The first of the armed forces
And a trick lamp
The US Army traces its history back to 1775; so does the Navy. The Marines were also formed in 1775, and became part of the Navy in 1834. The Air Force came much later, of course, in 1947. And the “Space Force”, which is the world’s only uniformed service that lacks any means of reaching the territory they’re supposed to defend, became an independent branch just last year. By the way, although this is not widely known, “Space Force” has actually existed since 1982, hidden inside the Air Force. But all of the services are youngsters compared with the National Guard, which is 139 years older than the Army. On December 13, 1636, the Massachusetts Bay Colony organized three regiments of militia to defend against the Pequot people, who were getting increasingly annoyed with the alien invaders. That event is considered the founding of the US National Guard.
That was so long ago that the English Civil War (at least the on from 1642 to 1651) hadn’t even occurred yet. In fact it was December 13, 1643 that a big battle took place in Alton, a town in Hampshire. The “Parliamentarians” defeated the “Royalists”. The conflict was related to the reasons that had motivated many settlers to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the first place; the Parliamentarians were in favor of more religious freedom, and that faction included the Puritans. The Puritans, by the way, gave the political movement its nickname: the “roundheads”. The popular fashion in hairstyles at the time was long ringlets, but the Puritans kept their hair cut short, which made their heads, well, look rounder, I suppose. In return, the Parliamentarians started calling the Royalists “Cavaliers”. This was supposed to be an insult, comparing them to the Spanish Caballeros (the English and Spanish were enjoying one of their many historic cycles of mutual disdain). But probably just to antagonize the roundheads even more, the Cavaliers embraced their new label and even started using it themselves.
An amusing footnote is that in 1636 the Anglican Church (which was squarely in the Royalist camp) issued an edict ordering all the clergy to cut their hair short too — so the Puritans started growing theirs long just out of pure contrariness. But it was too late; everybody kept calling them roundheads anyway. They had the last laugh, though, because they won the war. That victory is why England today has a Parliament.
You’re probably wondering when it moved from New Hampshire to Boston.
It was nearly a century and a half later, in 1769, that another naming oddity took place on December 13. Eleazar Wheelock founded a college in the “Province of New Hampshire”. If you’ve heard of Wheelock College, you’re probably wondering when it moved from New Hampshire to Boston, where it is today. The answer is that it didn’t, the college in Boston isn’t named after Eleazor Wheelock, and neither is the one in New Hampshire. Wheelock named his 1769 college after one of his financial supporters, William Legge. Haven’t heard of Legge College either? That’s because Wheelock named it after that guy, but didn’t use his name. Instead he used his title, the Earl of Dartmouth. That’s a college name you probably have heard of. The Wheelock College in Boston, by the way, is named after Lucy Wheelock, who founded it in 1888 to train kindergarten teachers.
One of the lessons kindergarten teachers typically instill in their young charges is to stay away from flames. That’s why you can be pretty sure Wheelock College has never had a “Döbereiner’s lamp”, even if they’ve had a chemistry lab. Döbereiner’s lamp is, fairly obviously, named after Johann Döbereiner, a German chemist. It was a pretty miraculous device for its time — it looked like a glass jar with a metal valve on top. But when you opened the valve, a small flame appeared. It was a lighter, but didn’t use flint or steel. Instead, it relied on a couple of chemical reactions — there was sulfuric acid in the jar, along with a piece of zinc. The two reacted to create hydrogen under gentle pressure. When the valve was opened, the hydrogen was blown onto some platinum, and along with oxygen from the air the reaction ignited the hydrogen. It probably seemed like magic when it was invented in 1823 by Döbereiner — whose birthday is December 13.
Another December 13 birthday is Werner von Siemens, the German engineer who founded the Siemens company, which is still around. In some of its businesses it competes with the US conglomerate Bechtel, which for a while was headed up by George Shulz, the former US Secretary of State, whose birthday is also today.
Speaking of high officials in the US government, it’s also Ben Bernanke’s birthday; he was the chairman of the Federal Reserve between 2006 and 2014. Both Bechtel and Siemens undertake large projects, often related to construction or reconstruction — which, in fact, is something the National Guard does too, particularly after natural disasters. So maybe it’s safe to say that we have December 13th (the birthday of the National Guard) to thank for the recoveries from things like Hurricane Katrina. They would have helped with the December 13, 1982 earthquake too — it was pretty destructive — except that one happened in Yemen.
Loved this one ! We were just trying to figure out when all of the military forces were formed ( probably from watching the Army Navy game - go Navy ! ) And this this appeared !