The World's First Airstrike

Gavotti aboard Farman biplane, Rome 1910

In April 2011, Italy had announced it would join NATO's air attacks in Libya, then in the middle of its civil war. It would later prove a classical case of history repeating itself.

A century ago, in September 1911, the Italian armed forces invaded Ottoman-held Libya with the intent of establishing an Italian colonial empire, something that Italy lacked whilst its French and German neighbors prided upon. This led to the Italo-Turkish war which dragged on until October 1912, with the Italians winning control of Libya, having subdued Turkish and Libyan resistance.

Insignificant as this war may seem to us, the Italian Turkish war saw numerous technological advancements deployed in battle. One of them, most notable, being aeroplanes.

This brings us to the story of a young Italian aviator, lieutenant Giulio Gavotti, who was deployed to Libya to oversee the transport of aeroplanes. But within a few months, Gavotti had done what no man had done before in warfare. Gavotti was the world's first air-bomber, only eight years after the monumental flight of the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.

On the first of November 1911, Gavotti boarded his Etrich Taube aeroplane and took with him four grenades, weighing a kilo and a half each. Gavotti took off and headed for Ain Zara. It is now a town just east of Tripoli, but at the time he described it as a small oasis. There he would have expected to find Arab fighters and Turkish troops that were allied in the fight against the Italian invasion.

The type of plane used in the airstrike, the Etrich Taube

Flying at an altitude of 600 feet, Gavotti screwed in the detonators and tossed each grenade over the side of the plane. Whilst unknown, Gavotti's mission is believed to have been a failure, having failed to cause any reported casualties.

Back home in Italy, the Italian press was ecstatic, with many newspapers reporting the exploit in high regards, to strengthen support for the war at home. Gavotti had shown it was possible to use aeroplanes to aid warfare (a contrast to the Wright Brothers' opinion that aeroplanes were "tools of peace".) and may have inadvertedly paved the way for the horrors of Dresden, Hiroshima and countless others to occur.

Zepplin bombing, during the Italian Turkish War, 1911.

Trivia:

Future dictator of Italy, Benito Mussolini (then a left-wing socialist), was vehemently opposed to the Italian-Turkish War.

 Update: The BBC provides an excellent article on the attack, with the usage of primary sources from Gavotti himself.

The Surrender of Japan: A Brief Overview

Japanese foreign affairs minister Mamoru Shigemitsu signs the Japanese Instrument of Surrender on board USS Missouri as General Richard K. Sutherland watches, September 2, 1945

The surrender of the Empire of Japan on September 2, 1945, brought the hostilities of World War II to a close. By the end of July 1945, the Imperial Japanese Navy was incapable of conducting operations and an Allied invasion of Japan was imminent. While publicly stating their intent to fight on to the bitter end, the Empire of Japan's leaders, (the Supreme Council for the Direction of the War, also known as the "Big Six"), were privately making entreaties to the neutral Soviet Union to mediate peace on terms favorable to the Japanese. The Soviets, meanwhile, were preparing to attack the Japanese, in fulfillment of their promises to the United States and the United Kingdom made at the Tehran and Yalta Conferences.

The USS Missouri on the day of the signing, 2 September 1945

 On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima. Late in the evening of August 8, 1945, in accordance with the Yalta agreements, but in violation of the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact, the Soviet Union declared war on the Empire of Japan, and soon after midnight on August 9, 1945, the Soviet Union invaded the Imperial Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo. Later that day, the United States dropped another atomic bomb, this time on the city of Nagasaki. The combined shock of these events caused Emperor Hirohito to intervene and order the Big Six to accept the terms for ending the war that the Allies had set down in the Potsdam Declaration. After several more days of behind-the-scenes negotiations and a failed coup d'état, Emperor Hirohito gave a recorded radio address to the Empire on August 15. In the radio address, called the Gyokuon-hōsō ("Jewel Voice Broadcast"), he announced the surrender of the Empire of Japan to the Allies.

General of the Army Douglas MacArthur signing the Instrument of Surrender on behalf of the Allied Powers

On August 28, the occupation of Japan by the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers began. The surrender ceremony was held on September 2, aboard the United States Navy battleship USS Missouri (BB-63), at which officials from the Japanese government signed the Japanese Instrument of Surrender, thereby ending the hostilities in World War II. Allied civilians and military personnel alike celebrated V-J Day, the end of the war; however, some isolated soldiers and personnel from Imperial Japan's far-flung forces throughout Asia and the Pacific islands refused to surrender for months and years afterwards, some even as far as into the 1970s. Since the surrender of the Empire of Japan, historians have continually debated the ethics of using the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The Japanese Instrument of Surrender (click for larger image)

The state of war between Japan and the Allies formally ended when the Treaty of San Francisco came into force on April 28, 1952. Four more years passed before Japan and the Soviet Union signed the Soviet–Japanese Joint Declaration of 1956, which formally brought an end to their state of war.

 Representatives of Japan stand aboard USS Missouri prior to signing of the Instrument of Surrender.

History in Focus: Taiwan in the early 20th Century

Taiwan is an island state situated in East Asia and for the much of the early half of the 20th century, the island was controlled by Japan. Following the end of World War II, the island eventually came into the control of China (though officially, the details are murky, with Japan still exercising sovereignty over the island until 1952. See here). As a result of the Communist takeover of mainland China, the previous government relocated to Taipei in Taiwan and continue to stay there since.

During the latter half of the 20th century, Taiwan has experienced rapid economic growth and industrialization and is now an advanced industrial economy.

 In the 1980s and early 1990s, Taiwan evolved into a multi-party democracy with universal suffrage. Taiwan is one of the Four Asian Tigers and a member of the WTO and APEC. The 19th-largest economy in the world,its advanced technology industry plays a key role in the global economy.

 Taiwan is ranked highly in terms of freedom of the press, health care, public education, economic freedom, and human development.

Here are some photos from TaiPics.com, which is an archive of over 7000 historical Taiwan pictures collected and organized by taipeimarc, an American expat in Taiwan. All images are believed to be in the public domain. I recommend you visit the website!

Overview of Taipei, Taiwan's capital, in the early 20th century

School session in Japanese-held Taiwan, prior to 1945

The Governor General's house and East Gate , circa 1920s.

School gathering

Farmers working

1945 bombing of Taipei

Taipai in the early 20th century

Taiwanese farmers on the field. Date unknown

Girls' school in Taiwan

Aborigines of Taiwan (historically called Formosa). Date unknown

Missionary school, date unknown.

Rice planting. Workers often worked till sunset. Date unknown

Opium den in Taiwan

Sugar manufacturing factory and plantation. The site is now a museum.

Sugarcane farming. Date unknown

Sugar bags from the 1940s.

Sun Moon Lake.

Aborigines canoeing in the Sun Moon Lake.

Unknown building in Taipai

Remembering an Artist: Jean-Paul Laurens

Jean-Paul Lauren' self-portrait in 1876

Jean-Paul Laurens (28 March 1838 – 23 March 1921), was a French painter and sculptor, and one of the last major exponents of the French Academic style.

Born in Fourquevaux, he was a pupil of Léon Cogniet and Alexandre Bida. Strongly anti-clerical and republican, his work was often on historical and religious themes, through which he sought to convey a message of opposition to monarchical and clerical oppression. His erudition and technical mastery were much admired in his time, but in later years his highly realistic technique, coupled to a theatrical mise-en-scène, came to be regarded by some art-historians as overly didactic. More recently, however, his work has been re-evaluated as an important and original renewal of history painting, a genre of painting that was in decline during Laurens' lifetime. 

Laurens was commissioned to paint numerous public works by the French Third Republic, including the steel vault of the Paris City Hall, the monumental series on the life of Saint Genevieve in the apse of the Panthéon, the decorated ceiling of the Odéon Theater, and the hall of distinguished citizens at the Toulouse capitol. He also provided illustrations for Augustin Thierry's Récits des temps mérovingiens ("Accounts of Merovingian Times").

Jean-Paul Laurens in 1914

Laurens was a professor at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he taught André Dunoyer de Segonzac and George Barbier. Two of his sons, Paul Albert Laurens (1870–1934) and Jean-Pierre Laurens (1875–1932), became painters and teachers at the Académie Julian. He died in Paris in 1921.

Among Laurens' many students are:

• Ludwig Deutsch,
• Ernest Leonard Blumenschein,  
• Sears Gallagher,
• William Horton,
• Caroline Lord, 
• Ella Pell,  
• Granville Redmond,
• Henry Ossawa Tanner,  
• Frederick Vinton,
• Lawton Parker 
• Louis Ritman.

Artistic Works:

Le pape et l'inquisiteur (1882)

Pope Formosus and Stephen VII" - The "Cadaver Synod" (1870)

L'Excommunication de Robert le Pieux - 1875

Hostages. Held by the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lyon (1896)

The Agitator of Languedoc (1887). Held by the Musée des Augustins, Toulouse.

The last moments of Maximilian, Emperor of Mexico (1882). Held by the Hermitage, St. Petersburg.

Porträtt av en kvinna (1874).

The Western Roman Emperor Honorius (1880)

La Délivrance des emmurés de Carcassonne (1879)

Faust

Intérieur du Capitole de Toulouse, painted by Laurens.

The execution of the Duke of Enghien (1873)

Salle des illustres au Capitole de Toulouse, ville de Toulouse, région Midi-Pyrénées (France) : Le Lauraguais Campagne Toulousaine

Toulouse strengthens its walls to resist Simon de Montfort in 1218 

Skeleton Found Confirmed to be Richard III

Now if you are well versed in the archaeology world, you'd know that for the past week or two, people from all walks of life (myself included) tuned in to a press conference organised by the University of Leicester. What for? 

The skeleton

On the 24th of August 2012, the University of Leicester and Leicester City Council, in association with the Richard III Society, announced that they had joined forces to begin a search for the remains of King Richard. On 5 September 2012, the excavators announced that they had identified a male body located under a public car park, many speculated this belonged to the King.

But first, you might be wondering who Richard III was.

Portrait of Richard the Third

Richard III (born 2 October 1452 – died 22 August 1485) was the King of England for two years, from 1483 until his death in 1485 during the Battle of Bosworth Field. He was the last king of the House of York and the last of the Plantagenet dynasty. His defeat at the Battle of Bosworth Field was the decisive battle of the Wars of the Roses and is sometimes regarded as the end of the Middle Ages in England. He is the subject of an eponymous play by William Shakespeare (and now you know!)

In August 1485, Richard III faced Henry Tudor at Bosworth and was killed. His body was brought back to Leicester and was buried without pomp or ceremony in the church of the Grey Friars.

Back to the press conference: After a rather interesting flurry of speeches, experts from the University of Leicester said DNA from the bones recovered from the car park, matched that of descendants of the monarch's family.

Lead archaeologist Richard Buckley, from the University of Leicester, told a press conference to applause: "Beyond reasonable doubt it's Richard."

 Dr. Jo Appleby stated at the conference that the skull was struck during excavation but this did not cause major damage. There is also damage to the bones from their being buried for 500 years.

The entire skeleton, note the curved spine

It was an adult male but with an unusually slender, feminine build. That's consistent with descriptions of Richard. There is no indication he had a withered arm, however. He was aged in his late 20s to late 30s. That fits with Richard's age when he died. The skeleton was not born with scoliosis, she also said.

Among the injuries on the skeleton was a small, rectangular injury on the cheekbone, consistent with a dagger. There was a small, penetrating wound on the top of the head. This came from a direct blow from a weapon, and would not have been fatal.
A large wound to the base of the skull came from a slice cut off the skull by a bladed weapon. A smaller injury on the base of the skull was also caused by a bladed weapon. Both of these injuries would have caused almost instant loss of consciousness and death would have followed shortly afterwards. There are also three more shallow wounds on the skull. And there is a cut mark on the lower jaw, caused by a bladed weapon.

Following DNA analysis from the skeleton and from living descendents, the researchers were able to say, "beyond reasonable doubt", that it was the skeleton of Richard III.

The skeleton in its burial place, courtesy of the University of Leicester

What now for the body? Well, it's to be reburied at Leicester Cathedral.

Freshen Up With (a very special) Archaeology Sunday

Better late than never, right?

Oldest Stone Hand Axes Found:

350 ancient tools in Konso, Ethiopa (photo from MSNBC)

From MSNBC:

Scientists have unearthed and dated some of the oldest stone hand axes on Earth. The ancient tools, unearthed in Ethiopia in the last two decades, date to 1.75 million years ago. 

The tools roughly coincided with the emergence of an ancient human ancestor called Homo erectus, and fossilized H. erectus remains were also found at the same site, said study author Yonas Beyene, an archaeologist at the Association for Research and Conservation of Culture in Ethiopia.

Collectively, the finding suggests an ancient tool-making technique may have arisen with the evolution of the new species.

This discovery shows that the technology began with the appearance of Homo erectus," Beyene told LiveScience. "We think it might be related to the change of species." 

The findings were described Jan. 28 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,

Human ancestors used primitive tools as far back as 2.6 million years ago, when Homo habilis roamed the Earth. But those tools, called Oldowan tools, weren't much more than rock flakes knapped in a slapdash manner to have a sharp edge.

But nearly a million years later, more sophisticated two-sided hand axes or cleavers emerged. These Aucheulean tools could be up to 7.8 inches (20 centimeters) long and were probably used to butcher meat. Scientists recently discovered tools of this type a few hundred miles away near Lake Turkana in Kenya, dating to 1.76 million years ago. [Image Gallery: New Human Ancestors from Kenya]

Because of its coincidence with the appearance of Homo erectus, scientists believed the sophisticated tools were made by the newer species of Homo, but proving that was tricky, because the dating of fossils and tools wasn't precise enough, said study co-author Paul Renne, a geochronologist and director of the Berkeley Geochronology Center in Berkeley, California.

Ice Age era 'Lion Man' is World Earliest Figurative Sculpture:

40,000 years old: Lion Man sculpture. Photo: Thomas Stephan, © Ulmer Museum

From The Art Newspaper:

The star exhibit initially promised for the British Museum’s “Ice Age Art” show will not be coming—but for a good reason. New pieces of Ulm’s Lion Man sculpture have been discovered and it has been found to be much older than originally thought, at around 40,000 years. This makes it the world’s earliest figurative sculpture. At the London exhibition, which opens on 7 February, a replica from the Ulm Museum will instead go on display. 

The story of the discovery of the Lion Man goes back to August 1939, when fragments of mammoth ivory were excavated at the back of the Stadel Cave in the Swabian Alps, south-west Germany. This was a few days before the outbreak of the Second World War. When it was eventually reassembled in 1970, it was regarded as a standing bear or big cat, but with human characteristics.

The ivory from which the figure had been carved had broken into myriad fragments. When first reconstructed, around 200 pieces were incorporated into the 30cm-tall sculpture, with about 30% of its volume missing.

Further fragments were later found among the previously excavated material and these were added to the figure in 1989. At this point, the sculpture was recognised as representing a lion. Most specialists have regarded it as male, although paleontologist Elisabeth Schmid controversially argued that it was female, suggesting that early society might have been matriarchal.

The latest news is that almost 1,000 further fragments of the statue have been found, following recent excavations in the Stadel Cave by Claus-Joachim Kind. Most of these are minute, but a few are several centimetres long. Some of the larger pieces are now being reintegrated into the figure.

Conservators have removed the 20th-century glue and filler from the 1989 reconstruction, and are now painstakingly reassembling the Lion Man, using computer-imaging techniques. “It is an enormous 3D puzzle”, says the British Museum curator Jill Cook.

The new reconstruction will give a much better idea of the original. In particular, the back of the neck will be more accurate, the right arm will be more complete and the figure will be a few centimetres taller

 And finally... the BBC's photo-montage of the recovery of 18th century British guns from a wreck off the coast of Sicily

The guns belong to a British ship that was sunk during the Battle of Cape Passaro