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On this day in 1824, the Ashanti defeated a British army in the Gold Coast (now Ghana).

By 1817, the Ashanti were expanding with an army of about 20,000, in response to various British incursions, so the (British) African Company of Merchants which was operating in various ‘castles’ along the coast signed a treaty of friendship that recognized Ashanti claims to sovereignty over much of the coast. The British merchants, however, refused to pay the rents demanded by the Ashanti.

In 1820, another British mission headed by Joseph Dupuis arrived in Kumasi in an attempt to resolve the dispute. Dupuis signed a treaty that was denounced at the time as “a complete sell-out” that recognized the Ashanti claim to collect tribute from the coastal peoples; renounced the British claim to protect the coastal peoples from Ashanti raids and recognised the right of the Asantehene (King of the Ashanti) to “eradicate from his dominions the seeds of disobedience and insubordination”.

the British governor, Sir Charles MacCarthy, wrote to the Colonial Secretary, Lord Bathurst his belief that the Ashanti were “blustering” and “they were not prepared for war, but depended solely upon the terror of their name to bring us to seek a compromise, and I suppose to extort from the native people under our fort…a contributions of six hundred ounces of gold”. MacCarthy asked for and received permission to have the Royal African Corps redeployed from the Cape Colony (modern south-western South Africa) to the Gold Coast.

MacCarthy led an invading force from the Cape Coast in two columns. Moving out to confront the British were an Ashanti force of 10,000 men armed with their “Long Dane” muskets. MacCarthy failed to understand until it was too late for him that the Ashanti force that he was facing was the main Ashanti army instead of an advance-guard as he assumed.^[15] The governor was in the first group of 500, which lost contact with the second column when they encountered the Ashanti army of around 10,000, in the battle of Nsamankow. The British ran out of ammunition, suffered losses and were overrun. Almost all the British force were killed immediately while 20 managed to escape. MacCarthy, Ensign Wetherell, and his secretary Williams attempted to fall back. MacCarthy was wounded, however, and killed by a second shot shortly thereafter.

Some weeks later, a larger British force made up of White and Native troops came to a standstill with the same Ashanti army that had defeated MacCarthy’s force. The British army withdrew back to the coast with 176 dead and 677 men wounded.

Asante Warriors Displaying their weapons in a ceremony.

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Another abbreviated post today

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Today is the birthday, in 1950, of British singer and songwriter Billy Ocean. His 1984 single ‘Caribbean Queen (No More Love on the Run) peaked at No.1 in the US and Ocean won the 1985 Grammy Award for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance for the song. He accumulated a series of international hit singles ‘When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going’ (1985 and the theme song for the film The Jewel of the Nile), ‘There’ll Be Sad Songs (To Make You Cry)’ (1986). In 1988, his single ‘Get Outta My Dreams, Get into My Car’ reached No.1 in the US. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNgcYGgtf8M

On this day in 1788, The main part of the First Fleet arrived at Botany Bay. The First Fleet were eleven British ships which transported a group of settlers to mainland Australia, marking the beginning of the European colonisation of Australia. It consisted of two Royal Navy vessels, three storeships and six convict transports under the command of Captain Arthur Phillip.

Governor Arthur Phillip rejected Botany Bay choosing instead Port Jackson (Now Sydney Harbor), to the north, as the site for the new colony; they arrived there on 26 January 1788, establishing the colony of New South Wales, as a penal colony which would become the first British settlement in Australia.

The fleet sailed from Portsmouth to Rio de Janeiro to Capetown and then across the vast Southern Ocean to Australia. This was one of the world’s greatest sea voyages – eleven vessels carrying about 1,487 people and stores had traveled for 252 days for more than 15,000 miles (24,000 km) without losing a ship. Forty-eight people died on the journey, a death rate of just over three percent.

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Abbreviated post today. Battle with influenza continues…

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♫ This I tell you brother, you can’t have one without the other ♫

Today is the birthday, in 1924, of American country music, western music and folk music artist singer-songwriter Slim Whitman. He had the 1955 UK No.1 single ‘Rose Marie’. Known for his yodeling abilities and his smooth, high, three-octave-range falsetto in a style christened as “countrypolitan”. In the 1990s and 2000s a new generation was exposed to Whitman through his songs featured in the film Mars Attacks!; his famed ‘Indian Love Call’ would kill the invading Martians every time the record was played. He died of heart failure on June 19, 2013 aged 90. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBuk1HXcz1k

On this day in 1362, the German town of Rungholt was completely wiped away by a storm tide in the North Sea. Rungholt was situated on the island of Strand. It and neighboring islands now form tidal flats in the North Sea.

The storm tide, known as the Grote Mandrenke (Great Drowning of Men) was an intense extratropical cyclone, coinciding with a new moon, which swept across the British Isles, the Netherlands, northern Germany, and Denmark (including Schleswig/Southern Jutland) around 16 January 1362, causing at least 25,000 deaths.

In the Medieval Warm Period, storms were stronger and sea levels were higher compared to the pre-industrial average due to higher temperatures., much like today. An immense storm tide from the North Sea swept far inland from England and the Netherlands to Denmark and the German coast, breaking up islands, making parts of the mainland into islands, and wiping out entire towns and districts. These included Rungholt, in North Frisia, Ravenser Odd in East Yorkshire, and the harbor of Dunwich in Suffolk. The storm destroyed a total of 44 villages. At least 25,000 people died, with estimates going as high as 100,000.

Local myth has it that one can still hear the church bells of Rungholt ringing underwater when sailing through the area on a calm night.

Reconstructed coastline of North Frisia before the Marcellus Flood of 1362. The red line shows the present coastline that was formed for the most part after this flood.
(from: Wikipedia: public domain)

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Follow the toothless people…

Today is the birthday, in 1959, of Nigerian-born British singer Helen Folasade Adu (Sade). She had the 1984 UK No.6 single ‘Your Love Is King’, and the 1985 US No.5 single ‘Smooth Operator’. Diamond Life (1984) reached No.2 on the UK Album Chart, selling over 1.2 million copies and won the Brit Award for Best British Album in 1985. Sade was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2002 for services to music, and stated her award was “a great gesture to me and all black women in England”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TYv2PhG89A

On this day in 1559, Queen Elizabeth I was crowned and anointed as Queen of England and Ireland. She was the last and longest reigning monarch of the House of Tudor. Her eventful reign, and its effect on history and culture, gave name to the Elizabethan era. One of her first actions as queen was the establishment of an English Protestant church, of which she became the supreme governor. This arrangement would evolve into the Church of England.

In government, Elizabeth was more moderate than her father and siblings had been.^[3] One of her mottoes was video et taceo (“I see and keep silent”).^[4] In religion, she was relatively tolerant and avoided systematic persecution. After the pope declared her illegitimate in 1570, which in theory released English Catholics from allegiance to her, several conspiracies threatened her life, all of which were defeated with the help of her ministers’ secret service.

As she grew older, Elizabeth became celebrated for her virginity. A cult of personality grew around her which was celebrated in the portraits, pageants, and literature of the day. The Elizabethan era is famous for the flourishing of English drama, led by playwrights such as William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe, the prowess of English maritime adventurers, such as Francis Drake and Walter Raleigh, and for the defeat of the Spanish Armada.

Elizabeth is acknowledged as a charismatic performer and a dogged survivor in an era when government was ramshackle and limited, and when monarchs in neighboring countries faced internal problems and religious civil wars that jeopardized their thrones. After the short, disastrous reigns of her half-siblings, her 44 years on the throne provided welcome stability for the kingdom and helped to forge a sense of national identity.

Portrait commemorating the defeat of the Spanish Armada, depicted in the background. Elizabeth’s hand rests on the globe, symbolizing her international power.

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Today is the birthday, in 1948, of Ronnie Van Zant, vocalist with Lynyrd Skynyrd who had the 1974 US No. 8 single ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ and the 1982 UK No. 21 single ‘Freebird’. Van Zant died in a plane crash between shows from Greenville, South Carolina to Baton Rouge, Louisiana on October 20th 1977 along with bandmates Steve Gaines and Cassie Gaines. Remaining band members survived, although all were seriously injured. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GxWmSVv-cY

This day in 1967 was the date of the Human Be-In. It was an event held in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park Polo Fields. It was a prelude to the Summer of Love, which made the Haight-Ashbury district a symbol of American counterculture and introduced the word “psychedelic” to suburbia.

The Human Be-In focused the key ideas of the 1960s counterculture: personal empowerment, cultural and political decentralization, communal living, ecological awareness, higher consciousness (with the aid of psychedelic drugs), acceptance of illicit psychedelics use, and radical New Left political consciousness. The playful name combined humanist values with the scores of sit-ins that had been reforming college and university practices and eroding the vestiges of entrenched segregation, starting with the lunch counter sit-ins of 1960 in Greensboro, North Carolina, and Nashville, Tennessee. The first major teach-in had been organized by Students for a Democratic Society at the University of Michigan.

The speakers at the rally were all invited by Bowen, the main organizer. They included Timothy Leary in his first San Francisco appearance, who set the tone that afternoon with his famous phrase “Turn on, tune in, drop out”^[8] and Richard Alpert (soon to be known as “Ram Dass”), and poets like Allen Ginsberg, who chanted mantras. Other counterculture gurus included comedian Dick Gregory, Lenore Kandel, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Jerry Rubin, and Alan Watts. Music was provided by Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Quicksilver Messenger Service, and others. “Underground chemist” Owsley Stanley provided massive amounts of his “White Lightning” LSD, specially produced for the event.

The counterculture that surfaced at the “Human Be-In” encouraged people to “question authority” with regard to civil rights, women’s rights, and consumer rights. Underground newspapers and radio stations served as its alternative media.

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SIGNSSSSSSS

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Today is the birthday, in 1948, of Tim Harris, drummer from British soul band The Foundations who scored the 1967 UK No.1 single ‘Baby Now That I’ve Found You’ and the 1969 US No.3 single ‘Build Me Up A Buttercup’. The group was the first multi-racial group to have a No.1 hit in the UK in the 1960s. Harris died in 2007. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klNean7JJdA