The Most Important Civil War Battle You've Never Heard Of

I’m doing a summer internship at the Stones River National Battlefield, so of course I have to do a post on the battle!

The Battle of Stones River (as the Union called it, apparently they loved naming things after rivers, including their armies. It’s the 2^nd Battle of Murfreesboro for the Confederacy) occurred from December 31^st, 1862 to January 2^nd, 1863. Those dates are pretty important because they tell you that something weird is up with this battle. If they can at all help it, armies don’t march in the winter. The reason this one did has to do with a document that should be pretty familiar to my readers, The Emancipation Proclamation.

A Typeset Copy of the Emancipation Proclamation signed by Abraham Lincoln (Wikimedia)

The EP went into effect on January 1^st, 1863 and the Union hadn’t won a battle since Lincoln had announced it. Since the EP was issued under Lincoln’s authority as Commander in Chief of the US Army, the Army kind of had to be winning the war for the EP to mean anything.

Lincoln also knew that the war was losing favor with the public in the North. Midterm elections hadn’t gone well for the Republican party and people were getting to the point where they were willing to let the South go if it meant the war would end. Lincoln needed to win some battles to boost Northern morale and regain support.

Finally, England and France had been making motions like they were going to come in on the side of the Confederacy. If that happened, it would be nearly impossible for Lincoln to reunite the country. So he also wanted a victory to show England and France that the North would be winning the war and there was no reason for them to get involved.

So Lincoln sent General Rosecrans and his Army of the Cumberland (like the river, remember what I said about the Union and rivers?) out to find the enemy, in this case, General Bragg and the Army of Tennessee.They found them just north of the town of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, a flat area made up of a patchwork of cedar brakes and crop fields.

My own picture of the Stones River Battlefield

The Union would very nearly suffer a devastating loss on the first day of battle. Luckily for Lincoln, they were able to hold on and over the next couple of days make it difficult enough for the Confederates that Bragg decided he would rather retreat than try to hold on to the field.

Thus Lincoln gets his victory, the EP goes into effect, Northern morale goes way up, England and France stay out of it, and the American Civil War continues for another two and half years.

Pretty important battle, right?

Share Spotlight: How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had it Coming

How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had it Coming

This week's Share Spotlight is a book by Mike Brown, the astronomer who made the discovery that resulted in the new category of Dwarf Planet and Pluto's expulsion from Planethood. I wrote about the book in one of my Book Roundups a while back, but since it really was the inspiration for the new Astronomical Mythology series I'm working on, I figured it deserved its own Share Spotlight.

The book is funny and moving. I never would have believed that a scientist could write so well. This is how science writing should be done. Just read the book and you will understand. Once you do, tell me what you think!

Mike Brown also has a sort of sporadic blog called Mike Brown's Planets that is well worth a look.

Astronomical Mythology

This week I’m starting on a new series on the Mythology surrounding the figures the different things in our Solar System (and maybe out of it) are named for. We’ll start off with how they get their names.

Everyone knows the names of the 8 (formerly 9) planets in our Solar System. Most of us even know where their names come from, Greek and Roman mythology. But what about all the other bodies in the solar system?

Turns out there are pretty specific rules that govern what a discoverer can call something, based on what sort of thing it is. For example, the moons of Uranus must all be named after Shakespeare characters while the moons of Jupiter must be named after Zeus/Jupiter’s lovers or children.

The four Gallilean moons of Jupiter, Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. (Wikimedia)

Some bodies, such as the first four of Jupiter’s moons back in the 1600s, were named by the people who discovered them. When the formal naming process was created, these names were confirmed and others were made to follow in their mold. Others held a scientific notation, such as Jupiter VI, until the official rules were created.

But who decides what these rules are?

In the 1970s, the International Astronomical Union put together a taskforce to deal with what things should be called and now decides on the “unambiguous astronomical nomenclature” (read How Space Things Are Named So No One Confuses Them with Something Else) that results in the names used for various types of astronomical objects. The IAU is an organization of thousands of astronomers and other cosmologists from around the world that get together every year to decide on important issues in astronomy. They’re the ones who decided that Pluto was a Dwarf Planet back in 2006.

Astronomers, professional or amateurs, must submit their discovery and proposed name to the IAU for scrutiny before it becomes official. They make sure that the name is not already taken and that it accords with the rules for whatever has been discovered.

Curious what all of the rules are? Check out the International Astronomical Union’s website.

Updates

Hey everyone!
Sorry for the lapse in posts. All of my final projects caught up with me and I did not have a good stockpile of posts like I should have. I'll be working on making sure that I have a few reserve posts for when life gets crazy, but I thought I should give everyone an update on what's going on with me and what you can expect from the blog in the next few months.

I've finished my first year of Graduate School! Yay! I've started on my thesis and completed most of my research. This summer I will be working on writing it up, turning in a draft in the fall.

Meanwhile, I am spending the summer as an intern at Stones River National Battlefield in Tennessee. I'm working in the museum a bit, but also working the front desk and giving tours! I really enjoy it, so I'll have to create at least one post, probably two on my experiences here.

In the future, I will continue to try to tighten up the theme of this blog. It's a bit all over the place, mainly because my interests are all over the place. I'm working with an international theme that includes culture, folklore, language, history, and current events. If you have any requests for topics or particular culture areas, let me know and I'll see what I can dig up.

I'll be trying to stick to the same schedule I have been, a new post on Friday and something interesting for you to check out on Tuesdays. Starting next Friday, I should be back on schedule, so look for a new post then.

Thanks to everyone who actually reads this blog. I know that I do it almost exclusively for my own enjoyment, to practice my writing and give myself an outlet for all those other topics that I love but will never make it into a school paper, but I have to admit that seeing that people are actually seeing my posts makes me warm and fuzzy inside. So thank you everyone.

Meanwhile, enjoy some recent pictures!

Share Spotlight: The Story of One

This week's share spotlight is a BBC documentary.
The Story of One

Something a little different this week for the Share Spotlight: a documentary. This documentary is a bit silly, but still one of my all time favorites. Terry Jones, a former member of Monty Python (which explains the silliness) takes the viewer through the journey to our modern number system. From notching marks on  a bone to the binary system that underlies all our modern technology, this documentary explains the major steps in the history of numbers.

My only real complaint is that Terry Jones fails to mention that the zero was actually invented twice. Once in India and once in Mesoamerica by the Mayans. The Mayan number system is fascinating and on my list of things to write about.

Other than that, what a great way to bring a little bit of History into Math! As much as I love math, this documentary really helped me get a good handle on why we use the numbers we do.

What did you learn about the history of numbers in school? What do you think about bringing a little bit of History into Math? Or vice versa?

The Beginning of History

While time may stretch forever, history has a very definite starting point: the invention of writing.

Think for a moment about what you are reading. Words made of 26 little characters that allow me to convey my thoughts to you, despite our distance in time and space.

Writing makes this possible. And that is why the start of "History" is also the start of writing, anything prior to writing is Prehistory.

Before writing, clear communication beyond the person standing in front of you was impossible. Once writing took off, communications could be read hundreds or thousands of years later with only minimal loss of meaning.

Historians rely on primary sources, those that come directly from the people who said them. Without writing, historians would need a time machine to talk to each person who was involved in or experienced an event. Without writing, there would be no history.

Writing has been invented in several places around the globe and every system is a little different.

Wikipedia in scripts around the world.  (Wikimedia Commons)

There are three main types of writing systems.

Alphabets are the most familiar to the readers of this blog, as that is what they are using to read it now. In an alphabet, each symbol stands for a sound. There are separate vowel and consonant symbols and they average between 12 and 50 letter symbols.

Syllabaries have symbols for a combination of a consonant and a vowel. So "ba" would be one symbol while "be" would be another. These systems average between 50 and 400 symbols. Ancient Mayan hieroglyphics are generally considered to be primarily a syllabary, as are the Hiragana and Katakana in the Japanese writing system and the Cherokee writing system.

A Stop Sign written using the Cherokee syllabary. (Wikimedia Commons)

Logographies use symbols to stand for words. Since each word has to have its own symbol, these systems can have hundreds or thousands of symbols. Chinese entirely uses and Japanese mainly uses a logographic writing system. Reading Chinese requires knowledge of 3 to 4 thousand characters.

Japanese uses all three of these systems, which makes it a great example.

In Japanese, the word for

(red)

in Romanji (alphabet): 

aka

in Hiragana (syllabary): 

あか

in Kanji (logography):　

赤

Share Spotlight: The Green Show

This week's Share Spotlight comes from BackStory with the American History Guys.
The Green Show

I found BackStory Radio through one of my classes. They American History Guys trace a topic through the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries of American History.

This week, in honor of St. Patrick's Day, they did an entire show about how the color green is important in American history. They are always entertaining and the podcast is perfect to listen to on a busy commute or while preparing dinner. And better yet, you learn something in the bargain!

What do you think is the most important Green thing in American history? (Don't forget to add it to their comments as well.) What podcasts or radio shows do you enjoy listening to?

The Monuments Men

The recent movie The Monuments Men is based on an epic true story about men and women who saved the soul of Europe.

Being a museum studies graduate student, of course I had to go see the new movie The Monuments Men. The movie is an interesting historical drama, though not an action movie, like the previews would have you think. While the movie is well worth the watch, they did take a number of liberties with the actual story. Here's the story of the true Monuments Men and the many people who supported them.

From the beginning of WWII, the American Council of Learned Societies and the Harvard Group called for the US military to protect and preserve the cultural heritage of Europe. Hitler was systematically looting art from the great museums and collectors of Europe in preparation to stock his own personal museum and the US army destroyed important buildings while invading Europe. However, it wasn't until 1943 that the efforts of these groups finally bore fruit.

The Monuments Men started with a group called whose official name was the American Commission for the Protection and Salvage of Artistic and Historic Monuments in War Areas, but was more commonly referred to as the Roberts Commission, after its chairman, Supreme Court Justice Owen Roberts. Proposed by Francis Henry Taylor, the director of the Museum of Modern Art, the group was created in 1943 to advise military actions in order to best protect and preserve national treasures during World War II, provided they did not interfere with military operations. They created the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives section, for which 345 men and women volunteered, coming from the United States, Britain, France, Austria, and Belgium.

These men and women were primarily middle-aged; some were even WWI veterans. They were professors, museum curators, archivists, and librarians. Together, they saved an estimated 5 million art pieces and cultural objects.

Some of the Monuments Men at the Altuasee Salt Mine in 1945. (Wikimedia)

These artworks included numerous masters, such as the Ghent Altarpiece and Michaelangelo's Madonna, both featured in the movie.

The Monuments Men recovering the Ghent Altarpiece at Altusee. (Wikimedia)

After the war, a smaller contingent of Monuments Men continued to hunt down stolen art. Many of the members of the MFAA returned or went on to prominent jobs in cultural institutions. They are responsible for the foundation of the New York City Ballet, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Despite their incredible efforts, a number of other artworks remain missing. And, due to Hitler's "Nero Decree," stating that all evidence that could be used in a war crimes trial be destroyed, many may never be recovered.

The story of the Monuments Men was rediscovered in 1995 and in 2009, Robert Edsel wrote his book The Monuments Men and started the Monuments Men Foundation for the Preservation of Art. He and the foundation aim to acknowledge the work of these incredible men and women, continue their quest to return stolen artworks, and attempt to return the preservation of cultural heritage to the consciousness of the American military.

President George W. Bush presents the 2007 National Humanities Medal for the Monuments Men Foundation for the Preservation of Art to, from left, Robert Edsel and World War II veterans Jim Reeds, Harry Ettlinger, Horace Apgar and Seymore Pomrenze. (Wikimedia)

In 2007, the Monuments Men Foundation was awarded the National Humanities Award by President George W. Bush.  You can go to their website to learn more about the Monuments Men and assist in the effort to recover and repatriate stolen goods.

Share Spotlight: The Sweetest Story

This week's Share Spotlight comes from the Houston Museum of Natural History's blog, BeyondBones.
The Sweetest Story: Learn about the chocolate revolution at an HMNS Distinguished Lecture

Chocolate is, let's face it, awesome. And it has a pretty awesome history, too, as is succinctly expressed in this BeyondBones post. From the Olmec, to the Maya, to the Aztec, to the English drawing room, Chocolate has long been the drink of kings.

So next time you pour yourself a cup of chocolate, don't forget to feel regal!

Do you know any other foodstuffs with interesting histories? Want me to feature one on the blog? Just want to show off your knowledge? Drop me a comment!

Winter Olympics Part I: History

The first in a three (or more) part series on the upcoming Winter Olympics.

The Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics will open on Friday, February 7th and I, for one, am very excited. The Olympics are one of the greatest stages in the world to see international history, culture, and politics.

Olympic Rings (From Wikipedia.com)

Compared to the Summer Games, the Winter Olympics have a much shorter history. While they don't stretch back to Ancient Greece, the idea for the Winter Olympics is more than a hundred years old.

Figure Skating became part of the Summer Olympics (if you can believe it) in 1908. The International Olympic Committee considered creating a separate Winter Games in 1912, but Sweden, who was hosting the games, already had a popular Nordic Competition and declined. A separate Winter Games was again proposed in 1916 in Berlin, but both were cancelled due to World War I.

Ice Hockey was added to the Summer Games in 1920 and, in 1924, an agreement was reached to host an International Winter Sports Week in Chamonix, in the French Alps.

Poster of the Chamonix 1924 Winter Olympic Games (From Wikipedia)

In 1928, the 2nd Official Winter Olympics were held in St. Moritz, Switzerland, making the Chamonix Games the 1st Official Winter Olympics. The Winter Olympics were then held every four years, except for 1940 and 1944 (due to World War II).

Until 1992, the Winter Olympics were held the same year as the Summer Olympics. Since 1994, the Winter Olympics have been held every four years, two years after the Summer Olympics.

The Sochi Olympics are the 22nd Olympic Winter Games.

For more information on the Sochi Olympics, check out the Official Sochi 2014 Olympics website.
For a schedule of the Olympic events in the US, check out NBC Olympics.

Check back next week for Part II: Sochi, Russia

Castles and Libraries

So, yesterday was the group excursion to Dover Castle. The morning dawned beautifully, with sunshine coming in my window. But by the time we left shortly before noon, it was looking more like rain. We made it to the train station with only a few drizzles, but right after we got on the bus (the train was down between Canterbury and Dover, so they had a replacement bus running) it decided to start pouring. I got to sit on the top of a double decker bus! First thing on my list done yesterday. Also, the bus went by the cliffs, so I got some good pictures of the whit cliffs of Dover! Second thing on my list done yesterday. Luckily, the rain stopped by the time we got to Dover and had settled down to 25 mph winds.

We went into the secret wartime tunnels where the heads of the military planned during the beginning of WWII. The castle had had tunnels there from the time of Henry II, but they were expanded during WWII. When we got out, the wind was cold and blowing hard enough that I was worried about being blown off the cliff. So we headed inside the little shop for some hot chocolate and I got a scone, which was the third thing on my list that I did yesterday.

Then the anthro class headed up to the old Roman lighthouse, and after a brief history lesson, we were free to explore. I stuck around with Sam and Ariel, and after heading into the gift shop to warm up for a minute, we headed into the castle. They had it set up as a 'working' castle, so you could look into the kitchen and there were a bunch of people arguing. They were pretty funny. They also had a king. Who, when shown on a  (12th century) map where Texas was, asked the McGee's if they lived in hell. I told them they should have said, well, for part of the year.

We made it to the top of the castle and the view was great. But you couldn't look over the battlements because the wind was blowing straight up. I took a picture for Ariel of her hair flying straight up behind her. We then went back to the gift shop to get our souvenirs, then decided to head back to the train station because it looked like it was going to rain soon. Well, we made it to the gate just as it started pouring and raining sideways. So we hung out in the gate until it lightened up, then made it to the train station without any mishaps, other than getting splashed by a few cars.

Today I met Eileen in London and we went to the British Library. The Library was pretty cool. They had some amazing works there, several original Shakespeares, a Canterbury Tales, a copy of the Magna Carta (which I'm still not impressed with), a Gutenberg Bible and a  1400's King Jame's Bible. They had a lot of beautiful books, but also some music. They had an original of 'The Wedding March' and a piece of Handel's 'Messiah'. It was cool looking at those and being able to hum them.

They also had a science fiction exhibit going on. They had copies of some of the first science fiction books ever written, apparently by the ancient Greeks! They even had a Tardis (I don't know, ask a Doctor Who fan) as well as a 'draw your own alien' station.

We headed back to Canterbury, where we walked all the way across town, twice. The first time to get Eileen (and her stuff) to the hostel and the second time to find dinner. We stopped at a fish and chips place, where I had chicken (so sue me, I don't like fish, I did have a bite of Eileen's though.) and we talked about getting a pint (well, Eileen getting a pint. Me maybe getting a sprite) but decided we have to be up early tomorrow. So now I'm washing clothes downstairs and then I'm headed to bed. I have to be at the train station at 5:30, so it'll be an early start to the day.

P.S. the thing I'm using for the slideshow is being annoying, so I'm just going to put stuff on facebook from now. Their will still be a pretty slideshow, but no new pictures there. Besides, the caption on my Facebook pictures are so much more entertaining.