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The Mysterious Madame Blavatsky – Psychic or Charlatan?

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Madame Blavatsky (HPB to her followers) was a controversial 19th century medium, psychic, author and co-founder of the Theosophical Society. She claimed to be in contact with the ‘The Masters’, astral beings of great psychic powers who bestowed upon her the ancient secret science of Theosophy. The society grew from a modest start in 1875 to become a multi-national organization with thousands of members and branches that still exist today.

So who was this mysterious woman, chased by controversy and scandal her entire life? Blavatsky was born Helena von Hahn in Ukraine 1831 and raised primarily by her grandparents. At 17, her family married her off to Governor Blavatsky, an imperious man over 20 years her senior. After 3 months, she took one of his horses and left him; keeping his name, however, for the rest of her life.

She fled first to Istanbul and later England. At age 20 in London, she claims to have met her first ‘Master,’ a tall, handsome Indian prince named Morya. She says he recruited her on a ‘Great Mission’ to help all of humanity. She began to study Eastern mysticism and slowly gained a reputation in England as a spirit medium, claiming both telepathy and telekinesis.

In 1868, Blavatsky traveled to India and Tibet, where she claimed her Master Morya took her to the mythical city of Shamballah in the Himalayas.

There she met many other ‘Masters,’ astral beings with great psychic powers, including the immortal alchemist the Count of Saint-Germain. Blavatsky said it was in the Himalayas that the Masters bestowed upon her the ‘Sacred Secret Sciences.’

As one would expect, suspicion and scandal followed such a person. By now, she claimed clairvoyance and astral projection as additions to her other psychic talents. In Egypt, she formed the Societe Spirite with her followers. Various associates described Helena as having a fearsome temper and prone to swearing – but also as being highly charismatic and indefatigable. After repeated accusations of swindling patrons and bogus phenomena, Cairo officials forced them to disband and leave Egypt, else face arrest and imprisonment.

Unperturbed, Madame Blavatsky simply moved again and took up her craft elsewhere. About this time, it is said she fell in love with a Hungarian opera singer Agardi Metrovich. Some sources say that through an extramarital affair for them both, she became pregnant, and bore a son, named Yuri. He was never a healthy child and died at the age of 5. Blavatsky would later claim to be celibate, so Yuri was in fact Metrovich’s child, but not hers.

At age 42, she said Master Morya sent her to America in 1873. Blavatsky’s reputation as a medium grew rapidly in New York City as she began writing in various spiritualist periodicals. Spiritualism was hugely popular in the US at the time. She married again, to Michael Betanelly primarily to gain her U.S. citizenship. Similar to her first marriage, they separated after only 4 months. She claimed, to many a raised eyebrow, that neither marriage was ever consummated and she remained a virgin her entire life.

A year later, she met retired Colonel Henry Steel Olcott, a lawyer investigating the occult, not as a skeptic, but as a fervent believer. Madame Blavatsky so impressed Olcott with her psychic abilities and mystical knowledge they became business partners. Together they co-founded the Theosophical Society. Theosophy, or Divine Wisdom, is a mystic philosophy believing in ‘ancient secrets’ including cosmic evolution, spiritual planes, and universal religion.

She wrote her first book, Isis Unveiled claiming it was copied with ‘her hand in the astral light.’

It was reviewed by most newspapers of the day as’ transcendental nonsense‘ for the gullible rich. Nevertheless, the first printing was a best seller and sold out. It helped spread Theosophy far beyond US borders as well. Blavatsky and Olcott moved the Society headquarters to Madras in 1878, in order to be closer to the home of the Ancient Masters.

In India, they were less than welcomed by Hindu society, but nevertheless managed to publish a monthly magazine, The Theosophist. At their new headquarters, in a shrine built on the roof, the Ascended Masters supposedly visited Blavatsky in their ‘higher astral non-corporeal state.’ There she could contact the Masters daily via her astral writings. British aristocracy in India flocked to her for her psychic readings and abilities as a medium.

Madame Blavatsky was now 51 and her health began to deteriorate in the intense Indian heat. Meanwhile in London, the Royal Academy formed the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) to scientifically investigate paranormal phenomena. Two Theosophical Society employees in India became whistleblowers. They declared Blavatsky was a fraud who used sleight of hand, trap doors and other tricks to fool its members. They said the Masters were her complete invention with which she duped a gullible Olcott.

The Theosophical Society thus became a target of the SPR. Olcott welcomed an investigation in order to defend Theosophy. Blavatsky however, saying the Indian climate was causing her health to fail, left India before the investigation and would never return.

In 1885, the Society for Psychical Research issued a stinging report.

“For our part we regard Helena Blavatsky neither as a mouthpiece of hidden seers, nor a vulgar adventuress. We think she is one of the most accomplished, ingenious, and interesting imposters in history.’
Society for Psychical Research

The SPR considered the ‘Masters’ a Blavatsky fabrication, aided and abetted by her confederates in the Theosophical Society. All her psychic phenomena were various forms of deception, helped by the credulity of dupes like Colonel Olcott.

Never one to be slowed by scandal, Madame Blavatsky carried on, returning to London and with the help of the British Theosophical Society, started a second magazine, Lucifer (Lightbearer). A rift began to form however, between Olcott, still in India, and the British branch of the Theosophical Society, led by the famous socialist Annie Besant.

In London, Blavatsky finished her second and third books, The Secret Doctrine and The Key to Theosophy. She also launched an attack against Christian churches. ‘Only Theosophy,’ she decreed, ‘offered the secret doctrine that lay hidden beneath all earthly religions, both western and eastern.’ Needless to say, both Christians and scientists rose up vocally against her.

“The Christian church was the first to make Satan a dogma of their religion. After all, what is the use in a Priest if there is no Devil?”
Helena Blavatsky

In the U.S., the New York Sun newspaper resurrected the old accusations from Egypt and reported the results of the British SPR. This included a brand new charge of plagiarism. The article stated Helena Blavatsky stole much of the material in her three books from existing Buddhist and Hindu texts. The US Theosophical Society promptly sued the newspaper which reported:

‘The ingredients of a successful charlatan are having no conscience, some brains, much courage, corrosive selfishness, vainglorious ambition, and monumental audacity. Blavatsky has all these.’
New York Sun newspaper

In 1891, Blavatsky came down with a severe case of influenza during an epidemic.

Already suffering from a weak heart, rheumatism and Bright’s disease, she passed away in England on May 8th at only 60. Her many detractors consider her one of the most clever and successful charlatans of the 19^th century. Her Theosophy supporters believe her one of their founding saints on the level of their Masters. Colonel Scott remained President of the Society and died in 1907. The Theosophical Society endured the last 100 years and today has thousands of members worldwide. It has sprouted numerous branches over the years including the I AM Activity and the Summit Lighthouse.

Regardless of your personal, scientific or religious beliefs, Madame Blavatsky managed to lead an international organization in an age when very few women wielded such power. Say what you will about Blavatsky and her early followers, but if chicanery was their only sin, it pales in comparison to some of today’s modern New Age religions.

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews, click BOOKS.

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Jeanne Baret, the First Woman to Circle the Globe

Who was the first woman to circle the globe? Surely someone of wealth and stature, who sailed with her father or husband? Not quite. French peasant Jeanne Baret sailed the world on France’s circumnavigation expedition from 1766 to 1769. France was looking to expand its colonial empire and collect scientific specimens. Sadly, her amazing feat went unnoticed in her lifetime, and for centuries thereafter. It’s only in recent years that Baret’s contributions finally became recognized.

Jeanne Baret was born in 1740 in France’s Loire Valley to dirt poor parents. Her father was a day laborer who helped farm the estates of aristocrats. As she grew up on farms, Jeanne was exposed to all the plants of the French countryside. With no formal education, the young girl developed a strong knowledge of botany. She became known as a “herb woman” due to her extensive knowledge of plant medicinal uses.

As a young woman, Jeanne Baret got employment as a housekeeper to Philibert Commerson, a naturalist who studied medicine, natural history, and botany. Baret and Commerson bonded over their mutual love of plants. Their relationship became closer when Commerson’s wife died in 1762. The pair fell in love and Jeanne took up residence in his house. Then she became pregnant in 1764. The two never married, likely due to Jeanne’s peasant class. Instead, the couple moved to Paris where she quietly had the baby, then gave it up for adoption. Baret continued to act as a Commerson’s assistant, housekeeper, and lover.

In 1765, French Admiral Louis-Antoine de Bougainville was commissioned to sail around the world and discover new territories for France.

Bougainville invited Commerson to join him as his expedition’s naturalist. What an amazing opportunity for Jeanne! Given her love of botany, Baret pleaded to accompany him. So Philibert insisted that his ‘Assistant’ come along to help him with the fieldwork. However, the French Navy strictly forbade women serving on board ships. What were they to do? The couple hatched a very risky plot where Baret would masquerade as a young man for the entire 2 year voyage.

So a 26 year old Jeanne wrapped her breasts with linen bandages, dressed as a man, and boarded the French ship Étoile, giving the name in a forcibly deepened voice: “Jean Baret.”

The Étoile and a second ship, the Boudeuse, set sail from Nantes, France in 1766 and headed into the South Atlantic. Commerson and Baret occupied a cabin at the stern of the Étoile, sharing the ship with 116 men, livestock, salted meats, hardtack and numerous barrels of beer. The ruse was doable as Commerson and Baret shared a cabin. Baret spent much of her time evading the crew and caring for a severely seasick Commerson. She was able to hide her true identify by remaining private and even defensive.

Still, the crew noticed something odd about this little man “Jean,” who rarely left his cabin and tended to his master. For one thing, he would never relieve himself in front of the crew. And no one could ever recall seeing him naked before his shipmates. When eyes narrowed and whispers began, Baret had to invent a believable story fast. So she went to the captain quarters, looked him straight in the eye, and said, “I am a eunuch.” He had been brutally castrated by Ottoman Turks, explaining his fair voice and feminine appearance.

Finally admitting such a traumatic and humiliating secret silenced suspicions … for a time.

Some of their first stops were along the Brazilian coast. Commerson and Baret went ashore to explore the territory and observe the natural life. They collected dozens of samples and took copious sketches and notes. During their stop in Rio de Janiero, Commerson became sick with debilitating leg ulcers. He could barely walk, let alone go ashore to traipse through the dense rainforest collecting samples. Instead, his Field Assistant Jean would have to go alone. At the time, Admiral Bougainville was investigating the murder of the Étoile’s chaplain in port and hardly cared.

So an ecstatic Baret scrambled into the jungle to scour the forest for exotic specimens. Her knowledge of herbal remedies likely attracted her to a particular flowering vine with bright pink and purple blossoms. Perhaps they could help her sick lover? She took potted samples and brought them back to the ship. Baret and Commerson named the new plant Bougainvillea after their captain and leader. Today, it is a plant prized for its vibrant flowers that blooms in tropical climates around the world.

After navigating the tip of South America, the two ships sailed across the South Pacific. They reached Tahiti in 1767. In this tropical paradise, the delirious male crew encountered exotic, topless native women. Bougainville named it New Cythera, for the home of the Greek goddess of love and beauty.

It was in Tahiti that Baret’s true gender was finally revealed

No one knows the exact details of how ‘The Big Reveal‘ took place. One account says that when she went ashore, the Tahitian natives quickly spotted her true gender and called her out. When taken back aboard the Étoile, she was marched to the Admiral and … confessed everything, revealing her true name and sex. Admiral Bougainville was flabbergasted by the deception. Nevertheless, he allowed Baret to continue on the ship to their next port, New Ireland, in Papua New Guinea. In an attempt to keep his position as ship’s naturalist, Commerson pretended to have been duped as well. Not a soul believed him.

French Admiral Louis Antoine de Bougainville, Expedition Head

As you can imagine, even with Commerson’s protection, staying on board a ship full of randy sailors as the only woman was extremely dangerous. Many crewmen wanted their own firsthand ‘proof‘ she was a woman. During one field excursion, some men caught Baret alone and sexually assaulted her to ‘see for themselves.’ Commerson reported it to the captain, who had little sympathy for her. After this traumatic experience, Baret would never be ashore without Commerson again.

In 1768, the ship stopped in Mauritius, an island in the Indian Ocean, to restock supplies. When the Etoile and Boudeuse sailed again for France, Baret and Commerson were not onboard. They stayed on Mauritius as guests of Pierre Poivre, governor of the island, to continue their botanical research. The pair had amassed more than 6,000 specimens in their two years of travel.

Over the course of their next 7 years in Mauritius, Jeanne Baret had another baby with Commerson. She again gave up the child for adoption. Whether this was by choice or not, is unknown. She continued to act as Commerson’s assistant, housekeeper, lover, and eventually nurse until his death in 1773.

A heartbroken Baret remained in Mauritius, stranded and penniless.

She eventually met a French officer named Jean Dubernat. They married in 1774 and she returned with him to France in 1775. When Jeanne stepped back onto French soil after a decade abroad, she was no longer the girl hiding her identity dressed as a man. Baret had made numerous scientific discoveries, lost her lover, and married a husband. She had also become the first woman to circumnavigate the globe. In 1785, the French government awarded her a pension of 200 livres a year for her work. They remarked on the record that she was indeed “an extraordinary woman.” The couple moved to Dubernat’s hometown of Saint-Aulaye where she lived a normal life for 30 years, till her death in 1807 at 67.

Baret’s accomplishment was not fully recognized for centuries. Jeanne never kept a diary of her experiences during the long voyage. Logs from several officers though, reveal the hardships she dealt with when the crew learned she was a woman. The writing’s left behind by both Bougainville and Commerson detail not only what she endured, but what she accomplished. Admiral Bougainville himself credits Jeanne Baret for being the first female to circle the globe. He said she should also be honored for her detailed records on the plants and specimens she herself collected.

Despite her amazing contributions to botany, until just recently, no plants were named for Jeanne Baret. By contrast, 70 bear a designation recognizing her husband: “Commersonii.” No one would argue Baret certainly deserved a species or two of her own. Commerson’s notes reveal he wanted to name an unusual Madagascar shrub (with beautiful, multifaceted leaves) after his life long partner. He died however, before he could make the designation official.

In 2012, Eric Tepe, a University of Utah biologist, heard of Baret’s amazing contributions. In the journal PhytoKeys, he describes a new fruit-bearing vine he discovered in the mountains of Peru … and dubbed it Solanum baretiae. Solanums are a genus that include the hardy potato and tomato. Eric Tepe had this to say of the woman: “I have always admired botanical explorers. We know many of their names. But few have sacrificed so much and endured so much as Jeanne Baret.“

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews, click BOOKS.

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How Could Europe Have Allowed the Holocaust to Occur?

yellow star — The yellow Star of David “Jew” patch that Nazis forced the Jewish people to wear.

HOW ON EARTH could an intelligent, civilized, 20^th century country have demonized an entire religion of people to the point of justifying deportation, mass incarceration, the Holocaust and genocide? Not just those of the Jewish faith, but homosexuals, migrant gypsies, and the mentally & physically disabled – anyone deemed by the powers-that-be as foreign, weak, or not just not “Aryan” enough.

In 1933, Adolf Hitler was named Chancellor of Germany. The Nazi (Nationalist Socialist German Workers Party) won a significant percent of the peoples’ vote during an economic recession. The Nazi’s took advantage of political dissatisfaction to preach German Nationalism as the solution. They conducted a ruthless propaganda campaign against the Jews whom they blamed for all of Germany’s woes. The Nazi Party claimed the Jews corrupted the German way of life with their external influence. They portrayed Jews & gypsies alike as foreign and evil, while the German people were hard-working and patriotic. They expertly exploited our base human emotions of both fear and anger at another race or ethnicity They claimed the Jews were weakening Germany’s economy, its security and its very culture.

Relentless anti-Semitic propaganda preached to the German people in both the press and radio.

In 1933, German Jews numbered around 500,000, or 1% of the German population. During the next six years, the Nazis attempted to “purify” Germany, first by liquidating Jewish-owned businesses. Under Hitler’s 1935 law, anyone with 2 Jewish grandparents was designated Jewish, regardless of their current faith or party. In the Nazi’s mind, only Aryans were true Germans. Under new German laws, Jews could now become targets for bigotry and persecution. The majority of the German people who were not Jews swallowed the propaganda. Whether out of fear, belief or hatred, they turned in their Jewish neighbors to the Nazi party.

The culmination of the Nazi campaign for the average German citizen was KRISTALLNACHT on November, 9th, 1938 or the “Night of Broken Glass.” This was when Nazi mobs were allowed to smash the windows of Jewish businesses, burn synagogues to the ground, and arrest thousands who resisted. Police and firemen were ordered by the Nazi Party not to interfere and let it all happen. Non-Jewish Germans just stood back, hid in their homes, and watched it all occur through their windows. Jews were now required to wear arms bands identifying themselves as Jewish with a yellow Star of David with the word Jude inscribed.

In 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland and WWII began.

As they swept Poland in a month, the Nazi military forced tens of thousands of Polish Jews into city ghettos, confiscating and redistributing their property. Surrounded by walls of barbed wire – poverty and hunger made the Warsaw ghettos the worst. It was a breeding ground for disease and ultimately starvation. More than 10% of the Polish population was Jewish, numbering over three million. They would soon all be sent off to Nazi concentration camps.

By 1941, after absorbing Austria and capturing France, the Nazis had in effect sealed off Europe to migration. Whether Jew, gypsy, gay or disabled, you were now trapped in Hitler’s Third Reich with no chance of escape. Forced deportations by long trains of boxcars to new Concentration Camps soon begun – with infamous names like Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Dachua, Bergen Belsen, and 20 others spread across Germany and Poland.

What began an internment camps soon became extermination factories. The Nazis Final Solution to the Jewish Problem was genocide. Whispers of the wide spread extermination leaked out to Britain, the United States and Russia. It was not until the Camps were liberated by the Allies in 1945, that the full atrocity of the Nazi Holocaust was revealed to a shocked world. Six million Jews from across Nazi occupied Europe were murdered, most by poison gas. Jews still somehow alive were starved, walking skeletons.

Jewish children rescued from Holocaust Auschwitz Concentration Camp, 1945

We humans can, and sometimes do, LEARN from history. But there are many aspects about the Holocaust, that we have yet to fully evolve past. Specifically its decade long, pre-war festering with demonization and unchecked propaganda. Authoritarian leaders or dictators have the power to create a cult-like following that can harness people through those 2 potent emotions of fear and anger. Leaders prey on conformity, hatred, privilege, racism, superiority, and bigotry. They divide populations into US and THEM camps.

We know from past and present examples that it doesn’t require centuries of gestation. A single year or event can light the fuse. In fact, in today’s digital age of instantaneous Social Media and dependence on smart phones, it can be accomplished in a matter of months … or even weeks.

So what can we human beings do today, in the “modern” 21st century, to prevent such an unthinkable event like the Holocaust from even happening again? Learn from history or be doomed to repeat it. I will leave you with this famous 1790 quote, routinely attributed to Edmund Burke, Irish statesman and philosopher:

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of Evil, is for good people to do Nothing.”
Edmond Burke

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews, click BOOKS.

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The First Transgender Rebel – Isabelle Eberhardt

The words feminist, adventurer, rebel and cross-dresser are not usually attributed to any woman in the 1890’s. But Isabelle Eberhardt boldly broke every rule of her day, then made up new ones. In her short life, she smoked heavily, drank profusely, carried a revolver, had numerous lovers, and usually dressed like a man. Who was this forgotten rebel on the 19th century?

Isabelle was born in Geneva 1877, 5th child to an aristocratic Prussian mother and a Russian father, who was both a political anarchist and defrocked priest. At an early age, young Isabelle would dance about in their garden like an untamed animal, doing whatever she pleased. She was taught by her father that girls should be as educated same as boys. It helped that she was keenly smart. She grew up multi-lingual, learning French, German, Russian, Latin, Italian, and Arabic.

Isabelle began cross-dressing while still at home, where her father expected girls to perform both physical and intellectual labors. She cut her hair boy-short and wore men’s clothing, more practical for riding horses. She was one of the only European women allowed to join the Fantasia – a Swiss exhibition that involved racing horses and shooting guns. Spellbound by foreign travelogues, she dreamed of visiting the exotic Maghreb in northwestern Africa.

At only 18, Eberhardt published her first short story, Infernalia, under the pseudonym Nicolas Podolinsky. It can only be described as necrophiliac erotica, or “sepulchral sensuality” as it was called in her day. It would not be her only published work.

Then in 1897 at 21, Isabelle finally traveled to North Africa with her mother, where they both converted to Islam. Her mother died soon after, but Isabelle decided to remain there, making the Maghreb her home. She journeyed through French colonial Sahara including Tunisia, Morocco, and Algeria – often alone and on foot. She began travelling dressed as a young Arab man, introducing herself as Si Mahmoud Saadi. Dressed in a male burna, with a fez atop her shaved head, she shared tents with both Arab men and French soldiers.

“What are you, a stranger, doing amongst all these nomadic warriors?” she was once asked. “I am obeying my destiny,” was her answer.

Her conversion to Islam did not mean she was pious. Quite the opposite, she was a heavy drinker, smoker, and hashish addict. Eberhardt took numerous lovers, never saved much money, and lived destitute most of the time. Despite her high-energy, adventurous lifestyle, she was often moody and depressed, a trait she blamed on her Russian father. Today, she’d likely be diagnosed as bipolar. In short, Eberhardt was a train wreck waiting to happen.

Despite her many addictions, writing was centrally important to her and she was eager to be published. Isabelle wrote she was “driven to maintain two lives, one adventurous that belongs to the Desert, and one, calm and restful, devoted to thought.” She was also deeply spiritual and motivated to change the world. Eberhardt condemned French colonialism in the Sahara, and openly conveyed her resentment of established gender roles for men and women.

Isabelle didn’t seem to worry about getting pregnant. Often poor and malnourished, she likely could not even get pregnant. Tougher than most men, Eberhardt always chose the hard earth to sleep on over a soft bed. Physical denial was a means of self liberation over what she called her ‘inconvenient biology.’ When asked about her Spartan lifestyle, she responded:

“Suffering is a very positive thing, for it sublimates the emotions, and produces great courage.”
Isabelle Eberhardt

Her writings from the Maghreb were unlike the more romantic works about colonial Africa, favored by male authors. She often placed her female characters in controversial roles. One of her characters decides to sell her body for money as the only escape for women who did not want to be trapped in any marriage. Though now a Muslim, Eberhardt denounced the subservient role of Muslim women. She nevertheless fully entered Arabic society, including the secret Sufi brotherhood, Qadriya.

It was not an easy path. Her beliefs and male appearance often met with strong condemnation. It simply wasnʹt acceptable for a woman to: dress like a man, discuss politics, frequent coffee houses, smoke hashish and drink alcohol. She cast off all norms associated with a turn-of-the-century woman. It was said she drank more than a French Légionnaire, smoked more hashish than an addict, and made more love than a prostitute. When asked about her proclivities she responded:

“No one ever lived more from day to day than I, or was more dependent upon chance.”
Isabelle Eberhardt

Her behavior was peculiar not only to the French colonials, but also the local Imazighen tribes. While working as a journalist, both the Algerians and French tried to use her as a spy. She never had much interest though, but that didn’t stop a sabre-wielding assassin from nearly cutting her arm off. She survived the attempt and in classic fashion, kept the sabre as a trophy. She even lobbied to have her attacker pardoned, though the wound left her in severe pain.

Through her affiliation with the Qadiriyya Sufis, she championed often violent demonstrations against French colonial occupation. Eberhardt wrote of her travels in several newspapers, including The Algerian News. She never made much money from her writing though, and what little she had, she spent quickly on tobacco, booze or books.

In 1901, Isabelle married an Algerian soldier, Slimane Ehnni, with whom she fell wildly in love.

When they got married, she broke down and wore a woman’s wig, for once bowing to convention. At one point, she even considered settling down to a quiet married life. “God had pity on me and heard my prayers,” she wrote. “He gave me the ideal companion, so ardently desired, and without whom my life would be mournful.” The young lovers talked about acquiring a small business to run together.

But it was absurd to think marriage would slow down a person like Eberhardt. While Ehnni’s post kept him in the north Saharan country, she worked as a war correspondent at the Moroccan-Algerian border. She carried out intelligence missions acting as intermediary between the local people. With her perfect Arabic and knowledge of the region, Eberhardt proved a valuable asset.

In the fall of 1904, Isabelle met up with her husband in the village of Aïn Sefra, in the Algerian province of Naama. They hadn’t seen each other for 8 months and spent what would be her last happy night together. The next day, at around 11 in the morning, the two were having an argument in their tent, when a deafening wall of water rushed down from the Algerian mountains in a freak flash flood. A large pack of melted ice would obliterate a quarter of the small town.

The couple barely had time to react to the strange roar, before a wall of water hit the town. Ehnni was swept away and survived, but Eberhardt’s body was found pinned underneath a large wooden beam. She was just 27. She had just completed a manuscript of stories and the muddy pages still surrounded her like fallen leaves. A grief stricken Ehnni ordered soldiers to sift through the rubble to find and preserve all her papers.

When she died, Isabelle Eberhardt was physically wasted. Though still young, heavy smoking, drinking, and drug use had taken their toll, as had years of poor nourishment. She suffered from malaria and likely syphilis from her many partners. Despite her youth, were it not for the flood, her body would not have carried on much longer.

Isabelle Eberhardt’s legacy as a revolutionary feminist rests less on her writing than on her very life, which acquired legendary status. Her works appeared in books posthumously, published to critical acclaim. Vagabond made its debut as a novel in France in 1922. The Androgyne du Desert, as the French called her, has inspired plays, a 1991 film with Peter O’Toole, a 2012 opera, and even an off-Broadway musical, The Nomad.

Today, androgyny is not such a scandal, or even a shock. Numerous women, from actresses like Tilda Swinton, to models like Grace Jones, to singers like Pink have adopted an androgenous appearance and lifestyle. And let’s not forget the opposite feminine adoption by men, with classic examples like musicians Elton John, Boy George, or Prince. Being transgender, nonbinary or gender neutral today, while more accepted, still carries with it some of the same social stigma endured by Isabelle Eberhardt, a hundred year ago.

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews, click BOOKS.

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Edith Wilson – America’s Forgotten Woman President

**First Lady Edith Wilson and President Woodrow Wilson**

On the morning of October 2, 1919, President Woodrow Wilson, then in his second term, attempted to stand from his bed in the White House private quarters and suffered a massive stroke. He collapsed to the floor and First Lady Edith Wilson had to drag him back to bed, where he lost consciousness. Mrs. Wilson frantically phoned the White House usher downstairs, “Please get Dr. Grayson immediately! The president is very ill!”

An hour later, the doctor emerged from the bedroom in shock … the President of the United States was paralyzed.

For months to come, the entire affair, including Wilson’s extended illness and disability, was shrouded from the nation in secrecy. The President’s stroke left him severely paralyzed on his left side and partially blind in his right eye. Not to mention the psychological trauma that accompanies such a life-altering event. The press was told the president was not being seen in public because he was merely suffering from “a severe case of exhaustion.”

Highly protective of her husband’s standing, the First Lady shielded Woodrow from guests and began a “bedside government” that excluded much of Wilson’s Cabinet and Congress. Anyone who wished to see the President of the United States now had to go through Edith Wilson. She made the decision as to what was brought to the President’s attention and when. With his consent, she secretly signed her husband’s name to all manner of correspondence and legislation. How ironic that while the Women Suffrage movement marched at the White House fence, there was in fact a secret woman president inside.

How had this unprecedented situation come about?

For the prior 6 months, President Wilson had been in Europe negotiating World War I’s Treaty of Versailles AND planning the new League of Nations (precursor to our United Nations). As the summer progressed, he realized a defeat regarding the League was brewing in the wary Senate. So an already exhausted president returned to the US and embarked on a 4 week, 8000 mile speaking tour by train to make his case for the League of Nations directly to the public.

Wilson had a dangerous habit of working incessantly, without exercise, entertainment, or relaxation. Combining his professorial skills in history, political science, and oration, he threw himself into defending the League of Nations. But with each whistle stop, the man became paler, thinner, and ever more frail. He lost his appetite and he began complaining of severe daily headaches.

On an evening in September 1919, after speaking in Colorado, Edith discovered Woodrow in their private coach with his facial muscles twitching, along with blurred vision, and crippling nausea. In modern medical terms, the President had suffered a transient ischemic attack (mini-stroke) due to a brief loss of blood flow to the brain.

The speaking tour was abruptly canceled and the couple quickly returned to the White House. Upon their arrival in DC, the president appeared ill, but was able to walk from the station to their car. He tipped his top hat to the crowd, shook a few hands, and was whisked to the White House. Barely a week later, the President suffered his far more massive stroke.

So who was this bold woman who stepped in and essentially ran the presidency?

Edith Bolling was born in the small hamlet of Wytheville, VA, daughter of a local judge of modest means. She desperately wanted out of her meager existence, sharing small quarters with a large family. She eventually married an older man, a Washington DC silver & jewelry store owner named Norman Galt. They had one child, who died in infancy. Her husband passed shortly thereafter. Though the store was deeply in debt, she took over management and brought it back to solvency.

In 1915, during a tea at the White House, she was spotted by the recently widowed President Wilson. The president’s first wife Ellen had died of kidney disease the year earlier. The lonely President was, as they say, smitten by the 43-year-old black haired beauty, who was 15 years his junior! Edith was certainly no wallflower and was in fact quite progressive in many ways. As a widow, she had purchased an automobile and became the first woman to be issued a Washington DC driver’s license.

Though he’s often portrayed as a stiff, aloof academic, Woodrow wrote long love letters to his first wife and was playful romantic with Edith. After a brief 8 month courtship, they were married in the White House. With World War I consuming Europe, any scandal over the quick marriage was ignored by the press and Congress. The popular Wilson was easily re-elected to a 2nd term.

By February 1920, news of the President’s stroke finally began to leak in the press.

Nevertheless, the full details of Wilson’s disability, and his wife’s management of presidential affairs, were never realized by the American public. How could the average American not know of this? You must remember at the time there was no internet, TV or even radio, just the newspapers. During a meeting the bedridden president held with two demanding Senators, Edith cleverly hid the extent of his paralysis by keeping his left side covered with a blanket.

In those days, constitutional guidelines didn’t yet exist for transferring presidential power during a severe illness. Wilson had all his mental faculties, and stubbornly refused to resign. The unambitious Vice President Thomas Marshall wouldn’t assume the presidency unless Congress passed a resolution, and the White House’s Dr. Grayson certified the president’s “inability to discharge the powers and duties of said office” as per the constitution. Due in large part to Edith’s actions, neither of these happened.

Slowly, Wilson partially recovered and (with Edith) managed to complete his second term. He died three years later at only 67 … with his last word being, of course – ‘Edith.’ Cognizant of her husband’s legacy, for the rest of her life Edith Wilson always insisted Woodrow had performed ALL of his presidential duties after his stroke. She stated in her memoir:

I studied every paper sent from the different Secretaries or Senators, digested and presented the items that warranted the attention of the President. The only decision that was mine was what was important and when to present matters to my husband.
First Lady Edith Wilson

Today, historians agree that First Lady Edith Wilson was much, much more than a mere “steward” of President Wilson during his illness and recovery. Decades before Hillary Clinton, she was in fact, essentially serving as the nation’s First Female President until Wilson’s 2nd term ended in 1921. Edith Wilson lived to the ripe old age of 89, playing a prominent role in D.C. society. She died in 1961 and is buried next to her husband in the crypt of Washington’s National Cathedral.

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews, click BOOKS.

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How a Teenage Boy Started World War I

Archduke Franz Ferdinand and wife Sophie in Sarajevo just before World War I

On 28 June 1914, Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his beloved wife, Sophie were visiting the picturesque city of Sarajevo in the Balkans. He was attending military exercises in neighboring Bosnia-Herzegovina. Franz Ferdinand was also the nephew of the Emperor, and heir to the throne as well! The Austro-Hungarian Empire had recently annexed the Balkan provinces, infuriating neighboring Serbia. Tensions were high and the fuse for World War I was about to be lit by a teenage boy.

The Young Bosnians, revolutionary students and Serbian nationalists, learned of the Archduke’s visit.

They immediately plotted his assassination. The revolutionaries planted assassins along his travel route through the city. In Sarajevo, Franz and Sophie boarded an elegant open-topped car for a pleasant motorcade ride through the city to the town hall. They occasionally waved to the populace as they drove by. As the cars passed, one of the Serb assassins suddenly hurled a bomb at their vehicle! It bounced off the folded roof top, and rolled underneath the wrong automobile. The loud explosion wounded two army officers and some unlucky bystanders, but not Franz Ferdinand and Sophie.

“I AM FINE!” the Archduke bellowed at is guards. And rather than flee Sarajevo at that point, he incredibly insisted they continue on to town hall. Only upon finishing his royal duties there did he agree to leave the city. They drove away at a higher speed this time, to dissuade other potential bombers. Unfortunately, their chauffeur was unfamiliar with Sarajevo and turned off the Appel Quay onto a side street by mistake. It was at this corner where Serbian teenager Gavrilo Princip was nervously waiting. Gavrilo (Gabriel) was a short, skinny 19-year-old peasant Serb, barely able to grow a mustache. He and his co-conspirators had been radicalized by the infamous Black Hand Society after the Serbian army rejected them.

As the 6 car motorcade attempted to back up, Princip saw his chance.

He whipped out his Browning pistol, charged forward, and fired two shots into the carriage at point-blank range. Bullets pierced the Archduke’s neck and Sophie’s abdomen as she lunged forward to protect her husband. She collapsed back onto the car seat. The Archduke clutched his bleeding neck. “No, no Sophie. Sophie, don’t die!” he managed to cry out. “Live for our children.” The motorcade rushed the pair to a hospital as they bled profusely.

19 Year old Gavrilo Princip, Serbian assassin who precipitated World War I

An angry mob instantly attacked Princip as he attempted to commit suicide with his pistol. He shouted proudly to the furious crowd, “I am a hero of Serbia!” The police arrested a black-eyed Gavrilo and threw him in jail. Within the hour, both Franz Ferdinand and Sophie had died. Sadly, it just happened to be their wedding anniversary as well. They left behind three young children in Vienna.

Tensions were already running high between all of Europe’s great allied powers. There had not been a continental war for almost 60 years, but all that was needed was someone to light the fuse. The Austro-Hungarin Empire considered the Serbs thieves, pigs and dogs, in no particular order. Gavrilo Princip’s assassination of the Archduke set off a rapid chain reaction of hostilities across Europe. They would culminate in our planet’s first ever WORLD WAR:

Exactly a month later, on 28 July 1914 Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia.
Russia, bound by treaty to Serbia, then began to mobilize its vast army in Serbia’s defense.
Germany, allied to Austria-Hungary, saw this as an act of war, and declared war on Russia on August 1st.
France, bound by treaty to Russia, then mobilized its army as well, so Germany declared war on France as well on August 3rd.
Germany then invaded neutral Belgium the next day, as a precursor to reach Paris. Britain, allied with Belgium & France, then, declared war against Germany on August 4th, and by extension Austria-Hungary as well.
Japan, bound by treaty with Britain, declared war on Germany on August 23rd. Austria-Hungary responded by declaring war on Japan on August 24th.
The Ottoman Empire invaded Russia in October, so the Russian Empire declared war against the Turks.
With the British Empire came the armies of its many colonies in Australia, Canada, India, and South Africa.
Italy managed to stay out of it for a year, but joined on the side of the Allies in 1915. It’s really tragic how quickly and easy war was able to cascade globally out of control.
U.S. President Woodrow Wilson tried to stay neutral at first, but finally declared war against Germany and Austria-Hungary and entered the war in 1917.
The alliances were chosen and battles quickly broke out across Europe. Britain-France-Russia-America against Germany-Austria-Hungary-Turkey, AND all their colonies across the globe.

More than 9 Million soldiers on both sides would die in the bloody trenches and battlefields of the “GREAT WAR TO END ALL WARS.”

World War I introduced new implements of death for the very first time, like tanks, machine guns, bi-wing airplanes and poison mustard gas . Four long years later, millions of young men had perished in the French and Belgian trenches or the battlefields of eastern Europe. The introduction of American forces finally tipped the scales. Germany and Austria-Hungary were forced to surrender at the Paris Armistice. It was signed in a railroad car outside the capital on the 11^th hour of the 11^th day of the 11^th month – 11 November 1918.

But it wasn’t over for many. The Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918 would bring further death to the world. The surviving troops returned to their home nations with the deadly influenza virus in their lungs. 50 Million more people would die from the pandemic.

And what of teenage Gavrilo Princip? At his October trial in Vienna he stated:

“I am a nationalist, aiming for the unification of all Yugoslavs. I do not care what form of state, but we must be free from Austria.”

He was legally too young to be hanged, being just 20 days shy of his 20th birthday. The court instead gave Gavrilo a 20-year prison sentence. He was sent to the Terezin prison in Bohemia and placed in chains and solitary confinement. He died of severe malnutrition and tuberculosis four years later, at only 23. In Serbia today, Princip is remembered as a national hero and a freedom fighter, who fought to liberate his people from Austrian imperial rule. In 2014, 100 years later, a statue of Gavrilo Princip was erected in Belgrade and unveiled by the Serbian President.

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews, click BOOKS.

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Teddy Roosevelt’s Darkest Day was NOT as US President

Theodore Roosevelt’s darkest day did not occur while he was President of the United States, but rather 17 years earlier. On 13 February 1884, a young Teddy Roosevelt was toiling away in the New York state legislature in Albany. He was attempting in his usual energetic fashion to get a reform bill passed. He had found his niche in politics and was the Bull-in-a-China-Shop of the state assembly, admired by some and ridiculed by others. A day earlier, his darling wife, Alice, had just given birth to their first child in Manhattan, a daughter whom they named Alice Lee. Roosevelt could not have been more fulfilled or happy.

Only 25 years old, the thrilled new father intended to return home the next day to see his wife and new child. That is, until his brother sent him an urgent telegram summoning him back at once! He was shocked to read that both Alice AND his widowed mother were gravely ill. A panicked Roosevelt did not even pack a bag and rushed to the Albany train station. He arrived in New York City well after midnight, and took a handsome cab to their townhouse on East 57th Street. His younger brother greeted him at the door of his family home. Elliott looked pale and ominously proclaimed to him,

“Theodore, there is a curse on this house.”

His widowed mother, Mittie, had developed typhoid and was burning with fever on a couch downstairs. His younger sister Corinne sat next to her, applying a cold compress to their mother’s forehead. And just upstairs in their bedroom, his beloved Alice lay in a semi-comatose state. She was barely able to recognize her husband. He sat on the bed next to her with tears in his eyes. He squeezed her hand in his, “Alice, my darling, it is I, Theodore.” In addition to all this, he had a newborn child, Alice Lee, crying in a bassinet at the foot of the bed. His older sister Barnie was attempting to comfort the newborn baby. With the family doctor hovering between patients, Roosevelt settled in for what proved to be very long and sleepless night.

At three in the morning of the 14^th, his mother succumbed to her high fever and passed away. Leaving her with his three siblings, a distraught Teddy Roosevelt then staggered upstairs to be with Alice. At 2 pm in the afternoon, his wife of four years died in his arms of Bright’s Disease, a severe kidney ailment that had gone undiagnosed. She was only 22 years old. One can only imagine the grief and disbelief the future president went through that dreadful day. That evening, though possessing a healthy new daughter in the nursery, Roosevelt wrote a large X and a single sentence in his diary:

‘The light has gone out of my life ...’

This double tragedy devastated the usually optimistic young Teddy. Burdened by grief, he felt he could not yet be a father to his new child. He left the infant Alice Lee in the care of his older sister Bamie. Then he resigned as state assemblyman and abandoned his political career. Instead, he struck out as far from New York City as he could get. He travelling to the wild and untamed Dakota Territories. There he bought a small ranch which he named Elkhorn. He built a log cabin, and lived as a cattleman, though as he had no experience doing so. At first, he was laughed at by the locals, this rich fellow with spectacles and fancy clothes. In typical fashion, he threw himself into learning to ranch and gradually earned the respect of real cowboys.

The stark isolation from his former life slowly helped heal the future president. After two years in the Dakotas, Teddy Roosevelt decided it was time to return home. He needed to become a father to Alice and resume his life. So distressed by his wife’s death, he rarely spoke of her again, even to their daughter as she grew up. He ordered those around him not to utter his wife’s name again, and did not write of her in his autobiography years later.

Colonel Teddy Roosevelt Rough Rider, 1898

Once back in New York, he again took up politics, as New York City’s Police Commissioner, enacting a series of reforms in the notoriously corrupt department. He married his second wife, a childhood friend Edith Carow, and together they raised his high–spirited and precocious daughter, Alice Lee, who later became a bit of a national celebrity. He eventually had five more children with Edith. President McKinley appointed him Assistant Secretary of the Navy next, beginning his Washington career. After a famous stint with the Rough Riders in the Spanish-American War in Cuba, he became a national hero, then Governor of New York in 1898.

It was around then, the Republicans selected a still young Teddy Roosevelt as President William McKinley’s Vice President. When McKinley was assassinated in 1901, barely a year into his second term, Theodore Roosevelt suddenly rose to become President of the United States. He was only 43. He went on to achieve many great accomplishments including building the Panama Canal, starting the National Park Service, winning the Nobel Peace Prize, and breaking up powerful corporate monopolies. TR, as he was called, easily won a second term and became one of America’s most beloved presidents, eventually earning a place on Mount Rushmore.

Of his first wife Alice, TR wrote the last words he ever spoke of her for a private memorial at the funeral:

“She was beautiful in face and form, and lovelier still in spirit; as a flower she grew, and as a fair young flower she died. Fair, pure, and joyous as a maiden; loving, tender, and happy as a young wife; when her life seemed to be just begun, and when the years seemed so bright before her – then, by a strange and terrible fate, death came to her.”
Theodore Roosevelt

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews, click BOOKS.

Lost in History

Life Before Earth Day and the Environmental Movement

Cleveland Cuyahoga River burning in 1969 — **Cleveland’s Cuyahoga River ‘burning’ in November 1952**

In June 1969, Cleveland’s Cuyahoga River was so polluted with industrial waste runoff it literally caught fire yet again. America’s Potomac, Chicago, Delaware and Hudson rivers all stunk to high heaven with millions of gallons of industrial waste deposited in them every single day. Most cities dumped their sewage directly into nearby rivers, with little or no treatment. Boston and Baltimore harbors were noxious dead zones. The environmental movement changed all that.

Massive floating fish kills were a common sight in US and EU harbors.

Heavy choking smog from smokestacks and tailpipes was blocking the sun and sickening citizens in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York City and London. Lake Erie’s oxygen content was so low it sustained precious little fish. Leaded paints and auto exhausts were at high enough levels they could cause birth defects. Industrial cities like St. Louis and Newark, with scores of belching smoke stacks, stank to the point of causing nausea and skin rashes in children.

This is not some dystopian, future landscape here. Baby boomers remember it was all very real. Whether in the air, water or earth, we could not escape the fact we were slowly destroying the very countries we lived in. By 1970, there were few pollution deniers left [including in the U.S. Congress], as the evidence was visible, widespread and undeniable world-wide.

Ecology had become a legitimate science and a topic of daily dinner table discussions.

The burgeoning environmental movement reminded people that our air, water and land resources were finite. In the late1960s, the northeast industrial states of the U.S. were more worried about losing industries, tax dollars and union jobs than about preventing widespread pollution. It was clear the U.S. needed a Federal environmental policy to protect its population.

Republican President Richard Nixon was at first reluctant to create a federal agency that set and enforced environmental laws. He had bigger fish to fry at the time, like the ongoing War in Vietnam. But by 1970, the Vietnam War was no longer dominating headlines. Concerns about pollution became a new priority for the White House. With backlash coming from all directions, the message of outrage and concern from the American people was getting through to even Nixon.

The first Earth Day took place in April 1970 with support of both Republican and Democratic Senators.

In the end, Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) not because he himself shared those concerns, but the public and Congress obviously did. “It is literally now or never,” he said in his 1970 State of the Union address. He signed the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which began a federal role in environmental protection by creating a new agency – the U.S. EPA. It’s hard to imagine such overwhelming bipartisan support in Congress for environmental protection in today’s world of climate change denial, but it happened in 1970.

There are countless ways the world has changed, thanks to the environmental movement.

The U.S. CLEAN AIR ACT of 1970 gave EPA the authority to regulate air pollutants like lead. Americans were dying every year from heart disease linked to lead poisoning and children were growing up with lower IQs. The levels of other air toxins like mercury, benzene, and arsenic have also been dramatically reduced.

The U.S. CLEAN WATER ACT of 1972 gave EPA the authority to set national regulations over municipal and industrial waste waters AND enforce them at the state level, while also providing the funds to do so.

The Pesticide Control ACT of 1972 gave EPA authority to regulate pesticides. Before it banned the use of DDT, the insecticide was the most popular agricultural pesticide in the US. People had little notion of its dangers.

The Resource Conservation & Recovery Act of 1976 required landfills to be lined and water leaching through them collected. Up through the 1960s, industries disposed of hazardous waste like ordinary trash— in unlined landfills or in open dumps on factory land, where runoff from rusting barrels contaminated city drinking waters.

The Acid Rain Program reduced emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide in the air, which were raising the acidity levels of our lakes and killing fish populations. The Asbestos Program provides resources on how to manage asbestos fibers used in fire proofing, which when inhaled causes a brutal form of lung cancer called asbestosis.

U.S. EPA Superfund Site Warning sign during the environmental movement

The U.S. Congress enacted the SUPERFUND ACT of 1980 to clean up our greatest mistakes and the legacy of hazardous waste sites like Love Canal, NY and Times Beach, MO recovering clean up costs from the original polluters. Superfund sites exist in almost every US state. One in six Americans lives near a cleaned up Superfund Site! The world followed suit and the European Environment Agency was formed by the European Union in 1994.

One might hope that in the decades since, the U.S. EPA and European EEA have done their job, pollution is completely under control, America and the world in general is clean and safe again. Time to deregulate the states and trust their industries? It will save corporations billions on pollution control measures and create more well-paying jobs. Right? Corporations certainly give millions in campaign donations to like-minded politicians.

Historians often say that human beings in general do not learn from their mistakes, and are therefore doomed to repeat them. One simply has to look at our present day and the Great Pacific Garbage Patch or the Global Climate Change to realize we still have a long way to go. Government deregulation of polluting corporations, with profits placed above people, is a slippery slope that America and the world has already fallen down once before. To quote former U.S. President Ronald Reagan: “Trust but verify.”

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews, click BOOKS.

Lost in History

10 Examples of Being on the Wrong Side of History

Depiction of a Flat Earth - wrong side of history example — Depiction of a Flat Earth – classic wrong side of history example

Here are 10 cases of Ideas or Theories that were once widely believed to be the truth. But today, are most definitely on the Wrong Side of History – some are moral, some technological, and some philosophical. Through today’s modern lens, some of these will appear ridiculous or even repugnant. Yet at the time, in their day, they were deemed FACT and perfectly correct and acceptable. Some of them may even give you a rather unsettling sense of déjà vu.

1) Women’s Suffrage

To quote some prominent male politicians at the turn of 1900’s: “Women will only vote as their husbands tell them too. Giving the vote to radical women will risk the common good and offers absolutely no benefit! More women voting than men will place the Government under petticoat rule.” These arguments sound crazy when heard today, but the Women’s Suffrage movement in the United States lasted 71 long years, from the New York Seneca Convention in 1848, all the way to the passage of the U.S. Constitution’s 19^th Amendment in 1919 – finally giving women the right to vote same as men. Names like Elizabeth Stanton, Lucrecia Mott, and Susan B. Anthony are legendary suffragettes. All that was only 100 years ago, by the way.

2) Slavery

U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney ruled in 1858 that American slaves were “so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the Negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his own benefit.” The American slaves were emancipated by President Abraham Lincoln during the U.S. Civil War in 1862. They were later freed by the U.S. Constitution’s 13^th Amendment; given citizenship in the 14^th; and the right to vote in the 15^th Amendment. Nevertheless, racial discrimination and rampant segregation continued for another hundred years. This is, until the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. And not just in the U.S. South, with its so-called Jim Crow Laws, but in fact discrimination and segregation around the entire world.

3) Evolution

Here’s a quote by William Jennings Bryan from the famous Scopes “Monkey” trial of 1925. ‘Evolution is only a fanciful theory, that cannot be proven by science.’ It was once against the law for teachers to talk about evolution in the classroom. Naturalist Charles Darwin published his famous book On the Origin of Species in 1859. We have centuries of carbon-dated fossil remains as evidence of multiple dinosaur species and Neanderthals. Yet despite those facts, we still have some ‘Creationists’ promoting a pro-Genesis / anti-Science stance to this day, demanding equal time in public school curriculums and history books. Distrust of new scientific discoveries is not uncommon throughout our history. One need only look at astronomy – the church imprisoning Galileo for stating the Earth revolved around the sun, or medicine and today’s anti-mask/anti-vaccine movement.

4) Communism

Following the publication of his famous manifesto, German Karl Marx proclaimed in 1848, “Religion is the opium of the masses. Communism may be summed up in a single sentence: Abolition of private property.” Everything was eventually owned and planned by the totalitarian Communist Party. Religion and human rights were often brutally suppressed. Throughout recent history, whether lead by Vladimir Lenin, Josef Stalin, Mao Zedong, Nikita Khrushchev, or Mikhail Gorbachev, the failure and ultimate collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989, and the once mighty Soviet Union (USSR) in 1991 proves otherwise. Enough said on the past. Today’s modern Communist nations, like China, Cuba and Vietnam, are more free market capitalists than Marxist. And they are slowly becoming more ‘democratic’ with each passing decade and new generation of young people.

5) Internal combustion engine

“Why you’re crazy if you think that fool contraption will ever displace a good horse.” That was a common refrain heard in the late 1800’s when German Karl Benz invented the new motor wagon. Horseless buggies were indeed a curious, noisy, smelly and expensive novelty. That is until American Henry Ford invented the automotive assembly line and the cheap, ubiquitous Model T car in 1913. He was able to mass produce cars that the average family could now afford, not just the wealthy. Coal steam engines in trains, ships, factories and power plants slowly faded away to diesel engines. Drugstores first began selling gasoline in cans, then stand alone gas stations appeared like mushrooms on the landscape, and the rest, as they say, is history. Think electric vehicles are the future? ‘Why you’re crazy if you think that fool contraption will ever replace a good …’

6) Man-powered flight

‘If God had meant man to fly, he’d have given him wings.’ That unattributed quote was often repeated in the late 1800’s when man first seriously attempted man-powered flight. But it did not originate from the time of the Wright Brothers and Kitty Hawk. It came rather as the challenge that the brilliant inventor and artist Leonardo de Vinci received from his benefactors during the Italian Renaissance in 1485. Leonardo went on to design numerous successful gliders and unsuccessful flying machines. His sketches and models inspired two brothers who owned a bicycle shop in Ohio to build an airplane in 1903 and fly it on a beach in North Carolina. It’s since inspired others famous aviators, from Amelia Earhart and Howard Hughes to Sir Richard Branson and Elon Musk. Try to imagine a world today without frequent and inexpensive global airline travel.

7) Flat Earth

The idea of a spherical planet goes back as far as the Greek philosopher Aristotle. This was long before the Nordic Vikings and Cristobal Columbus sailed the Earth’s oceans to prove it true. Yet despite thousands of images from the Apollo Moon Missions to the current International Space Station, we still have the Flat Earth Society, started in 1956 by Samuel Shelton, a member of the British Royal Geographical Society. Seemingly rational people believe in such outlandish conspiracy theories for a variety of reasons, usually to explain random events with some sinister plot, or for a sense of social belonging to a like-minded group of people who think they alone know the secret truth. Just think of JFK’s assassination claims, faked Apollo moon landings, Roswell, NM and Area 51, or COVID being engineered in China. Apparently for some conspiracy theorists, even seeing is not believing.

8) Rock and Roll

Posters and pastors in the 1950’s loudly proclaimed: “Rock and Roll is the Devil’s music! Don’t Buy Negro Records. That savage music is undermining the morals of today’s youth.’ That last part sound familiar perhaps to current generations? The images of young, integrated black & white audiences dancing together at concerts shocked social conservatives of the 1950’s Rock-n-Roll was invented by the likes of legendary Black American musicians like Chuck Berry and Fats Domino. This of course led to Elvis Presley’s swiveling hips, John Lennon’s Jesus quote, Woodstock‘s stoned hippies, Acid Rock’s big hair bands, Hip-Hop’s poetry to a beat, and on and on. Today, Baby Boomer grandparents who grew up listening to the Beatles and Rolling Stones, now say to their grandkids, “What the heck is that music you’re listening too? Why back in the day we had …”

9) Immigrants

Here is a blunt and stark quote from the past: ‘Those immigrants are dangerous criminals, they’re barbaric pagans, send them all back where they came from!’ Heard that from politicians recently? Try the 1850’s when it was directed at the Irish immigrants coming to America (not Muslims or Asians or Latinos). After the Irish wave came New York’s Ellis Island and the Italians, Swedes, Germans, Poles, Greeks, Turks and many more. We are a global planet with legal boundaries made by humans, not God. Boundaries can and often do shift with each war and generation. Every country has benefited in one way or another from waves of immigration, going as far back as Italian Marco Polo and China in 1295. Yet the ‘Us vs Them‘ knee-jerk mentality sadly continues to this day, even from those whose own great-grandparents were once struggling immigrants themselves. How quickly we forget.

10) Climate Change

The effects on our global climate from burning fossil fuels like coal, oil or natural gas have been known since the 1960’s. It was known that the building up of greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide, from doing so were slowly warming our planet. Yet decades of petroleum industry and lobbied political propaganda convinced the public it was all fake. All those intellectual, elite scientists were dead wrong. There was no harm at all, so keep buying gas. Today we know different. Our atmosphere and oceans have warmed, melting glaciers, creating sea level rise, causing devastating droughts, brutal winter storms, and catastrophic flooding. Even worse, because of a lack of political will today, we may have reached the point of no return – cursing our future grandchildren to a preventable climate crisis of our own making.

* * *

So how do we determine if an idea or concept in question Today will be on the Wrong Side of History tomorrow? Well, get out your crystal ball and tarot cards, for we often cannot. Social or moral issues, for example, are not based on science. ‘Only time will tell,’ as the old saying goes. Does it mean that the history that survived the test of time was “Right” in the end? Not necessarily. Slavery and even genocide, were legally justified in one form or another by many civilizations for thousands of years, up to the Nazi Holocaust. Remember, he who wins the war, gets to right (or rewrite) the history.

Plus, to state another sad truth – if you repeat a lie often enough, people will eventually believe it. Our current, instant internet culture has only magnified that fact. Just like with wars, the winner isn’t always Right, just stronger in the end … at least for the time being. As a modern, rational society, we like to think that logic, science, and morality will win out in the end, don’t we? That in the long run, absurd or immoral, or even EVIL ideas may have their days in the sun; but then like roaches or weeds, they are eventually removed. However, they never quite Die, do they?

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews, click BOOKS

Lost in History

The Great Smog of London Killed Thousands

**Noon during Great London Smog of 1952**

Most everyone knows of the heavy smog that routinely hangs over China’s capital, Beijing. But few remember a far deadlier version that attacked London in 1952. That’s right, London. A FIVE DAY long blanket of smog so thick it brought road, air and river traffic to a complete halt and was so polluted it left thousands dead! The Great Smog remains the deadliest environmental disaster in recorded history. And ironically, the people it killed were partly to blame.

Since the 1800’s, London was no stranger to pollution. Britain has long been affected by its famous pea-soup fogs, but these became much worse with the dawn of the Industrial Revolution of the mid 19th century. Hundreds of London area factories belched noxious smoke into the air, much of which was poisonous. The River Thames valley is flat and low-lying, making it hard to disperse.

Deadly smog episodes occurred in London as early as December 1813 (from house chimneys), then again in January 1880 (from houses and factories), and November 1948 (houses and factories and cars). The London death rate would increase after each incident. The worst affected area was usually the East End, where most of the factories and lower-class houses sat. A small scale version had occurred just 4 years earlier Pennsylvania in the U.S., the so-called Donora Death Fog. No one thought such thing could ever happen in London though.

Back in the 1950’s, industrial smog had become a part of London daily life. As dawn broke on Friday, December 5th, the London sky was clear blue and winds were light. The sky was so clear in fact, the autumn ground cooled. When the moist air contacted the cool ground, a layer of fog formed.

Now an early-winter cold snap had been gripping London for weeks. As folks awoke that Friday morning, Londoners did what they have for centuries, they stoked their furnaces and fireplaces with coal to take away the chill. Smoke billowed from the chimneys of every London abode, and we’re talking thousands of chimneys.

Then a rare atmospheric inversion began trapping the smoke over London.

A 30 mile wide high-pressure system had stalled over southern England. This pushed cold air downwards, creating an ‘inversion.’ So when smoke belched out of a thousand chimneys and stacks, it was trapped over London with no place to go.

During the morning of 5 December, the fog was not especially thick. But as the day progressed, a veil of smog began to enshroud Parliament’s Big Ben, St. Pauls Cathedral, and Tower Bridge. Londoners had endured countless smogs, so no one had any idea a deadly catastrophe was brewing in the air above them.

This smog’s foul-smelling, yellow-brown appearance was totally different than the clean white fog of the English coast. With not even a wisp of a breeze, there was no wind to disperse the soot-laden air. Nonetheless, Londoners went about their business, going to work and school, ignoring it as much as possible. By the end of the day however, it became impossible to ignore.

Witnesses recall the blackness of this particular smog. After a few hours, drivers couldn’t see the curb from behind the wheel of their cars. They turned on their headlights in mid-day to inch ahead in the gloom. Boat traffic on the River Thames slowed to a halt. Flights in and out of Heathrow Airport were grounded. Conductors walked in front of red double-decker buses holding lanterns to guide drivers down city streets. The smog had crippled all transportation, except for the London Underground.

Everyone in London would stumble along blind for the next four days. The smoke blocked out the sun and the air turned colder. Londoners heaped even more coal on their fires, making even more smoke out their chimneys. Evening concerts and motion picture shows had to be cancelled. Streets were littered with abandoned cars as drivers were forced to walk home.

The smog had a nauseating rotten egg smell. Wheezing pedestrians with kerchiefs over their mouth, groped their way home, trying not to slip on the greasy black ooze beginning to coat streets and sidewalks. By the time they returned home, their faces were blackened by the air, resembling Welsh coal miners.

The following day, Saturday, December 6, the winter sun was too low in the sky to burn the fog away. That day and for the next two, the smog continued to thicken. Authorities told parents to keep children home from school. Looting and burglaries increased as emboldened criminals easily vanished into the gloom. Weekend soccer games were cancelled, a rare occurrence indeed. In most parts of London, it was impossible for pedestrians to find their way at night.

In case you’re wondering, with every opened door, the smog seeped inside buildings as well. A greasy grime covered exposed surfaces, like floors, windows and door knobs. Librarians found smog lurking among the bookshelves. Movie theaters closed as the yellow haze made it impossible to see the screen, not to mention the coughing patrons made it hard to hear the sound.

On the second day, the deaths began as 500 people died in London from the smog.

Some of the smog’s sulfur mixed with water in the air, turning into sulfuric acid vapor, caused severe breathing problems, plus skin and eye irritation. When the ambulances stopped running, thousands of gasping and gagging Londoners stumbled through the smog to try and find the overwhelmed city’s hospitals.

Lying on hospital beds and gurneys, the lips of the dying were turning blue. Cigarette smoking and long term exposure to pollution had already weakened many Londoner’s lungs. Particulates and acids in the killer smog finished the job by triggering massive pulmonary inflammation. In essence, the dead suffocated in their own London air.

By Sunday, December 7th, visibility fell to one foot. It was so dark and thick you could no longer see your feet outside. Services at St. Pauls Cathedral were cancelled as the dealt toll rose to over 1,000 souls. It wasn’t until undertakers began to run out of coffins, that the deadly impact of “The Great Smog” was finally realized by city officials.

London Bobby during the Great London Smog

The effects weren’t limited to people either. Birds lost in the smog crashed into buildings. Dogs were found dead in the gutters. Cattle died, their lungs black with soot, and were discarded rather than slaughtered. Breeders tried to fashion improvised gas masks by soaking grain sacks in whiskey and placing them over the cows’ heads.

Some 900 more died from the smog on Tuesday, December 9th.

The Great Smog was exceptionally lethal for the elderly, younger children and anyone with asthma or respiratory problems. Heavy smokers were especially vulnerable. The link to lung cancer was not yet known, so cigarette smoking was still widespread in the 1950’s.

Then on Tuesday night, a brisk wind finally swept in unexpectedly. The killer fog vanished off into the North Sea as quickly as it had arrived. Thousands of Londoners were dead, and thousands more were about to die. Those who survived no longer spoke of London’s romantic pea-soup fog, where couples could sneak away for a hidden rendezvous.

Initial reports estimated that 4,000 more died in the immediate aftermath of the smog. But the detrimental effects lingered, and death rates remained well above normal into 1953. Many experts now estimate the Great Smog claimed as many as 12,000 lives. Many suffered from long term breathing problems. Deaths from bronchitis and pneumonia increased more than seven-fold.

The British government was slow to act during the Great Smog. Heavy fog was, after all, a common occurrence in London, so there was no immediate sense of urgency. Following a government investigation, however, Parliament passed the Clean Air Act of 1956, which restricted burning coal in urban areas. Homeowners received grants to convert to cleaner oil heat furnaces. Factory operators had to convert to more smokeless fuels.

The transition took years however, and deadly fogs continued to occur, 750 died a decade later in 1962, for example. Thankfully, this kind of smog has become a thing of the past in London thanks to pollution legislation. While the killer fog is not very well remembered by current generations, it did change the way many nations around the world looked at their own air pollution.

But sadly, not everywhere, as similar conditions are now well established in modern China. Beijing’s smog is infamous and legendary, and nearly derailed their 2008 Summer Olympic Games. With another atmospheric inversion, another death smog could occur there any day.

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews, click BOOKS.

Lost in History menu

In 1868, Blavatsky traveled to India and Tibet, where she claimed her Master Morya took her to the mythical city of Shamballah in the Himalayas.

She wrote her first book, Isis Unveiled claiming it was copied with ‘her hand in the astral light.’

In 1885, the Society for Psychical Research issued a stinging report.

In 1891, Blavatsky came down with a severe case of influenza during an epidemic.

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews, click BOOKS.

In 1765, French Admiral Louis-Antoine de Bougainville was commissioned to sail around the world and discover new territories for France.

Finally admitting such a traumatic and humiliating secret silenced suspicions … for a time.

It was in Tahiti that Baret’s true gender was finally revealed

A heartbroken Baret remained in Mauritius, stranded and penniless.

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews, click BOOKS.

Relentless anti-Semitic propaganda preached to the German people in both the press and radio.

In 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland and WWII began.

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews, click BOOKS.

“What are you, a stranger, doing amongst all these nomadic warriors?” she was once asked. “I am obeying my destiny,” was her answer.

In 1901, Isabelle married an Algerian soldier, Slimane Ehnni, with whom she fell wildly in love.

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews, click BOOKS.

An hour later, the doctor emerged from the bedroom in shock … the President of the United States was paralyzed.

How had this unprecedented situation come about?

So who was this bold woman who stepped in and essentially ran the presidency?

By February 1920, news of the President’s stroke finally began to leak in the press.

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews, click BOOKS.

The Young Bosnians, revolutionary students and Serbian nationalists, learned of the Archduke’s visit.

As the 6 car motorcade attempted to back up, Princip saw his chance.

More than 9 Million soldiers on both sides would die in the bloody trenches and battlefields of the “GREAT WAR TO END ALL WARS.”

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews, click BOOKS.

“Theodore, there is a curse on this house.”

‘The light has gone out of my life ...’

Of his first wife Alice, TR wrote the last words he ever spoke of her for a private memorial at the funeral:

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews, click BOOKS.

Massive floating fish kills were a common sight in US and EU harbors.

Ecology had become a legitimate science and a topic of daily dinner table discussions.

The first Earth Day took place in April 1970 with support of both Republican and Democratic Senators.

There are countless ways the world has changed, thanks to the environmental movement.

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews, click BOOKS.

1) Women’s Suffrage

2) Slavery

3) Evolution

4) Communism

5) Internal combustion engine

6) Man-powered flight

7) Flat Earth

8) Rock and Roll

9) Immigrants

10) Climate Change

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews, click BOOKS

Then a rare atmospheric inversion began trapping the smoke over London.

“It swirled like it was alive,” one witness said. “It’s like you were blind,” said another.

On the second day, the deaths began as 500 people died in London from the smog.

Some 900 more died from the smog on Tuesday, December 9th.

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews, click BOOKS.