1688 – The Immortal Seven issue the Invitation to William (continuing the English rebellion from Rome), which would culminate in the Glorious Revolution.
The Invitation to William was a letter sent by seven notable Englishmen, later named the Immortal Seven, to William III, Prince of Orange, received by him on 30 June 1688 (Julian calendar, 10 July Gregorian calendar). In England a Catholic male heir to the throne, James Francis Edward Stuart, had been born, and the letter asked William to force the ruling king, his uncle and father-in-law James II of England, by military intervention to make William’s Protestant wife Mary, James’s eldest daughter, heir, alleging that the newborn Prince of Wales was an impostor.
The letter informed William that if he were to land in England with a small army, the signatories and their allies would rise up and support him. The Invitation briefly rehashed the grievances against King James. It claimed that the king’s son was supposititious (fraudulently substituted) and that the English people generally believed him to be so.[1] The present consensus is that he was almost certainly their real son. It deplored that William had sent a letter to James congratulating him for the birth of his son, and offered some brief strategy on the logistics of the proposed landing of troops. It was carried to William in The Hague by Rear Admiral Arthur Herbert (the later Lord Torrington) disguised as a common sailor, and identified by a secret code.
The invitation caused William to carry out his existing plans to land with a large Dutch army, culminating in the Glorious Revolution during which James was deposed and replaced by William and Mary as joint rulers. William and Mary had previously asked for such an invitation when William started to assemble an invasion force in April of that year. This request was done through secret correspondence that had been taking place since April 1687, between them and several leading English politicians, regarding how best to counter the pro-Catholic policies of James. William later justified his invasion by the fact that he was invited, which helped to disguise the military, cultural and political impact that the Dutch regime had on England at a time his reign was unpopular and he feared a popular uprising.[2]
The signatories were:
The Earl of Shrewsbury
The Earl of Devonshire
The Earl of Danby
The Viscount Lumley
The Bishop of London (Henry Compton)
Edward Russell
Henry Sydney (who wrote the Invitation)
Of the seven, Danby and Compton were generally considered to be Tories, while the other five signatories were generally seen as Whigs.
1891 – Man Mountain Dean, American wrestler and sergeant (d. 1953)
Man Mountain Dean (June 30, 1891 – May 29, 1953), born Frank Simmons Leavitt, was a professional wrestler of the early 1900s.
Early life
Leavitt was born in New York City, the son of John McKenney Leavitt and Henrietta N. (née Decker) Leavitt. From childhood, Leavitt was above average in size and strength.[1] This led to a lifelong interest in competitive sport, and also enabled him to lie about his age in order to join the Army at the age of fourteen.
While enlisted he saw duty on the Mexico–United States border with John J. Pershing, and was later sent to France where he participated in combat during World War I. Also during this period (1914) he began his wrestling career using the ring name of “Soldier Leavitt”.[1]
Post World War I career
After the war, Leavitt embarked on a career in athletics. Although he played with the New York Brickley Giants of the National Football League from 1919–20, he concentrated most of his efforts on professional wrestling. He competed in the ring for a time under the name “Hell’s Kitchen Bill-Bill” (a “hillbilly” reference which was suggested to him by the writer Damon Runyon) but eventually settled on the moniker of “Stone Mountain”.[1]
Leavitt wrestled with limited success at first, and after an injury took a job as a police officer in Miami, Florida. Here he met his wife, Doris Dean, who also became his manager. At her suggestion, in 1932 he adopted the nickname “Man Mountain” and substituted the more Anglo-Saxon-sounding last name of Dean.[2] At a stocky 5’11” and weighing over 300 pounds, Dean was an imposing figure. He also grew a long, full beard as part of his ring persona.[1] After a successful wrestling tour of Germany which had been booked by his wife, Doris Dean, he was invited to take a job in the UK as stunt-double for Charles Laughton in the movie The Private Life of Henry VIII. This would be the beginning of a subsidiary movie career for Dean, who would appear in various roles in twelve other movies, playing himself in five of them. One of the movies in which he portrayed himself was the Joe E. Brown comedy The Gladiator, a 1938 adaptation of Philip Gordon Wylie’s 1930 novel Gladiator.
Meanwhile, he continued a successful wrestling career, participating altogether in 6,783 professional bouts and commanding fees upwards of $1,500 for each match. In 1940 he retired from the ring to a farm outside of Norcross, Georgia.[1]
Dean ran for a seat in the Georgia House of Representatives in 1938 but withdrew his candidacy, citing discomfort with the political process. During World War II he again joined the Army despite his age, and eventually retired with the rank of master sergeant. In the 1940s he was the First Sergeant of the Military Intelligence Training Center at Camp Ritchie, Md. Afterward he studied at the University of Georgia’s school of journalism. He appeared as a guest on the December 29, 1944 episode of the radio program It Pays to be Ignorant. During the program, broadcast from New York City, Dean gave his weight as 280 pounds (127 kg). Several other wrestlers would go on to use the “Man Mountain” moniker, including Man Mountain Mike and Man Mountain Rock.
Death
Dean died of a heart attack in his home in Norcross, Georgia, aged 61, in 1953,[1] and is buried in Marietta National Cemetery under a military marker bearing his birth name and an erroneous year of birth (1889).
In wrestling
Signature moves
Multiple suplex variations
Double underhook
Northern Lights
Release German
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