Upon the death of his beloved wife Eleanor of Castile in 1290, King Edward I of England gave himself over to grief. In an expression of his sorrow, the king commissioned the construction of twelve elaborately decorated crosses to mark the route his wife’s body took to its final resting place in Westminster Abbey. Was this a symbolic reminder of one of the greatest romances of the Middle Ages, or were they designed as a piece of dynastic propaganda in a calculated statement of royal authority?

A Great Romance – Eleanor of Castile and Edward I

It is often assumed that the loving royal family was invented in the 19th century when Queen Victoria married Albert. However, in the 13th century, we have two examples of a loving nuclear family: that of Henry III and his wife Eleanor of Provence, and their son, King Edward I and Eleanor of Castile. Edward married the Spanish princess in 1254 before he became king to secure the Duchy of Gascony for the English throne. Eleanor was twelve years old and her groom fifteen. The couple had approximately 14 children together, although not all survived into adulthood. Their only surviving son was Edward of Caernarvon, the future King Edward II.

While medieval royal marriages were always conducted for political reasons, Edward and Eleanor’s union flowered into genuine romance. There is no evidence to suggest Edward took a mistress or had any illegitimate children. His wife was cultured and educated and said to be a great beauty. She was a formidable queen with a head for business who increased her lands significantly as consort. Edward encouraged his wife in her business dealings, and his devotion to his wife as they aged can be attested to by the sheer amount of time they spent together.

Edward was seldom separated from Eleanor, who accompanied him on crusade to the Holy Land. Later legend credited her with saving his life by sucking poison from his wound, reflecting notions of the closeness of their relationship. As a dutiful wife, Eleanor supported her husband during his campaigns in Wales, and later joined him as he traveled north toward Nottinghamshire in late 1290, where she fell gravely ill. Despite the intense pressures of kingship and his plans to go to Scotland, Edward remained at her side in her final days.

The Death of Eleanor And the Royal Funeral Procession

Eleanor died on November 28 at the village of Harby near Lincoln. She was only 49 years old. The cause of her death is unknown, but she probably did not fully recover from the malaria she had contracted during a recent trip to Gascony. Continual pregnancies would have also taken a toll on her body. For three days, the king’s grief was so intense that he was unable to leave the place where she died. The extent of Edward’s love was expressed months later as he wrote to the Abbot of Cluny requesting prayers for his wife: “our most serene consort who while living we loved dearly, and in death we do not cease to love.” (Armstrong, 2023). 

Eleanor’s body was moved from Harby and traveled seven miles to Lincoln and prepared for burial. Her internal organs, except for her heart, were buried at Lincoln Cathedral. This was a practical measure used when corpses were to be transported long distances for burial. Her heart was gifted to the Dominican Church in Blackfriars, London and buried alongside that of the heart of her son, Alphonso. Her body was then embalmed and placed in a coffin, making its way slowly down to London. Opting for three burial sites, each with its own tomb, was rather unusual for a queen consort.

The cortege rested at twelve different locations overnight as it made its way down to London on the solemn 200-mile journey. The grief-stricken king walked behind the coffin in a very public expression of grief. His sorrow was felt and shared by all his subjects. As the king made his way south, he identified locations for memorials for his wife.

The Twelve Eleanor Crosses

The twelve locations where the queen’s funeral procession had stopped overnight were commemorated by crosses. Edward commissioned these monuments, which were built between 1291 and 1295, to serve as a permanent memorial to his beloved wife. Each monument was multi-tiered and elaborately decorated in an ornate Gothic style and incorporated life-size sculptures of Eleanor. The crosses were also decorated with the coats of arms of England, Castile and Leon (Eleanor’s native kingdom) and Ponthieu, which Eleanor inherited from her mother.

Locations

The first location was Lincoln, where the procession began. A fragment of the original Lincoln cross survives and was relocated to Lincoln Castle. 25 miles further, another cross, known as the Queen’s Cross, was placed at Grantham in the widest part of the High Street. Stamford, Lincolnshire, was the next stop and the cross there was erected just outside the town. Two of the three surviving crosses, the triangular Geddington Cross and the octagonal Hardingstone Cross, were erected in Northamptonshire villages.

The cortege moved down into Buckinghamshire, where a cross was placed at Stony Stratford. Nothing remains of either the Woburn cross or the Dunstable cross, both in Bedfordshire. A clock tower marks the location of the site of the St Albans cross, lost by the 18th century. A cross at Waltham was placed at the crossroads to the village of Cheshunt and still survives today in the eponymous town of Waltham Cross. After the procession reached the City of London, a cross was placed at Cheapside near St Paul’s Cathedral. The final and most expensive Eleanor Cross was located in the village of Charing on the way to Westminster Abbey and gave its name to Charing Cross.

All the Eleanor Crosses were placed at busy strategic locations, often at crossroads where they could dominate the surrounding landscape. An impressive bronze tomb was then constructed at Eleanor’s final resting place in Westminster Abbey.

Power, Piety, and Dynastic Propaganda

The construction of an elaborate set of monuments to mark a funeral procession was unique in England. So where did Edward get the idea from? Edward had joined the Eighth Crusade, led by King Louis IX of France in 1270, but the expedition continued without its leader. Louis only made it to Tunis when he died in August 1270; his organs were buried in Palermo, but his bones were brought home in a funeral procession that crossed Sicily, Italy, the Alps and France. Nine elaborately decorated stone monuments marked the locations of Louis’s funeral procession as it made its way through France. These monuments were part of a successful attempt to have the pious French king canonized.

While Edward was undoubtedly inspired by such an act of commemoration, he ensured that his wife’s crosses were taller and more ornate. By erecting such structures in strategic locations throughout southeast England, Edward was not only commemorating his wife but seeking to assert his royal authority. The 13th century was a turbulent time for the English monarchy; Edward’s father Henry III and his grandfather King John had both faced the wrath of the barons who challenged their authority. While Edward generally enjoyed a constructive relationship with his barons, he remained keen to assert his kingly authority. His memorials to Eleanor proved to be a lasting and permanent reminder of Edward’s reign. They projected the image of a stable monarchy following decades of turmoil.

The Eleanor crosses therefore functioned as lasting symbols of royal authority while reinforcing contemporary ideals of queenship and maintaining the queen’s symbolic presence after her death. The Eleanor Crosses further associated both Edward and Eleanor with piety, presenting the queen in a saint-like manner that elevated her image beyond that of a conventional consort. The Crosses served as an excellent piece of Plantagenet propaganda.

The Legacy of the Eleanor Crosses In English History

Edward spared no expense in memorializing his wife. Beginning at Lincoln, individual statues cost from £100, with increasing elaboration and expense as the crosses approached London. At Charing Cross, the most ornate of the series, master craftsmen were paid as much as £600. Today, only three crosses survive substantially intact, at Geddington, Hardingstone, and Waltham, along with fragments at Lincoln. These remnants represent what was once a far more extensive commemorative program, conceived as an enduring testament to both grief and royal authority.

Many of the crosses were lost to time, decay, and deliberate destruction, particularly during the English Civil War, where their royal symbolism backfired. Nevertheless, the crosses were first and foremost a public expression of Edward’s personal grief and affection. They also invited the nation as a whole to grieve for the loss of their beloved queen. At the same time, they served a secondary political function: projecting Eleanor and Edward’s presence across the kingdom as a symbolic and watchful extension of royal authority.

This duality complicates Edward’s reputation as a formidable military king. Though remembered as the formidable “Hammer of the Scots,” his actions following Eleanor’s death reveal a deeply personal dimension. It reveals a human level often absent from narratives of kings. His decision to remain unmarried for nine years, despite the dynastic risks of having only one surviving son, underscores the depth of his loss. In the Eleanor Crosses, Edward created not only a memorial to his wife, but also a new model of royal commemoration, one that fused personal devotion with political symbolism.

Source:

• Armstrong, A. A. (2023). Eleanor of Castile: A consort of contradictions. In A. Norrie, C. Harris, D. A. Messer, E. Woodacre, & J. L. Laynesmith (Eds.), Norman to early Plantagenet consorts: Power, influence, and dynasty. Palgrave Macmillan, p. 142.

World War I was a considerably devastating war with an estimated 20 million deaths. But about 60 years prior, another war in East Asia caused even more devastation. Known as the Taiping Rebellion, it was one of the deadliest civil wars in history, with death estimates reaching 30 million people, while others put the figure as high as 70 million. While World War I lasted for 4 years between 1914 and 1918, the Taiping Rebellion went on for 14 years, from 1850 to 1864.

A Failed Test and a Vision That Triggered a Holy War

The Taiping Rebellion was started in the 1840s by Hong Xiuquan, a Hakka man who, after failing the imperial civil service examination four times and suffering a nervous breakdown, came to believe that he was the younger brother of Jesus Christ. 

Following a series of vivid visions, he was convinced that God had chosen him to purge China of the Manchu rulers and create a new Heaven on Earth. Eventually, Hong found a massive audience and gained a large following that would swell into millions by drawing on intense local social discontent and combining it with potent religious overtones. By labeling the Qing dynasty as demon worshippers and blaming it for the economic instability following the Opium Wars, he made dissent a holy and righteous act. Soon, he created a group of armed followers called the God-Worshiping Society that resided in the village of Jintian.

Fourteen Years of Relentless Conflict That Shattered an Empire

By late December of 1850, between 10,000 and 30,000 armed God Worshippers had congregated in Jintian. Now organized as a cohesive, communal militia with strict regulations based on religious law, the revolutionaries soon countered Qing imperial forces that tried to encircle their settlement, and defeated them outside Jintian, in the district of Xunzhou. 

On January 11, 1851, Hong Xiuquan declared a universal holy war against the ruling Manchu-led Qing dynasty, officially starting the rebellion. Absorbing hundreds of thousands of impoverished peasants, workers, and local sympathizers along the way as they moved war campaigns northwards, the rebels eventually set up their main administration center in Nanjing. The long conflict ended in July 1864 when imperial forces finally breached Nanjing and suppressed the rebellion.

Total Ideological War in the Most Densely Populated Region on Earth

Unlike World War I, the war in China pitted the imperial government against an ideologically driven revolutionary force that sought the complete destruction of the existing social and political order. Because of this radical goal, there was never going to be a peace treaty to stop the violence. To make matters worse, the Taiping Rebellion was fought mostly in China’s Yangtze River valley, the most densely populated region in the world at the time. Thus, the scale of demographic destruction was appalling.

Additionally, four years is a long time for a conflict, but 14 years allows for generations to be born into a world at war. Whole generations were affected by the violence during the First World War, but in China, there were children born at the start of the conflict who were old enough to be enlisted by the end, a situation that led to higher mortality rates because of the longer duration of constant perils.

Scorched Earth Tactics and Epidemics That Starved Millions

As is common in wars, secondary causes like diseases and starvation accounted for a far greater loss of life than direct involvement in combat. Despite high mortality rates from illnesses during WWI, advancements in 20th-century military medicine alleviated many of the widespread health crises that had defined 19th-century warfare. This led to fewer deaths from ailments compared to the Taiping Rebellion. 

During the Taiping Rebellion, local governments collapsed, allowing diseases like cholera to blitz through refugee encampments and cities alike, and this resulted in the high casualty figures.

Both the Taiping and the Imperial Qing armies, specifically the provincial Xiang Army led by Zeng Guofan, also employed scorched-earth tactics against opposing forces. If the enemy was near, the armies would burn crops, kill livestock, and destroy water systems to starve the opposing side.

By July 1864, when the Siege of Nanjing, the final battle, came to an end, many of the affected regions in China had been rendered incapable of producing food. This led to a cycle of starvation that continued even after the fighting stopped.

In medieval England, the birth of a royal heir was a moment of immense national relief. The safe arrival of a healthy prince promised stability and averted the prospect of civil war. Yet succession was never secure in a world shaped by disease, warfare, and sudden tragedy. Many princes who were raised from birth to rule died prematurely, plunging the realm into uncertainty. From fatal shipwrecks to illness on campaign, the untimely deaths of these heirs altered the course of English history.

Why Did So Many Medieval Heirs Fail to Inherit the Crown?

Medieval communities lived in constant proximity to death. Children were particularly vulnerable to disease and accident, with some estimates suggesting that as many as a third died before the age of five. Such high infant mortality significantly reduced overall life expectancy, and those who survived childhood could live much longer. Aristocratic men reaching the age of 21 between 1200 and 1745 might expect to live into their sixties or even seventies, except during the 14th century, when the Black Death caused a dramatic decline, with life expectancy hitting a low of 45.

Medical knowledge remained rudimentary, and even minor illnesses could prove fatal. Dysentery, for example, now prevented through improved hygiene and treated with antibiotics, was especially deadly in medieval armies, with some contemporaries claiming mortality rates reached 80%. It claimed the lives of King John and King Henry V. Epidemic disease more broadly posed an ever-present threat, most notably during the Black Death, which killed up to half of Europe’s population. Even royalty could not escape the pervasive dangers of illness and death.

Extra care was taken during and after the birth of royal children, particularly heirs to the throne, whose primary role was to secure the dynasty. The death of an heir could plunge a kingdom into uncertainty and instability, leaving the succession unclear and exposing the realm to both internal conflict and external threats. For this reason, it was essential for kings to produce at least two sons; a spare heir provided crucial security against the ever-present risks of premature death, though too many surviving children also risked instability. With high mortality rates, there were many princes who predeceased their fathers.

1. William Adelin and the Disaster of the White Ship

William Adelin was born in 1103 to King Henry I of England and his wife, Edith-Matilda. As the youngest son of William the Conqueror, Henry himself was not expected to inherit the English throne. After outmaneuvering his eldest brother Duke Robert of Normandy, Henry became king of England in 1100 after the death of his childless brother, William Rufus, in a hunting accident.

The birth of William Adelin symbolized the unification of his father’s house of Normandy and his mother’s old Anglo-Saxon and Scottish line. His birth was celebrated throughout the realm, and hopes of a new and bright beginning in English dynastic history at the turn of the century were pinned on William. He was given an education that would prepare him for his intended role as king, and he was given a prestigious bride, Matilda, daughter of Count Fulk of Anjou, to ensure a smooth succession.

While crossing from Barfleur, Normandy to England on November 25, 1120, Henry travelled on a different ship from that of his son. William sailed in the White Ship, built by Thomas FitzStephen, son of Stephen FitzAirard, who had captained the Mora in which William the Conqueror had sailed to England in 1066. William was joined by 300 other passengers, and there was something of a party atmosphere on board. Disaster struck when, in the darkness, the ship hit a rock and sank, leaving only one survivor. William, aged 17, drowned and left no heirs.

Henry was devastated. With no legitimate son, he named his daughter Matilda as his successor. Yet upon his death in 1135, her claim was challenged by her cousin Stephen of Blois, who seized the throne. The resulting civil war, known as the Anarchy, plunged England into prolonged instability and was resolved only when Stephen agreed to adopt Matilda’s son, the future Henry II, as his heir.

2. Henry the Young King and His War Against His Father

Born in 1155 to Henry II, King of England, Duke of Normandy and Count of Anjou and his wife Eleanor, Duchess of Aquitaine, Henry the Young King was the eldest of the couple’s sons to survive infancy. As such, he was educated in the house of Thomas Becket from 1162 in preparation for his role as king. In a measure to secure the succession of his son, in 1170  Henry arranged for his eldest son to be crowned king during his own lifetime. Henry the Young King had three younger brothers, and his early coronation left no doubt as to who would be the next king. But this arrangement also had negative ramifications.

Although anointed king, the Young King would be forced to wait for his father to die before he could assume any real power. His younger brothers could enjoy their patrimonies during their father’s lifetime, but Henry remained in the shadow of his father. Consequently, the Young King demanded that his father relinquish to him either the Duchy of Normandy, the County of Anjou, or the crown of England. When Henry II flatly refused, the Young King rebelled against his father with the support of his younger brothers and his mother. The rebellion tore the Angevin Empire apart, and although father and sons were reconciled in 1174, the Young King continued to clash with his father intermittently for the rest of his life.

In 1183, the Young King contracted dysentery while leading another rebellion against his father. He begged for his father’s forgiveness on his deathbed. The Young King was married to Margaret of France but the pair had no children, and when Henry II died in 1189 he was succeeded by his eldest surviving son, Richard the Lionheart. After Richard died without legitimate issue, the throne passed to their youngest brother John, arguably the worst king in English history.

3. Alphonso of England and the Tragedy of High Mortality

Of the 14 or more children born to Edward I of England and his first wife, Eleanor of Castile, most did not survive into adulthood. Alphonso of England was one such child. He enjoys perhaps the most unusual name of a medieval English prince. His mother named him after her brother, King Alphonso X of Castile. Born in 1273, a year after the succession of his father, Edward I, Alphonso was therefore “born in the purple” and thereby destined for a prominent role. His elder brother, John, had died in 1271, and when, in 1274, his eldest surviving brother, Henry, died, Alphonso was declared his father’s heir.

Little is known of Alphonso’s short life; he was made the Earl of Chester and was given his own household, as was befitting of the heir to the throne. At the age of ten, Alphonso was betrothed to the daughter of the Count of Holland. It was about this time that the boy took ill. He died at Windsor Castle in 1284. His heart was buried at Blackfriars, London, and his body was laid to rest in Westminster Abbey. The only consolation to his grieving mother and father was that their youngest son, Edward, had been born some months prior to Alphonso’s death and assumed his place as heir to the throne.

Edward II succeeded his father in 1307 and proved to be an extremely unpopular king who generously rewarded his royal favorites and ignored the rest of the nobility. His popularity waned to such an extent that his barons rebelled against him and his wife led an invasion of the kingdom and successfully deposed him.

4. Edward the Black Prince and a Legacy Forged in Battle

Edward the Black Prince continues to be remembered as one of the greatest English military commanders and princes of the Middle Ages. Born in 1330, the eldest son of Edward III of England and his wife, Philippa of Hainault, he showed military promise from a young age. At the age of seven, he was gifted a full suit of armor and attended his father’s court from a young age. Taking a role in his father’s reign from childhood, he represented his father on the international stage and was entrusted with the symbolic but important role of Guardian of the kingdom at the ages of ten and twelve while his father was campaigning on the continent.

The Black Prince attended his father’s court at Windsor, where in 1348 the king founded the Order of the Garter, a retinue of 24 distinguished knights (alongside the King and the Prince of Wales) inspired by King Arthur’s round table. The Black Prince’s name was second on the list after his father’s. Growing up in such an atmosphere undoubtedly had a profound impact on the Prince, who is often regarded as a model of chivalry.

Made the Prince of Wales in 1343, Edward began to accompany his father on his military ventures abroad from the age of 16. Edward III’s reign was characterized by his wars with France, known to history as the Hundred Years’ War. The Black Prince distinguished himself during the conflict. Leading the English vanguard at the Battle of Crécy, the teenage prince was in the thick of the action as the English won a resounding victory. What followed was a glittering military career. The Black Prince won his most famous victory at Poitiers in 1356, where he defeated a larger French army and made King John II of France his prisoner.

The Black Prince fell seriously ill on campaign in Castile in 1367 without making a full recovery. Nevertheless, his death at the age of 45 in 1376 came as a great shock to the English nation. His ageing father would die the following year, and the throne passed to the Prince’s ten-year-old son, Richard. Ill-prepared for kingship and with a reign driven by faction, Richard II was deposed by his cousin Henry IV in 1399.

How These Lost Princes Shaped English History

The premature deaths of William Adelin, Henry the Young King, Alphonso of England, and Edward the Black Prince were each followed by moments of political crisis. Civil war, invasion, and instability often followed the loss of an heir. While the death of a son was a personal tragedy for royal families, it also represented the loss of dynastic security and the disruption of political continuity.

William Adelin’s death precipitated a prolonged civil war that divided the kingdom for over a decade. Henry the Young King showed considerable promise, yet his rebellion against his father led to his early death and weakened the stability of the realm. The death of Alphonso of England underscores the vulnerability of children to disease, reflecting a broader pattern of high mortality within royal families and, in particular, among his siblings. Edward the Black Prince, celebrated as a model of chivalry, was mourned not only as an individual but as the lost future of England’s ambitions in the Hundred Years’ War.

Accordingly, these princes, who never became kings, reshaped the course of English history. William Adelin’s death ultimately enabled the rise of the Angevin dynasty, while the earlier death of Edward the Black Prince contributed to the deposition of his son and the accession of his nephew, Henry IV, establishing the Lancastrian regime. How these men would have exercised their royal powers had they outlived their fathers will forever remain a mystery, but English history would certainly have turned out differently had they lived longer.

Chinese civilization is almost as old as that of the Mediterranean, with written records dating back as far as 1600 BC. Over the millennia, Chinese society was the first to develop many technologies that paved the way for modern living. This includes everything from tools for detecting earthquakes, industrial innovation, and, like most civilizations, better ways to wage war.

1. Zhang Heng and the World’s First Seismograph

Chinese records list many historical earthquakes that shook the ground, saw tall mountains slide away, and left the surrounding area temporarily uninhabitable. Sima Qian (司马迁), ancient China’s famous Grand Historian, recorded how centuries earlier, in 780 BC, a powerful earthquake diverted the course of three rivers. The 10th-century text of the Taiping Yulan (太平御览) records over 600 earthquakes.

Imperial governments tried to minimize destruction and provide relief, both for humanitarian reasons and to prevent a desperate population from rebelling. Being able to predict seismic events in the capital was a useful tool, so scientist, mathematician, and inventor Zhang Heng (张衡- AD 78-139) came up with a way to measure earthquakes: a seismograph.

The seismograph was a large fine cast bronze vessel with a lid. Around the vessel, eight dragon heads are equally spaced out with bronze balls in their mouths. Around the base of the vessel, eight corresponding bronze toads were placed with their mouths wide open. Shaking and rumbling in the earth caused the ball to fall into the mouth of its corresponding toad.

The seismograph, known as the Houfeng Didong Yi (候风地动仪), is roughly translated as the “instrument for measuring seasonal winds and earth movements,” as the inventor believed that earthquakes were caused by the movement of air, or wind. While it is sometimes referred to as an “early warning system,” the seismograph detected live earthquakes and could indicate a direction. Nevertheless, it meant that the capital did not have to wait for word before it could start preparing relief.

2. Hydraulic Waterwheels and Industrial Automation

Before the steam engine, the internal combustion engine, or the electric battery, machines were powered by people, animals, wind, and water. In the riverine culture of ancient China, people sought to harness the natural forces surrounding them. The waterwheel, either used horizontally or vertically, was an important Chinese invention and a leap forward in the industrial capabilities of Han dynasty China.

Du Shi (杜詩), an engineer during the Han Dynasty, first designed it to operate bellows for smithing as it improved the foot-powered lever-and-fulcrum tilt hammer for hydraulic-powered pounding and polishing. The horizontal waterwheel usually operated with chain pumps rotating on gears and a horizontal beam; however, vertical examples are known which were used to operate trip hammers to hull rice or crush ores.

3. An Ancient Script Still Readable Today

Compared to simpler phonetic alphabetic scripts, like Greek, the Hanzi (汉字 – Chinese Script) is a logographic script. The particularity of the Hanzi is that learning it is a lengthy process, but once acquired, it overcomes fundamental linguistic and dialect barriers. A highly literate form of writing, it formed a textual lingua franca whereby the speech and pronunciations between regions and societies may have been mutually unintelligible. Literate people could nonetheless read and understand the same meaning from classically written Chinese.

The Chinese invention of the characters is traditionally attributed to the mythical minister of the Yellow Emperor, Cang Jie (倉頡), who created them in imitation of bird footprints. Cang Jie was said to have four eyes, giving him the ability to see and know more than others.

The earliest complete Chinese texts first appear on hard materials, such as bones and bronze vessels. One can assume, however, that archaic forms of the Chinese characters were originally used on wooden slips or other perishable materials. Some precursors to those characters are found on Neolithic Erligang period pottery of the Dawenkou culture.

As such, the earliest evidence of Chinese writing appears in King Wu Ding’s reign (1324-1266 BC) of the Shang Dynasty, although it likely is older than that. Mostly found in the ruins of Yin (Anyang, Henan), the earliest examples record the outcome of divination. As the surviving examples of script primarily record divination in a political context, there is a debate over the original functional use of writing. Was it a political tool used for record keeping, or was it developed specifically for divination and communicating with dead ancestors?

4. The South Pointing Chariot and Ancient Mechanical Engineering

The South Pointing Chariot (指南车) was a mechanical device that used the rotation of a chariot’s wheels to enable a statue to always point south, acting as an early compass. It is probably one of the most complex devices of ancient China. It was a large carriage with a statue mounted on top with its arm raised and pointing south.

According to legend, the south-pointing chariot was first constructed by the Duke of Zhou to facilitate travel. Central China was a boundless plain, making it easy for one to lose their bearings. The Duke had this vehicle made so that, in any weather conditions, one could distinguish the cardinal directions. It used differential gears, like those of a car. When the wheeled vehicle would turn, the wheels on its opposite side would turn at different rates.

If you are inclined to believe the legend, this complex mechanical device may date back as far as 1030 BC. The more credible evidence is that it was invented in the 3rd century AD by Ma Jun (徳衡), a famous builder and engineer.

5. Lacquer as a Natural Shapable Plastic

The use of lacquer is a purely Chinese invention. This natural plastic is obtained by tapping the sap from the trunks of the indigenous and common lacquer tree (Rhus vernicifera) in central China. Its use as a varnish is due to its particular properties, such as lightness, durability, resistance to acids and alkalis, modest resistance to heat, water resistance, and bacterial resistance.

Evidence of lacquer goes back to the Shang Dynasty, when it was used to coat sculpted wooden objects and to preserve the walls of Zhou funeral chambers. It is possible that lacquer was also used to decorate the grooves of bronze vessels. The tomb of the Shang “queen,” Lady Fu Hao, discovered in the 1970s in Anyang, China, contained a rich collection of lacquer. However, the oldest evidence of lacquer is from the 17th century BC at the site of Erlitou. It was produced in much greater quantities thereafter during the Eastern Zhou period (771-256 BC) and reached its apex during the Han Dynasty.

By the 3rd century BC, truly remarkable craftsmanship of lacquer was used to decorate boxes and dishes with motifs of people and animals, often in imitation of bronze motifs. During the Han Dynasty, it became prized as funerary ware. Just three graves of the Marquis of Jai at Mawangdui contain over 400 lacquer objects.

The lacquer industry was a tightly regulated affair. A highly prized material, a single lacquered wooden wine cup might involve seven artists and five officials. It was used for kitchen utensils, cooking and serving warm food, and was considered a much more valuable material than bronze. It was also used for furniture, screens, pillows, boxes, worn as bonnets and shoes, and decorating weapons. The highly malleable material could be made into any shape, leading to freedom of artistic expression through this medium.

6. Bronzes with Piece Mold Casts

Bronze casting is a technique particular to Chinese bronze manufacturing. The first Chinese bronzes appeared comparatively late around 3000 BC. The appearance of tin- or lead-alloyed bronzes coincides with the emergence of the Shang Dynasty. By about 1500 BC, ornate ritual cast bronzes were produced at central China’s Erlitou site. Produced in great quantities, bronzes were made using the piece mold process.

This technique involved carving clay molds with surface decorations incised into them before the molten bronze was poured into the clay cast. Substantial bronze casting industries were discovered in many sites of the Shang Dynasty, including elaborate molds with interchangeable parts. This method enabled them to produce elaborate bronzes in great quantities, as the copper-tin-lead alloys used to make bronze could not be hammered out to sheet.

The reason for favoring piece mold techniques over other casting methods, such as the lost wax method, was likely the poor malleability of the bronze alloys in ancient China. Nevertheless, the preference for this may not have been accidental, as different ratios of arsenic or tin could achieve different colors of bronze.

7. Kites in Ancient Military Strategy and Reconnaissance

A popular sport and pastime today, the Chinese invention of flying kites goes back thousands of years. Reportedly as far back as the 5th century BC, the semi-legendary figure of Lu Ban (鲁班) made bird-like kites that could fly for days and do somersaults. The philosopher Mozi (c. 4th century BC), the founder of the Mohist philosophy, is said to have spent three years building a kite. The Mohists, an important rival to the Confucianists, were adept at physics and mathematics, plus they had an interest in siege weapons.

The high-tensile strength of silk and the strength and lightness of bamboo were likely the materials used to make kites until paper was invented. Stories mention kites being used for communication, measurements, and testing the wind. General Han Xin (00) of the Han Dynasty used a kite to measure the distance his soldiers had to dig to reach the city’s palace from their camp. Beyond war, kites fitted with hooks would be used for fishing.

8. Han Dynasty Crossbows and Mass-Produced Military Power

Found among the weapons of the Terracotta Army in the tomb of the First Emperor of China, crossbows have been one of the most ubiquitous Chinese inventions used in military warfare for centuries.

Its earliest descriptions are found in Mohist treatises of the 4th century BC and Sun Tzu’s Art of War. However, cast bronze crossbow locks dating back to 650 BC have been found in many parts of central and northern China. Mentions are found in later texts, such as the Huainanzi, advising readers that crossbowmen are ineffective in soft marshlands.

The crossbow, a relatively small but complex projectile weapon, was a favorite of the Han Dynasty. It became a standard issue for the Han armies. Crossbows were mass-produced. Firing bronze-headed arrows, these weapons were extremely powerful at close ranges. Yet, as they were slow to reload, they were restricted to stationary or defensive uses.

The crossbow is largely credited for the success of the Qin and Han empires and spelled the end of the archaic chariot warfare of previous dynasties. It gave them distinct advantages over their enemies, as their production required specialized knowledge and so did its effective use in battle.

9. Blast Furnace Cast Iron and Early Metallurgy

The Chinese invention of cast iron technology led to many important developments. Casting iron requires a higher temperature than blooming, but is less labor-intensive than forging each piece individually. First produced during the Spring and Autumn Period (770-473 BC), cast iron has been produced for thousands of years. Made possible with the hydraulic power of the waterwheel, the primitive cast iron is, however, brittle, inflexible, and difficult to sharpen.

The melting point of iron is 1535 degrees Celsius, which early smiths were unable to produce in the forge. So, the earliest techniques of blacksmiths consisted of smelting iron ores at lower temperatures, but not to melt them, thus creating a lump of iron mixed with other materials known as bloom. The impurities were pounded out almost entirely, but the method was laborious and could only yield simple designs.

However, the Chinese ironworkers learned that iron ore mixed with charcoal could melt the iron into a liquid instead. The melting temperature of an iron-carbon combination is 1130 degrees Celsius, but the workers used phosphate-rich “black earth,” which reduced the melting point to 950. The liquid iron could then easily be poured into a mold to produce a hard but brittle iron. This technique became widespread by 300 BC, and by the Han Dynasty, they had learned how to produce steel.

The cheaper cast iron methods were continuously used, especially for implements that do not require sharpness or resistance to shock. The more laborious and expensive process of wrought iron or steel was typically used for producing weapons.

10. Bianzhong Tuned Bells and Acoustic Mathematics

An ancient Chinese musical instrument, the Bianzhong (编钟) is a melodious ensemble of bronze bells suspended on a wooden frame. Made from L-shaped flat stones suspended on a wooden frame, the carillon of bells is one of ancient China’s most religious instruments. Likely evolved out of jade bells, tuned bells are a hugely impressive feat of musicality, metallurgy, and mathematics. First appearing in 2100 BC as bells (without a clapper), they were arranged during the Zhou Dynasty into an ensemble of bells with sizes ranging from 153 to 9 centimeters in height. With their lens-shaped, distinct mouth shape, and 36 symmetrical bosses on the outside, each bell could produce two different tones.

A complete set of 65 ceremonial bells was discovered in the tomb of Marquis Yi (died c. 430 BC), ruler of Zeng in the state of Chu. The set’s musical range was five octaves, with three fully chromatic ones. This particular set is still playable today. By the 6th century BC, fine-tuning them to achieve precise notes was a particular concern. The music bells indicate that ancient China had a sophisticated understanding of music and tonality, and the mathematical principles behind it.

The manufacturing of musical bells was a very meticulous affair requiring a precise mixture in the alloy, advanced casting techniques, and a good pitch. Some bells show evidence of shaving when the cast bell was a little off. The precise distance between notes requires precise dimensions of the bells, which form part of a wide and complex system of measurements and standards. Thus, it is no surprise that the bell carillons were a prized and highly symbolic possession of the elite.

When one reads the history of the early leaders of the Christian church, one must take a good deal of what we learn on faith. Regardless of what source you consult, a good deal of what you will read comes to us in the form of legends and folklore rather than hard history.

The reality is that there are just so few surviving sources from the time that we are forced to rely on writers and historians who were centuries removed from these men because there are no words penned by the early popes themselves, with one very notable exception: Pope Clement.

So significant was Clement, that, according to legend, under the Emperor Trajan, he was punished with exile, then a watery grave.

The Paper Trail of the First Documented Pope

Clement I is an extremely important figure not just for his leadership, but because, unlike many of his predecessors and successors to the early Papacy, there is widely accepted historical evidence of his leadership in the form of writing we still have today. Saying it provides a solid anchor from which we can better explore the early Christian world is both true and, as you’ll see—somewhat ironic.

Like most early Church Fathers, everything that we know about the early life of Clement I is based on a mixture of conjecture, legend, and the assertions of dueling sources. Some records claim that he was ordained by St. Peter himself or that he was descended from Roman nobility, but there is little in the way of factual evidence to support this.

There are sources that assert that he was of Jewish ancestry, but this too is impossible to confirm. There are even early church historians such as Tertullian and Jerome who suggest that Clement was meant to be the direct successor to Peter and even name him as the second pope, but official church sources like the Liber Pontificalis put him as fourth in the line of succession.

If we are to take these sources at face value, then Clement was an important early leader in the Church who knew not just Peter, but the Apostle and prolific writer Paul before their martyrdom in Rome.

This is again based not on hard historical fact, but on writing that came much later, which would serve as the foundation for what we know of his early life before taking on the role of pope.

What we do know for certain is that he lived in Rome and was an early leader at a time of great growth and development for the Roman church. Christianity was spreading throughout the Mediterranean World, but it was still a small and often persecuted movement made up of satellite churches anchored by the largest congregation in the Eternal City.

Rome was emerging as an important source of leadership at a time when there wasn’t a clear and uniform leadership structure, and the person who served as its bishop was an influential voice. Clement’s appointment to this role around the year AD 91, which saw him writing and responding to crises and conflicts in the Christian world, is why he became the first documented pope.

Around the year AD 96, the church of Corinth had descended into bedlam. What exactly the problem in Corinth was is uncertain, but it is thought that some sort of upheaval had overturned the established leadership of the church known as presbyters. Perhaps it was a younger generation trying to assert itself over the old guard, or maybe a wealthy donor decided that he should have an official position. Whatever the situation, we know it wasn’t the first time that the Corinthian church had been in an uproar, since we know that the Apostle Paul had written at least four letters to the troubled church, with two of them ending up in the New Testament.

The letter that Clement wrote to the Corinthians, known today as his First Epistle, is of great historical value as it is the oldest surviving document written by a pope that just about every scholar agrees is legitimate and actually written by the author to whom it was attributed. This is important because there are many other writings attributed to Clement or others whom scholars have determined were not written by the hand of the supposed author, so to have even this one is a historical miracle.

The letter itself is a lengthy appeal to the Corinthian church to stop their infighting and coalesce around its presbyter leaders, which is itself important because there is still debate today about how much structured leadership there was in the early church. But its true significance is that this letter separates Clement from his semi-mythical predecessors, for which we have no historical evidence, cementing him as the first historical pope.

The letter also shows an important inflection point in the history of Christianity. At the time of its penning it was likely that some of Jesus’s apostles were still alive, and yet the Corinthian church sought out Clement as a mediator. This marks an important transition in church history where authority begins to transition from the apostles to what would become known as the Apostolic Fathers—the next generation of leaders who would help carry on what Jesus and his apostles began.

Unfortunately for Clement, being a leader in the early Christian Church meant almost certain persecution, and he was unable to dodge the power of Rome for long.

Converting Guards in a Black Sea Labor Colony

Clement had the great misfortune to occupy the Papacy during the reign of Roman Emperor Trajan.

While Trajan didn’t outright hunt them, he did make it illegal to practice, and anyone who was accused of the practice and didn’t immediately recant was subject to extreme measures under the law, including execution. Pliny the Younger, who was serving as governor of modern-day Turkey, wrote about how Trajan viewed Christianity as “stubbornness” the same way as a parent might view the actions of a rebellious teenager, but the consequences were severe.

While there were no massive purges like under Nero, Trajan did put several prominent church leaders on trial. Ignatius, the bishop of Antioch, was thrown to wild animals in the Colosseum.

Clement, being the leader of the church of Rome, was also rounded up but, according to apocryphal accounts, was not executed, instead finding himself banished to the edge of the Roman world in Crimea, where he was forced to labor in the stone quarries near the main Roman naval base at Chersonesus.

Again, the evidence to support even the existence of quarrying activity in the area during the reign of Trajan and the life of Clement is dubious at best, but the reality of such a sentence would have been nothing short of Hell on Earth.

Working in a stone quarry was backbreaking and dangerous labor that took place for long hours with little in the way of food or water. It would have stretched Clement’s physical and mental faculties to the breaking point. But if the emperor thought this would diminish Clement’s influence, he was mistaken.

Soon after arriving in the remote outpost, Clement began a new spiritual quest. According to legendary accounts, he ministered to both the prisoners and the guards, converting many despite the seriousness of his sentence. Tales of his miraculous work, including how he was able to produce a spring for the thirsty laborers, won him many converts and are still told in the area to this day.

Because of this work, Clement is one of the only popes to have churches dedicated to him in what would one day become part of the Eastern Orthodox Church. But as his new congregation grew, so did the ire of the local Roman governor, who saw that exile had done little to stymie Clement’s influence. This led to the most well-known and brutal chapter of Clement’s life—his martyrdom.

The Brutal Drowning of Pope Clement

Legend has it that in an effort to remove his influence for good, the Emperor Trajan ordered that Clement be tied to an iron anchor and thrown into the Black Sea. This was not just meant to end his life and terrify any other members of the Church who witnessed it, but to place his body beyond the reach of any other members of the church so that his relics could not become focal points for continued worship.

Today, the symbol of the anchor itself has become a focal point of worship, with some Christians even calling it “the Cross of St. Clement.”

While his martyrdom is an important event in Christian doctrine, there is little real evidence to support it and the oldest sources we have on Clement’s life don’t mention it. But true or not, thinking that Clement’s bones were lost forever beneath the waves turned out to be a grave miscalculation.

Hunting for Submerged Bones in the 9th Century

Around the 9th century, a former Imperial governor turned Christian monk and his brother were doing missionary work among the Khazars of southern Russia. These two men would themselves one day be venerated as St. Methodius and St. Cyril and are best known for their instrumental work in the formation of the alphabet used in Russia today.

While doing this work, they claimed they were able to recover the remains of Clement and bring them back to Rome, where they were enshrined in the Basilica di San Clemente. Other sources insist that some of his relics, including his head, remain in what is today Ukraine or were taken to Spain.

Regardless of the amount of his story founded on myth, Clement remains one of the most important figures in the early Christian church because, unlike many of his contemporaries, his writing helps provide a reliable bridge between legend and historical reality.

World War II showed that not all air wars involve sleek fighters and bristling bombers like the Focke-Wulf, Spitfire, and Thunderbolt. The vital, unglamorous roles fell to aircraft like the C-47 Skytrain, a plane with a decades-long lifespan.

How Engineers Transformed a Civilian Airliner in Just Two Months

The C-47’s design came from the productive mind of Douglas Aircraft’s chief engineer, Ed Heinemann. Adapted by Heinemann from the civilian DC-3 airliner in October 1941, the military version took to the skies two months later. This showed the basic airframe’s adaptability. The C-47’s roots began in 1935 with the DC-3’s first flight. Heinemann modified the DC-3 to handle the rough life of military transport.

With production started, the C-47 immediately began showing its usefulness. Built with clever features like a large cargo door, winch, and hoist, the C-47 easily moved people and supplies. The plane was used in all World War II theaters, usually for cargo transport. It also towed gliders, transported troops, and performed medical evacuations. Its rugged airframe and reinforced landing gear meant the C-47 could land on unprepared airfields.

How C-47s Dropped Thousands of Paratroopers on D-Day and Beyond

On July 9, 1943, the C-47’s big debut came with Operation Husky. Flying from North African bases, 370 Skytrains dropped thousands of Allied paratroopers into Sicily. C-47s were also used on D-Day, dropping three divisions of paratroopers and towing gliders over the invasion beaches. 

The C-47’s finest moments came with the September 1944 Operation Market Garden and the March 1945 Operation Varsity. Few losses came from flak or enemy fighters. In fact, Operation Varsity deployed the greatest number of aircraft in an airborne operation. 1,500 Skytrains dropped 40,000 paratroopers over the Rhine into Germany.

How the Goony Bird Conquered the Himalayas and the Pacific

The C-47 also operated in Southeast Asia and the Pacific theaters. In Europe, planes needed performance and reliability; the range became equally important here. The India-China Airlift of 1942-1945 would show the C-47’s range. 

The Airlift resulted from Japan closing nearly all supply lines to China in World War II. The Allies organized the Airlift to keep Nationalist China supplied. Getting supplies there meant flying over the Himalayas’ 14,000-foot heights in awful weather. These trips got called “The Hump.” 

The C-47’s three-ton payload proved only adequate. By mid-1943, the C-46 Commando’s superior ceiling, power, and range made it the primary transport. Despite this, the C-46’s great complexity and the C-47’s great numbers kept the Skytrain more popular. The Skytrain, nicknamed the Goony Bird, contributed to all the major Pacific War campaigns in Guadalcanal, New Guinea, and Okinawa. 

How the C-47 Rescued Berlin and Served in the Cold War

The end of World War II didn’t mean the end for the C-47, and its versatility prolonged its service life even as four-engine transports like the C-130 Hercules emerged.

The 1948 Berlin Crisis happened when the Soviet Union blockaded all routes into and out of Berlin. Britain and America responded with an airlift, bringing in necessary supplies like coal or food. The C-47 Skytrain got there first, being readily available. As the Crisis leveled off, the Skytrain’s three-ton capacity hampered it. Four-engine models, like the C-54, replaced their smaller competitors to keep up. Nevertheless, the C-47 again showed its versatility. 

During the Korean War in 1950, the C-47 flew again. With United Nations air dominance, Skytrains flew at night over North Korean and Chinese lines, dropping leaflets and broadcasting propaganda. Others dropped illumination flares at night to help UN troops fighting.

How the Lethal “Puff the Magic Dragon” Reinvented the Aircraft for Vietnam

In 1964, the C-47 served again, 25 years after its debut. C-47s used in Vietnam received the nickname “Puff the Magic Dragon.” Needing fire support, C-47s carried three six-barreled miniguns out the side. These deadly guns spat up to 6,000 rounds a minute, which looked like a dragon’s fire. Again, the C-47 showed how it could be used in nearly any role. Officially dubbed the AC-47, American troops felt reassured when “Puff” flew overhead, ready to fight.

Why This World War II Legend Is Still Flying Today

The US sent hundreds of C-47s to its Allies during and after World War II; others were sold to civilians. They, too, used the Skytrain’s adaptability. In the final task, a number flew as water bombers into the 1980s. Some even fly today, upgraded with new engines or electronics. Not bad for an airplane that started life in 1940.

Historian Gordon S. Wood asserts that the American Revolution, “made the interests and prosperity of ordinary people—their pursuits of happiness—the goal of society and government.” Nonetheless, histories of this earth-shattering epoch often concentrate on the contributions of largely upper-class statesmen and generals, often ignoring the contributions of the ordinary people who made the American Revolution possible in the first place. Jonas Green was one of these ordinary people, rising from humble origins to become the official printer of Maryland, and igniting revolution in Maryland by opposing the Stamp Act.

The Rise to Printing Prominence

Jonas Green seemed destined to be a printer. His grandfather, Samuel Green, was once the lead newspaperman of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and his father, Timothy Green, worked as a printer in Boston before becoming Connecticut’s public printer shortly after his son’s birth in 1712. Learning the printing business in his youth, Green worked for the Boston printing firm Kneeland and Green in the early 1730s, then as a journeyman printer for Andrew Bradford in Philadelphia from 1736 to 1737. Opportunity would soon call from Maryland, with Green beginning to print proclamations for the colony in November 1737 while he was still in Philadelphia. Maryland’s governor, Samuel Ogle, was impressed with Green’s skills, and the Maryland Assembly made Green the colony’s official printer in April 1738. Shortly after marrying Anne Catherine Hoof, he settled in Annapolis and began printing there.

Green soon became active in Annapolis cultural and civic affairs, reviving The Maryland Gazette in 1745. The weekly newspaper informed the public on civic, military, religious, and social affairs, served as a forum for political debate, and also added to Annapolis’s cultural scene through its inclusion of poems, essays, treatises, and literary criticism. Jonas Green’s aim was not mere profit, believing the press to be instrumental in informing the body politic, foreshadowing his principled stance against the Stamp Act.

Green explained his intentions with The Maryland Gazette in his first issue: “Our intent therefore is to give the public a weekly account of the most remarkable occurrences, foreign and  domestic, which  from time to time come to our Knowledge; having always a principal regard to such articles is nearest concern to the American plantations in general and the province of Maryland in particular, ever observing the strictest Justice and with in relation of facts and the utmost disinterestedness and impartiality in points of controversy.”

“Improver and Encourager of Wit”: What Made Jonas Green Unique

Green had several distinct advantages that set him apart from many of the printers of colonial America. Firstly, there was the business acumen of his spouse, Anne Catherine Hoof Green. Born in 1720 in the Netherlands, Anne had the business skills that supported their large family. Green’s social activities in the city drained his earnings, and it was Anne’s decision to sell raisins, chocolate, and coffee from their shop that kept the family afloat. Anne’s skill in business was further revealed after her husband’s death, beginning with a successful campaign to secure payment from over a thousand of her husband’s debtors, as well as relocating her supplies and printing shop closer to the Green home in order to fulfill both her domestic and business duties more easily. Succeeding her husband as Maryland’s official printer, Anne was one of the only female newspaper owners in the Thirteen Colonies.

Green also benefited from a charmingly extroverted personality, as evidenced by his membership in the Tuesday Club, an intellectual club for men of wit, where he was known as the life of the party. The club’s founder, Alexander Hamilton (a local physician, not to be confused with the 1st secretary of the treasury) described him: “This gentleman is of a middle stature inclinable to fat, round-faced, small lively eyes, from which from two oriental portals, incessantly dart the dawning rays of wit and humor with a considerable mixture of the amorous leer, in his countenance he wears a constant smile having never been once seen to frown.”

Describing Green as an “Improver and encourager of wit,” Hamilton also attested to Green’s social aptitude: “for were there 50 clubs in the place, he’d be a member of every one of them.” While Green was very active in the Tuesday Club, known as the official purveyor, punster, punchmaker, general printer and poet (P. P. P. P. P. for short), he was also an avid Freemason and active in politics, becoming a councilman in 1755 and rising to the rank of alderman in 1767.

Green also benefited from an attribute shared by many other luminaries of the Enlightenment, an interest in science, noting the appearance of the Aurora Borealis in one of his first issues and covering topics including entomology in others. In the same months, Green reported on the bloody battles being fought in the ongoing Seven Years’ War. The 18th century was characterized by an enlightened pursuit of science as well as immense blood spilled around the world in the pursuit of imperial ambitions. Green reported on both with equal vigor.

Green also revealed his writing skill through poetry, presenting a number of poems in the Tuesday Club, including this section of an ode presented to the club’s president:

“Rejoice with me Rejoice

join with melodious voice

You jovial streams, you Mountain Hills and rocks

Ye fertile Plains, ye fountains, rills, ye  flocks

ye sweet and Flowery Lawns,

that when the morning dawns

With Orient pearly drops of dew,

Your odors on the day renew.”

Green also authored conundrums that would be read at each Tuesday Club meeting, and several of Green’s annual odes were put to music. Green even managed to have one of his poems, an ode for the year 1750, published in The Gentlemen’s Magazine of London—the capital of the colony and the capital of the empire were in agreement on Green’s literary talent.

Green’s membership in the Tuesday Club should not be construed as simply an extension of his extroverted personality, for the Tuesday Club was not merely a club for men about town, but an essential building block of the burgeoning American identity. The Tuesday Club was a uniquely American endeavor that mocked the pretensions of the European aristocracy and was open to all classes. The Club allowed a broader group to contribute to Annapolis’s cultural milieu, blurring class lines and reflecting the upward mobility of American society. Green’s membership in the club should be considered as revolutionary as his later opposition to the Stamp Act.

Jonas Green, Revolutionary

By the time of the Stamp Act, Green had run The Maryland Gazette for two decades, his beautiful prose, social aptitude, scientific interest, and wife’s business expertise serving him well. But he put it all on the line for the sake of political principle. Green was radicalized by a British levy passed on almost every item made from paper, including newspapers, passed in order to alleviate the debts incurred during the Seven Years’ War. He feared that the act would put his paper out of business and began to protest against it by reporting on opposition to the act throughout the colonies.

In August, Green reprinted a denunciation of the Stamp Act from the New York Gazette, written by an “unknown worthy writer” whom Green described as “a lover of Justice, and a friend to his Country.” Matters came to a head later that month when Maryland’s official stamp distributor, Zachariah Hood, arrived in Annapolis and was promptly burned in effigy in front of the state house. September would see Hood fall into greater danger when the frame house he was renting was torn down by an angry mob, prompting the frightened Hood to leave for New York. Green gave a short summary of the violence: “A number of people unknown assembled in this town and pulled down a house lately rented by a certain unwelcome officer.”

While Green had played a pivotal role in demonstrations against the Stamp Act, historian Jane Wilson McWilliams speculates that Green’s sparse retelling of the ransacking of Hood’s dwelling was due to a guilty realization that his months of lambasting the Act had indirectly caused the mob’s violence. Political violence motivated by opposition to the Stamp Act was becoming increasingly common in the Colonies. August saw the home of Andrew Oliver, Massachusetts’s official stamp distributor being ransacked in Boston. Deborah Franklin was forced to brandish a musket from the second story of her home in Philadelphia in response to an angry mob that blamed her husband, Benjamin Franklin, for failing to prevent the Stamp Act. However, while these protests were of a violent nature, they expanded the realm of political action beyond the propertied elite; it was Annapolis’s tradesmen who paraded through the streets burning the stamp collector in effigy, not its aristocrats.

Green’s words would turn into action, with the printer eventually shutting down his paper in protest. In early October 1765, Green printed on the Gazette’s first page: “The Maryland Gazette expiring in hopes of a Resurrection to life again.” Green went on to note “We are sorry, heartily sorry to quit the public in general and our good customers in particular but this Gazette will no longer be published (for some time) for reasons already given, which cannot be but known.” In the aftermath of the decision, Green continued to print the Gazette through several “supplements,” craftily avoiding the British tax by not publishing a new edition.

December saw Green bring the wit he had used in the Tuesday Club to political discourse, describing his paper as a ghost rising from the grave after being slain by British tyranny in An Apparition of the late Maryland Gazette. However, the Maryland Gazette would soon “resurrect” as Green had hoped, with the disappearance of the stamp collector, who was found destitute in the Caribbean, virtually nullifying the Stamp Act in Maryland. In January 1766, he made yet another name change, to The Maryland Gazette, Reviving. Green’s paper would revert to its old name and numbering in March.

News of the Stamp Act’s repeal would reach Maryland in late May, and Green joyously described the celebration: “After Breaking up of the Assembly, on Tuesday evening last, the several branches of the Legislature met in the Council House, where the Loyal and Patriotic toasts were Drank, the Guns at the Dock at the same Time Firing, and other demonstrations of Joy shown, on account of the IMPORTANT NEWS OF The STAMP ACT being Repealed.”

Green’s Legacy

Green would die less than a year after the Stamp Act’s repeal, with the Gazette containing a notice on April 16, 1767, that he had died the previous Saturday at the age of fifty-five. Succeeding her late husband as the colony’s official printer, Anne proved herself as much of an advocate of American liberty as Green, informing her readers of events such as the Boston Tea Party and the protests against the Intolerable Acts throughout 1774.

However, like her late husband, Anne would never see the revolution she helped ignite, dying a month before the battles of Lexington and Concord. The paper was then ably managed by her son Frederick, who continued the family’s support for the patriot cause, though production was suspended from 1777 to 1779 due to the shortage of paper caused by the British occupation of Philadelphia. Publication resumed on April 30, 1779, this time run by both Samuel and Frederick Green, who continued the paper’s publication until their deaths in 1811. Samuel’s son Jonas continued his grandfather’s legacy until the end of the paper in 1839.

Thomas Jefferson once wrote to a friend about the importance of the fourth estate to American life: “Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost. To the sacrifice, of time, labor, fortune, a public servant must count upon adding that of peace of mind and even reputation.” Green fit Jefferson’s ideal, a public servant dedicating his time, labor, and fortune to informing the public through The Maryland Gazette, with his social aptitude, writing ability, and interest in science serving him well.

But while Green was a man of many talents, frugality was not one of them. While his extroverted nature served him well as Maryland’s official printer, it was also a double-edged sword, often driving the Green family into debt. His business would have failed if not for his wife’s business savvy. Though The Maryland Gazette flourished for decades, Green put all of that success on the line by protesting the Stamp Act. Through this opposition to British taxes, Green helped light the flame of revolution in Maryland, though he would not live to see the result. Nonetheless, the efforts of Jonas Green and his successors show the importance of the press in shaping American politics and culture.

Further Reading

• Hamilton, Dr. Alexander. History of the Ancient and Honorable Tuesday Club. Vol. 1. University of North Carolina Press, 1990.
• Jane Wilson McWilliams. Annapolis, City on the Severn: A History. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011.
• Lemay, J. A. Leo. Men of Letters In Colonial Maryland. The University of Tennessee Press, 1972.
• Wood, Gordon S. The Radicalism of the American Revolution. Vintage Books, 1991.

The fight to end slavery was a centuries-long battle, and its location was primarily the Atlantic Ocean. With Great Britain outlawing the slave trade in 1807, it would go on to use its navy to end the crime for good.

Great Britain’s Heavy Expansion of the Transatlantic Slave Trade

Beginning in the 15th century, the Transatlantic Slave Trade devastated an untold number of lives, with millions of West Africans being kidnapped and sold into slavery. With the 1619 arrival of enslaved Africans to the colony of Virginia, Great Britain began its own large-scale enslavement of Africans in the New World. 

As Great Britain’s territory increased, so too did its need for slave labor. The slave trade in West Africa worsened as more and more slaves were needed to work on colonial plantations 

British Abolitionists Forced Parliament to Outlaw the Slave Trade

While slavery had become an ingrained way of life in Great Britain and its colonies, there were still those who stood against it. Beginning in the early 18th century, numerous religious groups such as the Quakers and Evangelical denominations opposed slavery on moral grounds. They were not alone in their stance, as the institution of slavery began to be attacked more and more as the 18th century progressed.

The Christian convert John Newton famously condemned his past profession as a slave trader and spoke out against the cruelty of the practice. The formerly enslaved individuals Ottobah Cugoano and Olaudah Equiano helped form the Abolitionist ‘Sons of Africa’ group in 1787. Composed of Black Britons, the group worked to begin the process of ending the enslavement of Africans. The writer Ignatius Sancho, the businessman Josiah Wedgwood, and the politician Thomas Clarkson all stood as fierce opponents to slavery and worked to spread awareness of the inhumanity of the institution.

By the dawn of the 19th century, the British abolitionist movement began to achieve successes. Organizations such as the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade had begun to turn public opinion against slavery. Where politicians were once able to outright ignore the issue of slavery, they were now forced to confront the matter head-on due to the abolitionist movement’s relentless pressure on the issue. On February 23, 1807, after many attempts to take on the issue of slavery had been shot down in Parliament, success was finally achieved. William Wilberforce’s Slave Trade Act passed, outlawing slave trading in the Atlantic.

The Royal Navy Deployed Ships to Blockade Atlantic Slavers

While passing the bill was a major achievement, it did not immediately change the global landscape. Even though it was now illegal to import new slaves, slavery was still legal in British colonies in the Caribbean. Furthermore, slave traders from neighboring countries continued to trade unhindered. To enforce its ban on the slave trade, Great Britain turned to its renowned navy. The recent victors at Trafalgar would now be tasked with taking on slave traders.

Dubbed the West Africa Squadron, a detachment of ships was sent to the Atlantic to patrol for slave traders. Composed mostly of British sailors, its members also included Kran and Kru tribesmen who worked as freemen on board the ships. The Kru people were known for their excellent maritime ability, while the Kran had a reputation as being among the finest traders in West Africa. Both of their skill sets would be needed to help British sailors prevent slave traders from reaching their goals. While the West Africa Squadron’s initial task was to apprehend British merchants who were ignoring the law, their role soon evolved into putting a stop to the slave trade as a whole. 

The West Africa Squadron faced a daunting task. Sailors had to patrol incredible distances in the Atlantic and faced exposure to deadly tropical diseases. Furthermore, the slave traders that they pursued had no problems with skirting the law to avoid detection. They planned routes to break through the squadron undetected; they often flew an American flag in the hopes of deterring an inspection, and would resort to dumping their slaves in the ocean if boarding was imminent. Oftentimes, slave traders had the support of their home governments, who refused to crack down on their actions, and would even support them legally if they were caught. The great distance they had to cover, along with a lack of cooperation, made the West Africa Squadron ineffective in its early years. For the most part, they were unable to significantly disrupt the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

Despite these challenges, the Royal Navy did not give up. It continued with its mission, aggressively pursuing slave trading ships regardless of what flag they flew. By the mid-19th century, the situation began to improve. The Royal Navy’s introduction of steamships made its patrols more effective. Furthermore, the British government could pressure foreign governments to cease these activities. With the start of the American Civil War in 1861, and the cooperation of the American Navy in enforcing the ban on slave trading, it was clear that victory was finally at hand.

The West Africa Squadron Seized 1,600 Ships and Freed 100,000 Captives

In 1867, the West Africa Squadron retired from its mission. Although it could not completely combat the slave trade during its time, it still made a difference. During its almost 60 years on patrol, the squadron seized 1,600 ships and helped to liberate an estimated 100,000 Africans.

In October 732 AD, Charles Martel confronted the advancing armies of the Umayyad Caliphate near Tours and Poitiers in a battle with far-reaching consequences for Western Europe. Facing experienced cavalry forces moving north from Iberia, Martel relied on disciplined Frankish infantry formations which could withstand sustained assaults. Martel’s victory checked further Umayyad expansion into Frankish territory while simultaneously strengthening his political authority, laying the foundations for the emergence of the Carolingian empire.

The Fracture of Post-Roman Western Europe

The fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 AD created a power vacuum that was filled by various Germanic speaking tribes such as the Franks, Goths, Vandals, and Anglo-Saxons who claimed suzerainty over the former provinces of Gaul, Hispania, and Britannia.

Hailing from the lower Rhine in the present-day Netherlands, the Franks had gradually been coalescing to become the preeminent power in the former Roman province of Gaul, expanding their territorial acquisitions under powerful Merovingian kings such as Childeric and his son Clovis I, who subsequently converted to Christianity.

The Merovingians unified most of northern and western Gaul, but stability remained a major issue as various factions typically led by royal offspring or rebellious dukes constantly battled over their various inheritances and territorial claims.

The Merovingian Franks emerged as the prevailing power in western Europe, whose warlike nature forged some of the finest warriors in Europe, constantly combating Visigoths, Burgundians, Lombards, and subduing various other tribes. They would soon be embroiled in conflict with another ascendent power to their south on the opposite side of the Pyrenees.

Islamic armies had been spreading rapidly across three continents in the decades following the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632 AD. By 711, armies from North Africa had crossed the Strait of Gibraltar into the Iberian peninsula and defeated the Visigothic kingdom of Spain.

The larger Umayyad Caliphate absorbed Iberia and utilized its strategic geography as a springboard to conduct further raids and incursions into Francia. The independent duchy of Aquitaine across the border remained particularly vulnerable and beset by Muslim infiltrations, as it was at the nexus of two expansive empires. In the face of the seemingly unstoppable Islamic armies, Duke Odo the Great of Aquitaine sought military assistance from his Frankish rivals.

How Charles Martel Built a Formidable Medieval Army

Charles Martel was previously mayor of the palace to the king, a powerful political office in the Merovingian court that enabled its occupant to control the royal treasury and manage military campaigns. Charles emerged as the real authority behind the throne who leveraged his position to become the most powerful official in Francia and an exceptional military commander.

Cognizant of the growing Umayyad threat, Charles proposed crucial reforms that recognized the shortcomings of the existing system of temporary customary Frankish levies in confronting the highly mobile Muslim armies. He would first need to unify the incessantly warring Frankish factions.

Charles consolidated his power base in Austrasia in northeastern Gaul, confiscating and redistributing ecclesiastical property in order to finance his ambitious reforms. He made several improvements to the army such as by outfitting his infantry with high-quality armor and emphasizing stronger discipline through the defensive tactics of the shield wall. Every free Frankish household was to provide at least one male for Charles’ army. Charles successfully managed to unite the Franks into a cohesive and deadly European force ready to resist the onslaught of Islamic armies.

The Clash at Tours and the Triumph of Heavy Infantry

In October 732 the Governor of Umayyad Spain Abd Rahman Al-Ghafiqi led a large force estimated at 25,000 men into the Frankish lands consisting mostly of cavalry north from Iberia and across the Pyrenees. Rather than an army of conquest, modern historians now believe that this was a large raiding force intent on plundering wealthy monasteries and churches across the country.

His soldiers consisted of Berbers, Syrian Arabs, and recent Visigothic converts to Islam. Many were familiar with the terrain having raided Aquitaine for years and returning with valuable plunder and slaves. This was a battle-hardened force as Muslim armies of the 8th century fought against one another as frequently as they clashed with European Christians.

The Muslim army proceeded north toward the River Loire as Charles gathered his force to intercept them, moving rapidly via the old Roman roads which still traversed Gaul.

Charles established a defensive position on a hillside near the junction of the rivers Clain and Vienne somewhere between the cities of Tours and Poitiers in northern Aquitaine, positioning themselves directly in the path of the advancing Umayyads who appeared to be taken by surprise by such a large force. The armies roughly maintained numeric parity with the key distinction being the horse versus foot composition between the Muslims and the Franks.

The two armies engaged in a weeklong standoff, with only brief skirmishing occurring. The Umayyads waited for their full strength to materialize as their speedy foray into Francia had overstretched their forces. The cooling autumn weather was beginning to negatively affect the Muslim soldiers, many of whom were accustomed to living and fighting in warmer regions.

As the Umayyads advanced northward, Charles arrayed his force in a static phalanx formation blocking the main road to Tours. The strength of the Franks lay in their tactical cohesiveness and ability to endure cavalry charges by elite Muslim cavalrymen.

Finally, on Saturday October 10, Abd Rahman Al-Ghafiqi ordered his cavalry to charge the Frankish lines. The Frankish infantry resolutely fended off their repeated attacks. One Arab chronicler described the Frankish shield wall “as a sea which could not be moved.” Charles’ armor-clad disciplined force successfully absorbed the shock of cavalry charges and proved superior in close quarter combat.

The Umayyad forces wheeled in retreat when news arose that Frankish forces were threatening their camp, and Abd Rahman Al-Ghafiqi was killed during the ensuing rout. The Muslims withdrew that night stunned but remained in good order and withdrew beyond the Pyrenees.

Why the Victory at Tours Reshaped European History

Following the Battle of Tours, Charles earned the sobriquet Martel from Martellus, the Latin word for hammer. His triumph against the Umayyads limited the Islamic forces to the Iberian peninsula, though smaller scale raids would continue. While the significance of Martel’s victory has been questioned by modern historians, it has traditionally been considered a decisive turning point in European history, halting the relentless advance of Islam and affirming the Christian identity of Europe.

The duchy of Aquitaine retained its independence and gradually established closer ties with the Franks. Charles continued to further integrate the Frankish kingdom, laying the groundwork for his son Pepin to overthrow the Merovingians and become the first Carolingian king of Francia.

Charles Martel’s grandson Charlemagne would reach new heights by conquering the Lombard kingdom of northern Italy and becoming crowned the first Holy Roman Emperor in Rome by Pope Leo III in 800 AD, ruling over a vast stretch of Western Europe that had been disunited since the end of the Roman Empire. As a result, Charlemagne left behind an even greater legacy than his grandfather as the “Father of Europe.”

Horoscopes were more than an amusing pastime in post-medieval Europe. They were seen as true testaments of science and God’s will. The problem with horoscopes is that while they were used to predict auspicious dates or the sex of a child, they could also be used as loaded weapons. If horoscopes were taken as fact, they would justify political coups, economic upheavals, and give assassins whatever clearance they needed to murder a monarch.

To cast a horoscope to predict a ruler’s death was considered treasonous, so during the reign of Elizabeth I, she made a law making it a capital offense to cast a horoscope to find the death date of herself. Later English monarchs passed laws to make it illegal to do the same.

The Weaponization of Celestial Mechanics

Medieval astronomy and astrology were one and the same. They were a married science that believed the universe was a clean, predictable geocentric system controlled by God’s will. It was deeply interwoven with mathematics to divine the future. However, when there was political upheaval in the land, astrology was used as a means to predict the monarch’s death.

These horoscopes encouraged domestic rebellions and political coups under the belief that they were acting on God’s will. It was also bad economically to predict a monarch’s demise, because merchants would hoard goods, raise prices, international trade would stop, and peasants would be forced to bear the brunt of fallout. Unhappy peasants meant they would augment rebellion.

How Predicting a Royal Death Became High Treason

A well-known example of horoscopes being used to divine a monarch’s death was during the reign of Elizabeth I. Elizabeth was a Protestant queen, which rankled the ire of British Catholics. Catholic factions wanted a sympathetic sovereign, so they cast horoscopes for Elizabeth’s death so they could replace her with Mary Queen of Scots. These horoscopes would be used as justification for assassination plots or political coups against the queen.

As a result, Elizabeth I enacted the 1581 Statute that criminalized casting a monarch’s horoscopes for nativity and death, making it go from heresy to a high-level felony. Elizabeth’s successor, James I, was so paranoid about the occult that he actually instituted the hunting of astrologers who were bold enough to cast the astrological charts of anyone in the royal family.

Why Roman Emperors Set the Precedent for Banning Horoscopes

While Elizabeth I is a more modern example of how astrology was outlawed, in 11 CE Emperor Augustus was the first to ban using the stars to predict death when his rivals were casting his horoscope to determine when he would die. Emperor Tiberius was another great believer in astrology, but instead of worrying about assassination attempts, he used horoscopes to justify the murder of his political opponents. It wasn’t a surprise when Roman laws were enacted that banned the prediction of a ruler’s horoscope because it was seen as plotting his assassination.  

The Papal Crusade Against Political Divination

Italy was its own bastion of horoscope horrors. Astrologers were keen on predicting the death of cardinals and determining the outcomes of papal elections. They were master manipulators who crashed the Italian economy more than once. Pope Sixtus V was so fed up with Italian astrologers that he made the Coeli et Terrae decree that stripped astrologers of their protections and made judicial astrology heretical. 

Judicial astrology is used to predict the future, while other forms of astrology are used to study how celestial bodies move. It was viewed as demonic to predict the future because it went against God’s doctrine of free will. It became very wild when, in 1631, an astrologer accurately predicted the death of Pope Urban VIII. He wasn’t happy about that.

The Shift From Court Science to State Threat

Johannes Kepler was a firm believer in astrology and set out to prove that it was a true science, but as he studied the skies and used rational mathematics, he learned that the universe was a chaotic place with elliptical orbits. He published his findings in the Rudolphine Tables, which brought physics and astronomy together, and it was one of the beginnings of scientific rationalism against spiritual occultism.

This gave rise to the Enlightenment in the 17th century, when King Louis XIV of France made an edict in 1682 that stopped the prosecution of astrologers. Instead, they were decreed charlatans who would be punished with lighter sentences. Monarchs’ fear of death was one of the reasons, teamed with Johannes Kepler and the Vatican’s Inquisition, that ended astrology’s reign as a science.