Interesting Dead Person of the Day

[houseisland]

Ginger Goodwin: 2004 Miner's Memorial Day

Goodwin at Wikipedia.

May 10, 1887 – 27 July 1918

Albert (Ginger) Goodwin, a good Yorkshire lad, was a major thorn in the side British Columbia's early capitalist robber barons. He was a highly effective, Marxist union rabble-rouser back in those evil days when there were very good causes for union rabble-rousing.

He was initially exempted from military service in WWI because he had black-lung disease from his work in coal mines. His exemption was quickly overturned, probably through political interference.

Goodwin was a pacifist and did not wish to serve in the armed forces, but he probably also realized that conscription for him was a thinly veiled death sentence -- if a German bullet didn't get him...... well ... there was always friendly fire.

Godwin fled into the forest. Eventually a Dominion Police Constable found him and shot him -- the Dominion Police were one of the Federal precursors to the RCMP. There is reasonable likelihood (but no certainty) that his death was a summary political execution. The BC Provincial Police charged the Dominion Constable, but ..... things went nowhere almost immediately.

Goodwin's death provoked Canada's first general strike.

Goodwin now has iconic status as a folk-hero/martyr in Canada's labour movement.

He is still problematic today. When there is a socialist government elected provincially, memorial signs go up and roads are named after Goodwin. When there is a right wing government, signs start to disappear and roads get unnamed.


Further reading:

http://www.biographi.ca/EN/ShowBio.asp?BioId=41525

http://www.mala.bc.ca/~soules/media1...son/ginger.htm


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It is my pure and virtuous heart that
gives me the strength of ten!

[houseisland]

Omar Ibn Said at Wikipedia

ca. 1770–1864

Wikipedia: "Born (ca 1773) in Futa Turo, a region between the Senegal River and Gambia River in West Africa, Omar Ibn Said spent 25 years of his life studying with prominent Muslim scholars in the region. In 1807, he was captured during a military conflict, enslaved and brought to North Carolina, where he remained a slave until his death in 1864."

Ibn Said recorded his own biography in Arabic:

US Consulate General: "The book is the only known autobiography of a slave written while enslaved, and includes a chapter from the Quran, Surat al-Mulk (Dominion). .... The autobiography, considered one of the treasures of antebellum literature, had been missing since the 1920s. It was discovered in an old trunk in Virginia in 1995 and sold at an auction in 1998 to Derrick Beard, a collector of 18th, 19th and 20th century Islamic-American and African-American artifacts. .... The manuscript, Beard said, shows that Islam is not new to America. The autobiography was originally owned by an abolitionist, who wanted to demonstrate that blacks were not inferior, he added."

Wikipedia: "On the surface the document may appear to be tolerant towards slavery. But in fact, Ibn Said begins it with Surat Al-Mulk, a chapter from the Qur'an, which states that only God has sovereignty over human beings."



Further reading:

http://docsouth.unc.edu/nc/omarsaid/menu.html

http://www.interfaithcenter.org/omar.shtml

http://weeklywire.com/ww/07-06-98/boston_feature_1.html


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It is my pure and virtuous heart that
gives me the strength of ten!

[El_Squid]

The most famous of the Caciques (chiefs) of the native Venezuelan tribes, he led an armed resistance to the Spanish Conquistadors, 1530 to 1538. He unified the various tribes in this effort but was doomed to failure against superior weapon technology: matchlocks (arquebuses), steel swords and cavalry. Although the Wikipedia entry states he was slain by the Spaniards, when he charged out of his burning house, the history I learned as a young lad had him choosing to burn to death, rather than surrender.

Guaicaipuro

[houseisland]

Leo Mustonen at BBC

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It is my pure and virtuous heart that
gives me the strength of ten!

[houseisland]

Richard I of England, Richard the Lionheart
at Wikipedia

September 8, 1157 – April 6, 1199

Although born in England, Richard might be regarded as primarily a French King who ruled England. France was his home.

He was tall, blonde, and handsome, and he was well educated. He was a brilliant and fearless military tactician and battlefield soldier. He was, however, a complete failure as an administrator and a diplomat.

Winston Churchill offers this summary: Wikipedia -- "Although a man of blood and violence, Richard was too impetuous to be either treacherous or habitually cruel. He was as ready to forgive as he was hasty to offend; he was open-handed and munificent to profusion; in war circumspect in design and skillful in execution; in politics a child, lacking in subtlety and experience. His political alliances were formed upon his likes and dislikes; his political schemes had neither unity nor clearness of purpose. The advantages gained for him by military genius were flung away through diplomatic ineptitude."

There was also a good probability that Richard was gay. Wikipedia: "Throughout his life preachers were to thunder at him to beware the fate of Sodom, and his marriage does not seem to have ever been consummated. However, he is known to have had at least one illegitimate child."

His involvements in the Crusades brought him fame/notoriety in the Arabic world. He was respected and feared by Saladin. And in popular culture he became something like the archetypal troll or squid lurking under the bridge used to frighten children into obedience. Wikipedia: "Due to his bravery, savagery, and fame ..., Richard became a bit of a bogeyman in the Middle East for centuries after his death. Mothers would occasionally threaten unruly children with the admonition 'King Richard will get you' well into the late 19th century."

His brother John, King John of unjust notoriety, was left holding the bag the for Richard's excesses and his administrative and diplomatic incompetence. John was not a nice guy -- few kings were. But history has been most unfair to him.

Robin Hood does not fit anywhere into the picture.

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It is my pure and virtuous heart that
gives me the strength of ten!

[Platypus]

Joshua Slocum

The first man to sail single-handedly around the world.

"On April 24, 1895, at the age of 51, he departed Boston in his tiny sloop Spray and sailed around the world single-handed, a passage of 46,000 miles, returning to Newport, Rhode Island on June 27, 1898. This historic achievement made him the patron saint of small-boat voyagers, navigators and adventurers all over the world."

Slocum's book at Project Gutenberg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Slocum
http://www.joshuaslocumsocietyintl.org/

Last week, sorting through books from my childhood, I found a "101 Adventure Stories" type book of excerpts from longer books - four are from Slocum's books...

[El_Squid]

Jimmy Angel, a story right out of a Humphrey Bogart movie, complete with daring airplane feats, dense jungles, a crazy old prsopector, smoky bar rooms and a world record discovery. Oh, and a mountain full of gold. He is a legendary figure from my chilhood. He died the year before I was born, but his story was already mythical when I heard it.

http://www.newfrontiersadventures.com/expe/txtjim.html
http://www.jimmieangel.org/lecture1.html

[houseisland]

Billy Bishop at Wikipedia

February 8, 1894 – September 11, 1956

Billy Bishop was a Canadian WWI flying ace. He is interesting in and of himself, but he is also interesting because of the modern epistemological controversy surrounding his fame. Many WWI records, both Allied and German, have been lost. Eyewitnesses are long dead. Bishop had great propaganda value to the allied forces, and there may have been myth building all round. Historical truth is slippery. Bishop served as fighter pilot in WWI, and against all odds he actually survived -- this much is fact. Perhaps the rest doesn't matter and his legend should just be accepted.

Wikipedia: "In 1911, at the age of 17, Billy Bishop entered the Royal Military College of Canada (RMC) in Kingston, Ontario. His parents chose RMC more because his poor marks prevented his attending the University of Toronto than because of any interest in a military career. Bishop failed his first year at RMC in marked contrast to his older brother Worth who had set academic records while he was at RMC."

However, Bishop could fly, and fly well.

Wikipedia: "In March 1917, he was posted to 60 Squadron at Filescamp Farm near Arras, flying the Nieuport 17. At the time the average lifespan of a new pilot in that sector was 11 days."

Wikipedia: "On April 30 Bishop allegedly survived an encounter with Manfred von Richthofen, the Red Baron, and in May he won the Distinguished Service Order for shooting down two planes while being attacked by four others."


Captain Billy Bishop, V.C., of the Royal Flying Corps, in the cockpit of his Nieuport 17 fighter. At the time this photograph was taken in France in August, 1917, he had already shot down 37 German aircraft.

Wikipedia: "By the end of the war, he had 72 air victories, including 55 assessed as "destroyed" with the balance "out of control." In any case, he was recognized as the leading British Empire pilot, and the second-highest ranking Allied ace behind French Lt. René Fonck with 75."

Wikipedia: "His life is depicted in the famous Canadian play, Billy Bishop Goes To War. The play was so successful that it led to Bishop once again becoming a national hero. It also led indirectly to a CBC television documentary called The Kid Who Couldn't Miss, produced by the National Film Board of Canada. The show, based around "mock interviews" with Bishop and others, suggested that Bishop faked his famous attack on the German aerodrome. In one particularly egregious scene, his mechanic claims that the damage to his plane was confined to a small circle in a non-critical area, implying that Bishop had landed his plane off-field, shot the holes in it, and then flew home with claims of damage. In fact his mechanic was his biggest supporter in this issue, and the scene was a complete fabrication."

Further reading:

http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/canada/bishop.html

http://www.billybishop.net/bishop.html

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It is my pure and virtuous heart that
gives me the strength of ten!

[houseisland]

Amor De Cosmos at Wikipedia

August 20, 1825 – July 4, 1897

Amor De Cosmos, born William Alexander Smith, was an eccentric. He was also the founder of one of Canada's first newspapers. He was both a member of the Legislature or British Columbia and the Parliament of Canada, at one time simultaneously. He was instrumental in bringing British Columbia into the confederation of Canada. He also served as premier of British Columbia.

He was a trouble maker, opposed to the appointed privileged and powerful of the time. Wikipedia: "De Cosmos was a liberal reformer cast in the mould of John Locke and John Stuart Mill. He argued passionately for public education, an end to economic and political privileges, and - above all - the institution of responsible government through an elected assembly."

Wikipedia: "Although widely regarded as a stirring orator, effective debater, and a man of great intellectual depth, De Cosmos had always been considered eccentric. Contemporaries paint a portrait of an isolated person (he never married and had few intimate friends) with grandiose manners, prone to public outbursts of tears, and a fierce temper that sometimes degenerated into fist-fights. He had unusual phobias - including a fear of electricity. As he grew older, his eccentricities intensified, he became increasingly incoherent, and by 1895 he was declared of "unsound mind." He died two years later and is buried in Victoria's Ross Bay Cemetery."
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It is my pure and virtuous heart that
gives me the strength of ten!

[NooNoo]

The woman who lost the battle but never knew she won the war - Boudicea

the roman's view

[El_Squid]

The woman who lost the battle but never knew she won the war - Boudicea

the roman's view

Zounds! That site is blocked by Websense, classifying it under "racism and hate". What the ...?

[shamus]

Yeah our filters block it too..'Hate Speech'.

Anywho....
Joseph Pulitzer

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Jump to: navigation, search
Joseph Pulitzer


Joseph "Joe" Pulitzer (April 10, 1847 – October 29, 1911) was a Hungarian-American publisher best known for posthumously establishing the Pulitzer Prizes and (along with William Randolph Hearst) for originating yellow journalism.

Born in Makó, in present-day Hungary, Pulitzer (pronounced "pull-it-sir") sought a military career, but was turned down by the Austrian army for frail health and poor eyesight. He emigrated to the United States in 1864 to serve in the American Civil War. After the war he settled in St. Louis, Missouri, where in 1868 he began working for a German-language daily newspaper, the Westliche Post. He joined the Republican Party and was elected to the Missouri State Assembly in 1869. In 1872, Pulitzer purchased the Post for $3,000. Then, in 1878, he bought the St. Louis Dispatch for $2,700 and merged the two papers, which became the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, which remains St. Louis' daily newspaper. It was at the Post-Dispatch that Pulitzer developed his role as a champion of the common man with exposès and a hard-hitting populist approach.

In 1883 Pulitzer, by then a wealthy man, purchased the New York World, a newspaper that had been losing $40,000 a year, for $346,000 from Jay Gould. Pulitzer shifted its focus to human-interest stories, scandal, and sensationalism. In 1885, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, but resigned after a few months' service; it seemed that politics were not his cup of tea. In 1887, he recruited the famous investigative journalist Nellie Bly. In 1895 the World introduced the immensely popular Yellow Kid comic by Richard F. Outcault, the first newspaper comic printed with color. Under Pulitzer's leadership circulation grew from 15,000 to 600,000, making it the largest newspaper in the country.

The editor of the rival New York Sun attacked Pulitzer in print, calling him in 1890 "The Jew who abandoned his religion". After the move, intended to alienate Pulitzer's Jewish readership, Pulitzer's already failing health deteriorated rapidly, and he left the newsroom, although he continued to actively manage the paper from his vacation retreat in Bar Harbor Maine and his New York mansion.

In 1895, William Randolph Hearst purchased the rival New York Journal, which led to a circulation war. This competition with Hearst, particularly the coverage before and during the Spanish-American War, linked Pulitzer's name with yellow journalism.

After the World exposed a fraudulent payment of $40 million by the United States to the French Panama Canal Company in 1909, Pulitzer was indicted for libeling Theodore Roosevelt and J. P. Morgan. The courts dismissed the indictments, in a victory for freedom of the press.

In 1892, Pulitzer offered Columbia University's president, Seth Low, money to set up the world's first school of journalism. The university initially turned down the money, evidently unimpressed by Pulitzer's unscrupulous character. In 1902, Columbia's new president Nicholas Murray Butler was more receptive to the plan for a school and prizes, but it would not be until after Pulitzer's death that this dream would be fulfilled. Pulitzer left the university $2 million in his will, which led to the creation in 1912 of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, but by then the first school of journalism had been created at the University of Missouri. Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism remains one of the most prestigious in the world.

Joseph Pulitzer died aboard his yacht in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina in 1911. He is interred in the Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx, New York. In 1917, the first Pulitzer Prizes were awarded, in accordance with Pulitzer's wishes.

In 1989 Pulitzer was inducted into the St. Louis Walk of Fame.

Allen Steele wrote an altenative-history description of Pulitzer vainly trying to escape a St. Louis which is being engulfed by the Martian invasion described in H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds. Published in the Kevin J. Anderson's anthology War of the Worlds: Global Dispatches, it depicts Pulitzer as a tragic figure, faced with the relentless advance of the Martians and regretting the arrogance of power which had led him to promote the war with Spain.

[houseisland]

Zounds! That site is blocked by Websense, classifying it under "racism and hate". What the ...?

Yeah our filters block it too..'Hate Speech'.

The Boudicea page itself is just straight Tacitus, nothing untoward at all. One could easily stumble across it doing a search for Boudicea and not realize that the larger site is of a "racialist" nature. Among other things, it offers re-evauluations of Hitler and National Socialism. The general theme is one of racial purity.

It is a little bit scary.

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It is my pure and virtuous heart that
gives me the strength of ten!

[NooNoo]

The Boudicea page itself is just straight Tacitus, nothing untoward at all. One could easily stumble across it doing a search for Boudicea and not realize that the larger site is of a "racialist" nature. Among other things, it offers re-evauluations of Hitler and National Socialism. The general theme is one of racial purity.

It is a little bit scary.

Very scary... I just read a few pages and put one up that seemed more factual than others... eeek

[houseisland]

William Chester Minor (W. C. Minor) at BBC


Minor at Wikipedia

June 1834–March 26, 1920

Minor, an ex-American Army Surgeon who saw Civil War service, was one of the major contributors to the first Oxford English Dictionary. He made his anonymous contributions while he was a patient/prisoner at an early British psychiatric hospital; he was a paranoid schizophrenic, who had murdered an innocent man in London, while suffering delusions. His story and that of his victim are particularly tragic.

Further reading:

http://www.bikwil.com/Vintage14/Will...ter-Minor.html

http://www.crimelibrary.com/notoriou...nor/index.html

Recommended reading:



The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary US/Canadian Title

The Surgeon of Crowthorne: A Tale of Murder, Madness and the Love of Words UK Tiltle


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It is my pure and virtuous heart that
gives me the strength of ten!