Apr 28 2008 03:20 pm
Posted by davidlind under History
On This Date In History April 28/ HMS Bounty and Captain Bligh/ Dick Nixon/ Muhammad Ali
Table of contents for Today In History
- Today In History / February 22
- Date With History / March 4
- This Date In History / March 10/ Charles I , AG Bell And Dr. Tarnower
- On This Date In History / Lyndon Johnson Announces His Retirement
- On This Date In History April 28/ HMS Bounty and Captain Bligh/ Dick Nixon/ Muhammad Ali
On this date in 1789 the crew of HMS Bounty decided they needed a change of leadership and sent their captain and 18 of his closest subjects adrift. One can only imagine how everyone was feeling that day.
It reminds me of the French Revolution except for the fact that it happened in the small confines of a ship and Captain Bligh was allowed to keep his head.
Everyone seemed to be saying that they were tired of being treated poorly. Look at what those colonists did in American! They told King George to stuff it and they made it stick! That was almost 15 years earlier and it was still sticking.
Just a year earlier on this date in 1788 Maryland became the seventh state to ratify the US Constitution. Not everybody was on board with that thing in the beginning! As you can see it took awhile for the colonists to agree to any kind of cooperation guaranteed by law.
My word! They were an independent bunch! I wonder where all these guys would be if they were alive today?
Wait! I know!
They would be in prison! They wouldn’t pay their taxes and they would shoot anybody who messed with them. They would drive at 100 miles per hour if it suited them and they would probably bath once a week. So they wouldn’t have a lot of friends. But their wives would make great pies and we wouldn’t have such a problem with deer running out in the road.
We could get alcohol by the bucket full too.
What a world it would be. And in 1958 on this date the US and descendants of the folks we have been talking about decided to start detonating nuclear bombs in the Pacific Proving Ground. The name of this place came from the fact that it was in the Pacific and it was proved once and for all that the human race is dominated by maniacs who will turn a peaceful place into a close relative of the sun if they get the chance. Eventually it was realized this was not a good idea and this bunch was driven underground.
This was six years to the day after the war with Japan officially ended as a treaty signed in San Fransisco the year before took effect. The war with Japan, of course, ended because two other close relatives of the sun paid a couple of visits to Japanese cities.
Many lives were saved it was noted at the time and every year thereafter. But a precedent was also set.
If you go to war and you want to end the war and defeat your enemy it’s alright to drop nuclear bombs on his cities. It will “save lives”.
Maybe all of this nuclear related activity was one of the reasons why on this date in 1958 Vice President Nixon and his wife began a goodwill tour to Latin America. “Hey! We want to be your friends! We will not send Uncle Fission to your neighborhood! Because you are going to behave! Right?”
Hostile mobs met Tricky D and Pat in Lima, Peru and Caracas, Venezuela. There were rocks thrown in their direction if I remember correctly. And I am guessing that the leaders of the mobs reasoned something like this. “Surely they will not respond to a few rocks by sending in the bombers and the nukes!”
And they were right! Thus the nature of warfare was changed forever!
But Muhammad Ali was not on board. Because on this date in 1967 he refused to be inducted into the Army. He enjoyed fighting more than most but only with his hands. Nuclear physics didn’t turn him on and fighting with peasants halfway around the world was not his cup of tea.
And so things went on and on as we all went down the road. Lots of wars. Lots of lovemaking. Until one year ago today when Tommy Newsom the assistant to Doc Severinsen on the Tonight Show died and went to heaven to be with Johny Carson, Bob Hope and the rest of the gang.
So you see that lots of things have happened on this date and probably will continue to happen. Just as long as the strange beings who run things forget about the Nuclear Precedent and try to settle things in some other way.
Popularity: 31% [?]
- Get Your National Briefs / Al Franken Fined
- On This Date In History / Lyndon Johnson Announces His Retirement
- This Date In History / March 10/ Charles I , AG Bell And Dr. Tarnower
- Reform The Nation’s Highest Office
- Date With History / March 4
David on 29 Apr 2008 at 2:29 pm #
Good that Bligh did keep his head, as pirate Fletcher Christian lost his shortly thereafter. Made a great football for the Tahitian men and women on Pitcairn Island after his body was dismembered.
‘It reminds me of the French Revolution except for the fact that it happened in the small confines of a ship and Captain Bligh was allowed to keep his head.’
Maurice on 01 May 2008 at 4:34 pm #
“It reminds me of the French Revolution except for the fact that it happended in the small confines of a ship and Captain Bligh was allowed to keep his head.”
You’re not going to like this, but the problem with your romantised ‘French Revolution’ /American Revolution analogy, (and the beloved Hollywood legend surrounding Captain Bligh of the ‘Bounty’) is that British Martitime History neatly blows it out of the water.
Fact: there was no such thing as a ‘mutiny’ (or ‘Strike’) or revolution, or choosing of a new leader on the 28th of April 1789 aboard HMAV (not HMS) ‘Bounty’.
Fact: The seizing of the ship was an act of piracy carried out by a minority of officers and sailors, in a sneak attack just before sunrise against the majority of crewmembers.
Fact: Fletcher Christian’s piratical gang were never the kind of heroes the movies made them out to be. Their purpose was to take the valuable ship intact, and return to Tahiti.
Fact: They didn’t care about casting 19 of their fellow shipmates adrift in an open boat, in the open ocean, with little food and water, at a spot over 4000 miles away from the nearests known outpost of civilisation.
Fact: The pirates set out on a leisurely 9 month long, rum-fuelled and drug-abetted rampage of kidnap, rape and bloodshed in the South Pacific, and slaughtered over 60 Polynesian men, women and children before turning against each other on Pitcairn Island.
And wasn’t it the rapists and murderers involved in the French Revolution who justified everything in the name of ‘freedom from tyranny’ that turned out to be the greatest tyrants of all?
davidlind on 01 May 2008 at 4:38 pm #
Maurice! Great stuff. Why wouldn’t I like it?