Historical Sidelines

I find that history books tend to give the main sweep of events but often neglect the numerous "side stories" that do not fit into the main sweep. Today, let's have a look at some of these historical sidelines that should not be forgotten.

The modern sciences of cosmology and cosmogony, the underlying structure and origin of the universe, revolve around the so-called "Big Bang". This is the cataclysmic explosion of matter and energy that virtually all scientists in these fields accept as marking the beginning of the universe. It is easy to forget that the Big Bang Theory did not originate in scientific circles at all but is a Christian idea. A Belgian priest named Georges Lemaitre suggested that the universe must have begun with such a cataclysm based on what is stated in the Bible about God's creation of the universe and it proved to be correct.

In celebrating the recent 40th anniversary of the first landing of men on the moon, there is one really impressive feat that seems to get left out. It happened not on the first moon landing, Apollo 11, but on the next one, Apollo 12, in November 1969. In 1967, an unmanned spacecraft, Surveyor, landed on the moon at provide photo images of the surface. In an outstanding feat of navigation, Apollo 12 landed near Surveyor so that the astronauts could remove it's camera and bring it back to earth. The total surface area of the moon is about four times the size of countries like the U.S. or Canada or, China so let's not forget this.

Cotton is not native to North America and coffee is not native to South America. All of the cotton ever grown in North America originated in some seeds brought from London and all of the coffee grown in South America is from a plant taken there from the Netherlands.

An incredible but overlooked fact is that the vast majority of the stars in the sky that can be seen with the naked eye have Arabic names. This does not include the brightest stars such as Antares, Arcturus, Vega, Sirius, etc. because these stars were named in ancient times. It also does not include the stars that can only be seen with a telescope. The reason is that after the end of the Roman Empire but before the renaissance, it was the Middle East that made most of the advances in science. "Algebra" is also derived from an Arabic word.

We tend to forget how our alphabet was derived from earlier hieroglyphics. Have you ever noticed how an "A" resembles the head and horns of a bull upside-down? An "H" resembles a door or a two-story house. "J" looks like a fishing hook. "M" or "W" seems to be derived from the waves on water. "R" looks like a person's profile. "S" might be from a bow and "V" an inverted symbol for a hill or mountain. "T" resembes a pillar or column holding up a roof.

The west African nation of Liberia was founded by a group of former slaves in the U.S. that had been given their freedom and sailed back to Africa many generations after their ancestors had been taken as slaves. They named their new capital city "Monrovia" after the U.S. president that gave them freedom. I am surprised that this amazing story does not get more attention.

Sweden was once an imperial power and a long-forgotten fact is that the U.S. state of Delaware had it's beginnings as a Swedish colony.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, there was a short-lived union between Egypt and Syria. The two became one nation known as the United Arab Republic, or the U.A.R. Egypt is still sometimes referred to by that name. There were high hopes that the new united nation would be the focal point of a vast Pan-Arab nation. But the Iraqi King Qassim favored (favoured) an alliance with the U.S.S.R. Also, many Syrians were concerned that theirs, the smaller of the two nations would be dominated by Egypt and there were wealthy Syrians that felt threatened by Egyptian leader, Gamel Nasser's socialist ideas. A faction of the Syrian Army rose up and declared indpendence from the U.A.R.

An unforgettable episode is the radio broadcast of "The War of the Worlds" in 1938. It was a story about an invasion of earth by Martians. The trouble is that millions of people in eastern New York State and New Jersey took it seriously and thought it was an actual live news broadcast of such an invasion in progress.

In the Niagara Falls area, Grand Island was offered by Franklin Roosevelt as a homeland, instead of Israel, following the Second World War and nearby Navy Island was proposed as the site of the United Nations Headquarters. Neither was to be.

A Lebanese tradition is immigration to Latin America. Mexico's Carlos Slim Helu is of Lebanese descent and is, at the time of this writing, the richest man in the world. This is an immigration trend of which little is written.

In the Eighteenth Century, Russia sought immigrants from Europe to establish farms on it's vast landscape. Most European countries had colonies to which people could move if they wished. But from the small German-speaking duchies and principalities across central Europe, which were not yet a united nation, hundreds of thousands answered the call. The result was the settlement of so-called "Volga Germans" deep inside Russia around the Volga River. The settlers ultimately numbered nearly two million. They operated very prosperous farms and life revolved around Christianity. Of course, trouble was on the horizon with the advent of atheistic Communism and the world wars. Today, little remains of the Volga Germans in that area.

It was the Italian airship "Italia" that was the first aircraft to fly over the north pole. In 1928, it succeeded in reaching the pole. Difficult weather conditions prevented landing but flags and a cross presented by the pope were dropped there. The airship never made it back to base due to extreme weather conditions and crashed on an ice floe. The crash caused part of the cabin to break free and ten men were thrown onto the ice, one of which was killed. These were rescued but the airship, suddenly free of a significant amount of weight, thrust back up into the sky with six of the crew still aboard. The airship disappeared into the clouds and has never been found or heard from again.

It is worth remembering why the city of Trelew on the coast of Argentina has a Welsh name. In the Nineteenth Century, it was founded as a remote outpost for Welsh settlers far away from civilization. The settlement became quite prosperous and attracted more settlers from Wales and everything was done in the Welsh language. Times changed when refrigeration was invented. Argentine beef could be shipped to Europe on refrigerated ships, where it brought premium prices. Soon, much of Argentina became one vast ranch of cattle. Immigrants poured in, mostly from southern Europe, to become ranchers and gueros, the Argentine version of cowboys, and the once-remote Welsh outpost of Trelew suddenly found itself in the middle of civilization.

China once had it's own version of Christopher Columbus. In the Fifteenth Century, over a hundred years before the voyage of Columbus, Zheng He is believed to have made seven voyages with fleets of large ships all around the Indian Ocean. There is a controversial opinion that he reached North America but certainly brought all manner of African animals back to China.

To read some general observations of the world go to http://www.markmeekobs.blogspot.com/