of the railroad brought the end of the frontier.
The historian of the frontier, Frederick Jackson Turner, grew up in Wisconsin during its last frontier stage, and in his travels around the state he could see the layers of social and political development. One of Turner's last students, Merle Curti used in-depth analysis of local history in Trempealeau County to test Turner's thesis about democracy. Turner's view was that American democracy, "involved widespread participation in the making of decisions affecting the common life, the development of initiative and self-reliance, and equality of economic and cultural opportunity. It thus also involved Americanization of immigrant." Curti found that from 1840 to 1860 in Wisconsin the poorest groups gained rapidly in land ownership, and often rose to political leadership at the local level. He found that even landless young farm workers were soon able to obtain their own farms. Free land on the frontier therefore created opportunity and democracy, for both European immigrants as well as old stock Yankees.
By the mid-1840s, the population of Wisconsin Territory had exceeded 150,000, more than twice the number of people required for Wisconsin to become a state. In 1846, the territorial legislature voted to apply for statehood. That fall, 124 delegates debated the state constitution. The document produced by this convention was considered extremely progressive for its time. It banned commercial banking, granted married women the right to own property, and left the question of African-American suffrage to a popular vote. Most Wisconsinites considered the first constitution to be too radical, however, and voted it down in an April 1847 referendum.
In December 1847, a second constitutional convention was called. This convention resulted in a new, more moderate state constitution that Wisconsinites approved in a March 1848 referendum, enabling Wisconsin to become the 30th state on May 29, 1848. Wisconsin was the last state entirely east of the Mississippi River (and by extension the last state formed entirely from territory assigned to the U.S. in the 1783 Treaty of Paris) to be admitted to the Union.
With statehood, came the creation of the University of Wisconsin–Madison, which is the state's oldest public university. The creation of this university was set aside in the state charter.
In 1847, the Mineral Point Tribune reported that the town's furnaces were producing 43,800 pounds (19,900 kg) of lead each day. Lead mining in southwest Wisconsin began to decline after 1848 and 1849 when the combination of less easily accessible lead ore and the California Gold Rush made miners leave the area. The lead mining industry in mining communities such as Mineral Point managed to survive into the 1860s, but the industry was never as prosperous as it was before the decline.
By 1850 Wisconsin's population was 305,000. Roughly a third (103,000) were Yankees from New England and western New York state. The second largest group were the Germans, numbering roughly 38,000, followed by 28,000 British immigrants from England, Scotland and Wales. There were roughly 63,000 Wisconsin-born residents of the state. The Yankee migrants would be the dominant political class in Wisconsin for many years.
A railroad frenzy swept Wisconsin shortly after it achieved statehood. The first railroad line in the state was opened between Milwaukee and Waukesha in 1851 by the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad. The railroad pushed on, reaching Milton, Wisconsin in 1852, Stoughton, Wisconsin in 1853, and the capital city of Madison in 1854. The company reached its goal of completing a rail line across the state from Lake Michigan to the Mississippi River when the line to Prairie du Chien was completed in 1857. Shortly after this, other railroad companies completed their own tracks, reaching La Crosse in the west and Superior in the north, spurring development in those cities. By the end of the 1850s, railroads crisscrossed the state, enabling the growth of other industries that could now easily ship products to markets across the country.
Nelson Dewey, the first governor of Wisconsin, was a Democrat. Born in Lebanon, Connecticut, Dewey's father's family had lived in New England since 1633, when their ancestor, Thomas Due, had come to America from Kent County, England. Dewey oversaw the transition from the territorial to the new state government. He encouraged the development of the state's infrastructure, particularly the construction of new roads, railroads, canals, and harbors, as well as the improvement of the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers. During his administration, the State Board of Public Works was organized. Dewey was an abolitionist and the first of many Wisconsin governors to advocate against the spread of slavery into new states and territories. The home Dewey built near Cassville is now a state park.
Between 1848 and 1862, Wisconsin had three Democratic governors, all of whom were in office prior to 1856, four Republican governors, all of whom were in office after 1856, and one Whig governor, Leonard J. Farwell, who served from 1852 to 1854. Under Farwell's governorship, Wisconsin became the second state to abolish capital punishment.
In the presidential elections of 1848 and 1852, the Democratic Party won Wisconsin. In the elections of 1856, 1860, and 1864, the Republican Party won the state.
Between the 1840s and 1860s, settlers from New England, New York and Germany arrived in Wisconsin. Some of them brought radical political ideas to the state. In the 1850s, stop-overs on the underground railroad were set up in the state and abolitionist groups were formed. Some abolitionist and free-soil activists left the Whig and Democratic parties, running and in some cases being elected as candidates of the Liberty Party and Free Soil Party. The most successful such group was the Republican Party. On March 20, 1854, the first county meeting of the Republican Party of the United States, consisting of about thirty people, was held in the Little White Schoolhouse in Ripon, Wisconsin. Ripon claims to be the birthplace of the Republican Party, as does Jackson, Michigan, where the first statewide convention was held. The new party absorbed most of the former Free Soil and Liberty Party members.
A notable instance of abolitionism in Wisconsin was the rescue of Joshua Glover, an escaped slave from St. Louis who sought refuge in Racine, Wisconsin in 1852. He was caught in 1854 by federal marshals and put in a jail at Cathedral Square in Milwaukee, where he waited to be returned to his owner. A mob of 5,000 people led by Milwaukee abolitionist Sherman Booth, himself a "Yankee" transplant from rural New York, sprung Glover from jail and helped him escape to Canada via the underground railroad.
In the 1850s, two-thirds of immigrants to Wisconsin came from the eastern United States, the other one-third being foreign-born. The majority of the foreign born were German immigrants. Many Irish and Norwegian immigrants also came to Wisconsin in the 1850s. Northern Europeans, many of whom were persecuted in their home countries because of their support for the failed bourgeois Revolutions of 1848, often chose Wisconsin because of the liberal constitution of human rights such as the state's unusual recognition of immigrants' right to vote and rights to citizenship.
Yankee settlers from New England started arriving in Wisconsin in the 1830s spread throughout the southern half of the territory. They dominated early politics. Most of them started as farmers, but the larger proportion moved to towns and cities as entrepreneurs, businessmen and professionals.
Historian John Bunker has examined the worldview of the Yankee settlers in the Wisconsin:
Because they arrived first and had a strong sense of community and mission, Yankees were able to transplant New England institutions, values, and mores, altered only by the conditions of frontier life. They established a public culture that emphasized the work ethic, the sanctity of private property, individual responsibility, faith in residential and social mobility, practicality, piety, public order and decorum, reverence for public education, activists, honest, and frugal government, town meeting democracy, and he believed that there was a public interest that transcends particular and stick ambitions. Regarding themselves as the elect and just in a world rife with sin, air, and corruption, they felt a strong moral obligation to define and enforce standards of community and personal behavior....This pietistic worldview was substantially shared by British, Scandinavian, Swiss, English-Canadian and Dutch Reformed immigrants, as well as by German Protestants and many of the "Forty-Niners."
The color guard of the Wisconsin 8th Infantry with Old Abe
Wisconsin enrolled 91,379 soldiers in the Union Army during the American Civil War. 272 of enlisted Wisconsin troops were African American, with the rest being white. Of these, 3,794 were killed in action or mortally wounded, 8,022 died of disease, and 400 were killed in accidents. The total mortality was 12,216 men, about 13.4 percent of total enlistments. Many soldiers trained at Camp Randall currently the site of the University of Wisconsin's athletic stadium.
The draft implemented by President Lincoln in 1862 was unpopular in some Wisconsin communities, particularly among German and Luxembourgish immigrants. In November 1862, draft riots broke out in Milwaukee, Port Washington, and West Bend, which were quelled by deploying U.S. troops in the cities.
Most Wisconsin troops served in the western theater, although several Wisconsin regiments fought in the east, such as the 2nd Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment, 6th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment, and 7th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment, which formed part of the Iron Brigade. These three regiments fought in the Northern Virginia Campaign, the Maryland Campaign, the Battle of Fredericksburg, the Battle of Chancellorsville, the Gettysburg Campaign, the Battle of Mine Run, the Overland Campaign, the Siege of Petersburg, and the Appomattox Campaign.
The 8th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment, which fought in the western theater of war, is also worthy of mention, having fought at the Battle of Iuka, the Siege of Vicksburg, the Red River Campaign, and the Battle of Nashville. The 8th Wisconsin is also known for its mascot, Old Abe.
Agriculture was a major component of the Wisconsin economy during the 19th century. Wheat was a primary crop on early Wisconsin farms. In fact, during the mid 19th century, Wisconsin produced about one sixth of the wheat grown in the United States. However, wheat rapidly depleted nutrients in the soil, especially nitrogen, and was vulnerable to insects, bad weather, and wheat leaf rust. In the 1860s, chinch bugs arrived in Wisconsin and damaged wheat across the state. As the soil lost its quality and prices dropped, the practice of wheat farming moved west into Iowa and Minnesota. Some Wisconsin farmers responded by experimenting with crop rotation and other methods to restore the soil's fertility, but a larger number turned to alternatives to wheat.
In parts of northern Wisconsin, farmers cultivated cranberries and in a few counties in south central Wisconsin, farmers had success growing tobacco, but the most popular replacement for wheat was dairy farming. As wheat fell out of favor, many Wisconsin farmers started raising dairy cattle and growing feed crops, which were better suited to Wisconsin's climate and soil. One reason for the popularity of dairy farming was that many of Wisconsin's farmers had come to the state from New York, the leading producer of dairy products at the time. In addition, many immigrants from Europe brought an extensive knowledge of cheese making. Dairying was also promoted by the University of Wisconsin–Madison's school of agriculture, which offered education to dairy farmers and researched ways to produce better dairy products. The first test of butterfat content in milk was developed at the university, which allowed for consistency in the quality of butter and cheese. By 1899, over ninety percent of Wisconsin farms raised dairy cows and by 1915, Wisconsin had become the leading producer of dairy products in the United States, a position it held until the 1990s. The term America's Dairyland appeared in newspapers as early as 1913 when the state's butterfat production became first in the nation. In 1939 the state legislature enacted a bill to add the slogan to the state's automobile license plates. It continues to be the nation's largest producer of cheese, no longer focusing on the raw material (milk) but rather the value-added products. Because of this, Wisconsin continues to promote itself as "America's Dairyland", Wisconsinites are referred to as cheeseheads in some parts of the country, including Wisconsin, and foam cheesehead hats are associated with Wisconsin and its NFL team, the Green Bay Packers.
The first brewery in Wisconsin was opened in 1835 in Mineral Point by brewer John Phillips. A year later, he opened a second brewery in Elk Grove. In 1840, the first brewery in Milwaukee was opened by Richard G. Owens, William Pawlett, and John Davis, all Welsh immigrants. By 1860, nearly 200 breweries operated in Wisconsin, more than 40 of them in Milwaukee. The huge growth in the brewing industry can be accredited, in part, to the influx of German immigrants to Wisconsin in the 1840s and 1850s. Milwaukee breweries also grew in volume due to the destruction of Chicago's breweries during the great Chicago fire. In the second half of the 19th century, four of the largest breweries in the United States opened in Milwaukee: Miller Brewing Company, Pabst Brewing Company, Valentin Blatz Brewing Company, and Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company. In the 20th century Pabst absorbed Blatz and Schlitz, and moved its brewery and corporate headquarters to California. Miller continues to operate in Milwaukee. The Jacob Leinenkugel Brewing Company opened in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin in 1867 and continues to operate there to this day.
Agriculture was not viable in the densely forested northern and central parts of Wisconsin. Settlers came to this region for logging. The timber industry first set up along the Wisconsin River. Rivers were used to transport lumber from where the wood was being cut, to the sawmills. Sawmills in cities like Wausau and Stevens Point sawed the lumber into boards that were used for construction. The Wolf River also saw considerable logging by industrious Menominee. The Black and Chippewa Rivers formed a third major logging region. That area was dominated by one company owned by Frederick Weyerhaeuser. The construction of railroads allowed loggers to log year round, after rivers froze, and go deeper into the forests to cut down previously unshippable wood supplies. Wood products from Wisconsin's forests such as doors, furniture, beams, shipping boxes, and ships were made in industrial cities with connects to the Wisconsin lumber industry such as Chicago, Milwaukee, Sheboygan, and Manitowoc. Milwaukee and Manitowoc were centers for commercial ship building in Wisconsin. Many cargo ships built in these communities were used to transport lumber from logging ports to major industrial cities. Later a growing paper industry in the Fox River Valley made use of wood pulp from the state's lumber industry.
Logging was a dangerous trade, with high accident rates. On October 8, 1871, the Peshtigo Fire burned 1,875 square miles (4,850 km2) of forest land around the timber industry town of Peshtigo, Wisconsin, killing between 1,200 and 2,500 people. It was the deadliest fire in United States history.
From the 1870s to the 1890s, much of the logging in Wisconsin was done by immigrants from Scandinavia.
By the beginning of the twentieth century, logging in Wisconsin had gone into decline. Many forests had been cleared and never replanted and large corporations in the Pacific Northwest took business away from the Wisconsin industry. The logging companies sold their land to immigrants and out of work lumberjacks who hoped to turn the acres of pine stumps into farms, but few met with success.
Wisconsin is known in the 18th century to have discovered gold deposits in western Wisconsin. Such discoveries occurred around the town of St. Croix Falls where a settler stumbled across a gold nugget valued to be worth lots at the time. It's no surprise Wisconsin's western region was once the site of volcanic eruptions so it makes sense that minerals that weren't commonly found in other parts of the state would be present here.
Wisconsin was a regional and national model for innovation and organization in the Progressive Era in the early 20th century. The direct primary law of 1904 made it possible to mobilize voters against the previously dominant political machines. The first factors involved the La Follette family going back and forth between trying control of the Republican Party and third-party activity. Secondly the Wisconsin idea, of intellectuals and planners based at the University of Wisconsin shaping government policy. LaFollette started as a traditional Republican in the 1890s, where he fought against populism and other radical movements. He broke decisively with the state Republican leadership, and took control of the party by 1900, all the time quarrelling endlessly with ex-allies.
Wisconsin at this time was a de facto one party state, as the Democratic Party was then a minor conservative group in the state. Serious opposition more often than not came from the Socialist Party, with a strong German and union constituency in Milwaukee. The socialists often collaborated with the progressive Republicans in statewide politics. Senator Robert M. La Follette tried to use his national reputation to challenge President Taft for the Republican nomination in 1912. However, as soon as Roosevelt declared his candidacy, most of La Follette's supporters switched to the former president. During the Wilson administration he supported many of Wilson's domestic programs in Congress, however he strongly opposed Wilson's foreign policy, and mobilized the large German and Scandinavian populations in Wisconsin to demand neutrality during World War I. During the final years of his career, he split with the Republican Party and ran an independent campaign for president in 1924. In his bid for the presidency he won 1/6 of the national popular vote, but was only able to win his home state.
Following his death, his two sons assumed control of the Wisconsin Republican Party after a brief period of intraparty factional disputes. Following in their father's footsteps they helped form the Wisconsin Progressive Party, in many ways a spiritual successor to the party La Follette had founded in 1924. The party surged to popularity during the mid-1930s off of the inaction of the moderately conservative Schmedeman administration, and were able to gain the support of then president Franklin D. Roosevelt. Much of the new party's support could be owed to the personalities leading it, and the support of Roosevelt and progressive Democrats. The party saw success across Wisconsin's elected offices in the state and congress. Despite its popularity the party eventually declined as Philip, engulfed in scandal and accusations of authoritarianism and fiscal responsibility, lost re-election for the final time in 1938. Following this defeat Philip left electoral politics and joined World War II in the Pacific Theater. Due to joining the war, the National Progressives of America, an organization the La Follettes had hoped would precede a national realignment, faltered. Both organizations began to tear themselves apart as La Follette's absence led to vicious intraparty fighting which ultimately led to a vote to dissolve itself, which Philip was told to stay away from.
The Wisconsin Idea was the commitment of the University of Wisconsin under President Charles R. Van Hise, with LaFollette support, to use the university's powerful intellectual resources to develop practical progressive reforms for the state and indeed for the nation.
Between 1901 and 1911, Progressive Republicans in Wisconsin created the nation's first comprehensive statewide primary election system, the first effective workplace injury compensation law, and the first state income tax, making taxation proportional to actual earnings. The key leaders were Robert M. La Follette and (in 1910) Governor Francis E. McGovern. However, in 1912 McGovern supported Roosevelt for president and LaFollette was outraged. He made sure the next legislature defeated the governor's programs, and that McGovern was defeated in his bid for the Senate in 1914. The Progressive movement split into hostile factions. Some was based on personalities—especially La Follette's style of violent personal attacks against other Progressives, and some was based on who should pay, with the division between farmers (who paid property taxes) and the urban element (which paid income taxes). This disarray enabled the conservatives (called "Stalwarts") to elect Emanuel Philipp as governor in 1914. The Stalwart counterattack said the Progressives were too haughty, too beholden to experts, too eager to regulate, and too expensive. Economy and budget cutting was their formula.
During World War I, due to the neutrality of Wisconsin and many Wisconsin Republicans, progressives, and German immigrants which made up 30 to 40 percent of the state population, Wisconsin would gain the nickname "Traitor State" which was used by many "hyper patriots".
As the war raged on in Europe, Robert M. La Follette, leader of the anti-war movement in Wisconsin, led a group of progressive senators in blocking a bill by president Woodrow Wilson which would have armed merchant ships with guns. Many Wisconsin politicians such as Governor Phillipp and senator Irvine Lernroot were accused of having divided loyalties. Even with outspoken opponents to the war, at the onset of the war many Wisconsinites would abandon neutrality. Businesses, labor and farms all enjoyed prosperity from the war. With over 118,000 going into military service, Wisconsin was the first state to report for four national drafts conducted by the U.S. military.
The progressive Wisconsin Idea promoted the use of the University of Wisconsin faculty as intellectual resources for state government, and as guides for local government. It promoted expansion of the university through the UW-Extension system to reach all the state's farming communities. University economics professors John R. Commons and Harold Groves enabled Wisconsin to create the first unemployment compensation program in the United States in 1932. Other Wisconsin Idea scholars at the university generated the plan that became the New Deal's Social Security Act of 1935, with Wisconsin expert Arthur J. Altmeyer playing the key role. The Stalwarts counterattacked by arguing if the university became embedded in the state, then its internal affairs became fair game, especially the faculty preference for advanced research over undergraduate teaching. The Stalwarts controlled the Regents, and their interference in academic freedom outraged the faculty. Historian Frederick Jackson Turner, the most famous professor, quit and went to Harvard.
Wisconsin took part in several political extremes in the mid to late 20th century, ranging from the anti-communist crusades of Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s to the radical antiwar protests at UW-Madison that culminated in the Sterling Hall bombing in August 1970. The state became a leader in welfare reform under Republican Governor Tommy Thompson during the 1990s. The state's economy also underwent further transformations towards the close of the 20th century, as heavy industry and manufacturing declined in favor of a service economy based on medicine, education, agribusiness, and tourism.
In 2011, Wisconsin became the focus of some controversy when newly elected governor Scott Walker proposed and then successfully passed and enacted 2011 Wisconsin Act 10, which made large changes in the areas of collective bargaining, compensation, retirement, health insurance, and sick leave of public sector employees, among other changes. A series of major protests by union supporters took place that year in protest to the changes, and Walker survived a recall election held the next year, becoming the first governor in United States history to do so. Walker enacted other bills promoting conservative governance, such as a right-to-work law, abortion restrictions, and legislation removing certain gun controls. Walker's administration also made critical changes to Wisconsin's election process, enacting one of the most aggressive legislative gerrymanders in the country and replacing Wisconsin's nonpartisan state elections board with a commission of political appointees. When Walker lost re-election in 2018, he collaborated with the gerrymandered Republican legislature to strip powers from the incoming Governor and Attorney General. Since 2011, Wisconsin has seen increasing governmental dysfunction and paralysis, as the durable gerrymander insulated the legislature from electoral consequences.
Following the election of Tony Evers as governor in 2018, Wisconsin has seen a string of liberal victories at every level of government which have slowly chipped away at the conservative dominance within the state. This eventually led to the Wisconsin supreme court overturning the Walker-era legislative gerrymander in Clarke v. Wisconsin Elections Commission.
Night's Mardi Gras
By Edward J. Wheeler
1859-1922
Night is the true democracy. When day
Like some great monarch with his train has passed,
In regal pomp and splendor to the last,
The stars troop forth along the Milky Way,
A jostling crowd, in radiant disarray,
On heaven's broad boulevard in pageants vast,
And things of earth, the hunted and outcast,
Come from their haunts and hiding-places; yea,
Even from the nooks and crannies of the mind
Visions uncouth and vagrant fancies start,
And specters of dead joy, that shun the light,
And impotent regrets and terrors blind,
Each one, in form grotesque, playing its part
In the fantastic Mardi Gras of Night.
Pawhuska, Oklahoma.
The Triangle Building was built in the middle of two streets that, when joined together.....created a triangle. I guess when this building was constructed that Pawhuska was a busy enough city to warrant building on every square inch available.
I've been coming up to Pawhuska now since about 1992 to visit the Tallgrass Prairie, and to look around on some of my solo photo jaunts. I've seen this building in various states of repair and disarray. It seems like several years ago the building had been renovated and was ready to see life once again. Last weekend, though, I found the building looking perhaps the most vulnerable I've ever seen it.....no windows anywhere? What's going on with it?
Update 1/16/22: This has been, for several years now, the Frontier Hotel. Many people seem to believe it's a Ree Drummond property; it's not (she has her own really nice hotel/b&b). It's actually managed by the same people who run the Mayo Hotel in downtown Tulsa.
Bain News Service,, publisher.
Room in villa at Tilsit occupied by Russian officers
[between ca. 1914 and ca. 1915]
1 negative : glass ; 5 x 7 in. or smaller.
Notes:
Title from data provided by the Bain News Service on the negative.
Photograph shows a room in a villa occupied by Russian soldiers during World War I, in Sovetsk (Tilsit), Russia. (Source: Flickr Commons project, 2011)
Forms part of: George Grantham Bain Collection (Library of Congress).
Subjects:
World War, 1914-1918.
Format: Glass negatives.
Rights Info: No known restrictions on publication.
Repository: Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA, hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print
General information about the Bain Collection is available at hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.ggbain
Higher resolution image is available (Persistent URL): hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ggbain.17984
Call Number: LC-B2- 3316-12
Fingal was our last stop of the day. Dad and I had to have a chuckle at the name "Fingal" because it just sounds so silly. But it's a cute, quiet community with a lovely park and some neat old buildings!
This old place got my attention right away! I can only hope someone is fixing it up? Or wants to? I mean, you can't let this place go to waste! As always, I wished to see inside. But it was posted. Boo. From what I could see through the windows it was in a state of disarray. Through the windows you can see beautiful trim and even solid old doors. I think there is hope for this place yet! Dear whoever owns this house: may I please come see inside? I promise I won't sue you if I fall through the floor! I'm just insanely curious about old houses and history.
Read more here:
pictureprairieplaces.weebly.com/adventures/se-nd-day-trip...
"Chief of Aries, Jupiter and Saturn,
Eternal God what mutations?
Then by long century its maling time returns,
Gaul and Italy, what emotions?"
This text does not refer to a food famine, but to a spiritual confusion, which symbolizes the interest of many Christians in other religions and religious groups. They have chosen to adopt other beliefs in order to discover religious truth. This text concerns spiritual thirst. The human tide will decide to adopt the Catholic religion.
Nostradamus' predictions indicate that climate change will continue to affect our planet and that political leaders will reach an agreement to reduce air pollutant emissions.
The prophet announces that "We will see the waters rise and the earth collapse under them" in 2019. We will experience many climate changes during this period and the hurricanes that will ravage several regions of the United States will shape the grim landscape described by Nostradamus.
Many category 1 hurricanes will hit the United States in 2019, these phenomena will cause winds reaching 40 mph.
Americans residing in Florida, Texas and New Orleans will have to be prepared for severe weather. Andrew Cuomo, Governor of New York, also said, "Extreme weather conditions are a reality. We are experiencing storms of unprecedented violence.
Global warming will cause a large number of armed conflicts. A strategic decision will enable China to become the new world leader.
Two superpowers will fight during the Third World War and this conflict will last 27 years. Predictions indicate that the Third World War will begin after the death of the last Pope (the successor to Pope Benedict XVI) who will be assassinated by the antichrist.
"Mount Aventine will burn in the night:
The sky will darken in Flanders:
When the monarch chases away his nephew,
Church members will cause scandals."
This text probably refers to Saint Aventine, who is considered to be the protector of people suffering from mental disorders.
But it can also concern the Aventine, which is one of the Seven Hills of Rome. A (total) solar eclipse will take place on July 23, 2019 and this event could mark the beginning of the unrest that will affect the Catholic Church, but also all other Christian churches.
The assassination of the leader of the Catholic Church will cause chaos throughout the world and this event will take place in the following months.
People residing in the United States must be prepared for the "Great Earthquake". The subduction zone extends over more than 500 miles and the entire area between California (USA) and Vancouver Island (Canada).
Two tectonic plates come into contact in this area and one of them gradually sinks below the second (subduction).
The displacement of the Cascadia subduction zone will cause an earthquake whose magnitude could reach 8.0 to 8.6 degrees on the Richter scale, and if the fault is fully opened, this zone will suffer an earthquake whose magnitude could reach 8.7 to 9.2 degrees: "The Great Earthquake".
This phenomenon will ravage this region over 225,000 square miles. This area includes Seattle, Tacoma, Portland, Portland, Eugene, Salem (the capital of Oregon) and Olympia (the capital of Washington).
This area has more than 7,000,000 inhabitants. These people will suffer the most significant natural disaster in the history of the United States.
The prophet also announced that humans will be able to communicate with animals. The prophet announces that in 2019 "The pigs will become brothers to man". Some people think that this text announces that human beings will stop mutilating animals. Other people think it indicates that technology will allow us to communicate with animals.
Many advances will be made in the field of medicine. Medical innovations will increase human life expectancy. People who have read the prophecies of Nostradamus say that humans will be able to live up to 200 years
A prediction also contains the following sentence: "After the invention of a new engine, the world will return to the way it was before the creation of the Tower of Babel."
Many people think that this engine refers to the Internet and that this prediction indicates that technology will allow us to create a new global language. Other people think that this prediction concerns social networks that are constantly developing.
Nostradamus' prophecies announce that justice will be one of the most important themes of 2019.
His predictions also indicate that earthquakes and hurricanes are likely to affect many states in the United States (including Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and Texas).
These phenomena are expected to occur mainly during the months under the Earth's sign (January, April, July and October).
This year will not be a year that will be conducive to financial gains, but this inconvenience will prove useful as it will encourage us to take further steps to improve our situation.
During this period, we will have to make more efforts, opt for new strategies, avoid risky situations and become effectively informed, and also focus on the right methods to attract prosperity.
Our social life will be more active, we will devote more time to our relationships and we will meet new friends.
However, we will have to be careful because a new meeting could disrupt our relationship.
Stock market activities will be more successful during the summer and also during the fall. Researchers will make several interesting discoveries in the health field during 2019.
This period will encourage us to take better care of our health and take action to preserve our heart, circulatory system, stomach and pancreas.
It is therefore essential that we adopt a healthy diet and engage in relaxing activities, but also avoid sleeping in rooms located in the West (this concerns pregnant women and the elderly in particular) and reduce our stress.
Nostradamus was an apothecary fascinated by the occult, he almost provoked the anger of the Catholic Church when he predicted the future over a period of twenty centuries. Was he really a visionary or are his visions just myths?
This small dynamic man, endowed with a long thick beard, was in a state of disarray at the Court of King Henry II of France. Known as the son of a converted Jewish couple, passionate about astrology and the occult sciences, Nostradamus was invited to Paris in 1556 mainly to entertain the Court.
But it is the prophecies he has established about the king that will make him known throughout the world. One of them seemed both absurd and true, suggesting that a "blind man" would soon ascend the throne.
Another, both enigmatic and explainable, stated that: "The young lion will triumph over the eldest on the battlefield, in a single battle. He will pierce his eyes in the golden cage, two wounds in one, and suddenly he will give up his soul."
On June 1, 1559, when the king was participating in a tournament, by accident, the spear of his friend who was also his opponent, pierced the royal golden helmet before sinking into his eye. The unfortunate culprit, the Earl of Montgomery, was younger than the ruler. A splinter from the weapon caused a secondary wound, and the king was in great pain for ten days in a row, before he died.
Everyone remembered the words of Nostradamus. The leaders of the Roman Catholic Church would have preferred to burn this dangerous prophet alive, because they heavily condemned magicians and wizards. The peasants, who believed that his prophecies were actually curses, burned statuettes of him. It was only thanks to Queen Catherine de Médicis, now a widow, that he managed to escape execution.
Recluded in the dark
On the brink of civil war, France was the ideal environment for Nostradamus' enigmatic and obscure prophecies, which were published in 1555 - the first hundred of about 2000 that he would announce until 1557. These works met with immediate success, which enabled him to join the Court.
Nostradamus admitted that he deliberately opted for an "enigmatic language". He wrote his texts using obscure language, originating in the French language and including many Italian, Greek, Jewish and Latin expressions. Each of these predictions includes four verses and forms a quatrain that looks nothing like a poem.
The visionary said that this style of writing allowed him to escape the punishments inflicted by the powerful, who really did not like his texts.
Some skeptics admit that this vague style was deliberately chosen to allow readers to interpret the
texts. As a result, there are currently more than 400 different interpretations based on his prophecies. Each of them was established to explain prophecies dating back to 3797.
Nostradamus becomes Royal Advisor
The country seemed to be on the verge of a national conflict and many people, like Queen Catherine, did not need evidence to believe the apothecary's predictions were true. The prediction he had made concerning the death of the sovereign was more than enough to convince them. Convinced of his good faith, she had him appointed as the personal doctor of her son, Charles IX.
According to a famous story, Nostradamus once called upon an angel named Anael, and asked him to use a magic mirror to reveal to him the future of the queen's children. The mirror indicated that his three sons would temporarily rule the country and that their dishonoured son-in-law, Henri of Navarre, would occupy the throne for 23 years. Frightened by this show, the queen asked her to interrupt it.
In fact, it is likely that Nostradamus only visited her at the Court to make predictions for her and her children. Nostradamus seems gifted enough to describe his fateful visions using ambiguous formulas to protect himself from the wrath of the monarchs, for the latter did not hesitate to punish those who gave them bad news.
Predictions that herald a troubled century
Many experts who have studied Nostradamus' texts claim that they contain a large number of prophecies that evoke violent events of the contemporary era - the ascension of Hitler, the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert. The German people were convinced of the authenticity of the prophecies consecrated to the Third Reich.
In England and Germany, people also modified a series of quatrains and printed them before throwing them out of an airplane for use as propaganda tools.
And on the other hand, many people were convinced that one of his authentic quatrains announced the beginning of the war: "A bright fire and death hidden in globes will be terribly unleashed. At nightfall, enemy forces will destroy the entire city."
Interest in the prophet of rebirth was revived following the tragic events in Iran, when the Shah was banned by supporters of Ayatollah Khomeiny, who had previously been exiled to France. According to the translation, Nostradamus wrote: "Rain, famine and war will continue in Persia. A belief too deep will betray the monarch.
What started in France will end there, a secret sign will be locked up. "Was it a reliable prediction or a modified interpretation? Could it give credibility to another prophecy that was to be fulfilled in the future, one of the few that included a specific date?"
He predicted his own death
One of France's most famous poets, Pierre de Ronsard, wrote this about him: "Like an ancient oracle, he predicted much of our destiny for many years. The prophet had visibly earned the respect of the royal family and his fame extended even further until his death in 1566. Of course, some people were not convinced by his predictions or, worse, only saw him as an intelligent man who abused the credulity of others. Some researchers claim that Nostradamus also predicted his own death: "Near this bench and this bed, I will be found dead." Then one evening he announced that he would not survive the coming night. He was found dead in his room the next morning next to his office. His death was probably caused by gout.
Green Bay is a city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. The county seat of Brown County, it is at the head of Green Bay (known locally as "the bay of Green Bay"), a sub-basin of Lake Michigan at the mouth of the Fox River. As of the 2020 Census, Green Bay had a population of 107,395, making it the third-most populous city in Wisconsin, after Milwaukee and Madison, and the third-largest city on Lake Michigan, after Chicago and Milwaukee.
Green Bay is the principal city of the Green Bay Metropolitan Statistical Area, which covers Brown, Kewaunee, and Oconto counties. Green Bay is the home city of the National Football League (NFL)'s Green Bay Packers.
Samuel de Champlain, the founder of New France, commissioned Jean Nicolet to form a peaceful alliance with Native Americans in the western areas, whose unrest interfered with the French fur trade, and to search for a shorter trade route to China through Canada. Nicolet and others had learned from other First Nations of the Ho-Chunk (Winnebago) people, who identified as "People of the Sea", and believed they must reside on or near an Ocean. Champlain had also heard about natural resources in the area, including fertile soil, forests, and animals. Nicolet began his journey for this new land shortly before winter in 1634. In what later became a French fur-trading route, he sailed up the Ottawa River, through Lake Nipissing and down the French River to Lake Huron, then through the straits of Michilimackinac into Lake Michigan. He is believed to have landed at Red Banks, near the site of the modern-day city of Green Bay, Wisconsin.
Nicolet founded a small trading post here in 1634, originally named La Baye or La Baie des Puants (French for "the Bay of Stinking Waters"). Nicolet's settlement was one of the oldest European permanent settlements in America.
When Nicolet arrived in the Green Bay area, he encountered the Menominee, who occupied this territory. He also met the Ho-Chunk (also known as the Winnebago), a people who spoke a Siouan language.
The Winnebago hunted and fished, and also cultivated corn, beans, squash, and tobacco. Wild rice, which they had incorporated as a dietary staple, grew in abundance along the riverbanks. The women regularly harvested and cooked this, along with a wide variety of nuts, berries, and edible roots which they gathered in the woods. The men typically hunted and fished for food, and the women processed game and other foods in cooking. They prepared and made clothing from the furs, as well as using other parts of animals to make tools, cord, etc. Women also had a role in the political process, as no action could be taken without agreement of half of the women. Nicolet stayed with this tribe for about a year, becoming an ally. He helped open up opportunities for trade and commerce with them before returning to Quebec.
A few months after Nicolet returned to Quebec, Champlain died. His death halted other journeys to La Baie Verte (French for "The Green Bay"). Père Claude Allouez sent Nicolas Perrot to La Baie. After this, the French avoided the area for some decades, because of the intensity of First Nations and European conflicts in the east. In 1671, a Jesuit Mission was set up in the area. A fort was added in 1717 and gradually associated development took place. The town was incorporated in 1754.
Great Britain took control of some French areas during the Seven Years' War, known as the French and Indian War in some areas of North America. They took control of this town in 1761. After the British defeated the French in 1763, France ceded its lands east of the Mississippi in North America.
The first permanent settlers were Charles de Langlade and his family from Quebec, who moved to Green Bay in 1765. They are considered the first European settlers in the present-day state of Wisconsin. Langlade, called the "Founder and Father of Wisconsin", was a métis or mixed-race, son of a French-Canadian father and an Ottawa woman. He grew up with his mother's family among the Ottawa people and became a war chief. The Ottawa were allies of the French during the French and Indian War, and Langlade is credited with planning the ambush of British General Braddock and George Washington. His family was followed to Green Bay by the Grignons, Porliers and Lawes, who brought French-Canadian culture with them. Colorful "jack-knife Judge" Reaume dispensed British justice in the territory after Great Britain took it over following the war. These early ethnic French settlers set the tone for many who followed.
The British gradually took over Wisconsin during the French and Indian War, taking control of Green Bay in 1761 and gaining control of all of Wisconsin in 1763. Like the French, the British were interested in little but the fur trade. The first permanent settlers, mostly French Canadians, some Anglo-New Englanders and a few African American freedmen, arrived in Wisconsin while it was under British control. Charles Michel de Langlade is generally recognized as the first settler, establishing a trading post at Green Bay in 1745, and moving there permanently in 1764. Settlement began at Prairie du Chien around 1781. The French residents at the trading post in what is now Green Bay, referred to the town as "La Bey," however British fur traders referred to it as "Green Bay," because the water and the shore assumed green tints in early spring. The old French title was gradually dropped, and the British name of "Green Bay" stuck. The region coming under British rule had virtually no adverse effect on the French residents as the British needed the cooperation of the French fur traders and the French fur traders needed the goodwill of the British. During the French occupation of the region licenses for fur trading had been issued scarcely and only to select groups of traders, whereas the British, in an effort to make as much money as possible from the region, issued licenses for fur trading freely, both to British and French residents. The fur trade in what is now Wisconsin reached its height under British rule, and the first self-sustaining farms in the state were established as well. From 1763 to 1780, Green Bay was a prosperous community which produced its own foodstuff, built graceful cottages and held dances and festivities. In 1791, two free African Americans set up a fur trading post among the Menominee at present day Marinette.
The Green Bay area was still under British control until the 1783 treaty formally ended the American Revolutionary War. Following the War of 1812, which in part was over disputes related to the border with Canada, the United States built Fort Howard on the Fox River in 1816 to protect its northern border. Doty, Whitney, Arndt, Baird and Martin were among the many British-American settlers whose numbers pushed French culture into the background.
The Erie Canal was completed in 1825, linking New England with the Great Lakes. This led to the advance of Green Bay as a trading center. The end of the Black Hawk War in 1832 also gave impetus to settlement of the region. Most of the settlers were farmers from New England who began using the Erie Canal to pour into Wisconsin. As more and more New England settlers arrived, Green Bay developed into a trading center for this population.
Wisconsin's first newspaper, The Green Bay Intelligencer, was started in 1833 by Albert Ellis and John V. Suydam. The borough of Green Bay, created in 1838, is the center of the present-day city. The borough combined the town of Astor (a company town of the American Fur Company) with Navarino, platted by Daniel Whitney. Before Wisconsin became a state in 1848, its commerce was based on the fur trade, which became dominated by John Jacob Astor's American Fur Company. After statehood, there was a shift away from fur trading toward lumbering. "For a short time in 1860s and 1870s, iron smelting in charcoal kilns rivaled the timber industry while the port handled increasing amounts of fuel, feed, and lumber. Today's major local industry had its start in 1865 when the first paper mill was built."
By 1850 the town had a population of 1,923. The town was incorporated as the city of Green Bay in 1854. The Green Bay Area Public School District was founded in 1856. Throughout the 1850s, word spread of America's cheap land and good soil, bringing in an influx of Belgian people, German, Scandinavian, Irish and Dutch immigrants, each adding to the culture. The greatest concentration of newcomers came from Belgium. They cleared the land to farm and build their homes.
The railroad arrived in the 1860s. The three railroads that would reach Green Bay were the Chicago & North Western (C&NW), SOO Line, (SOO), and the Milwaukee Road (MILW). These railroads were highways which allowed people and products to travel all over the state, increasing business and trade opportunities. The area was able to grow and enrich itself with the use of the plentiful timber resources. This led to the paper industry becoming the major employer in Green Bay, and opened up the port for international trade.
Large numbers of Belgians immigrated to Green Bay in the thirty-year period between 1880 and 1910. Significant numbers of English immigrants, many having lived first in Canada, also moved to Green Bay during this period, usually arriving as large families. There was also a small Dutch community in Green Bay at this time. Green Bay had a larger portion of first generation immigrants from France than any other city in Wisconsin at this time as well.
In 1934, President Franklin D. Roosevelt came to Green Bay to honor its tercentenary.[18] By 1950, the city had a population of 52,735. In 1964, the Town of Preble was consolidated with the city of Green Bay.
Wisconsin is a state in the Upper Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by land area and the 20th-most populous.
The bulk of Wisconsin's population live in areas situated along the shores of Lake Michigan. The largest city, Milwaukee, anchors its largest metropolitan area, followed by Green Bay and Kenosha, the third- and fourth-most-populated Wisconsin cities, respectively. The state capital, Madison, is currently the second-most-populated and fastest-growing city in the state. Wisconsin is divided into 72 counties and as of the 2020 census had a population of nearly 5.9 million.
Wisconsin's geography is diverse, having been greatly impacted by glaciers during the Ice Age with the exception of the Driftless Area. The Northern Highland and Western Upland along with a part of the Central Plain occupy the western part of the state, with lowlands stretching to the shore of Lake Michigan. Wisconsin is third to Ontario and Michigan in the length of its Great Lakes coastline. The northern portion of the state is home to the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest. At the time of European contact, the area was inhabited by Algonquian and Siouan nations, and today it is home to eleven federally recognized tribes. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, many European settlers entered the state, most of whom emigrated from Germany and Scandinavia. Wisconsin remains a center of German American and Scandinavian American culture, particularly in respect to its cuisine, with foods such as bratwurst and kringle. Wisconsin is home to one UNESCO World Heritage Site, comprising two of the most significant buildings designed by Wisconsin-born architect Frank Lloyd Wright: his studio at Taliesin near Spring Green and his Jacobs I House in Madison.
The Republican Party was founded in Wisconsin in 1854. In more recent years, Wisconsin has been a battleground state in presidential elections, notably in 2016 and 2020.
Wisconsin is one of the nation's leading dairy producers and is known as "America's Dairyland"; it is particularly famous for its cheese. The state is also famous for its beer, particularly and historically in Milwaukee, most notably as the headquarters of the Miller Brewing Company. Wisconsin has some of the most permissive alcohol laws in the country and is well known for its drinking culture. Its economy is dominated by manufacturing, healthcare, information technology, and agriculture—specifically dairy, cranberries, and ginseng. Tourism is also a major contributor to the state's economy. The gross domestic product in 2020 was $348 billion.
The history of Wisconsin encompasses the story not only of the people who have lived in Wisconsin since it became a state of the U.S., but also that of the Native American tribes who made their homeland in Wisconsin, the French and British colonists who were the first Europeans to live there, and the American settlers who lived in Wisconsin when it was a territory.
Since its admission to the Union on May 29, 1848, as the 30th state, Wisconsin has been ethnically heterogeneous, with Yankees being among the first to arrive from New York and New England. They dominated the state's heavy industry, finance, politics and education. Large numbers of European immigrants followed them, including German Americans, mostly between 1850 and 1900, Scandinavians (the largest group being Norwegian Americans) and smaller groups of Belgian Americans, Dutch Americans, Swiss Americans, Finnish Americans, Irish Americans and others; in the 20th century, large numbers of Polish Americans and African Americans came, settling mainly in Milwaukee.
Politically the state was predominantly Republican until recent years, when it became more evenly balanced. The state took a national leadership role in the Progressive Movement, under the aegis of Robert M. "Fighting Bob" La Follette and his family, who fought the old guard bitterly at the state and national levels. The "Wisconsin Idea" called for the use of the higher learning in modernizing government, and the state is notable for its strong network of state universities.
The first known inhabitants of what is now Wisconsin were Paleo-Indians, who first arrived in the region in about 10,000 BC at the end of the Ice Age. The retreating glaciers left behind a tundra in Wisconsin inhabited by large animals, such as mammoths, mastodons, bison, giant beaver, and muskox. The Boaz mastodon and the Clovis artifacts discovered in Boaz, Wisconsin show that the Paleo-Indians hunted these large animals. They also gathered plants as conifer forests grew in the glaciers' wake. With the decline and extinction of many large mammals in the Americas, the Paleo-Indian diet shifted toward smaller mammals like deer and bison.
During the Archaic Period, from 6000 to 1000 BC, mixed conifer-hardwood forests as well as mixed prairie-forests replaced Wisconsin's conifer forests. People continued to depend on hunting and gathering. Around 4000 BC they developed spear-throwers and copper tools such as axes, adzes, projectile points, knives, perforators, fishhooks and harpoons. Copper ornaments like beaded necklaces also appeared around 1500 BC. These people gathered copper ore at quarries on the Keweenaw Peninsula in Michigan and on Isle Royale in Lake Superior. They may have crafted copper artifacts by hammering and folding the metal and also by heating it to increase its malleability. However it is not certain if these people reached the level of copper smelting. Regardless, the Copper Culture of the Great Lakes region reached a level of sophistication unprecedented in North America. The Late Archaic Period also saw the emergence of cemeteries and ritual burials, such as the one in Oconto.
The Early Woodland Period began in 1000 BC as plants became an increasingly important part of the people's diet. Small scale agriculture and pottery arrived in southern Wisconsin at this time. The primary crops were maize, beans and squash. Agriculture, however, could not sufficiently support these people, who also had to hunt and gather. Agriculture at this time was more akin to gardening than to farming. Villages emerged along rivers, streams and lakes, and the earliest earthen burial mounds were constructed. The Havana Hopewell culture arrived in Wisconsin in the Middle Woodland Period, settling along the Mississippi River. The Hopewell people connected Wisconsin to their trade practices, which stretched from Ohio to Yellowstone and from Wisconsin to the Gulf of Mexico. They constructed elaborate mounds, made elaborately decorated pottery and brought a wide range of traded minerals to the area. The Hopewell people may have influenced the other inhabitants of Wisconsin, rather than displacing them. The Late Woodland Period began in about 400 AD, following the disappearance of the Hopewell culture from the area. The people of Wisconsin first used the bow and arrow in the final centuries of the Woodland Period, and agriculture continued to be practiced in the southern part of the state. The effigy mound culture dominated Southern Wisconsin during this time, building earthen burial mounds in the shapes of animals. Examples of effigy mounds still exist at High Cliff State Park and at Lizard Mound County Park. In northern Wisconsin people continued to survive on hunting and gathering, and constructed conical mounds.
People of the Mississippian culture expanded into Wisconsin around 1050 AD and established a settlement at Aztalan along the Crawfish River. While begun by the Caddoan people, other cultures began to borrow & adapt the Mississippian cultural structure. This elaborately planned site may have been the northernmost outpost of Cahokia, although it is also now known that some Siouan peoples along the Mississippi River may have taken part in the culture as well. Regardless, the Mississippian site traded with and was clearly influenced in its civic and defensive planning, as well as culturally, by its much larger southern neighbor. A rectangular wood-and-clay stockade surrounded the twenty acre site, which contained two large earthen mounds and a central plaza. One mound may have been used for food storage, as a residence for high-ranking officials, or as a temple, and the other may have been used as a mortuary. The Mississippian culture cultivated maize intensively, and their fields probably stretched far beyond the stockade at Aztalan, although modern agriculture has erased any traces of Mississippian practices in the area. Some rumors also speculate that the people of Aztalan may have experimented slightly with stone architecture in the making of a man-made, stone-line pond, at the very least. While the first settler on the land of what is now the city supposedly reported this, he filled it in and it has yet to be rediscovered.
Both Woodland and Mississippian peoples inhabited Aztalan, which was connected to the extensive Mississippian trade network. Shells from the Gulf of Mexico, copper from Lake Superior and Mill Creek chert have been found at the site. Aztalan was abandoned around 1200 AD. The Oneota people later built agriculturally based villages, similar to those of the Mississippians but without the extensive trade networks, in the state.
By the time the first Europeans arrived in Wisconsin, the Oneota had disappeared. The historically documented inhabitants, as of the first European incursions, were the Siouan speaking Dakota Oyate to the northwest, the Chiwere speaking Ho-Chunk (Winnebago) and the Algonquian Menominee to the northeast, with their lands beginning approximately north of Green Bay. The Chiwere lands were south of Green Bay and followed rivers to the southwest. Over time, other tribes moved to Wisconsin, including the Ojibwe, the Illinois, the Fauk, the Sauk and the Mahican. The Mahican were one of the last groups to arrived, coming from New York after the U.S. congress passed the Indian Removal Act of 1830.
The first European known to have landed in Wisconsin was Jean Nicolet. In 1634, Samuel de Champlain, governor of New France, sent Nicolet to contact the Ho-Chunk people, make peace between them and the Huron and expand the fur trade, and possibly to also find a water route to Asia. Accompanied by seven Huron guides, Nicolet left New France and canoed through Lake Huron and Lake Superior, and then became the first European known to have entered Lake Michigan. Nicolet proceeded into Green Bay, which he named La Baie des Puants (literally "The Stinking Bay"), and probably came ashore near the Red Banks. He made contact with the Ho-Chunk and Menominee living in the area and established peaceful relations. Nicolet remained with the Ho-Chunk the winter before he returned to Quebec.
The Beaver Wars fought between the Iroquois and the French prevented French explorers from returning to Wisconsin until 1652–1654, when Pierre Radisson and Médard des Groseilliers arrived at La Baie des Puants to trade furs. They returned to Wisconsin in 1659–1660, this time at Chequamegon Bay on Lake Superior. On their second voyage they found that the Ojibwe had expanded into northern Wisconsin, as they continued to prosper in the fur trade. They also were the first Europeans to contact the Santee Dakota. They built a trading post and wintered near Ashland, before returning to Montreal.
In 1665 Claude-Jean Allouez, a Jesuit missionary, built a mission on Lake Superior. Five years later he abandoned the mission, and journeyed to La Baie des Puants. Two years later he built St. Francis Xavier Mission near present-day De Pere. In his journeys through Wisconsin, he encountered groups of Native Americans who had been displaced by Iroquois in the Beaver Wars. He evangelized the Algonquin-speaking Potawatomi, who had settled on the Door Peninsula after fleeing Iroquois attacks in Michigan. He also encountered the Algonquin-speaking Sauk, who had been forced into Michigan by the Iroquois, and then had been forced into central Wisconsin by the Ojibwe and the Huron.
The next major expedition into Wisconsin was that of Father Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet in 1673. After hearing rumors from Indians telling of the existence of the Mississippi River, Marquette and Joliet set out from St. Ignace, in what is now Michigan, and entered the Fox River at Green Bay. They canoed up the Fox until they reached the river's westernmost point, and then portaged, or carried their boats, to the nearby Wisconsin River, where they resumed canoeing downstream to the Mississippi River. Marquette and Joliet reached the Mississippi near what is now Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin in June, 1673.
Nicolas Perrot, French commander of the west, established Fort St. Nicholas at Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin in May, 1685, near the southwest end of the Fox-Wisconsin Waterway. Perrot also built a fort on the shores of Lake Pepin called Fort St. Antoine in 1686, and a second fort, called Fort Perrot, on an island on Lake Peppin shortly after. In 1727, Fort Beauharnois was constructed on what is now the Minnesota side of Lake Pepin to replace the two previous forts. A fort and a Jesuit mission were also built on the shores of Lake Superior at La Pointe, in present-day Wisconsin, in 1693 and operated until 1698. A second fort was built on the same site in 1718 and operated until 1759. These were not military posts, but rather small storehouses for furs.
During the French colonial period, the first black people came to Wisconsin. The first record of a black person comes from 1725, when a black slave was killed along with four Frenchmen in a Native American raid on Green Bay. Other French fur traders and military personnel brought slaves with them to Wisconsin later in 1700s.
None of the French posts had permanent settlers; fur traders and missionaries simply visited them from time to time to conduct business.
In the 1720s, the anti-French Fox tribe, led by war chief Kiala, raided French settlements on the Mississippi River and disrupted French trade on Lake Michigan. From 1728 to 1733, the Fox fought against the French-supported Potawatomi, Ojibwa, Huron and Ottawa tribes. In 1733, Kiala was captured and sold into slavery in the West Indies along with other captured Fox.
Before the war, the Fox tribe numbered 1500, but by 1733, only 500 Fox were left. As a result, the Fox joined the Sauk people.
The details are unclear, but this war appears to have been part of the conflict that expelled the Dakota & Illinois peoples out onto the Great Plains, causing further displacement of other Chiwere, Caddoan & Algonquian peoples there—including the ancestors of the Ioway, Osage, Pawnee, Arikara, A'ani, Arapaho, Hidatsa, Cheyenne & Blackfoot.
The British gradually took over Wisconsin during the French and Indian War, taking control of Green Bay in 1761, gaining control of all of Wisconsin in 1763, and annexing the area to the Province of Quebec in 1774. Like the French, the British were interested in little but the fur trade. One notable event in the fur trading industry in Wisconsin occurred in 1791, when two free African Americans set up a fur trading post among the Menominee at present day Marinette. The first permanent settlers, mostly French Canadians, some Anglo-New Englanders and a few African American freedmen, arrived in Wisconsin while it was under British control. Charles Michel de Langlade is generally recognized as the first settler, establishing a trading post at Green Bay in 1745, and moving there permanently in 1764. In 1766 the Royal Governor of the new territory, Robert Rogers, engaged Jonathan Carver to explore and map the newly acquired territories for the Crown, and to search for a possible Northwest Passage. Carver left Fort Michilimackinac that spring and spent the next three years exploring and mapping what is now Wisconsin and parts of Minnesota.
Settlement began at Prairie du Chien around 1781. The French residents at the trading post in what is now Green Bay, referred to the town as "La Bey", however British fur traders referred to it as "Green Bay", because the water and the shore assumed green tints in early spring. The old French title was gradually dropped, and the British name of "Green Bay" eventually stuck. The region coming under British rule had virtually no adverse effect on the French residents as the British needed the cooperation of the French fur traders and the French fur traders needed the goodwill of the British. During the French occupation of the region licenses for fur trading had been issued scarcely and only to select groups of traders, whereas the British, in an effort to make as much money as possible from the region, issued licenses for fur trading freely, both to British and French residents. The fur trade in what is now Wisconsin reached its height under British rule, and the first self-sustaining farms in the state were established at this time as well. From 1763 to 1780, Green Bay was a prosperous community which produced its own foodstuff, built graceful cottages and held dances and festivities.
The United States acquired Wisconsin in the Treaty of Paris (1783). Massachusetts claimed the territory east of the Mississippi River between the present-day Wisconsin-Illinois border and present-day La Crosse, Wisconsin. Virginia claimed the territory north of La Crosse to Lake Superior and all of present-day Minnesota east of the Mississippi River. Shortly afterward, in 1787, the Americans made Wisconsin part of the new Northwest Territory. Later, in 1800, Wisconsin became part of Indiana Territory. Despite the fact that Wisconsin belonged to the United States at this time, the British continued to control the local fur trade and maintain military alliances with Wisconsin Indians in an effort to stall American expansion westward by creating a pro-British Indian barrier state.
The United States did not firmly exercise control over Wisconsin until the War of 1812. In 1814, the Americans built Fort Shelby at Prairie du Chien. During the war, the Americans and British fought one battle in Wisconsin, the July, 1814 Siege of Prairie du Chien, which ended as a British victory. The British captured Fort Shelby and renamed it Fort McKay, after Major William McKay, the British commander who led the forces that won the Battle of Prairie du Chien. However, the 1815 Treaty of Ghent reaffirmed American jurisdiction over Wisconsin, which was by then a part of Illinois Territory. Following the treaty, British troops burned Fort McKay, rather than giving it back to the Americans, and departed Wisconsin. To protect Prairie du Chien from future attacks, the United States Army constructed Fort Crawford in 1816, on the same site as Fort Shelby. Fort Howard was also built in 1816 in Green Bay.
Significant American settlement in Wisconsin, a part of Michigan Territory beginning in 1818, was delayed by two Indian wars, the minor Winnebago War of 1827 and the larger Black Hawk War of 1832.
The Winnebago War started when, in 1826, two Winnebago men were detained at Fort Crawford on charges of murder and then transferred to Fort Snelling in present-day Minnesota. The Winnebago in the area believed that both men had been executed. On June 27, 1827, a Winnebago war band led by Chief Red Bird and the prophet White Cloud (Wabokieshiek) attacked a family of settlers outside of Prairie du Chien, killing two. They then went on to attack two keel-boats on the Mississippi River that were heading toward Fort Snelling, killing two settlers and injuring four more. Seven Winnebago warriors were killed in those attacks. The war band also attacked settlers on the lower Wisconsin River and the lead mines at Galena, Illinois. The war band surrendered at Portage, Wisconsin, rather than fighting the United States Army that was pursuing them.
In the Black Hawk War, Sac, Fox, and Kickapoo Native Americans, otherwise known as the British Band, led by Chief Black Hawk, who had been relocated from Illinois to Iowa, attempted to resettle in their Illinois homeland on April 5, 1832, in violation of Treaty. On May 10 Chief Black Hawk decided to go back to Iowa. On May 14, Black Hawk's forces met with a group of militiamen led by Isaiah Stillman. All three members of Black Hawk's parley were shot and one was killed. The Battle of Stillman's Run ensued, leaving twelve militiamen and three to five Sac and Fox warriors dead. Of the fifteen battles of the war, six took place in Wisconsin. The other nine as well as several smaller skirmishes took place in Illinois. The first confrontation to take place in Wisconsin was the first attack on Fort Blue Mounds on June 6, in which one member of the local militia was killed outside of the fort. There was also the Spafford Farm Massacre on June 14, the Battle of Horseshoe Bend on June 16, which was a United States victory, the second attack on Fort Blue Mounds on June 20, and the Sinsinawa Mound raid on June 29. The Native Americans were defeated at the Battle of Wisconsin Heights on July 21, with forty to seventy killed and only one killed on the United States side. The Ho Chunk Nation fought on the side of the United States. The Black Hawk War ended with the Battle of Bad Axe on August 1–2, with over 150 of the British Band dead and 75 captured and only five killed in the United States forces. Those crossing the Mississippi were killed by Lakota, American and Ho Chunk Forces. Many of the British Band survivors were handed over to the United States on August 20 by the Lakota Tribe, with the exception of Black Hawk, who had retreated into Vernon County, Wisconsin and White Cloud, who surrendered on August 27, 1832. Black Hawk was captured by Decorah south of Bangor, Wisconsin, south of the headwaters of the La Crosse River. He was then sold to the U.S. military at Prairie du Chien, accepted by future Confederate president, Stephen Davis, who was a soldier at the time. Black Hawk's tribe had killed his daughter. Black Hawk moved back to Iowa in 1833, after being held prisoner by the United States government.
The Francois Vertefeuille House in Prairie du Chien was built in the 1810s by fur traders. A rare example of the pièce-sur-pièce à coulisse technique once common in French-Canadian architecture, it is one of the oldest buildings in the state and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Cornish immigrants who worked in Wisconsin's lead mines build simple stone cabins from limestone. Six cabins are preserved at the Pendarvis Historic Site in Mineral Point.
The resolution of these Indian conflicts opened the way for Wisconsin's settlement. Many of the region's first settlers were drawn by the prospect of lead mining in southwest Wisconsin. This area had traditionally been mined by Native Americans. However, after a series of treaties removed the Indians, the lead mining region was opened to white miners. Thousands rushed in from across the country to dig for the "gray gold". By 1829, 4,253 miners and 52 licensed smelting works were in the region. Expert miners from Cornwall in Britain informed a large part of the wave of immigrants. Boom towns like Mineral Point, Platteville, Shullsburg, Belmont, and New Diggings sprang up around mines. The first two federal land offices in Wisconsin were opened in 1834 at Green Bay and at Mineral Point. By the 1840s, southwest Wisconsin mines were producing more than half of the nation's lead, which was no small amount, as the United States was producing annually some 31 million pounds of lead. Wisconsin was dubbed the "Badger State" because of the lead miners who first settled there in the 1820s and 1830s. Without shelter in the winter, they had to "live like badgers" in tunnels burrowed into hillsides.
Although the lead mining area drew the first major wave of settlers, its population would soon be eclipsed by growth in Milwaukee. Milwaukee, along with Sheboygan, Manitowoc, and Kewaunee, can be traced back to a series of trading posts established by the French trader Jacques Vieau in 1795. Vieau's post at the mouth of the Milwaukee River was purchased in 1820 by Solomon Juneau, who had visited the area as early as 1818. Juneau moved to what is now Milwaukee and took over the trading post's operation in 1825.
When the fur trade began to decline, Juneau focused on developing the land around his trading post. In the 1830s, he formed a partnership with Green Bay lawyer Morgan Martin, and the two men bought 160 acres (0.6 km2) of land between Lake Michigan and the Milwaukee River. There they founded the settlement of Juneautown. Meanwhile, an Ohio businessman named Byron Kilbourn began to invest in the land west of the Milwaukee River, forming the settlement of Kilbourntown. South of these two settlements, George H. Walker founded the town of Walker's Point in 1835. Each of these three settlements engaged in a fierce competition to attract the most residents and become the largest of the three towns. In 1840, the Wisconsin State Legislature ordered the construction of a bridge over the Milwaukee River to replace the inadequate ferry system. In 1845, Byron Kilbourn, who had been trying to isolate Juneautown to make it more dependent on Kilbourntown, destroyed a portion of the bridge, which started the Milwaukee Bridge War. For several weeks, skirmishes broke out between the residents of both towns. No one was killed but several people were injured, some seriously. On January 31, 1846, the settlements of Juneautown, Kilbourntown, and Walker's Point merged into the incorporated city of Milwaukee. Solomon Juneau was elected mayor. The new city had a population of about 10,000 people, making it the largest city in the territory. Milwaukee remains the largest city in Wisconsin to this day.
Wisconsin Territory was created by an act of the United States Congress on April 20, 1836. By fall of that year, the best prairie groves of the counties surrounding Milwaukee were occupied by New England farmers. The new territory initially included all of the present day states of Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa, as well as parts of North and South Dakota. At the time the Congress called it the "Wiskonsin Territory".
The first territorial governor of Wisconsin was Henry Dodge. He and other territorial lawmakers were initially busied by organizing the territory's government and selecting a capital city. The selection of a location to build a capitol caused a heated debate among the territorial politicians. At first, Governor Dodge selected Belmont, located in the heavily populated lead mining district, to be capital. Shortly after the new legislature convened there, however, it became obvious that Wisconsin's first capitol was inadequate. Numerous other suggestions for the location of the capital were given representing nearly every city that existed in the territory at the time, and Governor Dodge left the decision up to the other lawmakers. The legislature accepted a proposal by James Duane Doty to build a new city named Madison on an isthmus between lakes Mendota and Monona and put the territory's permanent capital there. In 1837, while Madison was being built, the capitol was temporarily moved to Burlington. This city was transferred to Iowa Territory in 1838, along with all the lands of Wisconsin Territory west of the Mississippi River.
Wyman calls Wisconsin a "palimpsest" of layer upon layer of peoples and forces, each imprinting permanent influences. He identified these layers as multiple "frontiers" over three centuries: Native American frontier, French frontier, English frontier, fur-trade frontier, mining frontier, and the logging frontier. Finally the coming of the railroad brought the end of the frontier.
The historian of the frontier, Frederick Jackson Turner, grew up in Wisconsin during its last frontier stage, and in his travels around the state he could see the layers of social and political development. One of Turner's last students, Merle Curti used in-depth analysis of local history in Trempealeau County to test Turner's thesis about democracy. Turner's view was that American democracy, "involved widespread participation in the making of decisions affecting the common life, the development of initiative and self-reliance, and equality of economic and cultural opportunity. It thus also involved Americanization of immigrant." Curti found that from 1840 to 1860 in Wisconsin the poorest groups gained rapidly in land ownership, and often rose to political leadership at the local level. He found that even landless young farm workers were soon able to obtain their own farms. Free land on the frontier therefore created opportunity and democracy, for both European immigrants as well as old stock Yankees.
By the mid-1840s, the population of Wisconsin Territory had exceeded 150,000, more than twice the number of people required for Wisconsin to become a state. In 1846, the territorial legislature voted to apply for statehood. That fall, 124 delegates debated the state constitution. The document produced by this convention was considered extremely progressive for its time. It banned commercial banking, granted married women the right to own property, and left the question of African-American suffrage to a popular vote. Most Wisconsinites considered the first constitution to be too radical, however, and voted it down in an April 1847 referendum.
In December 1847, a second constitutional convention was called. This convention resulted in a new, more moderate state constitution that Wisconsinites approved in a March 1848 referendum, enabling Wisconsin to become the 30th state on May 29, 1848. Wisconsin was the last state entirely east of the Mississippi River (and by extension the last state formed entirely from territory assigned to the U.S. in the 1783 Treaty of Paris) to be admitted to the Union.
With statehood, came the creation of the University of Wisconsin–Madison, which is the state's oldest public university. The creation of this university was set aside in the state charter.
In 1847, the Mineral Point Tribune reported that the town's furnaces were producing 43,800 pounds (19,900 kg) of lead each day. Lead mining in southwest Wisconsin began to decline after 1848 and 1849 when the combination of less easily accessible lead ore and the California Gold Rush made miners leave the area. The lead mining industry in mining communities such as Mineral Point managed to survive into the 1860s, but the industry was never as prosperous as it was before the decline.
By 1850 Wisconsin's population was 305,000. Roughly a third (103,000) were Yankees from New England and western New York state. The second largest group were the Germans, numbering roughly 38,000, followed by 28,000 British immigrants from England, Scotland and Wales. There were roughly 63,000 Wisconsin-born residents of the state. The Yankee migrants would be the dominant political class in Wisconsin for many years.
A railroad frenzy swept Wisconsin shortly after it achieved statehood. The first railroad line in the state was opened between Milwaukee and Waukesha in 1851 by the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad. The railroad pushed on, reaching Milton, Wisconsin in 1852, Stoughton, Wisconsin in 1853, and the capital city of Madison in 1854. The company reached its goal of completing a rail line across the state from Lake Michigan to the Mississippi River when the line to Prairie du Chien was completed in 1857. Shortly after this, other railroad companies completed their own tracks, reaching La Crosse in the west and Superior in the north, spurring development in those cities. By the end of the 1850s, railroads crisscrossed the state, enabling the growth of other industries that could now easily ship products to markets across the country.
Nelson Dewey, the first governor of Wisconsin, was a Democrat. Born in Lebanon, Connecticut, Dewey's father's family had lived in New England since 1633, when their ancestor, Thomas Due, had come to America from Kent County, England. Dewey oversaw the transition from the territorial to the new state government. He encouraged the development of the state's infrastructure, particularly the construction of new roads, railroads, canals, and harbors, as well as the improvement of the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers. During his administration, the State Board of Public Works was organized. Dewey was an abolitionist and the first of many Wisconsin governors to advocate against the spread of slavery into new states and territories. The home Dewey built near Cassville is now a state park.
Between 1848 and 1862, Wisconsin had three Democratic governors, all of whom were in office prior to 1856, four Republican governors, all of whom were in office after 1856, and one Whig governor, Leonard J. Farwell, who served from 1852 to 1854. Under Farwell's governorship, Wisconsin became the second state to abolish capital punishment.
In the presidential elections of 1848 and 1852, the Democratic Party won Wisconsin. In the elections of 1856, 1860, and 1864, the Republican Party won the state.
Between the 1840s and 1860s, settlers from New England, New York and Germany arrived in Wisconsin. Some of them brought radical political ideas to the state. In the 1850s, stop-overs on the underground railroad were set up in the state and abolitionist groups were formed. Some abolitionist and free-soil activists left the Whig and Democratic parties, running and in some cases being elected as candidates of the Liberty Party and Free Soil Party. The most successful such group was the Republican Party. On March 20, 1854, the first county meeting of the Republican Party of the United States, consisting of about thirty people, was held in the Little White Schoolhouse in Ripon, Wisconsin. Ripon claims to be the birthplace of the Republican Party, as does Jackson, Michigan, where the first statewide convention was held. The new party absorbed most of the former Free Soil and Liberty Party members.
A notable instance of abolitionism in Wisconsin was the rescue of Joshua Glover, an escaped slave from St. Louis who sought refuge in Racine, Wisconsin in 1852. He was caught in 1854 by federal marshals and put in a jail at Cathedral Square in Milwaukee, where he waited to be returned to his owner. A mob of 5,000 people led by Milwaukee abolitionist Sherman Booth, himself a "Yankee" transplant from rural New York, sprung Glover from jail and helped him escape to Canada via the underground railroad.
In the 1850s, two-thirds of immigrants to Wisconsin came from the eastern United States, the other one-third being foreign-born. The majority of the foreign born were German immigrants. Many Irish and Norwegian immigrants also came to Wisconsin in the 1850s. Northern Europeans, many of whom were persecuted in their home countries because of their support for the failed bourgeois Revolutions of 1848, often chose Wisconsin because of the liberal constitution of human rights such as the state's unusual recognition of immigrants' right to vote and rights to citizenship.
Yankee settlers from New England started arriving in Wisconsin in the 1830s spread throughout the southern half of the territory. They dominated early politics. Most of them started as farmers, but the larger proportion moved to towns and cities as entrepreneurs, businessmen and professionals.
Historian John Bunker has examined the worldview of the Yankee settlers in the Wisconsin:
Because they arrived first and had a strong sense of community and mission, Yankees were able to transplant New England institutions, values, and mores, altered only by the conditions of frontier life. They established a public culture that emphasized the work ethic, the sanctity of private property, individual responsibility, faith in residential and social mobility, practicality, piety, public order and decorum, reverence for public education, activists, honest, and frugal government, town meeting democracy, and he believed that there was a public interest that transcends particular and stick ambitions. Regarding themselves as the elect and just in a world rife with sin, air, and corruption, they felt a strong moral obligation to define and enforce standards of community and personal behavior....This pietistic worldview was substantially shared by British, Scandinavian, Swiss, English-Canadian and Dutch Reformed immigrants, as well as by German Protestants and many of the "Forty-Niners."
The color guard of the Wisconsin 8th Infantry with Old Abe
Wisconsin enrolled 91,379 soldiers in the Union Army during the American Civil War. 272 of enlisted Wisconsin troops were African American, with the rest being white. Of these, 3,794 were killed in action or mortally wounded, 8,022 died of disease, and 400 were killed in accidents. The total mortality was 12,216 men, about 13.4 percent of total enlistments. Many soldiers trained at Camp Randall currently the site of the University of Wisconsin's athletic stadium.
The draft implemented by President Lincoln in 1862 was unpopular in some Wisconsin communities, particularly among German and Luxembourgish immigrants. In November 1862, draft riots broke out in Milwaukee, Port Washington, and West Bend, which were quelled by deploying U.S. troops in the cities.
Most Wisconsin troops served in the western theater, although several Wisconsin regiments fought in the east, such as the 2nd Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment, 6th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment, and 7th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment, which formed part of the Iron Brigade. These three regiments fought in the Northern Virginia Campaign, the Maryland Campaign, the Battle of Fredericksburg, the Battle of Chancellorsville, the Gettysburg Campaign, the Battle of Mine Run, the Overland Campaign, the Siege of Petersburg, and the Appomattox Campaign.
The 8th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment, which fought in the western theater of war, is also worthy of mention, having fought at the Battle of Iuka, the Siege of Vicksburg, the Red River Campaign, and the Battle of Nashville. The 8th Wisconsin is also known for its mascot, Old Abe.
Agriculture was a major component of the Wisconsin economy during the 19th century. Wheat was a primary crop on early Wisconsin farms. In fact, during the mid 19th century, Wisconsin produced about one sixth of the wheat grown in the United States. However, wheat rapidly depleted nutrients in the soil, especially nitrogen, and was vulnerable to insects, bad weather, and wheat leaf rust. In the 1860s, chinch bugs arrived in Wisconsin and damaged wheat across the state. As the soil lost its quality and prices dropped, the practice of wheat farming moved west into Iowa and Minnesota. Some Wisconsin farmers responded by experimenting with crop rotation and other methods to restore the soil's fertility, but a larger number turned to alternatives to wheat.
In parts of northern Wisconsin, farmers cultivated cranberries and in a few counties in south central Wisconsin, farmers had success growing tobacco, but the most popular replacement for wheat was dairy farming. As wheat fell out of favor, many Wisconsin farmers started raising dairy cattle and growing feed crops, which were better suited to Wisconsin's climate and soil. One reason for the popularity of dairy farming was that many of Wisconsin's farmers had come to the state from New York, the leading producer of dairy products at the time. In addition, many immigrants from Europe brought an extensive knowledge of cheese making. Dairying was also promoted by the University of Wisconsin–Madison's school of agriculture, which offered education to dairy farmers and researched ways to produce better dairy products. The first test of butterfat content in milk was developed at the university, which allowed for consistency in the quality of butter and cheese. By 1899, over ninety percent of Wisconsin farms raised dairy cows and by 1915, Wisconsin had become the leading producer of dairy products in the United States, a position it held until the 1990s. The term America's Dairyland appeared in newspapers as early as 1913 when the state's butterfat production became first in the nation. In 1939 the state legislature enacted a bill to add the slogan to the state's automobile license plates. It continues to be the nation's largest producer of cheese, no longer focusing on the raw material (milk) but rather the value-added products. Because of this, Wisconsin continues to promote itself as "America's Dairyland", Wisconsinites are referred to as cheeseheads in some parts of the country, including Wisconsin, and foam cheesehead hats are associated with Wisconsin and its NFL team, the Green Bay Packers.
The first brewery in Wisconsin was opened in 1835 in Mineral Point by brewer John Phillips. A year later, he opened a second brewery in Elk Grove. In 1840, the first brewery in Milwaukee was opened by Richard G. Owens, William Pawlett, and John Davis, all Welsh immigrants. By 1860, nearly 200 breweries operated in Wisconsin, more than 40 of them in Milwaukee. The huge growth in the brewing industry can be accredited, in part, to the influx of German immigrants to Wisconsin in the 1840s and 1850s. Milwaukee breweries also grew in volume due to the destruction of Chicago's breweries during the great Chicago fire. In the second half of the 19th century, four of the largest breweries in the United States opened in Milwaukee: Miller Brewing Company, Pabst Brewing Company, Valentin Blatz Brewing Company, and Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company. In the 20th century Pabst absorbed Blatz and Schlitz, and moved its brewery and corporate headquarters to California. Miller continues to operate in Milwaukee. The Jacob Leinenkugel Brewing Company opened in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin in 1867 and continues to operate there to this day.
Agriculture was not viable in the densely forested northern and central parts of Wisconsin. Settlers came to this region for logging. The timber industry first set up along the Wisconsin River. Rivers were used to transport lumber from where the wood was being cut, to the sawmills. Sawmills in cities like Wausau and Stevens Point sawed the lumber into boards that were used for construction. The Wolf River also saw considerable logging by industrious Menominee. The Black and Chippewa Rivers formed a third major logging region. That area was dominated by one company owned by Frederick Weyerhaeuser. The construction of railroads allowed loggers to log year round, after rivers froze, and go deeper into the forests to cut down previously unshippable wood supplies. Wood products from Wisconsin's forests such as doors, furniture, beams, shipping boxes, and ships were made in industrial cities with connects to the Wisconsin lumber industry such as Chicago, Milwaukee, Sheboygan, and Manitowoc. Milwaukee and Manitowoc were centers for commercial ship building in Wisconsin. Many cargo ships built in these communities were used to transport lumber from logging ports to major industrial cities. Later a growing paper industry in the Fox River Valley made use of wood pulp from the state's lumber industry.
Logging was a dangerous trade, with high accident rates. On October 8, 1871, the Peshtigo Fire burned 1,875 square miles (4,850 km2) of forest land around the timber industry town of Peshtigo, Wisconsin, killing between 1,200 and 2,500 people. It was the deadliest fire in United States history.
From the 1870s to the 1890s, much of the logging in Wisconsin was done by immigrants from Scandinavia.
By the beginning of the twentieth century, logging in Wisconsin had gone into decline. Many forests had been cleared and never replanted and large corporations in the Pacific Northwest took business away from the Wisconsin industry. The logging companies sold their land to immigrants and out of work lumberjacks who hoped to turn the acres of pine stumps into farms, but few met with success.
Wisconsin is known in the 18th century to have discovered gold deposits in western Wisconsin. Such discoveries occurred around the town of St. Croix Falls where a settler stumbled across a gold nugget valued to be worth lots at the time. It's no surprise Wisconsin's western region was once the site of volcanic eruptions so it makes sense that minerals that weren't commonly found in other parts of the state would be present here.
Wisconsin was a regional and national model for innovation and organization in the Progressive Era in the early 20th century. The direct primary law of 1904 made it possible to mobilize voters against the previously dominant political machines. The first factors involved the La Follette family going back and forth between trying control of the Republican Party and third-party activity. Secondly the Wisconsin idea, of intellectuals and planners based at the University of Wisconsin shaping government policy. LaFollette started as a traditional Republican in the 1890s, where he fought against populism and other radical movements. He broke decisively with the state Republican leadership, and took control of the party by 1900, all the time quarrelling endlessly with ex-allies.
Wisconsin at this time was a de facto one party state, as the Democratic Party was then a minor conservative group in the state. Serious opposition more often than not came from the Socialist Party, with a strong German and union constituency in Milwaukee. The socialists often collaborated with the progressive Republicans in statewide politics. Senator Robert M. La Follette tried to use his national reputation to challenge President Taft for the Republican nomination in 1912. However, as soon as Roosevelt declared his candidacy, most of La Follette's supporters switched to the former president. During the Wilson administration he supported many of Wilson's domestic programs in Congress, however he strongly opposed Wilson's foreign policy, and mobilized the large German and Scandinavian populations in Wisconsin to demand neutrality during World War I. During the final years of his career, he split with the Republican Party and ran an independent campaign for president in 1924. In his bid for the presidency he won 1/6 of the national popular vote, but was only able to win his home state.
Following his death, his two sons assumed control of the Wisconsin Republican Party after a brief period of intraparty factional disputes. Following in their father's footsteps they helped form the Wisconsin Progressive Party, in many ways a spiritual successor to the party La Follette had founded in 1924. The party surged to popularity during the mid-1930s off of the inaction of the moderately conservative Schmedeman administration, and were able to gain the support of then president Franklin D. Roosevelt. Much of the new party's support could be owed to the personalities leading it, and the support of Roosevelt and progressive Democrats. The party saw success across Wisconsin's elected offices in the state and congress. Despite its popularity the party eventually declined as Philip, engulfed in scandal and accusations of authoritarianism and fiscal responsibility, lost re-election for the final time in 1938. Following this defeat Philip left electoral politics and joined World War II in the Pacific Theater. Due to joining the war, the National Progressives of America, an organization the La Follettes had hoped would precede a national realignment, faltered. Both organizations began to tear themselves apart as La Follette's absence led to vicious intraparty fighting which ultimately led to a vote to dissolve itself, which Philip was told to stay away from.
The Wisconsin Idea was the commitment of the University of Wisconsin under President Charles R. Van Hise, with LaFollette support, to use the university's powerful intellectual resources to develop practical progressive reforms for the state and indeed for the nation.
Between 1901 and 1911, Progressive Republicans in Wisconsin created the nation's first comprehensive statewide primary election system, the first effective workplace injury compensation law, and the first state income tax, making taxation proportional to actual earnings. The key leaders were Robert M. La Follette and (in 1910) Governor Francis E. McGovern. However, in 1912 McGovern supported Roosevelt for president and LaFollette was outraged. He made sure the next legislature defeated the governor's programs, and that McGovern was defeated in his bid for the Senate in 1914. The Progressive movement split into hostile factions. Some was based on personalities—especially La Follette's style of violent personal attacks against other Progressives, and some was based on who should pay, with the division between farmers (who paid property taxes) and the urban element (which paid income taxes). This disarray enabled the conservatives (called "Stalwarts") to elect Emanuel Philipp as governor in 1914. The Stalwart counterattack said the Progressives were too haughty, too beholden to experts, too eager to regulate, and too expensive. Economy and budget cutting was their formula.
During World War I, due to the neutrality of Wisconsin and many Wisconsin Republicans, progressives, and German immigrants which made up 30 to 40 percent of the state population, Wisconsin would gain the nickname "Traitor State" which was used by many "hyper patriots".
As the war raged on in Europe, Robert M. La Follette, leader of the anti-war movement in Wisconsin, led a group of progressive senators in blocking a bill by president Woodrow Wilson which would have armed merchant ships with guns. Many Wisconsin politicians such as Governor Phillipp and senator Irvine Lernroot were accused of having divided loyalties. Even with outspoken opponents to the war, at the onset of the war many Wisconsinites would abandon neutrality. Businesses, labor and farms all enjoyed prosperity from the war. With over 118,000 going into military service, Wisconsin was the first state to report for four national drafts conducted by the U.S. military.
The progressive Wisconsin Idea promoted the use of the University of Wisconsin faculty as intellectual resources for state government, and as guides for local government. It promoted expansion of the university through the UW-Extension system to reach all the state's farming communities. University economics professors John R. Commons and Harold Groves enabled Wisconsin to create the first unemployment compensation program in the United States in 1932. Other Wisconsin Idea scholars at the university generated the plan that became the New Deal's Social Security Act of 1935, with Wisconsin expert Arthur J. Altmeyer playing the key role. The Stalwarts counterattacked by arguing if the university became embedded in the state, then its internal affairs became fair game, especially the faculty preference for advanced research over undergraduate teaching. The Stalwarts controlled the Regents, and their interference in academic freedom outraged the faculty. Historian Frederick Jackson Turner, the most famous professor, quit and went to Harvard.
Wisconsin took part in several political extremes in the mid to late 20th century, ranging from the anti-communist crusades of Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s to the radical antiwar protests at UW-Madison that culminated in the Sterling Hall bombing in August 1970. The state became a leader in welfare reform under Republican Governor Tommy Thompson during the 1990s. The state's economy also underwent further transformations towards the close of the 20th century, as heavy industry and manufacturing declined in favor of a service economy based on medicine, education, agribusiness, and tourism.
In 2011, Wisconsin became the focus of some controversy when newly elected governor Scott Walker proposed and then successfully passed and enacted 2011 Wisconsin Act 10, which made large changes in the areas of collective bargaining, compensation, retirement, health insurance, and sick leave of public sector employees, among other changes. A series of major protests by union supporters took place that year in protest to the changes, and Walker survived a recall election held the next year, becoming the first governor in United States history to do so. Walker enacted other bills promoting conservative governance, such as a right-to-work law, abortion restrictions, and legislation removing certain gun controls. Walker's administration also made critical changes to Wisconsin's election process, enacting one of the most aggressive legislative gerrymanders in the country and replacing Wisconsin's nonpartisan state elections board with a commission of political appointees. When Walker lost re-election in 2018, he collaborated with the gerrymandered Republican legislature to strip powers from the incoming Governor and Attorney General. Since 2011, Wisconsin has seen increasing governmental dysfunction and paralysis, as the durable gerrymander insulated the legislature from electoral consequences.
Following the election of Tony Evers as governor in 2018, Wisconsin has seen a string of liberal victories at every level of government which have slowly chipped away at the conservative dominance within the state. This eventually led to the Wisconsin supreme court overturning the Walker-era legislative gerrymander in Clarke v. Wisconsin Elections Commission.
My friend's roommate's bedding looked cool one morning so I took a picture of it. I liked the lighting, the shadows.
Ristorante Italiano, New York City. danicoristorante.com/
From my journal:
"30 Nov 2005--Off to NYC [from Columbia SC to LGA]-- now in the 50-seat airplane, people getting on, worrying about luggage. Much mechanical disarray with the kiosk system earlier, but all OK.
The opera tonight [La Boheme at the Met]--should be a big adventure.
Lunch-- Italian. "Da Nico", marvelous.
[starter for Richard] Fried calamari--very light, crispy.
[starter for John] Fried zucchini--hot, crispy lots of crust, both with fresh tomato sauce
Italian beer: "Peroni"
Old favorites on tape: "I'll Take Manhattan" "Moonlight Reverie" "What a Wonderful Day" "'s Wonderful, 's Marvelous" "Night & Day" "A Nightingale Sings"
[entrees]
R: pizza (4 slices), prosciutto, peppers, artichoke, mushrooms
J: calamari * (again! on linguini-- tomato, spicy, a bit peppery excellent Garlic
Pretty busy in here and one of the men in charge every now and then breaks into song along with the music--
* "Calamari Fra Diavolo"
...and he brought us a plate of fried dough...which we REALLY need now
At the restaurant when the waiter takes all the glasses up to clear the table and then wads up all the napkins together and rolls the tablecloth up, sticks it under his arm, and takes everything to the back...it's sad, he's taking away all those lingering memories of that dinner that somebody was having.
A tiny castle over the river Bode. Partly renovated after years of disarray it features parts from all kind of centuries, back to the 16th.
Oil painting; 56.8 x 46.5 cm.
Jean-Baptiste Greuze was a French genre and portrait painter who initiated a mid-18th-century vogue for sentimental and moralizing anecdotes in paintings.
Greuze studied first at Lyon and afterward at the Royal Academy in Paris. He first exhibited at the Salon of 1755 and won an immediate success with his moralizing genre painting of Father Reading the Bible to His Children (1755). Although Greuze’s attention at this time was fixed on a less-pretentious type of genre painting in which the influence of 17th-century Dutch masters is apparent, the favorable attention he received turned his head and established the lines of his future career.
In 1755 Greuze left for Italy but remained impervious to the influence of Italian painting. In 1759 he became acquainted with Denis Diderot, who encouraged his inclination toward melodramatic genre, and throughout the 1760s Greuze reached new heights of popular acclaim with such works as The Village Betrothal (1761) and The Father’s Curse and The Prodigal Son (both c. 1765).
Greuze submitted to the Salon in 1769 a large, rather dreary historical painting, Septimius Severus Reproaching Caracalla, which he hoped would gain him admission to the academy as a history painter. But the academy would admit him to membership only as a genre painter, and so the resentful artist exhibited his works to the public only in his own studio for the next 30 years. In addition to moralizing genre, he painted young girls in poses of feigned innocence and calculated disarray.
Throughout the 1770s Greuze was kept busy painting moralizing pictures, but by the 1780s his work had gone out of fashion and his income was precarious. By 1785 his once-considerable talent was exhausted. The reaction against his sentimental genre paintings resulted in critical neglect of his drawings and portraits, in which Greuze’s superb technical gifts are displayed with great integrity.
The Lost World (20th Century Fox, 1960).
youtu.be/h1CLA-gJbmA?t=5s Trailer
Irwin Allen, the producer who would go on to make the disaster film a huge success in the seventies, brought us this Saturday afternoon fodder with giant lizards posing as dinosaurs. Starring Michael Rennie, David Hedison, Claude Rains and Jill St. John.
Intended as a grand sci-fi/fantasy epic remake of Arthur Conan Doyle's classic novel. The first film adaptation, shot in 1925, was a milestone in many ways, but movie making and special effects had come a long way in 35 years. Irwin Allen's Lost World (LW) & 20th Century Fox version was derailed on the way to greatness, but managed to still be a respectable, (if more modest) A-film. Allen's screenplay followed the book fairly well, telling of Professor Challenger's expedition to a remote plateau in the Amazon upon which dinosaurs still lived. Aside from the paleontological presumptions in the premise, there is little "science" in The Lost World. Nonetheless, dinosaur movies have traditionally been lumped into the sci-fi genre.
Synopsis
When his plane lands in London, crusty old professor George Edward Challenger is besieged by reporters questioning him about his latest expedition to the headwaters of the Amazon River. After the irascible Challenger strikes reporter Ed Malone on the head with his umbrella, Jennifer Holmes, the daughter of Ed's employer, Stuart Holmes, offers the injured reporter a ride into town. That evening, Jenny is escorted by Lord John Roxton, an adventurer and big game hunter, to Challenger's lecture at the Zoological Institute, and Ed invites them to sit with him. When Challenger claims to have seen live dinosaurs, his colleague Professor Summerlee scoffs and asks for evidence. Explaining that his photographs of the creatures were lost when his boat overturned, Challenger invites Summerlee to accompany him on a new expedition to the "lost world," and asks for volunteers. When Roxton raises his hand, Jenny insists on going with him, but she is rejected by Challenger because she is a woman. Ed is given a spot after Holmes offers to fund the expedition if the reporter is included. The four then fly to the Amazon, where they are met by Costa, their guide and Manuel Gomez, their helicopter pilot. Arriving unexpectedly, Jenny and her younger brother David insist on joining them. Unable to arrange transportation back to the United States, Challenger reluctantly agrees to take them along. The next day, they take off for the lost world and land on an isolated plateau inhabited by dinosaurs. That evening, a dinosaur stomps out of the jungle, sending them scurrying for cover. After the beast destroys the helicopter and radio, the group ventures inland. When one of the creatures bellows threateningly, they flee, and in their haste, Challenger and Ed slip and tumble down a hillside, where they encounter a native girl. The girl runs into the jungle, but Ed follows and captures her. They then all take refuge in a cave, where Roxton, who has been making disparaging remarks about Jenny's desire to marry him solely for his title, angers Ed. Ed lunges at Roxton, pushing him to the ground, where he finds a diary written by Burton White, an adventurer who hired Roxton three years earlier to lead him to the lost diamonds of Eldorado. Roxton then admits that he never met White and his party because he was delayed by a dalliance with a woman, thus abandoning them to certain death. Gomez angrily snaps that his good friend Santiago perished in the expedition. That night, Costa tries to molest the native girl, and David comes to her rescue and begins to communicate with her through sign language. After Gomez goes to investigate some movement he spotted in the vegetation, he calls for help, and when Roxton runs out of the cave, a gunshot from an unseen assailant is fired, nearly wounding Roxton and sending the girl scurrying into the jungle. Soon after, Ed and Jenny stray from camp and are pursued by a dinosaur, and after taking refuge on some cliffs, watch in horror as their stalker becomes locked in combat with another prehistoric creature and tumbles over the cliffs into the waters below. Upon returning to camp, they discover it deserted, their belongings in disarray. As David stumbles out from some rocks to report they were attacked by a tribe of natives, the cannibals return and imprison them in a cave with the others. As the drums beat relentlessly, signaling their deaths, the native girl reappears and motions for them to follow her through a secret passageway that leads to the cave in which Burton White lives, completely sightless. After confirming that all in his expedition perished, White tells them of a volcanic passageway that will lead them off the plateau, but warns that they must first pass through the cave of fire. Cautioning them that the natives plan to sacrifice them, White declares that their only chance of survival is to slip through the cave and then seal it with a boulder. After giving them directions to the cave, White asks them to take the girl along. As the earth, on the verge of a volcanic eruption, quakes, they set off through the Graveyard of the Damned, a vast cavern littered with dinosaur skeletons, the victims of the deadly sulfurous gases below. Pursued by the ferocious natives, Roxton takes the lead as they inch their way across a narrow ledge above the molten lava. After escaping the natives, they jam the cave shut with a boulder and, passing a dam of molten lava, finally reach the escape passage. At its mouth is a pile of giant diamonds and a dinosaur egg. As Costa heaps the diamonds into his hat, Challenger fondles the egg and Gomez pulls a gun and announces that Roxton must die in exchange for the death of Santiago, Gomez' brother. Acting quickly, Ed hurls the diamonds at Gomez, throwing him off balance and discharging his gun. The gunshot awakens a creature slumbering in the roiling waters below. After the beast snatches Costa and eats him alive, Ed tries to dislodge the dam, sending a few scorching rocks tumbling down onto the monster. Feeling responsible for the peril of the group, Gomez sacrifices his life by using his body as a lever to dislodge the dam, covering the creature with oozing lava. As the cave begins to crumble from the impending eruption, the group hurries to safety. Just then, the volcano explodes, destroying the lost world. After Roxton hands Ed a handful of diamonds he has saved as a wedding gift for him and Jenny, Challenger proudly displays his egg, which then hatches, revealing a baby dinosaur. The End.
The 50s had seen several examples of the dinosaur sub-genre. LW is one of the more lavish ones, owing to color by DeLuxe and CinemaScope. The A-level actors help too. Claude Rains plays the flamboyant Challenger. Michael Rennie plays Roxton, perhaps a bit too cooly. Jill St. John and Vitina Marcus do well as the customary eye candy. David Hedison as Malone and Fernando Lamas as Gomez round out the bill.
The first film version of LW was a silent movie shot in 1925: screenplay by Marion Fairfax. The film featured stop-motion animated dinosaurs by a young Willis O'Brien. Fairfax followed Doyle's text, but Fairfax added a young woman to the team, Paula White. Ostensibly trying to find her father from the first failed expedition, she provided the love triangle interest between Malone and Roxton.
Allen's screenplay tried to stick to Doyle's text as much as Hollywood would allow. It carried on Fairfax's invention of the young woman member of the group as triangle fodder. Fairfax had Doyle's ape men (ape man) but omitted the native humans. Allen had the natives, but no ape men. Allen revived the Gomez/revenge subplot, which Fairfax skipped. Doyle's story had Challenger bringing back a pterodactyl. Fairfax made it a brontosaur who rampaged through London streets (spawning a popular trope). Allen suggested the baby dinosaur traveling to London.
Willis O'Brien pitched 20th Century Fox in the late 50s, to do a quality remake of LW. He had gained much experience in the intervening 35 years, so his stop-motion dinosaurs were to be the real stars. Fox bass liked the idea, but by the time the ball started rolling, there was trouble in studioland. Fox's grand epic Cleopatra was underway, but was already 5 million dollars over budget. Cleo would nearly sink 20th Century Fox when it was finally released in 1963. To stay afloat, all other Fox films' budgets were slashed. Allen could no longer afford the grand O'Brien stop-motion.
Allen's production is often criticized for its "cheap" dinosaurs, which were live monitor lizards and alligators with fins and plates and horns glue onto them. (more on that below) These were already a bit cheesy when used in the 1940 film One Million B.C.. O'Brien is still listed on the credits as "Effects Technician," but all Allen could afford was lizards with glued on extras. Somewhat amusingly, the script still refers to them as brontosaurs and T-Rexes.
The character of Jennifer Holmes starts out promising. She's a self-assured to the edges of pushy, and is said to be able to out shoot and out ride any man. Yet, when she gets to the Amazon jungle, she's little more than Jungle Barbie, dressed in girlie clothes and screaming frequently. She even does the typical Hollywood trip-and-fall when chased by the dinosaur, so that a man must save her.
Bottom line? FW is a finer example of the not-quite-sci-fi dinosaur sub-genre. The actors are top drawer, even if some of their acting is a bit flat. Nonetheless, FW is a fair adaptation of Doyle's
classic adventure novel, given the constraints of Hollywood culture.
The Movie Club Annals … Review
The Lost World 1960
Introduction
There was absolutely nothing wrong with Irwin Allen's 1960 production of The Lost World. Nothing. It was perfect in every way. I therefore find myself in the unique and unfamiliar position of having to write a rave review about a Movie Club movie that was entirely devoid of flaws.
Faced with such a confounding task, I half-heartedly considered faking a bad review, then praying my obvious deceptions would go unnoticed. But the patent transparency of my scheme convinced me to abandon it posthaste. After all, leveling concocted criticisms at such an unassailable masterpiece would be a futile and tiresome exercise, the pretense of which would escape nary a semi-cognizant soul.
Thus, having retreated from my would-be descent into literary intrigue, I start this review in earnest by borrowing a quote from the legendary Shelly Winters, spoken during the 1972 filming of Irwin Allen's The Poseidon Adventure:
"I'm ready for my close up now, Mr. Allen.” Shelly Winters, 1972
Review
A bit of research into the casting choices of Irwin Allen, who wrote, produced, and directed The Lost World, begins to reveal the genius behind the virtuosity.
The first accolades go to Irwin for his casting of Vitina Marcus, the immaculately groomed Saks 5th Avenue cave girl with exquisite taste in makeup, jewelry, and cave-wear. No finer cave girl ever graced a feature film.
Vitina Marcus, as The Cave Girl
She was the picture of prehistoric glamour, gliding across the silver screen in her designer bearskin mini-pelt, her flawless coiffure showing no signs of muss from the traditional courting rituals of the day, her perfect teeth the envy of even the most prototypical Osmond. Even her nouveau-opposable thumbs retained their manicure, in spite of the oft-disagreeable duties that frequently befell her as an effete member of the tribal gentry.
By no means just another Neanderthal harlot, Vitina had a wealth of talent to augment her exterior virtues. Her virtuoso interpretation of a comely cave girl in The Lost World certainly didn't escape the attention Irwin Allen. In fact, he was so taken with her performance that he later engaged her services again, casting her as the Native Girl in episode 2.26 of his Voyage to The Bottom of The Sea TV series.
Leery of potential typecasting, Vitina went on to obtain roles with greater depth and more sophisticated dialogue. This is evidenced by the great departure she took from her previous roles when she next portrayed the part of Sarit, a female barbarian, in episode 1.24 of Irwin Allen's The Time Tunnel TV series.
Vitina, as Sarit
Vitina's efforts to avoid typecasting paid off in spades, as she was soon rewarded with the distinctive role of Girl, a female Tarzanesque she-beast character, in episode 3.14 of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. TV series.
Lured back from the U.N.C.L.E. set by Irwin Allen, Vitina was next cast in the role of Athena (a.k.a. Lorelei), the green space girl with the inverted lucite salad bowl hat, in episodes 2.2 and 2.16 of the revered Lost in Space TV series.
And with this, Vitina reached the pinnacle of her career. For her many unparalleled displays of thespian pageantry, she leaves us forever in her debt as she exits the stage.
For those who would still question the genius of Irwin Allen, I defy you to find a better casting choice for the character of Lord John Roxton than that of Michael Rennie. Mr. Rennie, who earlier starred as Klaatu in The Day the Earth Stood Still, went on to even greater heights, starring as The Keeper in episodes 1.16 and 1.17 of the revered Lost in Space TV series. Throughout his distinguished career, Mr. Rennie often played highly cerebral characters with
unique names, such as Garth A7, Tribolet, Hasani, Rama Kahn, Hertz, and Dirk. How befitting that his most prolific roles came to him through a man named Irwin, a highly cerebral character with a unique name.
The selection of David Hedison to play Ed Malone was yet another example of Irwin's uncanny foresight. Soon after casting him in The Lost World, Irwin paved Mr. Hedison's path to immortality by casting him as a lead character in his Voyage to The Bottom of The Sea TV series. Although Voyage ended in 1968, Mr. Hedison departed the show with a solid resume and a bright future.
In the decades following Voyage, Mr. Hedison has been a veritable fixture on the small screen, appearing in such socially influential programs as The Love Boat, Fantasy Island, Knight Rider, The Fall Guy and The A Team. Mr. Hedison's early collaborations with Irwin Allen have left him never wanting for a day's work in Hollywood, a boon to the legions of discerning fans who continue to savor his inspiring prime time depictions.
Irwin selected Fernando Lamas to play Manuel Gomez, the honorable and tortured soul of The Lost World who needlessly sacrificed himself at the end of the movie to save all the others. To get a feel for how important a casting decision he was to Irwin, just look at the pertinent experience Mr. Lamas brought to the table:
Irwin knew that such credentials could cause him to lose the services of Mr. Lamas to another project, and he took great pains to woo him onto the set of The Lost World. And even though Mr. Lamas never appeared in the revered Lost in Space TV series, his talent is not lost on us.
Jay Novello was selected by Irwin Allen to play Costa, the consummate Cuban coward who perpetually betrays everyone around him in the name of greed. In pursuing his craven calling, Mr. Novello went on to play Xandros, the Greek Slave in Atlantis, The Lost Continent, as well as countless other roles as a coward.
Although Mr. Novella never appeared in the revered Lost in Space TV series, his already long and distinguished career as a coward made him the obvious choice for Irwin when the need for an experienced malingerer arose.
Jill St. John was Irwin's pick to play Jennifer Holmes, the "other" glamour girl in The Lost World. Not to be upstaged by glamour-cave-girl Vitina Marcus, Jill played the trump card and broke out the pink go-go boots and skin-tight Capri pants, the perfect Amazonian summertime jungle wear.
Complete with a perfect hairdo, a killer wardrobe, a little yip-yip dog named Frosty, and all the other trappings of a wealthy and pampered prehistoric society, Jill's sensational allure rivaled even that of a certain cave girl appearing in the same film.
With the atmosphere rife for an on-set rivalry between Jill and Vitina, Irwin still managed to keep the peace, proving that he was as skilled a diplomat as he was a director.
Claude Rains, as Professor George Edward Challenger
And our cup runneth over, as Irwin cast Claude Rains to portray Professor George Edward Challenger. His eminence, Mr. Rains is an entity of such immeasurable virtue that he is not in need of monotonous praise from the likes of me.
I respectfully acknowledge the appearance of Mr. Rains because failure to do so would be an unforgivable travesty. But I say nothing more on the subject, lest I state something so obvious and uninspiring as to insult the intelligence of enlightened reader.
Irwin's casting of the cavemen mustn't be overlooked, for their infallibly realistic portrayals are unmatched within the Pleistocene Epoch genre of film. Such meticulous attention to detail is what separates Irwin Allen from lesser filmmakers, whose pale imitations of his work only further to underscore the point.
To be sure, it is possible to come away with the unfounded suspicion that the cavemen are really just a bunch of old white guys from the bar at the local Elks lodge. But Irwin was an absolute stickler for authenticity, and would never have allowed the use of such tawdry measures to taint his prehistoric magnum opus.
In truth, Irwin's on-screen cavemen were borne of many grueling years of anthropological research, so the explanation for their somewhat modern, pseudo-caucasian appearance lies obviously elsewhere. And in keeping with true Irwin Allen tradition, that explanation will not be offered here.
1964 - Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Season One, Episode 7 - "Turn Back the Clock", featuring Vitina Marcus as The Native Girl. Produced by Irwin Allen.
And then there was Irwin Allen's masterful handling of the reptilian facets of The Lost World, most notably his inimitable casting of the dinosaurs. His dinosaurs were so realistic, so eerily lifelike, that they almost looked like living, breathing garden variety lizards with dinosaur fins and horns glued to their backs and heads.
The less enlightened viewer might even suppose this to be true, that Irwin's dinosaurs were indeed merely live specimens of lizards, donned in Jurassic-era finery, vastly magnified, and retro-fitted into The Lost World via some penny-wise means of cinematic trickery.
But those of us in the know certainly know better than that, as we are privy to some otherwise unpublished information about The Lost World. The lifelike appearance of the Irwin's dinosaurs can be attributed to a wholly overlooked and fiendishly cunning approach to the art of delusion, which is that the dinosaurs didn't just look real, they were real.
While the world abounds with middling minds who cannot fathom such a reality, we must follow Irwin's benevolent leanings and temper our natural feelings of contempt for this unfortunate assemblage of pedestrian lowbrows. In spite of Irwin's superior intellect, he never felt disdain toward the masses that constituted his audiences. He simply capitalized on their unaffectedness, and in the process recounted the benefits of exploiting the intellectually bereft for personal gain.
The purpose of all this analysis, of course, is to place an exclamation point on the genius of Irwin Allen, the formation of his dinosaur exposé being a premier example. Note how he mindfully manipulates the expectations of his unsuspecting audience, compelling them to probe the dinosaurs for any signs of man-made chicanery. Then, at the palatial moment when the dinosaurs make their entry, he guilefully supplants the anticipated display of faux reptilia with that of the bona fide article.
Upon first witnessing the de facto dinosaurs, some in the audience think they've been had, and indeed they have. Irwin, in engineering his masterful ruse, had used reality as his medium to convey the illusion of artifice. His audience, in essence, was blinded by the truth. It was the immaculate deception, and none but Irwin Allen could have conceived it.
Indeed, the matter of where the live dinosaurs came from has been conspicuously absent from this discussion, as the Irwinian technique of fine film making strongly discourages the practice of squandering time on extraneous justifications and other such trite means of redundant apologia. For the benefit of the incessantly curious, however, just keep in mind that Irwin Allen wrote and produced The Time Tunnel TV Series, a fact that should provide some fair insight into his modis operandi.
Carl R.