1607 – The Flight of the Earls takes place in Ireland.
The Flight of the Earls (Irish: Imeacht na nIarlaí) took place on 4 September 1607, when Hugh O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone and Rory O’Donnell, 1st earl of Tyrconnell, and about ninety followers left Ulster in Ireland for mainland Europe.
Background to the exile
After their defeat at the Battle of Kinsale in 1601, and the end of the Nine Years’ War in Ulster in 1603, Tyrone and the Prince of Tyrconnell, Lord Tyrconnell’s elder brother and predecessor, had been forced into exile in January 1602 by the victorious English government of Ireland under the leadership of the Lord Mountjoy. They retained their lands and titles, although with much diminished extent and authority. However, the countryside was laid bare in a campaign of destruction in 1602, and induced famine in 1603. O’Neill was pardoned under the terms of the Treaty of Mellifont in March 1603 and submitted to the crown.
When King James I took the throne in 1603 he quickly proceeded to issue pardons for the Irish lords and their rebel forces. As king of Scotland he had a better understanding of the advantages from working with local chiefs in the Scottish Highlands. However, as in other Irish lordships, the 1603 peace involved O’Neill losing substantial areas of land to his cousins and neighbours, who would be granted freeholds under the English system, instead of the looser arrangements under the former Brehon law system. This was not a new policy but was a well-understood and longstanding practice in the Tudor conquest of Ireland.
On 10 September 1602 the Prince of Tyrconnell had already died, allegedly assassinated, in Spain, and his brother succeeded him as 25th Chieftain of the O’Donnell clan. He was later granted the Earldom of Tyrconnell by King James I on 4 September 1603, and restored to a somewhat diminished scale of territories in Tyrconnell on 10 February 1604.
In 1605 the new Lord Deputy of Ireland, Sir Arthur Chichester, began to encroach on the former freedoms of the two Earls and The Maguire, enforcing the new freeholds, especially that granted in North Ulster to the Ó Catháin chief. The Ó Catháins had formerly been important subjects of the O’Neills and required protection; in turn, Chichester wanted to reduce O’Neill’s authority. An option was to charge O’Neill with treason if he did not comply with the new arrangements. The discovery of the Gunpowder Plot in the same year made it harder for Catholics to appear loyal to both the crown and the papacy. As the Dublin administration sided with O Cathain, O’Neill was invited by King James to make his case in 1607 to the Privy Council in London, which he never did.
By 1607 O’Neill’s allies The Maguire and the Earl of Tyrconnell were finding it hard to maintain their prestige on lower incomes. They planned to seek Spanish support before news of the Battle of Gibraltar arrived. When their ship dropped anchor, O’Neill seems to have joined them on impulse. He had three options:
Flee with his friends and hope for a reinvasion by Spain
Go to London and stay at court until his grievances were redressed
Do nothing and live on a reduced income as a large landowner in Ulster.
Fearing arrest, they chose to flee to the Continent, where they hoped to recruit an army for the invasion of Ireland with Spanish help. However, earlier in 1607 a Spanish fleet had been destroyed by the Dutch in the Battle of Gibraltar. Also as the Anglo-Spanish War (1585–1604) had ended in 1604, King Philip III of Spain wanted to preserve the recent peace with England under its new Stuart dynasty. As a part of the peace proposals, a Spanish princess was to marry James’ son Henry, though this never transpired. Tyrone ignored all these realities, remained in Italy, and persisted with his invasion plan until his death in exile in 1616.
1927 – John McCarthy, American computer scientist and academic (d. 2011)
John McCarthy (September 4, 1927 – October 24, 2011) was an American computer scientist and cognitive scientist. McCarthy was one of the founders of the discipline of artificial intelligence.[1] He coined the term “artificial intelligence” (AI), developed the Lisp programming language family, significantly influenced the design of the ALGOL programming language, popularized timesharing, and was very influential in the early development of AI.
McCarthy received many accolades and honors, such as the Turing Award for his contributions to the topic of AI, the United States National Medal of Science, and the Kyoto Prize.
Early life and education
John McCarthy was born in Boston, Massachusetts on September 4, 1927 to an Irish immigrant father and a Lithuanian Jewish immigrant mother,[2] John Patrick and Ida Glatt McCarthy. The family was obliged to relocate frequently during the Great Depression, until McCarthy’s father found work as an organizer for the Amalgamated Clothing Workers in Los Angeles, California. His father came from the fishing village of Cromane in County Kerry, Ireland.[3] His mother died in 1957.[4]
McCarthy was exceptionally intelligent, and graduated from Belmont High School two years early.[5] McCarthy was accepted into Caltech in 1944.
McCarthy showed an early aptitude for mathematics; during his teens he taught himself college mathematics by studying the textbooks used at the nearby California Institute of Technology (Caltech). As a result, he was able to skip the first two years of mathematics at Caltech.[6] McCarthy was suspended from Caltech for failure to attend physical education courses; he then served in the US Army and was readmitted, receiving a B.S. in Mathematics in 1948.[7]
It was at Caltech that he attended a lecture by John von Neumann that inspired his future endeavors.
McCarthy initially did graduate studies at Caltech, but moved to Princeton University. He received a Ph.D. in Mathematics from Princeton University in 1951 as a student of Solomon Lefschetz.
Academic career
After short-term appointments at Princeton and Stanford University, McCarthy became an assistant professor at Dartmouth in 1955.
A year later, McCarthy moved to MIT as a research fellow in the autumn of 1956.
In 1962, McCarthy became a full professor at Stanford, where he remained until his retirement in 2000. By the end of his early days at MIT he was already affectionately referred to as “Uncle John” by his students.[8]
McCarthy championed mathematical logic for artificial intelligence.
By Mercy Torres: Why We Need to Stop Chasing Success and Start Enjoying the Little Things in Life
The philosopher Alan Watts always said that life is like a song, and the sole purpose of the song is to dance.
He said that when we listen to a song, we don’t dance with the goal of getting to the end of the music. We dance to enjoy it.
RIP Walter Becker
Walter Carl Becker (February 20, 1950 – September 3, 2017) was an American musician, songwriter, and record producer. He was best known as the co-founder, guitarist, bassist, and co-songwriter of Steely Dan.
By Colin Marshall: The 100 Funniest Films of All Time, According to 253 Film Critics from 52 Countries
By Natasha Frost: The Transcendental Ritual of Mongolian Camel Coaxing May Soon Be Lost Forever
By David Nield: Why You Should Be Encrypting Your Devices and How to Easily Do It
Atmospheric Optics
Shep McAllister: Today’s Deals
Shep McAllister: Amazon Book Deals
wikimedia
- Wikimedia Commons picture of the day for December 5 December 5, 2024Picture of the day Trier, Alter Krahn on the Mosel.
- Wikimedia Commons picture of the day for December 4 December 4, 2024Picture of the day Early 12th-century Romanesque apsis of Notre-Dame-et-Sainte-Barbe de Savigny, Manche, France, with 14th-century murals presenting scenes from the martyrdom of St. Barbara. Her feast day is today on 4 December.
Widget not in any sidebars
Widget not in any sidebars
Widget not in any sidebars
Widget not in any sidebars