Men of Yore: John Hunyadi

This is intended to be a series of posts about men from history who have either achieved great things in one form or another by pushing boundaries: either in themselves or in society or science or exploration of some form. Boundary pushing and growth is what men do, it's their nature: to grow and push outwards. We, as men, are the frontiers men, the first to discover/uncover new territory, in a metaphysical sense (i.e. including both material and the immaterial) that is later colonised and 'civilised' by the rest of humanity.

John Hunyadi

John Hunyadi (Hungarian: Hunyadi János, Romanian: Ioan de Hunedoara; c. 1406 – 11 August 1456) was a leading Hungarian military and political figure in Central and Southeastern Europe during the 15th century. According to most contemporary sources, he was son of a noble family of Romanian ancestry. He mastered his military skills on the southern borderlands of the Kingdom of Hungary that were exposed to Ottoman attacks. Appointed voivode of Transylvania and head of a number of southern counties, he assumed responsibility for the defense of the frontiers in 1441. 

Hunyadi adopted the Hussite method of using wagons for military purposes. He employed professional soldiers, but also mobilized local peasantry against invaders. These innovations contributed to his earliest successes against the Ottoman troops who were plundering the southern marches in the early 1440s. Although defeated in the battle of Varna in 1444 and in the second battle of Kosovo in 1448, his successful "Long Campaign" across the Balkan Mountains in 1443–44 and defence of Belgrade/Nándorfehérvár in 1456, against troops led personally by the Sultan established his reputation as a great general. The bells of Catholic and older Protestant churches are daily rung at noon to commemorate the Belgrade victory, although the pope had ordered this in advance, a week before the siege, in order to encourage the soldiers fighting for Christendom. 

John Hunyadi was also an eminent statesman. He actively took part in the civil war between the partisans of Wladislas I and the minor Ladislaus V, two claimants to the throne of Hungary in the early 1440s, on behalf on the former. Popular among the lesser nobility, the Diet of Hungary appointed him, in 1445, as one of the seven "Captains in Chief" responsible for the administration of state affairs until Ladislaus V (by that time unanimously accepted as king) came of age. The next Diet went even further, electing Hunyadi as sole regent with the title of governor. When he resigned from this office in 1452, the sovereign awarded him with the first hereditary title (perpetual count of Beszterce/Bistrița) in the Kingdom of Hungary. He had by this time become one of the wealthiest landowners in the kingdom, and preserved his influence in the Diet up until his death. 

This Athleta Christi ("Christ's Champion"), as Pope Pius II referred to him, died some three weeks after his triumph at Nándorfehérvár/Belgrade, falling to an epidemic that had broken out in the crusader camp. However, his victories over the Turks prevented them from invading the Kingdom of Hungary for more than 60 years. His fame was a decisive factor in the election of his son, Matthias Corvinus, as king by the Diet of 1457. Hunyadi is still a popular historic figure among Hungarians, Romanians, Serbians, Bulgarians and other nations of the region, many^[quantify] of them even considering him as their own hero. 

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hunyadi

John Hunyadi is another one of the forgotten heroes who helped to defend Europe against the invading Turks, who lets not forget, were hell bent on ruling all of Europe.  It was the Balkan countries that stopped the Turks from invading our lands and displacing our people (like happened to many of the indigenous Greeks), not the powerhouses of their day like the Holy Roman Empire, or Italy, or France.  These people, these countries, should not be neglected by those in the West.

Men like John Hunyadi, Stephen the Great (of Moldavia), Prince Vladimir II (of Wallachia), and Skanderbeg (of Albania) should be esteemed alongside the more familiar champions of Europe like Charles Martel; after all, it's because of them that mainland Europe is European and not Turkish.


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Men of Yore: Raud the Strong

This is intended to be a series of posts about men from history who have either achieved great things in one form or another by pushing boundaries: either in themselves or in society or science or exploration of some form. Boundary pushing and growth is what men do, it's their nature: to grow and push outwards. We, as men, are the frontiers men, the first to discover/uncover new territory, in a metaphysical sense (i.e. including both material and the immaterial) that is later colonised and 'civilised' by the rest of humanity.

Raud the Strong was a Norse Seiðr priest and seafaring warrior, who resisted conversion to Christianity in the late 10th century AD.

Olaf Tryggvason was King of Norway from 995 to 1000 AD. He played an important part in the conversion of the Vikings to Christianity. Olaf traveled to the parts of Norway that had been under the rule of the King of Denmark. He demanded that the citizenry be baptized, and most reluctantly agreed. Those that did not were tortured or killed. Despite King Olaf’s persuasive efforts, many of the Vikings were reluctant to renounce their Gods and adopt Christianity. New and increasingly painful tortures and executions were devised by Olaf and his men. One of the most famous incidents of recalcitrance to Olaf’s attempts at coerced conversion to Christianity is that of Raud the Strong.
Raud the Strong was a large landowner, a leader-priest of Seiðr (an Old Norse term for a type of sorcery or witchcraft that was practiced by the pre-Christian Norse), and a sea-farer. Raud was known for his beautiful longship, a boat larger than any of Olaf’s, with a dragon’s head carved into the bow. The ship was called “The Dragon” or “The Serpent.” Raud the Strong, who also had the reputation of being a wizard, was defeated by Olaf in a sea battle. He escaped on his vessel, using the technique of sailing against the wind, which was a sailing technique unusual in northern European waters at that time. Raud outran Olaf and escaped to his settlement in Gylling and Haering, a part of the Godey Isles.

After the weather calmed, Olaf sailed under cover of darkness to Godey and seized Raud from his bed. Then the king told Raud that if he accepted Christian baptism, he could keep his lands and ship and the king would be his friend.

But Raud refused, saying he would never believe in Christ, and mocked Olaf's religion and deity. Olaf became incensed and said Raud should die a horrible death. The king ordered him to be bound to a beam of wood, with his face pointed upward, and a round pin of wood put between his teeth to force his mouth open. The king then ordered a snake to be put into Raud’s mouth, but the snake would not go in. Olaf then ordered a drinking horn to be put into Raud’s mouth, and forced the serpent to go in by holding a red-hot iron at the opening of the horn. As a result, the snake crept into Raud’s mouth and down his throat, and gnawed its way out his side and Raud died.

Olaf seized Raud’s gold and silver, weapons and many valuable artifacts. All the men who were with Raud were baptized, or, if they refused, were killed or tortured. The king also took the dragonship that Raud had owned, and steered it himself since it was a much larger than any ship that he had. 

According to legend this is how the famous Viking ships got their distinctive shape.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raud_the_Strong

Despite what you may have been told Christianity is not a religion of peace.  As the story of Raud the Strong shows us, people (of all races, including Europeans, not just Amerindians and Africans) are often converted at the point of the sword and, if they are still alive, they are subsequently disarmed and told 'slaves, love your masters'.  This is how Christianity has been foisted upon humanity.  The people that you see going to church on Sundays are the descendents of those converts, those who decided to forego their own freedom.

Thanfully though not all men can be brought to heel and are willing to foresake their way of living and of thinking and of beleiving, Raud the Strong is one of those such men.


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Men of Yore: Samuel Hearne

This is another in a series of posts about men from history who have either achieved great things in one form or another by pushing boundaries: either in themselves or in society or science or exploration of some form. Boundary pushing and growth is what men do, it's their nature: to grow and push outwards. We, as men, are the frontiers men, the first to discover/uncover new territory, in a metaphysical sense (i.e. including both material and the immaterial) that is later colonised and 'civilised' by the rest of humanity.

 

Samuel Hearne, explorer, fur trader, author, naturalist (born at London, Eng 1745; died there Nov 1792).

Samuel Hearne was the first European to travel by land across the Arctic from the east coast to the Arctic Ocean. He took part in three expeditions to the Canadian Arctic to discover the Northwest Passage, greatly increasing European knowledge of the Arctic climate, and resident Inuit and Dene in the process. During his journeys he became one of the first Europeans to document conflict between the Inuit and Dene peoples. Hearne was a driven explorer who travelled farther north than any other European before him.

Early Life

Samuel Hearne was born in 1745, in London, England to an established engineer. A mediocre student, by age 11 Hearne had left school and joined the British Royal Navy. He served under Captain Samuel Hood throughout the Seven Years’ War, most notably during the bombardment of Le Havre. He left the navy in 1763, joining the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1766. Hearne served for two years on several vessels based out of Prince of Wales Fort, (now present-day Manitoba), during which time he and other crew members found the remains of James Knight’s lost expedition. In 1768 Hearne surveyed large areas of the Hudson Bay coasts.

First Expedition

The English settlers on the Hudson Bay were interested in locating the areas from which Inuit and Dene sourced copper. In 1768, after receiving pieces of copper from Aboriginal peoples in the region, the head of the Churchill Hudson’s Bay Company fort sent Samuel Hearne north in search of a potential copper mine. Hearne and his party of traders (Cree and Chipewyan peoples) left in late 1769, travelling north and west by snowshoe. The expedition ran into trouble when they were abandoned by their main guide and ran out of supplies. Rather than risk starvation, Hearne and his party returned to Churchill, arriving mid-December.

Second Expedition

Samuel Hearne decided to launch a second expedition lead by Cree guides in exchange for European goods. Hearne left Churchill in late February 1770, and quickly ran into trouble. The party ran into food and resource shortages routinely, resorting at times to consuming raw game. At one point the expedition was, by some accounts, robbed by an unidentified group of Aboriginal peoples. In August Hearne accidentally destroyed his quadrant (navigational device), making his observations during this expedition vague. The second expedition would return to Churchill in the fall.

Third Expedition and the Bloody Falls Massacre

Samuel Hearne was the only European on his third expedition, which was guided by a Chipewyan group and their leader, Matonabbee. The expedition’s goal was to find a direct route to the Coppermine River, which was thought to copper-rich. The party left in December 1770. Matonabbee kept the group on a strict schedule, and was able to reach the caribou crossing in time for the annual spring hunt. During the hunt, a number of Dene joined the expedition. The party reached the Coppermine River in July 1771, where the Dene, who were in the midst of a violent conflict with the Inuit, killed approximately 20 sleeping members of the northern people. The event, which would come to be known as the “Massacre at Bloody Falls,” greatly traumatised Hearne. During his travels, Hearne became the first European to see Great Slave Lake. While the third expedition was successful in its goals of reaching the Coppermine River, extensive surveys revealed the impracticality of mining the site.

Later Life and Legacy

In 1774, the Hudson’s Bay Company sent Samuel Hearne to northern Saskatchewan. There, he established Fort Cumberland, the HBC’s first inland trading post. Hearne was appointed governor of Prince of Wales Fort in January 1776, which he surrendered in 1782 to a vastly superior French force. Although he and his men were allowed to flee to England, the following year Hearne returned to find both the Aboriginal populations and trade networks ravaged by disease and violence. In 1787 Hearne returned to England, where he spent the last decade of his life aiding friends and naturalists. He wrote A Journey from Prince of Wales’s Fort in Hudson’s Bay to the Northern Ocean, which was released three years after his 1792 death and provided readers with one of the most accurate early-contact descriptions of northern Aboriginal life.

Source: http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/samuel-hearne/

Explorers and men who step out into the great unknown are not always given the recognition that they deserve, despite the fact that it is they who traverse places that humanity knows nothing about.  Imagine stepping out into a pitch black night not knowing what to expect, not the terrain underfoot, not the weather overhead, nor the animals and plants that you may discover along the way.  That's what it is like stepping out into the void.  That's what men like Samuel Hearne did, and do, on a daily basis.  That's what makes them great and names to champion.  Names to esteem.

Ray Mears sums it up well in an introductory paragraph to his documentary on Samuel Hearne (~60 minutes long).  "This is a record of my journey across this vast and magnificent land, and back into it’s history.   A history written by explorers who should be household names in their native Britain, but are as unknown as the land they encountered."
 

It's a good documentary with lots of history and also some bushcraft (for those who haven't heard of him Ray Mears is a well known woodsman/outdoorsmen in the UK), but is an hour long, an hour of your time.  However you could always listen to it as an audio documentary whilst doing something else because the visuals aren't 100% essential.


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Alternative Lyrics to Well Known Songs 36 - Sol's Corona

(Based on the hit single 'My Sharona' by 'The Knack')


An astronomical themed alternative lyrics... post this week courtesy of my muse  (I sure as heck couldn't come up with these ideas, and someone has to).  It's deals with a few topics related to our sun (or indeed any sun/star):

• The corona - that strange white aura that emanates from the sun (our sun and every other sun)
• Coronal Mass Ejections (or CME's for all your jargon junkies) - eruptions of plasma that cause solar winds.
• Solar Winds - plasma that flows out from the sun.  We humans see the solar winds when they hit the upper atmosphere and cause the aurora borealis (aka the Northern Lights).
• Solar activity effects human behaviour - the sun has an effect on the physical and mental health of living organisms.

Of course we wouldn't know about any of these phenomena or any other astronomical phenomena if it wasn't for men.  Astronomers, like mathematicians and physicists, are pretty much all men.  It's men that deal with the hard sciences, studying the underlying laws and mechanisms that the universe operates on.  This in turn allows other men (engineers and those of a practical bent) to modify the world and shape it according to their Will, for their own betterment and more often than not the betterment of others.

Play the music video above and sing along using the alternative lyrics given below.


#Sol's Corona#
Oh my little pretty one
pretty one.
When you gonna blaze big time corona?
Only from behind the moon
behind the moon.
Do I stand a chance to see ya' corona.

Never gonna know
when you will
erupt a massive one.
I always wanna know
when will come
the next solar wind.
My my my i yi woo.
S- S- S- Sol's corona.

Take a close look
a closer look.
Through a whopping great telescope corona.
I guess I hope to see
hope to see.
What may lay beneath your blaze corona.

Never gonna know
when you will
erupt a massive one.
I always wanna know
when will come
the next solar wind.
My my my i yi woo.
S- S- S- Sol's corona.
S- S- S- Sol's corona.

What is it you do to me
do to me?
Are you the cause of my mind Corona?
How d'you effect me
effect me?
Are you the cause of civilised life corona?

Never gonna know
when you will
erupt a massive one.
I always wanna know
when will come
the next solar wind.
My my my i yi woo.
My my my i yi woo.
S- S- S- Sol's corona.
S- S- S- Sol's corona.
S- S- S- Sol's corona.
S- S- S- Sol's corona.

Ooooh Sol's corona.
Ooooh Sol's corona.
Ooooh Sol's corona.


[End of lyrics.]

Men of Yore: Georgius Agricola

This is another in a series of posts about men from history who have either achieved great things in one form or another by pushing boundaries: either in themselves or in society or science or exploration of some form. Boundary pushing and growth is what men do, it's their nature: to grow and push outwards. We, as men, are the frontiers men, the first to discover/uncover new territory, in a metaphysical sense (i.e. including both material and the immaterial) that is later colonised and 'civilised' by the rest of humanity.

Georgius Agricola

Georgius Agricola
born March 24, 1494, Clauchau, Saxony
died Nov. 21, 1555, Chemnitz

German scholar and scientist known as “the father of mineralogy.” While a highly educated classicist and humanist, well regarded by scholars of his own and later times, he was yet singularly independent of the theories of ancient authorities. He was indeed among the first to found a natural science upon observation, as opposed to speculation. His De re metallica dealt chiefly with the arts of mining and smelting; his De natura fossilium, considered the first mineralogy textbook, presented the first scientific classification of minerals (based on their physical properties) and described many new minerals, their occurrence and mutual relationships.

Life
Agricola was born of obscure parentage. From 1514 to 1518 he studied classics, philosophy, and philology at the University of Leipzig, which had recently been exposed to the Humanist revival. Following the custom of the times, he latinized his name [from George Bauer] to Georgius Agricola. After teaching Latin and Greek from 1518 to 1522 in a school in Zwickau, he returned to Leipzig to begin the study of medicine but found the university in disarray because of theological quarrels. A lifelong Catholic, he left in 1523 for more congenial surroundings in Italy. He studied medicine, natural science, and philosophy in Bologna and Padua, finishing with clinical studies in Venice.

For two years he worked at the Aldine Press in Venice, principally in preparing an edition of Galen's works on medicine (published in 1525). In this task he collaborated with John Clement, who had been Thomas More's secretary during the writing of Utopia. More's book may well have influenced Agricola to concern himself later with the laws and social customs of the Saxon mining district. In Italy he also met and won the friendship of the great scholar Erasmus, who encouraged him to write and later published several of his books. (Erasmus wrote an introduction to Agricola's first book, the mineralogical treatise Bermannus. Agricola shared that honour with More and only three other scholars.)

In 1526 he returned to Saxony, and from 1527 to 1533 he was town physician in Joachimsthal, a burgeoning mining town in the richest metal-mining district of Europe. Partly in the hope of finding new drugs among the ores and minerals of his adopted district (a hope eventually to be disappointed), he spent all his spare time visiting mines and smelting plants, talking to the better educated miners, and reading classical authors on mining. These years shaped the rest of his life and provided the subject matter for most of his books, beginning with Bermannus; sive, de re metallica (1530), a treatise on the Erzgebirge mining district. There are indications that he owned a share in a silver mine. 

He appears not to have been particularly distinguished as a physician, though in this pursuit he made use of direct observation rather than of received authority. He introduced the practice of quarantine into Germany, and his books make many references to miners' occupational diseases. In 1533 he became town physician in Chemnitz, where he remained to the end of his life.

In 1546 Duke Maurice, elector of Saxony, appointed Agricola burgomaster (mayor) of Chemnitz. He also served as an emissary in the Protestant ruler Maurice's ambiguous negotiations with Charles V, the Holy Roman emperor. The religious wars of the period rapidly eroded the tolerance that had hitherto prevailed in the Protestant German states, a tolerance from which Agricola had benefitted.

Apart from his diplomatic role, Agricola took only limited interest in politics. His youthful “Turkish Speech” of 1529, a vigorous call to the Holy Roman emperor Ferdinand I to undertake a war against the Turks, was a patriotic hymn to Germany and a call to political and religious unity. It made a great impression on the public and was often reprinted.

Chief Works

Agricola's magnum opus, for which the treatise Bermannus was a prelude, was De re metallica, published posthumously in 1556. In it, among other things, Agricola surveys historical and classical allusions to metals and assesses the content and distribution of metal mines in antiquity. He treats the pattern of ownership and the system of law governing Saxon mines, together with the details of their day-to-day labour management.

He was mainly concerned, however, with mining and metallurgy, and he discussed the geology of ore bodies, surveying, mine construction, pumping, and ventilation. There is much on the application of waterpower. He describes the assaying of ores, the methods used for enriching ores before smelting, and procedures for smelting and refining a number of metals; and he concludes with a discussion of the production of glass and of a variety of chemicals used in smelting operations.

In De natura fossilium (the book on which rests his right to be regarded as the father of mineralogy), Agricola offers a classification of minerals (called “fossils” at that time) in terms of geometrical form (spheres, cones, plates). He was probably the first to distinguish between “simple” substances and “compounds.” In Agricola's day, chemical knowledge was almost nonexistent, and there was no proper chemical analysis (other than analysis of ores by the use of fire), so the classification of ores was necessarily crude.

In several other books, notably De natura eorum quae effluunt ex terra (1546) and De ortu et causis subterraneorum (1546), Agricola describes his ideas on the origin of ore deposits in veins and correctly attributes them to deposition from aqueous solution. He also describes in detail the erosive action of rivers and its effect in the shaping of mountains. His readiness to discard received authority, even that of classical authors, such as Aristotle and Pliny, is impressive.

Agricola's scholarly contemporaries regarded him highly. Erasmus prophesied in 1531 that he would “shortly stand at the head of the princes of scholarship.” Later Goethe was to liken him to Francis Bacon. Melanchthon praised his “grace of presentation and unprecedented clarity.” The mining engineer Herbert Hoover (later U.S. president), who translated De re metallica into English in 1912, regarded Agricola as the originator of the experimental approach to science, “the first to found any of the natural sciences upon research and observation, as opposed to previous fruitless speculation.”

(Source: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/9518/Georgius-Agricola)

Another rebellious German who, like his contemporary Paracelsus, didn't take anything on authority no matter how esteemed the name was (e.g. Aristotle).  Instead of accepting authority merely because it was tradition to do so he made his own observations on the world and formed his own conclusions.  The result of this is that he laid the foundations stones of a new discipline: mineralogy.  This new discipline has allowed man to utilise the numerous mineral resources of the Earth to greater effect, to benefit himself and to also benefit future generations.  That is what can arise from men who judge for themselves rather than taking the proclamations of others merely because they are labelled as 'an authority' by society.


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Men of Yore: Abel Tasman

This is another in a series of posts about men from history who have either achieved great things in one form or another by pushing boundaries: either in themselves or in society or science or exploration of some form. Boundary pushing and growth is what men do, it's their nature: to grow and push outwards. We, as men, are the frontiers men, the first to discover/uncover new territory, in a metaphysical sense (i.e. including both material and the immaterial) that is later colonised and 'civilised' by the rest of humanity.



Abel Tasman

Abel Janszoon Tasman (1603?-1659), mariner, was born at Lutjegast, near Groningen, in the Netherlands. He received a sufficient education to enable him to express his ideas clearly in writing and to become a skilled navigator. He married Claesgie Meyndrix, by whom he had a daughter. After his wife died, he married Joanna Tiercx in January 1632. Soon afterwards, as a sailor before the mast, he sailed for the East Indies, where he was a first mate in February and a skipper in May 1634. In that year in a minor exploration he had a narrow escape from death, when in an incautious landing several of his companions were massacred by people of Ceram. After spending some time in warlike and anti-smuggling operations he returned to Holland in 1637.

He sailed for the Indies again in 1638 as skipper of a flute, taking his wife with him. From the outset he was treated as one of the most reliable skippers there. He was at first employed in military and trading voyages, but in 1639 was appointed second-in-command, under Quast, of two ships which set out in June to find islands believed to lie east of Japan. He returned in November from this search. Despite a disastrous death-toll on it, he offered to repeat the search, but was sent instead on trading voyages to Japan and Cambodia.

In 1642 he was appointed to command two ships to explore southern and eastern waters. Sailing in August he discovered Van Diemen's Land, New Zealand, the Tonga Islands and some of the Fiji group, and re-explored part of the north coast of New Guinea. On his return to Batavia in June 1643 he was chosen to take part in an expedition to form a settlement in the Tonga Islands from which the Chilean coast was to be raided; while this expedition was preparing, he was ordered to find whether there was a passage into the South Sea between Carpentaria and De Witt's Land. For this purpose he set out with three vessels at the end of January 1644 and, following the coasts from Cape Valsche round to Cape Cloates, satisfied himself that, except perhaps at Endeavour Strait, there was no passage. He was rewarded after his return in August 1644 by confirmation in the grade of commandeur, with a substantial increase in pay dated back to the beginning of his voyage in 1642.

The plan to raid Chile was abandoned, and Tasman was appointed to the Council of Justice at Batavia. In mid-1647 he was sent on a mission to the King of Siam and was granted precedence over all Dutchmen in the kingdom. After that mission, he was given command of a fleet of eight vessels which sailed in May 1648 against the Spaniards. His conduct in this operation was unsatisfactory and, after his return in January 1649, proceedings were taken against him for having, when inflamed by liquor, treated one of his sailors in a barbarous way; as a result he was removed from office during the governor-general's pleasure. He was formally reinstated in January 1651, but not long afterwards retired from the service and became a merchant in Batavia. He died there in affluent circumstances in 1659. His daughter by his first marriage had married first Philip Heylman, and later Jacob Bremer. In 1661 permission was given for his widow to marry Jan Meyndert Springer.

Tasman was a member of the Reformed Church. He was a brave and energetic mariner, a humane and properly cautious explorer, and a conspicuously able commander, though over-hasty on one occasion at least. Reflections which have been cast upon his courage are the fruit of ignorance. There are two supposed portraits of him: one owned by the Royal Commonwealth Society in London, the other in the National Library in Canberra.

Source: http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/tasman-abel-janszoon-2716

The Dutch have endowed humanity with many great treasures: Hugo Grotius' treatise on international waters encouraging peaceful movement of people, Mercators maps allowed the world to be navigated more easily; Huygens added to the knowledge of the stars; and so on.  Abel Tasman is another of those such men.  He added to humanities knowledge of the physical world by exploring and mapping out parts of Australia, New Zealand and many islands in the South Pacific, which have allowed Europeans to explore, inhabit, and utilise them to their own and humanities betterment.

And he did all of that without the use of sat-nav or Google Earth!


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