On This Day
1895 – Dreyfus affair: French army officer Alfred Dreyfus is stripped of his rank and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil’s Island.[6]
The Dreyfus affair (French: l’affaire Dreyfus, pronounced [lafɛːʁ dʁɛfys]) was a political scandal that divided the Third French Republic from 1894 until its resolution in 1906. “L’Affaire”, as it is known in French, has come to symbolise modern injustice in the Francophone world,[1] and it remains one of the most notable examples of a complex miscarriage of justice and antisemitism. The role played by the press and public opinion proved influential in the conflict.
The scandal began in December 1894 when Captain Alfred Dreyfus was convicted of treason. Dreyfus was a 35-year-old Alsatian French artillery officer of Jewish descent. He was falsely convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for communicating French military secrets to the German Embassy in Paris, and was imprisoned in Devil’s Island in French Guiana, where he spent nearly five years.
In 1896, evidence came to light—primarily through an investigation instigated by Georges Picquart, head of counter-espionage—which identified the real culprit as a French Army major named Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy. When high-ranking military officials suppressed the new evidence, a military court unanimously acquitted Esterhazy after a trial lasting only two days. The Army laid additional charges against Dreyfus, based on forged documents. Subsequently, Émile Zola’s open letter J’Accuse…! stoked a growing movement of support for Dreyfus, putting pressure on the government to reopen the case.
In 1899, Dreyfus was returned to France for another trial. The intense political and judicial scandal that ensued divided French society between those who supported Dreyfus (now called “Dreyfusards”), such as Sarah Bernhardt, Anatole France, Charles Péguy, Henri Poincaré and Georges Clemenceau, and those who condemned him (the anti-Dreyfusards), such as Édouard Drumont, the director and publisher of the antisemitic newspaper La Libre Parole. The new trial resulted in another conviction and a 10-year sentence, but Dreyfus was pardoned and released. In 1906, Dreyfus was exonerated and reinstated as a major in the French Army. He served during the whole of World War I, ending his service with the rank of lieutenant-colonel. He died in 1935.
The affair from 1894 to 1906 divided France into pro-republican, anticlerical Dreyfusards and pro-Army, mostly Catholic “anti-Dreyfusards”. It embittered French politics and encouraged radicalisation.[2]
1066 – Following the death of Edward the Confessor on the previous day, the Witan meets to confirm Harold Godwinson as the new King of England; Harold is crowned the same day, sparking a succession crisis that will eventually lead to the Norman conquest of England.[1]
Harold Godwinson (c. 1022 – 14 October 1066), also called Harold II, was the last crowned Anglo-Saxon king of England. Harold reigned from 6 January 1066[1] until his death at the Battle of Hastings, fighting the Norman invaders led by William the Conqueror during the Norman conquest of England. His death marked the end of Anglo-Saxon rule over England.
Harold Godwinson was a member of a prominent Anglo-Saxon family with ties to Cnut the Great. He became a powerful earl after the death of his father, Godwin, Earl of Wessex. After his brother-in-law, King Edward the Confessor, died without an heir on 5 January 1066, the Witenagemot convened and chose Harold to succeed him; he was probably the first English monarch to be crowned in Westminster Abbey. In late September, he successfully repelled an invasion by rival claimant Harald Hardrada of Norway in York before marching his army back south to meet William the Conqueror at Hastings two weeks later.
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Born On This Day
1892 – Agnes von Kurowsky, American nurse (d. 1984)[67]
Agnes Hannah von Kurowsky Stanfield (January 5, 1892 – November 25, 1984) was an American nurse who inspired the character “Catherine Barkley” in Ernest Hemingway’s 1929 novel A Farewell to Arms.
Kurowsky served as a nurse in an American Red Cross hospital in Milan during World War I. One of her patients was the 19-year-old Hemingway, who fell in love with her.[1] By the time of his release and return to the United States in January 1919, Kurowsky and Hemingway planned to marry within a few months in America. However, in a letter dated March 7, 1919, she wrote to Hemingway, who was living at his parents home in Oak Park, Illinois, that she had become engaged to an Italian officer. Although Kurowsky did eventually return to the United States, they never met again.[1] Hemingway’s son Jack called the loss of von Kurowsky “the great tragedy” of his father’s early life.[2] Their story is shown in the 1996 film In Love and War where she is portrayed by Sandra Bullock.
Hemingway used his experiences in Italy as the basis for ten short stories. Fictionalized characters based on Kurowsky appear in his short stories “A Very Short Story” (1924) and “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” (1936), as well as his novel A Farewell to Arms.
1883 – Kahlil Gibran, Lebanese-American poet, painter, and philosopher (d. 1931)[97]
Gibran Khalil Gibran (Arabic: جبران خليل جبران, ALA-LC: Jubrān Khalīl Jubrān, pronounced [ʒʊˈbraːn xaˈliːl ʒʊˈbraːn], or Jibrān Khalīl Jibrān, pronounced [ʒɪˈbraːn xaˈliːl ʒɪˈbraːn];[a][b] January 6, 1883 – April 10, 1931), usually referred to in English as Kahlil Gibran[c] (pronounced /kɑːˈliːl dʒɪˈbrɑːn/ kah-LEEL ji-BRAHN),[4] was a Lebanese-American writer, poet and visual artist, also considered a philosopher although he himself rejected the title.[5] He is best known as the author of The Prophet, which was first published in the United States in 1923 and has since become one of the best-selling books of all time, having been translated into more than 100 languages.[d]
Born in a village of the Ottoman-ruled Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate to a Maronite family, the young Gibran immigrated with his mother and siblings to the United States in 1895. As his mother worked as a seamstress, he was enrolled at a school in Boston, where his creative abilities were quickly noticed by a teacher who presented him to photographer and publisher F. Holland Day. Gibran was sent back to his native land by his family at the age of fifteen to enroll at the Collège de la Sagesse in Beirut. Returning to Boston upon his youngest sister’s death in 1902, he lost his older half-brother and his mother the following year, seemingly relying afterwards on his remaining sister’s income from her work at a dressmaker’s shop for some time.
In 1904, Gibran’s drawings were displayed for the first time at Day’s studio in Boston, and his first book in Arabic was published in 1905 in New York City. With the financial help of a newly met benefactress, Mary Haskell, Gibran studied art in Paris from 1908 to 1910. While there, he came in contact with Syrian political thinkers promoting rebellion in Ottoman Syria after the Young Turk Revolution;[7] some of Gibran’s writings, voicing the same ideas as well as anti-clericalism,[8] would eventually be banned by the Ottoman authorities.[9] In 1911, Gibran settled in New York, where his first book in English, The Madman, would be published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1918, with writing of The Prophet or The Earth Gods also underway.[10] His visual artwork was shown at Montross Gallery in 1914,[11] and at the galleries of M. Knoedler & Co. in 1917. He had also been corresponding remarkably with May Ziadeh since 1912.[9] In 1920, Gibran re-founded the Pen League with fellow Mahjari poets. By the time of his death at the age of 48 from cirrhosis and incipient tuberculosis in one lung, he had achieved literary fame on “both sides of the Atlantic Ocean,”[12] and The Prophet had already been translated into German and French. His body was transferred to his birth village of Bsharri (in present-day Lebanon), to which he had bequeathed all future royalties on his books, and where a museum dedicated to his works now stands.
As worded by Suheil Bushrui and Joe Jenkins, Gibran’s life has been described as one “often caught between Nietzschean rebellion, Blakean pantheism and Sufi mysticism.”[9] Gibran discussed different themes in his writings, and explored diverse literary forms. Salma Khadra Jayyusi has called him “the single most important influence on Arabic poetry and literature during the first half of [the twentieth] century,”[13] and he is still celebrated as a literary hero in Lebanon.[14] At the same time, “most of Gibran’s paintings expressed his personal vision, incorporating spiritual and mythological symbolism,”[15] with art critic Alice Raphael recognizing in the painter a classicist, whose work owed “more to the findings of Da Vinci than it [did] to any modern insurgent.”[16] His “prodigious body of work” has been described as “an artistic legacy to people of all nations.”[17]
FYI
By James Clear: 3-2-1: New perspectives, how to improve your thinking, and revising habits
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KINY: Elder shares stories of life, laughter and American Indian health
By Catherine Porter and Vjosa Isai, The New York Times: Canada Pledges $31.5 Billion to Settle Fight Over Indigenous Child Welfare System The government agreed to a landmark settlement to repair the system and compensate those families harmed by it. It potentially ends many years of litigation.
By Frank O’Brien, ARS Technica: The most important computer you’ve never heard of How SAGE jumpstarted today’s technology and built IBM into a powerhouse.
By Sarah Durn, Atlas Obscura: Women Plundered and Swashbuckled With the Best (and Worst) of Them The new book “Pirate Women” uncovers the stories of the women who sailed their way into history, cutlass in hand.
Liz Kislik Associates, Workplace Wisdom Blog: How to Manage Yourself When a Colleague Upsets You with Bullying Remarks
Let’s Grow Leaders: Help your team be more compassionate, courageous, and curious.
By Alaa Elassar, CNN: US Marshals find five missing teenagers in New Orleans during ‘Operation Boo Dat’
By John Sinnott, CNN: Vancouver Canucks assistant equipment manager thanks fan who noticed his melanoma at game against Seattle Kraken. ‘You changed my life’
Good grief!
By Megan Wollerton, C/Net: Kohler’s latest bathroom tech fills the tub for you This technology is designed to turn off the water when it reaches a certain level.
Graphic Packaging International GPHC Announces $600 Million Investment in New Coated Recycled Board Machine
NSFW
Batya Ungar-Sargon, the deputy opinion editor of Newsweek and author of the book “Bad News: How Woke Media Is Undermining Democracy”, joins the show to talk about the degradation of American media, the American left, and how it happened.
Ideas
By Darja Dodu: DIY Sakura Tree
Recipes
By Lena Abraham, Delish: Here’s How To Make A Tuna Melt Even Better Than Your Local Diner The best thing you could possibly do with a can of tuna.
By Homemade on a Weeknight: Crispy Cheesy Chicken Tacos
By Homemade on a Weeknight: Cornbread Skillet Chili
DamnDelicious
RecipeTinEats
- 2024 Ultimate Christmas menu planning guide December 12, 2024Here’s a handy list of my Christmas recipes, organised by make-ahead and reheating suitability, and those best made fresh. Perfect for menu planning, especially alongside the new Christmas recipe index! I thrive on holiday menu planning. It’s like the Olympics of cooking – except less athleticism and more butter! The goal, as always, is a... […]Nagi
- Easy Christmas Cheesecake Slab – no bake! December 6, 2024This no bake Christmas cheesecake is designed for sizzling Aussie summers – no sweating over a hot oven! Designed to serve a crowd, it’s the easiest cheesecake recipe I know yet it still captures all the hallmarks of a beautiful classic baked cheesecake. Decorate with whipped cream, berries and rosemary sprigs for an effortless, pretty... […]Nagi
wikimedia
- Wikimedia Commons picture of the day for December 26 December 26, 2024Picture of the day Khone Phapheng Falls, Si Phan Don, Laos. Located on the Mekong River near the border with Cambodia, at 10.7 kilometres (6.6 mi) wide, it is the widest waterfall in the world.
- Wikimedia Commons picture of the day for December 25 December 25, 2024Picture of the day Nativity of Christ scene from the Kefermarkt Altarpiece. Today is Christmas.
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Stump the Bookseller is a service offered by Loganberry Books to reconnect people to the books they love but can’t quite remember. In brief (for more detailed information see our About page), people can post their memories here, and the hivemind goes to work. After all, the collective mind of bibliophiles, readers, parents and librarians around the world is much better than just a few of us thinking. Together with these wonderful Stumper Magicians, we have a nearly 50% success rate in finding these long lost but treasured books. The more concrete the book description, the better the success rate, of course. It is a labor of love to keep it going, and there is a modest fee. Please see the How To page to find price information and details on how to submit your Book Stumper and payment.
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