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Hadley is a professor of Finance. He spends hours listening to podcasts and reading articles to gain knowledge in the twists and turns of his field. Then using a product called Blackboard, he teaches online to university students. It is 6:30 a.m. and the first day, so he is hard at it. I am so glad I am retired! My job was in IT for the same university, and first days are excruciating. ODC: knowledge
me as Patchouli Knowledge from Touhouvania (Koumajou Densetsu II)
photo by Butterfly Dreams (facebook.com/ButterflyDreamsCosplay)
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Mamiya RB67 Pro S
Mamiya Sekor 180mm f/4.5
ilford HP5+ developed with LC29 6.5 min 20deg 1+19
The skulls are from my Cousin, his hobby is to make handmade anatomical human skulls made of plaster. His facebook page: SkullPorn
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Annapurna trekking region of Nepal enjoy with magnificent view close to highest and impressive mountain range in the world. Day exploration in Pokhara and morning morning flight to Jomsom or drive to Besishisahar from Kathmandu begin of trek. High destination, Muktinath 3800m and in generally highest point of whole Annapurna is 5416m. Thorangla la is situated in Buddhist Monastery, an eternal flame, and Hindus Vishnu Tempe of Juwala Mai making it a pilgrimage site for both Hindus and Buddhists and Muktinath is on the way down from popular trekking it call Thorang la pass which is incredible view in Annapurna region. Whenever possible we will arrive at lodging mid-afternoon, which should leave plenty time for explore the local villages, enjoy the hot springs at Tatopani, continue to Ghorepani where there is forever the possibility of sunrise hike to Poon Hill for spectacular views of Dhaulagiri, Fishtail, Nilgiri and the Annapurna Himalaya range. Continue on to Birethanti finally between with the Baglung road where we will catch cab to Pokhara, next day drive or fly to Kathmandu.
Everest trekking region, although fairly effortless compare to some of other trek, takes you high along trails to Tengboche monastery Everest Solu Khumbu is the district south and west of Mount Everest. It is inhabited by sherpa, cultural group that has achieve fame because of the develop of its men on climbing expeditions. Khumbu is the name of the northern half of this region above Namche, includes highest mountain (Mt. Everest 8848m.) in the world. Khumbu is in part of Sagarmatha National Park. This is a short trek but very scenic trek offers really superb view of the world's highest peaks, including Mt. Everest, Mt. Lhotse, Mt. Thamserku, Mt. Amadablam and other many snowy peaks. Fly from Kathmandu to Lukla it is in the Khumbu region and trek up to Namche Bazzar, Tyangboche and into the Khumjung village, a very nice settlement of Sherpas people. This trek introduction to Everest and Sherpa culture with great mountain views, a very popular destination for first time trekkers in Nepal. Justifiably well-known world uppermost mountain (8848m.) and also for its Sherpa villages and monasteries. Few days trek from Lukla on the highland, takes you to the entry to Sagarmatha National Park and town of Namche Bazaar is entrance of Everest Trek. Environment of the towering Himalayas is a very delicate eco-system that is effortlessly put out of balance.
Langtang trekking region mixture of three beautiful trek taking us straight into some of the wildest and most pretty areas of Nepal. Starting from the lovely hill town of Syabrubensi our trek winds during gorgeous rhododendron and conifer forests throughout the Langtang National Park on the way to the higher slopes. Leads up to the high alpine yak pastures, glaciers and moraines around Kyanging. Along this route you will have an chance to cross the Ganja La Pass if possible from Langtang Valley. Trail enters the rhododendron (National flower of Nepal) forest and climbs up to alpine yak pastures at Ngegang (4404m). From Ngegang we make a climb of Ganja La Pass (5122m). We start southwest, sliding past Gekye Gompa to reach Tarkeghyang otherwise we take a detour and another unique features of trekking past, the holy lakes of Gosainkund (4300 m.) cross into Helambu via Laurebina to Ghopte (3430 m) and further to Trakegyang. Northern parts of the area mostly fall within the boundaries of Langtang National park.
Peak Climbing in Nepal is great view of Himalayas and most various geological regions in asia. Climbing of peaks in Nepal is restricted under the rules of Nepal Mountaineering Association. Details information and application for climbing permits are available through Acute Trekking. First peak climbing in Nepal by Tenzing Norgey Sherpa and Sir Edmund Hilary on May 29, 1953 to Mt. Everest. Trekking Agency in Nepal necessary member from Nepal Mountaineering Association. Our agency will arrange equipment, guides, high altitude porters, food and all necessary gears for climbing in Nepal. Although for some peaks, you need to contribute additional time, exertion owing to improved elevation and complexity. Climbing peaks is next step beyond simply trekking and basic mountaineering course over snow line with ice axe, crampons, ropes etc under administration and coaching from climbing guide, who have substantial mountaineering knowledge and for your climbing in mountain.
Everest Base Camp Trek well noon its spectacular mountain peaks and the devotion and openness of its inhabitants, the Everest region is one of the most popular destination for tourists in Nepal. While numerous of the routes through the mountains are difficult, there are plenty places to rest and enjoy a meal along the way. Additionally, don't worry about receiving lost. Just ask a local the way to the next village on your route, and they will direct you. Most Sherpas under the age of fifty can at least understand basic English, and many speak it fluently.
Annapurna Base Camp Trek is the major peaks of the western portion of the great Annapurna Himalaya, Annapurna South, Fang, Annapurna, Ganagapurna, Annapurna 3 and Machhapuchhare and including Annapurna first 8091 meters are arranged almost exactly in a circle about 10 miles in diameter with a deep glacier enclosed field at the center. From this glacier basin, known as the Annapurna base camp trek (Annapurna sanctuary trek), the Modi Khola way south in a narrow ravine fully 12 thousand ft. deep. Further south, the ravine opens up into a wide and fruitful valley, the domain of the Gurungs. The center and upper portions of Modi Khola offer some of the best short routes for trekking in Nepal and the valley is situated so that these treks can be easily joint with treks into the Kali Gandaki (Kali Gandaki is name of the river in Nepal) region to the west.
Upper Mustang Trekking name Make an escapade beginning from world deepest gorge Kaligandaki valley into world's highest area of Lo-Mangthang valley that passes through an almost tree-less barren landscape, a steep stony trail up and down hill and panorama views of high Annapurna Himalaya including Nilgiri, Annapurna, Dhaulagiri and numerous other peaks. The trek passes through high peaks, passes, glaciers, and alpine valleys. The thousands years of seclusion has kept the society, lifestyle and heritage remain unaffected for centuries and to this date.
Helicopter Tour in Nepal having high mountains and wonderful landscape of countryside but is effortlessly reachable by land transport, is known as helicopter tours country. Helicopter services industry in Nepal is now well well-known with many types and categories of helicopters for the fly to different of Nepal. The pilots are very knowledgeable expert with 1000 of flying hours knowledge in Nepal. We have service for helicopter is outstanding reputations and established records for reliable emergency and rescue flight too. Here we would like to offer some of amazing helicopter tour in Himalaya country of Nepal. Further more details information about Nepal tour itinerary for helicopter tour in different part of Nepal contact us without hesitation.
Kathmandu Pokhra Tour is an exclusive tour package specially designed for all level travelers. Kathmandu Pokhara tour package is effortless tour alternative for Nepal visitors. This tour package vacation the historically significant and ethnically rich capital (Kathmandu ) of Nepal and the most stunning city of world by the nature, Pokhara. Mountain museum and world peace stupa are another charming of Pokhara tour. Pokhara is the center of escapade tourism in Nepal. Package tour to Kathmandu Pokhara is design to discover highlighted areas of Kathmandu and Pokhara valley. Nepal is the country which is socially and geographically different that’s why we powerfully recommend you discover Nepal to visit once in life time. It is hard to explore all Nepal in one Nepal tours trip in this way we design this trip to show you the highlights of Nepal especially in Kathmandu and Pokhara.
Hiking in Nepal in the southern part of the asia continent there lays a tiny rectangular kingdom squeezed between two hugely populated countries, China to the north and India to the south, this country is Nepal a world of its own. Adventure trekking is a type of tourism, involving exploration or travel to remote, exotic and possibly hostile areas. Adventure trekking in Nepal is rapidly growing in popularity, as tourists seek different kinds of vacations. The land of contrast is presumably the exact way to define the scenery of Nepal for you will find maximum world highest peaks high high up above the clouds determined for the gods above. Straight, active and attractive learning experience adventure trekking in Nepal that engross the whole person and have real adventure. Mt. Everest, Kanchenjunga, Daulagiri, and Annapurna and many more are there for the offering for mountain-lovers, adventurers and travelers.
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The text reads:
"To live is to choose"
"sin" vs. "knowledge"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Has it ever occurred to you, Euthydemus, ... that though pleasure is the one and only goal to which incontinence is thought to lead men, she herself cannot bring them to it, whereas nothing produces pleasure so surely as self-control?”
“How so?”
"Incontinence will not let them endure hunger or thirst or desire or lack of sleep, which are the sole causes of pleasure in eating and drinking and sexual indulgence, and in resting and sleeping, after a time of waiting and resistance until the moment comes when these will give the greatest possible satisfaction; and thus she prevents them from experiencing any pleasure worthy to be mentioned in the most elementary and recurrent forms of enjoyment. But self-control alone causes them to endure the sufferings I have named, and therefore she alone causes them to experience any pleasure worth mentioning in such enjoyments."
– Xenophon, Socrates and Euthydemus in "Memorabilia", 4.5
Work for upcoming exhibition 'Second Lives' at The Art & Design Museum in NYC.
2500 pages of cut and bound paper.
Pages come from Under Mount Saint Elias: The History and Culture of the Yakutat Tlingit. Parts One, Two, and Three by Frederica de Laguna
2008
Nicholas Galanin
Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin [nb 1] (9 March 1934 – 27 March 1968) was a Soviet Air Forces pilot and cosmonaut who became the first human to journey into outer space, achieving a major milestone in the Space Race; his capsule Vostok 1 completed one orbit of Earth on 12 April 1961. Gagarin became an international celebrity and was awarded many medals and titles, including Hero of the Soviet Union, his nation's highest honour.
Vostok 1 was Gagarin's only spaceflight but he served as the backup crew to the Soyuz 1 mission, which ended in a fatal crash, killing his friend and fellow cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov. Gagarin later served as the deputy training director of the Cosmonaut Training Centre, which was subsequently named after him. He was elected as a deputy to the Soviet of the Union in 1962 and then to the Soviet of Nationalities, respectively the lower and upper chambers of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. Gagarin died in 1968 when the MiG-15 training jet he was piloting with his flight instructor Vladimir Seryogin crashed near the town of Kirzhach.
Contents
1 Early life and education
2 Soviet Air Force service
3 Soviet space program
3.1 Selection and training
3.2 Vostok 1
4 After the Vostok 1 flight
5 Personal life
6 Death
7 Awards and honours
7.1 Medals and orders of merit
7.2 Tributes
7.3 Statues and monuments
7.4 50th anniversary
8 See also
9 Notes
10 References
10.1 Sources
11 Further reading
12 External links
Early life and education
Yuri Gagarin was born 9 March 1934 in the village of Klushino,[1] near Gzhatsk (renamed Gagarin in 1968 after his death).[2] His parents worked on a collective farm:[3] Alexey Ivanovich Gagarin as a carpenter and Anna Timofeyevna Gagarina as a dairy farmer.[nb 2][4] Yuri was the third of four children: his siblings were brothers Valentin (1924) and Boris (1936), and sister Zoya (1927).[5][6]
Like millions of Soviet Union citizens, the Gagarin family suffered during the Nazi occupation of Russia during World War II. Klushino was occupied in November 1941 during the German advance on Moscow and a German officer took over the Gagarin residence. The family were allowed to build a mud hut approximately 3 by 3 metres (10 by 10 ft) inside on the land behind their house, where they spent twenty-one months until the end of the occupation.[7] His two older siblings were deported by the Germans to Poland for slave labour in 1943 and did not return until after the war in 1945.[5][8] In 1946, the family moved to Gzhatsk, where Gagarin continued his secondary education.[7]
In 1950, aged 16, Gagarin began an apprenticeship as a foundryman at the Lyubertsy steel plant near Moscow,[5][8] and enrolled at a local "young workers" school for seventh-grade evening classes.[9] After graduating in 1951 from both the seventh grade and the vocational school with honours in mouldmaking and foundry work,[9] he was selected for further training at the Saratov Industrial Technical School, where he studied tractors.[5][8][10] While in Saratov, Gagarin volunteered at a local flying club for weekend training as a Soviet air cadet, where he trained to fly a biplane, and later a Yak-18.[8][10] He earned extra money as a part-time dock labourer on the Volga River.[7]
Soviet Air Force service
In 1955, Gagarin was accepted to the 1st Chkalovsky Higher Air Force Pilots School, a flight school in Orenburg.[11][12] He initially began training on the Yak-18 already familiar to him and later graduated to training on the MiG-15 in February 1956.[11] Gagarin twice struggled to land the two-seater trainer aircraft, and risked dismissal from pilot training. However, the commander of the regiment decided to give him another chance at landing. Gagarin's flight instructor gave him a cushion to sit on, which improved his view from the cockpit, and he landed successfully. Having completed his evaluation in a trainer aircraft,[13] Gagarin began flying solo in 1957.[5]
On 5 November 1957, Gagarin was commissioned a lieutenant in the Soviet Air Forces having accumulated 166 hours and 47 minutes of flight time. He graduated from flight school the next day and was posted to the Luostari airbase close to the Norwegian border in Murmansk Oblast for a two-year assignment with the Northern Fleet.[14] On 7 July 1959, he was rated Military Pilot 3rd Class.[15] After expressing interest in space exploration following the launch of Luna 3 on 6 October 1959, his recommendation to the Soviet space program was endorsed and forward by Lieutenant Colonel Babushkin.[14][16] By this point, he had accumulated 265 hours of flight time.[14] Gagarin was promoted to the rank of senior lieutenant on 6 November 1959,[15] three weeks after he was interviewed by a medical commission for qualification to the space program.[14]
Soviet space program
Selection and training
See also: Vostok programme
Vostok I capsule on display at the RKK Energiya museum
Gagarin's selection for the Vostok programme was overseen by the Central Flight Medical Commission led by Major General Konstantin Fyodorovich Borodin of the Soviet Army Medical Service. He underwent physical and psychological testing conducted at Central Aviation Scientific-Research Hospital, in Moscow, commanded by Colonel A.S. Usanov, a member of the commission. The commission also included Colonel Yevgeniy Anatoliyevich Karpov, who later commanded the training centre, Colonel Vladimir Ivanovich Yazdovskiy, the head physician for Gagarin's flight, and Major-General Aleksandr Nikolayevich Babiychuk, a physician flag officer on the Soviet Air Force General Staff to the Commander in Chief of the Air Force.[17]
From a pool of 154 qualified pilots short-listed by their Air Force units, the military physicians chose 29 cosmonaut candidates, of which 20 were approved by the Credential Committee of the Soviet Government. The first twelve including Gagarin were approved on 7 March 1960 and eight more were added in a series of subsequent orders issued until June.[18] Gagarin began training at the Khodynka Airfield in downtown Moscow on 15 March 1960. The training regiment involved vigorous and repetitive physical exercises which Alexei Leonov, a member of the initial group of twelve, described as akin to training for the Olympics Games.[19] In April 1960, they began parachute training in Saratov Oblast and each completed about 40 to 50 jumps from both low and high altitude, and over land and water.[20]
Gagarin was a candidate favoured by his peers. When they were asked to vote anonymously for a candidate besides themselves they would like to be the first to fly, all but three chose Gagarin.[21] One of these candidates, Yevgeny Khrunov, believed that Gagarin was very focused and was demanding of himself and others when necessary.[22] On 30 May 1960, Gagarin was further selected for an accelerated training group, known as the Vanguard Six or Sochi Six,[23][nb 3] from which the first cosmonauts of the Vostok programme would be chosen. The other members of the group were Anatoliy Kartashov, Andriyan Nikolayev, Pavel Popovich, German Titov, and Valentin Varlamov. However, Kartashov and Varlamov were injured and replaced by Khrunov and Grigoriy Nelyubov.[25]
As several of the candidates selected for the program including Gagarin did not have higher education degrees, they were enrolled into a correspondence course program at Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy. Gagarin enrolled in the program in September 1960 and did not earn his specialist diploma until early 1968.[26][27] Gagarin was also subjected to experiments that were designed to test physical and psychological endurance including oxygen starvation tests in which the cosmonauts were locked in an isolation chamber and the air slowly pumped out. He also trained for the upcoming flight by experiencing g-forces in a centrifuge.[28][25] Psychological tests included placing the candidates in an anechoic chamber in complete isolation; Gagarin was in the chamber on July 26 – August 5.[29][20] In August 1960, a Soviet Air Force doctor evaluated his personality as follows:
Modest; embarrasses when his humor gets a little too racy; high degree of intellectual development evident in Yuriy; fantastic memory; distinguishes himself from his colleagues by his sharp and far-ranging sense of attention to his surroundings; a well-developed imagination; quick reactions; persevering, prepares himself painstakingly for his activities and training exercises, handles celestial mechanics and mathematical formulae with ease as well as excels in higher mathematics; does not feel constrained when he has to defend his point of view if he considers himself right; appears that he understands life better than a lot of his friends.[21]
The Vanguard Six were given the title of pilot-cosmonaut in January 1961[25] and entered a two-day examination conducted by a special interdepartmental commission led Lieutenant-General Nikolai Kamanin, tasked with ranking of the candidates based on their mission readiness for the first human Vostok mission. On 17 January 1961, they were tested in a simulator at the M. M. Gromov Flight-Research Institute on a full-size mockup of the Vostok capsule. Gagarin, Nikolayev, Popovich, and Titov all received excellent marks on the first day of testing in which they were required to describe the various phases of the mission followed by questions from commission.[22] On the second day, they were given a written examination following which the special commission ranked Gagarin as the best candidate the first mission. He and the next two highest-ranked cosmonauts, Titov and Nelyubov, were sent to Tyuratam for final preparations.[22] Gagarin and Titov were selected to train in the flight-ready spacecraft on 7 April 1961. Historian Asif Siddiqi writes of the final selection:[30]
In the end, at the State Commission meeting on April 8, Kamanin stood up and formally nominated Gagarin as the primary pilot and Titov as his backup. Without much discussion, the commission approved the proposal and moved on to other last-minute logistical issues. It was assumed that in the event Gagarin developed health problems prior to liftoff, Titov would take his place, with Nelyubov acting as his backup.
Vostok 1
Main article: Vostok 1
Poyekhali!
Menu
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Gagarin's voice
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On 12 April 1961, 6:07 am UTC, the Vostok 3KA-3 (Vostok 1) spacecraft was launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome. Aboard was Gagarin, the first human to travel into space, using the call sign Kedr (Russian: Кедр, Siberian pine or Cedar).[31] The radio communication between the launch control room and Gagarin included the following dialogue at the moment of rocket launch:
Korolev: Preliminary stage ... intermediate... main... LIFT-OFF! We wish you a good flight. Everything's all right.
Gagarin: Off we go! Goodbye, until [we meet] soon, dear friends.[32][33]
Gagarin's farewell to Korolev using the informal phrase Poyekhali! (Russian: Поехали!)[nb 4] later became a popular expression in the Eastern Bloc that was used to refer to the beginning of the Space Age.[35][36] The five first-stage engines fired until the first separation event, when the four side-boosters fell away, leaving the core engine. The core stage then separated while the rocket was in a suborbital trajectory, and the upper stage carried it to orbit. Once the upper stage finished firing, it separated from the spacecraft, which orbited for 108 minutes before returning to Earth in Kazakhstan.[37] Gagarin became the first to orbit the Earth.[31]
File:1961-04-19 First Pictures-Yuri Gagarin-selection.ogvPlay media
An April 1961 newsreel of Gagarin arriving in Moscow to be greeted by First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev.
"The feeling of weightlessness was somewhat unfamiliar compared with Earth conditions. Here, you feel as if you were hanging in a horizontal position in straps. You feel as if you are suspended", Gagarin wrote in his post-flight report.[38] He also wrote in his autobiography released the same year that he sang the tune "The Motherland Hears, The Motherland Knows" (Russian: "Родина слышит, Родина знает") during re-entry.[39] Gagarin was qualified a Military Pilot 1st Class and promoted to the rank of major in a special order given during his flight.[15][39]
At about 23,000 feet (7,000 m), Gagarin ejected from the descending capsule as planned and landed using a parachute. There were concerns Gagarin's spaceflight record would not be certified by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI), the world governing body for setting standards and keeping records in the field, which at the time required that the pilot land with the craft.[40] Gagarin and Soviet officials initially refused to admit that he had not landed with his spacecraft,[41] an omission which became apparent after Titov's subsequent flight on Vostok 2 four months later. Gagarin's spaceflight records were nonetheless certified and again reaffirmed by the FAI, which revised it rules, and acknowledge that the crucial steps of the safe launch, orbit, and return of the pilot had been accomplished. Gagarin continues to be internationally recognised as the first human in space and first to orbit the Earth.[42]
After the Vostok 1 flight
Gagarin in Warsaw, 1961
Gagarin's flight was a triumph for the Soviet space program and he became a national hero of the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc, as well as a worldwide celebrity. Newspapers around the globe published his biography and details of his flight. He was escorted in a long motorcade of high-ranking officials through the streets of Moscow to the Kremlin where, in a lavish ceremony, Nikita Khrushchev awarded him the title Hero of the Soviet Union. Other cities in the Soviet Union also held mass demonstrations, the scale of which were second only to World War II Victory Parades.[43]
Gagarin and Valentina Tereshkova (seated to his right) sign autographs in 1964
Gagarin gained a reputation as an adept public figure and was noted for his charismatic smile.[44][45][46] On 15 April 1961, accompanied by official from the Soviet Academy of Sciences, he answered questions at a press conference in Moscow reportedly attended by 1,000 reporters.[47] Gagarin visited the United Kingdom three months after the Vostok 1 mission, going to London and Manchester.[48][44] While in Manchester, despite heavy rain, he refused an umbrella, insisted that the roof of the convertible car he was riding in remain open, and stood so the cheering crowds could see him.[44][49] Gagarin toured widely abroad, accepting the invitation of about 30 countries.[50] In just the first four months, he also went to Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Finland, Hungary, and Iceland.[51]
In 1962, Gagarin began serving as a deputy to the Soviet of the Union,[52] and was elected to the Central Committee of the Young Communist League. He later returned to Star City, the cosmonaut facility, where he spent several years working on designs for a reusable spacecraft. He became a lieutenant colonel of the Soviet Air Forces on 12 June 1962, and received the rank of colonel on 6 November 1963.[15] On 20 December 1963, Gagarin became Deputy Training Director of the Star City cosmonaut training base.[53] Soviet officials, including cosmonaut overseerer Nikolai Kamanin, tried to keep Gagarin away from any flights, being worried about losing their hero in an accident noting that he was "too dear to mankind to risk his life for the sake of an ordinary space flight".[54] Kamanin was also concerned by Gagarin's drinking and believed the sudden rise to fame had taken its toll on the cosmonaut. While acquaintances say Gagarin had been a "sensible drinker", his touring schedule placed him in social situations in which he was increasingly expected to drink alcohol.[5][10]
Gagarin with U.S. Vice President Hubert Humphrey, French Prime Minister Georges Pompidou and the Gemini 4 astronauts at the 1965 Paris Air Show
Two years later, he was re-elected as a deputy of the Soviet Union but this time to the Soviet of Nationalities, the upper chamber of legislature.[52] The following year, he began to re-qualify as a fighter pilot[55] and was backup pilot for his friend Vladimir Komarov on the Soyuz 1 flight after five years without piloting duty. Kamanin had opposed Gagarin's reassignment to cosmonaut training; he had gained weight and his flying skills had deteriorated. Despite this, he remained a strong contender for Soyuz 1 until he was replaced by Komarov in April 1966 and reassigned to Soyuz 3.[56]
The Soyuz 1 launch was rushed due to implicit political pressures[57] and despite Gagarin's protests that additional safety precautions were necessary.[58] Gagarin accompanied Komarov to the rocket before launch and relayed instructions to Komarov from ground control following multiple system failures aboard the spacecraft.[59] Despite their best efforts, Soyuz 1 crash landed after its parachutes failed to open, killing Komarov instantly.[60] After the Soyuz 1 crash, Gagarin was permanently banned from training for and participating in further spaceflights.[61] He was also grounded from flying aircraft solo, a demotion he worked hard to lift. He was temporarily relieved of duties to focus on academics with the promise that he would be able to resume flight training.[62] On 17 February 1968, Gagarin successfully defended his aerospace engineering thesis on the subject of spaceplane aerodynamic configuration and graduated cum laude from Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy.[27][63][62]
Personal life
Gagarin and his wife Valentina clapping at a concert in Moscow in 1964.
Gagarin and his wife Valentina at a concert in Moscow in 1964.
Gagarin was a keen sportsman and fond of ice hockey as a goal keeper.[64] He was also a basketball fan and coached the Saratov Industrial Technical School team, as well as being a referee.[65]
In 1957, while a cadet in flight school, Gagarin met Valentina Goryacheva at the May Day celebrations at the Red Square in Moscow.[66] She was a medical technician who graduated from Orenburg Medical School.[8][10] They were married on 7 November 1957,[8] the same day Gagarin graduated from Orenburg, and they had two daughters.[67][68] Yelena Yurievna Gagarina, born 1959,[68] is an art historian who has worked as the director-general of the Moscow Kremlin Museums since 2001;[69][70] and Galina Yurievna Gagarina, born 1961,[68] is a professor of economics and the department chair at Plekhanov Russian University of Economics in Moscow.[69][71] Following his rise to fame, at a Black Sea resort in September 1961, he was reportedly caught by his wife during a liaison with a nurse who had aided him after a boating incident. He attempted to escape through a window and jumped off a second floor balcony. The resulting injury left a permanent scar above his left eyebrow.[5][10]
Death
Plaque on a brick wall with inscription: Юрий Алексеевич Гагарин, 1934-03-09–1968-03-27
Plaque indicating Gagarin's interment in the Kremlin Wall
On 27 March 1968, while on a routine training flight from Chkalovsky Air Base, Gagarin and flight instructor Vladimir Seryogin died when their MiG-15UTI crashed near the town of Kirzhach. The bodies of Gagarin and Seryogin were cremated and their ashes were buried in the walls of the Kremlin.[72] Wrapped in secrecy, the cause of the crash that killed Gagarin is uncertain and became the subject of several theories.[73][74] At least three investigations into the crash were conducted separately by the Air Force, official government commissions, and the KGB.[75][76] According to a biography of Gagarin by Jamie Doran and Piers Bizony, Starman: The Truth Behind the Legend of Yuri Gagarin, the KGB worked "not just alongside the Air Force and the official commission members but against them."[75]
The KGB's report declassified in March 2003 dismissed various conspiracy theories and instead indicated the actions of airbase personnel contributed to the crash. The report states that an air-traffic controller provided Gagarin with outdated weather information and that by the time of his flight, conditions had deteriorated significantly. Ground crew also left external fuel tanks attached to the aircraft. Gagarin's planned flight activities needed clear weather and no outboard tanks. The investigation concluded Gagarin's aircraft entered a spin, either due to a bird strike or because of a sudden move to avoid another aircraft. Because of the out-of-date weather report, the crew believed their altitude was higher than it was and could not react properly to bring the MiG-15 out of its spin.[76] Another theory, advanced in 2005 by the original crash investigator, hypothesizes that a cabin air vent was accidentally left open by the crew or the previous pilot, leading to oxygen deprivation and leaving the crew incapable of controlling the aircraft.[73] A similar theory, published in Air & Space magazine, is that the crew detected the open vent and followed procedure by executing a rapid dive to a lower altitude. This dive caused them to lose consciousness and crash.[74]
On 12 April 2007, the Kremlin vetoed a new investigation into the death of Gagarin. Government officials said they saw no reason to begin a new investigation.[77] In April 2011, documents from a 1968 commission set up by the Central Committee of the Communist Party to investigate the accident were declassified. The documents revealed that the commission's original conclusion was that Gagarin or Seryogin had manoeuvered sharply, either to avoid a weather balloon or to avoid "entry into the upper limit of the first layer of cloud cover", leading the jet into a "super-critical flight regime and to its stalling in complex meteorological conditions".[78]
A Russian MiG-15UTI, the same type as Gagarin was flying
Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, a member of a state commission established to investigate Gagarin's death, was conducting parachute training sessions that day and heard "two loud booms in the distance". He believes that a Sukhoi Su-15 was flying below its minimum altitude and, "without realizing it because of the terrible weather conditions, he passed within 10 or 20 meters of Yuri and Seregin's plane while breaking the sound barrier". The resulting turbulence would have sent the MiG-15UTI into an uncontrolled spin. Leonov said the first boom he heard was that of the jet breaking the sound barrier and the second was Gagarin's plane crashing.[79] In a June 2013 interview with Russian television network RT, Leonov said a report on the incident confirmed the presence of a second, "unauthorized" Su-15 flying in the area. However, as a condition of being allowed to discuss the declassified report, Leonov was barred from disclosing the name of the Su-15 pilot who was 80 years old and in poor health as of 2013.[80]
Awards and honours
Medals and orders of merit
Jânio Quadros, President of Brazil, decorated Gagarin in 1961.
On 14 April 1961, Gagarin was honoured with a 12-mile (19 km) parade attended by millions of people that concluded at the Red Square. After a short speech, he was bestowed the Hero of the Soviet Union,[81][82] Order of Lenin,[81] Merited Master of Sports of the Soviet Union[83] and the first Pilot-Cosmonaut of the USSR.[82] On 15 April, the Soviet Academy of Sciences awarded him with the Konstantin Tsiolkovsky Gold Medal, named after the Russian pioneer of space aeronautics.[84] Gagarin had also been awarded four Soviet commemorative medals over the course of his career.[15]
He was honoured as a Hero of Socialist Labor (Czechoslovakia) on 29 April 1961,[85][86] and Hero of Socialist Labor (Bulgaria, including the Order of Georgi Dimitrov) on 24 May.[15][chronology citation needed] On the eighth anniversary of the beginning of Cuban Revolution (26 July), President Osvaldo Dorticos of Cuba presented him with the first Commander of the Order of Playa Girón, a newly created medal.[87]
Gagarin was also awarded the 1960 Gold Air Medal and the 1961 De la Vaulx Medal from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale in Switzerland.[88] He received numerous awards from other nations that year, including the Star of the Republic of Indonesia (2nd Class), the Order of the Cross of Grunwald (1st Degree) in Poland, the Order of the Flag of the Republic of Hungary, the Hero of Labor award from Democratic Republic of Vietnam,[15] the Italian Columbus Day Medal,[89] and a Gold Medal from the British Interplanetary Society.[90][91] President Jânio Quadros of Brazil decorated Gagarin on 2 August 1961 with the Order of Aeronautical Merit, Commander grade.[92] During a tour of Egypt in late January 1962, Gagarin received the Order of the Nile[93] and the golden keys to the gates of Cairo.[50] On 22 October 1963, Gagarin and Valentina Tereshkova were honoured with the Order of Karl Marx from the German Democratic Republic.[94]
Tributes
The date of Gagarin's space flight, 12 April, has been commemorated. Since 1962, it has been celebrated in the USSR and most of its former territories as Cosmonautics Day.[95] Since 2000, Yuri's Night, an international celebration, is held annually to commemorate milestones in space exploration.[96] In 2011, it was declared the International Day of Human Space Flight by the United Nations.[97]
Yuri Gagarin statue at the Royal Greenwich Observatory in London
A number of buildings and locations have been named for Gagarin. The Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia, was named on 30 April 1968.[98] The launch pad at Baikonur Cosmodrome from which Sputnik 1 and Vostok 1 were launched is now known as Gagarin's Start. Gagarin Raion in Sevastopol, Ukraine, was named after him during the period of the Soviet Union. The Russian Air Force Academy was renamed Gagarin Air Force Academy in 1968.[99] A street in Warsaw, Poland, is called Yuri Gagarin Street.[100] The town of Gagarin, Armenia was renamed in his honour in 1961.[101]
Gagarin has been honoured on the Moon by astronauts and astronomers. During the American space program's Apollo 11 mission in 1969, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin left a memorial satchel containing medals commemorating Gagarin and fellow cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov on the Moon's surface.[102][103] In 1971, Apollo 15 astronauts David Scott and James Irwin left the small Fallen Astronaut sculpture at their landing site as a memorial to the American astronauts and Soviet cosmonauts who died in the Space Race; the names on its plaque included Yuri Gagarin and 14 others.[104][105] In 1970, a 262 km (163 mi)-wide crater on the far side after him.[106] Gagarin was inducted as a member of the 1976 inaugural class of the International Space Hall of Fame in New Mexico.[107]
Gagarin is memorialised in music; a cycle of Soviet patriotic songs titled The Constellation Gagarin (Russian: Созвездье Гагарина, tr. Sozvezdie Gagarina) was written by Aleksandra Pakhmutova and Nikolai Dobronravov in 1970–1971.[108] The most famous of these songs refers to Gagarin's poyekhali!: in the lyrics, "He said 'let's go!' He waved his hand".[35][108] He was the inspiration for the pieces "Hey Gagarin" by Jean-Michel Jarre on Métamorphoses, "Gagarin" by Public Service Broadcasting, and "Gagarin, I loved you" by Undervud.[109]
Russian ten-ruble commemorating Gagarin in 2001
Vessels have been named for Gagarin; Soviet tracking ship Kosmonavt Yuri Gagarin was built in 1971[110] and the Armenian airline Armavia named their first Sukhoi Superjet 100 in his honour in 2011.[111]
Two commemorative coins were issued in the Soviet Union to honour the 20th and 30th anniversaries of his flight: a one-ruble coin in copper-nickel (1981) and a three-ruble coin in silver (1991). In 2001, to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Gagarin's flight, a series of four coins bearing his likeness was issued in Russia; it consisted of a two-ruble coin in copper-nickel, a three-ruble coin in silver, a ten-ruble coin in brass-copper and nickel, and a 100-ruble coin in silver.[112] In 2011, Russia issued a 1,000-ruble coin in gold and a three-ruble coin in silver to mark the 50th anniversary of his flight.[113]
In 2008, the Kontinental Hockey League named their championship trophy the Gagarin Cup.[114] In a 2010 Space Foundation survey, Gagarin was ranked as the sixth-most-popular space hero, tied with Star Trek's fictional James T. Kirk.[115] A Russian docudrama titled Gagarin: First in Space was released in 2013. Previous attempts at portraying Gagarin were disallowed; his family took legal action over his portrayal in a fictional drama and vetoed a musical.[116]
Statues and monuments
There are statues of Gagarin and monuments to him located in Gagarin (Smolensk Oblast), Orenburg, Cheboksary, Irkutsk, Izhevsk, Komsomolsk-on-Amur, and Yoshkar-Ola in Russia, as well as in Nicosia, Cyprus, Druzhkivka, Ukraine, Karaganda, Kazakhstan, and Tiraspol, Moldova. On 4 June 1980, Monument to Yuri Gagarin in Gagarin Square, Leninsky Avenue, Moscow, was opened.[117] The monument is mounted to a 38 m (125 ft) tall pedestal and is constructed of titanium. Beside the column is a replica of the descent module used during his spaceflight.[118]
Bust of Gagarin at Birla Planetarium in Kolkata, India
In 2011, a statue of Gagarin was unveiled at Admiralty Arch in The Mall in London, opposite the permanent sculpture of James Cook. It is a copy of the statue outside Gagarin's former school in Lyubertsy.[119] In 2013, the statue was moved to a permanent location outside the Royal Observatory, Greenwich.[120]
In 2012, a statue was unveiled at the site of NASA's original spaceflight headquarters on South Wayside Drive in Houston. The sculpture was completed in 2011 by artist and cosmonaut Alexei Leonov and was a gift to Houston by various Russian organisations. Houston Mayor Annise Parker, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak were present for the dedication.[121][122] The Russian Federation presented a bust of Gagarin to several cities in India including one that was unveiled at the Birla Planetarium in Kolkata in February 2012.[123]
In April 2018, a bust of Gagarin erected on the street in Belgrade, Serbia, that bears his name was removed, after less than week. A new work was commissioned following the outcry over the disproportionately small size of its head which locals said was an "insult" to Gagarin.[124][125] Belgrade City Manager Goran Vesic stated that neither the city, the Serbian Ministry of Culture, nor the foundation that financed it had prior knowledge of the design.[126]
50th anniversary
50th anniversary stamp of Ukraine
The 50th anniversary of Gagarin's journey into space was marked in 2011 by tributes around the world. A film titled First Orbit was shot from the International Space Station, combining sound recordings from the original flight with footage of the route taken by Gagarin.[127] The Russian, American, and Italian crew of Expedition 27 aboard the ISS sent a special video message to wish the people of the world a "Happy Yuri's Night", wearing shirts with an image of Gagarin.[128]
The Central Bank of the Russian Federation released gold and silver coins to commemorate the anniversary.[129] The Soyuz TMA-21 spacecraft was named Gagarin with the launch in April 2011 to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the first manned space mission.
Universalis Cosmographia Secundum Ptholomaei Traditionem et Americi Vespucii Alioru[m]que Lustrationes, St. Dié, 1507
Recognizing and Naming America
Martin Waldseemüller’s 1507 world map grew out of an ambitious project in St. Dié, near Strasbourg, France, during the first decade of the sixteenth century, to document and update new geographic knowledge derived from the discoveries of the late fifteenth and the first years of the sixteenth centuries. Waldseemüller’s large world map was the most exciting product of that research effort, and included data gathered during Amerigo Vespucci’s voyages of 1501-1502 to the New World. Waldseemüller christened the new lands “America” in recognition of Vespucci ’s understanding that a new continent had been uncovered as a result of the voyages of Columbus and other explorers in the late fifteenth century. This is the only known surviving copy of the first printed edition of the map, which, it is believed, consisted of 1,000 copies.
Waldseemüller’s map supported Vespucci’s revolutionary concept by portraying the New World as a separate continent, which until then was unknown to the Europeans. It was the first map, printed or manuscript, to depict clearly a separate Western Hemisphere, with the Pacific as a separate ocean. The map represented a huge leap forward in knowledge, recognizing the newly found American landmass and forever changing the European understanding of a world divided into only three parts—Europe, Asia, and Africa.
•Martin Waldseemüller (1470-1521)
•Universalis Cosmographia Secundum Ptholomaei Traditionem et Americi Vespucii Alioru[m]que Lustrationes, [St. Dié], 1507
•One map on 12 sheets, made from original woodcut
•Geography and Map Division, Library of Congress
Exploring the Early Americas
Waldseemüller Maps
For more than three hundred years the only surviving copies of what are arguably two of the most important maps in the history of cartography, the 1507 and 1516 World Maps by Martin Waldseemüller (ca. 1470-ca. 1522), sat unknown on the shelves of a library in the castle of a prince. The owner was Prince Johannes Waldburg-Wolfegg, of Württenberg, Germany. The maps were rediscovered there in 1901 by the Jesuit historian Josef Fischer (1858-1944), who found them bound into a single portfolio, now known as the “Schöner Sammelband,” by the Nuremburg globe-maker and mathematician Johannes Schöner (1477–1547).
1507 World Map: Recognizing and Naming a New Continent
Martin Waldseemüller’s 1507 world map grew out of an ambitious project in St. Dié, France, during the first decade of the sixteenth century. The objective was to document and update new geographic knowledge derived from the discoveries of the late fifteenth and the first years of the sixteenth centuries. Waldseemüller’s large world map was the most exciting product of that research effort and included data gathered during Amerigo Vespucci’s voyages of 1501-1502 to the New World. Waldseemüller christened the new lands “America” in recognition of Vespucci’s understanding that a new continent had been uncovered as a result of the voyages of Columbus and other explorers in the late fifteenth century. This is the only known surviving copy of the 1,000 maps that are believed to have been printed.
Waldseemüller’s map represented a revolutionary new geography: it was the first map, printed or manuscript, to depict clearly a separate Western Hemisphere, separated from Asia, with the Pacific as a separate ocean. The map represented a huge leap forward in knowledge, recognizing the newly found American landmass and forever changing the European understanding of a world that was previously divided into only three parts—Europe, Asia, and Africa.
The existence of the Pacific Ocean and a western coastline for South America on the 1507 Waldseemüller map remains an unsolved mystery for scholars. In 1507 neither Balboa nor Magellan had reached the Pacific Ocean. How then did Waldseemüller know of the ocean’s existence and depict a continent whose coastline on the west borders the ocean?
The Impact
After the printing of the map it appears to have received little attention in cartographic circles even though it presented a radically new understanding of world geography based on the discoveries of Columbus and Vespucci. Waldseemüller himself recognized that the map was an important departure from previous cartographic views of the world and asked for the reader’s patience when looking at the map. In the large text block found in the lower right-hand corner of the map we find him saying: “This one request we have to make, that those who are inexperienced and unacquainted with cosmography shall not condemn all this before they have learned what will surely be clearer to them later on, when they have come to understand it.” Sadly, his radical new view of the world was noted by few references in contemporary geographic literature and, having been copied by only a few minor cartographers, it slipped into obscurity and disappeared.
Based on their reading of the Cosmographiae Introductio in the early and mid-nineteenth century, later scholars, such as Alexander von Humboldt and Marie d’Avezac-Macaya, speculated on the map’s existence, on its importance to the early history of the New World, and on its crucial role in the naming of America, all without ever having laid eyes on a copy of the map itself.
The map, which displays the name America for the first time on any map, also represents the continents of North and South America with a shape that is geometrically similar in form to the outlines of the continents as we recognize them today. The two aspects of the shape and the location of the New World on the map, separated as it is from Asia, are chronologically and chronometrically problematic in that in 1507, the map’s supposed creation date, neither Vasco Núñez de Balboa nor Ferdinand Magellan had reached the Pacific Ocean.
Waldseemüller Map
The Waldseemüller map or Universalis Cosmographia (“Universal Cosmography”) is a printed wall map of the world by German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller, originally published in April 1507. It is known as the first map to use the name “America”. The name America is placed on what is now called South America on the main map. As explained in Cosmographiae Introductio, the name was bestowed in honor of the Italian Amerigo Vespucci.
The map is drafted on a modification of Ptolemy’s second projection, expanded to accommodate the Americas and the high latitudes. A single copy of the map survives, presently housed at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.
Waldseemüller also created globe gores, printed maps designed to be cut out and pasted onto spheres to form globes of the Earth. The wall map, and his globe gores of the same date, depict the American continents in two pieces. These depictions differ from the small inset map in the top border of the wall map, which shows the two American continents joined by an isthmus.
Wall Map
Description
The wall map consists of twelve sections printed from woodcuts measuring 18 by 24.5 inches (46 cm × 62 cm). Each section is one of four horizontally and three vertically, when assembled. The map uses a modified Ptolemaic map projection with curved meridians to depict the entire surface of the Earth. In the upper-mid part of the main map there is inset another, miniature world map representing to some extent an alternative view of the world.
Longitudes, which were difficult to determine at the time, are given in terms of degrees east from the Fortunate Islands (considered by Claudius Ptolemy as the westernmost known land) which Waldseemüller locates at the Canary Islands. The longitudes of eastern Asian places are too great. Latitudes, which were easy to determine, are also quite far off. For example, “Serraleona” (Sierra Leone, true latitude about 9°N) is placed south of the equator, and the Cape of Good Hope (true latitude 35°S) is placed at 50°S.
The full title of the map is Universalis cosmographia secundum Ptholomaei traditionem et Americi Vespucii aliorumque lustrationes (The Universal Cosmography according to the Tradition of Ptolemy and the Discoveries of Amerigo Vespucci and others). One of the “others” was Christopher Columbus. The title signaled his intention to combine or harmonize in a unified cosmographic depiction the traditional Ptolemaic geography of Europe, Asia and Africa with the new geographical information provided by Amerigo Vespucci and his fellow discoverers of lands in the western hemisphere. He explained: “In designing the sheets of our world-map we have not followed Ptolemy in every respect, particularly as regards the new lands … We have therefore followed, on the flat map, Ptolemy, except for the new lands and some other things, but on the solid globe, which accompanies the flat map, the description of Amerigo that is appended hereto.”
Several earlier maps are believed to be sources, chiefly those based on the Geography (Ptolemy) and the Caveri planisphere and others similar to those of Henricus Martellus or Martin Behaim. The Caribbean and what appear to be Florida were depicted on two earlier charts, the Cantino map, smuggled from Portugal to Italy in 1502 showing details known in 1500, and the Caverio map, drawn circa 1503-1504 and showing the Gulf of Mexico.
While some maps after 1500 show, with ambiguity, an eastern coastline for Asia distinct from the Americas, the Waldseemüller map apparently indicates the existence of a new ocean between the trans-Atlantic regions of the Spanish discoveries and the Asia of Ptolemy and Marco Polo as exhibited on the 1492 Behaim globe. The first historical records of Europeans to set eyes on this ocean, the Pacific, are recorded as Vasco Núñez de Balboa in 1513. That is five to six years after Waldseemüller made his map. In addition, the map apparently predicts the width of South America at certain latitudes to within 70 miles. However, as pointed out by E.G. Ravenstein, this is an illusory effect of the cordiform projection used by Waldseemüller, for when the map is laid out on a more familiar equirectangular projection and compared with others of the period also set out on that same projection there is little difference between them: this is particularly evident when the comparison is made with Johannes Schöner’s 1515 globe.
Apparently among most map-makers until that time, it was still erroneously believed that the lands discovered by Christopher Columbus, Vespucci, and others formed part of the Indies of Asia. Thus, some believe that it is impossible that Waldseemüller could have known about the Pacific, which is depicted on his map. The historian Peter Whitfield has theorized that Waldseemüller incorporated the ocean into his map because Vespucci’s accounts of the Americas, with their so-called “savage” peoples, could not be reconciled with contemporary knowledge of India, China, and the islands of Indies. Thus, in the view of Whitfield, Waldseemüller reasoned that the newly discovered lands could not be part of Asia, but must be separate from it, a leap of intuition that was later proved uncannily precise. An alternative explanation is that of George E. Nunn (see below).
Mundus Novus, a book attributed to Vespucci (who had himself explored the extensive eastern coast of South America), was widely published throughout Europe after 1504, including by Waldseemüller’s group in 1507. It had first introduced to Europeans the idea that this was a new continent and not Asia. It is theorized that this led to Waldseemüller’s separating the Americas from Asia, depicting the Pacific Ocean, and the use of the first name of Vespucci on his map.
An explanatory text, the Cosmographiae Introductio, widely believed to have been written by Waldseemüller’s colleague Matthias Ringmann, accompanied the map. It was said in Chapter IX of that text that the earth was now known to be divided into four parts, of which Europe, Asia and Africa, being contiguous with each other, were continents, while the fourth part, America, was “an island, inasmuch as it is found to be surrounded on all sides by the seas”.
The inscription on the top left corner of the map proclaims that the discovery of America by Columbus and Vespucci fulfilled a prophecy of the Roman poet, Virgil, made in the Aeneid (VI. 795-797), of a land to be found in the southern hemisphere, to the south of the Tropic of Capricorn:
Many have thought to be an invention what the famous Poet said, that “a land lies beyond the stars, beyond the paths of the year and the sun, where Atlas the heaven-bearer turns on his shoulder the axis of the world set with blazing stars”; but now, at last, it proves clearly to have been true. It is, in fact, the land discovered by the King of Castile’s captain, Columbus, and by Americus Vesputius, men of great and excellent talent, of which the greater part lies under the path of the year and sun, and between the tropics but extending nonetheless to about nineteen degrees beyond Capricorn toward the Antarctic pole beyond the paths of the year and the sun. Wherein, indeed, a greater amount of gold is to be found than of any other metal.
The “path” referred to is the ecliptic, which marks the sun’s yearly movement along the constellations of the zodiac, so that to go beyond it meant crossing the southernmost extent of the ecliptic, the Tropic of Capricorn. 19° beyond Capricorn is latitude 42° South, the southernmost extent of America shown on Waldseemüller’s map. The map legend shows how Waldseemüller strove to reconcile the new geographic information with the knowledge inherited from antiquity.
The most southerly feature named on the coast of America on the Waldseemüller map is Rio decananorum, the “River of the Cananoreans”. This was taken from Vespucci, who in 1501 during his voyage along this coast reached the port which he called Cananor (now Cananéia). Cananor was the port of Kannur in southern India, the farthest port reached in India during the 1500-1501 voyage of the Portuguese Pedro Álvares Cabral, the discoverer of Brazil, two of whose ships were encountered returning from India by Vespucci. This may be an indication Waldseemüller thought that the “River of the Cananoreans” could have actually been in the territory of Cananor in India and that America was, therefore, part of India.
The name for the northern land mass, Parias, is derived from a passage in the Four Voyages of Amerigo Vespucci, in which, after several stops, the expedition arrives at a region that was “situated in the torrid zone directly under the parallel which describes the Tropic of Cancer. And this province is called by them [the inhabitants] Parias.” Parias was described by Waldseemüller’s follower, Johannes Schöner as: “The island of Parias, which is not a part or portion of the foregoing [America] but a large, special part of the fourth part of the world”, indicating uncertainty as to its situation.
PARIAS and AMERICA, corresponding to North and South America, are separated by a strait in the region of the present Panama on the main map but on the miniature map inset into the upper-mid part of the main map the isthmus joining the two is unbroken, apparently demonstrating Waldseemüller’s willingness to represent alternative solutions to a question yet unanswered.
The map shows the cities of Catigara (near longitude 180° and latitude 10°S) and Mallaqua (Malacca, near longitude 170° and latitude 20°S) on the western coast of the great peninsula that projects from the southeastern part of Asia, or INDIA MERIDIONALIS (Southern India) as Waldseemüller called it. This peninsula forms the eastern side of the SINUS MAGNUS (“Great Gulf”), the Gulf of Thailand. Amerigo Vespucci, writing of his 1499 voyage, said he had hoped to sail westward from Spain across the Western Ocean (the Atlantic) around the Cape of Cattigara mentioned by Ptolemy into the Sinus Magnus. Ptolemy understood Cattigara, or Kattigara, to be the most eastern port reached by shipping trading from the Graeco-Roman world to the lands of the Far East. Vespucci failed to find the Cape of Cattigara on his 1499 voyage: he sailed along the coast of Venezuela but not far enough to resolve the question of whether there was a sea passage beyond leading to Ptolemy’s Sinus Magnus. The object of his voyage of 1503-1504 was to reach the fabulous spice emporium of “Melaccha in India” (that is, Malacca, or Melaka, on the Malay Peninsula). He had learned of Malacca from one Guaspare (or Gaspard), a pilot with Pedro Álvares Cabral’s fleet on its voyage to India in 1500-1501, whom Vespucci had encountered in the Atlantic on his return from India in May 1501. Christopher Columbus, in his fourth and last voyage of 1502-1503, planned to follow the coast of Champa southward around the Cape of Cattigara and sail through the strait separating Cattigara from the New World, into the Sinus Magnus to Malacca. This was the route he understood Marco Polo to have gone from China to India in 1292 (although Malacca had not yet been founded in Polo’s time). Columbus anticipated that he would meet up with the expedition sent at the same time from Portugal to Malacca around the Cape of Good Hope under Vasco da Gama, and carried letters of credence from the Spanish monarchs to present to da Gama. The map therefore shows the two cities that were the initial destinations of Amerigo Vespucci and Christopher Columbus in their voyages that led to the unexpected discovery of a New World.
Just to the south of Mallaqua (Malacca) is the inscription: hic occisus est S. thomas (Here St. Thomas was killed), referring to the legend that Saint Thomas the Apostle went to India in 52 AD and was killed there in 72 AD. Waldseemüller had confused Malacca (Melaka) with Mylapore in India. The contemporary understanding of the nature of Columbus’ discoveries is demonstrated in the letter written to him by the Aragonese cosmographer and Royal counsellor, Jaume Ferrer, dated August 5, 1495, saying: “Divine and infallible Providence sent the great Thomas from the Occident into the Orient in order to declare in India our Holy and Catholic Law; and you, Sir, it has sent to this opposite part of the Orient by way of the Ponient [West] so that by the Divine Will you might arrive in the Orient, and in the farthest parts of India Superior in order that the descendants might hear that which their ancestors neglected concerning the teaching of Thomas … and very soon you will be by the Divine Grace in the Sinus Magnus, near which the glorious Thomas left his sacred body”.
History
At the time this wall map was drawn, Waldseemüller was working as part of the group of scholars of the Vosgean Gymnasium at Saint-Dié-des-Vosges in Lorraine, which in that time belonged to the Holy Roman Empire. The maps were accompanied by the book Cosmographiae Introductio produced by the Vosgean Gymnasium.
Of the one thousand copies that were printed, only one complete original copy is known to exist today. It was originally owned by Johannes Schöner (1477-1547), a Nuremberg astronomer, geographer, and cartographer. Its existence was unknown for a long time until its rediscovery in 1901 in the library of Prince Johannes zu Waldburg-Wolfegg in Schloss Wolfegg in Württemberg, Germany by the Jesuit historian and cartographer Joseph Fischer. It remained there until 2001 when the United States Library of Congress purchased it from Waldburg-Wolfegg-Waldsee for ten million dollars.
Chancellor Angela Merkel of the Federal Republic of Germany symbolically turned over the Waldseemüller map on April 30, 2007, within the context of a formal ceremony at the Library of Congress, in Washington, DC. In her remarks, the chancellor stressed that the US contributions to the development of Germany in the postwar period tipped the scales in the decision to turn over the Waldseemüller map to the Library of Congress as a sign of transatlantic affinity and as an indication of the numerous German roots to the United States. Today another facsimile of the map is exhibited for the public by the House of Waldburg in their museum on Waldburg Castle in Upper Swabia.
Since 2007, to the celebration of the 500-year jubilee of the first edition, the original map has been permanently displayed in the Library of Congress, within a specially-designed microclimate case. An argon atmosphere fills the case to give an anoxic environment. Prior to display, the entire map was the subject of a scientific analysis project using hyperspectral imaging with an advanced LED camera and illumination system to address preservation storage and display issues.
In 2005 the Waldseemüller map was nominated by Librarian of Congress James H. Billington for inscription on UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register and was inscribed on the register that same year.
Nunn’s Analysis
The geographers of Italy and Germany, like Martin Waldseemüller and his colleagues, were exponents of a theoretical geography, or cosmography. This means they appealed to theory where their knowledge of the American and Asiatic geography was lacking. That practice differed from the official Portuguese and Spanish cartographers, who omitted from their maps all unexplored coastlines.
The second century Alexandrian geographer Claudius Ptolemy had believed that the known world extended over 180 degrees of longitude from the prime meridian of the Fortunate Isles (possibly the Canary Islands) to the city of Cattigara in southeastern Asia. (In fact, the difference in longitude between the Canaries, at 16°W, and Cattigara, at 105°E, is just 121°.) He had also thought that the Indian Ocean was completely surrounded by land. Marco Polo demonstrated that an ocean lay east of Asia and was connected with the Indian Ocean. Hence, on the globe made by Martin Behaim in 1492, which combined the geography of Ptolemy with that of Marco Polo, the Indian Ocean was shown as merging with the Western Ocean to the east. Ptolemy’s lands to the east of the Indian Ocean, however, were retained in the form of a great promontory projecting far south from the southeastern corner of Asia—the peninsula of Upper India (India Superior) upon which the city of Cattigara was situated.
Another result of Marco Polo’s travels was also shown on Behaim’s globe—the addition of 60 degrees to the longitude of Asia. Columbus had not actually seen Behaim’s globe in 1492 (which apparently owed much to the ideas of Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli); but the globe, except for one important point, reflects the geographical theory on which he apparently based his plan for his first voyage. The exception is that Columbus shortened the length of the degree, thus reducing the distance from the Canaries to Zipangu (Japan), to about 62 degrees or only 775 leagues. Consequently, it seemed to Columbus a relatively simple matter to reach Asia by sailing west.
In the early 16th century, two theories prevailed with regard to America (the present South America). According to one theory, that continent was identified with the southeastern promontory of Asia that figures on Behaim’s globe, India Superior or the Cape of Cattigara. The other view was that America (South America) was a huge island wholly unconnected with Asia.
Balboa called the Pacific the Mar del Sur and referred to it as “la otra mar”, the other sea, by contrast with the Atlantic, evidently with Behaim’s concept of only two oceans in mind. The Mar del Sur, the South Sea, was the part of the Indian Ocean to the south of Asia: the Indian Ocean was the Oceanus Orientalis, the Eastern Ocean, as opposed to the Atlantic or Western Ocean, the Oceanus Occidentalis in Behaim’s two ocean world.
According to George E. Nunn, the key to Waldseemüller’s apparent new ocean is found on the three sketch maps made by Bartolomé Colon (that is, Bartholomew Columbus, Christopher’s brother) and Alessandro Zorzi in 1504 to demonstrate the geographical concepts of Christopher Columbus. One of the Columbus/Zorzi sketch maps bears an inscription saying that: “According to Marinus of Tyre and Columbus, from Cape St. Vincent to Cattigara is 225 degrees, which is 15 hours; according to Ptolemy as far as Cattigara 180 degrees, which is 12 hours”. This shows that Christopher Columbus overestimated the distance eastward between Portugal and Cattigara as being 225 degrees instead of Ptolemy’s estimate of 180 degrees, permitting him to believe the distance westward was only 135 degrees and therefore that the land he found was the East Indies. As noted by Nunn, in accordance with this calculation, the Colon/Zorzi maps employ the longitude estimate of Claudius Ptolemy from Cape St. Vincent eastward to Cattigara, but the longitude calculation of Marinus and Columbus is employed for the space between Cape St. Vincent westward to Cattigara.
Nunn pointed out that Martin Waldseemüller devised a scheme that showed both the Columbus and the Ptolemy-Behaim concept on the same map. On the right-hand side of the Waldseemüller 1507 map is shown the Ptolemy-Behaim concept with the Ptolemy longitudes: this shows the huge peninsula of India Superior extending to the south of the Tropic of Capricorn. On the left side of the Waldseemüller map the discoveries of Columbus, Vespucci and others are represented as a long strip of land extending from about latitude 50 degrees North to latitude 40 degrees South. The western coasts of these trans-Atlantic lands discovered under the Spanish crown are simply described by Waldseemüller as Terra Incognita (Unknown Land) or Terra Ulterior Incognita (Unknown Land Beyond), with a conjectural sea to the west, making these lands apparently a distinct continent. America’s (that is, South America’s) status as a separate island or a part of Asia, specifically, the peninsula of India Superior upon which Cattigara was situated, is left unresolved. As the question of which of the two alternative concepts was correct had not been resolved at the time, both were represented on the same map. Both extremities of the map represent the eastern extremity of Asia, according to the two alternative theories. As Nunn said, “This was a very plausible way of presenting a problem at the time insoluble.”
As noted by Nunn, the distance between the meridians on the map is different going eastward and westward from the prime meridian which passes through the Fortunate Isles (Canary Islands). This has the effect of representing the eastern coast of Asia twice: once in accordance with Ptolemy’s longitudes to show it as Martin Behaim had done on his 1492 globe; and again in accordance with Columbus’ calculation of longitudes to show his and the other Spanish navigators’ discoveries across the Western Ocean, which Columbus and his followers considered to be part of India Superior.
On his 1516 world map, the Carta Marina, Waldseemüller identified the land he had called Parias on his 1507 map as Terra de Cuba and said it was part of Asia (Asie partis), that is, he explicitly identified the land discovered by Columbus as the eastern part of Asia.
Globe Gores
Besides Universalis Cosmographia, Waldseemüller published a set of gores for constructing globes. The gores, also containing the inscription America, are believed to have been printed in the same year as the wall map, since Waldseemüller mentions them in the introduction to his Cosmographiæ Introductio. On the globe gores, the sea to the west of the notional American west coast is named the Occeanus Occidentalis, that is, the Western or Atlantic Ocean, and where it merges with the Oceanus Orientalis (the Eastern, or Indian Ocean) is hidden by the latitude staff. This appears to indicate uncertainty as to America’s location, whether it was an island continent in the Atlantic (Western Ocean) or in fact the great peninsula of India Superior shown on earlier maps, such as the 1489 map of the world by Martellus or the 1492 globe of Behaim.
Only few copies of the globe gores are extant. The first to be rediscovered was found in 1871 and is now in the James Ford Bell Library of the University of Minnesota. Another copy was found inside a Ptolemy atlas and had been in the Bavarian State Library in Munich since 1990. The Library recognized in February 2018, after reviewing its authenticity, that this map is not an original copy—it was printed in the 20th century. A third copy was discovered in 1992 bound into an edition of Aristotle in the Stadtbücherei Offenburg, a public library in Germany. A fourth copy came to light in 2003 when its European owner read a newspaper article about the Waldseemüller map. It was sold at auction to Charles Frodsham & Co. for $1,002,267, a world record price for a single sheet map. In July 2012, a statement was released from Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich that a fifth copy of the gore had been found in the LMU Library’s collection which is somewhat different from the other copies, perhaps because of a later date of printing. LMU Library has made an electronic version of their copy of the map available online.
Universalis cosmographia secundum Ptholomaei traditionem et Americi Vespucii alioru[m]que lustrationes.
Universalis cosmographia secundum Ptholomaei traditionem et Americi Vespucii aliorū que lustrationes
•Title: Universalis cosmographia secundum Ptholomaei traditionem et Americi Vespucii alioru[m]que lustrationes.
•Other Title: Universalis cosmographia secundum Ptholomaei traditionem et Americi Vespucii aliorū que lustrationes
•Contributor Names: Waldseemüller, Martin, 1470-1519.
•Created/Published: [Strasbourg, France? : s.n., 1507]
•Subject Headings: Earth
•Genre: World maps; Early maps
•Notes:
oRelief shown pictorially.
oFirst document known to name America.
oRed ink grid on 2 sheets. Text applied over blank areas on 2 sheets. Manuscript annotations in the margin of 1 sheet.
oAll sheets bear a watermark of a triple pointed crown.
oTwo stamps on verso of upper left hand sheet: Fürstl. Waldburg Wolfegg’sches Kupferstichkabinett – Furstl. Waldbg. Wolf. Bibliothek.
oExhibited: Rivers, edens, empires: Lewis & Clark and the revealing of America, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., July 24-Nov. 29, 2003.
oAvailable also through the Library of Congress Web site as a raster image.
oIncludes text and ill.
oPrinted surrogate in vault available for reference.
oLC digital image is a composite map from the twelve separate sheets.
oOriginally bound with Waldseemüller’s 1516 Carta marina in the Schöner Sammelband.
•Medium: 1 map on 12 sheets; 128 × 233 cm., sheets 46 × 63 cm. or smaller.
•Call Number/Physical Location: G3200 1507 .W3
•Repository: Library of Congress Geography and Map Division Washington, D.C. 20540-4650 USA dcu
•Digital Id: hdl.loc.gov/loc.gmd/g3200.ct000725C; hdl.loc.gov/loc.gmd/g3200.ct000725
•Library of Congress Control Number: 2003626426
•Online Format: image
•LCCN Permalink: lccn.loc.gov/2003626426
•Additional Metadata Formats: MARCXML Record; MODS Record; Dublin Core Record
•Part of…
oDiscovery and Exploration (174)
oGeography and Map Division (15,333)
oAmerican Memory (504,438)
oLibrary of Congress Online Catalog (623,348)
•Format: Maps
•Contributors: Waldseemüller, Martin
•Dates: 1507
•Location: Earth
•Language: Latin
•Subjects: Early Maps; Earth; World Maps
•Articles and Essays with this item:
oEvaluation—Waldseemüller’s Map: World 1507—Lesson Plan
oOverview—Waldseemüller’s Map: World 1507—Lesson Plan
oPreparation—Waldseemüller’s Map: World 1507—Lesson Plan
oProcedure—Waldseemüller’s Map: World 1507—Lesson Plan
oMr. Dürer Comes to Washington
oExploring the Early Americas—2010—Past Events—News and Events
oSpanish Exploration in America—Primary Source Set
oIntroducing Primary Source Analysis to Students: Lessons from the Library of Congress Summer Teacher Institute
oLearning Activity—Secondary Level—Technology Integration, Spring 2009- Teaching with Primary Sources
oDocumenting New Knowledge—Exploring the Early Americas
oExhibitions and Presentations—Geography and Maps—Themed Resources
oPrologue - Lewis & Clark and the Revealing of America
oExploration and Discovery—Zoom Into Maps—Classroom Presentation
•Credit Line: Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division.
Cite This Item
Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.
Chicago citation style:
Waldseemüller, Martin. [Universalis cosmographia secundum Ptholomaei traditionem et Americi Vespucii aliorumque lustrationes]. [Strasbourg, France?: s.n, 1507] Map. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/item/2003626426/. (Accessed February 26, 2017.)
APA citation style:
Waldseemüller, M. (1507) [Universalis cosmographia secundum Ptholomaei traditionem et Americi Vespucii aliorumque lustrationes]. [Strasbourg, France?: s.n] [Map] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/item/2003626426/.
MLA citation style:
Waldseemüller, Martin. [Universalis cosmographia secundum Ptholomaei traditionem et Americi Vespucii aliorumque lustrationes]. [Strasbourg, France?: s.n, 1507] Map. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/item/2003626426/.
The Map That Named America
Library Acquires 1507 Waldseemüller Map of the World
By JOHN R. HÉBERT
In late May 2003 the Library of Congress completed the purchase of the only surviving copy of the first image of the outline of the continents of the world as we know them today— Martin Waldseemüller’s monumental 1507 world map.
The map has been referred to in various circles as America’s birth certificate and for good reason; it is the first document on which the name “America” appears. It is also the first map to depict a separate and full Western Hemisphere and the first map to represent the Pacific Ocean as a separate body of water. The purchase of the map concluded a nearly century-long effort to secure for the Library of Congress that very special cartographic document which revealed new European thinking about the world nearly 500 years ago.
The Waldseemüller world map is currently on display in the Library’s Thomas Jefferson Building in the exhibition honoring the Lewis and Clark expedition, “Rivers, Edens, Empires: Lewis & Clark and the Revealing of America.” It will remain on display, either in the original or with an exact facsimile, until Nov. 29. A permanent site for the display of this historical treasure will be prepared in the Thomas Jefferson Building within the next year.
Martin Waldseemüller, the primary author of the 1507 world map, was a 16th-century scholar, humanist, cleric and cartographer who was part of the small intellectual circle, the Gymnasium Vosagense, in Saint-Dié, France. He was born near Freiburg, Germany, sometime in the 1470s and died in the canon house at Saint-Dié in 1522. During his lifetime he devoted much of his time to cartographic ventures, including, in the spring 1507, the famous world map, a set of globe gores (for a globe with a three-inch diameter), and the “Cosmographiae Introductio” (a book to accompany the map). He also prepared the 1513 edition of the Ptolemy “Geographiae”; the “Carta Marina,” a large world map, in 1516; and a smaller world map in the 1515 edition of “Margarita Philosophica Nova.”
Thus, in a remote part of northeast France, was born the famous 1507 world map, whose full title is “Universalis cosmographia secunda Ptholemei traditionem et Americi Vespucci aliorum que lustrationes” (“A drawing of the whole earth following the tradition of Ptolemy and the travels of Amerigo Vespucci and others”). That map, printed on 12 separate sheets, each 18-by-24-inches, from wood block plates, measured more than 4 feet by 8 feet in dimension when assembled.
The large map is an early 16th-century masterpiece, containing a full map of the world, two inset maps showing separately the Western and Eastern Hemispheres, illustrations of Ptolemy and Vespucci, images of the various winds, and extensive explanatory notes about selected regions of the world. Waldseemüller’s map represented a bold statement that rationalized the modern world in light of the exciting news arriving in Europe as a result of explorations across the Atlantic Ocean or down the African coast, which were sponsored by Spain, Portugal and others.
The map must have created quite a stir in Europe, since its findings departed considerably from the accepted knowledge of the world at that time, which was based on the second century A.D. work of the Greek geographer, Claudius Ptolemy. To today’s eye, the 1507 map appears remarkably accurate; but to the world of the early 16th century it must have represented a considerable departure from accepted views of the composition of the world. Its appearance undoubtedly ignited considerable debate in Europe regarding its conclusions that an unknown continent (unknown, at least, to Europeans and others in the Eastern Hemisphere) existed between two huge bodies of water, the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and was separated from the classical world of Ptolemy, which had been confined to the continents of Europe, Africa and Asia.
While it has been suggested that Waldseemüller incorrectly dismissed Christopher Columbus’ great achievement in history by the selection of the name “America” for the Western Hemisphere, it is evident that the information that Waldseemüller and his colleagues had at their disposal recognized Columbus’ previous voyages of exploration and discovery. However, the group also had acquired a recent French translation of the important work “Mundus Novus,” Amerigo Vespucci’s letter detailing his purported four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean to America between 1497 and 1504. In that work, Vespucci concluded that the lands reached by Columbus in 1492 and explored by Columbus and others over the ensuing two decades were indeed a segment of the world, a new continent, unknown to Europe. Because of Vespucci’s recognition of that startling revelation, he was honored with the use of his name for the newly discovered continent.
It is remarkable that the entire Western Hemisphere was named for a living person; Vespucci did not die until 1512. With regard to Columbus’ exploits after 1492, i.e., his various explorations between 1492 and 1504, the 1507 map clearly denotes Columbus’ explorations in the West Indies as well as the Spanish monarchs’ sponsorship of those and subsequent voyages of exploration.
By 1513, when Waldseemüller and the Saint-Dié scholars published the new edition of Ptolemy’s “Geographiae,” and by 1516, when Waldseemüller’s famous “Carta Marina” was printed, he had removed the name “America” from his maps, perhaps suggesting that even he had second thoughts about honoring Vespucci exclusively for his understanding of the New World. Instead, in the 1513 atlas, the area named “America” on the 1507 map is now referred to as Terra Incognita (Unknown Land). In the1516 “Carta Marina,” South America is called Terra Nova (New World) and North America is named Cuba and is shown to be part of Asia. No reference in either work is made to the name “America.”
The only surviving copy of the 1507 world map by Martin Waldseemüller, purchased by the Library of Congress and now on display in its Thomas Jefferson Building in Washington, D.C. The term “America” can be seen in continent on the lower leftmost panel. Vespuci is pictured on the top panel of the third column.
The only surviving copy of the 1507 world map by Martin Waldseemüller, purchased by the Library of Congress and now on display in its Thomas Jefferson Building in Washington, D.C. The term “America” can be seen in continent on the lower leftmost panel. Vespuci is pictured on the top panel of the third column.
Cartographic contributions by Johannes Schöner in 1515 and by Peter Apian in 1520, however, adopted the name “America” for the Western Hemisphere, and that name then became part of accepted usage.
A reported 1,000 copies of the 1507 map were printed, which was a sizeable print run in those days. This single surviving copy of the map exists because it was kept in a portfolio by Schöner (1477-1547), a German globe maker, who probably had acquired a copy of the map for his own cartographic work . That portfolio contained not only the unique copy of the 1507 world map but also a unique copy of Waldseemüller’s 1516 large wall map (the “Carta Marina”) and copies of Schöner’s terrestrial (1515) and celestial (1517) globe gores.
At some later time, the family of Prince Waldburg-Wolfegg acquired and retained Schöner’s portfolio of maps in their castle in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, where it remained unknown to scholars until the beginning of the 20th century when its extraordinary contents were revealed. The uncovering of the 1507 map in the Wolfegg Castle early last century is thought by many to have been one of the most extraordinary episodes in the history of cartographic scholarship.
The map sheets have been maintained separated—not joined, with each of the large maps composed of 12 separate sheets—and that is probably why they survived. The portfolio with its great treasure was uncovered and revealed to the world in 1901 by the Jesuit priest Josef Fischer, who was conducting research in the Waldburg collection.
The Library of Congress’ Geography and Map Division acquired the facsimiles of the 1507 and 1516 maps in 1903. Throughout the 20th century the Library continued to express interest in and a desire to acquire the 1507 map, if it were ever made available for sale. That time came in 1992 when Prince Johannes Waldberg-Wolfegg, the owner of the map, revealed to Librarian of Congress James H. Billington, the Associate Librarian for Library Services Winston Tabb, and the chief of the Geography and Map Division Ralph Ehrenberg in a conversation in Washington that he was willing to negotiate the sale of the map. Ehrenberg and Margrit Krewson, the Library’s German and Dutch area specialist, were encouraged to investigate the opportunity.
In 1999 Prince Waldburg-Wolfegg notified the Library that the German national government and the Baden-Württemberg state government had granted permission for a limited export license, which Krewson was instrumental in negotiating. Having obtained the license, which allowed this German national treasure to come to the Library of Congress, the Prince pursued an agreement to sell the 1507 map to the Library. In late June 2001 Prince Waldburg-Wolfegg and the Library of Congress reached a final agreement on the sale of the map for the price of $10 million. In late May 2003 the Library completed a successful campaign to raise the necessary funds to purchase Waldseemüller’s 1507 world map, after receiving substantial congressional and private support to achieve the terms of the contract. The Congress of the United States appropriated $5 million for the purchase of the map; Discovery Communications, Jerry Lenfest and David Koch provided substantial contributions; and other individuals (George Tobolowsky and Virginia Gray) gave matching funds for the purchase and additional support for its preservation, exhibition and study.
Through the combined efforts of Billington, Tabb and members of the Library’s staff over the past 11 years, the map was able to leave Germany and come to the Library of Congress.
The 1507 world map is now the centerpiece of the outstanding cartographic collections of the Geography and Map Division in the Library of Congress. The map serves as a departure point for the development of the division’s American cartographic collection in addition to its revered position in early modern cartographic history. The map provides a meaningful link between the Library’s treasured late medieval-early Renaissance cartographic collection (which includes one of the richest holdings of Ptolemy atlases in the world) and the modern cartographic age that unfolded as a result of the explorations of Columbus and other discoverers in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. It represents the point of departure from the geographical understanding of the world based on Ptolemy’s “Cosmographiae” and “Geographiae” (editions from 1475-) to that emerging in the minds of scholars and practical navigators as reports of the “new worlds” of America, southern Africa and other regions of Asia and Oceania reached Europe’s shores. Waldseemüller recognized the transition taking place, as the title of his map notes and as his prominent placement of images of Ptolemy and Vespucci next to their worlds at the top portion of the 1507 world map denotes.
The Waldseemüller map joins the rich cartographic holdings of the Library’s Geography and Map Division, which include some 4.8 million maps, 65,000 atlases, more than 500 globes and globe gores, and thousands of maps in digital form. And from that fragile first glimpse of the world, so adequately described by Waldseemüller in 1507, the Library of Congress’ cartographic resources provide the historical breadth and cartographic depth to fill in the geographic blanks left by those early cosmographers.
The Library’s acquisition of the Waldseemüller map represents an important moment to renew serious research into this exceptional map, to determine the sources which made possible its creation, and to investigate its contemporary impact and acceptance. The map’s well-announced acquisition provides scholars with an extraordinary opportunity to appreciate the earliest of early depictions of our modern world. Major portions of this 1507 world map have not received the same concentrated scrutiny as the American segments. The very detailed depiction of sub-Saharan Africa, the south coast of Asia, and even the areas surrounding the Black and Caspian seas merit further study and discussion in response to obvious questions regarding the cartographic and geographic sources that were available and used by the Saint-Dié scholars to reach the conclusions that they embodied in the 1507 world map.
Through agreement with Prince Waldburg-Wolfegg and the government of Germany, the 1507 Waldseemüller world map is to be placed on permanent display in the Library of Congress’ Thomas Jefferson Building. A second floor gallery, the Pavilion of the Discoverers, has been chosen as an appropriate location to house the map, where it will be exhibited with supporting materials from the Library’s collections that will assist in describing the rich history surrounding the map and its relation to its creators and the sources used to prepare it in the 16th century.
The Library of Congress is extremely proud to have obtained this unique treasure and is hopeful that this great cartographic document will receive the public acclaim and the critical scholarly inspection that it so rightly merits.
John R. Hébert is the chief of the Geography and Map Division of the Library of Congress.
This View
This is a composite view of Waldseemüller’s 1507 World Map displayed as a wall map much in the way it might have been by Waldseemüller’s patrons. Few wall maps survived from this. And perhaps the best evidence for how they were treated in the early 16th century comes from Lorenz Fries’ booklet Uslegung der Mercathen oder Carta Marina. Fries’ text reads:
If you want to mount the map sheets as one map for your own use and glue it in place securely, take some linen or some piece of clean cloth and place a firm board on a table or chest and stretch the sheet firmly by hammering nails all around the border. Next cut the pages of the map along the left or right side so that they fit next to each other without spaces. The middle sheets must also be cut lengthwise along the top and bottom. You should first definitely try to fit the sheets together before you begin to glue. After you have checked the positioning put some glue, but not too strong, into a small pan or pot. Warm it up, but not too hot. Then take a brush, one that is not too small but one that has soft hairs. Brush the back of the first sheet with glue and place it on the upper left. Employ an assistant so you can move fast and place the pages down so that they fit immediately. After the sheet is down put a clean paper over it and rub it with a piece of cloth until it is smooth.
Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin [nb 1] (9 March 1934 – 27 March 1968) was a Soviet Air Forces pilot and cosmonaut who became the first human to journey into outer space, achieving a major milestone in the Space Race; his capsule Vostok 1 completed one orbit of Earth on 12 April 1961. Gagarin became an international celebrity and was awarded many medals and titles, including Hero of the Soviet Union, his nation's highest honour.
Vostok 1 was Gagarin's only spaceflight but he served as the backup crew to the Soyuz 1 mission, which ended in a fatal crash, killing his friend and fellow cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov. Gagarin later served as the deputy training director of the Cosmonaut Training Centre, which was subsequently named after him. He was elected as a deputy to the Soviet of the Union in 1962 and then to the Soviet of Nationalities, respectively the lower and upper chambers of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. Gagarin died in 1968 when the MiG-15 training jet he was piloting with his flight instructor Vladimir Seryogin crashed near the town of Kirzhach.
Contents
1 Early life and education
2 Soviet Air Force service
3 Soviet space program
3.1 Selection and training
3.2 Vostok 1
4 After the Vostok 1 flight
5 Personal life
6 Death
7 Awards and honours
7.1 Medals and orders of merit
7.2 Tributes
7.3 Statues and monuments
7.4 50th anniversary
8 See also
9 Notes
10 References
10.1 Sources
11 Further reading
12 External links
Early life and education
Yuri Gagarin was born 9 March 1934 in the village of Klushino,[1] near Gzhatsk (renamed Gagarin in 1968 after his death).[2] His parents worked on a collective farm:[3] Alexey Ivanovich Gagarin as a carpenter and Anna Timofeyevna Gagarina as a dairy farmer.[nb 2][4] Yuri was the third of four children: his siblings were brothers Valentin (1924) and Boris (1936), and sister Zoya (1927).[5][6]
Like millions of Soviet Union citizens, the Gagarin family suffered during the Nazi occupation of Russia during World War II. Klushino was occupied in November 1941 during the German advance on Moscow and a German officer took over the Gagarin residence. The family were allowed to build a mud hut approximately 3 by 3 metres (10 by 10 ft) inside on the land behind their house, where they spent twenty-one months until the end of the occupation.[7] His two older siblings were deported by the Germans to Poland for slave labour in 1943 and did not return until after the war in 1945.[5][8] In 1946, the family moved to Gzhatsk, where Gagarin continued his secondary education.[7]
In 1950, aged 16, Gagarin began an apprenticeship as a foundryman at the Lyubertsy steel plant near Moscow,[5][8] and enrolled at a local "young workers" school for seventh-grade evening classes.[9] After graduating in 1951 from both the seventh grade and the vocational school with honours in mouldmaking and foundry work,[9] he was selected for further training at the Saratov Industrial Technical School, where he studied tractors.[5][8][10] While in Saratov, Gagarin volunteered at a local flying club for weekend training as a Soviet air cadet, where he trained to fly a biplane, and later a Yak-18.[8][10] He earned extra money as a part-time dock labourer on the Volga River.[7]
Soviet Air Force service
In 1955, Gagarin was accepted to the 1st Chkalovsky Higher Air Force Pilots School, a flight school in Orenburg.[11][12] He initially began training on the Yak-18 already familiar to him and later graduated to training on the MiG-15 in February 1956.[11] Gagarin twice struggled to land the two-seater trainer aircraft, and risked dismissal from pilot training. However, the commander of the regiment decided to give him another chance at landing. Gagarin's flight instructor gave him a cushion to sit on, which improved his view from the cockpit, and he landed successfully. Having completed his evaluation in a trainer aircraft,[13] Gagarin began flying solo in 1957.[5]
On 5 November 1957, Gagarin was commissioned a lieutenant in the Soviet Air Forces having accumulated 166 hours and 47 minutes of flight time. He graduated from flight school the next day and was posted to the Luostari airbase close to the Norwegian border in Murmansk Oblast for a two-year assignment with the Northern Fleet.[14] On 7 July 1959, he was rated Military Pilot 3rd Class.[15] After expressing interest in space exploration following the launch of Luna 3 on 6 October 1959, his recommendation to the Soviet space program was endorsed and forward by Lieutenant Colonel Babushkin.[14][16] By this point, he had accumulated 265 hours of flight time.[14] Gagarin was promoted to the rank of senior lieutenant on 6 November 1959,[15] three weeks after he was interviewed by a medical commission for qualification to the space program.[14]
Soviet space program
Selection and training
See also: Vostok programme
Vostok I capsule on display at the RKK Energiya museum
Gagarin's selection for the Vostok programme was overseen by the Central Flight Medical Commission led by Major General Konstantin Fyodorovich Borodin of the Soviet Army Medical Service. He underwent physical and psychological testing conducted at Central Aviation Scientific-Research Hospital, in Moscow, commanded by Colonel A.S. Usanov, a member of the commission. The commission also included Colonel Yevgeniy Anatoliyevich Karpov, who later commanded the training centre, Colonel Vladimir Ivanovich Yazdovskiy, the head physician for Gagarin's flight, and Major-General Aleksandr Nikolayevich Babiychuk, a physician flag officer on the Soviet Air Force General Staff to the Commander in Chief of the Air Force.[17]
From a pool of 154 qualified pilots short-listed by their Air Force units, the military physicians chose 29 cosmonaut candidates, of which 20 were approved by the Credential Committee of the Soviet Government. The first twelve including Gagarin were approved on 7 March 1960 and eight more were added in a series of subsequent orders issued until June.[18] Gagarin began training at the Khodynka Airfield in downtown Moscow on 15 March 1960. The training regiment involved vigorous and repetitive physical exercises which Alexei Leonov, a member of the initial group of twelve, described as akin to training for the Olympics Games.[19] In April 1960, they began parachute training in Saratov Oblast and each completed about 40 to 50 jumps from both low and high altitude, and over land and water.[20]
Gagarin was a candidate favoured by his peers. When they were asked to vote anonymously for a candidate besides themselves they would like to be the first to fly, all but three chose Gagarin.[21] One of these candidates, Yevgeny Khrunov, believed that Gagarin was very focused and was demanding of himself and others when necessary.[22] On 30 May 1960, Gagarin was further selected for an accelerated training group, known as the Vanguard Six or Sochi Six,[23][nb 3] from which the first cosmonauts of the Vostok programme would be chosen. The other members of the group were Anatoliy Kartashov, Andriyan Nikolayev, Pavel Popovich, German Titov, and Valentin Varlamov. However, Kartashov and Varlamov were injured and replaced by Khrunov and Grigoriy Nelyubov.[25]
As several of the candidates selected for the program including Gagarin did not have higher education degrees, they were enrolled into a correspondence course program at Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy. Gagarin enrolled in the program in September 1960 and did not earn his specialist diploma until early 1968.[26][27] Gagarin was also subjected to experiments that were designed to test physical and psychological endurance including oxygen starvation tests in which the cosmonauts were locked in an isolation chamber and the air slowly pumped out. He also trained for the upcoming flight by experiencing g-forces in a centrifuge.[28][25] Psychological tests included placing the candidates in an anechoic chamber in complete isolation; Gagarin was in the chamber on July 26 – August 5.[29][20] In August 1960, a Soviet Air Force doctor evaluated his personality as follows:
Modest; embarrasses when his humor gets a little too racy; high degree of intellectual development evident in Yuriy; fantastic memory; distinguishes himself from his colleagues by his sharp and far-ranging sense of attention to his surroundings; a well-developed imagination; quick reactions; persevering, prepares himself painstakingly for his activities and training exercises, handles celestial mechanics and mathematical formulae with ease as well as excels in higher mathematics; does not feel constrained when he has to defend his point of view if he considers himself right; appears that he understands life better than a lot of his friends.[21]
The Vanguard Six were given the title of pilot-cosmonaut in January 1961[25] and entered a two-day examination conducted by a special interdepartmental commission led Lieutenant-General Nikolai Kamanin, tasked with ranking of the candidates based on their mission readiness for the first human Vostok mission. On 17 January 1961, they were tested in a simulator at the M. M. Gromov Flight-Research Institute on a full-size mockup of the Vostok capsule. Gagarin, Nikolayev, Popovich, and Titov all received excellent marks on the first day of testing in which they were required to describe the various phases of the mission followed by questions from commission.[22] On the second day, they were given a written examination following which the special commission ranked Gagarin as the best candidate the first mission. He and the next two highest-ranked cosmonauts, Titov and Nelyubov, were sent to Tyuratam for final preparations.[22] Gagarin and Titov were selected to train in the flight-ready spacecraft on 7 April 1961. Historian Asif Siddiqi writes of the final selection:[30]
In the end, at the State Commission meeting on April 8, Kamanin stood up and formally nominated Gagarin as the primary pilot and Titov as his backup. Without much discussion, the commission approved the proposal and moved on to other last-minute logistical issues. It was assumed that in the event Gagarin developed health problems prior to liftoff, Titov would take his place, with Nelyubov acting as his backup.
Vostok 1
Main article: Vostok 1
Poyekhali!
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Gagarin's voice
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On 12 April 1961, 6:07 am UTC, the Vostok 3KA-3 (Vostok 1) spacecraft was launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome. Aboard was Gagarin, the first human to travel into space, using the call sign Kedr (Russian: Кедр, Siberian pine or Cedar).[31] The radio communication between the launch control room and Gagarin included the following dialogue at the moment of rocket launch:
Korolev: Preliminary stage ... intermediate... main... LIFT-OFF! We wish you a good flight. Everything's all right.
Gagarin: Off we go! Goodbye, until [we meet] soon, dear friends.[32][33]
Gagarin's farewell to Korolev using the informal phrase Poyekhali! (Russian: Поехали!)[nb 4] later became a popular expression in the Eastern Bloc that was used to refer to the beginning of the Space Age.[35][36] The five first-stage engines fired until the first separation event, when the four side-boosters fell away, leaving the core engine. The core stage then separated while the rocket was in a suborbital trajectory, and the upper stage carried it to orbit. Once the upper stage finished firing, it separated from the spacecraft, which orbited for 108 minutes before returning to Earth in Kazakhstan.[37] Gagarin became the first to orbit the Earth.[31]
File:1961-04-19 First Pictures-Yuri Gagarin-selection.ogvPlay media
An April 1961 newsreel of Gagarin arriving in Moscow to be greeted by First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev.
"The feeling of weightlessness was somewhat unfamiliar compared with Earth conditions. Here, you feel as if you were hanging in a horizontal position in straps. You feel as if you are suspended", Gagarin wrote in his post-flight report.[38] He also wrote in his autobiography released the same year that he sang the tune "The Motherland Hears, The Motherland Knows" (Russian: "Родина слышит, Родина знает") during re-entry.[39] Gagarin was qualified a Military Pilot 1st Class and promoted to the rank of major in a special order given during his flight.[15][39]
At about 23,000 feet (7,000 m), Gagarin ejected from the descending capsule as planned and landed using a parachute. There were concerns Gagarin's spaceflight record would not be certified by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI), the world governing body for setting standards and keeping records in the field, which at the time required that the pilot land with the craft.[40] Gagarin and Soviet officials initially refused to admit that he had not landed with his spacecraft,[41] an omission which became apparent after Titov's subsequent flight on Vostok 2 four months later. Gagarin's spaceflight records were nonetheless certified and again reaffirmed by the FAI, which revised it rules, and acknowledge that the crucial steps of the safe launch, orbit, and return of the pilot had been accomplished. Gagarin continues to be internationally recognised as the first human in space and first to orbit the Earth.[42]
After the Vostok 1 flight
Gagarin in Warsaw, 1961
Gagarin's flight was a triumph for the Soviet space program and he became a national hero of the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc, as well as a worldwide celebrity. Newspapers around the globe published his biography and details of his flight. He was escorted in a long motorcade of high-ranking officials through the streets of Moscow to the Kremlin where, in a lavish ceremony, Nikita Khrushchev awarded him the title Hero of the Soviet Union. Other cities in the Soviet Union also held mass demonstrations, the scale of which were second only to World War II Victory Parades.[43]
Gagarin and Valentina Tereshkova (seated to his right) sign autographs in 1964
Gagarin gained a reputation as an adept public figure and was noted for his charismatic smile.[44][45][46] On 15 April 1961, accompanied by official from the Soviet Academy of Sciences, he answered questions at a press conference in Moscow reportedly attended by 1,000 reporters.[47] Gagarin visited the United Kingdom three months after the Vostok 1 mission, going to London and Manchester.[48][44] While in Manchester, despite heavy rain, he refused an umbrella, insisted that the roof of the convertible car he was riding in remain open, and stood so the cheering crowds could see him.[44][49] Gagarin toured widely abroad, accepting the invitation of about 30 countries.[50] In just the first four months, he also went to Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Finland, Hungary, and Iceland.[51]
In 1962, Gagarin began serving as a deputy to the Soviet of the Union,[52] and was elected to the Central Committee of the Young Communist League. He later returned to Star City, the cosmonaut facility, where he spent several years working on designs for a reusable spacecraft. He became a lieutenant colonel of the Soviet Air Forces on 12 June 1962, and received the rank of colonel on 6 November 1963.[15] On 20 December 1963, Gagarin became Deputy Training Director of the Star City cosmonaut training base.[53] Soviet officials, including cosmonaut overseerer Nikolai Kamanin, tried to keep Gagarin away from any flights, being worried about losing their hero in an accident noting that he was "too dear to mankind to risk his life for the sake of an ordinary space flight".[54] Kamanin was also concerned by Gagarin's drinking and believed the sudden rise to fame had taken its toll on the cosmonaut. While acquaintances say Gagarin had been a "sensible drinker", his touring schedule placed him in social situations in which he was increasingly expected to drink alcohol.[5][10]
Gagarin with U.S. Vice President Hubert Humphrey, French Prime Minister Georges Pompidou and the Gemini 4 astronauts at the 1965 Paris Air Show
Two years later, he was re-elected as a deputy of the Soviet Union but this time to the Soviet of Nationalities, the upper chamber of legislature.[52] The following year, he began to re-qualify as a fighter pilot[55] and was backup pilot for his friend Vladimir Komarov on the Soyuz 1 flight after five years without piloting duty. Kamanin had opposed Gagarin's reassignment to cosmonaut training; he had gained weight and his flying skills had deteriorated. Despite this, he remained a strong contender for Soyuz 1 until he was replaced by Komarov in April 1966 and reassigned to Soyuz 3.[56]
The Soyuz 1 launch was rushed due to implicit political pressures[57] and despite Gagarin's protests that additional safety precautions were necessary.[58] Gagarin accompanied Komarov to the rocket before launch and relayed instructions to Komarov from ground control following multiple system failures aboard the spacecraft.[59] Despite their best efforts, Soyuz 1 crash landed after its parachutes failed to open, killing Komarov instantly.[60] After the Soyuz 1 crash, Gagarin was permanently banned from training for and participating in further spaceflights.[61] He was also grounded from flying aircraft solo, a demotion he worked hard to lift. He was temporarily relieved of duties to focus on academics with the promise that he would be able to resume flight training.[62] On 17 February 1968, Gagarin successfully defended his aerospace engineering thesis on the subject of spaceplane aerodynamic configuration and graduated cum laude from Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy.[27][63][62]
Personal life
Gagarin and his wife Valentina clapping at a concert in Moscow in 1964.
Gagarin and his wife Valentina at a concert in Moscow in 1964.
Gagarin was a keen sportsman and fond of ice hockey as a goal keeper.[64] He was also a basketball fan and coached the Saratov Industrial Technical School team, as well as being a referee.[65]
In 1957, while a cadet in flight school, Gagarin met Valentina Goryacheva at the May Day celebrations at the Red Square in Moscow.[66] She was a medical technician who graduated from Orenburg Medical School.[8][10] They were married on 7 November 1957,[8] the same day Gagarin graduated from Orenburg, and they had two daughters.[67][68] Yelena Yurievna Gagarina, born 1959,[68] is an art historian who has worked as the director-general of the Moscow Kremlin Museums since 2001;[69][70] and Galina Yurievna Gagarina, born 1961,[68] is a professor of economics and the department chair at Plekhanov Russian University of Economics in Moscow.[69][71] Following his rise to fame, at a Black Sea resort in September 1961, he was reportedly caught by his wife during a liaison with a nurse who had aided him after a boating incident. He attempted to escape through a window and jumped off a second floor balcony. The resulting injury left a permanent scar above his left eyebrow.[5][10]
Death
Plaque on a brick wall with inscription: Юрий Алексеевич Гагарин, 1934-03-09–1968-03-27
Plaque indicating Gagarin's interment in the Kremlin Wall
On 27 March 1968, while on a routine training flight from Chkalovsky Air Base, Gagarin and flight instructor Vladimir Seryogin died when their MiG-15UTI crashed near the town of Kirzhach. The bodies of Gagarin and Seryogin were cremated and their ashes were buried in the walls of the Kremlin.[72] Wrapped in secrecy, the cause of the crash that killed Gagarin is uncertain and became the subject of several theories.[73][74] At least three investigations into the crash were conducted separately by the Air Force, official government commissions, and the KGB.[75][76] According to a biography of Gagarin by Jamie Doran and Piers Bizony, Starman: The Truth Behind the Legend of Yuri Gagarin, the KGB worked "not just alongside the Air Force and the official commission members but against them."[75]
The KGB's report declassified in March 2003 dismissed various conspiracy theories and instead indicated the actions of airbase personnel contributed to the crash. The report states that an air-traffic controller provided Gagarin with outdated weather information and that by the time of his flight, conditions had deteriorated significantly. Ground crew also left external fuel tanks attached to the aircraft. Gagarin's planned flight activities needed clear weather and no outboard tanks. The investigation concluded Gagarin's aircraft entered a spin, either due to a bird strike or because of a sudden move to avoid another aircraft. Because of the out-of-date weather report, the crew believed their altitude was higher than it was and could not react properly to bring the MiG-15 out of its spin.[76] Another theory, advanced in 2005 by the original crash investigator, hypothesizes that a cabin air vent was accidentally left open by the crew or the previous pilot, leading to oxygen deprivation and leaving the crew incapable of controlling the aircraft.[73] A similar theory, published in Air & Space magazine, is that the crew detected the open vent and followed procedure by executing a rapid dive to a lower altitude. This dive caused them to lose consciousness and crash.[74]
On 12 April 2007, the Kremlin vetoed a new investigation into the death of Gagarin. Government officials said they saw no reason to begin a new investigation.[77] In April 2011, documents from a 1968 commission set up by the Central Committee of the Communist Party to investigate the accident were declassified. The documents revealed that the commission's original conclusion was that Gagarin or Seryogin had manoeuvered sharply, either to avoid a weather balloon or to avoid "entry into the upper limit of the first layer of cloud cover", leading the jet into a "super-critical flight regime and to its stalling in complex meteorological conditions".[78]
A Russian MiG-15UTI, the same type as Gagarin was flying
Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, a member of a state commission established to investigate Gagarin's death, was conducting parachute training sessions that day and heard "two loud booms in the distance". He believes that a Sukhoi Su-15 was flying below its minimum altitude and, "without realizing it because of the terrible weather conditions, he passed within 10 or 20 meters of Yuri and Seregin's plane while breaking the sound barrier". The resulting turbulence would have sent the MiG-15UTI into an uncontrolled spin. Leonov said the first boom he heard was that of the jet breaking the sound barrier and the second was Gagarin's plane crashing.[79] In a June 2013 interview with Russian television network RT, Leonov said a report on the incident confirmed the presence of a second, "unauthorized" Su-15 flying in the area. However, as a condition of being allowed to discuss the declassified report, Leonov was barred from disclosing the name of the Su-15 pilot who was 80 years old and in poor health as of 2013.[80]
Awards and honours
Medals and orders of merit
Jânio Quadros, President of Brazil, decorated Gagarin in 1961.
On 14 April 1961, Gagarin was honoured with a 12-mile (19 km) parade attended by millions of people that concluded at the Red Square. After a short speech, he was bestowed the Hero of the Soviet Union,[81][82] Order of Lenin,[81] Merited Master of Sports of the Soviet Union[83] and the first Pilot-Cosmonaut of the USSR.[82] On 15 April, the Soviet Academy of Sciences awarded him with the Konstantin Tsiolkovsky Gold Medal, named after the Russian pioneer of space aeronautics.[84] Gagarin had also been awarded four Soviet commemorative medals over the course of his career.[15]
He was honoured as a Hero of Socialist Labor (Czechoslovakia) on 29 April 1961,[85][86] and Hero of Socialist Labor (Bulgaria, including the Order of Georgi Dimitrov) on 24 May.[15][chronology citation needed] On the eighth anniversary of the beginning of Cuban Revolution (26 July), President Osvaldo Dorticos of Cuba presented him with the first Commander of the Order of Playa Girón, a newly created medal.[87]
Gagarin was also awarded the 1960 Gold Air Medal and the 1961 De la Vaulx Medal from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale in Switzerland.[88] He received numerous awards from other nations that year, including the Star of the Republic of Indonesia (2nd Class), the Order of the Cross of Grunwald (1st Degree) in Poland, the Order of the Flag of the Republic of Hungary, the Hero of Labor award from Democratic Republic of Vietnam,[15] the Italian Columbus Day Medal,[89] and a Gold Medal from the British Interplanetary Society.[90][91] President Jânio Quadros of Brazil decorated Gagarin on 2 August 1961 with the Order of Aeronautical Merit, Commander grade.[92] During a tour of Egypt in late January 1962, Gagarin received the Order of the Nile[93] and the golden keys to the gates of Cairo.[50] On 22 October 1963, Gagarin and Valentina Tereshkova were honoured with the Order of Karl Marx from the German Democratic Republic.[94]
Tributes
The date of Gagarin's space flight, 12 April, has been commemorated. Since 1962, it has been celebrated in the USSR and most of its former territories as Cosmonautics Day.[95] Since 2000, Yuri's Night, an international celebration, is held annually to commemorate milestones in space exploration.[96] In 2011, it was declared the International Day of Human Space Flight by the United Nations.[97]
Yuri Gagarin statue at the Royal Greenwich Observatory in London
A number of buildings and locations have been named for Gagarin. The Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia, was named on 30 April 1968.[98] The launch pad at Baikonur Cosmodrome from which Sputnik 1 and Vostok 1 were launched is now known as Gagarin's Start. Gagarin Raion in Sevastopol, Ukraine, was named after him during the period of the Soviet Union. The Russian Air Force Academy was renamed Gagarin Air Force Academy in 1968.[99] A street in Warsaw, Poland, is called Yuri Gagarin Street.[100] The town of Gagarin, Armenia was renamed in his honour in 1961.[101]
Gagarin has been honoured on the Moon by astronauts and astronomers. During the American space program's Apollo 11 mission in 1969, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin left a memorial satchel containing medals commemorating Gagarin and fellow cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov on the Moon's surface.[102][103] In 1971, Apollo 15 astronauts David Scott and James Irwin left the small Fallen Astronaut sculpture at their landing site as a memorial to the American astronauts and Soviet cosmonauts who died in the Space Race; the names on its plaque included Yuri Gagarin and 14 others.[104][105] In 1970, a 262 km (163 mi)-wide crater on the far side after him.[106] Gagarin was inducted as a member of the 1976 inaugural class of the International Space Hall of Fame in New Mexico.[107]
Gagarin is memorialised in music; a cycle of Soviet patriotic songs titled The Constellation Gagarin (Russian: Созвездье Гагарина, tr. Sozvezdie Gagarina) was written by Aleksandra Pakhmutova and Nikolai Dobronravov in 1970–1971.[108] The most famous of these songs refers to Gagarin's poyekhali!: in the lyrics, "He said 'let's go!' He waved his hand".[35][108] He was the inspiration for the pieces "Hey Gagarin" by Jean-Michel Jarre on Métamorphoses, "Gagarin" by Public Service Broadcasting, and "Gagarin, I loved you" by Undervud.[109]
Russian ten-ruble commemorating Gagarin in 2001
Vessels have been named for Gagarin; Soviet tracking ship Kosmonavt Yuri Gagarin was built in 1971[110] and the Armenian airline Armavia named their first Sukhoi Superjet 100 in his honour in 2011.[111]
Two commemorative coins were issued in the Soviet Union to honour the 20th and 30th anniversaries of his flight: a one-ruble coin in copper-nickel (1981) and a three-ruble coin in silver (1991). In 2001, to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Gagarin's flight, a series of four coins bearing his likeness was issued in Russia; it consisted of a two-ruble coin in copper-nickel, a three-ruble coin in silver, a ten-ruble coin in brass-copper and nickel, and a 100-ruble coin in silver.[112] In 2011, Russia issued a 1,000-ruble coin in gold and a three-ruble coin in silver to mark the 50th anniversary of his flight.[113]
In 2008, the Kontinental Hockey League named their championship trophy the Gagarin Cup.[114] In a 2010 Space Foundation survey, Gagarin was ranked as the sixth-most-popular space hero, tied with Star Trek's fictional James T. Kirk.[115] A Russian docudrama titled Gagarin: First in Space was released in 2013. Previous attempts at portraying Gagarin were disallowed; his family took legal action over his portrayal in a fictional drama and vetoed a musical.[116]
Statues and monuments
There are statues of Gagarin and monuments to him located in Gagarin (Smolensk Oblast), Orenburg, Cheboksary, Irkutsk, Izhevsk, Komsomolsk-on-Amur, and Yoshkar-Ola in Russia, as well as in Nicosia, Cyprus, Druzhkivka, Ukraine, Karaganda, Kazakhstan, and Tiraspol, Moldova. On 4 June 1980, Monument to Yuri Gagarin in Gagarin Square, Leninsky Avenue, Moscow, was opened.[117] The monument is mounted to a 38 m (125 ft) tall pedestal and is constructed of titanium. Beside the column is a replica of the descent module used during his spaceflight.[118]
Bust of Gagarin at Birla Planetarium in Kolkata, India
In 2011, a statue of Gagarin was unveiled at Admiralty Arch in The Mall in London, opposite the permanent sculpture of James Cook. It is a copy of the statue outside Gagarin's former school in Lyubertsy.[119] In 2013, the statue was moved to a permanent location outside the Royal Observatory, Greenwich.[120]
In 2012, a statue was unveiled at the site of NASA's original spaceflight headquarters on South Wayside Drive in Houston. The sculpture was completed in 2011 by artist and cosmonaut Alexei Leonov and was a gift to Houston by various Russian organisations. Houston Mayor Annise Parker, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak were present for the dedication.[121][122] The Russian Federation presented a bust of Gagarin to several cities in India including one that was unveiled at the Birla Planetarium in Kolkata in February 2012.[123]
In April 2018, a bust of Gagarin erected on the street in Belgrade, Serbia, that bears his name was removed, after less than week. A new work was commissioned following the outcry over the disproportionately small size of its head which locals said was an "insult" to Gagarin.[124][125] Belgrade City Manager Goran Vesic stated that neither the city, the Serbian Ministry of Culture, nor the foundation that financed it had prior knowledge of the design.[126]
50th anniversary
50th anniversary stamp of Ukraine
The 50th anniversary of Gagarin's journey into space was marked in 2011 by tributes around the world. A film titled First Orbit was shot from the International Space Station, combining sound recordings from the original flight with footage of the route taken by Gagarin.[127] The Russian, American, and Italian crew of Expedition 27 aboard the ISS sent a special video message to wish the people of the world a "Happy Yuri's Night", wearing shirts with an image of Gagarin.[128]
The Central Bank of the Russian Federation released gold and silver coins to commemorate the anniversary.[129] The Soyuz TMA-21 spacecraft was named Gagarin with the launch in April 2011 to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the first manned space mission.
The Twenty-Ninth Session of WIPO's Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore (IGC) took place in Geneva, Switzerland from February 15 to February 19, 2016.
Copyright: WIPO. Photo: Emmanuel Berrod. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 IGO License.
During 1916 the British born Australian architect Walter Richmond Butler (1864 – 1949) designed a new Anglican Mission to Seamen to be built on an oddly shaped triangular block of land at 717 Flinders Street on the outskirts of the Melbourne central city grid, to replace smaller premises located in adjoining Siddeley Street, which had been resumed by the Harbour Trust during wharf extensions.
The Missions to Seamen buildings, built on reinforced concrete footings, are in rendered brick with tiled roofs. Walter Butler designed the complex using an eclectic mixture of styles, one of which was the Spanish Mission Revival which had become a prevalent style on the west coast of America, especially in California and New Mexico during the 1890s. The style revived the architectural legacy of Spanish colonialism of the Eighteenth Century and the associated Franciscan missions. The revival of the style is explicit in the Mission’s small, yet charming chapel with its rough-hewn timber trusses, in the bell tower with its pinnacles and turret surmounted by a rustic cross and in the monastic-like courtyard, which today still provides a peaceful retreat from the noisy world just beyond the Missions to Seamen’s doorstep. The chapel also features many gifts donated by members of the Harbour Trust and Ladies’ Harbour Lights Guild, including an appropriately themed pulpit in the shape of a ship's prow and two sanctuary chairs decorated with carved Australian floral motifs. Some of the stained glass windows in the chapel depict stories and scenes associated with the sea intermixed with those Biblical scenes more commonly found in such places of worship.
The adjoining Mission to Seamen’s administration, residential and recreational building shows the influence of English domestic Arts and Crafts architecture, with its projecting gable, pepper pot chimneys and three adjoining oriel windows. The lobby, with its appropriately nautically inspired stained glass windows, features a large mariner's compass inlaid in the terrazzo floor. Built-in timber cupboards, wardrobes, paneling and studded doors throughout the buildings evoke a ship's cabin.
Walter Butler, architect to the Anglican Diocese in Melbourne, had come to Australia with an intimate knowledge and experience of the Arts and Crafts movement and continued to use the style in his residential designs of the 1920s. The main hall has a reinforced concrete vaulted ceiling. Lady Stanley, wife of the Mission's patron, Governor Sir Arthur Lyulph Stanley, laid the foundation stone of the complex in November 1916. The buildings were financed partly by a compensation payment from the Harbour Trust of £8,500.00 and £3,000.00 from local merchants and shipping firms. The Ladies' Harbour Lights Guild raised over £800.00 for the chapel. Most of the complex was completed by late 1917 whilst the Pantheon-like gymnasium with oculus was finished soon afterwards. The substantially intact interiors, including extensive use of wall paneling in Tasmanian hardwood, form an integral part of the overall design.
The Missions to Seamen buildings are architecturally significant as a milestone in the early introduction of the Spanish Mission style to Melbourne. The style was to later find widespread popularity in the suburbs of Melbourne. The choice of Spanish Mission directly refers to the Christian purpose of the complex. The Missions to Seamen buildings are unusual for combining two distinct architectural styles, for they also reflect the imitation of English domestic architecture, the Arts and Crafts movement. Walter Butler was one of the most prominent and progressive architects of the period and the complex is one of his most unusual and distinctive works.
The Missions to Seamen buildings have historical and social significance as tangible evidence of prevailing concerns for the religious, moral, and social welfare of seafarers throughout most of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. The complex has a long association with the Missions to Seamen, an organisation formed to look after the welfare of seafarers, both officers and sailors, men "of all nationalities". It had its origins in Bristol, England when a Seamen's Mission was formed in 1837. The first Australian branch was started in 1856 by the Reverend Kerr Johnston, a Church of England clergyman, and operated from a hulk moored in Hobsons Bay; later the Mission occupied buildings in Williamstown and Port Melbourne. In 1905 the Reverend Alfred Gurney Goldsmith arrived at the behest of the London Seamen's Mission to establish a city mission for sailors working on the river wharves and docks. The building reflects the diverse role played by the Mission with its chapel, hall and stage, billiards room, reading room, dining room, officers' and men’s quarters, chaplain's residence, and gymnasium. It is still in use to this day under the jurisdiction of a small, but passionate group of workers, providing a welcome place of refuge to seamen visiting the Port of Melbourne.
Walter Butler was considered an architect of great talent, and many of his clients were wealthy pastoralists and businessmen. His country-house designs are numerous and include “Blackwood” (1891) near Penshurst, for R. B. Ritchie, “Wangarella” (1894) near Deniliquin, New South Wales, for Thomas Millear, and “Newminster Park” (1901) near Camperdown, for A. S. Chirnside. Equally distinguished large houses were designed for the newly established Melbourne suburbs: “Warrawee” (1906) in Toorak, for A. Rutter Clark; “Thanes” (1907) in Kooyong, for F. Wallach; “Kamillaroi” (1907) for Baron Clive Baillieu, and extensions to “Edzell” (1917) for George Russell, both in St Georges Road, Toorak. These are all fine examples of picturesque gabled houses in the domestic Queen Anne Revival genre. Walter Butler was also involved with domestic designs using a modified classical vocabulary, as in his remodelling of “Billilla” (1905) in Brighton, for W. Weatherley, which incorporates panels of flat-leafed foliage. Walter Butler also regarded himself as a garden architect.
As architect to the diocese of Melbourne from 1895, he designed the extensions to “Bishopscourt” (1902) in East Melbourne. His other church work includes St Albans (1899) in Armadale, the Wangaratta Cathedral (1907), and the colourful porch and tower to Christ Church (c.1910) in Benalla. For the Union Bank of Australia he designed many branch banks and was also associated with several tall city buildings in the heart of Melbourne’s central business district such as Collins House (1910) and the exceptionally fine Queensland Insurance Building (1911). For Dame Nellie Melba Butler designed the Italianate lodge and gatehouse at “Coombe Cottage” (1925) at Coldstream.
Description: Woman's Home Companion article by Julia Ward Howe and Maud Howe (her daughter) titled "American Drawing Rooms: The Story of My Boston Drawing Room", October, 1910. Page 2 of 3.
Full Text: ... remember as a girl at your father's house in Bond Street, New York?" "They were nearly all Milanese and they were all good people. I remember Forresti, Castiglia and Albinola; he established himself in business in New York and did very well. They must all be forgotten by now.""One never knows. Somebody may remember them,some descendant may read what you say about them, be glad to know that their names are preserved in the amber of your memory. Tell what you remember of your drawing-room in the time of the Civil War; which of the heroes of that time sat at your table?"
"John Brown was at Green Peace, but he came privately and alone, to take counsel with your father. I had been told that he was coming and myself opened the door for him. He was a middle-aged, middle-sized man with hair and beard of amber color streaked with gray. He looked a Puritan of the Puritans, forceful, concentrated and self -contained."
"And Lincoln?" • "He was never to my knowledge in Boston, and certainly never at our house. I only saw him once; that was in Washington. In the autumn of 1861 I went with your father, who was one of the founders of the Sanitary Commission and of the Freed-man's Bureau, to the Capitol. Our Minister, James Freeman Clarke, and Governor and Mrs. Andrew were of the party. It was an agonizing time, when McClellan's great army lay encamped, useless, about Washington and no possible issue to the war was in view. The secessionists had determined that Lincoln should never reach Washington alive. John Felton, a younger brother of our friend Cornelius, made a plan by which Lincoln was smuggled into Washington incognito. Nobody knew he was there until he was safe at the White House. Governor Andrew had arranged our meeting. We all went together and were received in one of the drawing-rooms. I remember well the sad expression of Lincoln's deep blue eyes, the only hand-some thing about his face."
"I have but two memories of the war," said the daughter. "I can see our dinner-table when the news came that Vicksburg had fallen; papa waving the newspaper over his head, Brother Harry jumping onto his chair and waving his napkin. The other memory is of a certain Sunday morning when I went before breakfast with papa to get the mail from the post-office. We were crossing the common between six and seven o'clock, when a pale man staggered up to us with a newspaper in his hand, grasped papa by the arm and cried out:
"'Have you heard? Lincoln is murdered, God help us!' I remember my father's reeling as if he had been struck and our sitting down on a bench until he had fully recovered from the shock."
"It must have been during the war that I gave my reception for Edwin Booth, one of many, for he was often at our house. The winter before he had played an engagement at the Boston Theater. Lovely Mary Devlin, to whom he was engaged to be married, was his leading lady. Their acting of Romeo and Juliet bench until he had fully recovered from the shock." "It must have been during the war that I gave my reception for Edwin Booth, one of many, for he was often at our house. The winter before he had played an engagement at the Boston Theater. Lovely Mary Devlin, to whom he was engaged to be married, was his leading lady. Their acting of Romeo and Juliet was an ideal performance. My reception was given after their marriage. The Booths came early; when the other guests began to arrive, I looked in vain for Mr. Booth. Finally we found him in one of the back rooms with you. He had made his handkerchief into a rabbit and was making shadow pictures on the wall to amuse the little girl of the house."
"Yes, I remember, and he wanted to kiss me, and I would not let him."
"I shall never forget," continued the mother, "the funeral of Mary Booth. It was at the chapel at Mt. Vernon, where Thomas Crawford's statue of Otis stands, one of the finest portrait statues in America. I could not help thinking of the funeral of Ophelia in Hamlet,' as I looked at the pale, agonized face of the young widower, so lately a bridegroom. When I said this to Louis Agassiz, he said, 'It probably made him think of it, too.' As the funeral cortege entered, a young man of great physical beauty followed the coffin. He was dressed in English clothes and had rather a foreign air. I remember the strong contrast between his very blue eyes and his very black hair. He wore alight overcoat and had a strange air of not quite be-longing to the occasion. He proved to be Wilkes Booth, Edwin Booth's younger brother, afterward the assassin of Lincoln."
"How could you manage to entertain, when you were all so busy?"
"We always kept open house. I am glad to remember that our house was one of the places where Governor Andrew used to take refuge when the need of rest became imperative. Henry Wilson, the vice-president, was a familiar guest at our house. He was from the town of Natick. A very good man, though he got his abuse as much as the others. I remember Mrs. Silsbee, wife of the treasurer of Harvard College, coming to one of our parties at this time in thread gloves. She showed them to your father, saying, 'While my country is in such distress, I do not intend to wear kid gloves.' "
"That thought was in the air. Your poem, 'Our Orders,' expresses it:
"Weave no more silks, you Lyons looms,
To deck our girls for gay delights!
The crimson flower of battle blooms,
And solemn marches fill the night.
"Weave but the flag whose bars to-day
Drooped heavy o'er our early dead,
And homely garments, coarse and gray,
For orphans that must earn their bread!
"I can dimly remember a party given for General Grant in the early seventies when we were living in Miss Nabby Joy's old house on Mt. Vernon Street. Our neighbor, Mr. William Gray, had given a splendid reception for General McClellan. I have an impression that papa asked you to give this reception and that it had some political significance and was meant rather to offset the effect of the splendid reception for McClellan."
"Your father sent me with Mrs. Andrew to call upon the Grants, who were, I think, staying at the Parker House. I asked Mrs. Grant if the general and she could come to us the next evening; it was their last day in Boston. She said that they could, and I gathered together all the friends that could to meet them. It was a very large reception in spite of the shortness of the time. What I observed most in Grant that evening was his remarkable power of effacing himself from notice. He was essentially a, very modest man. I had continually to say to myself during the evening, The general-in-chief of all our armies is here. What can I do to help him pass the evening pleasantly?' "
"Do you remember the party given for General Grant by Healy, the American portrait-painter, in Paris?"
The first portrait made of Julia Ward Howe when a child aged three years. From an oil-painting, to an unknown artist, which has never heretofore been reproduced. This painting hangs in the drawing-room of Mrs. Howe's summer home' at Newport.
"Perfectly. It was either in 1877 or 1878. The Grants were on their way home from their tour around the world. They were received everywhere with royal honors, and held experienced the same sort of triumphal progress that Mr. Roosevelt has lately been enjoying. Mr. Healy asked us to come punctually; when we arrived, we understood why I was to dance in the quadrille of honor with which the ball opened. Gambetta was then President of France. He danced with Mrs. Healy, Mr. Healy danced with Mrs. Grant, the general was my partner.
"John Sullivan Dwight was called the Nestor of Music in Boston. He was our beloved house friend. You children all adored him and spoke of him affectionately as 'Dwighty.' He took us to the most delightful concerts and brought many of the great foreign musicians who came to Boston to our house. He was always a little in love with the pretty young women singers, pianists and violinists. I remember you spared his enthusiasm for Christine Nilsson, Adelaide Top, Theresa Carreno. In the days before the Symphony Orchestra he was the prime mover of the old Harvard Musical Concerts at the Boston Music Hall. Carl Jerrahn was the conductor of the orchestra, and of the Handel and Haydn Society as well. 'Dwight's Journal of Music' was the authority on all musical matters then. Mr. Dwight lived at the rooms of the Harvard Musical Society, of which. he was the moving spirit. He was a passionate admirer of Dickens. I remember his reading aloud to us the whole of 'Our Mutual Friend: 'Oliver Twist' and 'Nicholas Nickleby."
"Tell about Charlotte Cushman," prompted the daughter.
"Charlotte was an interesting woman and the first American actress of her time. She often came to our house and has told me much of her stage life. Her first hit was at the old Par Theater. She was an understudy for the part of Meg Merrilies in an excellent play, made from Scott's novel, 'Guy Mannering.' The leading lady, who was to have played Meg Merrilies, was taken ill and Charlotte was called upon to take the part. Just as she went on the stage she heard one of the gypsies, who was repeating his lines say, 'Meg grows merciful.' She took her cue from the words and deter- mined to put a new tenderness in the acting of Meg toward the boy. With this original interpretation of the role, which she really created, Charlotte made her first palpable hit. Later she played with Macready in Byron's 'Werner' and had a certain success. Macready made her an offer to go with him to Paris; the terms were so unsatisfactory that she refused. I remember her telling me of the-first really great impression she made. It was in England, in the provinces. She was to appear that evening for the first time in 'Fazio.' a play that had a great vogue. Charlotte's devoted maid Sally, a mulatto girl, was her standby. The morning of the play Charlotte said to Sally: 'I would like to spend three and sixpence for ribbons to dress up that part to-night; can we afford it?' "
'No, Miss Charlotte, we can't afford no three and sixpence for ribbons,' said Sally. Charlotte went on the stage in the old dress without the ribbons. She was playing the part of Fazio's neglected wife. In one of the scenes, when the unfaithful husband returns to her, she gave the line, 'Fazio, you have been with Wilhelmina !' After she had gone so far she heard a great noise and looked to see what it was; to her astonishment it was applause! It was some minutes before she could go on with her part. From that time she went up and up, till she very quickly reached the top."
"I suppose the great interest you took in theatrical people at that time was the result of your writing for the stage."
"I think it must have been. The dramatic impulse was so strong in me that, besides my serious plays, I kept writing charades and monologues and drawing-room comedies; I could not help it, my mind was full of it. I was forced to express it in a dozen different forms."
"Tell about the two serious plays you wrote for the stage."
"My first play, 'The World's Own,' was produced at Wallack's Theater, with the elder Sothern in the leading part. It was before he made his hit as Lord Dundreary in 'The American Cousin.' The play (it was published later by Ticknor and Fields) is a story of modern romance with no particularly new feature of any kind. Although it did not, as they say, 'keep the stage,' it made such an impression on those who saw it that Edwin Booth, then at the beginning of his career, asked me to write a play for him. I promised to do this and devoted to it the better part of half a year. In the meantime I had made Mr. Booth's acquaintance and seen him act frequently. 1 had formed some idea of the sort of character that would suit him. I had recently seen Rachel in 'Phedre.' This somehow suggested to my mind the ideal character of Hippolytus, the youth in love with the goddess of chastity, Artemis, as a very suitable character for Booth. The play was written, offered, accepted. The parts were given out, the performance arranged, when some stage imbroglio led the manager, E. L. Davenport, to reverse his decision, so that the play was not given then or since. I understood at the time that Mrs. Davenport, the manager's wife, was dissatisfied with the part assigned her, and that this led to my so great disappointment.
"Charlotte Cushman, who was then at the very height of her fame, was to have taken the part of the heroine."
"If your plays for the public did not have the success you hoped for, your private theatricals succeeded beyond belief. I remember that Boston rang with them when I was too young to be allowed to sit lip in the evening to see them. The older children told me about them. Was it while we were living in Chestnut Street that you wrote 'The Socio-ll1aniac?' "
"No, later; it must have been in Boylston Place. It was the year your sister Laura came out, and I gave two receptions to introduce her to society. s During these receptions I caught such confused -scraps of conversation as these, 'How is Mr. So-and-so?' 'Is Mrs. Cats foot better?' 'Athanais is in love,' and so on. I had the idea of a heroine who had gone mad from too much society, and who kept repeating all the little bits of disjointed talk that one hears at a large reception. 'The Sociomaniac,' however, was never really written, only planned. I composed the music and the words for two or three of the songs!"
"Alas, the day!" sighed the daughter. "I think it a [illegible portion] in love,' and so on. I had the idea of a heroine who had gone mad from too much society, and who kept repeating all the little bits of disjointed talk that one hears at a large reception. 'The Sociomaniac,' however, was never really written, only planned. I composed the music and the words for two or three of the songs!"
"Alas, the day!" sighed the daughter. "I think it a great shame and loss that the public should know so little of the fun, the frolic, the joyous nonsense with which you have always bubbled over. After all, it’s the rarest and most endearing of all human gifts. The world knows you as a poet and reformer; it has had hardly a glimpse of you in cap and bells. Sing me the Boston Song, the best of 'The Sociomaniac' ditties."
The old piano in the front drawing-room still has a sweet tone-and the old singer's voice? To some of us it is more uplifting than Tettrazini's or Melba's.
THE BOSTON SONG FROM "THE SOCIOMANIAC"
"Her mother was a Shaw and her father was a Tompkins, Her sister was a bore and her brother was a bumpkins.
CHORUS-Oh, soci-, oh, soci-, oh, soci-i-i-i-i-i-i-itY.
"Her flounces were of gold and her slippers were of ermin, And she looked a little bold when she went to lead in Germin in.
CHORUS-Oh, soci-, oh, soci-, oh, soci-i-i-i-i-i-i-it),.
"For my part I never saw where she kept her fascination, But I thought she had an awful conceit and affectation. CHORUS-Oh, soci-, oh, soci-, oh, soci-i-i-i-i-i-i-ity.
"Though I had too much serious business on my hands at the time to give even a little leisure to comic composition, I did ftt1d time to amuse the so-called Brain Club with a mock presentation at court, which made them laugh so violently that some of the members claimed that their laughter made them ill. I had read a very foolish and stilted account written by a southern woman of her presentation at the English Court; this I turned into ridicule in my monologue, 'Mrs. Some Pumpkins at Court.' I made Queen Victoria speak with the cockney accent. Once when I gave this in the South at a friend's house, an English lady of a very literal turn of mind, who was present, became furious and kept repeating 'Our queen!' in a tone of deep resentment. In the course of Mrs. Some Pumpkins' audience with the queen, the latter asks: 'Is it teroo that Butler's wife hev a diamond clasp to her honi soit qui mal y pense?'"
"Motley's the wear, you make them laugh still! What suggested the 'Parlor-Macbeth' to you? That festivity was before my day, though I have a certain vicarious knowledge of it, gained by putting up your lovely white Lady Macbeth dress in camphor every spring for thirty years, until I had the happy thought of making it up into the white pope's gown you are wearing this very minute !"
"The 'Parlor Lady Macbeth' was suggested by my seeing the opera of 'Der Frieschutz' given by a very poor company in a very small theater at Newport. This seemed to me like the performance of 'Macbeth' by one person, and that one could only be Lady Macbeth, so I had no rest of mind until I had composed this mono-logical 'Macbeth,' in which my dear minister, James Freeman Clarke, told me that in spite of the fun there was some of the feeling of the horror of the play. The Duncan was of the firm of Duncan, Sherman and Company, well known at that day. [CONCLUDED ON PAGE 80]
Date: 1910
Creator: Woman's Home Companion
Format: text
Digital Identifier: AG28-19-7
Biographical note: Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910) was an author, lecturer, poet, activist, abolitionist and leader in the Women's suffrage movement. Born in New York City to affluent parents, Ward Howe was well educated but expected to be a wife. In 1843 Ward Howe married Samuel Gridley Howe the founding director of Perkins after meeting him at a tour of the school. Despite conventional expectations that she not live a public life she initially published work anonymously before becoming a social activist that wrote, spoke, and worked for many social causes. She is commonly known for writing the words to “Battle Hymn of the Republic” and in 1908, she became the first woman elected to the American Academy of Arts. In 1988 she was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame.
Source: Hale, Jen. (2022) ”Julia Ward Howe”. Hale, Jen. “Julia Ward Howe” Perkins Archives Blog, Perkins School for the Blind, Watertown MA, October 26, 2022
Rights: Samuel P. Hayes Research Library, Perkins School for the Blind, Watertown, MA
Vasco da Gama, 1st Count of Vidigueira, (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈvaʃku ðɐ ˈɣɐmɐ]; c. 1460s – 23 December 1524) was a Portuguese explorer. He was the first European to reach India by sea, linking Europe and Asia for the first time by ocean route, as well as the Atlantic and the Indian oceans entirely and definitively, and in this way, the West and the Orient. This was accomplished on his first voyage to India (1497–1499).
Da Gama's discovery was significant and opened the way for an age of global imperialism and for the Portuguese to establish a long-lasting colonial empire in Asia. The route meant that the Portuguese would not need to cross the highly disputed Mediterranean nor the dangerous Arabian Peninsula, and that the whole voyage would be made by sea. The sum of the distances covered in the outward and return voyages made this expedition the longest ocean voyage ever made until then, far longer than a full voyage around the world by way of the Equator.
One century after the discovery, European powers such as England, the Netherlands and France were finally able to challenge and break Portugal's monopoly and naval supremacy in the Cape Route around Africa, the Indian Ocean and in the Far East, opening a new era of European imperialism in the East.
After decades of sailors trying to reach the Indies with thousands of lives and dozens of vessels lost in shipwrecks and attacks, da Gama landed in Calicut on 20 May 1498. Reaching the legendary Indian spice routes unopposed helped the Portuguese Empire improve its economy that, until da Gama's discovery, was based mainly on trading along northern and coastal West Africa. The spices obtained were mostly pepper and cinnamon at first, but soon included other products, all new to Europe and leading to a commercial monopoly for several decades.
Da Gama led two of the armadas destined for India, the first and the fourth, which was the largest and made only four years after his return from the first one. For his contributions he was appointed the Governor of India in 1524, under the title of Viceroy, and given the newly created County of Vidigueira in 1519. Vasco da Gama remains a leading figure in the history of exploration to this day. Numerous homages have been made worldwide to celebrate his explorations and accomplishments. The Portuguese national epic, Os Lusíadas, was written in his honour. His first trip to India is widely considered a milestone in world history as it marked the beginning of the first wave of global multiculturalism.
EARLY LIFE
Vasco da Gama was born 1460 or 1469 in Sines, on the southwest coast of Portugal, probably in a house near the church of Nossa Senhora das Salas. Sines, one of the few seaports on the Alentejo coast, consisted of little more than a cluster of whitewashed, red-tiled cottages, tenanted chiefly by fisherfolk.
Vasco da Gama's father was Estêvão da Gama, who had served in the 1460s as a knight of the household of Infante Ferdinand, Duke of Viseu and went on to rise in the ranks of the military Order of Santiago. Estêvão da Gama was appointed alcaide-mór (civil governor) of Sines in the 1460s, a post he held until 1478, and continued as a receiver of taxes and holder of the Order's commendas in the region.
Estêvão da Gama married Isabel Sodré, a daughter of João Sodré (also known as João de Resende), scion of a well-connected family of English origin. Her father and her brothers, Vicente Sodré and Brás Sodré, had links to the household of Infante Diogo, Duke of Viseu and were prominent figures in the military Order of Christ.
Vasco da Gama was the third of five sons of Estêvão da Gama and Isabel Sodré – in (probable) order of age: Paulo da Gama, João Sodré, Vasco da Gama, Pedro da Gama and Aires da Gama. Vasco also had one known sister, Teresa da Gama (who married Lopo Mendes de Vasconcelos).
Little is known of da Gama's early life. The Portuguese historian Teixeira de Aragão suggests that he studied at the inland town of Évora, which is where he may have learned mathematics and navigation. It has even been claimed (although dubiously) that he studied under the astrologer and astronomer, Abraham Zacuto.
Around 1480, da Gama followed his father (rather than the Sodrés) and joined the Order of Santiago. The master of Santiago was Prince John, who would ascend to the throne in 1481 as King John II of Portugal. John II doted on the Order, and the da Gamas' prospects rose accordingly.
In 1492, John II dispatched da Gama on a mission to the port of Setúbal and to the Algarve to seize French ships in retaliation for peacetime depredations against Portuguese shipping – a task that da Gama rapidly and effectively performed.
EXPLORATION BEFORE DA GAMA
From the earlier part of the 15th century, Portuguese expeditions organized by Prince Henry the Navigator had been crawling down the African coastline, principally in search of west African riches (notably, gold). They had greatly extended Portuguese maritime knowledge, but had little profit to show for the effort. After Henry's death in 1460, the Portuguese crown showed little interest in continuing and, in 1469, sold off the neglected African enterprise to a private Lisbon merchant consortium led by Fernão Gomes. Within a few years, Gomes's captains expanded Portuguese knowledge across the Gulf of Guinea, doing business in gold dust, Melegueta pepper, ivory and slaves. When Gomes's charter came up for renewal in 1474, Prince John (future John II), asked his father Afonso V of Portugal to pass the African charter to him.
Upon becoming king in 1481, John II of Portugal set out on many long reforms. To break the monarch's dependence on the feudal nobility, John II needed to build up the royal treasury, and saw royal commerce as the key to it. Under John II's watch, the gold and slave trade in west Africa was greatly expanded. He was eager to break into the highly profitable spice trade between Europe and Asia. At the time, this was virtually monopolized by the Republic of Venice, who operated overland routes via Levantine and Egyptian ports, through the Red Sea across to the spice markets of India. John II set a new objective for his captains: to find a sea route to Asia by sailing around the African continent.
By the time Vasco da Gama was in his 20s, these plans were coming to fruition. In 1487, John II dispatched two spies, Pero da Covilhã and Afonso de Paiva, overland via Egypt, to East Africa and India, to scout the details of the spice markets and trade routes. The breakthrough came soon after when John II's captain Bartolomeu Dias returned from rounding the Cape of Good Hope in 1488, having explored as far as the Fish River (Rio do Infante) in modern-day South Africa and having verified that the unknown coast stretched away to the northeast.
It remained for an explorer to prove the link between the findings of Dias and those of da Covilhã and de Paiva and to connect these separate segments into a potentially lucrative trade route into the Indian Ocean.
FIRST VOYAGE
On 8 July 1497 Vasco da Gama led a fleet of four ships with a crew of 170 men from Lisbon. The distance traveled in the journey around Africa to India and back was greater than around the equator. The navigators included Portugal's most experienced, Pero de Alenquer, Pedro Escobar, João de Coimbra, and Afonso Gonçalves. It is not known for certain how many people were in each ship's crew but approximately 55 returned, and two ships were lost. Two of the vessels were as naus or newly built for the voyage, possibly a caravel and a supply boat. The four ships were:
The São Gabriel, commanded by Vasco da Gama; a carrack of 178 tons, length 27 m, width 8.5 m, draft 2.3 m, sails of 372 m².
The São Rafael, whose commander was his brother Paulo da Gama; similar dimensions to the São Gabriel
The caravel Berrio, slightly smaller than the former two (later renamed São Miguel), commanded by Nicolau Coelho
A storage ship of unknown name, commanded by Gonçalo Nunes, later lost near the Bay of São Brás, along the east coast of Africa
JOURNEY TO THE CAPE
The expedition set sail from Lisbon on 8 July 1497. It followed the route pioneered by earlier explorers along the coast of Africa via Tenerife and the Cape Verde Islands. After reaching the coast of present-day Sierra Leone, da Gama took a course south into the open ocean, crossing the Equator and seeking the South Atlantic westerlies that Bartolomeu Dias had discovered in 1487. This course proved successful and on 4 November 1497, the expedition made landfall on the African coast. For over three months the ships had sailed more than 10,000 kilometres of open ocean, by far the longest journey out of sight of land made by that time.
By 16 December, the fleet had passed the Great Fish River (Eastern Cape, South Africa) – where Dias had turned back – and sailed into waters previously unknown to Europeans. With Christmas pending, da Gama and his crew gave the coast they were passing the name Natal, which carried the connotation of "birth of Christ" in Portuguese.
MOZAMBIQUE
Vasco da Gama spent 2 to 29 March 1498 in the vicinity of Mozambique Island. Arab-controlled territory on the East African coast was an integral part of the network of trade in the Indian Ocean. Fearing the local population would be hostile to Christians, da Gama impersonated a Muslim and gained audience with the Sultan of Mozambique. With the paltry trade goods he had to offer, da Gama was unable to provide a suitable gift to the ruler and soon the local populace became suspicious of da Gama and his men. Forced by a hostile crowd to flee Mozambique, da Gama departed the harbor, firing his cannons into the city in retaliation.
MOMBASA
In the vicinity of modern Kenya, the expedition resorted to piracy, looting Arab merchant ships that were generally unarmed trading vessels without heavy cannons. The Portuguese became the first known Europeans to visit the port of Mombasa from 7 to 13 April 1498, but were met with hostility and soon departed.
MALINDI
Vasco da Gama continued north, arriving at the friendlier port of Malindi on 14 April 1498 – whose leaders were then in conflict with those of Mombasa – and there the expedition first noted evidence of Indian traders. Da Gama and his crew contracted the services of a pilot whose knowledge of the monsoon winds allowed him to bring the expedition the rest of the way to Calicut, located on the southwest coast of India. Sources differ over the identity of the pilot, calling him variously a Christian, a Muslim, and a Gujarati. One traditional story describes the pilot as the famous Arab navigator Ibn Majid, but other contemporaneous accounts place Majid elsewhere, and he could not have been near the vicinity at the time. Also, none of the Portuguese historians of the time mention Ibn Majid. Vasco da Gama left Malindi for India on 24 April 1498.
CALICUT, INDIA
The fleet arrived in Kappadu near Calicut, India, on 20 May 1498. The King of Calicut, the Samudiri (Zamorin), who was at that time staying in his second capital at Ponnani, returned to Calicut on hearing the news of the foreign fleets's arrival. The navigator was received with traditional hospitality, including a grand procession of at least 3,000 armed Nairs, but an interview with the Zamorin failed to produce any concrete results. The presents that da Gama sent to the Zamorin as gifts from Dom Manuel - four cloaks of scarlet cloth, six hats, four branches of corals, twelve almasares, a box with seven brass vessels, a chest of sugar, two barrels of oil and a cask of honey - were trivial, and failed to impress. While Zamorin's officials wondered at why there was no gold or silver, the Muslim merchants who considered da Gama their rival suggested that the latter was only an ordinary pirate and not a royal ambassador. Vasco da Gama's request for permission to leave a factor behind him in charge of the merchandise he could not sell was turned down by the King, who insisted that da Gama pay customs duty - preferably in gold - like any other trader, which strained the relation between the two. Annoyed by this, da Gama carried a few Nairs and sixteen fishermen (mukkuva) off with him by force. Nevertheless, da Gama's expedition was successful beyond all reasonable expectation, bringing in cargo that was worth sixty times the cost of the expedition.
RETURN
Vasco da Gama left Calicut on 29 August 1498. Eager to set sail for home, he ignored the local knowledge of monsoon wind patterns which were still blowing onshore. The fleet initially inched north along the Indian coast, and then anchored in at Anjediva island for a spell. They finally struck out for their Indian Ocean crossing on 3 October 1498. But with the winter monsoon yet to set in, it was a harrowing journey. On the outgoing journey, sailing with the summer monsoon wind, it had taken da Gama's fleet only 23 days to cross the Indian Ocean; now, on the return trip, sailing against the wind, it took 132 days.
Da Gama saw land again only on 2 January 1499, passing before the coastal Somali city of Mogadishu, then under the influence of the Ajuran Empire in the Horn of Africa. The fleet did not make a stop, but passing before Mogadishu, the anonymous diarist of the expedition noted that it was a large city with houses of four or five storeys high and big palaces in its center and many mosques with cylindrical minarets.
Da Gama's fleet finally arrived in Malindi on 7 January 1499, in a terrible state – approximately half of the crew had died during the crossing, and many of the rest were afflicted with scurvy. Not having enough crewmen left standing to manage three ships, da Gama ordered the São Rafael scuttled off the East African coast, and the crew re-distributed to the remaining two ships, the São Gabriel and the Berrio. Thereafter, the sailing was smoother. By early March, they had arrived in Mossel Bay, and crossed the Cape of Good Hope in the opposite direction on 20 March, reaching the west African coast by 25 April.
The diary record of the expedition ends abruptly here. Reconstructing from other sources, it seems they continued to Cape Verde, where Nicolau Coelho's Berrio separated from Vasco da Gama's São Gabriel, and sailed on by itself. The Berrio arrived in Lisbon on 10 July 1499 and Nicolau Coelho personally delivered the news to King Manuel I and the royal court, then assembled in Sintra. In the meantime, back in Cape Verde, da Gama's brother, Paulo da Gama had fallen grievously ill. Da Gama elected to stay by his side on Santiago island, and handed the São Gabriel over to his clerk, João de Sá, to take home. The S. Gabriel under Sá arrived in Lisbon sometime in late July or early August. Da Gama and his sickly brother eventually hitched a ride with a Guinea caravel returning to Portugal, but Paulo da Gama died en route. Da Gama got off at the Azores to bury his brother at the monastery of São Francisco in Angra do Heroismo, and lingered there for a little while in mourning. He eventually took passage on an Azorean caravel and finally arrived in Lisbon on 29 August 1499 (according to Barros)., or early September (8th or 18th, according to other sources). Despite his melancholic mood, da Gama was given a hero's welcome, and showered with honors, including a triumphal procession and public festivities. King Manuel wrote two letters in which he described Vasco da Gama's first voyage, in July and August 1499, soon after the return of the ships. Girolamo Sernigi also wrote three letters describing da Gama's first voyage soon after the return of the expedition.
The expedition had exacted a large cost – one ship and over half the men had been lost. It had also failed in its principal mission of securing a commercial treaty with Calicut. Nonetheless, the spices brought back on the remaining two ships were sold at an enormous profit to the crown. Vasco da Gama was justly celebrated for opening a direct sea route to Asia. His path would be followed up thereafter by yearly Portuguese India Armadas.
The spice trade would prove to be a major asset to the Portuguese royal treasury, and other consequences soon followed. For example, da Gama's voyage had made it clear that the east coast of Africa, the Contra Costa, was essential to Portuguese interests; its ports provided fresh water, provisions, timber, and harbors for repairs, and served as a refuge where ships could wait out unfavorable weather. One significant result was the colonization of Mozambique by the Portuguese Crown.
REWARDS
In December 1499, Vasco da Gama was rewarded by King Manuel I of Portugal with the town of Sines as a hereditary fief (the very town which his father, Estêvão, had once held as a commenda). This turned out to be a rather complicated affair, for Sines still belonged to the Order of Santiago. On the face of it, it should not have been a problem for Jorge de Lencastre, the master of the Order, to endorse the reward – after all, da Gama was a Santiago knight, one of their own, and a close associate of Lencastre himself. But the fact that Sines was awarded by the king's hand, provoked Lencastre to refuse out of principle – lest it encourage the king to make other donations of the Order's properties. Da Gama would spend the next few years attempting to take hold of Sines – an effort which would estrange him from Lencastre and eventually prompt da Gama to abandon his beloved Order of Santiago, switching over to the rival Order of Christ in 1507.
In the meantime, Vasco da Gama made do with a substantial hereditary royal pension of 300,000 reis. He was awarded the noble title of Dom (lord) in perpetuity for himself, his siblings and their descendants. On 30 January 1502, da Gama was awarded the title of Almirante dos mares de Arabia, Persia, India e de todo o Oriente ("Admiral of the Seas of Arabia, Persia, India and all the Orient") – an overwrought title reminiscent of the ornate Castilian title borne by Christopher Columbus (evidently, Manuel must have reckoned that if Castile had an 'Admiral of the Ocean Seas', then surely Portugal should have one too). Another royal letter, dated October 1501, gave da Gama the personal right to intervene and exercise a determining role on any future India-bound fleet.
Around 1501, Vasco da Gama married Catarina de Ataíde, daughter of Álvaro de Ataíde, the alcaide-mór of Alvor (Algarve), and a prominent nobleman connected by kinship with the powerful Almeida family (Catarina was a first cousin of D. Francisco de Almeida).
SECOND VOYAGE
The follow-up expedition, the Second India Armada launched in 1500, was placed under the command Pedro Álvares Cabral, with the mission of making a treaty with the Zamorin of Calicut and setting up a Portuguese factory in the city. However, Pedro Cabral entered into a conflict with the local Arab merchant guilds, with the result that the Portuguese factory was overrun in a riot and up to 70 Portuguese killed. Cabral blamed the Zamorin for the incident and bombarded the city. Thus war broke out between Portugal and Calicut.
Vasco da Gama invoked his royal letter to take command of the 4th India Armada, scheduled to set out in 1502, with the explicit aim of taking revenge upon the Zamorin and force him to submit to Portuguese terms. The heavily armed fleet of fifteen ships and eight hundred men left Lisbon on 12 February 1502. It was followed in April by another squadron of five ships led by his cousin, Estêvão da Gama (the son of Aires da Gama), which caught up to them in the Indian Ocean. The 4th Armada was a veritable da Gama family affair. Two of his maternal uncles, Vicente Sodré and Brás Sodré, were pre-designated to command an Indian Ocean naval patrol, while brothers-in-law Álvaro de Ataíde (brother of Vasco's wife Catarina) and Lopo Mendes de Vasconcelos (betrothed to Teresa da Gama, Vasco's sister) captained ships in the main fleet.
Along the way, on the outgoing voyage, da Gama's fleet opened contact with the East African gold trading port of Sofala, and reduced the sultanate of Kilwa to tribute, extracting a substantial sum of gold. On reaching India in October 1502, da Gama's fleet set about capturing any Arab vessel he came across in Indian waters, most notoriously the Miri, a pilgrim ship from Mecca, whose passengers he massacred in open water. He then appeared before Calicut, demanding redress for the treatment of Cabral. While the Zamorin was willing to sign a new treaty, da Gama made a call to the Hindu king to expel all Muslims from Calicut before beginning negotiations, which was turned down. The Portuguese fleet then bombarded the city for nearly two days from the sea shore, severely damaging the unfortified city. He also captured several rice vessels and cut off the crew's hands, ears and noses, dispatching them with an insulting note to the Zamorin.
The violent treatment meted out by da Gama quickly brought trade along the Malabar Coast of India, upon which Calicut depended, to a standstill. But the Zamorin nonetheless refused to submit to Portuguese terms, and even ventured to hire a fleet of strong warships to challenge da Gama's armada (which da Gama managed to defeat in a naval battle before Calicut harbor). Da Gama loaded up with spices at Cochin and Cannanore, small nearby kingdoms, half-vassal and half-at-war with the Zamorin, whose alliances had been secured by prior Portuguese fleets. The 4th armada left India in early 1503. Da Gama left behind a small squadron of caravels, under the command of his uncle, Vicente Sodré, to patrol the Indian coast, to continue harassing Calicut shipping, and to protect the Portuguese factories at Cochin and Cannanore from the Zamorin's inevitable reprisals.
Vasco da Gama arrived back in Portugal in September 1503, effectively having failed in his mission to bring the Zamorin to submission. This failure, and the subsequent more galling failure of his uncle Vicente Sodré to protect the Portuguese factory in Cochin, probably counted against any further rewards. When the Portuguese king Manuel I of Portugal decided to appoint the first governor and viceroy of Portuguese India in 1505, da Gama was conspicuously overlooked, and the post given to Francisco de Almeida.
PILGRIM SHIP INCIDENT
On his second voyage, Vasco da Gama inflicted acts of cruelty upon competing traders and local inhabitants, which sealed his notoriety in India. During his second voyage to Calicut, da Gama intercepted a ship of Muslim pilgrims at Madayi travelling from Calicut to Mecca. Described in detail by eyewitness Thomé Lopes and chronicler Gaspar Correia, da Gama looted the ship with over 400 pilgrims on board including 50 women, locked in the passengers, the owner and an ambassador from Egypt and burnt them to death. They offered their wealth which 'could ransom all the Christian slaves in the Kingdom of Fez and much more' but were not spared. Da Gama looked on through the porthole and saw the women bringing up their gold and jewels and holding up their babies to beg for mercy.
After demanding the expulsion of Muslims from Calicut to the Hindu Zamorin, the latter sent the high priest Talappana Namboothiri (the very same person who conducted da Gama to the Zamorin's chamber during his much celebrated first visit to Calicut in May 1498) for talks. Da Gama called him a spy, ordered the priests' lips and ears to be cut off and after sewing a pair of dog's ears to his head, sent him away.
INTERLUDE
For the next two decades, Vasco da Gama lived out a quiet life, unwelcome in the royal court and sidelined from Indian affairs. His attempts to return to the favor of Manuel I (including switching over to the Order of Christ in 1507), yielded little. Almeida, the larger-than-life Afonso de Albuquerque and, later on, Albergaria and Sequeira, were the king's preferred point men for India.
After Ferdinand Magellan defected to the Crown of Castile in 1518, Vasco da Gama threatened to do the same, prompting the king to undertake steps to retain him in Portugal and avoid the embarrassment of losing his own "Admiral of the Indies" to Spain. In 1519, after years of ignoring his petitions, King Manuel I finally hurried to give Vasco da Gama a feudal title, appointing him the first Count of Vidigueira, a count title created by a royal decree issued in Évora on 29 December, after a complicated agreement with Dom Jaime, Duke of Braganza, who ceded him on payment the towns of Vidigueira and Vila dos Frades. The decree granted Vasco da Gama and his heirs all the revenues and privileges related, thus establishing da Gama as the first Portuguese count who was not born with royal blood.
THIRD VOYAGE AND DEATH
After the death of King Manuel I in late 1521, his son and successor, King John III of Portugal set about reviewing the Portuguese government overseas. Turning away from the old Albuquerque clique (now represented by Diogo Lopes de Sequeira), John III looked for a fresh start. Vasco da Gama re-emerged from his political wilderness as an important adviser to the new king's appointments and strategy. Seeing the new Spanish threat to the Maluku Islands as the priority, Vasco da Gama advised against the obsession with Arabia that had pervaded much of the Manueline period, and continued to be the dominant concern of Duarte de Menezes, then-governor of Portuguese India. Menezes also turned out to be incompetent and corrupt, subject to numerous complaints. As a result, John III decided to appoint Vasco da Gama himself to replace Menezes, confident that the magic of the his name and memory of his deeds might better impress his authority on Portuguese India, and manage the transition to a new government and new strategy.
By his appointment letter of February 1524, John III granted Vasco da Gama the privileged title of "Viceroy", being only the second Portuguese governor to enjoy that title (the first was Francisco de Almeida in 1505). His second son, Estêvão da Gama was simultaneously appointed Capitão-mor do Mar da Índia ('Captain-major of the Indian Sea', commander of the Indian Ocean naval patrol fleet), to replace Duarte's brother, Luís de Menezes. As a final condition, Gama secured from John III of Portugal the commitment to appoint all his sons successively as Portuguese captains of Malacca.
Setting out in April 1524, with a fleet of fourteen ships, Vasco da Gama took as his flagship the famous large carrack Santa Catarina do Monte Sinai on her last journey to India, along with two of his sons, Estêvão and Paulo. After a troubled journey (four or five of the ships were lost en route), he arrived in India in September. Vasco da Gama immediately invoked his high viceregent powers to impose a new order in Portuguese India, replacing all the old officials with his own appointments. But Gama contracted malaria not long after arriving, and died in the city of Cochin on Christmas Eve in 1524, three months after his arrival. As per royal instructions, da Gama was succeeded as governor of India by one the captains who had come with him, Henrique de Menezes (no relation to Duarte). Vasco's sons Estêvão and Paulo immediately lost their posts and joined the returning fleet of early 1525 (along with the dismissed Duarte de Menezes and Luís de Menezes).
Vasco da Gama's body was first buried at St. Francis Church, which was located at Fort Kochi in the city of Kochi, but his remains were returned to Portugal in 1539. The body of Vasco da Gama was re-interred in Vidigueira in a casket decorated with gold and jewels.
The Monastery of the Hieronymites, in Belém, which would become the necropolis of the Portuguese royal dynasty of Aviz, was erected in the early 1500s near the launch point of Vasco da Gama's first journey, and its construction funded by a tax on the profits of the yearly Portuguese India Armadas. In 1880, da Gama's remains and those of the poet Luís de Camões (who celebrated da Gama's first voyage in his 1572 epic poem, The Lusiad), were moved to new carved tombs in the nave of the monastery's church, only a few meters away from the tombs of the kings Manuel I and John III, whom da Gama had served.
MARRIAGE AND ISSUE
Vasco da Gama and his wife, Catarina de Ataíde, had six sons and one daughter:
- Dom Francisco da Gama, who inherited his father's titles as 2nd Count of Vidigueira and the 2nd "Admiral of the Seas of India, Arabia and Persia". He remained in Portugal.
- Dom Estevão da Gama, after his abortive 1524 term as Indian patrol captain, he was appointed for a three-year term as captain of Malacca, serving from 1534 to 1539 (includes the last two years of his brother Paulo's term). He was subsequently appointed as the 11th governor of India from 1540 to 1542.
- Dom Paulo da Gama, captain of Malacca in 1533–34, killed in a naval action off Malacca.
- Dom Cristovão da Gama, captain of Malacca fleet from 1538 to 1540; nominated to succeed in Malacca, but executed by Ahmad ibn Ibrahim during the Ethiopian-Adal war in 1542.
- Dom Pedro da Silva da Gama, appointed captain of Malacca from 1548 to 1552.
- Dom Álvaro d'Ataide da Gama appointed captain of Malacca fleet in the 1540s, captain of Malacca itself from 1552 to 1554.
- Dona Isabel d'Ataide da Gama, only daughter, married Ignacio de Noronha, son of the first Count of Linhares.
His male line issue became extinct in 1747, though the title went through female line.
TITLES, STYLES AND HONOURS
Over his numerous years serving the Portuguese crown, da Gama was rewarded with many different titles, distinctions, and offices:
- Admiral of the Seas of Arabia, Persia, India and all the Orient – Title as chief of the Portuguese India Armadas
- 2nd Viceroy of India – Title of office as colonial head of Portuguese India
- 1st Count of Vidigueira – Title of Portuguese nobility
LEGACY
Vasco da Gama is one of the most famous and celebrated explorers from the Age of Discovery. As much as anyone after Henry the Navigator, he was responsible for Portugal's success as an early colonising power. Beside the fact of the first voyage itself, it was his astute mix of politics and war on the other side of the world that placed Portugal in a prominent position in Indian Ocean trade. Following da Gama's initial voyage, the Portuguese crown realized that securing outposts on the eastern coast of Africa would prove vital to maintaining national trade routes to the Far East.
However, his fame is tempered by such incidents and attitudes as displayed in the notorious Pilgrim Ship Incident previously discussed.
The Portuguese national epic, the Lusíadas of Luís Vaz de Camões, largely concerns Vasco da Gama's voyages.
The 1865 grand opera L'Africaine: Opéra en Cinq Actes, composed by Giacomo Meyerbeer from a libretto by Eugène Scribe, prominently includes the character of Vasco da Gama. The events depicted, however, are fictitious. Meyerbeer's working title for the opera was Vasco da Gama. A 1989 production of the opera by the San Francisco Opera featured noted tenor Plácido Domingo in the role of da Gama. The 19th-century composer Louis-Albert Bourgault-Ducoudray composed an eponymous 1872 opera based on da Gama's life and exploits at sea.
The port city of Vasco da Gama in Goa is named after him, as is the crater Vasco da Gama on the Moon. There are three football clubs in Brazil (including Club de Regatas Vasco da Gama) and Vasco Sports Club in Goa that were also named after him. There exists a church in Kochi, Kerala called Vasco da Gama Church, and a private residence on the island of Saint Helena. The suburb of Vasco in Cape Town also honours him.
A few places in Lisbon's Parque das Nações are named after the explorer, such as the Vasco da Gama Bridge, Vasco da Gama Tower and the Centro Comercial Vasco da Gama shopping centre. The Oceanário in the Parque das Nações has a mascot of a cartoon diver with the name of "Vasco", who is named after the explorer.
Vasco da Gama was the only explorer on the final pool of Os Grandes Portugueses. Although the final shortlist featured other Age of Discovery related people, they were not actually explorers nor navigators for any matter.
The Portuguese Navy has a class of frigates named after him. There are three Vasco da Gama class frigates in total, of which the first one also bears his name.
South African musician Hugh Masekela recorded an anti-colonialist song entitled "Vasco da Gama (The Sailor Man)", which contains the lyrics "Vasco da Gama was no friend of mine". He later recorded another version of this song under the name "Colonial Man".
Vasco da Gama appears as an antagonist in the Indian film Urumi. The film, directed by Santosh Sivan, depicts a failed assassination attempt on da Gama by an Indian.
WIKIPEDIA
North Platte Community College hosted its annual Inter-High Scholastic Competition and TECH-Knowledge & Skills Discovery Day on Wednesday at the North and South Campuses of the college.
The theme for Inter-High Day this year is “Spotlight on Success.” Students from 28 area schools took nearly 900 tests in the Inter-High Scholastic competition. In the TECH-Knowledge and Skills competition, more than 120 students represented 21 high schools.
Awards were presented to the top three individual finishers in all categories. They also received a certificate for up to three credit hours of free tuition to be used at MPCC this summer. First place winners were awarded with $500 Mid-Plains Community College Area scholarships. The schools also competed in divisions.
Results of NPCC’s Inter-High Day are:
Accounting:
First - Megan Stokey, North Platte High School
Second - Megan Trierweiler, St. Patrick’s
Third - Carissa Rayburn, Brady
Art:
First - Alissa Rosentrater, Wallace
Second - Amber Nelson, Elwood
Third - Brooklyn Nordhausen, Wauneta-Palisade
Athletic Training:
First - Maegan Hiatt, Hershey
Second - Sage Schmidt, Medicine Valley
Third - Brittany Lawrence, St. Patrick’s
Biological Science:
First - Jordon Laubry, Eustis Farnam
Second - Jocy Nelson, Sutherland
Third - Calyn Werkmeister, Maywood
Business Communications:
First - Libby Jensen, Dundy County Stratton
Second - Abby Daffer, Southwest
Third - Sam Staggs, Sutherland
Chemistry:
First - Megan Kelley, Southwest
Second - Alec Fox, Paxton
Third - David Trierweiler, St. Patrick’s
Dramatic Arts:
First - Alex Roc, McCook
Second - David McCown, Maxwell
Third - Karni Doyle, Callaway
Fire Science/EMS:
First - Kris Kopetzky, South Platte
Second - Chris Werth, Eustis Farnam
Third - Tristan Johnson, Arnold
Grammar & Composition:
First - Grace Magill, Arnold
Second - Christi Christner, Wauneta-Palisade
Third - Bailee Clark, St. Patrick’s
Health Occupations:
First - Sabine Vanhaaren, Cody-Kilgore
Second - Jamie Smith, St. Patrick’s
Third - Taylor Ellison, Callaway
History:
First - David Trierweiler, St. Patrick’s
Second - John Klintworth, Medicine Valley
Third - Joey Anderjaska, Hayes Center
Information Technology:
First - Jared Brosius, St. Patrick’s
Second - Hayden Pollmann, Wauneta-Palisade
Third - Nathaniel Maxcy, Sutherland
Introduction to Business:
First - Cody Ballew, Elwood
Second - Dawson Brunswick, McCook
Third - Chance Kennicutt, Wallace
Literary Analysis:
First - Justin Hardwick, Paxton
Second - Rebekka Ralston, Sutherland
Third - Izzy Fox, Dundy County Stratton
Mathematics:
First - Megan Siebrandt, McCook
Second - Hayden Pollmann, Wauneta-Palisade
Third - Isaac Langan, McCook
Music Performance (Instrumental)
First – Sohyeon Yi, Cody-Kilgore
Second - Matti Mickelsen, Medicine Valley
Third - Brandon Montgomery, Brady
Music Performance (Vocal):
First - Nathan Rick, Hitchcock County
Second - Rachel Gordine, McCook
Third - Alisha Heelan, Garden County
Music Theory:
First – Josie Burke, Sutherland
Second – Matti Mickelsen, Medicine Valley
Third – Mason Harouff, Hayes Center
NPCC Facts:
First - Cheyanne Loeffler, Paxton
Second - Valerie Most, Brady
Third - Alexis Franzen, Brady
Personal Finance:
First - Cassandra Medina, Sutherland
Second - Marley Sandberg, Sutherland
Third - Ian Bridge, North Platte High School
Physics/Engineering (session one):
First - Cody Trump, Cody-Kilgore
Second - Kyle Halsted, North Platte High School
Third - Chet Krajewski, Garden County
Physics/Engineering (session two):
First - Lane Vasa, Arthur County
Second - David McCown, Maxwell
Third - Dakota Seng, Callaway
Word Processing:
First - Brooke Scott, Hitchcock County
Second - Tristan Johnson, Arnold
Third - Rebecca Lorens, Dundy County Stratton
Results by Division are:
Division 1 –
First – St. Patrick’s
Second – Sutherland
Third – McCook
Division 2 –
First – Cody-Kilgore
Second – Medicine Valley
Third – Hitchcock County
Division 3 –
First – Wauneta-Palisade
Second – Arnold
Third – Elwood
Results of NPCC’s TECH-Knowledge & Skills competition are:
Autobody:
First – Aaron Stegman, Garden County High School
Second – Joel Anderson, Garden County High School
Third – Jon Jackson, Franklin High School
Automotive/Diesel:
First – Philip Hammer, North Platte High School
Second – Logan Mull, North Platte High School
Third – Wesley Hoatson, North Platte High School
Building Construction (teams):
First – Walker Wolff, Ivan Rosfeld, Austin Wobig and Wyatt Galloway of Cody-Kilgore High School
Second – Lucas French, Jayson Rezek, Nick Hahn and Calvin Carsten of Sutherland High School
Third – Brock Alexander, Caleb Kleewein, Justin Cosler and Clancey Barnum of Stapleton High School
Electrical:
First – Tyler Daniels, Franklin High School
Second – Walker Wolff, Cody-Kilgore High School
Third – Ivan Dobesh, North Platte High School
Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning:
First – Wesley Hoatson, North Platte High School
Second – Logan Mull, North Platte High School
Third – Blaker Morrissey, Maxwell High School
Welding:
First – Dillon Schultz, North Platte High School
Second – Colton Thompson, North Platte High School
Third – Trevor Hanna, Stapleton High School
New cadets attempt to absorb as much information as they can from their New Cadet Handbooks so they canpass questioning from the cadet cadre. Photo by Mike Strasser, West Point Public Affairs
i`M studying in Moscow Aviation Institute "Faculty of robotic and intelligent systems"
I will say a secret - we, Russians have a new SUPERWEAPON and for shooting from it, people do not need!
To my knowledge, these are the first pictures and/or sighting of a California spec'd 3rd Gen CE at the time of posting.
Entries for the Speeder Bike Contest "District 18" - category Enforce, Abide & Basic.
After a long war, there have been no Jedi nor Sith anymore. Hundreds of years later, the relics of knowledge about them got interpreted differently in the whole galaxy.
Who was the real evil? The ones trying to renew and unite the system or the ones trying to separate and "free" each and every planet.
In this new era in all different districts, some ideas and methods of the jedi, now called 'Jedi Order', make the law and the new rebels are trying to get rid of separation and war. These rebels call themselfes 'Free Sith Revolution'.
One of the laws of "unifying the galaxy" led to the allowance of only one kind of speeder - the Aratech - since every other one would show a higher or lower rank in society in the District 18. Only a small remodeling is allowed.
________
Please visit the single pictures for more informations about each model.
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🇺🇸 English version
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CSW63 Side Event - Consigning sexual harassment to the dustbin of history – what it would take to achieve cultural change?
This interactive panel, moderated by Purna Sen, UN Women Executive Coordinator on Sexual Harassment, will bring together different voices and experiences to address cultural change and sexual harassment while highlighting the knowledge of victims/survivors. Panelists include: Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Executive-Director of UN Women; Jan Beagle, Under-Secretary-General for Management Strategy, Policy and Compliance and Chair of the CEB Task Force on Sexual Harassment; Kate Jenkins, Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Australian Human Rights Commission; Dimitri Tskitishvili, Deputy Chair of the Foreign Relations Committee of the Parliament of Georgia; Upasana Chauhan, United Nations Major Group for Children and Youth and Man Up campaign; Kerry Gibson, President, EcoCentury Technologies, Canada; Faiza Mohamed, Africa Regional Director, Equality Now.
Photo: UN Women/ Amanda Voisard
Metallurgy in India has a long and varied history. Bronze and copper were known during the period of the Indus Valley Civilization. The recovery of metal articles (including a bronze dancing girl) and the discovery of crucible with slag attached are clear indicators of the knowledge of casting (pouring molten-hot metal into moulds of the desired shape and size) and forging (hammering hot metal into required shapes). Further, this points to the fact that these early peoples could produce and handle temperatures as high as 1084° C (melting point of copper), as also 1065° C (gold), 960° C (silver), 327° C (lead), and 232° C (tin). Working with iron with its melting point at 1533° C was inarguably a later achievement.
Mohenjodaro, Harappa and Lothal are the three major sites of this civilization. At Lothal in the state of Gujarat, two types of kilns have been excavated, One, a circular kiln that measures 1 metre in diameter, that was most probably used for smelting copper ingots; the second, a rectangular kiln measuring 75 by 60 cms. with a depth of 30 cms. This is believed to have been used for casting tools.
The many metal discoveries at Lothal include figure, amulets, pins in the shape of a bird-head, miniature figures, and tools such as a curved or circular saw, a needle with an eye at the piercing end, and a bronze drill with twisted grooves. This last is by far the most important find of ancient tools because this single item led to an unparalleled precision at the time, and is widely regarded as the precursor to modern machine tools.
The above-mentioned tools are exceptional in the entire Indus Valley civilization, and neither do they bear resemblance to Harappan tools. Indeed, Lothal was already a prosperous town prior to the arrival of the Harappans sometime around 2450 BC and till 1600 BC.
Artifacts from the Indus Valley Civilization gallery of National Museum, New Delhi India.
The Indus Valley Civilization (IVC) was a Bronze Age civilization (3300–1300 BCE; mature period 2600–1900 BCE) that was located in the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent, consisting of what is now mainly present-day Pakistan and northwest India.[4]Flourishing around the Indus River basin, the civilization extended east into the Ghaggar-Hakra River valley and the upper reachesGanges-Yamuna Doab; it extended west to the Makran coast of Balochistan, north to northeastern Afghanistan and south to Daimabadin Maharashtra. The civilization was spread over some 1,260,000 km², making it the largest ancient civilization.
The Indus Valley is one of the world's earliest urban civilizations, along with its contemporaries, Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt. At its peak, the Indus Civilization may have had a population of well over five million. Inhabitants of the ancient Indus river valley developed new techniques in handicraft (carnelian products, seal carving) and metallurgy (copper, bronze, lead, and tin). The civilization is noted for its cities built of brick, roadside drainage system, and multistoried houses.
The Indus Valley Civilization is also known as the Harappan Civilization, as the first of its cities to be unearthed was located at Harappa, excavated in the 1920s in what was at the time the Punjab province of British India (now in Pakistan). Excavation of Harappan sites has been ongoing since 1920, with important breakthroughs occurring as recently as 1999. There were earlier and later cultures, often called Early Harappan and Late Harappan, in the same area of the Harappan Civilization. The Harappan civilisation is sometimes called the Mature Harappan culture to distinguish it from these cultures. Up to 1,999, over 1,056 cities and settlements have been found, out of which 96 have been excavated, mainly in the general region of the Indus and Ghaggar-Hakra river and its tributaries. Among the settlements were the major urban centres of Harappa, Lothal, Mohenjo-daro (UNESCO World Heritage Site), Dholavira, Kalibanga, and Rakhigarhi.