St. Ignatius of Loyola

July 31, 2008 at 1:19 am (Catholic, Christian)
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ALMOST 500 years ago in the Basque country in the north of Spain, a young man sat in bed recovering from a long and brutal operation. Inigo, an officer in the Spanish army, had been struck during a French siege by a small cannonball which had shattered one leg and severely wounded the other.

After 15 days, doctors…

decided that the leg ought to be broken again and the bones reset because they had been badly set the first time or had been broken on the road…This butchery was done again; during it…he never spoke a word nor showed any sign or pain other than to clench his fists… 

But as he healed, one of the bones remained on top of the other, shortening his leg. A self-admittedly vain Inigo didn’t want to live life deformed. He opted to to undergo a third operation to fix it, even though it would be the longest and most painful, as the bone had already healed.

Having cut into the flesh and sawed off the projecting bone, the surgeons set themselves to the task of reducing the shortness of the leg…and continually stretching it by means of mechanical devices, which for several days on end cause him great torture.

In recovery Inigo asked for some books to occupy him. All they had to read were two books, De Vita Christi (Life of Christ) by Ludolph of Saxony and a book on the lives of the Saints, both in Castilian.

St. Ignatius of Loyola

St. Ignatius of Loyola

(On a personal note, I was once stuck in a laundromat for three hours where the only book I could find was “The Valley of the Dolls.” We are glad that was not the case with Inigo, because) After reading these tomes and healing from his operation, he tossed aside three decades of vanity and materialism, to found the Society of Jesus, the Jesuits.

It didn’t happen overnight. It began with a competitive pursuit of “besting” the saints, to be more ascetic than this one or to fast more stringently than another. But each exercise and pilgrimage slowly transformed his faith. He spent several months living in a cave. He begged his way across Europe to Jerusalem. He preached on the streets of Barcelona. He was interrogated during the Inquisition, and briefly incarcerated in Salamanca.

“About what do you preach?” Loyola was once asked.

He replied, “We do not preach, we speak to a few in a friendly manner about the things of God, just as one does after dinner with those who invite us.“

He left his troubles (and his name) in Spain to study at the University of Paris. There ‘Ignatius’ of Loyola met six other like-minded men who formed Societas Iesu–the Society of Jesus. In August 1534 the men made a vow–to live in poverty and chastity, to devote themselves to missionary work and other good deeds, and to serve the Pope.

St. Ignatius de Loyola

St. Ignatius de Loyola

By the time of Ignatius’s (Inigo’s) death, on this day in 1556, the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) had spread to three continents, where they operated dozens of schools. They made enemies among colonial powers while defending the the rights and lives of indigenous inhabitants of North and South America.

With over 18,000 members in 112 nations, the Jesuits are the largest male religious order of the Roman Catholic Church. Millions more have been educated at Jesuit schools and universities.

Prayer of Saint Ignatius Loyola
Teach us, Good Lord,
To Serve Thee as Thou deservest;
To give and not to count the cost;
To fight and not to heed the wounds;
To labor and not to ask for any reward,
save that of knowing that we do Thy will.
Through Jesus Christ Our Lord, Amen.

http://www.pray-as-you-go.org

Download “Pray As You Go” MP3 for July 31

Saint Ignatius Loyola: The Pilgrim Years: 1491-1538 - James Broderick


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Isra wal Miraj - the Night Journey

July 30, 2008 at 6:09 am (Islam, Middle-East)
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On the 27th day of the month of Rajab, the Prophet Mohammad was resting after evening prayers near the Kaaba in the city of Mecca when he was awoken by the angel Gabriel (Jibril). Gabriel had with him a white, winged horse-like creature named Buraq.

Buraq

Buraq

Gabriel then did a curious thing. He cut open the Prophet’s chest from throat to navel, removed his heart and cleansed it with Zamzam water, and poured into it a substance that fortified Muhammad’s wisdom and faith. Gabriel next asked Muhammad to mount Burak, and they began what is known in the Islamic faith as “the Night Journey”.

A single stride from Buraq measured as far as the eye could see, Muhammad later retold. Before much time passed the trio touched down in a land of palm trees, Medina. There Muhammad performed a prayer at Gabriel behest, and they were off again. Only this time they arrived at a much more distant location. The Masjid-al-Aqsa, meaning “the farthest mosque” in all of Islam. The city of Jerusalem. Along the way he saw many sights, including the birthplace of the Prophet Jesus in Bethlehem. Gathered together in one place at the mosque in Jerusalem were the prophets from Adam to Jesus, and Muhammad led them all in prayer.

From there Muhammad and Gabriel began the final leg of their journey, up to the heavens. This is know as the Ascension of the Prophet. 

In the first heaven Muhammad saw Adam, the father of all mankind, surrounded by souls. If Adam looked to his left he cried, and if he looked to the right he laughed. For the souls on the left were his descendants who would die as non-believers; to his right, those who would die believers.

In the second heaven he came across the Prophets Jesus (Isa) and John the Baptist (Yahya).

In the third heaven was Joseph (Yusuf).

In the fourth, Enoch (Idris).

In the fifth, Aaron (Harun), brother of Moses, and in the sixth was Moses (Musa) himself.

Finally Muhammad reached the seventh heaven where stood the patriarch Abraham (Ibrahim), the holiest prophet in Islam next to Muhammad.

There Muhammad saw a sidr (lote) tree with fruit the size of the large jars and leaves the size of elephant ears. The sidr tree was said to be the tree Adam ate from before being banished.

He ascended past the branches of the sidr tree, into Paradise, where he witnessed the many rewards that awaited the faithful. And when he had passed beyond Paradise, he heard the ‘Kalam’ (word) of Allah.

The Kalam is likened to the language of Allah, but a language that doesn’t come word by word or letter by letter. Rather, it is one whole, eternal thing, without interruption.

The Kalam instilled in Muhammad many things, including the importance and power of good deeds. God told Muhammad that his followers must pray fifty times a day. With that, Muhammad descended.

But on the way down Moses asked him about what transpired. Moses said there was no way Muhammad’s followers would pray 50 times a day, and encouraged Muhammad to talk God down. Muhammad did this, and eventually talked God down to five times a day.

Muhammad returned to Mecca that same evening not far from where he had begun his journey. Only, in this age prior to supersonic jets, some of the townspeople didn’t believe he could have gone all the way to Jerusalem in one night. Muhammad described the Jerusalem mosque and its surroundings in perfect detail. And then told them of an event he had seen on the way back to Mecca, shepherds searching for a lost camel far away. When those shepherds reached town, they verified Muhammad’s story.

Today Muslims remember a key date in the history of Islam, the Isra and the Miraj, the Journey and the Ascension.

Isra and Mi’raj: The Details

UAE - July 31 declared Isra and Mi’raj Holiday

Miracle of Al-Isra and Al-Miraj


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St. Olav’s Festival - Norway

July 29, 2008 at 7:54 pm (Norway, holidays)

Almost a thousand years since King Olaf walked the earth–and sailed the fjords–of Norway, the Norwegians remember the saint with Olavsfestdagen (Olaf’s Feast Day) — a week of music, entertainment, and partying.

Legends abound of King Olaf’s heroic deeds. According to “Scandanavian Folk-lore - Illustrations of the Tradition Beliefs of the Northern Peoples“

When St. Olaf came to the farm of Sten, where his mother is said to have lived, he resolved to build a church there. A giantess, who at the time lived in the mountain…was not at all satisfied with this plan…and challenged him to a contest. “Before you are finished with your church,” said she, “I shall have built a stone bridge over Stensfirth.” Olaf accepted the challenge, and before she was half finished with the bridge, the glorious peal of the bells was heard from St. Olaf’s Church. In a rage the troll seized the stones with which she had intended to complete the bridge, and hurled them…over the firth at the church, but as none of them struck it, she became so angry that she cut off one of her legs and let that fly at the steeple. Some say that it took the steeple with it, others that she aimed too high. Be that as it may, the leg landed in a bog behind the church, where to this day it causes a bad smell.

Despite the stories, Olav was not always the saintliest of saints. So scribed Sigvald the skald:

The youthful king stain red the hair
Of Angeln men, and dyed his spear
At Newport in their hearts’ dark blood;
And where the Danes the thickest stood–
Where the shrill storm round Olaf’s head
Of spear and arrow thickest fled,
There thickest lay the Thing-men dead!
Nine battles now of Olaf bold,
Battle by battle, I have told

 

King Olaf

King Olaf

Yes, Olaf had a tendency to convert Scandanavia’s pagan remnants, not with scripture and Bibles but with sword, fire, and battle-axe.

He was slain in battle in 1030, his body buried near the field, to be later disinterred and moved to Trondheim…

where it was deposited in the magnificent cathedral which rose upon the ruins of the temple of Thor. The recollection of his cruelties was forgotten, and such was the reverence paid to him as a hero and martyr that he might almost be said to have filled the place of the ancient idols in the affections of the nation.

In death the former king became more powerful than in life. Having uprooted centuries of pagan myth and tradition, Olaf himself replaced the Norse god Thor in some ways. He inheriting the god’s red hair and beard, and the weapon of choice was changed from hammer to Olaf’s battle-axe.

Thor

Thor

In death, Olaf’s powers had no bounds. His shrines were said to heal the sick, make strong the weak, and even to heal crippled and severed limbs–though whether this is related to his encounter with the angry giantess at Stensfirth, and the smell emanating from the bog behind his church, the sagas do not say.

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Peru Independence

July 28, 2008 at 10:57 pm (Peru, holidays)
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“…never had I entertained any ambition other than to merit the hatred of the ungrateful and the esteem of the virtuous.”

–Jose de San Martin, July 22, 1820

Jose de San Martin had liberated the Rio de la Plata (Argentina), marched his army across the Andes, defeated the Spanish in Chile, and proclaimed that country’s independence before turning his attention to the north, to Peru–Spain’s most tenacious stronghold on the continent. In Chile he created a navy from nothing in order to enter Peru via the sea.

At that moment, San Martin’s newly independent homeland of Argentina was emerged in civil war; yet he felt if he used his army to intervene in Argentina it would only lead to more destruction. Before debarking from Valpasairo, Chile, he issued his proclamation to his countrymen in Argentina on his reasons for continuing to Peru, rather than returning to his homeland to support one warring faction over another:

Provinces of the Rio de la Plata: This proclamation will be my last response to my calumniators: I can do no more than to risk my life and my honor for the sake of my native land. Whatever may be my lot in the campaign of Peru, I shall demonstrate that ever since I returned to my native land, her independence has been my constant thought, and that never had I entertained any ambition other than to merit the hatred of the ungrateful and the esteem of the virtuous.

San Martin cross the Andes

San Martin cross the Andes

Upon reaching Peru, he was interviewed by an Englishman, Captain Basil Hall, who paraphrased the General as saying that the war in Peru was “not a war of conquest or glory, but entirely of opinion; it was a war of new and liberal principles against prejudice, bigotry, and tyranny.

San Martin said he had no territorial ambitions in Peru, or even to wish them independence if the people were not for it.

All that I wish is, that this country should be managed by itself, and by itself alone. As to the manner in which it is to be governed, that belongs not at all to me. I propose simply to give the people the means of declaring themselves independent, and of establishing a suitable form of government; after which I shall consider that I have done enough, and leave them.

A year later, on this day in 1821, the General stood in the great square in Lima, unfurled the new flag of independent Peru, and announced, “From this moment, Peru is free and independent, by the general wish of the people, and by the justice of her cause, which may God defend. Viva la patria! Viva la libertad! Viva la independencia!“

  

 

The General was made Protector of Peru, but Spanish forces continued to battle San Martin’s troops, and Peruvian independence was far from assured. General Simon Bolivar, who had defeated the Spanish in Gran Colombia (today’s Venezuela, Colombia, Panama and Ecuador), entered Peru from the north. The two great Liberators of South America met in Guayaquil, Ecuador, on July 26, 1822, to discuss the fate of the continent.

 

Simon Bolivar y Jose de San Martin

Simon Bolivar y Jose de San Martin

Much has been written about, and hardly anything nothing is known about, what happened between Simon Bolivar and Jose de San Martin at their only meeting. There were no witnesses other than the two men themselves. But after the interview, San Martin–true to his word–resigned his position as Protector and returned to Argentina, leaving Bolivar to defeat the Spanish in Peru.

San Martin’s wife died the following year. Distraught by her death and the civil wars wrecking havoc Argentina, the widow Jose de San Martin took his daughter Mercedes and moved to France, where he lived until his death in 1850.

Jose de San Martin

Jose de San Martin

Bolivar was deigned Dictator of Peru in 1824, the same year he drove out the Spanish for good. The southern part of Peru became Bolivia in his honor.

Spain officially recognized Peru’s independence in 1879.

Emancipation of South America - William Pilling

Rise of the Spanish-American Republics as told in the Lives of their Liberators - William Spence Robertson

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Parents’ Day - U.S.

July 27, 2008 at 1:14 am (USA)
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Yes, Parents’ Day is a real, official national holiday, just like Mother’s Day or Father’s Day. Celebrated on the fourth Sunday in July, it worked its way quietly through Congress in 1994 with bipartisan support and was signed into existence as a national holiday by President Clinton. Parents’ Day has mercifully hovered beneath the commercialism radar. And probably yours as well.

Normally I am not one to promote conspiracy theories on my blog (despite my own personal belief that Hollywood is run by a cadre of aliens from the planet Slebian) but the Parents Day origin story warrants some scrutiny.

In “Parents’ Day: History and Highlights“, political strategist Gary Jarmin writes:

“Gary L. Jarmin, Political Director for the American Freedom Coalition and chief coordinator for the lobbying campaign, originally submitted draft language to Congressman Dan Burton (R-IN) to make Parents’ Day a permanent day of commemoration…Burton introduced H. Res. 236 “to declare July 28, 1994 be recognized as Parents’ Day.” After a successful grassroots lobbying campaign, primarily led and coordinated by the State Directors of the American Freedom Coalition, the Congress adopted the resolution on March 11, 1994.”

According to the International Relations Center

…the American Freedom Coalition is closely tied to the Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church. The Washington Post (March 30, 1988 ) has even described the AFC as a “Moonsponsored lobbying group.”

Yes, this is the same Sun Myung Moon who in 2004 “donned a crown in a Senate office building and declared himself the Messiah while members of Congress watched.” (NYTimes June 24, 2004)

The American Freedom Coalition and the National Parents’ Day Council share the same address as the Sun Myung Moon-sponsored Washington Times: 3600 New York Ave NE, Washington DC.

Members of the Unification Church call Sun Myung Moon “True Father” and his wife as “True Mother”. Collectively, “True Parents”. True Parents’ Day, honoring Moon and his wife, has been celebrated by the Unification Church for decades, though in March, not July.

 

Sun Myung Moon and Hak Ja Han

Sun Myung Moon and Hak Ja Han

Whether members of Congress realized exactly who was behind the creation of Parents’ Day is unknown. But it wouldn’t be the first holiday pushed through by less than transparent causes. We must remember that Women’s Day (March 8 ) and Labor Day were both supported by communist organizations, and for that reason met with much resistance, especially in the United States. Here, Women’s Day–celebrated on March 8 in the rest of the world–is barely recognized. And Labor Day–celebrated on May 1 in most countries–is observed in September. 

Similarly, politicians in the 1980s hesitated to create Martin Luther King Day because of their belief that King was a communist sympathizer. 

Sen. Helms delivered his speech on King on October 3 and later supplemented it with a document of some 300 pages consisting mainly of declassified FBI and other government reports about King’s connections with communists and communist-influenced groups…

Samuel Francis, American Renaissance

Regardless of the motivations behind our holidays, the holidays themselves tend to take on a life of their own over time. Just as the true origins of many religious holidays have been changed and obscured over the centuries, perhaps a hundred years from now the bizarre evolution of Parents’ Day will be supplanted by stories of noble parental deeds.

Today the holiday seems superfluous with Mother’s Day and Father’s Day falling in the preceding months, but who knows? Maybe Parents’ Day will take on a roll Mother’s Day was originally meant to fulfill. Julia Ward Howe called it Mothers’ Day for Peace. It wasn’t about honoring mothers. It was a day for mother’s to come together to work toward the future well-being of their children. To use their power to make the world a better place for the parents of tomorrow. 

 

http://www.freedomofmind.com

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Simon Bolivar

July 24, 2008 at 10:59 pm (Bolivia, Peru, Venezuela)

Today citizens of Venezuela, Colombia and Bolivia celebrate the birth of the Libertador of northern South America: Simon Bolivar. He was born on this day in 1783 in Caracas, Venezuela.

Simon Bolivar

Simon Bolivar

Bolivar is one of the few people to have a country permanently named after him, and is the only person born in the New World to have been so honored.

Countries named directly after individuals

Belize - possibly from the Spanish pronunciation of “Wallace”. Captain Peter Wallace was a pirate commissioned by King James I to pillage Spanish ships in the region. He built his base at the mouth of what is now the Belize River. May also be from the Mayan “belix” meaning “muddy water”.

Bermuda - after explorer Juan de Bermudez, who arrived there in 1503.

Colombia - Christopher Columbus

Dominican Republic - after St. Domingo de Guzman, founder of the Dominican Order.

El Salvador - literally, “the Savior”, after Jesus of Nazareth.

Kiribati - from the Gilbert Islands, for Captain Thomas Gilbert.

Mozambique - possibly from sheik Mussa Ben Mbiki.

Philippines - King Philip II of Spain

San Marino - from St Marinus, an ancient stonemason who fled to the area to escape Roman persecution

Sao Tome and Principe - from St. Thomas. Portuguese explorers encountered the land on St. Thomas’s Day. (December 21)

Seychelles - for Jean Moreau de Sechelles, King Louis XV’s Finance Minister.

Amerigo Vespucci is the only person to have a continent named after him, and he got two! The explorer helped prove that the lands Christopher Columbus encountered were not in Asia, but were entirely new continents. In 1507 cartographer Martin Waldseemuller labeled the new continents after the Spanish explorer when he printed 1000 copies of his famous globe of the world.

Waldseemullers Wall Map of the World

Waldseemuller's Wall Map of the World

Waldseemuller’s 1507 Globe Map

Waldseemuller’s 1507 Wall Map

 

Numerous countries are named after tribes or groups of people who may trace their name–at least in legend–to one person. Some of these include:

Czechs - after Cech, who led his people to Bohemia.

China - for the Qin dynasty.

Hungarians/Magyars - trace their heritage back to Magyar and his brother Hunor.

Britons - name may derive in part from the Celtic goddess Brigid, though it is also believed to mean “painted ones”.

Israel - named for Jewish patriarch Jacob from Genesis, who earned the nickname “Israel”, which means “wrestles with God”.

Nicaragua - combination of Nicarao–the indigenous leader at the time of the arrival of Spanish explorers–and the Spanish word for water, “agua”–because of the two large lakes in the region.

Saudis - Hous of Saud, the royal family of Saudi Arabia, traces its ancestry to Sa’ud. Also means “a group of stars”.

 

*Georgia - most scholars believe that the name Georgia does not derive from St. George, but from either the Persian name for the Georgian people–Gurjhan–or for the Greek and Latin roots for farming and agriculture.

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Haile Selassie I - Rasta’s Ras

July 23, 2008 at 4:39 am (Africa, Ethiopia, Jamaica)


Today Rastas around the world praise His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie I — who was born this day in 1892, and who led Ethiopia through most of the 20th Century, until his death in 1975.

“Haile Selassie” means “Power of the Trinity”. He was born Tafari Makonnen, the son of an Ethiopian governor and former general, who led troops to victory at the Battle of Adowa in the 1899 Italo-Ethiopian War. After the deaths of his father and brother, the teenage Makonnen became governor in 1911. Then Regent of Ethiopia in 1916, and Emperor in 1930.

Emperor of Ethiopia

His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie I: Emperor of Ethiopia

In the Rastafarian movement, Haile Selassie is considered to have been a living incarnation of God. His many titles, such as Lion of Judah and “Jah” (from the Hebrew Yahweh), refer to this.

The word Rastafarian itself comes from Haile Selassie’s title Ras, Ethiopian for ‘Prince’, literally, ‘Head’.

In North America and Europe, Haile Selassie’s fame spread via reggae music and Rasta culture. Bob Marley is often pictured wearing the late Emperor’s ring…

Bob Marley wears Haile Selassies ring

Bob Marley wears Haile Selassie's ring

Marley’s song “War” quotes Haile Selassie’s 1963 address to the United Nations…

That until the philosophy which holds one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned; That until there are no longer first-class and second class citizens of any nation; That until the color of a man’s skin is of no more significance than the color of his eyes; That until the basic human rights are equally guaranteed to all without regard to race; That until that day, the dream of lasting peace and world citizenship and the rule of international morality will remain but a fleeting illusion, to be pursued but never attained;

And until the ignoble and unhappy regimes that hold our brothers in Angola, in Mozambique and in South Africa in subhuman bondage have been toppled and destroyed; Until bigotry and prejudice and malicious and inhuman self-interest have been replaced by understanding and tolerance and good-will; Until all Africans stand and speak as free beings, equal in the eyes of all men, as they are in the eyes of Heaven; Until that day, the African continent will not know peace. We Africans will fight, if necessary, and we know that we shall win, as we are confident in the victory of good over evil.

In that speech Haile Selassie also alluded to an address he delivered 27 years earlier to the UN’s forerunner, the defunct League of Nations. It would be remembered as the most moving and prophetic speech in that bodies’ history.

In 1935 Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini was determined to conquer Ethiopia to resurrect the glory of the former Roman Empire. Just as Selassie’s father fought against Italy in 1899, Selassie himself now found himself facing a first-world power with far greater resources, manpower, and technology.

The Emperor’s speech began…

“I, Haile Selassie I, Emperor of Ethiopia, am here today to claim that justice which is due to my people, and the assistance promised to it eight months ago, when fifty nations asserted that aggression had been committed in violation of international treaties.

“There is no precedent for a Head of State himself speaking in this assembly. But..there has never before been an example of any Government proceeding to the systematic extermination of a nation by barbarous means, in violation of the most solemn promises made by the nations of the earth that there should not be used against innocent human beings the terrible poison of harmful gases.”

Haile Selassie addresses the League of Nations, 1936

Haile Selassie addresses the League of Nations, 1936

After describing the heinous mustard gas attacks on his people–poisons that had been banned by the League of Nations, the Emperor appealed to the nations that had guaranteed Ethiopia its security…

“In October 1935, the 52 nations who are listening to me today gave me an assurance that the aggressor would not triumph, that the resources of the Covenant would be employed in order to ensure the reign of right and the failure of violence.

“I ask the fifty-two nations not to forget today the policy upon which they embarked eight months ago, and on faith of which I directed the resistance of my people against the aggressor whom they had denounced to the world. Despite the inferiority of my weapons, the complete lack of aircraft, artillery, munitions, hospital services, my confidence in the League was absolute. I thought it to be impossible that fifty-two nations, including the most powerful in the world, should be successfully opposed by a single aggressor. Counting on the faith due to treaties, I had made no preparation for war, and that is the case with certain small countries in Europe.

“…It is not merely a question of the settlement of Italian aggression. It is collective security: it is the very existence of the League of Nations…God and history will remember your judgment.”

His predictions were spot on. Mussolini’s actions–and the League of Nations’ impotence–inspired Adolf Hitler to expand his own German empire. And the League continued to appease the dictators at the expense of the smaller countries of Europe until a full-scale world war was unavoidable.

Haile Selassie’s 1936 speech to the League of Nations

Haile Selassie’s 1963 speech to the UN

www.rastaseed.com


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Pi Approximation Day

July 22, 2008 at 6:22 pm (holidays)
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July 22, or as it’s affectionately called across the Atlantic, 22/7, is Pi Approximation Day. But don’t let the name fool you. Unlike the more widely celebrated Pi Day (observed on March 14) 22 divided by 7 is actually a much closer approximation of Pi than 3.14.

Pi Pie at Delft University

Pi Pie at Delft University

The tradition dates back at least to 1995, when students at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden, celebrated July 22 by

“eating waffles and consuming Swedish Punch in various highly unlikely ways. There was also agitated discussion about how circles would look, if the ratio of their circumference to their diameter would equal 3.”

It just doesn’t get wilder than that. Later observances included the creation and digestion of the obligatory “Pi Pies”.

More historical documentation of these early Pi Approximation Day events can be found at:

http://www.rebas.se/humor/piapprox.shtml

More on Pi:

Everything you ever wanted to know about Pi but were afraid to ask

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Bastille Day

July 14, 2008 at 8:21 am (Europe, France)
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Le Quatorze Juillet

I remember asking my father when the French Revolution occurred. He said, “It began in 1789.”

I asked when it ended.

He said, “It’s still going on.”

*   *   *

One of the world’s most famous national holidays, Fete de la Federation means Holiday of the Federation, but in English, July 14 is known as “Bastille Day”.

The Fete de la Federation commemorates the storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789. Located in the heart of Paris, the fortress was built during the Hundred Years War as the Bastion de Saint-Antoine. After the war, kings used the Bastion to hold the “evildoers”, such as con-men, embezzlers, political prisoners and Protestants.

Over the centuries the large, imposing Bastille prison became the very symbol of the tyrannical monarchy.

The Bastille

By 1789 France was in deep financial doodoo, in part from supporting the American War of Independence. King Louis XVI took the desperate step of calling together a body known as the Estates-General–a gathering of members of the clergy, nobles, and “everybody else”–to help solve the crisis. The Third Estate (the “everybody else” contingent) represented 97% of France’s population (Nobles and Clergy made up the other 3%) but could easily be outvoted by the other two Estates, as had happened the last time the Estates-General convened, in 1614.

“Since 1614, the economic power of the Third Estate had increased dramatically; in 1788, the popular call was to double the number of the representatives from the Third Estate so that they’d have equal voting power in comparison with the other two estates…The Parlement of Paris conceded the doubling question…but then declared that all voting would be done by individual Estates, that is, each Estate would get one vote.”

http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/REV/FIRST.HTM

Needless to say, this didn’t enthuse the Third Estate, which walked out of the meeting en masse and formed the National Assembly, joined by sympathetic clergymen and nobles. On June 19, 1789, the king locked and forbade entry to the meeting place of the newly-formed National Assembly, the Salle de Etats. Not easily dissuaded, the Assembly met on a nearby Tennis Court to take what became known as the Tennis Court Oath. Fearing that King Louis XVI would shut them out of the their new meeting place, members of the National Assembly vowed that they would not disband until they had created a Constitution for a new France, based on the principle that the government serve the people.

The Tennis Court Oath

Tensions in Paris grew as King Louis filled the capital with Swiss and German soldiers, who were less sympathetic to the French populace than native-born soldiers. The final straw was not a shot or a massacre, but the king’s dismissal of his Finance Minister Jacques Necker. Necker had been instrumental in calling together the Estates-General, in doubling the membership of the Third Estate, and in involving the public in the financial affairs of the nation. The already discontented public saw his dismissal as an attack on their cause, and they feared King Louis XVI’s next step would be the dissolution of the National Assembly.

On July 12, thousands of Parisians marched onto the Palais Royal where a journalist and lawyer by the name of Camille Desmoulins jumped up on a table outside a cafe by the garden and was said to have yelled,

“Citizens, there is no time to lose; the dismissal of Necker is the knell of Saint Bartholomew for patriots! This very night all the Swiss and German battalions will leave the Champ de Mars to massacre us all; one resource is left; to take arms!”

In recent years, the debate about whether the besiegers of the Bastille sought to free political prisoners, or to take the weapons stored there, has favored the latter. There were only seven prisoners in the Bastille at the time of the siege. After a violent clash between the angry armed crowds outside the Bastille and the forces that guarded it, the crowds stormed the fortress, freed the prisoners, took the munitions, and reportedly decapitated the Bastille’s governor and placed his head on a spike.

The 500 year-old symbol of French royal tyranny had come to an end; the following month the National Constituent Assembly gave birth to the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen. A document which declared equality not only for all French citizens, but for all men, for all time.

Exactly one year after the storming of the Bastille, Paris hosted the first Fete de la Federation in memory of the event. Hundreds of thousands or spectators gathered around the Champ de Mars to watch soldiers and national guardsmen of France’s 83 departments march, after which King Louis gave an oath to uphold the new Constitution. He would lose his head two and a half years later.

In modern times, the French President generally celebrates July 14 by making a statement regarding the affairs of the nation and by pardoning prisoners, though President Nicholas Sarkozy abandoned this tradition in 2007.

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The Twelfth

July 12, 2008 at 12:59 am (Northern Ireland)
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…there is nothing now that we so earnestly desire as to establish our government on such a foundation as may make our subjects happy, and unite them to us by inclination as well as duty; which we think can be done by no means so effectually as by granting to them the free exercise of their religion…

Such were the words that got James II booted off the English throne.

On the Glorious Twelfth (not to be confused with August’s Glorious Twelfth) Northern Ireland recalls a battle of two Kings. The Battle of the Boyne marked the first major victory of William of Orange against mostly-Catholic forces supporting the deposed King James II. The “Twelfth” refers to the date in 1690 on which the battle took place: July 1st. “Uhh…” you are saying? Yeah, we’ll get to that. 

The war is called the “Jacobite War” after King James. (Okay, somebody has to talk to these people about naming things.)

King James’ Catholic leanings, his push for religious freedom, and his tendency to bypass Parliament when issuing such decrees, landed him on the top of Parliament’s naughty list. Finally King James did the unforgivable: he reproduced.

The birth of his son by his Catholic wife ensured what Parliament had been fearing most: the continuation of a Catholic line on the English throne. Parliament deposed the King in favor of his daughter Mary and her husband Bill. William of Orange was the stadtholder (head honcho) of the Dutch lowlands, and the Orange refers to a principality, not a fruit.

France was not getting along with William and the Dutch at the time, so James hightailed it to Paris to garner troops from the French King, then set his sites on Ireland, where he had support from both Catholics and Protestant loyalists.  

  
Kings William and James

James’ and William’s armies collided at Boyne–36,000 men under William and 24,000 under James. Surprisingly the death toll was low, around 2,000, but it was a definitive Williamite victory, and the beginning of the end for James.

The following year King William sealed the deal at the Battle of Aughrim. Fought on the real July 12, Aughrim was perhaps the bloodiest battle ever waged on Irish soil–7000 men killed in a day. Thus, the Irish have a definite ax to grind regarding what England sometimes refers to as its “Bloodless Revolution.” 

For many years the inhabitants of Belfast celebrated Aughrim as the primary motivation behind Glorious Twelfth. When the UK switched to the Gregorian calendar, named after Pope Gregory, many in Northern Ireland saw it as declaring allegiance to the Papacy, and continued celebrating on Julian calendar dates. The anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne–fought July 1 in the Julian Calendar–falls on July 12 in the Gregorian. The two battle commemorations were combined, and over the centuries the Boyne has become more celebrated of the two.

Tensions are still high between Irish Catholics and the mostly-Protestant population of Northern Ireland. The celebrations have often led to violence, destruction, and poor taste in hat wear. 

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