On this day in 1676, two very accurate clocks began working at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, beginning the use of Greenwich Mean Time.
The observatory was commissioned in 1675 by King Charles II, with the foundation stone being laid on 10 August. The old hilltop site of Greenwich Castle was chosen by Sir Christopher Wren, a former Savilian Professor of Astronomy; as Greenwich Park was a royal estate, no new land needed to be bought. Moore donated two clocks, built by Thomas Tompion, which were installed in the 20-foot-high Octagon Room, the principal room of the building. They were of unusual design, each with a pendulum 13 feet (4.0 metres) in length mounted above the clock face, giving a period of four seconds and an accuracy, then unparalleled, of seven seconds per day. John Flamsteed was appointed the first Astronomer Royal.
When the observatory was founded in 1675, one of the best star catalogues was Tycho Brahe’s 1000-star catalogue from 1598. However, this catalogue was not accurate enough to determine longitudes. One of Flamsteed’s first orders of business was creating more accurate charts suitable for this purpose.
One of the noted charts made at Greenwich was by the Astronomer Royal James Bradley, who between 1750 and 1762 charted sixty thousand stars, so accurately his catalogues were used even in the 1940s.1British astronomers have long used the Royal Observatory as a basis for measurement. Four separate meridians have passed through the buildings, defined by successive instruments. The basis of longitude, the meridian that passes through the Airy transit circle, first used in 1851, was adopted as the world’s Prime Meridian at the International Meridian Conference at Washington, DC, on 22 October 1884.
A key instrument for determining time was the Airy Transit Circle, which was used primarily from 1851 to 1938. It was agreed that the (Prime) “meridian line marked by the cross-hairs in the Airy Transit Circle eyepiece would indicate 0° longitude and the start of the Universal Day”. Beginning in 1924, Hourly time signals (Greenwich Time Signal) from the Royal Observatory were first broadcast. To help mariners at the port and others in line of sight of the observatory to synchronize their clocks to GMT, in 1833 Astronomer Royal John Pond installed a very visible red time ball that drops precisely at 1 pm (13:00) every day atop the observatory.
Royal Observatory, 2006
Six drinks within reach, which will the kid choose?
there’s a story here…
On this day in 1968, Welsh singer Mary Hopkin was at No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘Those Were The Days’. Hopkins had signed to The Beatles Apple label after appearing on UK TV talent show Opportunity Knocks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnxTT7XXMPA
On this day in 1664, the Dutch Republic surrendered New Amsterdam to the English.
The initial trading factory gave rise to the settlement around Fort Amsterdam. The fort was situated on the strategic southern tip of the island of Manhattan and was meant to defend the fur trade operations of the Dutch West India Company in the North River (Hudson River). By 1655, the population of New Netherland had grown to over 2,000 people, with a 1,500 majority residing in the city of New Amsterdam. By 1664, the population of New Netherland had risen to almost 9,000 people, 2,500 of whom lived in New Amsterdam, 1,000 lived near Fort Orange (present day Albany), and the remainder in other towns and villages.
The commercial rivalry between the Dutch and the English, which provoked the First Anglo-Dutch War, was not resolved by the Treaty of Westminster (1654). Hostilities continued between the countries’ trading companies. Religious and political differences between the Anglican royalists in England and the Calvinist republicans that ruled the Netherlands also hampered peace. In March 1664, King Charles granted American territory between the Delaware and Connecticut rivers to his brother James. On May 25, 1664 Colonel Richard Nicolls set out from Portsmouth with four warships and about three hundred soldiers.
Having arrived at Fort Amsterdam on Manhattan Island, Nicolls sent director-general Peter Stuyvesant a letter offering lenient terms of surrender. James authorized generous terms because he preferred the profits of an intact colony to the spoils of a ruined one. Despite Fort Amsterdam’s limited supply of gunpowder, Stuyvesant was inclined to resist. On September 4, the English ships began to maneuver closer to the fort. Stuyvesant was confronted by ninety-three burghers and his own son, and conceded.
The Dutch colonists were guaranteed in the possession of their property rights, their laws of inheritance, and the enjoyment of religious freedom. Article 2 specified that all “publick houses” would remain open. Nicolls sent troops to Fort Orange, up the Hudson River, to demand the fort’s peaceful surrender. Realizing that control of the mouth of the river controlled the settlement’s future, on September 24, 1664 vice-director of New Netherland Johannes de Montagne surrendered the fort to the English and Colonel George Cartwright took command. The next day, Captain John Manning was given charge of the fort, which was renamed Fort Albany, after the Duke of York’s title in the Peerage of Scotland.
The fall of New Amsterdam by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris
Great room number!!
BACK THEN! (what were we thinking???)
short legs…
On this day in 1962, Patsy Cline released her third and final EP, So Wrong/You’re Stronger Than Me. This was the final EP released in her lifetime, as she would be killed in a plane crash less than a year later in March 1963. The other two tracks were, ‘Heartaches’ and a version of the Hank Williams song ‘Your Cheatin’ Heart.’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gzthI-oltM
Today is the birthday, in 1838, of Victoria Claflin Woodhull (born Victoria California Claflin; September 23, 1838 – June 9, 1927), later Victoria Woodhull Martin. She was an American leader of the women’s suffrage movement who ran for president of the United States in the 1872 election.
An activist for women’s rights and labor reforms, Woodhull was also an advocate of “free love”, by which she meant the freedom to marry, divorce and bear children without social restriction or government interference. “They cannot roll back the rising tide of reform,” she often said. “The world moves.”
Woodhull twice went from rags to riches, her first fortune being made on the road as a magnetic healer before she joined the spiritualist movement in the 1870s. Together with her sister, Tennessee Claflin, she was the first woman to operate a brokerage firm on Wall Street, making a second fortune. They were among the first women to found a newspaper in the United States, Woodhull & Claflin’s Weekly, which began publication in 1870. Authorship of many of her articles is disputed (many of her speeches on these topics were collaborations between Woodhull, her backers, and her second husband, Colonel James Blood).
In October 1876, Woodhull divorced her second husband, Colonel Blood. After Cornelius Vanderbilt’s death in 1877, William Henry Vanderbilt paid Woodhull and her sister $1,000 each (equivalent to $30,000 in 2024) to leave the country because he was worried they might testify in hearings on the distribution of the elder Vanderbilt’s estate. The sisters accepted the offer and moved to Great Britain in August 1877.
he made her first public appearance as a lecturer at St. James’s Hall in London on December 4, 1877. Her lecture was called “The Human Body, the Temple of God,” a lecture which she had previously presented in the United States. Present at one of her lectures was the banker John Biddulph Martin. They began to see each other and married on October 31, 1883. His family disapproved of the union.
From then on, she was known as Victoria Woodhull Martin. Under that name, she published the magazine The Humanitarian from 1892 to 1901 with help from her daughter, Zula Woodhull. Her husband John died in 1897. After 1901, Martin gave up publishing and retired to the country, establishing residence at Norton Park, Bredon’s Norton, Worcestershire, where she built a village school with Tennessee and Zula. Through her work at the Bredon’s Norton school, she became a champion for education reform in English village schools with the addition of kindergarten curriculum.
She was active in the pioneering days of female motorists, with the Ladies’ Automobile Club, and was reputed to have been the first woman to drive a car in Hyde Park, London and in the English country roads.
Albumen silver print by Mathew Brady of Victoria Claflin Woodhull.
Pretty suspicious…I’ve seen that movie.
Yup, that’s me
New directions in architecture…
Bada Bing Bing Bing…
Ok, distraction over. Release the Epstein Files. Charlie Kirk would’ve wanted it that way.
Him1: I’ve never met a happy atheist. Him2: Maybe it’s because they were all meeting you.
When two people argue online, I believe the one who uses punctuation correctly.
I’m surprised that so many Republican politicians are intent on posting the Ten Commandments everywhere. After all, they’re opposed to things that create an oppressive work environment.
When I m bored I like to call in sick to places I don’t work for. I’m getting written up at The Olive Garden.
Always check your child’s home work… “My daddy really likes sugar. He even eats it with his nose.”
I’m kinda like the package that got messed up during shipping and handling.
Happy B-day to all celebrating it this month! I hope you’re celebrating like the way you came into this world. Naked & screaming.
Life is like toilet paper. You’re either on a roll, or you’re taking shit from some asshole.
The Trump administration saying they will crack down on hate speech is like McDonald’s saying they will crack down on junk food.
It’s ODD how many people call me a communist or a socialist, then think it’s hate speech to call them fascists.
Her: I’ve reached a point in life where my interest in baked goods is greater than my interest in men. I’m calling this new chapter “doughs before bros”.
I just googled my symptoms turns out I need a “”million dollars & a vacation”” (10 million dollars.)
Why are they blowing up boats? They are watching how we react. Like raptors at the fence, testing for weakness.
It’s not the needy who are a problem in this world, it’s the greedy.
I’m not quite sure how to tell my friend that I’m imaginary.
Happy Autumn!
Screenshot
Today is the birthday, in 1949, of US singer, songwriter and guitarist Bruce Springsteen. Nicknamed ‘The Boss’, he won an Academy Award in 1994 for his song ‘Streets of Philadelphia’, which appeared on the soundtrack to the film Philadelphia. His most successful studio albums, Born in the U.S.A. and Born To Run showcase a talent for finding grandeur in the struggles of daily American life; he has sold more than 71 million albums in the United States and more than 140 million worldwide. He has earned numerous awards for his work, including 20 Grammy Awards. Patti Scialfa was a member of his E Street Band since 1984 and married Bruce in 1991. In September 2024, Scialfa revealed that she was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in 2018. Here are Bruce and Patti with this wonderful ballad. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYlZcFuAXmI
On this day in 1656, Judith Catchpole, a young maidservant in colonial America, was tried in 1656 for witchcraft and infanticide before the earliest all-female juries in the United States. Catchpole was an indentured servant in the colony of Maryland, arriving there by boat from the Commonwealth of England in January 1656. Upon her arrival she was accused of several crimes, resulting in a trial on September 22, 1656 in the General Provincial Court in Patuxent County, Maryland (now Calvert County).
Catchpole was accused of murdering her child and of other bizarre acts, by the indentured servant of William Bramhall, a fellow passenger on the ship “Mary and Francis”. She was accused of killing her child, cutting the throat of a female passenger while the woman was asleep, and stabbing a seaman in the back.
It was decided that an all-female jury was needed because the issues of pregnancy and birth required female expertise. Composed of seven married women and four single women, the trial was ordered by the General Provincial Court at Patuxent for September 22, 1656.[3] In order to determine if Catchpole had murdered her own infant, the jury was to inspect Catchpole’s body to find evidence that she had been pregnant and given birth to a child. The jury inspected Catchpole’s body and concluded that she had not recently given birth. Other witnesses gave testimony that the man making the accusations was “not in sound mind”. Additional hearsay evidence was presented that the male accuser had spoken of witchcraft and told other bizarre stories. He had said that after slitting the woman’s throat, she sewed it back up before the woman awoke, and that she rubbed grease on the back of the fatally wounded seaman and he came back to life.
The jury gave little credence to the charges of witchcraft, and seeing no evidence of childbirth, acquitted Catchpole of all charges.
Woof!
Hmm…
No.
Empathy
Today is the birthday, in 1958, of American rock guitarist, singer, songwriter, and producer Joan Jett. She was a founding member of The Runaways and with Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, scored the 1982 US No.1 & UK No.4 single I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll. She is also known as the Godmother of Punk. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMsazR6Tnf8
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