History Lass Newsletter

 

The History Lass newsletter comes out weekly.  It contains articles, a book or movie review, history bullet-points, anniversaries, trivia questions and links.

 

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Last week’s Newsletter

 

This issue is the first issue and is being sent out four days early.  Usually, History Lass, will be sent out on a Monday.  The next issue is due Monday 20th February 2006.

 

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In this issue:

Trivia Questions

Main article:  Calamity Jane
Other articles up at website:
History bullet-points:  Captain Cook, Martin Luther and Banjo Patterson.
Review:  Little House on the Prairie (2004 mini series)
Anniversaries this week:
Links

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Trivia Questions (answers at the bottom of the ezine)

1.  What was the first daily newspaper in England?

2.  Which king founded the Order of the Garter in 1350?

3.  Who was the first wife of Henry VIII?

4. Where did the massacre of the Macdonald clan take place?

5. Which event does the nursery rhyme, "Ring a Rong o' Roses' refer to ?

 

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Main article: 

Calamity Jane
by Liz Palmer

Calamity Jane was born Martha Jane Canary in 1852, Princeton, Missouri.  In 1865, she moved to Montanna with her family, but by 1867 she had become an orphan.  During the trip, she became a sharp shooter and good rider.
 
She worked as a scout with Custer when she was 18, and began the habit of wearing men’s clothing.  She also gained a reputation as being a woman who could out-swear and out-spit any man.  She also worked as a bullwhacker and a pony express rider.
 
In 1876, she settled in Deadwood, after travelling there in Charlie Utter’s wagon train.  Wild Bill Hickock was also in Utter’s wagon train, and this may have been where the two met.  After Wild Bill Hickock was shot, Calamity Jane claimed that the two of them had been married and that the daughter she had given up for adoption was Wild Bill’s.  However, this seems unlikely as Wild Bill was recently married.
 
Despite dressing, swearing and spitting as a man, it seems Calamity Jane did have a tender streak (and also a very brave one).  While in Deadwood, she nursed people that had smallpox.  She also saved the lives of six passengers aboard a stagecoach while they were being chased by Indians.  It is claimed that she got the nickname “Calamity Jane” after rescuing the life of Captain Egan while he was in a fight with Indians.
 
In 1885, Calamity Jane married Clinton Burke.  They had a daughter in 1887.  But the marriage did not last and they were formally separated in 1895.
 
She then became part of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show and attracted the attention of the public and the media.  However, her drinking became a problem and eventually she was fired for drunkenness.
 
Before Calamity Jane’s death, she asked that she be buried next to Wild Bill Hickock.  She died from complications related to pneumonia in 1903 and, as requested, was buried next to Wild Bill in Mount Moriah Cemetary, Deadwood.   
 
Calamity still attracts the attention of the public.  She has made an appearance in many books and movies.  Calamity Jane, starring Doris Day, is probably one of the most famous (if the least historically accurate) of these.  Calamity Jane is also a character in the HBO television show, Deadwood.


Other articles:
The Hidden History of St Valentine's Day (http://oocities.com/historylass/valentine.htm)
Needlepoint Through the Ages (http://oocities.com/historylass/needlepoint.htm)


Would you like to see your article here?

If you have an article that you believe would be a good fit for History Lass, send it to palmer19@grapevine.com.au  Although I cannot pay for articles, I can include your byline on the website and on the newsletter and you can also submit a short ad for the ezine.

 

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History bullet-points:

 

Captain Cook

  • Captain James Cook was born in Yorkshire in 1728.
  • In 1755, he enlisted in the British Royal Navy.
  • He mapped Quebec and the coast of Newfoundland.
  • He was put in charge of a voyage to observe the Transit of Venus which set sail in 1768, aboard the Endeavour.
  • Once they had observed the Transit of Venus, Cook started to look for the southern continent.
  • He circumnavigated New Zealand and the eastern coast of Australia.
  • Cook fed his men with sauerkraut to prevent scurvy.
  • He was the first European to see what is now called the Cook Islands.
  • He tried to find a northwest passage across North America.
  • While in New Zealand, Maoris killed and ate some of his men.
  • Cook was killed in Hawaii, after taking their chief hostage.

Martin Luther

  • Martin Luther was born in Eisleben in 1483.
  • He was descended from the peasantry and often stressed this fact.
  • He was going to study law, but in 1505 he left his studies and entered an Augustinian monastery.
  • He became a monk in 1506 and was ordained in 1507.
  • When he visited Rome, he was shocked by the worldliness of the Roman clergy.
  • In 1512, he took over the chair of biblical theology.
  • He came to believe that Christians are not saved through their efforts, but by the grace of God.
  • In 1517, he published his Ninety-Five Thesis, opposing the selling of indulgences, and nailed it to the door of Castle Church.
  • His teachings were condemned and he was ex-communicated.
  • At the Diet of Worms he was asked to recant, but he refused.

Banjo Paterson

  • Andrew Barton (Banjo) Paterson was born in 1864, near Orange in New South Wales
  • He worked as an article clerk and then became a solicitor.
  • In 1885, he began to published his work in The Bulletin, under the pseudonym of “The Banjo”.
  • In 1895, he published a collection of his work under the name of The Man From Snowy River, one his most popular poems.
  • He was a war correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald during The Boer War, The Boxer Rebellion and World War I.

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Anniversaries this week:

13th February 1542: Katherine Howard (wife of King Henry VIII) was beheaded for treason

13th February 1941: Pencillin was used on a human for the first time

14th February 1779: Captain Cook was killed in Hawaii

14th February 1400: King Richard II died

14th February 1984: Torville and Dean won gold at the Winter Olympics in Sarajevo.

15th February 1942: Singapore fell to Japanese forces.

15th February 1659: The first cheque was signed by Nicholas Vanacker.

16th February 1959: Fidel Castro was sworn in as Prime Minister of Cuba.

16th February 1894: John Wesley Hardin was pardoned, after killing a man for snoring.

17th February 1909: Geronimo died.

17th February 1883: The vacant/engaged toilet door sign was patented.

17th February 1864: Banjo Paterson was born.

18th February 1517: Mary Tudor was born.

18th February 1678: John Bunyan published the first part of A Pilgrim's Progress.

18th February 1546: Martin Luther died.

19th February 1906: Cornflakes went on sale for the first time.

19th February 1855: Bread riots broke out in Liverpool.

19th February 1473: Nicolas Copernicus was born.

20th February 1694: Voltaire was born.

20th February 1437: Scotland's King James I was assassinated.

 

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Links:
Essortment History http://www.essortment.com/history.html
Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
Adam's Museum and House http://adamsmuseumandhouse.org/index.php
Legends of America http://www.legendsofamerica.com/index.html
Outlaw Women http://www.outlawwomen.com/

 

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Review: 

 

Little House on the Prairie (2004 Mini Series)

 

I was a child in the 1980s, and by then I already loved history, so Little House on the Prairie quickly became one of my favourite shows.  It was interesting to see this 2004 version of a story that I had loved as a child.

 

I can't say that it touched me in quite the same way as the original television series, starring Melissa Gilbert, did.  Perhaps that is also because I am a little older.  But I also think it's because the time and the format did not allow me to become as engaged with the characters. 

 

I thought Kyle Chavarria made a great Laura Ingalls.  She had that wonderful cheeky, but adorable, look that Melissa Gilbert also had when she played Laura in the original television series.  And Danielle Chuchran had that 'good and sweet' look that you expect from someone playing Mary.   I did not think Cameron Bancroft, playing Charles Ingalls, and Erin Cottrall, playing Caroline Ingalls, were quite so well casted.  But that may be because I expected them to look like the actors in the original television series.

 

I have never read the books by Laura Ingalls Wilder and so I cannot compare the television series with the books.  I have been meaning to read them for quite some time, but somehow never got around to it.

 

One scene that always stuck in my mind from the original television series, was when Mr Edwards taught Laura how to spit.  I am so glad they kept that in.

 

I found some of the cinematography a bit annoying.  It would frequently focus on one thing, and then move to the focus to another thing, and then blur everything and play some really moving music.  I almost felt as if the director was trying to hard to create a film, instead of just telling a story.  I think when the filming of a movie makes you think about the cameras and the directors, then it is not really doing its job.  I prefer movies and television series (especially one about characters that we already know and love) to sweep you up in the story and make you forget that you are sitting in front of a television screen.  I could never do that with the miniseries.

 

I do think it was a good mini-series, and I would gladly watch it again.  But I am afraid I still prefer the original television series.  I have already made plans to borrow it on DVD.

 

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Trivia Answers

1.  The Daily Courant

2.  Edward III

3.  Glencoe

4. Catherine of Aragon

5. The Great Plague.

 

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