Why is Greenland a part of Denmark?

Map of Greenland
Map of Greenland in the north Atlantic Ocean

Up until 2025, Greenland generally flew below the world’s radar.  All that has changed recently.  Facts about Greenland are more well known than ever.  For example, it is the world’s largest island, but with a population of less than 60,000 – ninety percent Inuits. It is farther north than any other land mass, including Canada and Russia, and one of the coldest places on earth.

Over 80% of Greenland is covered by a polar ice cap.  However, climate change has caused its vast glaciers to start melting.  The silver lining of sorts is that this has allowed new access to Greenland’s valuable mineral resources. Potential oil, gas and rare earth mineral reserves have attracted international attention, including from the U.S.

Though a part of the North American continent, Greenland has been associated first with Norway, then Denmark since the 9th Century.  Its head of state is King Frederik X of Denmark.  It is an autonomous Danish territory with self-government and its own parliament.  But how did this all come about?

The first humans to set foot in Greenland were NOT the Vikings.  Indigenous people arrived about 5,000 years ago from North America (what is today Canada) when the sea froze in the narrow strait at Thule. Six different Inuit tribes migrated over the centuries. Greenland’s native population is descended from the final Thule culture, which arrived in the 9th century.

This final Inuit immigration took place just before the arrival of Viking Erik the Red and his Norseman in 982 AD.  He was called Erik the Red due to his flaming red beard and hair.  Erik Thorvaldsson was banished from Iceland, sailed west, and ‘discovered’ the island.   Erik the Red was both explorer and entrepreneur.  He called his discovery “Greenland” to make it more attractive to settlers. He returned in 986 and established two settlements in the south and west.

Greenland became a part of Denmark in 1380 when Norway’s kingdom united under the Danish Crown.

The Norse colonists vanished from Greenland around 1350 for reasons that remain a mystery.  It was likely due to the “Little Ice Age.” A volcano on the Indonesian island of Lombok erupted – the most powerful eruption of the last 7,000 years. The dust in the atmosphere caused temperatures around the world to plummet. In Greenland, summer highs would have been just 6°C/11°F , leading to starvation when their crops failed and livestock died. Many of the Norse settlers’ ruins are still visible in South Greenland and the capital of Nuuk.

A Christian missionary, Hans Egede, convinced King Frederick IV of Denmark-Norway to allow an expedition to Greenland.  He arrived in Nuuk in 1721 to set up a mission and search for the lost Norse colony. He never found them, but instead managed to convert the Inuits to Christianity. The Inuits managed to survive the Little Ice Age since they relied upon the sea and not crops for their livelihood. As a result, the Inuits of today are now Lutherans.

In 1814, the Kingdom of Denmark-Norway broke apart following the Napoleonic Wars.  Thereafter, Greenland formally became a Danish colony.  Greenland’s mining history began in 1854 with the discovery of cryolite, a mineral used in aluminum production.  At the time, it was the world’s only commercial source of cryolite, producing 3.7 million tons over its lifetime.

In the 1900’s, Denmark introduced sheep farming in the warmer, southern part of the island and commercial whaling started up.  During World War I, the U.S. government, under President Woodrow Wilson, recognized Denmark’s right to Greenland.  It was part of an agreement where the U.S. acquired the Danish Virgin Islands (today the U.S. Virgin Islands) for $25 million in gold.

Greenland U.S. cryolite mine 1941
Greenland U.S. cryolite mine 1941

During World War II, Denmark was occupied by Nazi Germany, primarily to establish weather stations for the North Atlantic.  Working with the Danish government in exile, the U.S. occupied Greenland to defend it against a possible German invasion. The military built Thule Air Base on the upper west coast. Cryolite output peaked during World War II amid increased U.S. and British demand for aluminum to build military aircraft.

After the war in 1946, the Truman administration offered to buy Greenland from Denmark.

It was in order to secure military bases because of “the extreme importance of Greenland to the defense of the United States.” Denmark rejected the sale, but did allow Thule Air Force Base to remain. In 1950, during the Cold War, Denmark signed a long-term lease agreement with the U.S. allowing them to expand Thule Air Base.  It grew substantially in the 1950’s as part of NATO’s radar and missile defense strategy. Unfortunately, many Inuit communities lost their land in the expansion.

By 1953, Greenland became an official part of the Kingdom of Denmark. Parliament made amendments to the Danish Constitution and Greenland was no longer considered a colony. Real decision-making power, however, remained with the Danish parliament and the Ministry of Greenland in Copenhagen.

In 1979, demands by Greenlanders to have control over their own affairs lead to the Home Rule Act.  This established a Greenlandic parliament and gave them local control over education, health and industries. The legislation was approved by the Danish parliament and ratified by seventy percent of Greenland voters.

Greenlanders voted on another referendum in 2008, granting even more independence. They wanted greater control over their energy resources and made Kalaallisut (Greenlandic) the official language.  Greenland became a self-governing country within the Kingdom of Denmark. The Self-Government Act was approved by over 75% of Greenland voters.  Denmark, however, still retained control of defense and foreign affairs.

By 2010, Greenland’s ice sheet began shrinking faster than ever due to climate change.

The retreating glaciers exposed more of Greenland’s rugged tundra coastline. The cryolite mine closed after it was depleted in 1987, but other mines now started in its place. In 2013, Greenland ended a 25-year ban on mining radioactive materials, like uranium.  This lead to a parallel boom in exports of rare earth minerals, like lithium, neodymium and dysprosium, needed for electric vehicle batteries and magnets.

Viking Norseman Erik the Red
Viking Norseman Erik the Red discovered Greenland in 982.

That brings us to 2019, when President Donald Trump made his first offer to buy Greenland from Denmark. The Danish Prime Minister rejected the idea, saying, “Greenland is not for sale. Greenland is not Danish. Greenland belongs to Greenland.” A presidential trip to Copenhagen was quickly cancelled and the deal fell through.

Prime Minister Mute Egede took over in 2021 after his Inuit party won parliamentary elections on a platform of halting a rare metals mining for economic and environmental reasons. Greenland also banned all new oil and gas exploration in its territory. Government officials said the “environmental price was simply too high”.

Today Greenland is a modern, autonomous nation, albeit still a formal part of the Kingdom of Denmark.  Snowmobiles have replaced dogsleds as the primary form of transportation outside the modern capital of Nuuk.  Like the rest of the world, cell phones and WiFi have become the common means of communication for both young and old alike. Thirty-eight year old Inuit PM Mute Egede is a staunch advocate for Greenland’s full independence.

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Podcast: Jamaica’s Port Royal Sank into the Sea

Jamaica’s Port Royal was the richest, busiest, and most nefarious port in the Caribbean Sea, frequented by smugglers, pirates, and prostitutes. All that changed on June 7, 1692 when Port Royal was hit by a massive earthquake, subsequent tsunami, and literally sank into the sea like the legendary Atlantis.

A depiction of Jamaican Port Royal sinking into the sea in 1692.
A depiction of Jamaican Port Royal sinking into the sea in 1692.
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Podcast: Marguerite Alibert – from Prostitute to Princess

Marguerite Alibert lived many different lives.  She had gone from poverty to prostitution to princes – not just one, but two. She was a beautiful yet hard woman who survived the gritty world of Paris poverty, only to mingle among France’s elite. Marguerite viewed sex and love not from a romantic perspective, but as a means to first survive, and later thrive. She managed to transform herself from a prostitute, to a consort, to a defendant in the trial of her husband’s murder.  In 1923, Marguerite shot her second husband three times in the back at the Savoy Hotel in London. In the end, Marguerite went down in history as the French prostitute who got away with murder.

Prince Edward, Marguerite Alibert and Fahmy Bey
Prince Edward, Marguerite Alibert and Fahmy Bey
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The Real Macaronis – Britain’s Scandalous Mens Club

A young British Macaroni Club member
A young British Macaroni Club member

There have always been daring trendsetters throughout history, from fops and dandies to our more modern hipsters and fashionistas. The ‘Macaronis’ of 18th century Britain outdid them all in their extravagant fashion excesses and pretentiousness.  These young, male British aristocrats were famous not just for their extremely elaborate (and often effeminate) dress, but for their snobbish attitudes as well. 

By greatly over-exaggerating the current European styles, they managed to start their own unique fashion trend.  Then came the odd ‘macaroni’ reference in the patriotic song, Yankee Doodle.  But the world wasn’t quite ready for the Macaronis. Their reign in society was short-lived and came to an abrupt end. The subculture sadly fell victim to stereotypical caricature and public ridicule.

How did the Macaronis come about, and come to be named for an Italian pasta? 

In the mid-1760s, after the Seven Years’ War ended, Europe had reopened its borders to travelers. Young, aristocratic, British men went on their ‘Grand Tour’ to France, Italy and Greece.  For the wealthy, still unmarried male traveler there was a whole world waiting to be experienced.  Europe offered a Bohemian frenzy of feasts and festivals. Many indulged in Parisian delights, Roman baths, and Mediterranean wines. It was certainly more rewarding than anything available to them in cold, damp England.

When they returned, they began to appear in London dressed in a distinctive, extravagant style, that copied French court dress in particular. Their penchant for the curved, tubular pasta (quite the exotic delicacy back then) earned them the nickname ‘Macaronis.’  The daringly-dressed gentlemen joined Macaroni Clubs; flaunting their self-proclaimed worldliness, sophistication and enlightenment.

To be a Macaroni, it wasn’t enough just to travel abroad.  You had to adopt the latest continental fashions – clothes, shoes, hats and fabrics from Paris and Milan.  Lace ruffles exploded from their collars and cuffs. They wore brightly embroidered jackets, along with tightly-fitted silk waistcoats, partly unbuttoned to display a chest brooches. Similarly tight velvet breeches, cut to the knee, that allowed them to display fitted, embroidered silk stockings.  And finally, red, Spanish leather, heeled shoes with jeweled buckles.

A Macaroni would also follow a vigorous personal regime – rouged lips and cheeks, powdered wigs, bejeweled fingers, and manicured and painted nails – as was the rage in Versailles. For accessories, he might carry a lace parasol, an elaborate cane, or a ribboned dress sword.  Other accessories included a nosegay in a jacket’s buttonhole, oversized buttons, and numerous fobs and watches – all hanging on long gold chains.

The most show stopping feature of a Macaroni was his hairpiece.

18th century upper class men typically wore perukes (curled and powdered wigs).  The Macaronis were famous – and later infamous – for their ‘high hair.’  The front part of the wig was brushed up vertically, jutting up to nine inches above their head, with side ringlets of curls and a thick club of hair hanging down the back.  Their bejeweled wigs resembled a giant wave of whipped cream with sprinkles. It was often topped with a very small hat called a Nivernois, a sort of French tricorne. 

[As an aside, the Macaroni Penguin is so named because of its distinctive, yellow crested head.]

These daringly outrageous, yet exquisitely tailored gentleman became the public image of the Macaroni – somehow part male and part female at the same time.  [Keep in mind, women in the 1770’s often wore ‘high hair’ wigs as well, adding tall plumes to increase their height and thereby garner greater attention.]  These androgynous peacocks became an 18th century version of an influencer, strutting their stuff on London’s society catwalks.

At the start of the trend, their clothing was described as luxurious and extravagant.  Keep in mind, men’s everyday dress at the time favored darker colors and woolen cloths. In 1764, Sir Horace Walpole explained in a letter to a friend that the Macaronis were ‘a club composed of all the travelled young men who wear long side curls and quizzing-glasses.’  He attributed their ability to wear such expensive fashions to the wealth their families brought back from India. Dress had long been an indicator of social class in England.

Initially seen as odd and belligerently anti-establishment, their distinctive fashion was tolerated at first, then even enjoyed by an amused public. These well-travelled, dainty aristocrats built a distinct image of themselves through their unorthodox dress and snobbish attitudes. The term became so embedded in British society that all things in vogue, were described as ‘very Macaroni.’

William Hickey in 1769 noted the complete transformation of a friend after joining a Macaroni club. ‘Instead of the plain brown cloth suit we had last seen him in with unpowdered hair, we now beheld a furiously powdered and pomatumed head with six curls on each side, a little dish of a hat on top. His coat was of sky blue silk, lined with crimson satin, the waistcoat and breeches also of crimson satin, bedizened with a tawdry spangled lace.’

At the same time, the early 1770’s saw the rapid growth of printed newspapers, magazines and pamphlets. The British public had an insatiable appetite for ridiculing the upper class and the Macaronis were a gift from heaven for caricaturists. Publications capitalized on the young men’s’ outrageous fashions. All relied on heavily sarcastic jokes at the expense of the Macaronis.

The Oxford Magazine, in 1770 stated, “There is indeed a kind of animal, neither male nor female, a thing of the neuter gender, lately started up among us. You may know one by his fragrance of scented waters. It is called a Macaroni. It talks without meaning, it smiles without pleasantry, it eats without appetite, it rides without exercise, it wenches without passion.’

The origins of the name was explained in the Town & Country Magazine in 1772. ‘The Italians are extremely fond of a pasta dish they call macaroni. Our young travelers judged that the title Macaroni was very applicable to a clever fellow. Accordingly they instituted a club which was supposed to set the standards of taste in the fine arts, the genteel sciences; and fashion. But they soon proved, they had very little claim to any distinction, except in their unusual appearance.‘

What began as a poke at aristocratic privilege soon turned more sinister.

Then came the scandal of Captain Robert Jones in 1772. Jones was described as a ‘sensitive’ military man and Macaroni who wrote books on his favorite pastime of ice-skating. There he extolled the virtues of the artistic poses of young males while in motion. A socialite writer, Hester Thrale, claimed the ability to ‘recognize homosexuals’ and made a public allegation against Captain Jones.  He was vilified in both the press and public. Jones was found guilty of sodomy, capital offense at the time, and forced to leave the country to avoid a death sentence. He was caricatured in the press as ‘The Military Macaroni.’

Caricature in the press of a British Macaroni
Caricature in the press of a British Macaroni

Promiscuous behavior was rampant behind the walls of proper Georgian etiquette. One was just not permitted to flaunt it in public. As Macaronis blurred gender boundaries, homosexual implications abounded   If a gentleman was proclaimed a Macaroni now, he was not only a showoff of fashion, but a weak, effeminate, unmasculine xenophile.  To the lower classes he was a poof or a bugger.

Macaronis were soon reprimanded as ‘unmanly’ and ‘un-English.’ The French influence on their fashion was now deplored. The London Magazine complained that ‘the appearance of a Frenchman … which formerly set every Englishman laughing, is now adopted in this country’, adding ‘who can see, without indignation, a parcel of powdered baboons bowing and scraping to one another.’

One scything description comes from The Macaroni Jester, purporting to be a ‘Journal of a Maccaroni’: Rise at Eleven – survey my sweet Face in the Glass. Breakfast at Twelve. Dressed by Half-past One to saunter to the Park and stare at Women, for the Reputation of having a Taste for them. At Three o’Clock saunter into the City, to show myself to the Brutes who are void of taste. Dine at Four and saunter off to be seen at a Coffee Shoppe. Nine o’Clock – take a Woman to a play and talk louder than the actors. Sup with our own Club at Eleven – drink, swear and invent new Toasts till Three.

In the late 1770s, Britain was also fighting a long war with its American colonies. Consider the famous song “Yankee Doodle” and the lyrics: “Yankee Doodle went to town – A riding on a pony – Stuck a feather in his cap – And called it macaroni.” The familiar tune was actually created by the British to mock Americans.  The joke being that colonists were so unruly and unsophisticated, that by sticking a feather in one’s hat, they thought they were fashionable – like a Macaroni.

The joke was on the British as American colonists enthusiastically adopted the song as their own.

The public’s outcry, like the Macaronis themselves, was short-lived. By the 1780’s, due to relentless public ridicule, the young men had begun to abandon the brightly colored and embroidered silks, the explosions of lace, and red high heels. After a tax on hair powder in 1785, the high-hair wigs went out of fashion.

The Macaroni craze was the last explosion of extravagance in British men’s dress.  At the beginning of the 1800’s came the arrival of the more somber, pared-down style that set the standard for men’s clothing for decades.  Only the Victorian dandy, a toned-down metrosexual version, would later have its day. A hundred years later, the name macaroni would be remembered for the pasta and not the pastiche.

The forgotten Macaronis were born out of The Age of Enlightenment, which encouraged delving into the arts and sciences, challenging religious dogma, and seeking societal tolerance. But 18th century British society wasn’t yet enlightened enough for any real discussion on LGBTQ or even the acceptance of effeminate, androgynous dress.

Only aristocratic privilege had allowed the upper-class Macaronis to push the envelope in public without incurring the full wrath of the law. It became a brief period of public amusement and a transient fashion-bending moment before the press and public turned on them. In the end, the Macaroni would not be the flagbearer for an 18th century gay enlightenment.

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The Tragic Sinking of China’s SS Kiangya

Chinese steamship SS Kiangya in 1948
Chinese steamship SS Kiangya in 1948.

On the night of December 4th,1948, the passenger steamship SS Kiangya exploded and sank just north of Shanghai, China.  It was the world’s worst non-military maritime disaster at the time. The steamship blew up at the mouth of the Yangtze River, 80 kilometers (50 miles) south of Shanghai and rapidly sank. The suspected cause – a mine left behind by either the Chinese, Japanese OR American Navies during World War II.

The SS Kiangya was packed with Nationalist refugees fleeing the advancing Communist army during the Chinese Civil War. While only 2,150 passengers were listed on the official manifest, it is believed that around 2,750 desperate refugees died, twice as many as the Titanic.  Rescuers were unaware of the disaster for several hours, with only 700 survivors eventually rescued. What is her tragic story?

The SS Kiangya was a coastal passenger steamship completed in 1939 in Aioi, Japan. During World War II, she was owned by the government-controlled Toa Kaiun, serving routes between Japan and China. In 1947, the U.S. occupation dissolved the corporation and the ship was sold to the China Merchants Steam Navigation Company.

After World War II ended, Chinese Communists and Nationalists were battling for military supremacy in the wake of the Japan’s defeat. In 1948, Chairman Mao’s Communist army won a series of victories, ensuring the eventual defeat of Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist government. Nationalists started withdrawing to Chinese areas like Guangdong province and Taiwan.  These consisted of wealthy civilians, businessmen, and government and military personnel – those who had most to fear from a Communist takeover. Ships of the China Merchants Company were used in the mass evacuation. Although Shanghai would not fall to the Communists until 1949, by the winter of the previous year, a mass exodus had already begun.   

In the besieged city, boats and trains were tightly packed with fleeing refugees.  Countless junks and sampans clogged the river and waterfront.  Hungry children lined up for government rice handouts. Paper money was virtually worthless due to hyper-inflation.  Dejected Nationalist soldiers awaited in the streets for evacuation.  The poor and destitute stole handfuls of cotton off the back of trucks to sell.  On the sidewalks lay the corpses of those who’d died from winter exposure or malnutrition.

The SS Kiangya’s fateful voyage started at Nanjing, where 2,150 paying passengers had come aboard for evacuation. This initial number far exceeded the ship’s official capacity of 1,186. In early December, she arrived at Shanghai’s Shiliupu Dock.  There, even more passengers fought their way on board. On the clogged wharf, they strained to catch tickets thrown them portholes by friends already aboard. Boatmen struggled to push their junks close to the side of the SS Kiangya. From the packed decks of the bobbing boats, ticketless stowaways also clamored aboard the ship. 

The SS Kiangya departed shortly after dark on Friday, December 4th. 

It was heading for the port of Ningbo on the other side of Hangzhou Bay, about 200 miles south. By 6:30 PM, her decks and gangways were jampacked with blanketed Chinese refugees trying to sleep for the overnight journey.  By the time the 2,100-ton ship edged out into the Huangpu River, she carried 2,250 paying passengers, plus about 1,200 stowaways.

In the late evening, the ship was passing out of the mouth of the river about 50 miles from the city.  A 15-year-old boy, returning to his native Ningpo, had just fallen asleep wrapped in a thin blanket in a crowded passageway. Suddenly, the deck shot upward from under him, hurling him against a bulkhead.  An ear shattering explosion roared through the ship. An intense pain flashed through the boy’s lower right leg.  His first thought was ‘The Communists are attacking!’

The lights went out and screams erupted around him. The boy hid with his blanket over his head; but quickly felt cold water rushing in, saturating his clothes. Although his right shin was broken by the explosion, he somehow managed to fight through the crowds and blackness, to reach the top deck.

A large explosion near the stern had rocked the ship, ripping open the hull below the water line. All power was instantly lost.  The lower decks were quickly inundated with cold East China Sea water.  The steamer sank in a matter of minutes.  Passengers on the lower decks had little chance for escape before drowning to death. But owing to the relative shallowness of the bay, the ship did not sink completely.  The hull settled upright on the river bed in two pieces.  The uppermost deck, funnel, and masts remained above the water line. Unfortunately, the radio-room was put out of action before any distress call could ever be made.   

There would be no SOS for the SS Kiangya.

Mr. Zhou Fenghua recalled being thrust into darkness and chaos. “The ship trembled violently then I heard a loud bang. Flames erupted instantly. People were screaming everywhere. Mothers lost their children. Men jumped overboard trying to save their loved ones. I grabbed my younger sister’s hand and pulled her along. We managed to reach some floating wreckage, while hearing cries for help all around us.”

Some 700 plus who managed to reach the safety of the top deck in time now stood in the dark night air in cold, waist-high water, screaming for help. Many were pushed off the edge and into the bay in the struggle for higher standing room.

It was more than three hours after the explosion that the ship’s distress flares were finally spotted by a passing steamer, the SS Hwafoo, who discovered the stricken ship.  It was another hour before the Hwafoo’s SOS brought more rescue vessels. When the SS Mouli pulled alongside, a Kiangya officer quieted the terrified survivors by warning them, “Don’t shout.  They will think there’s too many of us to take!”

Chinese steamship SS Kiangya sunk in Hangzhou Bay.

They rescued the passengers who had managed to remain standing in the cold water on the top deck of wreck. An estimated 700 were eventually taken off.  The others had either drowned during the sinking or succumbed to hypothermia while awaiting rescue.

Early Saturday morning, Shanghai woke to the sirens of ambulances carrying the injured to hospitals. Along the waterfront, hearses bearing soaked bodies picked their way through a stream of coolies. The men pushed carts piled high with the suitcases of still more refugees frantically trying to evacuated the city. A British Pathé film crew shot footage of the partially submerged wreck and of the dead being brought ashore.

Due to the last minute boarding of so many unticketed passengers, the exact death toll has never been firmly established. Initial estimates ranged anywhere from 400 to 4,000! More recently, the actual number of passengers has been approximated to around 3,450. Of those, more than 2,750 are believed to have drowned.

The probable cause of the explosion: an old Japanese mine from World War II. 

The ship owners, however, accused the Communists of sinking the ship. According to survivors, the ship had just been passed by a pair of junks.  So it was claimed by some that they had thrown a bomb aboard the Kiangya. U.S. naval authorities supported the company, stating that ‘sabotage was likely.’ Another early suspicion was that the ship had been sunk by a boiler explosion.  An inspection of the wreck by Chinese and American divers attributed the cause to a mine explosion. However, the exact source of the mine has never been established.

The popular theory gives the origin as Japanese, left over from World War II.  There was documentary evidence of Japanese minelayers in Shanghai during Japan’s occupation. However in 1938, Chinese troops had laid mines in the river in an effort to stall the Japanese Navy’s advance. It’s also possible that the mine was American. In early 1945, a large number of aerial mines had been dropped by U.S. B-24s.  It was an effort to disrupt Japanese supply lines as part of ‘Operation Starvation,’ an attempt to force Japan’s surrender.

The SS Kiangya tragedy was but one of a string of unfortunate maritime disasters during the Chinese Civil War.  Within weeks of the SS Kiangya’s sinking, a second refugee ship would be lost. In 1949, the Taiping, travelling from Shanghai to Taiwan, collided with the steamer Chien Yuan as both ships passed off the southern tip of Hangzhou Bay. The Taiping was carrying an estimated 1,500 passengers, as many as three times its official limit.  Nearly all perished as both ships sank in less than 20 minutes.

Despite having split in two, the SS Kiangya was eventually salvaged in 1959 and repaired.  It operated along the Chinese Yangtze River under the name of Dong Fang Hong for decades.  Its owners finally scraped the ship in the early 1990’s.

It’s easy to understand why her tragic sinking has been lost in history.  At the time, western media’s attention was focused on the Arab-Israeli War caused by the creation of a new Israeli state. In China, neither the retreating Nationalists nor the disdainful Communists had any interest in memorializing the tragic ship or its refugee passengers.

By 1950, more than 600,000 Nationalist troops and up to 1.5 million Chinese civilians had reached the island of Taiwan, along with much of the country’s gold bullion and cultural treasures.  Many more had taken sanctuary in British-controlled Hong Kong.  It wasn’t until some four decades later that the world would witness a worse maritime tragedy. In December 1987, the passenger ferry Doña Paz, bound for Manila, collided with an oil tanker off the Philippine coast.  The resulting fire and sinking of both ships left an estimated 4,341 passengers and crew dead.

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Was the Ezekiel Airship First in Flight?

Depiction of the Ezekiel Airship in flight over Texas.
Depiction of the Ezekiel Airship in flight over Texas.

Is it possible a Texas Baptist preacher beat the famous Wright Brothers to achieve powered flight a full year before Kitty Hawk?  At the turn of the century, huge cash prizes were offered by newspapers for the first powered, heavier-than-air flight. In Pittsburg, Texas, a Baptist minister and inventor named Burrell Cannon just may have made history with his unusual craft, the Ezekiel Airship.

The Reverend Burrell Cannon was pastor of the Pittsburg Baptist Church in Pittsburg and believed there was ‘a purpose in every word of the Scriptures.’  And it was from the Bible’s Book of Ezekiel that he got the idea for his wheel-within-a-wheel, winged airship.

“The appearance of the wheels and their work was like unto the gleam of beryl; and they four had one likeness; and their appearance was as it were a wheel within the middle of the wheel.”

Book of Ezekiel – 1:16

Cannon was born in 1848 on a Mississippi farm, where he grew up working with farm machines. He studied mechanics at Mississippi College and eventually became a Baptist preacher. At age 30, he left for Texas to start a saw mill, preach, and tinker with his small inventions. He already had 2 patents —for a cotton cleaning machine and a butter churn dasher. But Burrell Cannon but he had a much grander idea in mind!

The American frontier was no longer out west, but up in the skies. For years, inventors had played with winged gliders, but now the race was on to build the first powered airship. And while most aviators, like the Wright Brothers, studied birds for inspiration, Cannon studied the Old Testament.  He spent more than fifteen years poring over the Book of Ezekiel.

By 1900, Cannon, was an accomplished engineer now with 9 patents for various wind and water-driven farm machines.  Inspired by the 1st & 10th chapters of Ezekiel, he began designing an airship, several years prior to the Wright Brothers first flight. The design included complicated wheels and paddles for propulsion, which were marvels of engineering.

But would the darn thing actually fly? 

Burrell Cannon believed he was guided by God, and hence God would surely ensure its success. The result would, after all, be a means for man to get a closer to heaven—and make more than a little money along the way.  Cannon sold his mill, and to raise further capital, he and his 4th wife, Amanda, moved to nearby Pittsburg, a thriving cotton town about 120 miles east of Dallas.  There he began to preach to his flock about his future airship.

In February 1901, the Pittsburg Gazette Cannon was described as a ‘Renaissance Man for the Industrial age.’ It praised the Ezekiel’s ingenious design and declared that if the airship flew, “untold wealth will be the reward.”  That August, he and ten investors incorporated the Ezekiel Air Ship Manufacturing Company for $20,000, selling stock at $25 a share.  Cannon boasted that his stockholders would easily become millionaires overnight. He had plans to build a large version that could carry 41,000 pounds of cargo. The first Ezekiel Airship was built at the Thorsell’s Foundry in Pittsburg, Texas.

At first, crowds swarmed about the machine shop. Cannon complained he couldn’t get any work done, so he limited viewings and, ever the entrepreneur, charged 25 cents admission. Locals marveled at the light chassis made of hollow steel. It was powered by an 80 hp, 4 cylinder gas engine. The fuel was ingeniously kept in the hollow framing of the chassis, similar to today’s planes with gas tanks in the wings.

Cannon built eight prototypes that looked like something more from Jules Verne than Old Testament. The aircraft – a 26 ft wide, canvas-winged contraption resembled a cross between a huge white bat and a stagecoach frame.  Four large wheels below the wings contained smaller wheels, which held large paddles. The gas engine turned the wheels and paddles, creating both vertical and horizontal blasts of air.

But all was not well in the Texas Foundry. Expectations from his investors had been high. Cannon kept pushing the completion date of the final model back and then back again. Much like his contemporary Nicola Tesla, impatient investors began withholding their money. The desperate Reverend began running his operation on a shoestring budget.

And then, according to several witnesses, the thing actually flew!  

In November 1902, on a cool Sunday morning, Gus Stamps and a handful of men who had worked on the Ezekiel Airship, took it out for a test flight in a nearby cow pasture on the edge of town.  Ironically, Reverend Cannon wasn’t even there. It was Sunday, therefore, he was off preaching to the human flock rather than those in the air.  Stamps was elected as the most knowledgeable to fly the damn thing.  He climbed in, looked at his team apprehensively, and started up the Ezekiel’s engine.

According to witnesses, it lurched forward on the bumpy grass, rose up about twelve feet off the ground, then began to drift sideways toward a nearby fence. Stamps had a difficult time controlling it.  Then the engine began to vibrate badly and he was forced to cut it off. The airship came to rest across the pasture, about 160 feet (49 meters) from where it started!

“And when the living creatures went, the wheels went by them; and when the living creatures were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up.”

Ezekiel 1:19

If the 4 adult witnesses are to be believed, it actually happened. Unfortunately, we will never know for sure as there were no photographs taken, no press announcement, and no repeat flights. Rev. Cannon was very secretive about his engineering processes and kept the press away. The project was rarely mentioned in the Pittsburg Gazette during the 2 years the ship was under construction. It is unknown what Cannon had to say about his team’s test flight.

By the end of 1902, Burrell Cannon was flat broke. Other than the one November lift off, he hadn’t produced what he’d promised: a controllable Ezekiel Airship capable of flying and carrying a payload. The stockholders refused to give him any more money to refine his current model and they wanted nothing more to do with it or the preacher.

Now spurned by the town of Pittsburg, Cannon loaded the Ezekiel Airship onto a railroad flatcar and headed north to preach the gospel and pass the hat for more funds.  He was headed for the St. Louis World’s Fair, where a $100,000 reward was offered to anyone who made a sustained controlled flight. But somewhere near Texarkana, a windstorm, some would say of biblical strength, blew the airship off the flatcar and into a rocky ditch, completely destroying it.

A dejected Cannon left the remains of the airship on the rocks where it fell.

Ever the visionary though, the Reverend was not discouraged.  He moved to Longview, Texas where he attempted to construct a second airship.  For the next eight years, long after the Wright brothers had won the race at Kitty Hawk, Cannon continued to keep tinkering. Wilbur and Orville Wright made their historic 120-foot, 12-second flight on December 17th, 1903. They went on over the years to improve upon their famouse flyer.

Cannon did manage to complete a second airship in 1911, creating another corporation and selling even more stock. Apparently, with another pilot at the controls this time, it ran into a nearby telephone pole on its first test flight and was completely destroyed.  After a decade without success, a dejected Burrell finally abandoned the Ezekiel Airship for good.

There is no factual documentation that it ever flew. But living witnesses in Pittsburg, as late as the 1960’s swore they saw it fly over that pasture fence near the Foundry where it was built. None of the firsthand witnesses are still alive today.  Brothers Aubrey and Parvin Swaim, were small boys in 1902, and told of watching the airship fly in the air wobbly toward a fence on which they were sitting, and how they had to scramble to get clear of the crash.  Elizabeth Merrell was thirteen and walking with her friend Agnes when they heard an engine noise and looked up.

“It came up high above the fence row, and I saw it in the air!”

Elizabeth Merrell, Ezekiel Airship witness.
Reverend/Inventor Burrell Cannon
Reverend Burrell Cannon, inventor of the Ezekiel Airship

Burrell Cannon’s granddaughter Lenita Tacea said the reason Cannon never flew his airship himself was because, at six feet four and over 220  pounds, he was just too heavy.  But had it actually flown?  If only there were a newspaper article, or better yet, a single photograph of the flight. In fact, only one photo survives of the Ezekiel Airship. Nevertheless, Burrell did have those few precious witnesses.

In his final years, Cannon was a flat-broke widower, living with his stepdaughter’s family in Longview, Texas. In 1922, a fire sadly destroyed all his plans and drawings for the Ezekiel Airship.  At the time of his death at age 74 in 1923, Burrell was still working to invent a new cotton-picker and boll-weevil destroyer. Ever since, Burrell Cannon has sadly been treated as nothing more than a Texas urban legend.

A full scale replica of the Ezekiel Airship is displayed in the Northeast Texas Rural Heritage Museum in Pittsburg.  Aviation experts who have studied the replica say they doubt the aircraft ever performed like a real winged airplane. Much like Howard Hughes Spruce Goose, historians agreed the airship might have gotten off the ground and moved through the air. But it was not a controllable machine.  Nevertheless, one must admire both the faith, perseverance, and ingenuity of the forgotten inventor Reverend Burrell Cannon.

Click BOOKS for more by historical writer Paul Andrews.
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Operation Wetback – the 1950’s U.S. Mass Deportation program

Mexican migrant detainees bound for deportation in Operation Wetback.
Mexican migrant detainees bound for deportation during Operation Wetback.

The 1950’s “Operation Wetback” was the largest mass deportation of undocumented migrants in U. S. history.  As many as 1.5 million people were swept up and deported in the Eisenhower Administration campaign.  The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) repatriated primarily Mexican immigrants (some of them American citizens) from the U.S.  Ironically, millions of Mexicans had legally entered the country after World War II in the joint U.S.-Mexico Bracero Program.  In 1954, the disparagingly-named and heavily publicized Operation Wetback reversed that immigration program and attempted to send them all back to Mexico.

Hundreds of immigration and border agents swept through the southwestern United States.  They rounded up hundreds of thousands of immigrants they claimed were in the U.S. illegally.  Scant attention was given as to whether they were a legal Bracero Program migrants or not.  INS and border agents then herded them into trucks, trains, and ships and sent them back into Mexico.  How did such a massive operation come about?

Deportations of Mexican immigrants from the U.S. date back to the Great Depression. In the 1930’s, with millions of Americans unemployed, the U.S. deported over 1 million Mexicans, 60 percent of whom were U.S. citizens!  Nevertheless, American farmers still needed those migrant workers.

After World War II, before Operation Wetback, were years of effective border enforcement. 

Believe it or not, Mexico and the U.S. have been partners in controlling border migration more often than they’ve been adversaries. The U.S. collaborated with Mexico to encourage the legal hiring of immigrant workers, and as a way to crackdown on illegal hiring by farmers and factories. Many American employers exploited the migrant workers who crossed the border illegally. Mexico and the U.S. negotiated an accord to protect the rights of Mexican agricultural workers in the U.S.

In 1942, the U.S. Mexican Farm Labor Program, Operation Bracero, began – named after the Spanish term for “manual laborer.” The program funneled Mexicans into the U.S on a legal, temporary basis in exchange for guaranteed wages and fair working conditions. Mexico kept some of its workers home to help on Mexican farm land. So INS designed the Bracero Program to help control the number of Mexican workers leaving Mexico for the U.S.

However, Texas employers did not want to pay for the guaranteed fair wages and housing requirements. So Mexico excluded that state from the program for violating the agreement. That’s where illegal “wetbacks” came in.  These were Mexicans who illegally entered Texas by swimming across the Rio Grande River. The federal government initially turned a blind eye to Texans’ employment of undocumented immigrants.

In the 1940’s, the Bracero Program was viewed as a success in both countries. 

An estimated 4.6 million Mexicans entered the U.S. legally through the program between 1942 and 1964.  States’ growers soon became dependent on Bracero workers, especially during planting and harvest.  At the same time however, thousands of Mexicans still crossed the border illegally and were also given jobs by farms and factories, though at far cheaper wages.

In the 1950s, Mexican immigrants were seasonal workers, not permanent residents like today. Back then, it was easy for workers to cross back and forth between their families in Mexico and jobs in the U.S.  This reciprocal migration allowed farmworkers to come to the U.S. for the growing season, then return to Mexico after it was over. Plus, the Bracero Program provided jobs for migrants at a higher pay scale.  So Bracero actually encouraged workers to enter legally.

During the Bracero Program, the INS tried to do their job while also being sensitive to farm owners.  The procedure for years was that they’d not do sweeps and raids during harvest time.  For the Bracero Program, an alternate target of INS was the farmers and factories who refused to use legal migrants, and instead chose the cheaper, illegal ones. 

The situation in early 1950’s increased the Mexican exodus to the U.S.

The demand for cheap agricultural laborers kept increasing during the post-war American boom.  Ever more employers hired and exploited illegal immigrants at far cheaper wages. Corruption on both sides of the border enriched many officials’ wallets, as well as unethical “coyote” freelancers.  Cheap, illegal labor increased the violation of labor laws and caused rampant racial discrimination. 

This prompted the Mexican government to rescind the Bracero Program in 1953 and cease exporting its workers. The U.S. Immigration Service, under pressure from large agricultural groups, retaliated against Mexico.  They allowing thousands of immigrant workers to cross the border illegally, arrested them, then delivered them to work for various large-scale growers in Texas and California. By the 1950’s, the number of undocumented Mexican immigrants increased 6,000 percent over the prior decade. 

By now, the American public began noticing the swelling numbers of Mexican immigrants in the U.S.  They started getting alarmed about the “invasion” of illegals into the U.S. “stealing” their jobs. Various politicians opposed the Bracero Program, stating that the Eisenhower open-border policy posed a threat to security.  In 1953, a Texas newspaper claimed increasing crimes by Mexican wetbacks. Harsh portrayals of immigrants as dirty, dangerous criminals became the new stereotype.  Beginning to sound familiar?

In 1953, the federal government decided it had enough.

Border Patrol head Harlon Carter was frustrated by the sheer numbers of Mexican immigrants in the U.S., both legal and undocumented.  He convinced Republican President Dwight Eisenhower to severely ramp up immigration enforcement efforts.  Carter tried to get the National Guard involved.  However, the U.S. military is not to be used to enforce domestic laws. 

Instead, in the spring of 1954, the government introduced Operation Wetback in a nationwide publicity campaign.  It would use Border Patrol resources in mass deportations of migrants back to Mexico. Operation Wetback couldn’t have happened without the cooperation of Mexico. The Mexican government wanted the return of Mexican nationals to alleviate its own a labor shortage. 

Harlan Carter promised that agents would sweep American factories and farms.  INS would detain undocumented workers in holding facilities before deporting them to Mexico. It would be, “The biggest drive against illegal aliens in history,” Carter told the press. News of the impending raids frightened U.S. Latinos, many of whom remembered the forced deportations of even citizens during the Great Depression.

Operation Wetback was headed by the INS commissioner, General Joseph Swing, an old Army buddy of President Eisenhower.  Swing’s mandate was to ‘militarize’ U.S. immigration enforcement.  Along with the U.S. Border Patrol, INS agents were aided by municipal, county, and state authorities. Operation Wetback may not have had the National Guard, but it used military-style enforcement tactics, as well as shrewd marketing to achieve its goal.

In April 1954, Attorney General Herbert Brownell announced the start of Operation Wetback.

A task force of 800 INS and border agents started sweeping through Texas and California for immigrants working illegally.  On July 15th, the first day of the operation, approximately 4,800 immigrants were round up.  Thereafter, the daily totals averaged about 1,100 a day. Agents conducted factory and farm raids and set up roadblocks to apprehend undocumented migrants. Throughout the next twelve months, they swept through the entire southwest, then into major cities.

Mexican migrant detainees prior to deportation during Operation Wetback.
Mexican migrant detainees prior to deportation during Operation Wetback.

The U.S. border agents stopped deporting people just into the desert over the border (where they could easily return), and instead started sending them deeper into Mexico.  The trains and trucks that carried immigrants into Mexico’s interior were handed off, at the border, to Mexican officials. They were then in charge of taking their own people deep enough into the country so it would be harder for them to return. Hence, thousands of migrants were forced to unfamiliar parts of Mexico, rather their actual homes.

In the coming months, INS deported them en masse: by train, truck, bus, and cargo ship. The federal government was more concerned with showing that it was rounding up illegal migrants than with the logistics of how it all happened.  The point of Operation Wetback was to conduct mass deportations quickly and on an impressive scale.  There wasn’t room to care about human beings in the process. INS crowded massive numbers of migrants into train boxcars and cargo ship holds. Parents were often torn apart from children in the confusion.

The INS used widespread racial discrimination against Mexicans to justify their sometimes heartless treatment of captured ‘criminal’ migrants. Some died of dehydration, sunstroke, disease, and lack of medical attention while in custody. In many cases, condition under which migrants were deported were indeed horrifying.

A congressional investigation described conditions on one cargo ship as a “penal hell ship,” saying it was no better than an African slave ship. Immigrants who were sent over the border didn’t fare any better. They were shoved into hot boxcars “like livestock,” sent 100 miles into Mexico, and dumped into the desert – in punishing heat, without water. So not everyone was in favor or Operation Wetback. 

Critics considered it obsessively cruel and xenophobic.

Some newspapers editorials attacked the Border Patrol as an invading army seeking to deprive farmers and factories of their labor force. Some Texas employers even hired armed guards to fend off Border Patrol officers during their farm and factory raids. 

The operation trailed off in the fall of 1954 as INS funding began to run out. The INS claimed 1.5 million people were deported under Operation Wetback. Though hundreds of thousands of people were ensnared, the number of deportees was actually lower than claimed—likely closer to 800,000. It’s not clear how many legal American citizens were swept up in Operation Wetback.  It’s also impossible to say how many of the “deportees” were actually legal Bracero migrants.

The INS claimed that many illegal migrants, fearing apprehension, had voluntarily self-deported.  INS officials even claimed that 500,000 had fled to Mexico BEFORE the campaign even began. Most historians consider that figure highly inflated by an agency struggling to meet its promised goal. The discrepancy shows just how hard it is to accurately count human numbers during rapid, mass deportations.

So how does all of this compare to the similar-sounding present day?  Remember in the 1950s, Mexican immigrants were seasonal workers, not permanent U.S. residents.  It was easy for workers to cross back and forth between their families in Mexico and jobs in the U.S.  Plus, the Bracero Program, made the whole process legal and at a higher pay scale.  So it actually encouraged Mexican workers to enter legally.

Six decades later, most of the undocumented migrants deported today are full-time residents of the United States. Their lives, careers, and often entire families are in America, some for generations.  Starting in the 1980’s, many Latin American countries fell into dangerous dictatorships, increasing refugee immigration into the U.S. In the 1990’’s, under President Clinton, the U.S. began securing the border with Mexico. It was now harder for Mexicans, Central Americans, Venezuelans, etc. to cross back and forth, and remain legally to work.  

So migrants stayed and many remained undocumented for fear of deportation. This is but one reason the two periods are different. The Bracero Program and Operation Wetback were designed to replace illegal migrant workers with legal migrant ones, during a time when it was much easier to cross back and forth between the U.S. and Mexico. The same cannot be said today.

Nevertheless, present day mass deportations may look similar to Operation Wetback: hundreds of ICE and border agents making raids on farms and factories; detaining thousands in detention camps; then deportation into Latin America via trains, trucks, ships and even planes. But this time, the process would be all stick and no carrot. There is no joint Bracero Program today, promoting simple, temporary, legal immigration for better wages and a better life in America.

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History’s Greatest Pirate was the Pirate Queen

Ching Shih / Zheng Sao Chinese pirate queen
Ching Shih / Zheng Sao – Chinese pirate queen, 1820

Who was the greatest pirate in history? Blackbeard? Captain Kidd? Jean Lafitte?  None of them come close to the exploits of Ching Shih, aka Zheng Sao, Hsi Kai, or Shi Yang, depending on the historical source.  She terrorized the South China Seas in the first half of the 1800’s–a time when Chinese women had few if any freedoms. Nevertheless, within the brutal world of pirates, Ching commanded ships and fought shoulder-to-shoulder with her male counterparts.

She was unquestionably the greatest pirate who ever lived. She pirated longer and garnered more wealth than any of her rivals. At the end of her career, she surrendered of her own free will, got to keep much of her loot, and live out the rest of her days in opulent freedom.  How did a nineteenth century woman manage such amazing achievements?

Before she ruled as pirate queen, Ching Shih had a much humbler start to life. She was born Shi Yang into a Tanka family.  They were a large clan who worked and lived on Chinese junks along the China coast. As a young woman, she worked in the brothels, gambling houses, and sailing boats of Guangdong province.

By 1800, Ching Shih was a ‘Madame’ working on a large floating brothel in the city of Canton.  She made sure she caught the eye of Cheng Yi, a fearsome pirate who operated in the South China Sea during the Qing dynasty.  After a brief courtship, he married the 26-year-old woman in 1801. Ching’s new husband was the formidable commander of the Red Flag pirate ships. He’d managed to unite many rival Chinese pirate crews into one.

Another story goes that it was Cheng Yi who sought his bride out due to her reputation as a shrewd businesswoman.  Ching Shih used the secrets she learned as a brothel Madame to wield influence over her wealthy clients. She supposedly demanded equal control of the pirate fleet as a condition of their marriage. Ching Shih’s business savvy was certainly on display over the course of her career. She soon became his equal partner in building an even larger pirate fleet.  

Cheng Yi’s pirate fleet became a true armada under their shared command.

The first year after being wed, pirating life carried on business as usual. That all changed in 1802, when Cheng’s pirate cousin was killed by the Vietnamese. Cheng Yi had to quickly consolidate power over his cousin’s fleet.  Thanks to Ching Shih’s shrewd negotiating skills, the infighting among the pirates was short-lived. She helped negotiate a truce among the leaders of the pirate fleets, forming one confederation. Six fleets, each flying different flags would now operate as a united pirate navy, the Red Flag Fleet. By 1806, every seagoing vessel in the region paid tribute to them for protection.

The pirating business boomed until 1807, when Cheng was killed suddenly during a typhoon at age 42. Some some accounts say he was murdered. Regardless of the circumstances, his death left Ching Shih in a precarious position. The pirate king was gone. It was time for his widow to make her move and take full control.  There was only one obstacle in her way.  

Cheng Yi had an adopted son, Cheung Po Tsai, who was supposed to inherit his father’s command. Unlike in the West, adoption was often practiced in China to establish kinship, purely for business purposes.  So Cheng’s adoption of a teenage fisherman as a son was not unusual. Cheung Po Tsai, however, was more than just Cheng Yi’s adopted on. The handsome young fisherman was rumored to also have been his lover!

Within weeks of Cheng Yi’s death, Ching Shih had taken Cheung Po to bed as her lover as well.  She eventually married him! With this second wedding, she managed to maneuver herself into absolute control of the Red Flag Fleet. To avoid any succession struggles, she appointing her adopted stepson/husband as her second in command. 

As a woman in command of a huge pirate fleet though, Ching Shih had her work cut out for her. Pirate ships had few if any women on board. Unlike in the Atlantic though, in the South Pacific, there was no stigma or bad luck attached to women being on board. Nevertheless, it wouldn’t have been easy for anyone, much less a pirate’s widow, to control so many blood-thirsty, treasure-craving outlaws.

Following Cheng Yi’s death, she now commanded over 1,500 pirate ships, and an estimated 70,000 men. In comparison, the famed Blackbeard commanded but four ships and 300 pirates. She was now formally known Ching Shih, “Cheng’s widow.” The legacy she would leave behind far exceeded that of her husband’s.   

Her first act was to implement a Pirate Code.

It ensured strict discipline amongst the fleet, victories in battle, and riches from stolen loot:

  • Only Ching Shih authorized any attack. Unsanctioned attacks or disobeying her orders was punished by beheading.  
  • Loot was to be gathered by officers and distributed equally.  Repeat offenders to the rule were beheaded.
  • Deserters ears were cut off when captured.  Upon the second offense. they were beheaded.
  • Rape was not tolerated and punished by, you guessed it, beheading.
  • Consensual sex, without Ching Shih’s permission first, also meant a beheading for both. 
  • Pirates had to marry female prisoners before sex. Cheating or treating your new wife poorly was punished by beheadings.

The code was particularly noteworthy in its laws regarding the fair treatment of women. Whatever her captains thought about her personally, it was clear that the pirates respected and obeyed her authority.

The Red Flag Fleet routinely raided coastal villages and kidnapped foreign officials for ransom.  A British East India Company employee named Richard Glasspoole was captured by Ching Shih’s pirates in 1809 and held for a months. By his account, he estimated that there were 80,000 pirates under Ching Shih’s command, and some 1,000 large junks and 800 smaller junks. It was through his accounts that we know much of anything about her vast operation.

So at the height of her success, Ching Shih controlled around 1,800 ships and more than 80,000 men, organized in six fleets, each with its own flag and commander.  Her fleets attacked ships of all kinds, from small traders to imperial war ships, and ran a lucrative protection racket along the coast.

In 1808, the Chinese Qing Dynasty had to do something about the pirate situation in the South China Sea.  They decided to bring down the worst of them all – the Red Flag Fleet and Ching Shih, a thorn in their side for years. The Qing gathered a massive fleet of naval warships and set a trap for them.

Rather than run, outnumbered, for a safe harbor, the bold Ching Shih instead sailed right at them. The pirates defeated a 35-ship naval flotilla off the coast of Shenzhen. When the smoke of the intense sea battle cleared, the Red Flag Fleet left behind a graveyard of burning, sinking ships. She even claimed a few dozen undamaged Qing ships as booty.

When confronted with a such massive enemy fleet, most pirates in the Caribbean Sea would have run, hiding in some island port.  But Ching Shih was anything but your standard Caribbean pirate. Pirates like Blackbeard or Captain Kidd could boast a handful of ships and hundreds of men. She Shih commanded an entire pirate armada, with more sailors than most nations could muster. 

Ching Shih was not intimidate by the Qing Imperial Navy.

A second Qing force attacked with 100 ships, half of navy, only to be sent packing as well. After two defeats, they asked their European allies for help.  By 1809, Ching Shih was powerful enough to threaten the port city Canton (Guangzhou). The Chinese government leased the 20-gun British ship HMS Mercury and six Portuguese men-of-war. Big guns were not enough though to defeat the pirate queen’s fleet.

At the 1809 Battle of the Tiger’s Mouth, her Red Flag Fleet faced down a joint Chinese-Portuguese battle fleet that tried to trap her in Tung Chung Bay. For three months, the blockading Portuguese attempted to destroy her ships. Ching Shih took some heavy losses, but her fleet ultimately broke through and sailed away with her pirate force largely intact

Ching Shih / Zheng Sao Chinese pirate queen
Ching Shih / Zheng Sao – Chinese pirate queen, 1830

Ching Shih realized the Qing attacks would never end with the help of huge foreign navies. She realized it was in her best interests to negotiate peace terms with the Chinese empire. After years of notoriety on the high seas, Ching Shih decided to retire in 1810. She waited until after the third battle, when her enemy was at its weakest. Then she used her considerable power to ask for a pardon for herself and her sailors.

She proved to be as effective at the bargaining table as she was in command. The Qing dynasty granted her pirates universal amnesty, the right to keep the wealth they had accumulated, and even jobs in China’s military.  For herself, she negotiated a large cash settlement, a title of Chinese nobility (Lady Ching Shih!), and was even allowed to keep a small flotilla of ships and sailors.

Ching Shih retired (sort of) in Canton, where she reportedly lived out a peaceful life in an opulent mansion. Though she still kept an infamous gambling house going in the city. Ching Shih died in 1844, of unknown causes at the age of 69, a long life for anyone of that era.

She died widely respected annd remembered for her infamous exploits on the South China Sea. Compare her successful end to that of the pirate Blackbeard – cornered, murdered and beheaded by a British warship. Ching’s legacy even lasted through till modern popular culture came about. She inspired a memorable character in the Johnny Depp Pirates of the Caribbean movie franchise: Mistress Ching, one of the nine Pirate Lords.

The real Ching Shih, aka Hsi Kai, Zheng Sao, or Shi Yang was not fiction though. At the height of her power, she commanded a fleet capable of taking on a Chinese dynasty and any maritime force in the South Pacific. A truly remarkable feat for a 19th century woman. Though Ching Shih’s life may have begun in poverty and prostitution, it ultimately ended in fame and prosperity.

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The Great White Hurricane – the Terrible Blizzard of 88

The Blizzard of 1888 in New York City
The Blizzard of 1888 in New York City

Few winter storms are as legendary as the American Blizzard of 88, dumping 55 inches (140 cm) of snow in the northeast U.S. It was the snowiest, coldest and deadliest, winter storm in American history.  From March 11-13, 1888, over 400 souls perished, including 200 in New York City alone.  Many people were literally buried in snow drifts or stranded on elevated trains.

The temperature in New York fell to 6°F (-14°C)—the coldest ever measured so late in the season. It was the day people from Washington, D.C., to Boston, MA experienced the Great White Hurricane. One of the most interested facts is the way people coped with a Storm of the Century disaster, at a time when there were no accurate storm warnings or even snow plows.

January 1888 saw the most intense U.S. cold wave on record. It spread east during the third week of the month, bringing all-time records to the upper midwest: -24 F° at Lakeview, Oregon on January 15th; -42 F° at Missoula, Montana on January 16th; -41F° at Minneapolis, Minnesota on January. 21st. -36 F° at Green Bay, Wisconsin on January 21st. 

But then as the country neared springtime, the weather turned unseasonably warm. Americans assumed that winter was all but over. Then, the Blizzard of 1888 struck. On the day before, March 10, 1888, most people in the northeast experienced mild, rainy conditions. Temperatures hovered in the mid-50s F.  Without the weather tracking technology that exists today, there was no sign that things were about to drastically change for the worse. On Saturday, March 10, 1888, the U.S. Signal Service, precursor of the National Weather Service, was predicting the storm would dissipate and/or head out to sea. Instead, it collided with a cold front from Canada to create the Storm of the Century.

The Blizzard of 88 began on March 11, 1888 and caught the East Coast entirely off-guard. Arctic air from Canada dove south and collided with warmer air from the Gulf. This caused temperatures to plunge, and the heavy rain that had been falling in New York City turned to snow at 1 AM on Monday, March 12th.  Blizzard conditions quickly developed as the wind rose to a sustained 50 mph, reaching hurricane-strength. By midnight, gusts were recorded at 85 mph in the streets of New York City.

There was a virtual whiteout when shocked residents awoke the next morning.

The storm center then became stationary over the U.S. northeast and made a counterclockwise loop off the coast, while maintaining its intensity.  By 8 o’clock AM Monday, the city was completely immobilized by the blinding, drifting snow and howling winds. All telegraph communications went down.  

Despite wind-blown drifts that reached second stories in some cases, many New Yorkers actually bundled up and trudged out to go to work.  They only to found the elevated trains blocked by snow drifts. There was no subway yet at the time, and the elevated railroad had ground to a halt. Up to 15,000 people were stranded on the elevated trains.  In some areas, people with ladders rescued the passengers … for a small fee. One train derailed due to drifts and killed several passengers and crew as it crashed to the streets below.

Walking in the streets of any town in the northeast became not only impossible, but deadly. Of the 200 people who perished in New York City, most were found frozen to death, buried in snowdrifts along the city’s sidewalks. One of these victims was Senator Roscoe Conkling, a New York Republican.  He died as a result of “over exposure” from trying to walk from his Wall Street office to the New York Club on Madison Square.

Only 30 people out of 1,000 were able to make it to the New York Stock Exchange.  Wall Street was forced to close for three days. At the time, telegraph lines, water mains and gas lines were also above ground. The powerful blizzard knocked them out of commission and they were inaccessible to repair crews. People found themselves suddenly trapped without heat and running water. Fire stations were also immobilized, and property loss from inextinguishable fires was estimated at $25 million.

The legendary William Steinway, president of the famous piano firm Steinway & Son, provided a firsthand account of the storm in his diary.  Steinway discovered “the most fearful snowstorm I ever experienced” in New York City.  His carriage had become stuck three times and he was forced to wade through knee-deep snow in Gramercy Park, having “a terrible time getting to my house by 6 pm.“

Steinway’s diary entry for March 13th wrote, “Snowing stopped but intense cold remains, nearly freezing me to death on the way.” He kept his appointments until late at night, getting around the city on a horse-drawn sleigh, returning at 11:30 PM, March 14th:  “Our horses starving for want of food, sent my son George out to buy oats, learned that the roof of our piano factory was nearly blown off.“

The New York Times reported that East and Hudson rivers were frozen over.  

If you couldn’t get over a mountain of snow, some attempted to tunnel under it. Men dug caves in the biggest snow banks and used barrels to build wooden fires in an effort to melt the snow. City officials sent thousands of volunteers out to free trains blocked for days and rescue stranded commuters. Passenger cars had wood stoves to keep customers from freezing to death. But as wood ran out, desperate conductors chopped up the seats for use as fuel.

The East River, between Manhattan and Queens, froze over, an extremely rare event. Some brave commuters attempted to cross the river on foot. This proved a terrible mistake. When the tides changed, the ice broke up, stranding them on drifting ice floes. During the Blizzard of 88, many stranded New Yorkers camped out in hotel lobbies. American author and humorist Mark Twain was in New York and was stranded at his hotel for several days.

A snow tunnel in New York City during the Blizzard of 88.
A snow tunnel in New York City during the Blizzard of 88.

Refugees filled all the New York City hotels. The famous Astor Hotel on 5th Avenue set up 100 cots in its lobby when it became apparent by 7 PM that day first day, venturing outside was simply impossible. The temperature had fallen to 8° F (-13 C) by sunset, the wind was still howling and snowdrifts up to 20 feet (6 m) filled the streets of the city.

The Barnum & Bailey Circus kept its promise to go ahead with its two performances at Madison Square Garden. The Times reported on March 13, “In the very teeth of the gale the matinee was given, and last evening the second performance occurred according to programme.” Few seats were occupied, but P.T. Barnum attended the first show.  Barnum commented that the storm might be a great show, but he still had the greatest show on earth.

And it wasn’t just New York City that suffered the Blizzard of 88. 

The storm was even more severe outside of New York City. It dumped more than four feet of snow in Albany and Saratoga Springs, New York, and Bennington, Vermont. Mrs. M. Brusselars was trapped in her Hartford, Connecticut, house for three days with a dozen neighborhood refugees. “Food ran out after two day, but we found that under my back porch about 75 sparrows had gathered, so we killed some of them, made a few sparrow pies, which helped to sustain us.”

William Scribner, of Cannonade, Connecticut, a wire weaver trudged a mile in thigh deep snow from his house. As he staggered to his company’s main gate, he heard the whistle signaling the start of his shift. When he was just a few steps from the entrance, the stoic guard locked the gate in front of him.  Despite the blizzard, management considered him just another late employee and docked him a day’s pay.

On a mild week before the storm, New York City department store buyer John Meisinger was berated by his boss because he purchased snow shovels to sell at the end of the winter season. What foolishness! Management later congratulated when the storm hit.  His purchase made the store a $1,800 profit in snow shovel sales to desperate New Yorkers.

There were amazing rescues as well. Edward Leonard, of Springfield, Massachusetts, reached down to pick up his hat, blown off on top of a mound of snow, and found the pale face of an unconscious young girl. As the Times reported, “Using only his bare hands, Leonard managed to dig the girl out and carry her to a nearby shelter alive, where she was resuscitated.“

Fifty trains became stranded on their tracks in the Blizzard of 88.

Derailed trains during the U.S. Blizzard of 88.
Derailed trains during the U.S. Blizzard of 88.

They ran between New York City and various points including Albany, Long Island, New Jersey, and Connecticut. Many were derailed after trying to plow through drifts measured up to 38 feet (12 m). Wind swept drifts up to 40 feet were reported in Poughkeepsie, NY. Many of the 200 fatalities outside of New York City consisted of passengers and train crews that froze to death while attempting to walk to nearby towns after their trains became stuck.

Several ships foundered at sea, lost to 90-mph winds, huge seas, and heavy ice on decks that caused them to tip and roll over. Along the Atlantic coast, high winds and heavy waves sunk hundreds of boats. In addition, thousands of wild and farm animals froze to death in their barns and pastures. So many telephone and telegraph wires were down that New York City was unable to communicate with the rest of the world. In Boston, the Daily Globe’s March 13th headline was: “Cut Off!”

The snowfall totals north of New York City were massive and historic – 58” at Saratoga Springs, NY. Albany, NY recorded 47”. New York City’s official accumulation was up to 36” in parts of Brooklyn and Queens. New Haven, Connecticut reported 42”. Elsewhere were 48” at Bennington, Vermont, 40” at North Adams, MA, 31” at Blooming Grove, PA, and 25” at Rahway, NJ. After the storm, there was the issue of what to do with all that snow. Efforts were made in coastal cities to push the snow into the Atlantic Ocean. 

The Blizzard of 88 was the first widely photographed disaster in U.S. history. It shocked both the nation and the world. It lead New York City to plan its vast subway system, now one of the most extensive in the world. The breakdown of all communications from Washington, D.C., northward resulted in the burying of telegraph, gas and later, electric lines across many parts of the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast regions (although overhead power lines can still be found in rural areas).

The devastating storm reshaped how major U.S. cities planned for and managed weather-related emergencies. It influenced the evolution of weather forecasting, utilities infrastructure, public safety measures, and mass communications. In the wake of the Great White Hurricane, officials realized the dangers of above-ground transportation. In New York City, a determination was made about the elevated train system. By 1900, construction began on the extensive underground subway system still in use today.

Today, with unchecked global climate change plaguing the world, we can expect more frequent storms during all seasons of the intensity of the famous Blizzard of 88.

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The London Great Stink of 1858

The polluted River Thames during the London Great Stink
The polluted River Thames during the Great Stink

Prior to the 1900’s, London’s River Thames had been used for centuries as the city’s open sewer – a dumping ground for industrial, animal, and human wastes. As the city grew, the amount of raw sewage it produced grew exponentially.  During the hot summer of 1858, London was literally brought to its knees by the overwhelming stench of its River Thames – The Great Stink.  It’s vapors seeped throughout the streets, houses, and even into the hallowed halls of palaces and Parliament. 

The city came to a standstill. People refused to leave their homes.  Government and industry could barely function. Citizens demanded action!  Clutching white handkerchiefs to their noses, Parliament grudgingly agreed an urgent solution was needed both to purify London’s “evil odour” and to quell its frequent cholera epidemics.  The Great Stink led to one of the greatest advancements in urban engineering to date: Sir Joseph Bazalgette’s revolutionary Victorian Sewer System.

For centuries, the “Royal River” was an open sewer for London’s waste. As the city’s population doubled between 1800 and 1850 – so did its sewage.   From 1831 onward, London also suffered through 3 cholera epidemics.  Cholera is a disease caused by consuming fecal-contaminated water. What made London’s water lethal was that people were drinking it piped directly from the Thames!  The result was waves of dysentery, typhoid and most of all cholera. The so-called “Victorian plague” had no cure – and even the wealthiest were not immune.  

The cholera epidemic of 1853-1854 claimed over 10,000 lives.

In 1849 Dr. John Snow, a London physician, published a paper ‘On the Mode of Communication of Cholera‘, in which he theorized that cholera was waterborne. He described how “The wretched poor in Lambeth obtained their water by dipping a pail into the Thames.” When cholera struck in 1848, it was the poor people who suffered most. Over 1,500 of Lambeth’s waterfront population died.  Snow calculated that its households were five times more likely to contract cholera than other districts.

However, the “Miasma Theory” that diseases were caused by foul air was still the medical belief.  Five years later in 1854, Dr. Snow investigated a cholera epidemic in Soho.  He deduced that the cause was contaminated drinking water from a Broad Street pump located just feet from a waste cesspool.  Public health officials were gradually convinced and the pump handle removed.  It was clear the reeking river correlated with the city’s health, and needed to be cleaned once and for all.

Depiction of the polluted River Thames as the source of cholera deaths during the Great Stink.
Depiction of the River Thames as the source of cholera deaths during the Great Stink.

The scorching summer of 1858 finally brought things to a head. As the heat increased, the vast layers of waste in the Thames began to ferment in the sun. The result was a smell so disgusting and revolting it made people nauseous. It spawned accounts of “men struck down with the stench from the river banks.”

As London lacked any sewer infrastructure, increasingly filthy gutters and ditches all emptied into the Thames.  Then the wastes simply bobbed to and fro on the river with the tides. The invention of the water closet (inside flush toilets) only made things worse, forcing ever more human ‘effluent’ into the river. Clear to all, the main contaminant was floating on the surface of the Thames: human feces

One of the most vocal critics was English chemist Michael Faraday.

He staunchly supported a complete reconstruction of London’s toxic river.  In 1855, he sent a letter to the editor of The London Times -‘Observations on the Filth of the Thames.’ ‘The whole river was an opaque pale brown fluid. Father Thames was nothing more than a real sewer.’  It soon became the public’s rallying point, crying for the restoration of the Thames. 

Members of Parliament knew that any action would be both expensive and disruptive. They held kerchiefs to their noses.  They dousing the curtains of Parliament in a mixture of chloride and lime to mask the smell. When that didn’t work, they considered moving the entire government to the countryside. With the bodies of cholera victims piling up, the people and press pushed for change.  The politicians finally were forced to act.

Benjamin Disraeli, Chancellor of the Exchequer, lamented how, “that noble river had become a Stygian pool, reeking with ineffable and unbearable horror.”  He introduced legislation for the purification of the Thames and the main sewer drainage of London. Within a record 18 days, a bill was created, passed, and signed into law that would refurbish the entirety of the sewers and the River Thames.

The outcome of the “Great Stink” was one of history’s most advanced achievements in urban planning. It was a monumental construction project that dramatically improved the London sewers and well as public health. You’ll see no sign of it today from red double-decker tour buses, but hidden beneath the city streets stretches a wonder of the industrial world – the vast Victorian sewers that still flow today.

The newly formed Metropolitan Board of Works was empowered to raise £3M and start work immediately on rescuing the Thames. Responsibility for the solution fell upon the shoulders of Joseph Bazalgette, Chief Engineer of the Board of Works.  He had spent several years drawing up plans for an ambitious new sewer system and at last got the go-ahead to begin construction.

Bazalgette’s ambitious plan proposed a network of main sewers, running eastward, parallel to the river, which would take both rain and waste.  The sewers would then conduct it to the “outfalls” on the northern and southern sides of the Thames estuary.  From there, the tides would take it well beyond the city, from where it would flow more easily out to sea.

Parliament approved expenditure of £2,500,000 (£300 million today).

The new Victorian sewers created during the London Great stink
The new Victorian sewers created during the London Great stink

The network included 82 miles of huge new sewers, some larger than the new underground train tunnels, also under construction at time. Pumping stations were built at Chelsea, Deptford, Abbey Mills and Crossness to force wastes to the eastern outfalls. These stations were architecturally marvels, cathedral-like in their design, dimensions and ornamentation. There were symbolic of the grandeur of the Victorian  age. This remarkable feat of engineering  replaced over 150 miles of old sewers and constructed over 1,000 miles of new ones, requiring 318 million bricks.

The plan would also include the construction of controversial embankments along the Thames – the Victoria, Albert and Chelsea embankments.  London’s embankments were designed not only to carry sewer tunnels, but also to cleanse the river by narrowing and strengthening its flow through city center. The high embankments also acted as a flood defense.  It is on the Victoria Embankment that a monument to the engineer, Joseph Bazalgette [knighted in 1875] may be found.

Embanking the river was unpopular at the time. Many houses, warehouses and businesses with river frontages lost their access to the Thames. In some areas whole stretches of the waterfront, including streets and wharfs, were demolished with the loss of entire communities.  Lower Fore Street in Lambeth was completely torn down and replaced by the Albert Embankment.

Despite the costs, Bazalgette’s new sewerage system proved a success. It succeeded in removing the smell of raw sewage from the Thames in London. According to the London Observer, “every penny spent is sunk in a good cause.” The work almost immediately proved its worth.  In 1866, most of London was spared from a cholera epidemic which hit the lower East End, the only section yet to be connected to the new sewer system.

What was impressive about Bazalgette’s design was both its simplicity and foresight. A classic piece of Victorian over-engineering, the new system was planned to accommodate a population growth of 50%, from 3 to 4.5 million. Within 30 years of its completion, the city’s population had in fact doubled again, reaching 6 million. So with these monumental changes, The Great Stink slowly began to dissipate and Londoners breathed a heavy sigh of relief. 

It’s testament to the quality of design and construction that this 19th century system remained the backbone of London’s sewers in the 20th century as well. But the backbone is now severely strained. With an ever expanding population, dramatic storms due to climate change, and the loss of green space to soak up run-off, the Thames is once again at risk.

Today, Bazalgette’s Victorian sewers struggle to cope with the wastes created by a modern London. Millions of tons of raw sewage are once again spilling into the Thames. To remedy this, construction of a new ‘mega’ sewer was undertaken. The mission of the Thames Tideway Scheme echoes that of Bazalgette over 160 years earlier: “… to clean up our river for the good of the city, its wildlife and you.“

Construction of the Thames Tideway Tunnel – or “Super Sewer” – began in 2016 with completion delayed until in 2025 due to the COVID pandemic. One of the largest civil engineering projects the United Kingdom has ever seen, the tunnel is a “visionary work of modern times in the spirit of Bazalgette”.

Sir Joseph Bazalgette shared some wisdom based on his own experiences during the Great Stink: “Individuals are apt to look after their own interests first, and to forget the general effect upon the public. It is necessary that there should be somebody to watch the public interests,” – wise words indeed.

Click BOOKS for more by historical writer Paul Andrews
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