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By the early 1980s, cracks were beginning to appear among members of the Warsaw Pact; Communist-nations aligned with the Soviet Union against the West. In 1981, union members in the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk, Poland, went on strike, thrusting of their Solidarity labor and trade union into the national spotlight. This led to the imposition of martial law in December 1981 until July 1983, during which time the government pursued an aggressive policy of arresting and imprisoning suspected dissidents.

In the Soviet Union during this time, a succession of new leaders came and went in rapid succession. Leonid Brezhnev, who had succeeded Nikita Khrushchev in 1964, died in office in November 1982. He was succeeded as leader of the Communist Party and Soviet premier by Yuri Andropov. Andropov died in February 1984 and was succeeded by Konstantin Chernenko. Like Andropov, Chernenko was elderly and had chronic medical issues when he took office and, like Andropov, he did not hold his position long; Chernenko died thirteen months later in March 1985. With the Soviet economy stagnant and beginning to falter under the weight of government control, the Politburo decided to elect its next leader from among the younger generation of Communist Party officials and selected 54-year old Mikhail Gorbachev as the next Soviet premier. Gorbachev instituted new policies meant to reform the Soviet system. These policies were known as glasnost, or “openness,” and perestroika, or “restructuring.” These policies amounted to liberal reform of a deeply authoritarian system of government and social and economic control.

The institution of these reform policies rippled across Eastern Europe where they reverberated with citizens of Communist nations who had grown weary of economic stagnation, general unavailability of basic consumer goods along, government censorship of the press, and the lack of rights of personal expression. Czechoslovakia had flirted with liberal reforms during the so-called Prague Spring in 1968. These moves were not welcomed by Moscow, however, and in August 1968, 250,000 troops of the Warsaw Pact invaded Czechoslovakia, ousted the government of Alexander Dubček, and installed a much more orthodox--and pliant--Communist regime. But in the 1980s, with Moscow itself entertaining fundamental changes to the nature of its own government and society, other members of the Warsaw Pact nations took note; Pandora’s Box had been opened.

On November 17, International Student’s Day, thousands of students marched on the streets of Prague, while a smaller demonstration took place in the Slovak capital of Bratislava. Police dispersed the crowds but in the process a rumor started that one student had been shot and killed by police and then hurriedly taken to the hospital. The student, Ludvík Zifčák, was not actually harmed and was in fact an agent of the Czech secret police. A relatively peaceful end to the demonstration was recast as a violent crackdown by riot police and this galvanized student groups throughout the country. In response, they planned further marches the following day. University students throughout the country were joined by theaters and artist groups who all went on strike and publicly demonstrated in streets of cities throughout Czechoslovakia. During these marches on November 18, another student, Martin Šmíd, was rumored to have been killed by police. Unlike the report of the day before, which was a mistake, the death of Šmíd was an outright fabrication; there was no such person named  Martin Šmíd and no students were killed by police that day either. The report was nonetheless picked up by a Radio Free Europe correspondent and was broadcast across the continent. 

This report sparked the simmering discontent into further action. The next day, all theaters and universities around the country closed and went on strike. Within days, the Catholic Church announced its support for the students and former dissident leaders, including Alexander Dubček and Václav Havel joined the burgeoning political movement. Demonstrations in Prague and other cities were now made by hundreds of thousands of people, greatly unnerving the government. The military indicated that it was ready and willing to step in to restore order, but the government of Gustáv Husák declined the offer.

The national economy ground to a half as workers and businesses around the country declared a series of general strikes over the next several days. By November 24, the editorial boards of several newspapers joined Czechoslovak TV and Radio in the preparations for a general strike. At this point, recognizing that it was hamstrung by the loss of media control, the Communist Party announced a slate of new, more moderate leaders in an attempt to placate the crowds. By this point, however, the momentum of events outside of Czechoslovakia began to overtake the situation in Prague. On November 9, after the ending of border controls along East Germany’s border, checkpoints along the Berlin Wall were opened and the Wall itself began to come down. Czechoslovakia was filled with East Germans attempting to flee their country and gain refugee status in the west, taking over the West German Embassy in Prague in the process. This inflamed the situation in Czechoslovakia whose citizens were now seeing on TV and hearing on the radio everyday evidence of other communist governments falling all around them. On November 28, after announcing the end of one-party rule, the government also began to dismantle its border fortifications, increasing the flow of people from East to West. The next day, the federal assembly made the fateful decision to end the Communist Party’s monopoly of power, effectively sealing the fate of the regime.

The growth of the Spanish Empire in the New World in the decades after the original explorations of Christopher Columbus and others at the end of the fifteenth century led to the establishment of far flung settlements in rapid succession. By 1536, Spanish conquistadors had advanced from their initial foothold in modern day Peru and Ecuador south, and into the mountain and river-crossed land of present day Chile. Santiago, the capital, was established in 1541 and was the principal settlement and hub of future expansion further south. In the following decade, the tentacles of Spanish colonialism reached into the Araucanía region, crossing the Biobío River. Here the Spanish built seven cities in lands controlled by the Mapuche people. The Mapuches resisted this encroachment onto their homeland a long-running conflict between them and the Spanish, the Arauco War, resulted.

Martín García Óñez de Loyola arrived in Santiago in September 1592 to assume the role of Royal Governor of the Captaincy General of Chile. Óñez de Loyola’s goal was to more aggressively prosecute the war against the Mapuches by building up defenses at key points in the frontier and housing a garrison of Spanish soldiers in each. Óñez de Loyola led 110 soldiers to Concepción, where he realized that he did not have sufficient resources to undertake a pacification campaign in the Arauco, so he requested reinforcements from the Viceroyalty of Peru.

The Spanish viceroy, however, was wary of British privateers raiding coastal cities and declined to send any additional soldiers to Óñez de Loyola. Impatient, the governor proceeded anyway in May 1594 and established a fort on the Biobio River called Santa Cruz de Oñez. A year later, the fort was recognized as a city was renamed Santa Cruz de Coya. The settlement was built to protect and take advantage of the vast gold mines in the region. Its presence was deeply resented by the Mapuches and their leader Pelantaro. Leaving the 110 soldiers at the fort, Óñez de Loyola returned to Santiago where he again requested for resources. Three years later in 1597, 140 additional soldiers arrived and the governor duly dispatched them to Santa Cruz de Coya to supplement the garrison.

In December 1598, Óñez de Loyola learned of a Mapuche attack on the city of Angol in the Araucanía. The governor departed the city of La Imperial and then proceeded to Santa Cruz de Coya where he took 50 soldiers from the garrison and assembled 300 nearby friendly tribesman into a column. He then marched towards Purén where another fort was located. On the second night of the march, the Spanish established a camp near the Lumaco River. Óñez de Loyola took no security precautions and failed to establish any defenses. Pelantaro detected the presence of the Spanish column and, with his lieutenants Anganamón and Guaiquimilla, assembled a cavalry force. The Mapuches attacked the Spanish camp, catching the reset conquistadors by surprise. Despite this disadvantage the Spanish fought hard, but were nonetheless overrun. Martín García Óñez de Loyola was speared in the chest and died on the battlefield. His head was taken as a prize by Pelantaro and added to his collection, which included that of Pedro de Valdivia, the first Royal Governor of Chile.

At the time of the American Revolution, Massachusetts was divided along economic lines between the east and west. The eastern part of the state centered around Massachusetts Bay, had a highly developed market economy with a system of credit and borrowing backed by European merchants, while the western part of the state consisted almost entirely of subsistence agriculture and a barter system; hard currency was rare. After the Treaty of Paris ended the war in 1783, European merchants became reluctant to extend credit to their counterparts in eastern Massachusetts, which threatened to upend its market-based system because currency production was limited by the state government in order to prevent inflation. Moreover, many of the state’s senior leaders also operated as merchants in their own right and possessed many debt contracts based on the available supply of currency. With the state refusing to mint additional coinage or introduce paper currency, the western subsistence farmers found themselves unable to pay debts accrued outside their own internal barter system. Eastern politicians sought relief from the courts, which often expropriated the property of debtors in favor of the eastern elites who were their creditors.

One such farmer who found himself in this position was Daniel Shays. Shays grew up in western Massachusetts and, as war appeared on the horizon, he joined the Continental Army. Shays fought at Lexington and Concord, Bunker Hill, and Saratoga. Shays left the army in 1780 to recover from wounds he received in battle. When he returned home to his farm, he found it encumbered by debt and threats of arrest by the local magistrate.

The following year, the independent United States ratified the Articles of Confederation, which called for a relatively weak national government, and powerful state governments. The national government had no right to taxation of the states unless the states consented, which they rarely did. In practice, each state continued to manage its own international and domestic debts and currency. The rationale was that an all powerful federal government would eventually fall into tyrannical habits just as the British government had with the colonies, with the same deleterious effects. This gave tremendous power to the individual state legislatures and governors to affect the daily lives of their citizens through their control over economic policy.

In 1782, John Hancock was elected Governor of Massachusetts on a populist platform. As such Hancock refused to enforce creditors’ rights against debtors and was extraordinarily lax in tax collection and in prosecution of tax evaders. While this made Hancock popular among the western farmers, it harmed the state economy by undermining the system of credit in the market-based Massachusetts Bay area. It also depleted the state’s coffers, making it more difficult for it to pay off its foreign debts. Hancock persisted with this policy, however, until 1785, when he resigned, ostensibly for health reasons. His successor, James Bowdoin, recognized the unsustainable nature of Hancock’s approach and changed it for both policy and personal reasons; Bowdoin himself was a creditor with debts owed to him totaling over £3,000.

Bowdoin persuaded the state legislature to pass heavy property taxes and he directed courts to step up tax collections and prosecution for non-payment. This endeared him to the merchants of Massachusetts Bay, but caused him to be hated by the western farmers. One of those was Daniels Shays, who began organizing his neighbors to protest for debt relief and forgiveness. Shays and other farmers began to form into groups, preventing local constables and magistrates from executing court-ordered land seizures. After one group marched on the Northampton courthouse to prevent it from sitting, Governor Bowdoin ordered the county militia to suppress the unrest and allow the court to go about its business. The militia members, friends and family of the farmers being assailed by the judicial system over their debts, were sympathetic and refused Bowdoin’s order. Bowdoin considered calling up the entire state militia, but ultimately decided against it, instead issuing a proclamation against mob action.

Shays was part of the group which took over the Northampton courthouse and ultimately began to assert his personal leadership over the proceedings. In mid-September, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts announced that it intended to hand down indictments on eleven of the men involved in the Northampton disturbance. These indictments would be issued at its next sitting on September 26, at Springfield. Shays organized a group of 300 to march on the court in Springfield that day in order to prevent the indictments being handed out. The local militia commander, William Shepard, anticipated this and deployed around the courthouse with 300 militia members. On the day of the court’s sitting, Shays arrived and saw Shepard and his men. Rather than provoke a violent confrontation though, Shays elected to stand back and demonstrate from a distance. The court did sit in Springfield that day, but handed down no indictments and concluded its business in a hasty and rather perfunctory manner before adjourning.

After the court adjourned on the 28th without having heard any cases, Shays and his men--now numbering 1,200--withdrew. Shepard now had 800 militia and fell back on the Springfield Armory. Though the armory was federal property, Shepard anticipated that Shays might try to seize it and gain the vast supplies of firearms and gunpowder stored there and so moved to defend it without seeking the approval of Henry Knox, then Secretary of War.

Protests throughout the state succeeded in shutting down courts in other rural jurisdictions, while courts only met in large cities under the protection of the state militia. In November , arrest warrants were issued for several ringleaders and large posses of up to 300 constables and deputies rode out to execute these warrants. These lead to brief, occasionally bloody encounters. Tensions rose on all sides as Shays and the other leaders of the rising formed plans to march on Boston in open revolt and replace the “tyrannical” state government. Fearing that the insurrection would outnumber and subsume his state militia, Governor Bowdoin commissioned Revolutionary War veteran Benjamin Lincoln to solicit money from the eastern merchants and creditors in order to raise a private militia force. In two weeks, Lincoln raised £6,000, enough to recruit 3,000 men.

With this force, Lincoln marched on Worcester on January 19, 1787. In response, Shays organized his force into three groups, that would march on and attack Shepard’s now 1,200 militia around the Springfield Armory at the same time from three different directions. The three columns did not properly coordinate their marches and as a result they arrived at the armory with 1,500 men instead of the 2,000 plan. Shepard, now armed with artillery, was ready for them. As the Shaysites--as Shays men now called themselves--approached, Shepard ordered two warning shots fired over the formation. When they continued marching, Shepard ordered two cannons to fire grapeshot--basically the equivalent of a large shotgun shell--into the body of Shaysites. Four were killed and dozens more wounded. Immediately the Shaysites fell back in a disorganized manner, melting away as they did. Shays fled north with what supporters he had, while Lincoln, hearing of the skirmish, marched from Worcester to support Shepard.

On the morning of February 4, in a driving snowstorm, Lincoln surprised the Shaysite camp at Petersham. Neither Shays nor any of his officers were captured as they escaped into Vermont and North Hampshire, but the rest of his army was and the rebellion’s back was broken. On February 27, one last skirmish took place at Sheffield, with thirty Shaysites wounded, and one killed. One government soldier was killed, the only fatality suffered by the state militia during the rebellion. The rising was at an end.

Concerns about the weakness of the national government existed prior to Shays’ Rebellion. On September 11, 1786, two weeks after the first courthouse was seized in Northampton, a national political convention was convened in Annapolis, Maryland, to address the weaknesses of the national government. The Annapolis Convention ended on September 14, with a decision by a majority of its delegates to reconvene in Philadelphia the following year. It was at this convention which began sitting in May 1787, that the document which became the United States Constitution was drafted. The degree to which the uprising in Massachusetts and other New England states--similar attempts at insurrection were swiftly put down in Rhode Island and Connecticut at the same time as Shays’ Rebellion--inspired a new constitution which vested far greater powers in a new federal government, is debatable. However, the fears of wide, destabilizing violence held by statesmen such as George Washington and John Adams are well-known through their correspondence at the time.

The U.S. Constitution was ratified in 1789. In 1791, another uprising against unfair taxation flickered. The Whiskey Rebellion lasted until 1794, but was ultimately put down because the federal government, led by now President George Washington, was able to muster 13,000 militia provided by several states. Something that would have been nearly impossible under the Articles of Confederation a few short years earlier.

When Peter and his older brother Ivan V simultaneously succeeded their elder brother Feodor III, Russia was a massive, yet land-locked nation that had turned inward from the rest of Europe decades earlier. After Peter’s sickly brother Ivan died in 1696, Russia became the sole Tsar of Russia and immediately set out to modernize his backwards nation by adopting European social, political, economic, and cultural standards. Peter subjected himself to the same new standards and during his great tour of Europe, the Grand Embassy of Peter the Great, in 1696-97, Peter immersed himself in the latest continental advances in medicine, math, science, shipbuilding, and theories of political governance. Largely traveling incognito, albeit with a large and rowdy retinue of nobles and advisors along with servants, Peter witnessed the dissection of corpses, worked with his hands in a Dutch East India Company shipyard, and absorbed European customs. Returning to Moscow in 1697, Peter determined that Russia could only attain greatness as a nation by expanding westward and seeking greater access and exposure to the rest of Europe, primarily by gaining warm-water ports on the Baltic Coast.

The problem was that the Baltic Coast was controlled by Sweden, then one of the preeminent military powers of Europe, with a well-trained army and navy that allowed them to project power throughout the Baltic and into the European continent. Ruling over this Baltic empire was the young Charles XII, new to power. Peter, who was 15 years Charles’s senior and been on the Russian throne since Charles was an infant, regarded the new Swedish monarch as a weakling to be bullied through a military alliance. Peter secretly concluded such an alliance with Frederick IV of the combined kingdom of Denmark-Norway and Augustus II, or the Strong, who was king of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Elector of Saxony, and also had claims on the Swedish throne.

Peter’s plan was for the Russians to invade the upper Baltic territory controlled by Sweden while Augustus invaded more southern states, meanwhile Frederick would threaten the Swedish homeland by assembling an invasion force in the Danish capital of Copenhagen. Charles recognized what was happening and quickly assembled the army. In a lightning campaign, Charles crossed the Baltic straits between southern Sweden and Denmark, routed Frederick’s army and then marched on the Copenhagen. Frederick sought a truce and Charles dictated the Peace of Travendal, forcing Frederick to withdraw from the alliance. With one foe defeated, Charles next turned to Swedish-controlled Estonia. A large Russian army--said by some historical sources to number 80,000, but more like closer to 35,000-40,000--had invaded Estonia and laid siege to the fortress city of Narva. The garrison of Narva was small, but well-supplied and was able to resist the siege. Peter and his senior commanders realized that their Russian army, while it had begun to experience the European-style reforms which Peter instituted, was still not as well-trained or equipped as the Swedes, entrenched their besieging army behind wood and stone fortifications along the entire length of the siege lines. This was to protect their rear from a surprise attack by a relief force since Peter did not think that the Russians had the skill or discipline yet to disengage from the siege and about-face to confront a new enemy.

Charles arrived in Estonia with his victorious army, which was then reinforced with Swedish and Finnish regiments. Charles marched in the direction of Narva to lift the siege. Just days before Charles arrived, Peter left his army to return to Moscow to deal with urgent domestic matters; uprisings in the Russian hinterland by local nobles or officials who disapproved of Peter’s modernization policies were endemic throughout his reign. After having detached some regiments to guard his supply line, Charles arrived outside Narva with 8,000 men. Another 2,500 were in the garrison of Narva. The Swedes were confronted with the large Russian army in seemingly impregnable entrenchments before them. The Russians also had just under 200 cannons; it was a formidable position and Charles halted his army to see if any weaknesses in the Russian line could be found. As the Swedes and Russians faced one another, a blizzard blew across the land, discouraging any maneuvers. At any rate, the Russians were content to stay within their position, confident that it would hold both the garrison of Narva in, and keep Charles and his army out.

Then, late in the day of November 30 (or November 19 under the Old Style calendar then used by the Russians), the winds changed direction and snow started to blow directly in the face of the Russian soldiers, blinding them. Charles recognized an opportunity and immediately, with his entire army, charged the left of the Russian line. The ill-disciplined Russian troops panicked and their officers were unsure of how to respond to an attack that they could barely see developing due to their snow flurries pelting them in the face. Swedish regiments crashed into the Russian position, broke through the entrenchments and, at the point of bayonets, drove the Russians back. Officers fled their units and Russian conscripts hastily fell back to the north where they ran headlong into their comrades holding the northern part of the line. This area of the Russian army had not witnessed the Swedish attack because of the snow and was only marginally aware of what has happening when swathes of their fellow soldiers ran through their position in a panic. This spread and Peter’s commanders could not arrest the situation. Russians began abandoning their position wholesale as Charles and his Swedes pushed north, cutting down retreating enemies as they reached them. The Russians between retreating across the Narva River, but the bridge crossing the river collapsed, causing many to drown and leaving the vast majority of the Russian army and all of its artillery and other supplies trapped on the river bank, with Charles closing in. Penned in and facing annihilation, the remaining Russians surrendered to a force less than half their size.

The army which Charles destroyed at Narva was the only major Russian field army then in existence. Charles had only a handful of small units in Moscow and spread among other garrisons further east, none of which could reach Moscow in time to defend the capital if the Swedes marched in that direction. Curiously, however, Charles chose not to. Ever the tactician, he considered the Russia threat ended, and instead marched south to confront the army of Augustus II, which was in winter quarters in Livonia.

Mary Celeste was built in a shipyard in Nova Scotia in 1860. She went through a succession of owners and refits before being purchased by American businessman James Winchester in 1869. Winchester operated the brigantine for three years before docking her in New York in early 1872 for an extensive refit costing $10,000 ($203,309 after adjusted for inflation). The bow was lengthened to 103 feet, beam (or breadth) was increased to 25.7 feet, and her draft (or depth) was increased to 16.2 feet. Another deck was added and worn out timbers replaced. All told, this work increased Mary Celeste’s displacement (or weight) to 282 tons.

On October 29, the Mary Celeste was ready for her first voyage after refitting. Winchester selected experienced mariner Benjamin Briggs as captain and gave Briggs a four-twelfths share in the business consortium headed by Winchester which financed the Mary Celeste’s operations. Briggs was a devout Christian who had an excellent reputation among merchant sailors. His first and second mate and steward were all family men with equally solid reputations, while the balance of the crew was four Germans from the Frisian islands who had good service records. Briggs was joined on the voyage by his wife Sarah and their two-year old daughter, Sophia Matilda. The couple’s seven year old son, Arthur, remained with Brigg’s mother in Boston.

Mary Celeste’s cargo consisted of 1,701 barrels of denatured alcohol. After loading at Pier 50 on the East River, Briggs moved the Mary Celeste into New York Harbor and waited for favorable sailing weather. On November 7, the weather cleared and the Mary Celeste set sail. When Dei Gratia, carrying a cargo of petroleum, caught up to Mary Celeste on December 5, it was clear that something significant had occurred sometime in the intervening weeks. Almost as soon as the Dei Gratia sighted the Mary Celeste, her captain, David Morehouse, noted that the brigantine’s sails were set in an odd manner, while some others appeared torn. The ship was steering erratically in the direction of Dei Gratia. The condition of the sails and the handling of the vessel were completely out of character for a captain with the reputation of Briggs. It was apparent to Morehouse that something was very wrong.

After the boarding party Morehouse dispatched to the Mary Celeste returned, they reported that many sails were indeed torn, that there was approximately 3.5 feet of water in the hold, the cabins and living spaces were cluttered and untidy, the ship’s binnacle (a glass compartment which contained the compass) was smashed, a makeshift sounding rod was lying on the deck, and a long line (or rope) was trailing in the water behind the Mary Celeste. The ship’s boat was missing, as was some of the navigation equipment, but the ship’s cargo was intact and the hold securely shut. The galley was still fully provisioned with food and supplies. The last entry in the ship’s log was made at 8:00am on November 25, nine days earlier. The recorded position put the Mary Celeste off Santa Maria Island, over 400 miles away from where the Dei Gratia encountered her.

Though Morehouse only had a crew of seven, he nevertheless decided to bring the Mary Celeste in to Gibraltar, where he had intended to stop anyway on his own trip to Genoa. Bringing in derelict ships often proved profitable as abandoned ships could provide a navigation hazard to other vessels if they grounded in shallow water. In addition, maritime law often allocated significant compensation to salvors who brought in damaged or abandoned ships. Morehouse sent his first mate with two seaman over to the Mary Celeste and the two ships sailed together into Gibraltar, with Dei Gratia arriving on December 12, and Mary Celeste early the following morning.

Almost immediately, the British authorities in Gibraltar set up a salvage court to investigate the circumstances by which Dei Gratia discovered Mary Celeste and to decide how to apportion any reward money. Generally, the more difficult a salvage effort and the more valuable the cargo of the salvaged vessel, the greater the reward money for the salvor. Morehouse fully expected to be handsomely rewarded for his effort; sailing two ships the size of Dei Gratia and Mary Celeste 600 miles to Gibraltar with only four and three men on each was no small feat.

The proceedings of the salvage court, a form of vice admiralty court, quickly took a turn for the dramatic as the British investigators suspected foul play. They pointed to a series of indentions or marks on the Mary Celeste’s railing, claiming they were caused by sword or ax blows. Benjamin Brigg’s sword, which was found under his bed in his cabin, was claimed to have traces of blood on it. A local diver was hired to inspect the Mary Celeste’s hull to see if she had suffered a collision. Even though the diver reported no evidence of a collision, British officials nonetheless concluded that an unidentified party had overtaken the Mary Celeste, overpowered the crew and killed them.

David Morehouse and the Dei Gratia were never directly accused, but the implication hung heavily in the air. And while pirates were still common along the cost of Morocco in the late 19th century and it was not unheard of them for them sail as far as the Azores, a later investigation carried out by the American consul and a U.S. Navy captain pointed out that pirates ransack ships for valuables. On the Mary Celeste, virtually all of the crew’s personal possessions remained on board. No evidence of foul play by Morehouse and the Dei Gratia was presented and the salvage court awarded him and his crew 1,700 pounds, approximately one-third the amount generally expected. Morehouse took this as a slight and an indication that the court was not fully convinced of his innocence. The insult cast a black mark on Morehouse’s reputation and career.

The American investigation which followed the British admiralty court’s opinion determined that the indentions on the Mary Celeste’s railing were typical wear and tear caused by sail lines rubbing up against the wood, and were not produced by sword or ax blows. Moreover, the American naval investigation found nothing resembling blood on Brigg’s sword and adopted the conclusion of the harbor diver which found no evidence of a collision with another ship. The British admiralty court was forced to withdraw its previous opinion.

After the theory that Mary Celeste was attacked by pirates or a rival merchant vessel were discounted, additional theories were cobbled together, some reasonable and some bizarre. These theories ranged from the German crew getting drunk off the of the ship’s cargo and murdering Briggs, his family and officers in a drunken melee, to sea monsters snatching the crew from the deck and dragging them into the abyss. While the latter can be properly ignored  based on the knowledge we have of deep sea creatures today, the former lacks support because the 1,700 barrels of alcohol were not disturbed when the Dei Gratia’s boarding party inspected the Mary Celeste.

The generally accepted theory today is that some natural occurrence, whether a rogue wave or a sea spout, caused a mass of water to flood onto the Mary Celeste and into the hold. The presence of a makeshift sounding rod on the deck indicates that the crew was trying to determine just how much water was in the hold. While the 3.5 feet which was there when the Dei Gratia discovered her was not an insignificant amount, it was not enough to endanger the seaworthiness of a ship the size of the Mary Celeste and an experienced captain like Benjamin Briggs would have known that. It is therefore speculated that something caused the crew to incorrectly estimate or measure the amount of water in the hold and the rate at which it was rising; the low pressure caused by a sudden sea spout (a tornado that develops over the ocean) nearby might have forced more water through the bilge pumps and into the hold temporarily, causing the crew to think the Mary Celeste was taking on water faster than she could bear. This could be why the ship’s boat was missing; Briggs might have ordered the crew into the boat in a hasty manner in order to avoid being trapped aboard with swiftly rising water. The long line which Dei Gratia’s crew found trailing the Mary Celeste may have been Brigg’s attempt to stay connected with the Mary Celeste on the chance that it was not taking on water as quickly as estimated and perhaps could be re-boarded. If there was a sea spout nearby, part of a larger storm front cross the Atlantic and Briggs and his crew were caught in it on a tiny boat, they would not have lasted long on the open water.

While the scenario above is plausible, it reflects a panicky response by an otherwise highly experience ship captain and crew, something completely out of character for Briggs and his first mate. Ultimately, it is unlikely that we will ever know what happened to the Mary Celeste and it will remain one of the most profound mysteries of the 19th century.

For much of its early history, the Royal Navy issued its sailors a daily ration of one gallon (or eight pints) of beer. Any barrels of water brought aboard were usually unsafe to drink after a few days at sea and so unless a warship encountered regular rain storms to replenish its fresh water supplies, sailors and officers relied upon alcohol to quench their thirst. While alcohol certainly has its own negative side effects, the process of making it ensured that it was a clean and that sailors would not be forced to sick bay because of waterborne illness. There were health benefits to beer as well, which had been known by Western Europeans since the medieval era.

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As sugar plantations in the British West Indies grew in size and increased their output, the availability, and consumption, of rum increased in Britain and its colonies. As Royal Navy ships grew larger and served ever father from the British Isles, often in warm or tropical climates, beer too became less practical. Though it lasted much longer than barrels of fresh water, it eventually spoiled. In addition, the barrels needed to store the daily rations for hundreds of sailors--HMS Victory had a crew of 850--took up far too much space in the hold.

Rum was officially substituted for beer after the end of the Napoleonic Wars, though it had been a feature on British warships since the 18th century. Admiral Edward Vernon introduced the first daily ration regulations in 1740. In 1756, lemon or lime juice was added to the daily ration in order to prevent scurvy; thus earning British sailors the nickname “Limeys.” Even following Vernon’s rationing rules, drunkenness aboard ship remained an issue; the daily ration was halved in 1823 and again in 1850. The British Parliament debated the necessity of the daily rum ration in 1850 and again in 1881, but took no action. It was not until December 17, 1969, that the Navy conceded in response to a parliamentary inquiry, that the daily rum tot was no longer appropriate.

While the daily rum ration ended July 31, 1970, alcohol did not disappear from British warships. The daily tot was replaced by an extra can to each sailor’s daily beer allowance. And while it is no longer issued daily, rum is still brought out on special occasions. Any member of the royal family or the Admiralty Board can reward a ship for a job well done with the order “Splice the mainbrace,”  giving a shot of rum mixed with water to every sailor in the crew.

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The United States Navy ended its daily rum ration in 1862, and ended all alcohol consumption in 1914; a prohibition which remains in place today. The Royal Canadian Navy persisted with its daily rum ration for two more years, having its own black tot day in March 1972. The tradition continued another eighteen years, however, with the Royal New Zealand Navy finally giving up its daily rum on February 27, 1990 (!). 

William Howard Taft is known for many things: being the fattest president ever, weighing in at nearly 350 lbs., for being an acolyte of Theodore Roosevelt’s progressive form of Republicanism and thus Roosevelt’s handpicked successor as president, and then for falling out with Roosevelt once in the White House, leading to Teddy to challenge Taft as a third party candidate in the 1912 election.

The truth is, Taft never wanted to be president. His preference was to be a federal judge and his lifelong ambition was to serve on the Supreme Court, preferably as chief justice. At his core, Taft was not a politician, but a lawyer. While policy interested him, it was less from a deal-making point of view and more from the intellectual and detached position like that of a judge. Despite this predilection, Taft as president signed far fewer executive orders than his predecessor Roosevelt, preferring instead to allow his progressive Republican goals to be met through the legislative process.

Though Taft never wanted to be president, he allowed himself to be swept inexorably towards the White House because of his personal rapport with Roosevelt and because Taft’s wife, Nellie, pushed him towards high political office. Taft’s credentials for high office were impeccable too: he served as a state judge in Ohio, as Solicitor General of the United States, as a federal judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, Governor-General of the Philippines, Provisional Governor of Cuba, and as Secretary of War in the second Roosevelt administration. Roosevelt asked Taft to serve as Secretary of War precisely because it could serve as a platform to allow Taft to run to succeed Roosevelt in 1908. Taft, wary of the fact that several members of the Supreme Court were advanced in age at the time and thus knowing that a position on the Court was likely to open soon, reluctantly accepted the cabinet position. With Roosevelt’s fervent backing, Taft decisively defeated Democrat William Jennings Bryan in the 1908 election.

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Unlike his predecessor, Taft did not have the dynamic personality of Roosevelt, nor his infectious energy. Taft was deliberate and methodical. Nor did Taft enjoy the easy relationship with the press which Roosevelt did. Finally, Taft took on many Roosevelt loyalists in his cabinet, but not necessarily in roles which they were suited for; Secretary of State Philander Knox had little diplomatic experience and poor relationships with many congressional leaders, particularly Democrats. Taft attempted to continue the progressive reforms of Roosevelt--and in fact was more aggressive in four years at attacking business trusts than Roosevelt was--but he was also a protectionist and his attempts at implementing tariffs garnered enemies in both congress and in the business community. On the foreign policy front, Mexico slipped into civil war and then revolution despite--or perhaps, because of--Taft’s support of dictator Porfirio Díaz. All of these events and issues severely affected Taft’s popularity and this was amplified when Roosevelt, from retirement, began to quietly, but publicly accuse Taft of not pursuing his progressive agenda as they agreed to. Taft had become uncomfortable with Roosevelt’s brand of progressivism and preferred a relatively more conservative pace. For his part, Roosevelt derided Taft as someone “who means well, feebly.”

In 1912, Roosevelt decided to challenge Taft for the Republican nomination. Taft was able to defeat Roosevelt’s challenge at the GOP Convention that year, but he was clearly not in a strong position for the general election. Roosevelt further imperiled Taft’s chances of winning by founding a third party, the Progressive Party, and running as its nominee for president. Roosevelt’s candidacy pulled votes away from Taft, and Democrat Woodrow Wilson prevailed in the 1912 election; Taft won only eight electoral votes. Taft was not even remotely disappointed in the election result and happily left the White House in March 1913.

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Prior to an act of Congress in the 1950s, former presidents were not awarded a pension or given a staff to further their legacy, and Taft was not independently wealthy. He landed a faculty position at Yale Law School and spent most of the next eight years lecturing there and also serving as president of private organizations like the American Bar Association and the American Red Cross. Taft was largely a supporter of the Wilson administration, and this only furthered the gap between him and Roosevelt. The two finally had a public reconciliation in 1918, but never privately resolved their grievances before Roosevelt’s death in 1919.

After Warren G. Harding was elected president in 1920, Taft advised him on administration appointments. During this time, Taft made it clear that, if the position of chief justice became vacant during Harding’s presidency, he strongly desired to be appointed to fill it. Harding supposedly agreed to this, but Harding also supposedly promised a seat on the Court to former Utah senator George Sutherland. When Chief Justice Edward Douglass White died May 19, 1921, Harding prevaricated on his replacement. White had been appointed to the Court by Taft--Taft in fact made six appointments to the Supreme Court while president, which is still a record--and Harding reasoned that, if he was to honor his promise to Taft, he could only do so by appointing him chief justice, since it would be awkward for the former president to be junior to some of the associate justices he himself appointed. Accordingly Harding nominated Taft on June 30, and was approved by the Senate the very same day, without a single committee hearing.

By most accounts, Taft’s time as chief justice were the happiest years of his professional life. His enthusiasm for his job and desire to hold it as long as possible led him to address lingering health issues, not least of which was his weight. Taft committed himself walking to and from work everyday, as well as to vigorous strolls around the capital. During his time on the Court, Taft’s weight dropped to 244 lbs. Despite this, his health failed in the late 1920s and Taft died at his home in Washington D.C. March 8, 1930. He became the first president and chief justice to be interred in Arlington National Cemetery.

*John Tyler was elected to serve in the First Congress of the Confederate States of America, but died before he could take office.

On June 22, 1940, the Second Armistice of Compiègne was signed by German occupation authorities and representatives of the Third Republic. Hitler had personally selected Compiègne as the site of the French surrender because it was also the site in which the Allies dictated ceasefire terms to the German Army in November 1918. Though the French surrender was complete, the terms of the 1940 Armistice recognize the rump of central and southern France which had not been occupied by the Germans during their otherwise spectacularly successful campaign. Germany therefore occupied all of northern France and the Atlantic coast, but permitted the existence of a Free Zone, to be governed by French authorities from the city of Vichy. Ostensibly this government, led by World War I hero Philippe Pétain, retained control of all units and warships of the French military which had not been captured and continued on as the legitimate steward of France’s vast colonial empire in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. The Vichy government therefore became the official replacement for the Third Republic. This status was recognized by the Germans and Italians, who signed a separate armistice with France on June 24, and each nation set up an armistice commission to monitor the Vichy government’s adherence to each agreement’s terms.

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Not every Frenchmen, however, considered the Vichy regime to be legitimate. A rival government formed in Britain under the leadership of Charles de Gaulle. The Free France movement was quickly recognized as the true government of France in exile by the Allies. Most French soldiers, sailors, and airman who had fled to Britain after Dunkirk, pledged allegiance to De Gaulle. France’s various colonies, each with their own governors and with large French colonial military formations stationed on their territory, had to decide whether to declare for Vichy or for Free France. Early on many preferred the suzerainty of Vichy and accordingly arrested or openly resisted any who declared loyalty to de Gaulle.

The French surrender and subsequent formation of a German-recognized government was of even greater concern to Britain, especially Prime Minister Winston Churchill. With its sole continental ally defeated and under the control of what he suspected to be a puppet regime, Churchill quickly realized that the considerable amount of French military hardware in Africa and the Middle East could be taken over by German and Italian forces. The German Navy in World War II was not large, but it had at its core several well-built fast battleships and cruisers which, if not contained by the British Home Fleet, could wreak havoc on British shipping in the North Sea and Atlantic; to say nothing of what German U-boats were capable of independent of the surface fleet.

Likewise, the Italian Navy of World War II, though slightly larger than the German Navy in terms of surface forces, was still outnumbered and out-led--Italian naval leadership during the war was notoriously incompetent--by the British Mediterranean Fleet based in Egypt, and Force H based in Gibraltar. However, these commitments, as well as the need to provide escorts for convoys crossing the Atlantic, stretched the Royal Navy to the very limit. The addition of a significant portion of the French Navy to either the German or Italian fleets could have tipped the balance of power in the Atlantic or the Mediterranean against Britain which, as an island nation, depended on its navy to protect shipping and prevent invasion. This existential threat prompted action by Churchill.

At the time of surrender, the French navy was scattered in various squadrons around the Mediterranean and Atlantic. Most of the warships and submarines which fled to Britain at the armistice pledged to de Gaulle and came under the control of the British navy. Another squadron which left Toulon shortly before the surrender in late June, steamed to Alexandria, Egypt and presented itself to the British Mediterranean Fleet there. Other polyglot squadrons of small ships and submarines either sailed to Toulon and became part of Vichy or made themselves available to the British in other ports. The most powerful French squadron which had not declared itself by early July was a force of four battleships, five destroyers, and one seaplane tender under Admiral Marcel-Bruno Gensoul at Mers-el-Kebir. Gensoul’s nominal superior was Admiral François Darlan, the senior French military commander in Africa. Darlan was pledged to Vichy and so Churchill ordered Force H, under Admiral James Somerville, to sail from Gibraltar to Mers-el-Kebir to negotiate for Gensoul to come over to Free France.

Gensoul’s squadron was at its moorings at Mers-el-Kebir while Somerville’s Force H took up patrol positions outside the harbor in order to keep the French from fleeing. Somerville and Gensoul entered into negotiations that dragged on for days. Finally Somerville presented an ultimatum: declare neutrality and sail to a French port in the Americas, declare for Free France and join the British fleet, or be destroyed. Gensoul, acting on instructions from Darlan, refused any sort of cooperation largely because all of Somerville’s proposals would have violated the armistice signed by the Vichy government. Somerville gave Gensoul six hours to change his mind.

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It is difficult for some to comprehend the position of those Frenchmen who were Vichy allied or who at least recognized the legitimacy of the Vichy government, especially in light of the British pledge to never surrender. France, it must be understood, in her defeated state of 1940, was desperate to retain what territory and governance it could. The notion of a national identity is and has been since the Revolution a powerful one in France. And the maintenance and continuity of this identity continues to suffuse French politics and society to this day. Thus, the resort to dealing with an enemy that has shown itself more powerful than you, can be forgiven in the name of continuing the idea that is France. Reliance on the legalism of the armistice, in the eyes of Vichy supporters, was what prevented Germany from occupying the rest of the country and its colonial holdings.

Following the strict interpretation of the armistice, Gensoul and Darlan provided no response to Somerville. As promised, Somerville’s ships opened fire on the French fleet at its moorings. Though one French battleships and three destroyers escaped, the rest were heavily damaged and the battleship Bretagne, sunk. 1,300 French sailors were killed and 350 wounded. News of the attack spread through the French colonial empire and many officials and officers who considered joining de Gaulle, instead re-pledged their loyalties to Vichy.

Two years later in November 1942, American and British troops landed at several ports in French North Africa as part of Operation Torch. Several Vichy garrisons put up stiff resistance, but then surrendered upon orders from Admiral Darlan, still the senior French military commander in Africa. Darlan had been in secret negotiations with the Allies for months leading up the landings and had agreed to go over to the Allies in order to prevent destruction and loss of civilian life. For his efforts, Darlan was assassinated by a Vichy loyalist one month later, Christmas Eve 1942.

When news of Darlan’s surrender and deal with the Allies reached Europe, the German Army immediately proceeded with Operation Anton, the occupation of the Free Zone of France; just as Gensoul and Darlan feared two years earlier. In order to prevent the rest of the French fleet in Toulon, including some survivors of Mers-el-Kebir, from being captured by the advancing Germans, the last Vichy naval chief Admiral Auphan, ordered his ships scuttled. Throughout the Second World War, except for a handful of brief moments, British naval supremacy was never challenged by the Germans and Italians.