Legend has it that after the execution of the Duke of Monmouth, the illegitimate son of Charles II, the severed head was sewn back on to the body so that an official portrait could be painted of the Duke, as none had been done during his lifetime.
Only 45 minutes to the new year!
The story of James Scott, Duke of Monmouth is a tragicomedy. After having himself crowned as King of England, he lost the the Battle of Sedgemoor, supposedly the last battle fought on English soil. He threw himself on his uncle’s mercy, but was beheaded; it took at least five swipes of the axe to remove his head.
Happy New Year, Cunctator ! Four hours to go here in Thailand.
Other botched executions included Henry VIII’s cousin Margaret de la Pole, who was almost 70 and per legend at least got loose and had to be chased around the headsman block by the executioner. and Ethel Rosenberg, who though very tiny had to be given three “rolls” of electricity before she died, delaying her death until after sunset on the Sabbath.
Another botched execution occurred this year in Arizona, when Joseph Rudolph Wood III was given a lethal injection that should have killed him in 10 minutes, but took 2 hours for him to die. Wood was seen gasping and snorting for more than 1½ hours before he died.
Happy New Year, Cunctator! Coming up soon for you, Septimus. Sampiro, not sure where you are but it’s gotta be coming up soon. Here in California it’s 16hrs 23mins away…
No chances were taken with William Wallace’s execution. He was dragged by horse, strangled by hanging, emasculated, eviscerated with his bowels burnt before him, and then his heart was plucked. Finally he was beheaded, and quartered. Despite all this he apparently survived and lived for another 7 years as historian Mel Gibson has him fathering the future King Edward III.
At the prompting of their sergeant, British troops give three cheers for King Edward VII before falling asleep in their tents in the Australian court-martial drama Breaker Morant, set during the Boer War.
Happy New Year to all my Doper friends! Another 11 hours 39 minutes to 2015 here in NE Ohio.
There are only three states that have never recorded in living history an earthquake of Richter Scale magnitude of six or higher – Wisconsin, Iowa and North Dakota. That would be characterized as “Damage to a moderate number of well-built structures in populated areas.”
The Iowa-class battleships were the largest ever built by the U.S. The Japanese surrender at the end of World War II was signed on the deck of the USS Missouri, a battleship of that class, which is now moored at Pearl Harbor not far from the wreck of the USS Arizona, sunk on Dec. 7, 1941.
The colloquial term ‘Pearly Gates’ for the entrance to heaven comes from the description of the new Jerusalem in Revelations 21: 21
In Wilde’s A Woman of No Importance, the following exchange occurs:
Lord lllingworth: The Book of Life begins with a man and woman in a garden.
Mrs Allonby: It ends with Revelations.
Oscar Wilde’s younger son Vyvyan Holland (né Wilde) lived in Melbourne from 1948 to 1952.
Sir Vyell Vyvyan (1875-1935) was an important officer in the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force who received several high decorations, including the Japanese Order of the Rising Sun (3rd class).
The English words ‘orient/oriental’ are derived from the Latin verb orior, oriri, ortus sum, the present participle (‘rising’) of which is oriens/orientis, referring to the sun rising in the east.
The Oriental Hotel in Bangkok (now the Mandarin Oriental) was consistently rated the best hotel in the world for many years. The legendary Jim Thompson became a co-owner of the Oriental Hotel in 1948 and directed renovations. An earlier proprietor was Louis T. Leonowens, son of an English governess.
Anna Leonowens’ role as governess to the royal court in Thailand was fictionalised in The King and I. Before moving to Thailand she lived with her husband for several years in a remote township near Geraldton in Western Australia.
Yul Brynner, né Yuliy Borisovich Briner (Юлий Борисович Бринер), first shaved his head for his role as King Mongkut the Great which he played for several years in the musical play The King and I and then in the film, where he co-starred with Deborah Kerr. This was his 2nd and most famous film. In his 3rd film, Anastasia, he co-starred with Ingrid Bergman.
Yul Brynner’s paternal grandmother was of Buryat ancestry. The Buryats are the largest indigenous (aboriginal) group in Siberia, mainly concentrated in their homeland, the Buryat Republic, a federal subject of Russia. They are the major northern subgroup of the Mongols.
There are no roads linking most of Russia to Vladavostok. Cars have to be loaded onto railroad cars to make the trasit through Siberia.
A 3 year-old boy buried at Mal’ta near Lake Baikal in eastern Siberia some 24,000 years ago was unearthed a few decades ago. In 2013, a team at the University of Copenhagen sampled his genome and, although only 1X coverage was achieved, this is much better than has been achieved with any skeleton of similar age. The genetic study has shed new light on human prehistory.
A crate from Copenhagen Base appears in the background of a scene of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.